What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

That's what I'm playing it on. I'm sure playing co-op would be fun, but I haven't done any MP at all. I'm not sure if it even works, honestly.

i hear it works pretty well. You send me signal flares if you want to do quests with randoms but my buddy wants to do the coop with me so it could be fun.

hotseatgames wrote: I'm playing two games that have a lot in common right now. Monster Hunter World and Dark Souls 3. I couldn't resist Dark Souls for $12 in the latest humble monthly. I just started that one, and defeated the first boss just last night.

Both of these games feature:
- deliberate combat that locks you into an animation
- wildly variable difficulty, but Dark Souls is definitely harder
- complex worlds and systems, but very little in terms of explanation
- high replay value

Monster Hunter World is definitely the deeper game. Its world is truly a simulation; everything in it has a purpose, and you are limited only by your willingness to put in effort. There's a real sense of things happening in the world regardless of you being there or not. It's also less punishing than Dark Souls. We will see how far I get in Dark Souls, but I do enjoy its world as well. Between the two though, it's Monster Hunter by a mile.

One joy that is VERY contingent on your personality about Dark Souls 3 is the story, which is mostly told by item descriptions and environmental cues. I love the story of Dark Souls 3. Monster Hunter doesn't have this aspect, from what I've seen.

I'm sure the story of Dark Souls 3 is more advanced than the story of MHW. I think neither game is really about that though. Dark Souls is about overcoming ridiculous challenges, and MHW is about murdering the local fauna and wearing their skins. It's also about cats making you dinner.

i like when Dunkey realizes there's a cat that makes you dinner... start it at 4:45, lol

I also picked up Dark Souls 3. I got to the first boss and was hacking away and got him down to around half health without getting hit and thinking, “This guy is easy...

{hack hack}

...Oh shit!”

YOU DIED

Man I love Dark Souls. DS1 is probably one of my favorite games. DS2 was okay, but I wasn’t impressed. I hear 3 is closer to the original.

I was going to go with the standard knight or warrior, but I really liked the thief in my third playthrough of DS so I went with that.

I have 0 interest in that whole punishing dodge-roll combat genre. It's like the epitome of unfun to me. It's just a nudge ahead of face off fighting games like MK and Injustice on the list of game types that I just don't have any interest in. I think the 3rd place would be cover based third person shooters like GoW and CS.

Of course I said that about FPS games 10 years ago. And I still think CoD, MoH, etc are snooze fests. But weirdly, Borderlands + BL2 showed me that I could get into RPG shooters - which led me to trying out Destiny (which I loved) - and recently I've been playing some Hero based shooters - Paladins, which might be pretty cool when The developer decides what the final version of the game is going to be, and Overwatch, because my kids play the heck out of it and bought it for me to play with them.

At the moment , none of the 13 versions of Battle Royale games have my attention, and probably won't either.

I can't really work out why I like some of the third-person games but not others.

GEARS OF WAR: Hated it.
BULLETSTORM: Shit sandwich.
SOULSBORNE: Like 'em!
SKYRIZzzzz...zzz..z: Zzzzzzz
ZELDA: BotW: Love it.
Other 3D Zeldas: Nope.
3D MARIO: Erry day.

Can't really work out any common threads there. I don't like FPS either but OVERWATCH and BORDERLANDS are crazy fun. Maybe because most of them are military bullshit? Like I need to know about stocks and sights and other bullshit I don't care about? Every time I watch someone play PUBG and they throw away some gun for another gun because who-gives-a-shit, I know it's not for me.

SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY is Sofa King Good.

jeb wrote: SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY is Sofa King Good.

SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY is amazing stuff. I feel like I am preaching to the choir here, if you dig Mario games, you dig ODYSSEY and might have bought the console to play the frigging thing. But in case anyone was wondering what is making it so interesting to me...

Since SUPER MARIO 64, 3D Mario games have turned on the idea of collecting things: Stars, Shines, Coins-to-get-Stars, Purple Coins-to... &c. Levels in 3D World, Land, Galaxy were laid out with an item "at the end" as it were. You traversed it and snagged it from a bad guy or off a cliff or what have you. You could then jump back in the level and find the next one. SUPER MARIO 64 was a little different, in that you could get more than one star on a level--collecting the Coins could get you a Star while you were on a mission to get some other level-themed star. Since then, though, it's been basically one-Star/Shine/Thing per trip. The games have also been perfused by hidden items like Cat Suits, Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, Boomerang Suits, and all that to juice Mario and get you through the level.

ODYSSEY returns to the roots of MARIO 64 by providing access to multiple Moons (this time) in each level, and tosses the ideas of power-ups in exchange for a bizarre possession mechanic. You still see blocks scattered about, but all they ever have in them are Coins (SO MANY COINS). You are always "Super Mario" (ie, big), and there's no mushrooms to chase down or "boy-yo-yoy oiyp" sound effects when you make a block poop out some goodie. If you need to climb something, better look around for a bad guy wearing a hat. Then you throw your hat at them and become a Mariofied version of them. I have been a Goomba, a Hammer Bro, a Bullet Bill, a Lava Leaper, a human (?!), and even a goddamned dinosaur.

The game is packed with delight. It can be easy enough for my 6yo to play and advance, or mindscrapingly hard for masochists like me, at one's will. The 6yo doesn't need to get that Moon over there in the lava, surrounded by Switch blocks, guarded by poison. He can get the one from the fat polar bear selling corn dogs or whatever. But me, I have to get that hard one. And there are tons of them. I do my completionist thing on these levels and get scads of Moons, and feel like I am King Shit of Fuck Mountain and when I get back to the ship to check progress I see there are like 20+ more out there. It's crazy. The game makes amazing nods to nostalgia, but keeps everything so fresh. It's a remarkable thing.

It's immense and gratifying to play. I told a friend New Donk City (a level) could have been the game and it would have been amazing. Instead we get NDC and all these other levels too! I know it's $70 or whatever, but it is so worth it, my lord.