What Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Bugg]

On PC, I finally finished Trails to Azure, which was fantastic, and then went back and picked up Trails of Cold Steel II from the so-called "Divertissement" (which is where I stopped playing it before, as it is where the story joins with the cast of Trails to Azure after the end of that game), and played it to conclusion. The final dungeon was a bit tacked on but, overall, another great game.

Now I'm about 20 hours into Trails of Cold Steel III, which I am absolutely loving. It's taken me a long time to get to it but it's an absolute joy so far, and it's where the stories and characters of all the previous Trails games finally start to dovetail.

On Switch I've been playing more Fire Emblem Engage, and I've also returned to Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which I put down last year as I wasn't in the mood.

 

[.matthew.]

@Foxbat The solution to your problem there is simple.
Create a stockpile zone for animal corpses near your butcher table/spot. The hunter then goes out, kills the animal, and drops it back there.
This has several advantages to gameplay, allowing you to pile up a couple of corpses before butchering them or having them stored in a freezer for preservation etc. Plus, they really are set and forget, and once you've put it down it's pretty much good for the rest of the game.

You can also play with the work priorities to get the same people to hunt and butcher, although the better cook will get more meat and leather.

Also don't piss off megasloths early on... they're terrifying. Although you can hit one with bleeding and then run away and hide until it passes out. The spike traps can also work if you lead an angry one through them. Rimworld really rewards creative problem-solving.

And don't forget that you can also butcher human raiders if food is especially tight. Your colonists probably won't be happy, but for me, that has saved an early colony a time or two.

 

[Vince W]

I cannot recommend High on Life. Written and voiced by the people that do Rick and Morty I gave this a try. It's a mildly humourous, bog-standard FPS. The game is very short as well. I've gotten to the final chapter with almost no upgrades so there is no way to defeat the last boss. I've given up on it rather than playing it again. Playing Diablo III while waiting for the release of Diablo IV which I've preordered.

 

[Draven Vertigo]

I'm replaying Mass Effect 2. It's very good, with a well thought-out setting and lots of things to see and do. The missions, characters and overall story are interesting. Under the command of the mysterious - if uninspiringly named - Elusive Man, Commander Shepherd must stop an alien threat, whilst killing or flirting with every living creature she meets along the way. It's got a kind of sci-fi slickness that works really well.

But there's something slightly uninspiring about it all. Part of it's the combat (shooting over chest-high walls), and some of the dull obligations (scanning random planets for sellable minerals). There's also a po-faced quality to it. Shepherd talks like a cop from a 1950s drama ("Just the facts, ma'am"), and there's much less humour than you'd get from a lot of similar games. Which is a shame because when it decides to be amusing, it is quite good. My main objective is to get the insect-man to sing Gilbert and Sullivan.

I Love the whole Trilogy, can't wait to see what they do with ME4.

 

[Draven Vertigo]

I cannot recommend High on Life. Written and voiced by the people that do Rick and Morty I gave this a try. It's a mildly humourous, bog-standard FPS. The game is very short as well. I've gotten to the final chapter with almost no upgrades so there is no way to defeat the last boss. I've given up on it rather than playing it again. Playing Diablo III while waiting for the release of Diablo IV which I've preordered.

So stoked for D4!!!

 

[Bugg]

My all-time favourite game is now available digitally on Switch. I'm going to wait for the physical release in a few weeks. I got the original on release day on the Game Cube and still remember how the controls turned my hands into claws after hours of playing it. Fortunately they've modernised the controls for the remaster

 

[Foxbat]

Back playing Skyrim. I say ’playing’ but in reality I’m more like a tourist. Sometimes I’ll clear out a nest of baddies but mostly I love just wandering around, discovering places and admiring the view. Recently found a dwarf place (Mzinchaleft). I fought mechanical guardians for the first time. I’m level 20 now so it wasn’t too difficult.

 

[Toby Frost]

Fallout 4. It really is superb: a huge, detailed role-playing game that has its own style and doesn't have to take its look from Tolkien. There are tons and tons of stories and things to do. By the time I've finished the main story and explored the add-ons, I'll have forgotten most of the early events and will be able to start it all over again, on a slightly higher difficulty. It's an amazing piece of work.

 

[.matthew.]

I'm vaguely annoyed that I only have New Vegas for PC. I remember really enjoying 4 on whatever console I had back in the day, but can't replay it anymore.

That said, it's pretty old now, there are other games to play, and I've been on and off with Starsector. It's a lot deeper than I first thought while still being quite accessible. It scratches the spaceship itch nicely enough.

 

[alexvss]

Paradise Killer. An indie detective game where you try to solve the murder of a group of gods.

The setting and the worldbuilding of this game are completely insane (and awesome). A group of “immortal” (i.e, that won’t die by old age) alien gods create a paradise island to try and resurrect their ancient gods, and they kidnap humans to live on the island as citizens. But, the experiment always fails, so they kill all humans “ceremonially” and start all over again. They’re already in “Island Sequence 24”. When they’re in the middle of the process to start Sequence 25, they’re all murdered. You play as Lady Love Dies, a detective in exile who’s called back to solve the case.

This is labeled as an adventure game. You walk around the island interviewing people, looking for clues and doing puzzles. So far, there’s no combat. The characters all have those fancy nicknames, and they seem to be made out of cardboard, which makes the island feel even more “dead”. The theme songs are good. The art direction is awesome.

It’s an interesting game, to say the least. I really like its take on utopia. My fiction is ultimately anti-utopian so I bought this game for research. But I must say I’m having fun.

