What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Had my first on-line interactions in WD2.
The first one was particularly cool, because I was not even aware that the multiplayer is always on. So, I was just driving around, picking up money bags and research points, when suddenly there's message that I am being hacked and need to search for the intruder. It took me about a minute to realize it was actually another player and not an NPC. Then I figured him out quite fast, he was hiding in a sports car in the middle of the street and causing a bit of a traffic jam. I crushed my car right into the one behind him and got it pinned against a trolley. He left the car and so did I. We spent a couple of seconds staring at each other morosely. I was not sure what I was supposed to do next. My experience with video games suggested I should shoot him, but he was not being aggressive and I am yet not used to violence in this game - to the point that I was not even sure which button pulls out a gun. He made the first move and whipped out an AK, I ducked behind my car as he shot, then pulled out a gun and shot back. My intention was to use the taser, but it turned out it was a gun I had taken from a security guard hours before. I didn't even realize I had it. On one hand, I felt that typical elation of downing down a human player, incremented by the fact that this was my first multiplayer encounter and the odds were not in my favor. But then I asked myself whether he actually was even aiming at me, or was just trying to scare me off, because I definitely did not duck fast enough. Or maybe that guy was as clueless and disoriented as I was. Anyway, it was a memorable one, and definitely counts as self defense.

The second time it was me hacking somebody else. He was busy operating cranes to get a research point, I managed to download 60% of his data before he found me. Next thing, he chased me around the block, Benny Hill-style, while I kept downloading. He fired a few taser shots but missed. I am pretty sure he could have shot me easily with a real gun, but he didn't, even though it costed him the encounter. So, I am thinking that there might be some tacit multiplayer code about shooting, a la Dark Souls.

hotseatgames wrote: I always feel bad for the poor creatures of Nexus Ops. Won't someone please think of the lava leapers?

I, too, am becoming a Video and Board game Pacifist and androgynous eunuch. I often lay out these violent games, put on an orange monastic robe, shave my head, douse myself with gasoline, and then set myself on fire. But, I have friends who aren't as digitally empathetic to these causes as I am. Instead, they pour out libations to all of the murdered imaginary characters. And, yet, others rightfully protest the bloody and ruthless symbolic portrayals of fur.

My only game now is a platter of sand, a few pebbles, and a wooden rake...

Vlad wrote: So, I am thinking that there might be some tacit multiplayer code about shooting, a la Dark Souls.

Quite possible. I turned off the MP aspects of the game when I was playing it, because I found it distracting and really not fun. But the one time I was actually trying to hack / detect a hack, it didn't end in gunplay. It ended in a wild car chase and attempts to run people over.

I hate sandbox games. They feel so aimless. GTA, Minecraft, Oblivion... blah!

Give me a linear story or a loot treadmill any day. I like fighting games and other very explicitly multiplayer games, like RTS or FPS... although I really don't play many video games anymore. Last two have been XCOM 2 (which is pretty linear, really), and about 30 minutes of Overwatch. It has been a few weeks since I was obsessively playing FTL. Back in the day I loved pre-FFVII JRPGs, Oddworld, and Metal Gear Solid, but I think the new metal gear looked like garbage.

All dwarfed by Pokémon GO. Those eggs won't walk themselves. I'm on the blue team, so I've casually been collecting on 8-10 gyms per day while only having to fight or prestige my way into one every other day or so. I've only got Chansey and Elekid left to catch (and enough Togepi Candy to evolve one of those), so I'm playing a lot less now that it's cold. I want Gen II to come out already!

Man, your criticism of sandbox aimlessness has been completely invalidated by Pokemon GO.
You virtually cannot have a bigger sandbox nor greater aimlessness

Thought about that as I walked away from the computer... couple things.

1. Collecting pokemon is kind of like a slow grindy loot treadmill that gives me tangible short term goals.
2. I go outside. If I want to walk around and do random shit, I'd rather do it in the fresh air than in some micro-Miami.

Tower Defense can go die too. It's iterated rock paper scissors against a computer that tells you what it's going to throw next. And then you sit around and wait. I played one that had some bizarre loot thing going on with different classes, and that unfortunately sucked me in for awhile, but man... I hate TD. It goes back to every major game owing its existence to Blizzard though.

This new Van Helsing game, Deathtrap is supposed to be an amazing TD game. I have downloaded it but haven't played it and not sure I ever will. I absolutely despise TD games with the sole exception of Plants v Zombies which i LOVED

I've played a couple of the Van Helsing TD levels. It's not bad. My main issue is that the text is tiny and gives you no option to increase the size. I had the same complaint with the Van Helsing action RPG... I'm not sure why they think I'm sitting directly in front of my television.

I'd rather play Pokemon GO than the best TD game in the world.
in my opinion, there's something unnatural and perverse about TD as a genre, and probably something wrong with people who play TD regularly, on a deep level. I don't know what and why, it is just a gut feeling.

Michael Barnes wrote: I doubt there is much interest in this forum for a video game that is almost exactly a cross between Dark Souls, Diablo, Ninja Gaiden, and Bushido Blade so I will just say that Nioh is awesome and move along.

Wondering exactly how long will I be able to resist the urge to buy Nioh. My general rule is not to buy any video game at full price, but it obviously doesn't apply to Souls games (because it is great to figure out the game at the same time as the rest of the players). And it seems to tick the right boxes in exactly what I wanted from the next Souls game: combat more like Bloodborne, but with more different weapons, and a less melancholic story. Actually, the story is pretty important and what made me (somewhat) lose interest in Souls games - that when any of these games begin, I already know that most questions will have a very unclear answer at best and the ending will be either depressingly vague or vaguely depressing.