What Are You Playing? - The Official Thread

[Master_Craig]

Picked up Middle-earth: Shadow of War for PS4 yesterday.

So far, it's good. It feels a lot harder than the first one. I do enjoy slaying the orcs, but I have gotten myself killed a few times when I encounter captains. Don't expect them to be so difficult and how many bloody minions they have with them. I remember being able to kick so much arse in the first game, this time it's a tad different.

I heard the story isn't great, but some games we don't play for the story, right?

 

[Paul Tamburro]

I'm playing South Park: The Fractured But Whole this week (expect a review up on GR on Monday). There are toilet mechanics.

 

[Master_Craig]

Still playing Shadows of War. It's pretty fun, but the plot is less than memorable and the game is starting to get repetitive.

 

[MattAY]

Playing The Evil Within 2 - it's pretty fun, playing it on Nightmare difficulty makes it much better!

Chapter 2 is awesome, chucks you in at the deep end. The open world gameplay starts at chapter 3, and it's pretty good. Sneaking around and getting looting rewards including sniper rifles and shotguns, so there's plenty of rewards.

It does slow down the narrative though, which is a bit of a bumskin.

 

[Starling]

Playing Breath of the Wild. Almost went insane with frustration.

I saw a weird swirl on the beach on the map and went to investigate. Got to the middle, saw the sphere platform and already was annoyed to have to go back and get the shrine ball from somewhere. When I got it and transported it 80% of the way through all the enemies and thunder strom in the way when suddenly: Blood Moon time! And do you know what Blood Moon does? It not only brings back all the enemies, it also reset the damn ball! Aaaaaarghhh!

 

[MattAY]

Whilst that does suck, it's also pretty fucking funny

 

[UghRochester]

I've blindrunning a romhack of SMW called "Grand Poo World" by BarbarousKing. He's a well known Super Mario Maker creator GrandPooBear, CarlSagan42 loves. This romhack is absolutely difficult. To give you an idea. Here are a couple of clips of a level. One is the checkpoint nai, the other is the clear nai.
https://clips.twitch.tv/MoralPatientPrariedogCopyThis
https://clips.twitch.tv/StormyCleanYakUncleNox

 

[The_bad_who]

Found out I had Dead Space 3 on my shelves and I've never played it. I think I switched to PS4 at the same time I received it as a gift so it went under the radar. With the closure of Visceral game, I felt like I needed to at least try it. Anyways, I popped it in and started to game to realise I received that special limited something edition and got plenty of guns and suits and whatnot. Got the gun called Evangelizer, and it's seriously OP and makes the game easier. I missed that feeling in the original Deadspace where every step you took was hurting and my heart would stop everytime an enemy appears. It's mostly an action game with an horror atmosphere.

 

[MattAY]

^ Yeah with DS3 the horror toned down majorly because of the gun customisation you can do and stuff. It gets quite good towards the end as new enemies appear - They freaked me out.

 

[MattAY]

Got Assassins Creed Origins, it's actually really good!

Bit weird though, it's like they've taken things from other games and placed it in this! You'll recognise the quest menus and "question mark" locations are like The Wticher 3, the tagging of enemies and sneaking around like Far Cry, the slow-mo and white arc motif that displays when you just get spotted from MGS5.
The upgrade system is more fun as well, it's more like an RPG where you level up and earn ability points for use in a skill tree. I'm a big fan of this.

They went on about having no mini map on the screen, and I tell you what, it's makes a huge difference. When in a base etc with enemies walking about, I usually check the mpa for the red dots etc. But with nothing to look at I'm way more focused on the screen. Whilst the eagle Senu is tagging enemies, I do still tend to miss a couple of guards so I have to stay on my toes!

The graphics are stunning, there's a photo mode and I've taken a few where I've been swept away by scenery I'm in.

Combat is a little simple, it's a lot of hack and slash at the moment, albeit I've not battled much...I tend to play more stealthily.

And the story is good, I found I liked Bayek very quickly. He's a cool guy, and has pretty good voice acting too.

Also - Ancient Egypt!
The world map is massive, and unlike previous AC games, it's well saturated with missions, tombs, and general discoverables!

 

[COMaestro]

Got Assassins Creed Origins, it's actually really good!

Is there modern day stuff to the game? If so, how much, is it interesting, or is it just glossed over to get to the good stuff?

Also, do you feel you need to be familiar with all the previous entries to the franchise or can you just start here? I've played most of them, admittedly, but not the last three games, despite owning one of them.

 

[MattAY]

Is there modern day stuff to the game? If so, how much, is it interesting, or is it just glossed over to get to the good stuff?

