What games are you currently playing?

[Davedevil]

Finished Dark Souls III. Great stuff. Best boss battles in any Souls game I've played. Abyss Watchers, Nameless King, Dancer, all classics in my eyes. Locations are a bit repetitive, but when it opens up (Irithyll, Archdragon Peak, the last area) it's jawdropping. Combat and general gameplay feels so slick now, minus the usual framerate issues. I still prefer Bloodborne for the visceral combat (regain is the greatest innovation), aesthetic and lore, but overall this might be the best. Gonna try to finish the DLC, but Ariandel's final boss kicks my ass so hard.

[Pan-dub]

Starbound - it's like Stardew Valley, Terreria, FTL and Gradius all merged nicely into one. Really good to play with a bunch of mates! 

[teenalphabro]

I've recently picked The Witcher 3 back up again, and people were right, this game's pretty good. 

[S-T]

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle.

Seriously, if you're a Jason fan you need to give this a try. It's a free download on Steam, Android and iOS.

[teenalphabro]

So I've recently been playing the Metro games on console, and I'm actually pretty impressed. Overall, I'm definitely enjoying Last Light more than I enjoyed 2033, but they're both very solid games. 

[teenalphabro]

So I've finished God of War yesterday, and I've got a few thoughts on it. From a pure story standpoint, it's a very good soft reboot of Kratos and the God of War (no pun intended) mythos. The voice acting was good, the action and combat were excellent, and overall, I had fun playing it and experiencing it. 

Now, as for the elephant in the room: Does this game manage to redeem Kratos, and is he worth redeeming? Now, let me start this off by saying that my only experience with the franchise previous to this game was watching a let's play years and years ago. Basically, I was coming to this game with only the loosest ideas of who Kratos was as a person. That said, I think that this game absolutely makes Kratos into, if nothing else, someone who is believable. Personally, I found him to be very sympathetic, and someone who was realistically flawed, and realistically scarred from the experiences and horrors that plagued his life. 

[Davedevil]

Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 Collection - Bought this a few months ago when the release date of KH3 was revealed. This was my favorite series growing up, but I've only played the first three games released once, and I haven't played any of the others. The original Kingdom Hearts surprised me with how deep the combat grew to become. I expected it to be simple X mashing, and it kinda was, but swapping abilities really made a difference.

Skipped Chain of Memories, because that was fun for a GBA game, but I don't feel the need to revisit it, even remade.

385/2 Days was an interesting look at Roxas, Axel, and Xion. I imagine it'd be more engrossing to play, but the bonds between the characters felt real to me.

Kingdom Hearts 2 was also a surprise at the early stages. I always thought of it as my favorite Kingdom Hearts game, but playing it as an adult and falling in love with KH1's combat made for a jarring experience. The camera doesn't work for such a fast-paced game, and the pacing felt off to me. But then I fought a thousand Heartless in a single battle.

Still making my way through KH2, but the series definitely has me in its clutches still.

[Davedevil]

Spider-Man (PS4) - This is the game I've wanted and needed starring Spidey. God. It might not reinvent the open-world superhero genre (it even has the towers unlocking the map trope, which I didn't expect) but so far, it's doing everything so damn well. The stories of almost all the previous games (and I've played close to all of them) were an excuse to get Spidey punching villain to villain, this feels like an earnest attempt at a character-driven narrative. This might be the best the cast has been portrayed in forever.

The combat, while a huge shift for someone so versed in Spidey games, is much deeper than I thought it'd be. When you get on a nice combo, it looks really cool.

Also, with this being the first Spider-Man game I've played since moving to New York, I recognize a lot more of the locations (and where they compressed many parts of the city), so that's fun.

[dc20willsave]

I've been playing Hollow Knight. I love Metroidvanias and this might be one of the best I've played in recent years. Mind you, I've also done my usual problem of accidentally walking into every single place on the map before I do anything of consequence.

[Pan-dub]

I enjoyed Hollow Knight for the most part but kept getting stuck wandering around looking for my next objective. 

[Donomark]

I bought a PS4 specifically to play Spider-Man, and it's my return into the gaming world in ten years. I am this game's bitch.

[Davedevil]

I've been playing a lot lately.

