What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

I'm on the last level of Theme Hospital! Didn't expect it to hold up at all and it turns out it's a very good, very well-balanced and even challenging game. And the humour never gets old.

Card Hunter still... I'm on level 12 now. I cannot recommend it enough. You don't have to spend a dime and once you get to like... level 6 or so it starts to get much more interesting. Your enemies start becoming more specialized and you can create distinct builds of your characters. Great stuff. Also, definitely buy that 20 dollar starter kit to support the devs. The forest/aztec expansion is inessential so don't buy it unless you're loving the game.

It is night and day how I felt about the game now vs. when it just came out of beta.

Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns: HK, Galactic Empires Dread Lords, and soon to be playing Pillars of Eternity.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns: HK, Galactic Empires Dread Lords, and soon to be playing Pillars of Eternity.

Pillars of Eternity is _awesome_. Takes a few hours before it lets you know why, but it's worth the wait. Some of the best written text since Planescape: Torment.

There's also a pretty significant patch coming, definitely want to wait for it.

The 8 and 5 year old can't seem to get enough Minecraft (still). They're linking up their kindle fires so building things together in the pocket edition. They enjoy it quite a bit. The only other videogame they prefer is _watching_ me play...



I picked it up for the Wii U. Never played it back in the day. I thought (hoped) I was done with multi-hour video games, but this one has some charm to it. The game actually has some real laughs in it. The 5 year old likes the expressions and colorful villains, the 8 year old digs the names such as "Annoying Old Party Man" who "Grumbles about today's youth" as an attack. We also tend to make decisions by committee, deciding what to buy, where to go, etc.

I (we're) into the third town and just liberated it from Mr. Carpainter and his cult. There was a neat sequence where all these cultists where packed in a room you needed to get through and you had to walk around and talk to them where they'd either attack, continue chanting, or move aside. It was a neat sequence.

I don't think it's as good as the SNES version of Shadowrun (my favorite console rpg), but it's been a hit as a "multi-watcher" rpg experience in our house.

(Also, someone topped my Kung Fu Master score, but I reclaimed it.)

My blog posts has been in moderation for more than a week*, so I am just going to post the content here. This is a Backlog Attack update from about ten days ago.

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I try to spread my Attack across platforms. It's easy to just keep playing ROCKET LEAGUE or DIABLO 3 on the PS4 (so fresh!), so I spent some time figuring out what to play and spread the love. I should note, I am not not playing other games, but I am trying to make a dent on these titles that I would otherwise ignore for longer.

• P.T. for PS4 -- Horror title, a good one, I hear. I don't play horror titles in general. Last was probably DEADLY PREMONITION and I doubt that counts. I played RESIDENT EVIL 4--again, probably not counting.
• BIT.TRIP RUNNER 2 for WiiU -- I love platformers, and enjoy runners, and I really dig Bit-Trip's vibe. I picked this up in the Nintendo Humble Bundle, and was hoping I'd see some FATties in the leaderboards. Not disappointed. (But they will be when they see me standing over them.)
• DESTINY for PS4 -- Friend got this for me and I mostly want to see what all the fuss is. Trying to go in without opinions. I have heard the narration is bad, there are like seven currencies, and some NPC sold a rocket launcher I should be sad about missing out on because I didn't start earlier.
• THE SWAPPER for Vita -- Good puzzle game, and creepy space vibe. I am a good 1/2 to 2/3 through I think and want to wrap this up.
• CAPTAIN TOAD'S TREASURE TRACKER -- Adorable from what I have seen my kids play of it. Good palate cleanser from P.T. I am hoping.

I was going to start DESTINY last night, but it needed a 7 GB file and my shitty Internet needs an all-nighter for that kind of job. So I opted to spend some time with P.T. instead, which I'd started the other day. I finished the game. Spoilers ahoy in this paragraph, I guess, but the game is old and you can't even buy it anymore, so fuck off. This game is actually super scary! I was expecting some jump scares and some video game gore, and it does that, but it's also just plain disturbing. Really good use of sound and lighting effects bring an extra element of genuine horror. The setting helps too. See, I so rarely enter dilapidated mental hospitals that it's hard for me to feel super-invested in whatever happens in there. But walking down a hallway, and being a generic white dad? I do that shit all the time! The bugs are a little creepy, the bathroom is scary, but that fucking fridge is what freaked me out. I ended up getting stuck in this eternal red level where I think I was a ghost or something and needed a FAQ to get me through. That's right before the end of the game, so I had the FAQ there helping me to finish up. The ending can be hard to trigger, so I was getting looser and looser as I tried to coax the game into baby giggles (it's a thing). I would zoom in on this or that and walk here or thHOLY FUCK A DEMON GHOST FUCKING GRABBED AND KILLED ME. I'd played this game for like three hours and never been "attacked." I guess I was good at noting the changes turn over turn, because I had seen the ghost a couple of times and it kept its distance. But holy shit I was not ready for it to fucking grab me while futzing with a door for the umpteeth time. Gooseflesh all over, bleagh. I finally got my baby giggles and got the fuck out of there. I read that SILENT HILLS won't be made, and that's too bad, because this was scary as hell.

