What game are you playing now?

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by Kojack »

Lots of Lords Of The Fallen playing. I'm enjoying it.
It's a shame the magic system is limited. There's 3 spell circles, each with 4 spells. But you can only learn one circle. Each spell has 3 levels. It's very easy to max out all spells early, then have no more progress for the rest of the game. Attributes and level are uncapped, but spells aren't.

I'm doing most of my combat with the Clawfinger (a weapon used by one of the bosses). It's a huge scythe, it's light attack is VERY slow but hard hitting (useless in agile combat, only good for sneaking up on people), but it's heavy attack is long range and doesn't need line of sight (it makes a giant blade stab out of the ground under an enemy). I just target someone, run back a bit and stab them over and over before they can reach me. If they get close (it only does 40-80 damage), I fire a ram spell (200+ damage) at them. If they are fast and my spell isn't charged, I swap to a fiery staff.
7 of the 11 bosses defeated.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by Kojack »

I'm now on The Witness.
So far: 219 puzzles solved, 5 audio logs and 4 of the other things (to say what they are might spoil their existence).

I'm not sure what to think of it though. The puzzles haven't bored me yet (even after 219 of them). The world looks amazing, I love the art style and the detail. But the two seem disconnected.
I'm sure there's some story that ties it all together, but so far it's a bit like taking Bioshock, stripping out all weapons, items, enemies, and having the point of the game be doing the hacking pipe mini game while looking at nice scenery. Or maybe golf is more appropriate, the ball/club/hole are an artificial gameplay element added over the natural world of the course. But if you just did indoor golf (so isolate the gameplay elements) it would lose the part where you are strolling through nice environments to the next tee.

On the technical side: I got the DRM free version from Humble Store. Why does it require me to reboot after installing? How many games still do that? Why does it silently crash if I don't use the explorer right click "Run as Administrator" option?

Anyway... back to it. Two of my coworkers are raving about it and I need to beat them (they had a day head start on me)
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by c6burns »

Kojack wrote: On the technical side: I got the DRM free version from Humble Store. Why does it require me to reboot after installing? How many games still do that? Why does it silently crash if I don't use the explorer right click "Run as Administrator" option?
Don't you need to have a registry entry in order to have permission on your application's directory under Program Files? I remember something stupid about this from last time I made an installer. I bet the game is trying to read/write to a config file there and doesn't have permission. Seems a few games also have issues saving (to user's appdata folder) unless running as admin also ... probably another registry key. Windows loves its registry keys :lol:

Has anyone played the new Tomb Raider? I don't have time to play it, but it is so impressive looking.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by Kojack »

Yep, it's probably a file permission thing. It's just odd to see a game that gets it wrong.

I really want to reverse engineer their landscape, but I don't want to spoil things! Same as Soma, although it had a clear end, while some of these puzzles in The Witness may take me a long time to finish.

I'm also playing using just memory. I'm not using paper notes, screenshots, etc, which is slowing me down on some of the bigger puzzles.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by Kojack »

Current Witness progress: 296 solved +26 other things.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by cybereality »

Playing the Ghost in the Shell shooting game. It's actually really cool and perfect for me.

Started Last of Us Remastered on PS4, but I've been pretty stuck on the PC recently.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by mkultra333 »

Replaying some old games I liked before getting anything new. Redid Dead Rising 2 for the 3rd time, amazing how much easier things are when you know the tricks. Starting from scratch, I breezed through all the psychopath fights a rescued a lot more survivors than previous attempts. Only really difficult fights were the final two psychopaths, and I still beat them much faster than previously. Really enjoyed it though, it's funny how much I disliked this game when I first played it.

Now I'm re-doing GTA V. Again I'm amazed at how awesome it looks, especially in 3D Vision stereoscopic. It's so atmospheric, I like just walking down the street at night, looking at the lights and listening to the sounds of the city. It's so amazing having this well-formed, living city sitting there on my little computer. Admittedly I know it's all fake, the buildings are just empty boxes and when I stop looking at things, they cease to exist anymore. But it feels alive. It bodes well for the future of open worlds.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by spacegaier »

mkultra333 wrote:Now I'm re-doing GTA V. Again I'm amazed at how awesome it looks, especially in 3D Vision stereoscopic. It's so atmospheric, I like just walking down the street at night, looking at the lights and listening to the sounds of the city. It's so amazing having this well-formed, living city sitting there on my little computer. Admittedly I know it's all fake, the buildings are just empty boxes and when I stop looking at things, they cease to exist anymore. But it feels alive. It bodes well for the future of open worlds.
Had the same feeling with GTA V (although minus 3D stereoscopic). The open world feeling is getting better and better. I also really enjoy those different styles of scenery / pace (big city vs. more rural).
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by Kojack »

I've been playing Dying Light The Following.
I was skeptical of turning a finely tuned parkour game into a hybrid parkour / driving game, but it works. The driving mechanics feel good, smashing through fences and ploughing through fields (and zombies) is fun.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by cybereality »

Started the new Shadowrun Hong Kong expansion. Not very long, but seems of equal quality to the rest of the series. Good stuff.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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I just installed Star Citizen. It's been free this week (probably ending very soon, not sure).