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - My first AC game since my Revelations save was corrupted halfway through. My favorite so far. It's a light and breezy game (even if the music overdoes it) with great banter, which is exactly what I wanted from it. Evie and Jacob are my favorite protagonists of the series so far. I dug the portrayals of class and imperialism, there were even quests about fighting fake news, essentially. But where conceptually it's ahead of its time I feel, the gameplay feels so dated. Combat and traversal haven't changed at all since AC2, even if the animation is mildly smoother and detailed. The line launcher is a welcome addition, but not substantial enough in my opinion. The pace of combat is weird, it seems to reward thoughtful fighting, but encourages button mashing with how fast it is. While I do love the game, I think it's telling that this was the last of its era. But it's a good place to end.

Dark Souls Remastered - Good for its time, but made immediately dated by its follow-ups. Also, the second half is not very good.

The Last of Us - First time. Deserves all the praise it gets.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Mixed bag but overall positive. When it's at its best, it's the most enjoyable of the series for me. It feels very classic TR with the exploration and puzzles. It has one of the most endearing sequences with Lara. It's taken a great step with interrogating Lara's white savior role. But there are a little too many quiet moments, Lara's characterization is ramped up to the point of unlikability, and the deconstruction doesn't really pay off in a meaningful way. Still, I don't regret getting this game, especially in the Croft Edition, since it promises more tombs, which are the best part of the game.

7 hours ago, Donomark said:

I bought a PS4 specifically to play Spider-Man, and it's my return into the gaming world in ten years. I am this game's bitch.

Great time to come back. Pick up any of the other PS4 exclusives, you won't go wrong with any of them.

[Molly]

Play AC: Black Flag. It’s the best game in the series by miles. 

[JackFetch]

I still think Brotherhood is the best game. I'm not a fan of ship combat and the fact that they keep shoehorning it into games is making me lose interest in the series. 

[Davedevil]

 Not too interested in ship combat either, and a whole game revolving around it doesn't hook me. Though from what I hear from my friends, its story is one of the best of the series.

Not sure if I should play Origins first, or jump directly to Odyssey. I'm sure the former's a compelling game, but who doesn't want to play Kassandra?

[JackFetch]

I would play Origins first. There is very little ship combat and it introduces the new combat pretty well. I also love the story. Odyssey is built around ship combat since you have to sail everywhere. Odyssey also abandons the assassins part of the Assassin's Creed story since it takes place before they existed. If you are following that lore, this isn't for you. Both games almost abandon the outside the animus stuff. They are both fun. 

[Davedevil]

Do people really follow the modern day stuff? It's been how many games and there hasn't been any meaningful payoff, from what I've seen. I don't know if it does anything except subvert expectations in your first AC game, and provide the UI.

[JackFetch]

I think most people see it as an interruption to the game they paid to play, and that's why they have almost given up on it. Killing off Desmond pretty much ruined it in most fan's eyes. 

[teenalphabro]

I've recently been playing Demon's Souls, Shadow of the Colossus for the PS4, Hollow Knight and I've been replaying God of War to wrap up the Platinum Trophy. 

DeS: Going to this after playing through Bloodborne is really interesting, to be honest. I enjoy it, don't get me wrong, but it's very weird, to say the least. There's definitely a lot of shared DNA between these two games, and I wouldn't be surprised if Bloodborne had some initial ties to Boletaria. 

Shadow of the Colossus: After almost a decade and a half of hype, I'm finally coming to this game after trying to play it on the PS3. And to be honest, I'm torn on it. On the one hand, it's a gorgeous game with a stunning atmosphere and amazing boss battles. However, the controls are still floaty and weird, and the story is too immaterial to really do anything for me. It's a good game, don't get me wrong, but I don't necessarily think it's 'best game ever' or something. 

Hollow Knight: I've put like 170 hours into this game across PC and PS4, what the fuck do you think I think about this game. 

God of War: I'm two trophies away from getting the plat, and it generally takes me at least a year to get a plat. For reference, I got this game in August, and I'm currently at 94% trophy completion. 

[teenalphabro]

Video games are good, folks. 

[Venneh]

Overwatch: Still fun, picking up Ashe and a bit of the Ham Ham, still mostly a Moira main, with sides of Lucio and Mei. I just hit gold in terms of levels, which I think puts me at something like 1500? I've played this game a lot. 

