What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

celticgriffon wrote: I kind of would love to try the system on IRacing on my laptop, but unfortunately it freezes often. It is an Asus gaming laptop which was purchased in 2010. It is almost time to upgrade. I might bite the bullet at some point soon.

If Forza feels slippery, iRacing will feel like skating, but immensely rewarding especially with all the equipment you have.

I bought civ 6 last week and I LOVE it. It does what no previous civ has done---make the player make a lot of important choices and cut in 2/3 (though not eliminate) the no brainers. Districts have been needed for a while. Synergizing in game activities with research boosts for specific techs is a brilliant idea. You can tell a boardgame guy was lead designer, Ed Beach.

AI still is iffy at best. There are SO many systems. I still don't quite understand a couple of the systems and they're underexplained, tourism in particular. But it's like someone listened to everything that makes me quit every civ game halfway through and made a game. Also, Sean Bean's narration and the script SUCKS compared to the perfect civ voice, Leonard Nimoy. I wonder if I can get a mod to bring in the Nimoy narration...?

It apparently wasn't received super well? I don't get it.

Thanks to the steam summer sale, I've been playing quite a lot lately, with even more to come.
Witcher 3 - about 9 hours in, still greatly enjoying myself. Working on the Bloody Baron quest line now. Very neat.

Dying Light - Mirror's Edge + Dead Rising + Far Cry 3 + Condemned: Criminal Origins. A great formula, with zombies that are truly terrifying. You actually WANT to avoid combat in this game, but you are rewarded when you do it.

Hidden in Plain Sight - couch multiplayer, only $1.19 and well worth it if you have a few controllers. Various mini games involving trying to blend in with an AI crowd while trying to accomplish objectives. WAY more fun than my description.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - Finally something to do with my Vive. This is neat, and really requires a cool head and clear communication abilities in order to describe either what you are seeing or how the defuser should go about his / her business.

Talisman - Horus Heresy - got it since it was $3. It's Relic, but distinctly themed around Horus Heresy. Between this, Talisman on Steam, and all of Relic the board game, I can't imagine needing any more of this in my life.

I've been playing Warlock - Master of the Arcane, which is pretty fucking awesome.

Basically this is one of Civ V's clones, but a few twist. At the surface, it appears like Civ V with fantasy setting. But really, there are some things that makes it much better than Civ V.

The most improvement over Civ V is the city building. First, the game doesn't hold you back from expanding. More cities is always good. Then, remember when you build a new city that needs 50 turns to build that much-needed Granary? Gone! All buildings and units have a flat building rate of 2-3 turns. Remember when everyone talks about city specialization in Civ but you wonder how that works at early game when you barely have any buildings? Gone! You can only build 1 building per 1000 pops, and they need an empty space (which may penalize or give bonus on that building based on type). Since this represents 1000 people working there, gone also the need to micromanage where your citizens work. Food are shared between cities, and excess food production *automatically* turns to gold (halved) since the beginning of the game. You also have buildings that can be repeatedly built (something like Civ's farms and mines), but also limited by population, so it doesn't feel like a lot of work even if you have a lot of cities, and does emphasize a city's specialization. Also, all buildings, that's placed on the map, are also roads which halve all movement cost throughout your empire. All of that allows you to focus on the military aspect of the game more.

And on the military... units feel a lot more mobile in this game. My basic rogue has 5 movement points, my warrior 3, and my archer 4, but they move through forest easily. This makes exploration fast and easy, and combat much less of a slog, even at the start of the game. The only slow unit is the settlers and my siege engines, which is very understandable and nothing a Windwalker or Haste spell can't fix.

One more thing to point out is "special resources", which is similar to Civ. The unique thing is that you can choose here, and 1 choice is unique to each race. For example there's Gem. You can mine theme, which gives you bunch of gold, or build a jewelry shop. Jewelry shop costs maintenance, but it allows your unit (for a modest amount of gold) to be equipped with amulets which grant then resistance to magic. Some resources grant units. For example the Minotaur Cave, you can build Minotaur Palace which gives you access to Minotaurs (and the stronger Black Minotaurs, once your city is large enough), or Minotaur Labyrinth, which (for a modest amount of gold) increases a unit's melee power considerably.

I'm very close to declaring this game as the millenial's Master of Magic, but it does have it flaws: lack of variation, and magic.

There's only four playable races (human, monsters, undead & elves), and quite a bit of monsters, but still far below MoM's.