On foot:
Movement was bad. It's jerky and laggy. Turning causes your head to jump around due to the camera being attached to a character animation. It feels like playing Operation Flashpoint (great game, but had horrible character control).
I did some port option thing that put me in a small room. I ran out an explored a station a little bit. I got outside and found a bunch of ships. I couldn't get in an. I eventually discovered my suit had engines and I flew to the roof of a large ship. The ship took off, killing me. The camera went third person and my body drifted away while spinning, but my helmet didn't spin (it was camera aligned).

I then discovered that you have to go to a console in a certain room and request a ship. Every ship I tried said it was busy. I finally got one. I went outside to find it.
I got in the ship. I only knew where the entrance to the ship was by watching somebody else get in the same kind of ship.
Things were very jerky. I turned on fraps to get a framerate display: it was at 15fps (sometimes reaching 22 if nothing was on screen). That's 15fps on a Geforce 980 at 1680x1050 with all options on default. Wait, is this game using Nvidia Hairworks? :)
Turning around was horrible due to the bad framerate. The ship surged forward and paused continuously. Just looking around while flying above the station made the game stutter.

I tried another mode: some city thing you run around. That worked better, 45-50fps. Still pretty poor for a simplistic FPS. Nothing to do here it seems, just run around a city. I couldn't find anything to actually do so I quit.

I tried the Hanger mode. There was some medium ship in there. The decals on the hanger floor were z fighting, they'd appear and disappear as I moved around.
The hanger floor tiles seemed to have out of sync mip maps. The largest mip map had just a bare floor panel, but the next down mip map had big metal bolt things in the corners. So detail actually disappeared as I got closer.
I walked under the ship. Pressing jump while under it resulted in my head going through the floor (so I could see inside of the ship) and my body getting stuck for a few seconds. Yay, I have the super power of moving through solid matter!

I went back to the port and requested a different ship. This one had a big round door on the side. I opened it and climbed inside. I pressed forwards and I popped up through the roof and got flung to the side.
I took off. I turned around. As soon as the station came into view, the game froze. After a minute or so I killed it with task manager, it didn't seem to be loading anything, just locked up.

Is this really the game that people are paying thousands for? From my short experience it's crap. Runs bad, feels bad.
To be completely honest, I prefer X Rebirth to this, and that's really saying something.

I've got an urge for space combat now, maybe I'll reinstall X3 Albion Prelude.

Or go back to the greatest space sim: Independence War 2!
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by Kojack »

Star Citizen made me spend money after all: I just bought Elite Horizons. :)
I have issues with Elite Dangerous, especially the price of Elite Horizons, but it's mostly a polished game.

I just don't understand how Star Citizen can take a successful and high quality first person shooter engine (CryEngine) and make it suck horribly at first person.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by mkultra333 »

Wrote a post about how much I'm bored by and hating Alien Isolation, but the forum ate my post by some kind of time out or connection error when I pressed submit.. This site does that a lot these days.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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Enjoying Alien Isolation slightly more now. Even saw the alien! Visually, game looks great, also sounds great and captures the feel of the original Alien and Aliens movies very well. On the downside, it's way too much of a puzzle game for my liking. It's all "hunt for item to active machine to open door to new section" stuff. And it makes me repeat long parts over and over because I die a lot and the save points are far apart, I hate that.

Needs more survival horror, less maze puzzling.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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I can't do Alien Isolation. I get too bored. I'm too impatient.

I think this game would really appeal to some people. It's an extreme sneaking game. I like sneaking a little bit, but the punishment for getting caught in Alien Isolation is death, there's little slack. At first the fear is exciting, but after a short while, sitting in a cupboard or a vent waiting for the alien or the androids to go away gets boring, especially when I sneak out but then have to run back and hide in the same spot and wait another minute.

Also I hate not ever properly knowing where I'm supposed to go next. The schematic map is bad, the missions vague. Trying to find some hidden exit at the same time as constantly hiding is a drag.

