What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Witcher 3 every day, sometimes for multiple hours. Big game.

I played, I think, the best quest in any of these types of games I've ever played. Small thing. Minor Witcher contract in Velen. It's the only time a game has really pulled me out of making the decision I knew was "right" because of the character development. It's such an old game, I'll spoil it:

You come into a town for a Witcher contract but everyone's dead but one girl. Butchered. You go into one of the houses and a monster's head is on a table. Turns out another Witcher got the contract and killed everyone in the town. The little girl tugs at your heartstrings again and you go out to hunt the Witcher down. You meet him and then you have a conversation where you kill him or let him go.

Everything about the encounter coming in told me he needed to die. In literally any other game the situation is so black and white I'd kill him. But the writing is so good---the other Witcher came back with the monster's head and the village elder shorted him on money. Then invited him into the barn and tried to kill him in an ambush. So he goes crazy and kills everyone in the village.

The twist is you've been shit on the entire game in all the incidental dialog, no one respecting the work you do, everyone wanting you dead, being shorted yourself by several clients, you've hunted the particular monster in question before and if the setting is on hard it IS a tough hunt... it hit home. I told him I couldn't judge him. Totally let him go. Brilliant. Nothing about the scene was anything unusual to the genre except that the writing is good AND they play on your actual experiences in the game in character.

My overall advice: play ALL the Witcher contracts in addition to the main story. Secondary missions are hit or miss but Witcher contracts are almost always good.

A friend of mine has been telling me that Witcher is great with organic choices like this. He's been extremely complimentary of the game.

Still playing Breath of the Wild, still loving it. I've completed all of the Divine Beasts, so now I'm poking around in new places and finding shrines. I'm also exploring closer to the castle, since I've gotten pretty good at taking on Guardians.

There definitely comes a point when the game is no longer difficult in the same way as the early going. I don't mind much, because it becomes easier from experience. It allows you to experiment more deeply in the late game, which I like. Still loving it. I've been playing almost daily for 2 months.

Man, that sounds great. I am about OVERWATCH'd out, so I think some WITCHER will tide me over til Fall when DESTINY 2 and/or Jeb-gets-a-Switch happens.

Did you do the contract to kill the Leshen from some Podunk village that sends their youth into the woods to test themselves? If so, how did you resolve it?

My default is to protect monsters that are just doing their thing, so I just did the sacrifice to him and didn't kill it. But then when I came back and the youths went to murder the old man, I didn't do shit and watched them kill him. Domestic politics ain't my job.

In this game if there's any monster that's being antagonized who then decided to kill some people who antagonized it, I'm going to let off. There was a troll that killed some miners who came into his home. I talked to the troll, told him not to kill any innocents, and came back and told the contract guy to go fuck himself.

jeb wrote: Man, that sounds great. I am about OVERWATCH'd out, so I think some WITCHER will tide me over til Fall when DESTINY 2 and/or Jeb-gets-a-Switch happens.

I cannot emphasize enough playing Witcher 3 on a harder difficulty level. It's a bit tough at first but after a bit it just makes sure that you prepare for your contract, use the right oil, brew the right potions. So actually treat it like a job that you know something about.

I was able to get through the harder difficulty level with the shield and the fire thing being my main magic stuff. And grenades. I love grenades.

hotseatgames wrote: I fucking did it.

I just got mine. With a Frag grenade kill to boot!



My heart was pounding when it was down to three and I could see one other guy behind a tree.

I've been playing quite a bit lately... of course still putting in several rounds of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. This game continues to thrill me, although I admit the bugs are particularly annoying. I do hope they manage to crush them all. Today I died because my dune buggy got stuck in a concrete wall and blew up.

I finished Hacknet. This is the best hacking game I've ever played, and the only one I've actually made it all the way through. Recommended.

I started playing This is the Police, not expecting much. Man was I wrong. This game is making me laugh all the time, with its stereotypical situations. You are that annoying police chief from every cop show ever, and you have to deal with the mafia, city hall, your own personal drama, and your cops. It's more fun than you'd expect. That mayor has it in for me...

Finished the Witcher 3s base storyline, which was solid. The characters carried it and Ciri and Geralt's relationship is well done. #teamtriss

I've finished all the Witcher contracts so onto DLC. The first one is a good, fun questline about an immortal dude. I've heard the last one is GREAT so I'm excited.

hotseatgames wrote: I've been playing quite a bit lately... of course still putting in several rounds of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. This game continues to thrill me, although I admit the bugs are particularly annoying. I do hope they manage to crush them all. Today I died because my dune buggy got stuck in a concrete wall and blew up.

I would like to see a well-made, less military-intense Battle Royale game. Every time I see PUBG on stream folks are running around picking up chokes (?) and swapping this sight for that sight and all this way too nitty-gritty gun bullshit for me to care about. It's not a Battle Royale if everyone's a goddamned Special Ops expert. It also looks very much like a mod of a Steam FPS. Some of this might be a result of the video tuning folks do to maximize enemy detection, turning draw distance up and details down—if the best way to play makes your game look shitty, you should work on the look of your game.

