What are you playing right now?

When I played X4 around launch I found that the AI in the same system as you were utterly retarded yet those who were in every other system were ok.
Must be nerves knowing that the boss is around.
It only activates collisions in your system, so it's not trying to fiddle with pathfinding around stations and other ships in the rest of the universe. A pretty necessary optimisation for the most part.

This was in X3 as well, and it was absolutely necessary. I've seen multiple TS ships simply cease to exist in Argon Prime from smashing into the shipyard just because I happened to be in the vicinity, even without SETA active. Not to mention literally every Terran station had a collision detection radius the size of your mom so every ship's auto-pillock needed a round trip around the system just to go straight through it.
 
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MW2, unlocked and started using akimbo basilisks with snakeshot. Ran around Shipment like a retard, decimating people.
 
Every New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day, I make it a (somewhat) yearly tradition to play something until the wee hours of the night. For the first time, I might be choosing between the Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64.

Perhaps debating between Super Mario 64 and Streets of Rage?
 
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I've finished Dishonored (the last time I played it was 2 years ago), replaying it now to get the stuff I missed and also no kills.
 
Humankind

I have such a love-hate relationship with the game. It's does so much so well and interesting twists. But there's also so much bullshit, you can get completely fucked by resources or more accurately the lack of them. Or one nation can end up in control of the worlds entire supply of one resource because the game spawned every source it one specific area.

I'm not going to stop playing it though.
 
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Where the Water Tastes Like Wine. The premise of the indie game is that you're wandering Depression America (portrayed in a stylized world map where you see your man walking, bag on a stick whistling, from city to city with little cars driving between them and such) on a quest to tell the Story of America. To do that you have to go around having life experiences, which give you stories, and sharing them at campfires with 16 strangers (so far, I've encountered an Okie, a coal miner, a Bonus Army veteran, a blues singer, and a Mexican healer-woman). Each time you encounter one they will want to hear certain types of stories (certain themes), and you have to try to match them against your own. If you please them they'll become more talkative, revealing more about themselves. As you roam the world, you find that the stories will come back to you, embellished, growing into tall tales, which makes them more effective in the retelling. I don't know yet how much they upgrade.

The stories are little vignettes, usually with a nice illustration-like picture and narration. Some are briefer, some more involved; often they have decisions where you can steer it towards a certain tone. Most of them are ghost tales of various sorts, many of them are folklore and other famous such like Johnny Appleseed and the Headless Horseman. Some of them are lame, and you don't get the vignettes (only descriptions) of the retellings, but some are pretty good.

The game focuses heavily on style. As you wander the country the music plays, folk or bluegrass or blues or country Western or Mexican, whatever is fitting to the region (the map is divided up, in which stories spawn and the music, into Northeast, South, Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest). The blues roaming across the South kicks in especially hard. You can hitchhike, hitch trains, or buy tickets legitimately; you can buy meals in cities with money you earn from working, which adds little geographical flavor text, though I haven't figured out the point to it yet. While walking, you can speed it up (slightly) by whistling along (a little rhythm game) to the music.

It's a very charming game. It takes a certain mood/mindset to get much out of, have to be able to drift into visualizing the narration instead of focusing on it mechanically.



Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. I was playing Battlefield 1 right before it and there's this mood whiplash with it. The graphics are uglier and the setting is blander and uglier (stinking jungles and Third World villages versus richly decorated French cities and blasted moonscape). There's no orchestral music blaring. Every other second I get shot and don't have a clue where from, except for on occasion when the stars align and I'm able to put up a running gun fight from tree to tree, killing maybe one or two gooks that feels like more of an accomplishment than 20 Germans.

I like it. All of those things in combination, along with the napalm and other horrors, give it a bleak feeling compared to the arcadey, glamorized WW1 in Battlefield 1, even though BF1 presents its subject matter with an attempt at gravitas and RS2 presents itself like a fun Vietnam movie action thing. I love BF1 but this is engrossing in a completely different way.
 
I like it. All of those things in combination, along with the napalm and other horrors, give it a bleak feeling compared to the arcadey, glamorized WW1 in Battlefield 1, even though BF1 presents its subject matter with an attempt at gravitas and RS2 presents itself like a fun Vietnam movie action thing. I love BF1 but this is engrossing in a completely different way.
It is strange how it makes misery enjoyable and conducive to the desired experience, though I primarily rolled VietCong. Even getting one or two kills was enough to have me hollering "Yankee go home!" "This is a white man's war, soul brother! " I always said I'd give military deathmatch schmups if it was a Vietnam based one, and RS2 delivered, though not quite in the way I expected.