It's frustrating because the game world looks awesome and is very atmospheric. It's times like this I wish every game gave you the source code. I'd make it so I could clobber androids with my wrench, that'd be fun. And add a guide line that lead me by the nose from one objective to the next. That'd make the hiding much more fun, since I'd know where I wanted to go once the alien turned it's back.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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mkultra333 wrote:At first the fear is exciting, but after a short while, sitting in a cupboard or a vent waiting for the alien or the androids to go away gets boring, especially when I sneak out but then have to run back and hide in the same spot and wait another minute.
That's what put me off. I haven't played it yet (I do own it on steam, got it in a sale I think), seeing youtube videos of people just waiting for the alien to leave a room but it keeps running around in circles. I don't like that it sounds like the Alien always knows roughly where you are.

I tried to play Blades Of Time. Started it, got into the gameplay and my character just runs in circles. Oh great, another game that can't handle more than one direct input device plugged in. Skipping for now.

I tried Dragon's Dogma again. I really want to like that game, but something about the interface and controls is putting me off. I love the hilarity of being able to climb on monsters and pick up/throw people. The pawn mechanic is interesting.

Been playing a bunch of Elite Dangerous.
Yay, I finally got an Asp Explorer. I've upgraded it a bit too.
But even after a week of playing Horizons hasn't made a difference. All I do is fly to a resource zone, kill bounties until my hull is damaged or I run out of multicannon ammo, then fly back to the station. I do that over and over. The trading system is annoying (X series does that SO much better). Missions are pointless (kill 25 pirates for 300000 credits? I can kill 10 bounties for over a million credits). I decided to try exploring instead, but then I read a subreddit about elite explorers, way too much effort involved for very little reward.

I landed on a planet. It looked bumpy. Nothing to do, so I took off again. Twice more I flew near planets, but the only things on the surface had restricted zones around them (got a warning if I entered their airspace). Planets seem pointless. I didn't bother driving a car around.

I've swapped to Open play instead of Solo. So far in the last 9 days I haven't seen a single human player. I'm just a couple of jumps from Sol, so not way out in space somewhere remote.

Star Citizen is broken and unfinished. Elite Dangerous gets boring. I wish the creators of Independence War 2 got back together and did a kickstarter for a third in the series, I'd fund the hell out of that! Egosoft are apparently working on a new game, but X Rebirth is the most disappointing game I've ever bought on Steam, so I don't trust them anymore. I'll wait for reviews before buying their next game.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

Post by cybereality »

Started playing Gears of War Ultimate Edition for Windows 10.

Was excited that it was the first DirectX 12 game, but it doesn't look that much different or much better than I remember the game looking on Xbox 360.

Still a fun game, for sure.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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Mad Max was on sale yesterday, and it's on my wishlist, so I grabbed it. So far it looks fine. Fighting is fun, very Batman-ish. Driving is fun. World looks good and captures the feel of the Mad Max universe.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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Yep, definitely enjoying Mad Max. I find it difficult to get into games these days, takes a bit of effort. But Mad Max is fun. Nice big world and lots of different things to do. I've barely touched the main storyline, mostly I'm just completing lots of other tasks like blowing up oil depots, clearing mine fields, fighting at various small camps and taking out the occasional convoy. Plus constantly being distracted when other cars suddenly attack. More than half of the game takes place in the car, the play mechanism of ramming and using a harpoon works really well. Quite satisfying to gradually build up my wreck of a car too. Driving is great, kicking up lots of dirt, engine revving.

It's a clever idea to have Max usually driving around with his mechanic "Chum Bucket" in the back. It means you can get in a good car fight, almost have your "Magnum Opus" vehicle explode, then jump out and grab another car to continue the battle while the mechanic repairs the Magnum Opus there and then. Wreck the new car, then run back to the Magnum Opus, trying not to get run over, and jump back in your main vehicle. It means fights are exciting and difficult without constantly dying.

The game also does a very good job of maintaining a "Mad Max" feel and look, at the same time as adding a lot of original elements. I'm a huge fan of the movies so that's important.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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So... Dark Souls 3.

I'm playing this game very different to DS1 and 2. In those two, I tried to find a balance of armour and weight, leaning more towards armour. My combat was shield and defence heavy.
Now I'm playing DS3 unarmoured. I've got a shield and a broadsword, but no armour of any kind, just running around in cloth pants. Enemies kill me in a couple of hits regardless of what I wear, so I'm going near naked to get the most speed.

Plus I'm up to the location of the third boss and so far the equipment I've found sucks and I can't upgrade anything (too few shards).
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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I'm moving house and almost all my stuff is at the new location. I'm still at the old one for a few days doing cleaning, and I've only got my laptop. Laptop is pretty old, but has a Radeon HD5650, passmark 509, so better than an old integrated graphics card.

