What Game Are You Currently Playing?

For me, I need to be leading the game, not it leading me. I really don’t want a game that’s continually telling me to go and do things, partly because I don’t have the time for that, and partly because it strikes me as unnecessarily stressful (even in games when the aim is to destroy everyone). I’m also not keen on any game that includes running out of fuel as a mechanic. Fine, it’s realistic, but it’s pretty un-fun.

I suppose No Man’s Sky is in an awkward situation: to be more enjoyable, it needs to either give you a heap of gear and money at the start, or to make its world less superficial and more engrossing. Making it less superficial would involve a lot of extra programming, which I can’t see happening. However, giving you a load of extra stuff at the start would take away a lot of the incentive to keep playing it.
 
No. Played the original trilogy, and really liked FemShep, but felt no desire to get Andromeda.

From what I've seen, it's a downward step for the series, but would've had less vitriol if it'd been the first entry in a new series rather than following on from a great trilogy. But you can probably get it for sixpence now, so...
 
For me, I need to be leading the game, not it leading me. I really don’t want a game that’s continually telling me to go and do things, partly because I don’t have the time for that, and partly because it strikes me as unnecessarily stressful (even in games when the aim is to destroy everyone). I’m also not keen on any game that includes running out of fuel as a mechanic. Fine, it’s realistic, but it’s pretty un-fun.

I suppose No Man’s Sky is in an awkward situation: to be more enjoyable, it needs to either give you a heap of gear and money at the start, or to make its world less superficial and more engrossing. Making it less superficial would involve a lot of extra programming, which I can’t see happening. However, giving you a load of extra stuff at the start would take away a lot of the incentive to keep playing it.

At the moment I have finally got round to Rimworld. Which you could conceivably have a similar sort of issue with. In that you are constantly having to deal with issues thrown at you as well as keeping food, temperature and loads of other issues at good levels.

Except it's more of a 'keeping spinning plates going' sort of game that just gets richer and richer the longer you survive.

I'm adoring it at the moment.

I suppose the problem with NMS (I've played a good 60 hours + when it first came out) is it's so shallow in comparison and you have to constantly resource grab to just do basic stuff.

RW could be
 
I find the idea of what makes a good game really interesting, especially since views can differ so much. I think one of the things I want – although it’s a sign of one particular style, rather than of quality – is the option to just wander around and experience things at my own pace. That requires the option to wander about – often, but not necessarily, in a sandbox kind of way – and there being things worth seeing, which I suppose means that the setting needs to be detailed enough to justify the wandering (Fallout 3 and 4 score very highly on this, and Skyrim does to a slightly lesser extent).

The problem with No Man’s Sky is that you spend so much time trying to get off the planet, it begs the question of why you’d want to land there in the first place – which is the whole point of the game.
 
One thing I found interesting was with Kingdom Come Deliverance. Disregarding the bugs, opinion was generally very in favour of the unforgiving nature and the historical realism, but also united against the difficult save system (which could be fairly easily resolved by spending an hour in a bed at an inn).

People may tolerate or even like tough gameplay, but difficulty saving is less likely to be forgiven.
 
I find the idea of what makes a good game really interesting, especially since views can differ so much. I think one of the things I want – although it’s a sign of one particular style, rather than of quality – is the option to just wander around and experience things at my own pace. That requires the option to wander about – often, but not necessarily, in a sandbox kind of way – and there being things worth seeing, which I suppose means that the setting needs to be detailed enough to justify the wandering (Fallout 3 and 4 score very highly on this, and Skyrim does to a slightly lesser extent).

Seriously, give Prey a go (assuming you haven't already). You can wander around and experience things and, as it's set on a space station, the environment's open but it's not sprawling or daunting.

There's a demo available on Steam - it's got to be worth a look!

Plus, if you buy it from Green Man Gaming before 4pm tomorrow, 2nd August, it's only a tenner (you get a Steam code for it) :)

Prey | PC - Steam | Game Keys


 
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Unfortunately, Prey is too modern to work on my rather dated PC.

That's a shame. Do you play No Man's Sky on console? Because that seems more demanding than Prey on my pc, for some reason.
 
My MMO trio have packed up again and we've now moved onto Destiny 2. Sometimes you want to RPG it in fantasy lands, other times you want to just shoot endless aliens in the face. The Halo games were one of the first shooters I played so Destiny always feels comfortable and familiar.

Currently chain-queuing PvP battles.
 
Yes, No Man's Sky was console.

I recently discovered a strange, entertaining game called No-One Lives Forever. This dates back from the early 2000s, and is a tongue-in-cheek parody of a 1960s spy film. It plays as a cross between Deus Ex and a third-person shooter and in that department is reasonably good. The retro design is very decent and, unusually, you play a female agent of the Emma Peel variety. Quite entertaining.
 
Oh dear. I had it all planned. I was going to finish Prey and the Dishonored DLCs and then play Dishonored 2. And then this comes along and ruins it all.

 
^^ Thoroughly enjoying my first few hours with Star Traders: Frontiers. It's a full-on science fiction RPG from Ye Olde Skool: text/stat heavy, basic but colourful graphics, turn-based combat (ship-vs-ship and crew-vs-enemy), trading, smuggling, pirating, spying, bounty hunting. The list goes on.

The writing seems decent, too. The first quest line I did - the one you're handed right at the start, which you can choose NOT to do if you so prefer - quickly expanded into several different sub-plots/quests and ended up going in a direction I did not expect. I would like to play it through again and see what happens if I choose a different path.

Anyway, now I appear to be free to go where I like and do what I want, although it does dangle other potential quest lines and contacts in front of you if you want direction.

I'm playing a smuggler. My name's Reynolds. My ship's called Serenity. What's not to like? :)
 
Just completed my second playthrough of Pillars of Eternity. Mildly miffed because I was just a bit too weak to have a crack at a certain high level optional boss, and much too weak to defeat the Master Below. Trying a new game on a higher difficulty (not the top rank) and already finding it noticeably tougher, but that's probably just teething problems. If needs be, I can always hire some more minions.
 

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