Anyway


An attempt to fill the Shadow of Rome shaped hole in my heart, but it's more like a vastly improved Colosseum: Road to Freedom. Plays like Mount and Blade's ground combat, still needs some polish, but it deserves more love for tackling the idea better than just about anyone since Capcom.
 
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Playing through the Halo MCC and just beaten CE.

Been over a decade or so since I've touched anything Halo related, but I gotta say, the first one still holds up. I know the game gets shit on for starting the whole regenerating health and limited weapons trend in FPS's but it has so much to it that's so good. The whole energy weapon/ballistic weapon dynamic forces you to think carefully about what weapons to use, the Covenant enemy AI and their dynamic with each other makes for some intense and interesting fights which somehow make you both feel like a badass while at the same time still feel vulnerable.

And of course, the game's major shift in terms of tone, atmosphere and gameplay during the second half turns what would be just an above average experience into something awesome. Yeah sure, the concept behind the Flood isn't anything new or innovative, but the way their introduction is set up and your initial encounter with them makes them incredibly memorable in my eyes. The game in general has such a solid campaign.

Can't wait to play 2 and 3. Those I have more experience with and 3 in particular was one of my favorite games during my high school years.
 
Been playing a lot of Against the Storm. I'm really enjoying it. Usually I might get burnt out with city builders, but having each settlement basically be a separate attempt that lasts an hour or so helps keeps things moving, and the randomization in what species and buildings you get helps mix things up. If everything in the roadmap gets added in, I can see it becoming a fantastic game.
 
Started playing the Dusk Atelier games a few weeks ago and I'm close to just saying fuck it and getting the Arland games. There's something oddly cozy about making WMDs with cute anime girls. You got me Gust, I'll dolphin on Atelier games
 
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I played a bit of Drakengard 2 tonight and dropped it nearly instantly. I also played Drakengard 1 recently, and while the gameplay is dogshit, at the very least the story and characters were interesting enough for me to finish the game. The soundtrack was also the right kind of fucked up. Drakengard 2 is just boring in every way.
 
Been on a metroidvania kick as of late.

Guacamelee 1: Very good, though outside of some of the optional platforming segments was pretty easy. 8/10

Guacamelee 2: Pretty much just more of the same. Also pretty easy, though the optional platforming bits were a bit harder than the first. 8/10

The Mummy: Demastered: Very average, the definition of standard. Still enjoyed it for what it is, though it's very short. I beat it in about 5 hours, not to 100% though. 6/10

Ender Lilies: Pretty good, nice QoL with the map that changes color when you've found everything in a room. Good visuals and I really liked the music. Ended up getting 100% completion. 8/10

Castlevania SotN: I have nothing to say that's not been said a hundred times before. It's a classic for a reason. 9/10

Hollow Knight: Been sitting in my steam library for years. Was very good, though the zones all looked pretty samey. The only parts I had any real trouble with was the While Palace and the final boss. Ended up getting ending 3. No way in hell was I going to complete the requuirements for the last 2 endings, if that makes be a bitch, so be it.
 
Played H3VR, messing with official/modded weapon that came out for Christmas. A few standouts for me were the SiG Sauer P127, Pulse Rifle, Carl Gustaf, Spas-15 and Alofs.
 
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So a Discord Friend decided to stream a game I never heard of, so I picked it up myself. It's called Fuga: Melodies of Steel. Apparently it's the latest in a series of Japanese games that's been running since the 90's, but has been relegated to obscurity due to low sales. Thankfully you don't have to play those ones to enjoy this game.

Basically, you play as a group of kids in Furry France after their home town gets invaded by Dog Nazis, who kidnap their parents. Conveniently, they find a big fuck-off tank in a cave, which they commandeer in order to put a stop to Adolf Houndler's plans. Little do they know that the tank they're driving is a mixed blessing in disguise...

