What Are You Playing? - The Official Thread

[Ivory_Soul]

I'm on a Gears of War kick in anticipation of Gears 5. I'm playing through Gears 2 on my Xbox One X and Gears 4 and Ultimate Edition on my PC. I'm also going back and playing some older games such as Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) on PC with fixes to play it on ultrawide display, FOV changes, and making it playable on Windows 10. I played them on Xbox 360 over 10 years ago but totally forgot what they were like.

I just subjugated myself to the torture of Too Human and it is literally one of the worst games I ever played. Completely broken, unbalanced, and literally unfinished.

I don't have much time left before I start my new job next weekend, so this is the last big push of games.

 

[Paradox]

A feed ago I had got the urge to play a Mario game so I’d went out an bought a Switch and Mario Odyssey. That ran its course and I’d really been wanting to play Spider-Man so the other day I went out and bought that and a PS4 as well as The Last of Us. So now my console trinity is complete. Spidey is pretty fun so far. I’m still getting acclimated to the controls so I’m mostly playing like a drunk Spider-Man. So far it really is like how the Arkham series was for Batman. I’ll probably kill a lot of time with this game today.

 

[Ivory_Soul]

A feed ago I had got the urge to play a Mario game so I’d went out an bought a Switch and Mario Odyssey. That ran its course and I’d really been wanting to play Spider-Man so the other day I went out and bought that and a PS4 as well as The Last of Us. So now my console trinity is complete. Spidey is pretty fun so far. I’m still getting acclimated to the controls so I’m mostly playing like a drunk Spider-Man. So far it really is like how the Arkham series was for Batman. I’ll probably kill a lot of time with this game today.

If you're just now getting a PS4 you have to play all the good exclusives. God of War, Until Dawn, Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, Uncharted: Lost Legacy, Uncharted 4, Gran Turismo Sport (if you're into racing), Killzone: Shadow Fall, Ratchet & Clank, Bloodborne (if you like Dark Souls), Days Gone (it really is good, don't listen to the reviews), Everybody's Golf (if you like golf), Gravity Rush Remastered and GR2, Tearaway Unfolded, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last Guardian, Shadow of the Colossus, The Order (don't listen to the reviews, it has a great story and characters, just not much gameplay). Just to name some!

 

[Paradox]

Absolutely there’s a lot of games I need to catch up on. The God of Wars and Uncharteds will be played at some point as well as some of those others. Plus now I’m prepared for the Final Fantasy VII remake when it starts dropping next year.

 

[COMaestro]

Finished Arkham City New Game+, though I do need to rescue one or two more political prisoners from being mugged to get the Perfect Knight Day 2 trophy. Then I just need to mess around with my time settings to get the Calendar Man trophy, and I'll be on to the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC.

 

[Master_Craig]

Paradox - did you get a PS4 Pro?

Spider-Man is such a great game. It's among my top three favourite games of 2018 (along with Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War, Sony killed it last year with the PS exclusives).

I'm currently playing Prey for PC. I'm really enjoying it now. Admittingly, Prey had a slow start and it felt quite difficult, but I am getting closer to the end of the game and I'm really liking it. I've put almost 20 hours into the game. I'm playing Prey on my PC, which is a 2013 Metabox gaming laptop, generously donated to me by my oldest brother.

But speaking of PCs... my tax return came in and I've got the okay from my partner to put my tax return towards a new gaming PC! In the next few weeks, I'll be buying parts to try and build a new PC.

My budget is about $1500 - $1700 AUD ($1000 - $1150 USD) and my goal is to run modern day AAA games at high/ultra settings, 1080p resolution at 60 FPS. From my current PC (2012), I can recycle a few parts, such as two SATA HDD's (1TB and 3TB) as well as my DVD disc drive. The rest however will have to be completely replaced.

 

[Paradox]

“Paradox - did you get a PS4 Pro?”

I’m not sure to be honest. It’s a refurbished 1 terabyte.

And I’ve been getting the urge to go back and revisit Prey myself. I need to do a play through with the alien powers.

 

[Master_Craig]

“Paradox - did you get a PS4 Pro?”

