Currently Playing chat thread

Finished the main quest on Fable, now onto the DLC. Been loving this after the first couple of hours.

Edit, the DLC is fairly short but got that finished off last night too. Will probably play something else before jumping straight into Fable 2 though, probably F1 2021.

I started Little Nightmares a couple of days ago. I did not expect it to do much for me (i found Limbo dissapointing and Inside "ok" but nothing special). I'm really enjoying it though, and love the art style and atmosphere. A few scenes have been a touch frustrating, but not in the same way i find most stealth games to be (though i can't really explain why).

Also playing the last case of the 1st game of Great Ace Attorney. I'm about 5 hours in and have not got to the court room yet! I love how confident these games are on slowly telling their stories. It does feel like the least interactive game in the franchise so far however, which is a bit dissapointing.

State of Decay 2

Already put a good fair few hours into this a few months ago and started a new community to muck around with this time. It just sucks me in and in a way few games seem to do these days. It's also now got the plague hearts preventing taking over ownership of buildings until the PH is killed unlike my 1st playthrough.

Upped the difficulty from my previous play and I've already lost 1 member of the community (RIP Trader woman).

One of my favourite games of recent times without question

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:I started Little Nightmares a couple of days ago. I did not expect it to do much for me (i found Limbo dissapointing and Inside "ok" but nothing special). I'm really enjoying it though, and love the art style and atmosphere. A few scenes have been a touch frustrating, but not in the same way i find most stealth games to be (though i can't really explain why).

Also playing the last case of the 1st game of Great Ace Attorney. I'm about 5 hours in and have not got to the court room yet! I love how confident these games are on slowly telling their stories. It does feel like the least interactive game in the franchise so far however, which is a bit dissapointing.

I didn't realise you were a monster.

Tomous wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:I started Little Nightmares a couple of days ago. I did not expect it to do much for me (i found Limbo dissapointing and Inside "ok" but nothing special). I'm really enjoying it though, and love the art style and atmosphere. A few scenes have been a touch frustrating, but not in the same way i find most stealth games to be (though i can't really explain why).

Also playing the last case of the 1st game of Great Ace Attorney. I'm about 5 hours in and have not got to the court room yet! I love how confident these games are on slowly telling their stories. It does feel like the least interactive game in the franchise so far however, which is a bit dissapointing.

I didn't realise you were a monster.

The delicious irony.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Tomous wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:I started Little Nightmares a couple of days ago. I did not expect it to do much for me (i found Limbo dissapointing and Inside "ok" but nothing special). I'm really enjoying it though, and love the art style and atmosphere. A few scenes have been a touch frustrating, but not in the same way i find most stealth games to be (though i can't really explain why).

Also playing the last case of the 1st game of Great Ace Attorney. I'm about 5 hours in and have not got to the court room yet! I love how confident these games are on slowly telling their stories. It does feel like the least interactive game in the franchise so far however, which is a bit dissapointing.

I didn't realise you were a monster.

The delicious irony.

Bravely Default II

While I do like the FFV aesthetics and job system, the ridiculous difficulty level is becoming annoying, it wasn't too bad at first with the 'guest' party member offering extra healing and revival duties but now they've left the party I'm having major issues.

Also I don't think I like the combat system as the enemies can take up to four consecutive attacks which basically wipes out everyone in a single attack.

Forza Horizon 4, fun game but horrific load times.

EDIT: seriously, if you fail an objective and press B to try again the load times are strawberry floating criminal.

Kirby's Epic Yarn on the Wii, going for 100% completion on my old save file.

Saints Row the Third Remaster

A nice clean up overall and still a lot of fun to play, although I would have preferred a remaster of Saints 2.

Playing through Quake with Switch's arms-apart joy-con gyro and loving it. It's not as precise a control method as mouse and keyboard but it is more fun. Whole port feels and runs brilliantly

And I've just gone through all four episodes of the original (compared to just a shareware of the first back in the day!) and it's still so punchy, so fun, and with way more variety in its level design aesthetic and design than I'd have predicted.

And that moody, near-silent atmosphere!

Great for quick bursts, too.

Initially I was playing through on Hard in which it keeps chucking outrageous things at you like sudden Shamblers in tight spaces etc. It was good, but I've recently dropped back down to Normal and it's more fun and less a war of quicksave attrition

Pianista

I'm loving this mobile rhythm action game. It's essentially Classical Pianist Hero and it feels great to play.

You do have to ignore the microtransaction bullshit but playing a free handful of songs every day is definitely scratching an itch.

