What games are you playing?

annasoh323

Master of Cramming
Apr 4, 2018
424
314

All I can say is Hell Yeah!!!
Yeah! I was watching that at wo- my lunch break. Looks like a nice mix of old and new faces. Looks like a new siren joins the game. What would you call her ability? I'm a bit scared for what appears to be the new villains. It won't be easy to top the sheer charisma of Handsome Jack. They struck an oddly successful balance of mystery (not having him appear), menace (constant mayhem at his behest), and proximity (having him constantly on your ear such that, even though he doesn't make a physical appearance, you still feel like he's close and evolving as the story progresses). These new guys seem like they could end up being a little one-dimensional but we'll see. The new locales look great - I just wonder how they'll be incorporated and how much loading screen they'll be stuck behind. Been a long-time coming, that's for sure!
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
I finally got around to playing (and finishing) Limbo this week. Working on the backlog, a bit embarrassing that it took me nearly 9 years to play that. Good game, though. Now I'm on to Middle Earth: Shadow of War. Minor change of style there, yeah, but I enjoyed SoM, so I'm expecting SoW to be decent too. A couple of hours in I'm finding it pretty good.
 
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rfarmer

Spatial Philosopher
Jul 7, 2017
2,588
2,702
I have been playing Borderlands GOTY Enhanced edition, for anyone that missed it Gearbox did a free upgrade on April 3 if you owned Borderlands on Steam. I already had the GOTY edition so didn't get any new content but the Enhanced edition has upgraded graphics and some game play improvements.

I never played the original until I had extensive play time on Borderlands 2 and there were things that irritated me about the original. No mini map, no automatic pickup of gold and ammo and no marked destination on fast travel for current objective. All of those have been updated along with a new inventory system. You can import game saves from the original or start fresh, I am enjoying it quite a bit.
 

annasoh323

Master of Cramming
Apr 4, 2018
424
314
I finally got around to playing (and finishing) Limbo this week. Working on the backlog, a bit embarrassing that it took me nearly 9 years to play that. Good game, though. Now I'm on to Middle Earth: Shadow of War. Minor change of style there, yeah, but I enjoyed SoM, so I'm expecting SoW to be decent too. A couple of hours in I'm finding it pretty good.
Let me know how SoW goes. I decided not to get it since it seemed almost too big to fully enjoy (bordering on tedious some reports have said) and I wasn't sure I could stomach them going even further with the source material. I was able to suspend a bit of Tolkien disbelief with SoM but after picking up on some of the story beats, I didn't think I was ready to go that far with them. That said, I'd love to see the Nemesis system adapted into a different setting and take on more meaning within the story of whatever game that ends up being. A spiritual successor to Breath of the Wild with a Nemesis-based NPC interaction system would be pretty killer.
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
Let me know how SoW goes. I decided not to get it since it seemed almost too big to fully enjoy (bordering on tedious some reports have said) and I wasn't sure I could stomach them going even further with the source material. I was able to suspend a bit of Tolkien disbelief with SoM but after picking up on some of the story beats, I didn't think I was ready to go that far with them. That said, I'd love to see the Nemesis system adapted into a different setting and take on more meaning within the story of whatever game that ends up being. A spiritual successor to Breath of the Wild with a Nemesis-based NPC interaction system would be pretty killer.
I look at this series as a very ... "alternative" take on Tolkien, so I'm okay with it despite how far from the source material it goes (after all, it's not like Tolkien's world building is without its very significant flaws, no matter how good the books are). It's kind of like the Star Wars Force Unleashed games (though better, and far less over-the-top) - non-canon fantastic wish-fulfillment from some moderately overeager writer with a slightly loose conception of how the fictional world works. Of course, it helps that I've long since abandoned most conceptions of strict adhesion to original texts - modern media production practices and fan culture both make that impossible if I want to stay sane. I mean, the game pretty much starts on the premise that a new ring of power has been forged, which isn't exactly the kind of thing that would go unmentioned in later stories in the same world. At least it doesn't pretend that this is "true Tolkien".

The updated Nemesis system hasn't shown itself as too different from the original so far, but a handful of hours into the game I've barely reached the second area (Cirith Ungol) and I haven't yet gained the ability to recruit orcs, so a lot is yet to happen. I get what you say about the size, though, as it has the same issue as all open-world games have for me: too much to do, too many distractions from the story, too many contradictions ("Here are three highly important and time-sensitive missions, but we won't tell you which is the most important, and of course you can just faff about for an hour or two if you want - no presure!"), too much in your way when trying to reach a goal (running into a pack of orcs and getting side-tracked by a prolonged fight every minute or two gets tedious after a while). I'm trying to get rid of my completionist tendencies, so either this is going to be good practice or a terrible slog. We'll see.
 

TheHig

King of Cable Management
Oct 13, 2016
951
1,171
No Man's Sky ... again.