I’m not sure to be honest. It’s a refurbished 1 terabyte.

And I’ve been getting the urge to go back and revisit Prey myself. I need to do a play through with the alien powers.

On the left is a standard PS4 (which lately, has a more smoother appearance and often comes with a 1TB HDD, rather than 500GB) and on the right, is a PS4 Pro (also 1TB HDD). Physically, the difference between the two is that the PS4 pro is bigger and looks like it has three shelves on it, if that makes sense, while the regular PS4 only has two.

In terms of hardware, the PS4 Pro offers the opportunity for 4K resolution gaming (if you have a 4K TV), or the ability to play a lot of PS4 games at 60 FPS, instead of the typical 30 FPS. The PS4 Pro also allows for HDR imagery but again, only if your TV can support it. As they both run similar hard drives, there's no difference with load times.

I'd love to have a PS4 Pro but I can't justify the price, plus I already have a working PS4, which I bought back in November 2013, Australia's PS4 launch date. If our PS4 ever dies, I'd probably replace it with a pro.

As for Prey, I don't have any alien powers either, but some of them do sound really fun. I imagine some of those powers would be so useful against certain types of Typhon enemies that you might encounter. I'm hoping to finish Prey by this coming weekend.

 

[Paradox]

Ah I see. I just have the basic then. Which is fine. I do have a 4K tv but it’s on the cheaper end of the spectrum. A Pro would be nice but maybe I’ll upgrade down the line after I spring for a nicer tv. My Xbox One is 4K capable so I’ll just stick with it for movies and such.

 

[Ivory_Soul]

Ah I see. I just have the basic then. Which is fine. I do have a 4K tv but it’s on the cheaper end of the spectrum. A Pro would be nice but maybe I’ll upgrade down the line after I spring for a nicer tv. My Xbox One is 4K capable so I’ll just stick with it for movies and such.

Xbox One S or X? The S is misleading as it doesn't render in 4K just upscales which is still nicer than native 1080p on a 4K TV. I bought a high end 65" LG OLED back in February (my dream TV) and my PS4 Pro and Xbox One X look amazing on it, however, the games released in the last two years that push the systems hard play and look way better on the upgraded consoles. It's like night and day. I honestly didn't think I'd notice but I do. While the One X doesn't render every game in 4K (and the PS4 Pro mostly renders in 2K or checkerboard 4K) it all just pops on an OLED TV.

Regardless, you're going to have fun outside of all the uppity technical crap that fanboys flame each other about endlessly on GameSpot and IGN. I personally use the PS4 Pro now for only PS4 exclusives, and the Xbox One X is my multi-platform console as everything runs better on it because it is more powerful than the PS4 Pro. I did this with the PS3 as everything looked better on it than Xbox 360 and same with the original Xbox.

 

[Paradox]

Again, I’m not entirely sure which Xbox One it is lol
My ex bought it for me last year and it plays my 4K movies so whatever it is I’m cool with it. I used to be one of those fanboys too way back in the Nintendo vs Sega debates and I trolled a bit against Xbox when it first came out for fun, but these days I’m like whatever, I’m just playing games to relax from life, I don’t care what it’s on or if it has the prettiest graphics or greatest processing power. Like you said, I’m gonna have fun regardless.

 

[Master_Craig]

Paradox, now that you've got a PS4, it's time you dive into some of those sweet PS4 exclusives!

- God of War;
- Spider-Man;
- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End;
- Uncharted: Nathan Drake Trilogy (Drake's Fortune, Among Thieves, Drake's Deception);
- Detroid: Become Human (if you're into story games like Heavy Rain);
- Shadow of the Colossus remaster.

You can try Days Gone as well, if you want to... but in my opinion, Days Gone was a disappointing mess. I honestly think you can give that one a miss.

 

[Master_Craig]

I used to be one of those fanboys too way back in the Nintendo vs Sega debates and I trolled a bit against Xbox when it first came out for fun, but these days I’m like whatever, I’m just playing games to relax from life, I don’t care what it’s on or if it has the prettiest graphics or greatest processing power. Like you said, I’m gonna have fun regardless.