I think story-wise I'm not that far ahead. I've had one modern day moment, and it let you go back into the Animus pretty much straight away after being introduced to the modern day character. But I did notice once I was back in Egypt, I can exit and re-enter the Animus as often as I'd like via the menu...so I wonder if this is a sign that there may be more stuff to do in the modern gameplay later on? Otherwise, what's the point in that haha?

Also, do you feel you need to be familiar with all the previous entries to the franchise or can you just start here? I've played most of them, admittedly, but not the last three games, despite owning one of them.

Not really, I think the part you'll have most difficulty with is knowing the names from the modern stuff from previous games. Basically notable Abstergo employees! But there's a computer you can use which actually gives you a summary of each character and what happened etc, so you'll be up to scratch in no time!

Forgot to mention - the OST is immense.
Youtube "Ezio's Family - Origins version" and the goosebumps will do the talking haha.

 

[used44]

I'm also playing Origins and it sounds like I'm about as far in as you are. It's so so so so Witcher 3. But that's good!

I like it a lot so far. I think the only two things I dislike are the pulled-in camera during combat (not used to combat at all yet) and how few of the main story missions have been sneaky base takedown stuff. Need more of that!

 

[Master_Craig]

I'm playing two games at the moment.

I got The Frozen Wilds DLC for Horizon Zero Dawn and I'm really enjoying it.

I also bought Star Wars: Battlefront II (hear me out). I bought it for a one day sale of $62 AUD / $46 USD (reduced from $79 - 99 AUD / $59 USD - $74 USD) and I used a gift card I had, which had $64 AUD on it. Since EB Games has a seven day return policy, I may return it once I've completed the campaign mode.

While I'm glad to see the microtransactions have been removed, as well as the hero prices being drastically reduced, I fear that in due time, EA Games will soon re-implement it.

That being said, my thoughts so far...

Multiplayer is fun. Galactic Conquest is good, but hard, and I absolutely love starfighter assault. I'm surprisingly good at it.

The single player campaign is... okay. I have some issues with it, but I won't get into it just yet.

 

[MattAY]

Got Nier: Automata on a discount price.
Gameplay is so different (Platinum Games style) from the first Nier, but everything else is positively familiar to the first game - The world, the stories, the easter eggs, the sidequests - fucking sad some of them! The music is great, again, similar OST to the first game.

I enjoy the bosses in this game the most, really fun.

Plus it has the whole multiple ending thing going on. I completed the game with 2B, and in the new game plus it's slightly different as I'm playing from another's perspective as 9S. There will probably be more, as there are still many unanswered questions!

EDIT: Ok, apparently there are 26 endings haha!
Some are random though...I just ate a fish from an NPC and got an ending, quite funny.

 

[Master_Craig]

I recently finished both Star Wars: Battlefront II (single player campaign) and the DLC pack of Horizon Zero Dawn, The Frozen Wilds.

Battlefront II was such a disappointment. Returned it within a week for a full refund.

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds was epic. Highly recommend!

Right now, I'm back to playing some Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

 

[COMaestro]

I've been working on getting every trophy for Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness on my Vita. It's a visual novel, so there's a bunch of endings and stuff and I've ultimately had to resort to a guide, yet I still seem to be missing some things. I've heard it can be a bit glitchy on the unlocks, so I might just need to redo all the paths for one of the characters to finish this off. Storywise the game is okay. I haven't seen the anime that the game world it based on, so it was a touch confusing at first, but it gets clear after you go through it a bit.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Looking to get on Frozen Wilds soon. Mostly kicking around in Overwatch, Destiny or Fortnite Battle Royale (one first place finish in squad), tons of second place finishes in Solo

 

[Battousai8]

PUBG and Fortnite (both BR and PvE). Already burnt on the slow progression in Battleflop 2 and CoDWW2. The dynamic feeling you get each round of the battle royale format keeps me interested and Epic really went all out with the details on the PvE in Fortnite. Other developers *cough* EA/Ubi *cough* should take notice. They are extremely responsive to their community and for all intents and purposes, there's a two way communication between the player base and developer (and they listen!). I originally was only interested in the BattleRoyale (free) part of Fortnite, but the polish of the game and their responsiveness made me WANT TO GIVE THEM MONEY so I bought the PvE and even a few V Bucks. What a groundbreaking concept! Produce a product high enough in quality that people actually willingly hand you money because they thoroughly enjoy what you are providing.

 

[used44]

I'm 35+ hours into Assassin's Creed Origins and I'm sad to admit that I started skipping dialogs and most cutscenes a dozen hours ago.

It borrows everything from The Witcher except for interesting NPCs and quests.

Kinda just plowing through it at this point, to finish the main story and move on to something new.