What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Farther with the Witcher 3.

The thing that stands out for me in the Witcher 3 is the choice of story. They pick a LOT on the subjects of love and family, such as domestic violence, toxic relationship, jealousy etc. Also, the mythology/folklore they use is unusual. There's a lot of mythical creatures I hadn't known (remember when we're sharing ghost stories in a thread?), and they have their peculiarities. They are also never thoroughly explained, which is a very good thing.

Combat satisfying, even on the easiest difficulty level.

But of course, it's easier to pick the bad stuff:
I think villages are wasted opportunities. The villages in the game were carefully built, but there's never a reason for the player to stay for long. I really wish I could fish, plant something, or, at the very least, cook my raw meats on fire pits. Also, villages are very similar.

It's also very gloomy. Despite the game having bright color palette, rain and cloud can still brown-ized your game, and the depressing story doesn't help at all.

Starting to have lots of map icons. I mean, LOTS. It's a good thing these encounters are very, very short.

The game boasts a huge map, but they're all same-y and flat-ey. Gothic series still have the best open world map. Proof that less is more.

Don't like "mandatory dialogue option". Geralt checks a dead body, and player can choose to check different body parts but making no decision at all.

I bailed on Fire Emblem Awakening. I really appreciate what it's trying to do, and it's nice to know who all of those characters in Super Smash Bros. are, but it's really not the sort of genre I enjoy much. I traded it in and picked up Splatoon for the Wii U. For a game that relies so much on its online implementation, it's still a lot of fun to play. I'm not really into the control scheme, where facing is determined by moving around the gamepad. This is not my favorite.

But I do really like the game. It's the sort of online experience where it definitely pays to learn how the different weapons work and the ins and outs of different stages, but it's not completely punishing for noobs. I really enjoy the brisk pace and the customization options too. It's a lot of fun, although I wish there was more available offline, for the inevitable day when the servers shut down. Even an option to set up matches against AI, pick the length of the match, stuff like that.

Still, since it was a trade-in for a game I didn't have to pay for, I could do a lot worse.

There is a great game on Steam called Antihero. Worker Placement, Advancement Trees, Fog of War, direct interaction. Really fun game.

Still a rank beginner in Destiny 2. Right now it feels to me like a semiserious version of Borderlands, crossed with a bit of Guild Wars 2. I hit the level cap relatively quickly, but haven't finished enough of the campaign to unlock the dungeons (Strikes). So far it's okay. I have yet to talk to another human, which is kind of weird in what's supposed to be a sort of MMO.

i'm still playing Destiny 2 as well but can never bring myself to actually play it. It's weird. It has no draw from me and yet I want to complete the achievements

Brought my wii u to the depressing shithole I live during the week, so I've been bingeing Breath of the Wild. My feelings are different than the glowing praise I've read. In particular, I think the game is extremely swingy. It moves between amazing moments of exploration where you are rewarded for your general poking and looking around to significant periods of climbing shit and walking around with almost nothing interesting. I get that good exploration would need pretty large down times to make the up times more fun but it feels a bit excessive. Moreover, the material rewards are pretty low for any individual little thing you find or exploration goodie you run into, so it really does ride on the overall intrinsic feeling of exploration rather than any in game reward.

I might have put it down in the last hour or two (I've probably played 10-15 hours) if I wasn't in a situation with nothing else to do.

Spintires was recently re-released (after some issues with the previous publisher) as Spintires: Mud Runner. It's very much more of the same, but emphasis on more. Some of the challenges are super difficult, even more so if trying for a perfect score (such as, without using diff-lock, or without damaging fencing, etc). The maps are (so far as I can tell) all new for the main game also, so it's not literally re-treading old ground from the first release. The user interface has been greatly improved for Gamepad support, no doubt as a result of the game being released also on consoles.

Generally the new maps seem more difficult- I lost my logs four times due to tipping my truck on a slight slope, but even when you fail like that, recovering your truck by fetching another with a winch is also fun. So it rewards failure in some sense.

I was able to get it for $12 or so as a Spintires owner. I don't know if I'd suggest spending $40 on it for XBone, but I already got more than my money's worth and I've only done half the campaign maps and 1/4 of the challenges.

This movie adaptation of Rampage looks hilarious in all sorts of ways. I assume at some point The Rock will be naked, sidling off camera while covering his junk.

hotseatgames wrote: This movie adaptation of Rampage looks hilarious in all sorts of ways. I assume at some point The Rock will be naked, sidling off camera while covering his junk.

That pretty much insures that we will get a Barney review.