Haha, I used to be one of those exact kids when I was younger. I was on team Nintendo.

I didn't start branching out until I was a little older. At age 11, my brothers and I got our first PC, with games like Duke Nukem 3D (censored version), Need for Speed, 3D Movie Maker, Diablo and Starcraft, the latter two I played online via 56k dial up. I remember the magic of playing Diablo II for the first time. That game was such a huge upgrade from the original.

We didn't get another non-Nintendo console until I was about 16. My brother got a PS2, which we started playing more often than our Game Cube because the truth is, the PS2 just simply had more games coming out to it and sadly, games stopped coming out for the Cube, which was so disappointing as the Cube was probably my favourite console.

 

[Paradox]

The GameCube was fun, but I got to the point where I never touched it and was only playing PS2, which I’d originally bought so I’d have a DVD player that occasionally played games.

Mine was always a Nintendo household too. Once I graduated and moved out I bought a PS1 and my fanboyism mostly melted away. When alone I’d spend the whole day playing Final Fantasy 7 and when friends were over we’d get drunk, fire up the 64 and play Mario Kart, GoldenEye, and Perfect Dark.

 

[COMaestro]

I've started playing Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry, which has been on my PS4 for quite a while now. I figured something relatively short would be a nice refresher after Arkham City.

I'll platinum Arkham City on Friday, when I visit Calendar Man for the last time.

 

[Master_Craig]

I wanted to try Freedom Cry, but I never got around to it. I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed IV: Blackflag, mostly or the pirating aspect.

My new PC arrived today, or at least all of the parts for it. I'm going to spend some time this week putting it all together, but realistically, given my lack of experience of building computers and my schedule, I doubt I'll have it ready until the weekend.

I have no idea what game(s) I'm going to try first on it.

 

[Paradox]

I’m still playing Spider-Man on PS4, but yesterday I bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch cause my girlfriend has always loved those games and it’s something for us to play together. It’s definitely fun, but I still feel Mario Kart 64 is the defining game of the series.

 

[Master_Craig]

I’m still playing Spider-Man on PS4, but yesterday I bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Switch cause my girlfriend has always loved those games and it’s something for us to play together. It’s definitely fun, but I still feel Mario Kart 64 is the defining game of the series.

God, I love Spider-Man on PS4.

I enjoy the Mario Kart games, but I've never been able to get into them like other people can. I'll play a race or two, but then I'll just feel bored. It's not at all a bad game, it's great, it's just me.

My new PC is finally up and running. I just need to do one more thing before I go ahead and start downloading/installing games. I need to partition a 3TB Seagate SATA HDD and then it's all good to go.

 

[Paradox]

Different stokes for different folks concerning Mario Kart. I myself have never really got into PC gaming. Starcraft or Empire Earth was probably the last PC games I played several years ago. I got into World of Warcraft for a couple months back then but got bored with it.

Spider-Man is amazing. I’m like 77% through the story so I’m getting towards the end. I think it’s cool they focused so much on a newer and lesser known villain like Mr. Negative. Watching the progression of Octavius from a brilliant scientist and mentor to what you know he’s to become is awesome but also sad. And Spidey’s interactions and involvement with Miles is very touching. I’d love for Miles to be the Spider-Man in a potential sequel. It’d open a whole new set of possible stories.

 

[Master_Craig]

Spider-Man for the PS4 is so good. The story is bloody brilliant and in my opinion, is probably the best, on-screen Spider-Man story ever.

I'm looking for a game to play on my new PC. I have two possible choices. Warhammer: Vermintide 2, or Remnant: From the Ashes.

The latter sounds fun, as it's a Dark Souls inspired game, but a third person shooter with up to three player co-op, set in a post apocalyptic world. The former is a first person Left 4 Dead style game, which my brother tells me that he'll play with me if I get it.

I have to sort out Internet, first. I can't plug an Ethernet cable into my PC due to the location of my computer, so I'm going to try wi-fi. I bought a WiFi Mesh Extender, so I hope it works! If it doesn't, back to the shop for a refund and to the drawing board for more ideas.