What game are you playing at the moment?

Eador Genesis Eador Genesis Eador Genesis

I thought 5 weeks of obsession leading to me finally winning a skirmish against "Competent" AI would cure me of this problem, but I am back at it. Best $4.79 I ever spent, ever.

:|

Well, I'm told it takes place inside the mind of a dying RL composer, so I am prepared for a downer ending. Should...should I worry beyond that?

I'm steeling myself to play episode 5 of The Walking Dead today. At the end of episode 4 I was shouting, "No! No! Oh shit! No!" I'm not sure I can deal with episode 5.

And continuing Persona 3 Portable. Just finished my third month and did the full moon boss. It went down like another chump. I guess I grind away too much so the bosses are too easy by the time I get to them.

You should instead prepare yourself for a nonsensical ending.

Isn't that something you do whenever playing a Japanese game?

Video games in general. Just prep for absurd/stupid ending and be pleasantly surprised when the last 5% of a game isn't shit.

Point taken, I can even back you up with some examples, like Halo and Gears of War.

Upon reflection limiting the nonsense to just the ending of Eternal Sonata is really selling it short.

XCOM and loving it. I mix in the occasional visit to Planetside 2 as well, but mostly XCOM. This new version hits all the right nostalgia notes, and I really like the whole base setup, situation room, and other new aspects. I know replayability will probably be limited as I'm already seeing familiar missions on just my first playthrough, but I'm getting enough hours and entertainment out of it to justify the $17.50 I spent and much more.

I am kind of hungering for a new RPG to play though. I should return to Skyrim, but will probably break out Risen, Drakensang or one of the other RPG purchases I've made in the past 12 months.

Lordy, if the Kingdom Hearts games didn't prepare me for that sort of madness, I don't know what would. These days, I'm just pleasantly surprised if I manage to get to the end of a game and complete it, instead of rage-quitting in frustration at the second to last boss. (Final Fantasy X, I am looking at YOU.)

Since finishing Hitman Absolution I've been meaning to transition to XCOM (finally) but have yet to do so. I'm thinking I might go back to Dead Space 2 with Dead Space 3 looming on the horizon.

Fallout 3, which I finally broke down and bought a few months ago when I built a new machine. It has been eating up most of my free time, but I've just about killed all the mutants I'm gonna kill.

Been tinkering with Civ 5 G&K, which I bought during the Amazon sale a week or two ago. Don't know yet if it's going to stick, though. I have loved the civ series from the very beginning, but this one still has not captured my attention like Civ 4 did.

After that, I'm deciding whether or not to jump on the Skyrim train, or FO:NV. Magic, or guns? It's a tough choice.

They're both great games, so flip a coin! Then play the one that loses next.

Eternal Sonata is a long fever dream (which is good-bad AND bad-bad, it likes to shake things up. I never found any of it to be just good.) and the ending is fucking horrible. The combat is really fun, though.

EDIT: I'm not sure why Ingmar did a giant :| about it, though, it's not like HE played through it. He just watched ME do it. ;) The ending really was terrible, though, terrible enough that I went from "this is bizarre but I might kind of like it? Maybe?" to "FUCK YOU GAME."

Goddamn Far Cry 2.

3 times it has taken me to finish it. Why? Because the first two times I got bored. And then I'd remove the game, or build a new PC in this case, and not carry over my save games. So for the last few weeks I've been playing this turd of a game. Sure, once upon a time I liked it. But a man has only so much tolerance for repetition before saying "fuck this!" and ploughing into anything that moves. Standard weaponry at the end consisted of items that caused as much damage, or the highest magazines possible. Uzi, Grenade launcher thingo and light machine gun (the Saw whatever it is). And if it moved, it got shot. I started off all stealthy, scouting out camps, considering the different routes I could go in (as I was playing hardcore). But you know, fireballs are much nicer to look at than a clean hit with the dart gun.

Far Cry 2, the game that forgot it was meant to be a game. It did one good thing though and that is make me appreciate how good both S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Just Cause 2 are in retrospect. S.T.A.L.K.E.R for the environment, Just Cause 2 for the moving around the map, getting distracted and blowing shit up. One thing I did like about Far Cry 2 though is the sound of the guns, or the boom of an explosive, especially when the boom noise rolls across the landscape. That was satisfying.

I just finished playing Psychonauts. I see why so many people really loved it. Platformers have never really been my thing. But the writing was clever and the game managed to keep from being repetitive. I found it challenging but not so difficult that I wanted to quit. Ran through over the course of a few days. Fantastic considering I only paid $2.49 for it. I have a backlog to play at the moment, but a lot on my plate so not sure what to get around to next.

I think Arkham Asylum? Maybe AC2.

Ruzzle on my Android phone. It's basically Boggle. Although I've played a ton of Scrabble for years, and Words with Friends more recently, as far as online word games go I prefer this type of game since it's harder for anonymous online people to cheat.

I got the paid version for $1.99 or so since the free version spammed me with ads. The ads tended to lock up my phone and/or crash the game, losing my prior matches during screen transitions and forcing me to replay them.

The Mass Effect Trilogy just arrived for the PS3 so I burned through the first game (having already played it twice on the Xbox) and am about 3 hours into Mass Effect 2.

10,000,000, on the PC.

But progression has really slowed. I finally managed to clear a few quests out (I'm at the ninja, mummy thing, something, ent phase) but I haven't gained any experience in ages (I'm not certain what even gains experience at this point). Upgrades are coming in slowly, and frequently runs end too quickly as most things cost 2-4k now. Also, I found a bug; there's a potion that turns 20% of wood and stone gains into gold, but it appears to just give you gold and no wood/stone when used.

