What Game Are You Currently Playing?

[BigJ]

Just when I thought I ws getting a handle on Elden Ring. I found new areas with far worse monsters and dangers. This game is a nightmare . I love it !

It really is a great game, isn't it? In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I picked up Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice when it was on sale in the Xbox store recently.

Of course, where Elden Ring gives you lots of options in terms of ways to approach challenges or build your character or grinding out levels to get overpowered before that boss that's giving you trouble, Sekiro gives you none of that. And as it happens, I may not be as good at video games as I thought I was.

 

[thaddeus6th]

In some ways, Oblivion was a lot better than Skyrim. The Dark Brotherhood quest line stands out. Also, making your own spells.

That said, I hated the levelling system. Levelling up and becoming relatively weaker was rubbish.

 

[Foxbat]

I’ve been playing some Doom (the original).
I bought it cheap on GOG, downloaded Risen3D, copied the wad file into the Risen directory and now I’m playing the original Doom in 3D

Risen3D Home Page

 

[Foxbat]

Just in case anybody is interested, I downloaded a new map for Doom and here's a screenshot of how it looks with Risen's 3D modelling.
Reminds me of Quake 2 and gives a new lease of life to Doom.

 

[Foxbat]

I've been playing (for 'playing' read 'trying to play') a game called Dysmantle. I was drawn to it because it was cheap (just over a fiver on GOG) and graphically, the low polygon environment kind of reminded me of Dredge (wonderful game but with very limited replay value).

This one is a post apocalyptic survival game with the usual zombies. Nothing unusual there. It's one of those repetitive 'hit everything' games. Hit monsters to kill them. hit things to break them down into raw materials to make other things. I thought it would amuse me for a couple of hours but no....that was too much to hope for. This game has got probably the worst controls I've ever come across. Absolutely awful.

I found Project Zomboid to be a bit awkward but I persevered and found a set up that works well enough for me. Dysmantle has only very limited control customisation and it just doesn't work well enough to be anything like the fun it promises to be. The biggest problem is the lack of a proper mouselook. Often when hitting things, my character turns away and swipes at fresh air. I can't find a way to stop this from happening. The programmers obviously know they have a problem here because they've added a target lock - meaning (unless you switch targets) your character will stay locked on the enemy until either it is killed or your character is killed. This only works with enemies and not with the environment.

What I thought might be a fun kind of Project Zomboid Lite is in all reality a frustrating mess. Some research leads me to believe that this game was probably ported from the console market because people using controllers seem to handle it quite well.

The game has a few DLCs but I won't be buying any because it is now officially binned as far as I'm concerned. The last thing I want from a game promising some short term fun is long term frustration trying to get the thing to actually work.
Here's a screen shot I found on the internet to give a flavour of the game. You can see the target lock on the green monster.

 

[Toby Frost]

Selaco - much-hyped shooter built, apparently, with the same engine as Doom. Probably an impressive technical achievement but a very imbalanced game: every single fight is gruellingly hard, followed by endless wandering around the map trying to find out how to progress. Not what I find enjoyable.

And back to Sunset Overdrive, which on a second play-through is still very entertaining and silly. Sometimes the balance is a bit off, and it does try too hard at times, but bouncing on things is very entertaining, and it's a lot of fun.

 

[Foxbat]

I started playing Prison Architect. I bought this some time ago but didn't really spend a lot of time on it. Now I'm beginning to remember why. It's a game set in a prison (surprise surprise) kind of in the Rimworld mould. After playing for a few minutes, I go incredibly annoyed and executed a 'rage quit'.

The reason for my annoyance was the music....god that music! I couldn't turn it off (first thing i do with every single game is get rid of the music...I hate music when I'm trying to concentrate). Apparently the music is only supposed to be in the menu screen but I found it on all the time during gameplay. In their infinite wisdom, the programmers have only one sound control. You can't mute the music without muting all other sounds. To me, it's a monumental act of stupidity. How hard can it be?

I decided to have a go at rectifying the situation myself and located a file called Sounds.dat. After a bit of faffing about I discovered that this dat file was, in fact, a zip file that I could open with 7zip. After doing this, I was able to access all the sound files within and strip out the music but leaving all the sound effects intact. It was a bit of a chore identifying and deleting all the tunes but now, I have a copy of Prison Architect with sound effects and no annoying music. How hard can it be? It turned out not very hard at all. Why this separation seems to be beyond the programmers is baffling. The game has been built using the Unity engine and I have a number of other games built with the same engine where the sound and music levels are separately controlled so I know the problem doesn't lie there.

It was fun doing a bit of a deep dive and coming out successfully. I wonder if the game will give me the same level of fun. Who knows? Now that I've solved the problem I've kind of lost interest in it again....