I know, not the most original of plots, and I'm aware the "furry" artstyle might be a turn-off for some. However, considering that these guys were so dedicated to their craft that they made this game knowing it wouldn't sell, and not only is it still as polished as it is, but they're releasing a sequel pretty soon says a lot about the creators, especially when you look at the current state of the gaming industry. For instance, these guys were so dedicated to their setting that they got their Japanese voice actors to perform an optional French dub. These guys aren't in it for money, they're in it for the art, and I find that to be quite admirable and refreshing when compared to the tidal wave of predatory games that are designed to scam you out of your hard-earned money that permeates the industry like a plague.

But what grips me about the game itself is that it's a JRPG where you actually have to think. Unlike most JRPGs where you can kill a billion Level 1 Mosquitos until you're powerful enough to kill God with a single swipe of your limp dick, the game's progression is "on-rails," and thus has a limited amount of encounters and chances to acquire resources and upgrades. This means the game is balanced so that you're constantly sweating bullets with each encounter and savoring every recovery item you get your hands on, as you carefully plan out your next moves to avoid getting beaten too much in return and wind up getting cornered and forced to use... "THAT." Pair all of that with an epic soundtrack that really hammers home the emotional state of children risking their lives to fight a war against insurmountable odds, and it's a winner in my book.
 
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I played a bit of Drakengard 2 tonight and dropped it nearly instantly. I also played Drakengard 1 recently, and while the gameplay is dogshit, at the very least the story and characters were interesting enough for me to finish the game. The soundtrack was also the right kind of fucked up. Drakengard 2 is just boring in every way.
The second game apparently didn't have Yoko Taro behind the helm hence why it's not as fondly remembered.

Anyway, started Halo 2 on Heroic yesterday and going from Halo 1 to 2, it feels like the game's noticeably harder in places. Maybe it's because there's more Elites you gotta deal with at once or it feels like Chief was nerfed a bit since last game. I don't know. What I do know is that this game is a nightmare on Legendary, so I'm steering clear of that.

Regardless, I'm having fun. Watching all these cutscenes and listening to the game's awesome and sometimes hilarious dialogue I haven't heard in years is making me nostalgic. Currently in the middle of Regret and I have this one surviving Marine for half the level now. Constantly shit talking the enemy and holding his own. He even helped me take down two hunters and lived. Absolute badass.

So a Discord Friend decided to stream a game I never heard of, so I picked it up myself. It's called Fuga: Melodies of Steel. Apparently it's the latest in a series of Japanese games that's been running since the 90's, but has been relegated to obscurity due to low sales. Thankfully you don't have to play those ones to enjoy this game.

Basically, you play as a group of kids in Furry France after their home town gets invaded by Dog Nazis, who kidnap their parents. Conveniently, they find a big fuck-off tank in a cave, which they commandeer in order to put a stop to Adolf Houndler's plans. Little do they know that the tank they're driving is a mixed blessing in disguise...

I know, not the most original of plots, and I'm aware the "furry" artstyle might be a turn-off for some. However, considering that these guys were so dedicated to their craft that they made this game knowing it wouldn't sell, and not only is it still as polished as it is, but they're releasing a sequel pretty soon says a lot about the creators, especially when you look at the current state of the gaming industry. For instance, these guys were so dedicated to their setting that they got their Japanese voice actors to perform an optional French dub. These guys aren't in it for money, they're in it for the art, and I find that to be quite admirable and refreshing when compared to the tidal wave of predatory games that are designed to scam you out of your hard-earned money that permeates the industry like a plague.

But what grips me about the game itself is that it's a JRPG where you actually have to think. Unlike most JRPGs where you can kill a billion Level 1 Mosquitos until you're powerful enough to kill God with a single swipe of your limp dick, the game's progression is "on-rails," and thus has a limited amount of encounters and chances to acquire resources and upgrades. This means the game is balanced so that you're constantly sweating bullets with each encounter and savoring every recovery item you get your hands on, as you carefully plan out your next moves to avoid getting beaten too much in return and wind up getting cornered and forced to use... "THAT." Pair all of that with an epic soundtrack that really hammers home the emotional state of children risking their lives to fight a war against insurmountable odds, and it's a winner in my book.
Part of me wants to try this game. The idea of being able to control what looks like the most OP tank in existence, but with a bunch of kids taking on an entire army of hardened and experienced adults sounds like both an enjoyable and emotional experience.
 
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