Oh, and this is made by a British studio. It took me a while to figure out that a “torch” was actually a flashlight, and not a piece of wood on fire.

 

[Rodders]

Batman Arkham Asylum, Arkham City and Arkham Knight trio is on Steam for £7.49

 

[Toby Frost]

I started Batman Arkham Asylum. I'm not really into Batman but I don't dislike the good stories. It's perfectly good at doing what it does, but other games do that stuff better. It's a good game, just one that isn't for me.

 

[Foxbat]

Given up on Rimworld. Why on earth would I want to waste so much time and energy having to cook meals? I have to do that in real life and I don’t want a game where I have to do the same.

Officially binned.

At least in Skyrim, I get to sneak around and kill things (something I’d get in trouble for in real life).

 

[.matthew.]

Given up on Rimworld. Why on earth would I want to waste so much time and energy having to cook meals? I have to do that in real life and I don’t want a game where I have to do the same.

Officially binned.

At least in Skyrim, I get to sneak around and kill things (something I’d get in trouble for in real life).

Ha, well I guess you fall into the 1% of folks that don't recommend it.

I will say that meals are super simple to set and forget. I rarely have to think about them after the first big harvest comes in. You could have also installed a nutrient paste dispenser that turns any meat or veg into what amounts to soylent green. Literally just a dispenser with a hopper and as long as you can eat the -4 of so mood for eating paste, it's great.

I take it you didn't get into exploring any ruins either

 

[Foxbat]

Never got near any ruins. Too busy trying to stay alive

 

[.matthew.]

The ruins can be really fun. Most maps start with a tiny hidden danger but there are massive ones on the world map that take big teams to clear and act like dungeons.

That said, if you've bounced off the game this hard I'd probably quit too. You could try watching someone do a series playthrough though, and that might give you a better handle on what to expect and how to deal with certain issues that have been putting you off. Or just ask me and see if I'm around to answer

It definitely feels like a waste to not play it though, especially with all the fun stories it generates. There are also the difficulty options you could play around with, and go for a peaceful colony without having to worry about the fights to start with - you can even change those settings mid-game.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm nearly at the end of The Last of Us. It's very good, still, but there does seem to be a odd clash between the violence and the thoughtful moments. The optional conversations and pastoral moments seem strange compared with the periods of beating, burning and shooting maniacs. I've seen the same thing said about Bioshock Infinite, which for all its musings on probability, is about shooting huge numbers of people in the face. The Last of Us could have easily been a game like The Walking Dead, which covers similar bleak territory, or even Firewatch, which has no violence at all but is about a bereaved man rebuilding his life in the countryside.

 

[Toby Frost]

Fancying a break from The Last of Us, I started up The Walking Dead, a game about a tough killer who rediscovers his humanity by escorting a young girl across post-apocalyptic America, slaying many zombies along the way. It's one of those Telltale games, where your main input is in choosing how to interact with the other characters. This is much more suspenseful than it sounds, as most of the people you talk to are violent and desperate.

Your character, Lee (I always think of him as LEEEEEE! as that's how the girl he's protecting screams his name when zombies show up) is going to prison for killing his wife when the apocalypse begins (you can play him as guilty or innocent, as seems fit). He's also black and an intellectual, which might not be helpful when surrounded by armed, terrified rednecks. This is an old game and the stylised graphics are a bit dated, but it remains good, and the last few years have given it a new edge.

 

[Foxbat]

Coincidentally, I just started a zombie game too: Project Zomboid.
It’s still in early access but it was reduced to just over a tenner this week. I looked at the reviews and they were evenly split between folk loving it and the other half being pretty scathing (particularly because it’s been in early access for around a decade).

Despite the justified unrest over the length of early access, I decided to take the plunge just because it was so cheap.

First impressions: I think it’s got a lot of potential (but somebody probably said that ten years ago). It’s a 3D isometric perspective (one of my favourites) and there seems to be a lot of interaction with scenery and objects, opening up a lot of possibilities.

The controls are quite fiddly. I have developed my own format of controls (I never liked the aswd set up). My set up relies on the right mouse button being available to remap for forward movement but I find this is impossible in this game. Now, I’m having to work out some kind of hybrid setup that I can use. Not a good start, and I don’t know how long I’ll stick with this game if the much-voiced complaint on the lack of updates continues. I think, overall, this would work better if it were turn based but that’s not what most folk want.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Coincidentally, I just started a zombie game too: Project Zomboid.
It’s still in early access but it was reduced to just over a tenner this week. I looked at the reviews and they were evenly split between folk loving it and the other half being pretty scathing (particularly because it’s been in early access for around a decade).

Despite the justified unrest over the length of early access, I decided to take the plunge just because it was so cheap.

First impressions: I think it’s got a lot of potential (but somebody probably said that ten years ago). It’s a 3D isometric perspective (one of my favourites) and there seems to be a lot of interaction with scenery and objects, opening up a lot of possibilities.

The controls are quite fiddly. I have developed my own format of controls (I never liked the aswd set up). My set up relies on the right mouse button being available to remap for forward movement but I find this is impossible in this game. Now, I’m having to work out some kind of hybrid setup that I can use. Not a good start, and I don’t know how long I’ll stick with this game if the much-voiced complaint on the lack of updates continues. I think, overall, this would work better if it were turn based but that’s not what most folk want.

I enjoyed Ambigiousamphibian's "let's play" - Project Zomboid Worst Start Zero to Hero Challenge.

There are quite a lot of systems in the game, so perhaps looking at what he does will give you more clues on what can be done!