What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

... on another website

I put in about four hours on Breath of the Wild yesterday. I would explain how great it is, but I'm too busy itching to play. It's easily the most addictive Zelda game I've ever played.

I'll report back once I have some more time in, but right now it's tearing down a lot of Zelda expectations.

San,

We just got Breath of the Wild last night, ostensibly for my wife. She wanted to watch me play first so she knew what it was like and we were up until 3am. It is a really fantastic game. The climbing everywhere is such a simple and awesome addition to an open world game. I am responsible for deforesting the hell out of Hyrule....until my woodcutter's axe broke.



I am a non-Link enthusiast and I really like this game. It has mechanics that make it seem fresh in the open-world genre.

Switch or Wii U?

I have the game in hand, Switch arrives Tuesday...ugh.

I am playing on Wii U. Definitely some slow down here and there, but not at a deal breaker at all.

My axe broke as I was chopping down a tree, and I needed to fell the tree so I could cross a chasm. So I finished chopping it down with a claymore.

Also on the WiiU here. Runs fine.

Digital Foundry is saying Wii U and Switch are almost perfectly identical except for resolution.

Also from them, turns out that if you want the most seamless way to play Breath, you should play it outside of the dock! The framerate is a lot worse IN the dock!

Going to buy Breath for the Wii U when I get a chance since the games are virtually identical and I do have this Wii U brick sitting around here gathering dust.

I would say that for people who used to like the series a lot, but now find it too easy, linear, or pandering, Breath of the Wild is probably where they wanted Zelda to be this whole time. Even as someone who is mostly a big fan (my favorites up until now have been Windwaker and Twilight Princess) this is a much needed entry. As one review wrote, it's a game that says "yes" to just about all of your ideas, even if those ideas will kill you.

I bought The Witcher III + expansions this past Friday. With the wife and child out of the house all weekend, I wasted the entire time playing it. So far I'm liking it a lot. It's the best-looking game I've ever seen. For gameplay it falls in between being totally on rails (Bioshock Infinite) and totally sandbox (Skyrim). There are plenty of sidequests, which I think you're going to have to do to level up the character so you don't get killed.

In crafting, a lot of it is Bethesda-lite. You can gather a ton of herbs and materials, but you can't just throw them together to see what happens. You'll need a recipe for everything you want to make. For alchemy, once you have the recipe, and you've made one, you can Meditate to get more, with a minimal material cost. However, you can carry only so many finished potions. Of course, there's an Ability to bump that up.

You only get one Geraut, so no female dwarf for you. You can play good guy/bad guy/whatever. There is no Paragon/Renegade style dichotomy, and if you want to help some fairly shady folks, go for it. He's a swordsman, but you can bend him towards a little bit of a magic user. You don't get a chance to be a mage, ranger, or cleric though.

Unlike what Skyrim I've experienced, its mob levels aren't dynamic. There's an option to dynamically raise mob levels to meet yours, but I don't think it will lower the mob levels. Jump your typical red-levelled mob, and get your ass kicked.

If there's a clean/dirty slider, I haven't seen it. The game is hard-R. Blood, guts, gore, plenty of f-bombs, and you'll get to touch a naked boob!

I also saw Gwent, the built-in gambling card game, being mentioned elsewhere here. That's like extra chocolate-covered crack in your can of chocolate-covered crack. I haven't had enough cash to buy decent cards, because the game keeps me poor. But so far, it's been a lot of fun.

It definitely fills a spot between Bioshock Infinite and Skyrim. So far I'm liking it a lot - there's an important storyline quest, and the game wants you to play it. But the game wants you to do the sidequests too. There's enough labelled stuff on the map to be interesting, but not so much that you get lost on the map.

^me too!

It's basically a normal open world thing but the actual sidequests give a shit storywise. Combat is just ok. I do recommend higher difficulty levels because it makes you actually feel like the witcher---preparing for big jobs with the proper equipment.