Playing through Control Ultimate Edition (PS5) and I have beaten the main game and now on the Alan Wake DLC mission. It’s a good game, solid 7/8 out of 10 but it was nothing special which is kinda what I was expecting considering this game gets mentioned so much.

Currently Playing

Oblivion
Just completed the Dark Brotherhood quests, which was good. Moved onto the Thieves Guild, but it's very dull, so don't think I'll bother. The Fighter's Guild doesn't really interest me either. Having completed the Knights of the Nine DLC before the Dark Brotherhood, I just have the Shivering Isles to do now.

MT vs ATV Reflex
Interesting off-road racer with a few different vehicle types. Quite challenging with the landscape and tracks, having to be mindful of balance and weight, etc. It's good to dip in and out of. The soundtrack's awful, but an interesting distraction otherwise.

Mark of the Ninja
This is okay. The plot's already lost me, as it seems very uninteresting. The mechanics are quite sound though, and I like the open-ended approach to the objectives. Can see it wearing thing quite quickly, but we'll see.

OlliOlli
Again, good to dip in and out of. Not specatcular, but okay.

On the backburner
DiRT 4
Thought I'd completed this, but no...yet another championship unlocks, with dozens and dozens more races. strawberry floating hell.
Will come back to it, but I definitely need another break.

The Room
Will come back to this, but not in the puzzling mood at the moment.

Half-Life
This started to drag, so I took a break a while ago and haven't been back since. Would like to complete it though.

Dead Space
I got 2-3 hours into this and it never grabbed me. Might pick it up again around Halloween and see if I can stick with it.

Aegis Defenders
Dangerously close to giving up on this. It's an interesting idea, combining platforming with tower defence, but it's just not that fun to play.

Lotus wrote:Half-Life
This started to drag, so I took a break a while ago and haven't been back since. Would like to complete it though.

Whereabouts are you in this out of interest? It definitely has some sections that have aged less gracefully than others.

Jenuall wrote:

Lotus wrote:Half-Life
This started to drag, so I took a break a while ago and haven't been back since. Would like to complete it though.

Whereabouts are you in this out of interest? It definitely has some sections that have aged less gracefully than others.

Hmm...I think I was about to go into a big freezer or something? It's been a while, my memory's pretty hazy.

Lotus wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Lotus wrote:Half-Life
This started to drag, so I took a break a while ago and haven't been back since. Would like to complete it though.

Whereabouts are you in this out of interest? It definitely has some sections that have aged less gracefully than others.

Hmm...I think I was about to go into a big freezer or something? It's been a while, my memory's pretty hazy.

Shelf-life

Victor Mildew wrote:

Lotus wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Lotus wrote:Half-Life
This started to drag, so I took a break a while ago and haven't been back since. Would like to complete it though.

Whereabouts are you in this out of interest? It definitely has some sections that have aged less gracefully than others.

Hmm...I think I was about to go into a big freezer or something? It's been a while, my memory's pretty hazy.

Shelf-life

Interestingly (or not probably) temperature has no effect on the half-life of something!

The only freezer I can recall off the top of my head comes relatively early in the game I would say - definitely in the first third. Have you mainly been going through office type areas at this point?

It's still a great game IMO but it's harder to appreciate the things it did so well in this day and age when the lessons have been learned and built upon by multiple subsequent generations of FPS

Jenuall wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:

Lotus wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Lotus wrote:Half-Life
This started to drag, so I took a break a while ago and haven't been back since. Would like to complete it though.

Whereabouts are you in this out of interest? It definitely has some sections that have aged less gracefully than others.

Hmm...I think I was about to go into a big freezer or something? It's been a while, my memory's pretty hazy.

Shelf-life

Interestingly (or not probably) temperature has no effect on the half-life of something!

The only freezer I can recall off the top of my head comes relatively early in the game I would say - definitely in the first third. Have you mainly been going through office type areas at this point?

It's still a great game IMO but it's harder to appreciate the things it did so well in this day and age when the lessons have been learned and built upon by multiple subsequent generations of FPS

Looking at my playtime on Steam I'm 7 hours in. From what I recall it felt mostly like I'd been in the research facility almost entirely, but I could be wrong on that. Talking about it now has almost got me tempted to pick it up again this weekend.

Thought I would take my list of "somewhat active" games from the juggling thread and expand on the status of my playthrough with each. If nothing else this might help me to narrow down and focus on completing a few of these!

Deathloop
Loving this! It's a nice different take on the immersive sim formula from Arkane, I'm basically done with the main story but I've still got a few side bits I want to poke my nose into and the online aspect will keep me going for a while yet. This is probably the closest any of my active games are to being "finished"!