Pet peeve: the name bothers the shit out of me. It's like saying, "I enjoy MIYAZAKI'S SUPER MARIO BROS."

Man, I gotta get THE WITCHER 3. Waiting for a sale...

You make some valid points. The gun modifications take a bit to get used to, but it really comes down to gaining tactical advantage over other people. So it's attractive to be better equipped. And yes, it's an ugly game. I think they had to make large concessions in visual fidelity to accommodate 100 players with a FAR draw distance.

The name is also an interesting choice. They are going for some Tom Clancy-style shit, when only a tiny modding community had ever heard of this guy prior to now.

Every time I tell someone the name of the game, the response is, "What Battlegrounds?"

I've still been cranking along in XCOM 2, on Commander (the third out of four difficulties) Ironman (autosaves after every action taken). For now I just need to start the final mission and I'm in. I still think the denouement is disappointingly easy- the global threat de-escalates and I found myself NOT wanting to play missions because of the possibility of losing some guys, and the rewards were kind of pointless. Having a powerful psionic trooper or two also makes life much easier. I'm just waiting for a couple upgrades to get finished and then diving in.

I've come around a little bit on the Sharpshooters, at least on the non-timed missions, which the last ones are. The class might still be the worst, but the classes overall are closer in power than I originally implied. Aside from the Psionic guys. Wow. I'll probably take 2 Specialists, 1 Grenadier, 1 Sharpshooter, 1 Ranger, and 1 Psionic trooper. On this play-through we built the Advanced Warfare center early, which allows troops to randomly get an ability from another class at some point during their level ups. This makes for some nearly broken combos at times, but it's nice to add some variety. I'd take two Psi guys on the final mission maybe if it weren't for the following paragraph.

I did have one really annoying bug occur where a guy is stuck in a training slot and I can't get him out. He takes up the slot as "learning" an ability, but he's not actually learning it. There are two slots in the psionic building, so he can take the second one (both) and only be learning one ability. That's part of what is slowing me down. And because I'm on Ironman, I can't load an earlier save before the bug happened. Another odd thing is that I haven't gotten a chance to train in the very best ability; I'm not sure if it's just bad luck or it is removed on the high difficulty levels.

I do like the overall mission design- it's a little more varied than before, and the concealment mechanic is neat. One of the most fun things that happened is I had one mission go to absolute shit- only one guy made it to the evac point. One stabilized soldier was getting carried by another, but the carrier got killed just steps away from the chopper. Afterwards, the mission listed who died, and that stabilized soldier was listed as "Captured." In a later council mission, Tatyana "Paladin" Novikova was a VIP to save! She's up to a Colonel now and we're determined to put her on the final mission.

There was also a sale on a bunch of old Xbox 360 Live arcade games. So I picked up Age of Booty, Civilization Revolution, Puzzle Quest, Geometry Wars Evolved^2, and Plants v. Zombies. It has been pretty fun reliving some of those titles. If Band of Bugs was less than ten bucks I probably would have picked it up too.

I've also been playing a fair bit of Overwatch. The last FPS I really played was Halo 1 and 2, so I prefer playing the clunkier guys that don't die very quickly, like Roadhog* and Reinhardt. I probably play Mercy the most though, because it's fun to see little green bars go up while not needing to be uber leet at sniping people. Out of the actual offensive characters, I like Soldier 76 and Pharah the best- I play them occasionally.

*He's so good in those 3v3 elimination games!

Jexik wrote: I've also been playing a fair bit of Overwatch. The last FPS I really played was Halo 1 and 2, so I prefer playing the clunkier guys that don't die very quickly, like Roadhog* and Reinhardt. I probably play Mercy the most though, because it's fun to see little green bars go up while not needing to be uber leet at sniping people. Out of the actual offensive characters, I like Soldier 76 and Pharah the best- I play them occasionally.

*He's so good in those 3v3 elimination games!

Roadhog is fun as hell. The skill level to get comfortable is higher than other tanks (save Zarya), but it's worth it. He soaks up tons of damage, can heal even if your team doesn't bring healers, gets environmental kills with hook and his ult, and can peel and stun opponents handily. I can tell you right now, one of the best feelings in OVERWATCH is hooking a Pharaah down to the ground. "Violence is usually the answer."

I play Mercy sometimes because I think a lot of folks are shitty at Mercy where I am playing and need to set them straight. The mix of healing beam and juicing beam is critical. You can turn D.Va into a killing machine with the buff and fly away to Winston when he gets in a tight spot. And if you have a decent Pharaah, you can just fly around up there forever killing the whole world.

My kids are legit good at D.Va now. I see my son blinking the Defensive Matrix off and on to absorb shots and shoot in between. They jet around, knocking Widowmakers off shelves or jumping into "Justice rains from above." They launch the Self-Destruct to maximize impact or zoning, they are little assassins with Mini D.Va, cripes--it can be worse than big D.Va. It's a joy to watch them.

I have to leave when they play McCree though, so frustrating.