Ok it ran like COMPLETE ass on Vega for well... since I bought it. Now the experimental (beta) branch on Steam is running under Vulkan and OMG it runs butter smooth. Finally.

Seriously anyone who has an AMD GPU and this game should try out the Vulkan build ASAP as it makes the game actually playable and not a stutter fest.

Good times.
 

Soul_Est

SFF Guru
SFFn Staff
Feb 12, 2016
1,531
1,926
No Man's Sky ... again.

Ok it ran like COMPLETE ass on Vega for well... since I bought it. Now the experimental (beta) branch on Steam is running under Vulkan and OMG it runs butter smooth. Finally.

Seriously anyone who has an AMD GPU and this game should try out the Vulkan build ASAP as it makes the game actually playable and not a stutter fest.

Good times.
Yup, glad they moving away from OpenGL 4.x which was a sticking point for AMD for a long time.
 
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rfarmer

Spatial Philosopher
Jul 7, 2017
2,588
2,702
Borderland 2 Commander Lilith and the fight for Sanctuary. Anyone that doesn't know Gearbox just released a free DLC for owners of BL2 and the Handsome Collection, on Playstation, Xbox and PC. New level cap of 80, now locations and loot beyond legendary.

It was great bringing my lvl 72 commando out of retirement, not much reason to play him once I hit the level cap.
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
Anyone here a fellow Eorzean?
Whenever I got some spare time, I log into FFXIV.
Other than that, I recently managed to finish, FINALLY, Jotun. Nice, little game, if you get an offer, definitely try it.
 

GuilleAcoustic

Chief Procrastination Officer
SFFn Staff
LOSIAS
Jun 29, 2015
2,967
4,390
guilleacoustic.wordpress.com
What's your specs? Nowadays, even a Ryzen 2200G/2400G can run FFXIV decently. And next-gen Intel iGPU will too, I do not doubt it.
In doubt, you can try the free benchmark from the Lodestone.

I run a thin mini-ITX with a 35w i7-4785T (2.2GHz/3.2GHz), 16GB, mSATA SSD and either a GT1030 or just the iGPU (depending on my mood) on a 1440p screen.

I'm waiting for Zen2 and Navi to refresh everything.
 

annasoh323

Master of Cramming
Apr 4, 2018
424
314
Borderland 2 Commander Lilith and the fight for Sanctuary. Anyone that doesn't know Gearbox just released a free DLC for owners of BL2 and the Handsome Collection, on Playstation, Xbox and PC. New level cap of 80, now locations and loot beyond legendary.

It was great bringing my lvl 72 commando out of retirement, not much reason to play him once I hit the level cap.
If my sister weren't house-sitting right now, I'm sure we would be tearing into this DLC. The bummer thing is that my brother just started and I never maxed out Maya (my highest character). So, I fear we wouldn't be getting the most out of it. I also got my late start on Assassin's Creed: Origins (you read that right) so I've been otherwise occupied <also stares at the growing list of videos I'm supposed to be editing/uploading>
 
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Soul_Est

SFF Guru
SFFn Staff
Feb 12, 2016
1,531
1,926
Whatever I have on my Switch atm until I get more storage for Full Circle. Mostly Warframe, Iconoclasts, Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna The Golden Country.
 
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Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
I gave in a couple of weeks ago and decided to give Dark Souls (1) a try. Took a while to get into, but I like it more than I expected - there are definitely cases where the controls are unnecessarily complicated or inaccurate in a way that feels buggy or badly made rather than challenging (the standard cop-out of many "git gud" games), but fewer than expected, and the setting/fiction/narrative is less cheesy than expected.

With that being said, I decided to give God of War a try yesterday after finding it on sale in Sony's ongoing promotion. One word: jarring. Coming from DS, the combat feels insubstantial and weightless - the exact opposite of what I've read about GoW - the movement system is puzzling (Kratos seems to always move at something like a brisk walk, regardless of input, and dodges and rolls barely seem to make a difference), and while the enemies do a lot of damage (playing at the 2nd highest difficulty), even getting hurt doesn't feel dramatic. Dying just feels annoying, as there's no real build-up. I think most of this is down to the contrast in play style and feel between DS and GoW - I'll have to give GoW a few more hours. But so far I'm disappointed.
 

LeChuck81

SFF Lingo Aficionado
May 6, 2019
129
36
I run a thin mini-ITX with a 35w i7-4785T (2.2GHz/3.2GHz), 16GB, mSATA SSD and either a GT1030 or just the iGPU (depending on my mood) on a 1440p screen.

I'm waiting for Zen2 and Navi to refresh everything.

May I say it?


You can totally play it on 720p (which is a good resolution for your monitor, 1:2 scaling) with your current system, even on high details, or you can go 1080p lowering some details.
 
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