Dark Souls 2
More Souls which is great, but there's just something about this which has failed to grab me in quite the same way that other games in the series have. I think I'm probably about a third of the way through the main line of this but I've hit a bit of a wall in terms of enthusiasm. Taking a break for now but intend to return hopefully soon.

Divinity Original Sin 2
This is a fantastic CRPG in the fashion of old school stuff like Ultima and Baldur's Gate. I've really been enjoying my time with it but it's been on my "playing" list for absolutely ages now as I want to take my time with it and keep getting distracted by other things! I'm on chapter 3 and I think there are 7 overall so quite a way to go yet!

Ori and the Will of the Wisps
I replayed the first Ori earlier this year and then went straight into this off the back of it. I was finding it to be a superior experience to the first game but I've not been back to it in a while now. No idea how far I am through the whole thing, I suspect not very!

Star Wars: Fallen Order
Gave this a shot when EA Play came to Game Pass. I think I'm actually pretty near the end but I basically burned out on the experience when it became clear it didn't really have much interesting to say about either the Star Wars universe or 3rd person action adventure game mechanics. Doubtful I'll return to it but I've not uninstalled so far which means it is in with a chance of getting another shot still...

Psychonauts 2
Again this was a Game Pass "why not give it a shot?" opportunity, I never really enjoyed the original but this was getting rave reviews and hey, it was free! Completed the opening mission and pootled around the HQ a bit, but it failed to grip me.

Spider-Man
I've had this for over 2 years now as it was the game that I got bundled with my PS4 Pro. I played the intro where you take down Fisk when I first got it but never really went beyond that until recently. It's a decent action game, swinging around the city is fun (no context) but the combat is a bit limited and I'm not far enough into the story to tell if that is going to pull it up or not. This one is on my sub-list of "games I'm going to make an effort to finish"

Ratchet & Clank (2016)
This was free via PSN at some point and as a big fan of the first few games on PS2 I snapped it up. It's really good, especially thanks to the free 60FPS upgrade for PS5! I've actually finished this when playing it together with my kids on their accounts, but that was on the "piss easy" mode so I'm now playing it through myself and trying to do all the side stuff like finding bolts and all the RYNO cards.

Hitman 2
I've started this on PC and PS5 now, I've always been a big fan of the Hitman series and devoured everything about Hitman 2016 but have utterly failed to devote the same amount of time and attention to the sequel(s)

Uncharted 4
Another freebie that has been started and then abandoned. I came late to the Uncharted series, only getting the collection of 1-3 when I grabbed my PS4 in 2019, and they've never really swept me off my feet - they're the embodiment of 7/10 action games to me - average at best gameplay, decent enough story, but nothing to make it stand out. What I've seen so far from the 4th entry isn't looking like changing my mind. Haven't played any more for about 2 months now and there's a good chance I won't get back to this.

Metroid Prime
Dread being announced and still no signs of the insider promised Switch remake made me finally jump back into this on the original Gamecube. It's still a fantastic game, but the lack of decent video connection for my console means I abandoned the "authentic" approach and switched to playing it on PC via Dolphin quite quickly. I'm about halfway through the whole thing now - not sure I'll finish it before Dread arrives though...

Metroid Fusion
As above - I've started this again in anticipation of Dread. Still probably my favourite Metroid game and it feels great to play it again via my original GBA SP

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD
I missed out on this the first time around so was really excited to get it on Switch. I've really enjoyed it so far... but like so many games it has become a bit lost in my backlog, I've not touched it for about 3 weeks now. This is another one that I really want to try and get through, and I'm far enough in that I think I will see it to the end now!

Mario + Rabbids
Picked this up in a sale cheap (well by Switch standards at least! ) - it's a fun X-COM lite but I've only made it to I think the 3rd world so far. With kids being back at school and more things like sports and clubs happening again I can foresee many more opportunities to be sat in a car waiting to pick people up where I will get time to push on with this one, I will not be defeated by strawberry floating rabbids!

Super Mario 3D World
Like Ratchet & Clank I've finished this with the kids but not on my own profile. I think I'm on World 5 so a bit of a way to go yet. It's strawberry floating great - I probably prefer the more freeform style of the full 3D Mario games these days but it's quite refreshing to return to this kind of old-school structure!

Luigi's Mansion 3
I've barely got past the intro of this, but have played the strawberry float out of the multiplayer minigames with the family - they're really bloody good!



So yeah, I've got a hell of a lot of games which are in some way "on the go". I'm going to try and get tactical about actually finishing some of these off to the point where I'm only running maybe 2-3 games concurrently going forward.

I'm sure I will be successful!