As you may (or probably not) recognise from my avatar, I'm currently playing the "For Busy Person" series of doujin visual novels for Touhou (currently on "Imperishable Night For Busy Person").

Having wasted several days of my life on this, I confirm that these things are definitely not for busy people.

Hunter fighting Bonehead in Borderlands: plink plink plink reload plink plink plink reload plink plink plink reload plink plink plink reload ambush plink plink plink reload plink plink plink reload out of ammo run back to town ambush fight the boss again plink plink plink reload plink plink plink reload plink plink plink reload plink plink plink reload ambush ad nauseam...

Wiki says he's really tough to kill when you first get the mission. Yeah, think I got that, thanks. Well, that's what I'm up to. A really odd game.

I'm mad at XCom for killing off my guys right now, so it's pretty much nothing but Dark Souls by myself and League of Legends when I want to play with my brother.

Did that just come out? I thought it was IOS only or something.

This sort of thing is why I put it down as too tedious. Even the scrub guys take too many shots to go down.

Borderlands combat depends very heavily on the level differential between you and your opponent. Bonehead is likely a handful of levels higher than you, which means he takes reduced damage and deals increased damage. The result is that you may have to grind for a bit to raise your character level, which is basically an incentive to go do some of the sidequests.

Anyhow, just finishing up the game again via coop, although when not all of the group members are around, we've been filling the gap with some scattered forays into Left 4 Dead. (One of our group members is not very practiced with shooters, so cooperative play helps a lot.)

M&M6
AoW1
AE

Me play old games, especially good ones.

I purchased it a few days ago and it was a featured game on the Steam Storefront, iirc. I can't say how long it's been out but I'm guessing it's release was recent.

That one's just an odd quest, but the game is really crit-focused. Either you're a good shot and things die in 2-3 hits, or it takes an hour and a half to kill something. Skags are the biggest offender in my mind, as their crit location is not always accessible, so the giant ones take fucking ages to kill.

On the borderlands note though, apparently Defiance is having a semi-closed beta weekend with keys flying all over the place. From the gameplay videos, it's seemingly MMO-Borderlands.

edit: and hopefully actually MMO-Borderlands, and not Global Agenda or Firefall.

Yes, that's just what I did. I only did two sidequests, but I went up at least two levels. Then I went in there and tore the place up, which felt good. Now I've got a shiny car and more weapons. Interesting choices in an interesting game.

How is Borderlands 2 by comparison?

There is no quest wall like Bonehead. BL2's quest flow is a bit better (in playthrough 1. I have my complaints about the level curve in playthrough 2), and mostly more of the same if you like 1. Playthrough 2 also has some seriously bullet spongey badguys, but on the plus side the whole thing has far better writing than it has any right to.

I decided to go back to Dead Space 2 this weekend, to finish it preparation for Dead Space 3. I was further into the game than I had remembered, almost 2/3 of the way through based on game clock. I'm glad I finished it up. Next will probably be Ni No Kuni, which will arrive on Thursday.

Some wow because it is an old comfort blanket. Path of Exile ... though I have stopped for now waiting for the character wipe.
Diablo 3 for some reason I cannot fathom. I also reinstalled sims 2, I suppose just to stare at it. I haven't managed to figure out what i might want to do in it.

War Thunder!

I think that name HAS to be said with the exclamation mark, whether it's actually there or not. It's a World of Tanks style MMO but with planes (and eventually boats and possibly ground?) and considerably more elaborate setpieces (there are AI forces for Anti-Air, convoys, carriers and more). It needs more players, so go sign up :)

It's also making me want to fire up Rise of Flight again. It's been a while, and I have a better chance of survival there, amusingly (single player, not multi, obviously :P).

Since I finished The Walking Dead I decided it was time to dive back into an RPG. I have The Witcher 1 and 2, Skyrim, Fallout: NV, and Deus Ex: HR (in progress, but not really grabbing me) to choose from. So, of course, I fired up Dragon Age II.

It's fine. It looks awesome on the new rig, and I'm working through my quests. Sure, there's a whole "been there, done that" to it. Sure my mother is kind of hot and that makes me feel a little oogy. Why couldn't they have an "older woman" model, instead of the standard "perfect woman with large breasts" model? It's the same impossibly fit woman only with some gray hair. Sure it's kind of episodic, so for some reason I go up 4 levels in a day, then we cut to a year later, during which I've been doing stuff, making contacts, and generally being a badass, but I haven't gone up a level. Sure my brother is a total cock, but he's my only two handed sword wielder so I have to keep him around. Sure my only romance choices are warrior woman who hates me or pixie woman who is full of need need need.

Hey, it's a Bioware game!

I would've been playing Persona 3 Portable the last couple of nights while watching TV, but I plugged the Vita in to charge and by the time I'm bored enough with whatever is on TV to pull out the Vita, I'm in my recliner with the dog on my lap and way too lazy to cross the room to get it. I have to remember to put it on my coffee table today.

Many of my gaming decisions are changed by having a dog on my lap.

Figured that since I'd recently finished 'Mass Effect 2' and plan to play 'Mass Effect 3' someday, I might as well play 'Mass Effect'. I'm on the Citadel and am just about to show Tali's evidence to the council. Enjoying it so far; the arse-about-face approach that I've take to the series means that I get to play a prequel that doesn't shit all over the original.

I hope.

It doesn't. It actually has the strongest arc of the three in terms of story, but also the weakest for pacing.