 

[Rodders]

Sniper Elite 4.

I really enjoyed 5, so i bought the remaining Sniper Elite games in a pack on Steam. Quite nice to be playing as Karl Fairburn again and i'm having fun with the huge maps.

 

[RDArmstrong]

Went back and started a new playthrough of some older N64 games, particularly Ocarina of Time. I have idea how I figured some of these puzzles out as a kid lol

Getting ready for Space Marine 2 coming out on the 9th.

 

[Culhwch]

Sniper Elite 4.

I really enjoyed 5, so i bought the remaining Sniper Elite games in a pack on Steam. Quite nice to be playing as Karl Fairburn again and i'm having fun with the huge maps.

You inspired me to look for SE4 because I'd recently been been playing SE5 as well. I must have missed a sale, though, because it was like $90.

 

[Foxbat]

I've persevered with Prison Architect and have decided that there's a decent game there if you're prepared to dig for it. Unfortunately, it has some infuriating moments. For instance, due to the size of my prison, I decided to build two canteens but only one was being used. I couldn't figure out what was wrong and had to go hunting on the internet (there is neither manual nor tutorial). It turns out that before you can assign canteens, you have to research 'micromanagement'. Why can't the warden just say this lot use that canteen, the rest use the other one? I understand research in games like this but, please, let's make it meaningful research and not simply use it to create unnecessary obstacles.

I've had to go through this rigmarole a number of times now with different issues.

Overall, I enjoy the game when I get the chance to play it and not have to go hunting for information. All that frustration really has made me a hard-nosed jailer and I've decided to go against my morals and build an execution chamber. I'll take my frustrations out on my prisoners.

Frying tonight.

 

[Rodders]

You inspired me to look for SE4 because I'd recently been been playing SE5 as well. I must have missed a sale, though, because it was like $90.

They're on sale now. SE4 is £3.99, Culhwch

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm still playing Sunset Overdrive, and enjoying it very much. For some reason I seem to be better at it this time. It's like Grand Theft Tony Hawks, and sliding and bouncing around the city to get to missions is often as much fun as the missions themselves. The jokes range from quite good to corny, but there's a silly cheerfulness about it which is refreshing after the pretentious drabness of a lot of modern games. A few missions stand out as noticeably harder than the rest, but I would definitely recommend it.

 

[Lady of Winterfell]

I played Overcooked 2 with my daughter last night. We have played this many times as a family before and I love it. She suggested it last night, so we started a new campaign.

 

[Toby Frost]

Terminator: Resistance is in a lot of ways pretty mediocre. The story and acting aren't great, the visual style is very one-note (unsurprisingly) and the characters are dismal. I spend a lot of time wishing that I could terminate my senior officer, who even by the standard of video game hardcases is an idiot. What it does have is a fairly decent stealth/assassination element, as you creep around behind clunky robots and work out clever ways of destroying them. Sneaking about and gathering junk to turn into bombs is quite fun, but once/if I get to the end, I doubt I'll play it again.

 

[BigJ]

Finished Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice today.

This game is a masterpiece, like Elden Ring, but in a different way. It is absolutely not for the faint of heart, as its reputation for difficulty is well-deserved and the stock answer to almost any issues you're having with a difficult part of the game (typically a boss) is "you need to get better"; the number of youtube videos I clicked on advertising a "cheese" to beat a boss when really they just detail a strategy is significant (though there is a late game boss you can truly cheese, and yes I absolutely did). If I had purchased it on PC instead of on Xbox, I can't say I wouldn't have been tempted by some of the mods that make the game easier, but I have no regrets playing the game as the developers intended. I loved the setting and the story, and the deathblow system made combat incredibly rewarding. Often frustrating, but rewarding. Like Elden Ring, if I ever have time, I may have to return to it to experience some of the other endings, however I'm still working for a living (booooooooo) and have a million other games in my backlog to play.

 

[Toby Frost]

I finished Terminator: Resistance and it was indeed mediocre.

 

[BigJ]

I ripped through the Forges of Corruption DLC for 40k Boltgun. For me, it's similar to the base game; as much as I enjoy 40k lore and as much as I'm glad something like this exists, boomer shooters just aren't my thing.

In a (potentially) similar vein, started playing Space Marine 2. We will see how much the combat and controls really click with me, but so far it feels pretty good.

 

[Rodders]

I finished Sniper Elite 4, which i quite enjoyed. Back to SE5 for a play through.

 

[Bugg]

I've been looking forward to this. This is about the Switch version, but I picked it up for my Steam Deck to take on the (loooong) flight next week. Should pass a few hours. It's also cheaper on Steam (currently a tenner).