Gary Sax wrote: Brought my wii u to the depressing shithole I live during the week, so I've been bingeing Breath of the Wild. My feelings are different than the glowing praise I've read. In particular, I think the game is extremely swingy. It moves between amazing moments of exploration where you are rewarded for your general poking and looking around to significant periods of climbing shit and walking around with almost nothing interesting. I get that good exploration would need pretty large down times to make the up times more fun but it feels a bit excessive. Moreover, the material rewards are pretty low for any individual little thing you find or exploration goodie you run into, so it really does ride on the overall intrinsic feeling of exploration rather than any in game reward.

I might have put it down in the last hour or two (I've probably played 10-15 hours) if I wasn't in a situation with nothing else to do.

I think this gets at the problem I have with BOTW. There are things that are just incredible about it. But then there are things that are not so much. I keep getting the feeling that if it were a traditionally structured Zelda game, it would so, so much more engaging 100 percent of the time. The thing is, Zelda has always been somewhat open world...but in this game, I feel like they leaned too hard into the current trends in that design space rather than doing its own thing. So you spend three hours walking across mountains and hills looking for a point on a map instead of three hours actually engaging in the adventure.

Super Mario Odyssey on the other hand, is awesome 100 percent of the time. It is open world to an extent, in that it has those moments everybody loves where you go left instead of right and there is something there you might have missed otherwise. I think I'm about halfway through the main content, and it continues to delight at every moment. I really do miss the multiplayer aspect of its predecessor, but so it goes.

I've been back on DOOM. I have already called it the best FPS I have ever played. It is no creeping up into the Metroid Prime/Castlevania Symphony of Night/Metal Gear Solid 3/Bayonetta tier. It is one of the best video games I have ever played. I actually had to bite the bullet and dial the difficulty back because it just got too hard. The game is just so brilliantly crafted, there's so much content, so many ways to play, and it is so constantly and earnestly over-the-top you just have to laugh while you are playing it.

My FIFA 18 career continues...I have to say, having a home team in the game really makes a difference in engagement. This is the first year that Atlanta United is in it, and it's great to have the team you support in there. No more playing with Manc U, Arsenal, Chelsea, Juventus, Brazil or the usual suspects. I think this is the best FIFA game I've played yet. Haven't dared to mess with Ultimate Team yet.

I'll pick up Wolfenstein 2 next week, a couple of places are running it at $25.

I think this latest generation of consoles marks where I've officially bailed on the platform. I still don't own a switch, xbone, or ps4, and have no immediate plans to do so. Well... maybe a ps4 for Persona eventually? It just seems so much easier to upgrade a graphics card at this point that it's actually difficult to picture going back to buying an entirely new box for a handful of platform exclusives that no one cares about in 4 years.

Hooked on Guild Wars 2. An MMO with no subscription model.

Money for aesthetic gear but no game play gear.

Story is pretty good too.

Still with Witcher 3. Very enjoyable combat and exploration. Not so much on quests and watching cutscenes. Arkham Asylum's investigation system is being abused here.

I'm in the game's biggest city for this weekend, and the most disappointing thing is that it's practically not different to the wilderness. Also, with all what people are saying, it's not THAT big. I mean... I played Assassin Creed II, and Firenze was... HUGE. But, really, there's no reason to linger around, restock, etc. It's just another place with signboards, quest giver and waypoints; and way harder to navigate. The nature of the quests change a bit, but still mostly the same.

But the world, well... let's just say how they're designed, the color palette used, general ambiance and incredible music win me over.

ThirstyMan wrote: Hooked on Guild Wars 2. An MMO with no subscription model.

Money for aesthetic gear but no game play gear.

Story is pretty good too.

I played a ton of GW2 until I burned out. I do think the expansions are worth it, and playing for totally free does some really frustrating things with inventory (by design of course). I probably spent about $30 on the game over the year or so I binged it (buying bank slots and shinies). No regrets.

I think that Breath of the Wild works really well for the reasons you state, Gary. Mostly it's so quiet and pastoral that climbing a mountain is really only its own reward, maybe with a korok seed thrown in. But when you really crest a hill and find a Guardian, and the music shifts, those moments are really hard to beat. The contrast is what sells it for me. I also like doing things just because, so I guess the exploration is its own reward for me. It sounds like I appreciate what annoys you about the game. I do wish it had better dungeons though. The more I sit on it, the more I feel like the actual design of those dungeons was very underbaked and too easy. I would have sacrificed some of the expansive moments to have longer, more challenging experiences there.

Been playing a lot of Splatoon. I have really found the gun that works best for me, and familiarity with the stages has really made the game richer. I do wish it had more legs in its offline mode. It's not like Nintendo is going to keep the lights on in a Wii U server forever. Once that day comes it'll be a much less interesting game.