Need something to kill the time in the evenings, so decided to play some Stalker, SOC. Haven't played in years. I'm impressed at the laptop, it's handling it better than I thought it would. Set the screen to 1024x786, high graphics with full dynamic lighting, and framerate seems to be fine. Higher resolutions start to struggle though.

I'm playing on the easiest setting because I'm not looking for a challenge or bragging rights, I just want to wander around and have fun, do some sight seeing and have some casual fun. But I'm remembering just how horrible the difficulty settings on these "Russian psionic radioactive post apocalypse" games are. Even on the lowest difficulty, enemies take a lot of shots to die and are killing me with annoying regularity. I'm of the opinion that the easiest difficulty should be playable by 4 year old children and 90 year old grand parents on their first go.

Still fun though.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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Ok, Stalker is a bad choice for a few evenings of casual sight seeing. Having had my frustration levels driven to maximum by every mission leading to a deadly radiation zone and every bandit encounter resulting in an hour long struggle, I've given up. Stalker is strictly for serious play.

Giving Quake 4 a shot instead, will see how the old laptop handles that.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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Been playing Chronos on the Oculus Rift. It's really great. I'm up to the boss, but I'll probably finish it over the weekend.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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Still haven't finished Mad Max, but after 40 hours I need a break. Considered Dark Souls 3 but I'm too poor. Decided to replay Dead Space 2. I think Dead Space 1 and 2 are just about the best horror shooters I've ever played.

But some idiot executive decided to bork Dead Space 2. They added some free DLC you can't get rid of. At the first shop in the game, you suddenly have access to every suit of armor and every gun, plus variations on those weapons, for free. I can just imagine the exec saying "Give them the free stuff, people love free stuff!" But actually it destroys the balance of the game, totally overpowering your character early in the game and making the finding of the new weapons pointless. Zero character progression, because you start at maximum strength. How braindead is that?

Fortunately I was able to hunt down a version 1 exe of the game, so I'm playing that. First shop has just the basic beginner suit and ammo for your starting gun.
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Re: What game are you playing now?

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Yeah, getting too much stuff just removes the game progression, there's no reward.

I got a Steam Controller today.
They aren't available in Australia, Steam lists it as "Coming Soon". So I ordered one from Amazon.

I'm a strict PC gamer (and Pandora). I don't play phone games and I haven't owned a console since the Intellivision days. But I don't mind the Xbox 360 or Xbox One controllers on PC. I never liked gamepads before that. I currently prefer the Xbox One controller, it has a better dpad and joysticks than the 360 controller, but the shoulder buttons hurt my fingers if I hold them too long, and they are a bit jittery (holding left shoulder button for shield in Dark Souls 3 makes it ocassionally flicker between shield active and inactive, unless I push really hard).
I use the Xbox One controller is games like Dark Souls, Rayman, Lords Of The Fallen, etc.

So I was curious about the Steam Controller.

Hmm, it's... odd.

I've only tried it in Dark Souls 3 so far. I tried that one first because they were selling the game with the Controller as a bundle, so it must have good support for it (I didn't get the bundle).

There's no driver installation that I could see. I plugged in the receiver, turned on the controller and it was working.
The controller doesn't appear in the windows joystick config panel. Looks like non steam launched games won't even know it exists.
It's weird to have the controls shifted. For example, the Dpad is at the bottom left on 360 and One, but top left on Steam Controller. Same with the right side, the "stick" (really touch pad) and ABXY buttons are swapped. I don't think I can play Dark Souls like this, I have too much muscle memory playing on previous controllers. Maybe a new game would be better to start on, so I don't have an existing mindset in place.
The two paddles under the controller act as the X and B buttons (at least in Dark Souls, don't know yet if I can change that). But they are swapped. X is on the left for the top side buttons, but X is on the right paddle underneath.
Looking around with the right pad isn't too bad. Target locking doesn't feel as good though.
The biggest problem is the left pad. It does the Dpad actions (up, down, left, right), but it is very sensitive. The slightest touch of the controller is counted as pressing the Dpad, even bumping the edge of the pad with a finger while reaching for the left menu button will result in my character swapping his weapon (the pad and button are only maybe 5mm apart, there will be a lot of accidental presses).

I really can't imagine I'll use the Steam Controller for Dark Souls. Unless I can reconfigure it (maybe change the left pad to be movement and the left stick to dpad).
But the mouse control of Steam worked really well. I might try a mouse based game next, playing on my tv.
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