I am through about a world and a half in BIT.TRIP RUNNER 2. I went back to get some better scores and smack SaMoKo and Sanildefanso off a few perches on the leaderboard, too. I'll need to stick with this one because I think walking away for too long will be bad for my timing. It's basically a rhythm game with a nice sense of humor and cool unlockables. I am currently a Reverse Merman and have beaten two Pitfall levels, to give you an idea. I am surprised they got the Reverse Merman's testicular jiggle physics OK'd by Nintendo. They are flopping around out there like cantaloupes in a shopping bag. I should note, the music is so good I checked the credits--Disasterpeace. Why am I even surprised? Best in the biz.

I am going to keep at these games, ideally beating them all by November or so. I would love to hear comments or updates on your own Attacks.

_{*It's video-gamey and maybe Uba doesn't want to get the site banned? Maybe I am dumb and don't know how to self-publish a blog post? It was missing media for a couple of days and maybe it needs media because everything goes into the banner? Maybe we're content-light and she's stringing it out? All these things or others could be happening.}

Finally got a break from Diablo 3 (my wife loves it) and played Rogue Legacy, which I grabbed in the PSN flash sale, and Submerged.

Rogue Legacy is hard as fucking balls. I can barely get two rooms in before dying. Sometimes its had pity on me and given me easier castles where I can actually get some money before something one-hit-kills me, and that's the only way I've been able to advance. I'm an old fucking man and I'm no longer looking for a videogame to curb stomp me to feel like I'm having a good time.

I also played Submerged, an indie game of exploration. No combat, just exploring a submerged city and climbing buildings to find secrets. I actually like this sort of thing and it's been a nice break, even though there's not a lot going on with it.

Hang with Rogue Legacy if you're not too annoyed. Every death you get a little father, upgrade a little more. It's a very smooth curve, actually. It's actually kind of the opposite of a real rogue-like game.

Jeb, this is the worst possible time to start Destiny. The new kind-of-sequel comes out on the 15th and there are huge changes, all of which look like massive improvements especially in terms of leveling, loot and single player content. I've been craving it lately but I'm waiting to DL the new one.

Forgot I got some Amazon Cash and ordered the Divinity 3-game set.

Hope it doesnt suck

I'm cool with playing DESTINY, now getting my feet wet. I haven't played a serious FPS since ...ever I guess. I don't think BORDERLANDS counts, and before that I played UNREAL TOURNAMENT and MARATHON. The game is super stingy though, jeez. I am Lvl 15 and just over halfway to my first Vanguard rank. Then I can buy some stuff. I got a rare gun, which is cool, but when I went to upgrade it, it needed 16 Weapon Parts--yet another currency. All these things you need to buy things, and where is the fucking bank? I get the whole reputation thing and I'll earn that, but I have pockets full of random flowers, light, and steelystems or whatever the hell. Can I guy barter some shit around here? I enjoy the game despite all this. It's so pretty. I need some friends though, as soloing some of these fights is tough.

I just saw a review on PCGamer called Satellite Reign. It looks like a really cool squad-based isometric strategy game set in a dystopian setting. I'm sure my PC couldn't run it, but I wish it could. I'd try this in a heartbeat. Anybody ever heard of this one? I'm putting this on my to-try list once I eventually get a new PC built.

In the meantime I've started Assassin's Creed Black Flag on PS3. The beginning of the game had me briefly toying with ship to ship combat, which I want to get more of a taste of. So far I've only gotten as far as Havana and it's only been the typical AC stuff like climbing perches to open up sections of the city mini-map and completing small tasks littered all over the place. I'm hoping the game opens up once I get a little farther in, because I've had friends tell me this game is so good. If not, I'll be really disappointed in what would just be more of the same AC retread.

Ah, see, pretty much everything you are complaining about in Destiny is changing...I actually quit it because I didn't like that the game apparently expected me to grind 100 hours for random drops to make progress. The whole system is being overhauled.

But it's not Destiny 2...it's the game you are playing now, just refined and revised.

Progress the story until you get out of Havana and open up the world, then you can go balls deep open world ship shit.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Forgot I got some Amazon Cash and ordered the Divinity 3-game set.

Hope it doesnt suck

By and large, it doesn't.

Divine Divinity was really great when it came out and, what I'd have to wager was due to it's inexcusably bad name, was overlooked. It plays a whole lot like Diablo 2 but the overall experience comes across more like Ultima VII. It's got some solid writing but it is a long one. Unlike Diablo 2, your'e unlikely to want to replay it, partly due to the length, but also that the character advancement is so open (as opposed to feeling the need to playthrough each class, as I do when I play a Diablo game). You pick one of three classes but you're ultimately not restricted to what that class does. You can put points into the skill trees of the other two classes. So it's a long haul, has a very steep learning curve, but it's worth it. Best game in the set.

Beyond Divinity _DOES_ suck. Sorry. Larian Studios has recognized it as a mistake and has since treated it like it never happened.

Divinity II is pretty good. The Director's Cut fixed much of the initial issues, but it still feels like it has some downright shitty bits bolted on. What is good is enough to make me say it's still worth playing.

BTW, Pillars of Eternity patch is live. Time to fire that bad boy back up.