There are only two kinds of magic: arcane and divine, which is further divided by deities. The deities are fun bit. Worshipping them allows more powerful spells, but pissing them off will cause the deity to spawn an Avatar, which if you beat you win the game. But the research system is atrocious. You are provided with 5 choices to research which are randomly selected. MoM did a similar thing, but if your wizard is a life magic he won't encounter a single death magic, or any other magic that he isn't learned in.

If you're looking for modern day MoM, this is a very, very good one.

Cool, maybe I'll check it out once I'm done with Civ 6.

Getting soured really quickly on Forza Horizon 3. I unlocked the off-road area, and now the streets of Surfer's Paradise are covered in essentially super powered golf carts and HOT WHEELS cars. Fucking hot wheels cars. I mean, I know that immersion went out of the window somewhere over a hill off a solar farm at 100mph in a Torano, but that's too much. I dunno.

I had my "new style gamer crybaby" experience of the week when I started up Nier Automata. I died on the second boss battle, and the game was all, "Whelp. You lost. Do it all again and suck less." I got past that eventually and onto the first save point. I'm holding off on playing further for now because I know it's a game that is going to take a hundred hours to fully explore.

I got Dishonored 2 in a sale, and did the first area (escape the town), and so far I like it quite a bit. The whole non-lethal conceit stretches credulity somewhat, and it's all very gamified, but that's OK. Each moment presents a puzzle with various apparent routes to progress. Of course it could all go downhill from here, but so far, so good.

JEM wrote: Getting soured really quickly on Forza Horizon 3. I unlocked the off-road area, and now the streets of Surfer's Paradise are covered in essentially super powered golf carts and HOT WHEELS cars. Fucking hot wheels cars. I mean, I know that immersion went out of the window somewhere over a hill off a solar farm at 100mph in a Torano, but that's too much. I dunno.

I had my "new style gamer crybaby" experience of the week when I started up Nier Automata. I died on the second boss battle, and the game was all, "Whelp. You lost. Do it all again and suck less." I got past that eventually and onto the first save point. I'm holding off on playing further for now because I know it's a game that is going to take a hundred hours to fully explore.

I got Dishonored 2 in a sale, and did the first area (escape the town), and so far I like it quite a bit. The whole non-lethal conceit stretches credulity somewhat, and it's all very gamified, but that's OK. Each moment presents a puzzle with various apparent routes to progress. Of course it could all go downhill from here, but so far, so good.

Haha, at NIER. I am on the second big boss in BLOODBORNE and I am going to have to call in outside help. I have gone at him about.... 40 times? And I got him down to a 25% once. And probably 33% another five times. Just such an asskicking. Now I just need to hope that having someone join my game doesn't give them points for griefing me and making it all worse.

Bloodborne helpers are generally very helpful, there's nothing to be gained from griefing and you miss out on the benefits you gain if you help your coop partner win. Father Gascoine? Remember that what that fight is trying to teach you is parrying with your gun. He has a pretty decent sized gap to stagger him with.

I could go on and on about that game (platinumed it). The lore in it is SO good. The DLC fills in almost all the rest of the lore.

Let me know if you really need help and can't find a cooperator. I can dust off my dude and you can send me a cooperator code. They autolevel cooperators down. Also, IIRC they patched in AI cooperators with the DLC. You could use one. That fight is a LOT easier w/2 but tough with 1.

Gary Sax wrote: Bloodborne helpers are generally very helpful, there's nothing to be gained from griefing and you miss out on the benefits you gain if you help your coop partner win. Father Gascoine? Remember that what that fight is trying to teach you is parrying with your gun. He has a pretty decent sized gap to stagger him with.

I could go on and on about that game (platinumed it). The lore in it is SO good. The DLC fills in almost all the rest of the lore.

Let me know if you really need help and can't find a cooperator. I can dust off my dude and you can send me a cooperator code. They autolevel cooperators down. Also, IIRC they patched in AI cooperators with the DLC. You could use one. That fight is a LOT easier w/2 but tough with 1.

I have DARK SOULS fears of other players joining the game. It's not always an awesome experience. Hmm, check that—it was an awesome experience, but they weren't trying to help me. One of the coolest things that has happened to me in a video game since I bombed the floor in Norfair in 1986.

hotseatgames wrote: Thanks to the steam summer sale, I've been playing quite a lot lately, with even more to come.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - Finally something to do with my Vive. This is neat, and really requires a cool head and clear communication abilities in order to describe either what you are seeing or how the defuser should go about his / her business.

Damn I think this game is cool. Really need to get a copy and print out the manuals. It would be a great Games Day activity or even a team building thing at work.