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (aka the PS4 port of the 3DS game): So, this is something you do need to play on a fairly regular basis or you will forget certain mechanics (see: my spending twenty minutes trying to remember how to do Reality Shift after putting it down for a week plus the other night). The mechanic of switching between Sora and Riku on something like a timer keeps gameplay interesting, but man oh man, I would REALLY like to see more frequent save points. The Spirits as Pokemon mecahnic feels a bit extra, but can be fun, even if I'm not entirely sure how it works half the time. Command decks are back, so I'm betting we see that in KH3. Flowmotion can be mildly irritating when you go into it when you don't mean to, but it's gotten a bit better as the game's gone on. I'm currently stuck on a boss battle in the Tron world on Sora's part, and I was up till 1:30 last night before giving up for the night. I kind of missed doing that, except for the part where I wanted to throw the controller. 

[S-T]

Just started playing through "A link between worlds" on 3DS last week. That game is amazing.

[S-T]

The SNES Classic is a lot of fun.

I would make a couple changes in the list of games (such as including Donkey Kong Country 2) but overall it's a great little system.

Note: Set your TV to "game mode" if you have one to eliminate input lag. Games that require quick and precise reaction time are unplayable with the lag.

[Davedevil]

Assassin's Creed: Origins - The easiest of the series to recommend, personally. What a fantastic game. I love how directed it starts and then gradually opens up; I didn't feel the same open world dread that I was expecting. 

Not an original observation at all, but it takes a little bit of everything from The Witcher 3 and Dark Souls, blends it with the AC formula, and makes something just a bit more enjoyable in the moment than those two. 

I doubt I'm even halfway through, but I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Bayek is easily my favorite AC protagonist now, despite me recently claiming that the Frye twins are.

Injustice 2 - Wasn't expecting to have as much fun with this as I am. Don't care for the story at all, but I'm still enjoying how the characters are handled. Might check out Mortal Kombat X soon.

Marvel's Spider-Man - The dlc was just lacking. They approached some cool concepts, but everything that followed was so predictable, it's hard to care. The difficulty spike made it PAINFUL to play, especially on the hardest difficulty (I've never hated someone near as much as I hate Screwball). The new suits and photo mode updates were the most worthwhile thing about these to me.

[Venneh]

On 12/3/2018 at 10:53 AM, Venneh said:

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (aka the PS4 port of the 3DS game): So, this is something you do need to play on a fairly regular basis or you will forget certain mechanics (see: my spending twenty minutes trying to remember how to do Reality Shift after putting it down for a week plus the other night). The mechanic of switching between Sora and Riku on something like a timer keeps gameplay interesting, but man oh man, I would REALLY like to see more frequent save points. The Spirits as Pokemon mecahnic feels a bit extra, but can be fun, even if I'm not entirely sure how it works half the time. Command decks are back, so I'm betting we see that in KH3. Flowmotion can be mildly irritating when you go into it when you don't mean to, but it's gotten a bit better as the game's gone on. I'm currently stuck on a boss battle in the Tron world on Sora's part, and I was up till 1:30 last night before giving up for the night. I kind of missed doing that, except for the part where I wanted to throw the controller. 

KH DDD: Yeah, I got to Riku's section in the final world and just decided to watch the rest of the game. Might come back to it, because I thought I was past the point where I could switch back to Sora's POV, but apparently I was wrong! Still way too much going on, especially with the Dreams as Pokemon mechanic, but Flowmotion/Command Decks worked well enough. 

KH .2 ~A Fragmentary Passage~: This feels like it was the proof of concept for KH3 - that it could work in the Unreal engine, and that after a fucking decade, they could actually pull off a ground up rebuild of the battle system. Unsurprisingly, it's goddamn gorgeous. Battle system handles incredibly well, didn't use the shortcuts too much but will probably be using them in KH3. Story feels like a bit of a retcon - MICKEY YOU ASS YOU RAN INTO AQUA HOWEVER MANY YEARS AGO AND YOU DIDN'T DRAG HER ASS OUT WITH YOU?! - to set up KH3 stuff, but hey, it's Kingdom Hearts, it's convoluted as shit, I'm just gonna let it happen at this point. Pretty sure that the ending cutscenes are the first few scenes in KH3, too? 

Overwatch: Continues to be my brain turn off game, pretty much switch between Ashe and Moira, with secondary on Ham Ham, Lucio and Mei. Capture the Flag is fun from the new event, like that they added Busan to the mode.