What are you playing right now?

Dark Souls is an incredible gem of a game. Just finished my NG++ save in anticipation of the sequel. I commend your efficient boss killing abilities, first time I took on the Asylum Demon it took me about fifteen attempts.
I learned a hard lesson about Dark Souls that day, one I never forgot.
 
I'm trying out Mount & Blade Warband with the Blood & Steel mod. As they intended, I tried playing on the "Mommy" difficulty.

It jumps straight into super difficulty almost immediately. Damage has been increased enough that a master archer (which you can start as) can take out a few dozen men in a formation simply by shooting into it before the melee fight begins, but that also means that two arrows will probably kill you through the starting armor.

And then everything went to shit because suddenly formations of several hundred demons began spawning and captured me, resulting in me losing my entire party and everything in it.
 
Got the new South Park game and fucking hell, it's fantastic!

I mean Im not a huge South Park fan, more of a casual oh-god-my-friends-have-put-it-on watcher, so I didn't think I'd enjoy it too much. But it's brill.

What's not brill is the PC port, controls are dodgy as all hell, but the crap controls don't ruin the look or feel of the game so I'm not gonna complain too much. I was even going to buy a console copy instead of complaining about the PC port because it just seems like a controller would work so much better; then I found out it's censored in the UK console release so fuck that.
 
Dark Souls II. It's really good thus far.

I don't really know much about the story, so I'll talk a little about the gameplay. For starters, dual-wielding is now actually relatively practical. I started with a class that dual wields, which was kind of a mistake in retrospect; you can find good swords early on, but I haven't found a decent shield yet.

Also, healing has been tweaked a little. You now have Lifegems to supplement your Estus Flasks. Lifegems are occasional drops from enemies and can be bought in stores, and have a very quick 'use' animation, similar to the 'use humanity' animation in DaS. Estus Flasks have a slower animation, but tend to heal more than Lifegems. Also, flasks are harder to come by; you start with one per bonfire rest, and you increase this by taking Estus Flask Shards to the Emerald Herald. I do like that they're no longer tied to bonfires, so I won't have to warp halfway across the world to get a full load of Estus. Speaking of warping, you start the game with the ability to warp between bonfires, which I like very much.
 
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Be wary of amazing Dark Souls sperging
Rating: 0

Meanwhile, I die over and over again in the Catacombs. Maybe going there after making it halfway to the Depths and without any divine weaponry was not the best decision. Bonewheel skeletons are very fun, and so is losing 25,000 souls and 4 humanities by taking a dumb fall on accident. Another black knight was mean to me and did not drop his sweet greataxe. I guess that's what I get for losing all that humanity which would give me a substantial boost to item drop rate. Well, I still have a bitchin' Zweihander +5. It's unwieldy as hell and I get hit a lot because of its super slow attack speed, but the Wolf Ring found earlier in the Darkroot Garden coupled with Havel's Ring and Oscar's armor (Elite Knight set) make my character really, really hard to stagger. And wielding the Zweihander in two hands wrecks the skeletons in one hit, which is awesome.

Eventually, I ended up switching out for some light leather armor and a Halberd +5 because seriously how many times am I going to fight these boring skeletons and die over and over again on the bonewheels - also, there is this one necromancer whom I just can't find and who keeps reanimating his skellies, which is annoying.

So yeah, I eventually just started sprinting through the area and ignoring all enemies, turning Dark Souls into Super Souls Boy. That made me realize how elegantly shortcuts are handled in the Catacombs - you can just fall from the rotating bridges to the ground below, saving you plenty of time and allowing you to skip most enemies.

Pinwheel died on the first attempt, but that's kind of to be expected. I mean he's the hardest boss in the game, am I right? I also really wanted to join the Gravelord Servant covenant, but I can't find the way to do so. I heard I need to look for a coffin. Maybe it's located near that skeleton blacksmith I haven't reached yet. I seriously hope it's not near the titanite demon, because I don't know if I can take him out in melee.

Also, Capra Demon died on the first attempt, but he's a one-trick pony once you know how to roll away from his attack and use the stairs. Now it's time for the Gaping Dragon and Chaos Witch Quelaag. I have a feeling I'm going to get wrecked hard.

I convinced a friend to play some DaS with me and started a new character so we could engage in some jolly cooperation early on. Holy cow am I getting good at speedrunning the upper Undead Burg (I had to to reach Sunbro and get the White Sign Soapstone). The entire game seems made for speedrunning. Despite my help, my friend got smacked to death by Taurus Demon. Which is weird, because he managed to kill the black knight in the burg all by himself by using pyromancies and firebombs. Then, he lost another humanity because some well-geared and skilled player invaded his world and owned us. Finally, he lost his patience and got stupidly killed by a spear-wielding hollow soldier just as I was about to backstab the bastard. Welp, that did not go well for him. I hope he doesn't become too crestfallen about losing all his humanity already.

I'm playing some Call of Duty 4 in single player, too. Tell you what, it's not a bad game by any means. I know /v/ loves to bash "tacticool" modern military shooters. And yes, CoD 4 is very much tacticool, it tries hard to be awesome in its cut-scenes, and it's completely ridiculous all the time with how many respawning enemies it throws your way.

But, the game's arcade mode is genuinely fun. It's a shame it didn't get much attention from the player base. It lets you skip the cheesy plot and get straight to the action. Lives are limited and you get a huge bonus for not dying, but it's easier said than done - I died about 30 times while playing on normal.

I think arcade mode is how the game was meant to be played. There is some challenge because you can no longer keep dying until you beat the campaign, and there are time limits (albeit pretty lenient ones) for each level. The scoring system is pretty good, you get increasing multipliers for chaining kills, which encourages aggressive play instead of cover shooter playstyle. In some places, respawning enemies can be milked for points. Headshots and knife kills are worth extra points. Harming Middle-Eastern countries' and Russia's GDP by destroying civilian cars and houses is encouraged because it gives you lotsa points. You will be using everything the game gives you, including your grenade launcher with a ridiculous 10 grenades in stock, to maximize the score. The two stealth/semi-stealth missions are Pripyat are very tricky because you can actually kill almost everyone if you know how to do that and shoot down the two (?) helicopters in the mission, but it's really hard to pull off.

Anyway, I think my score on normal was about 1,200,000 if anyone wants to compete. It's probably a very low score. I might try for a no-miss clear on normal next time.
 
Picked up all of the GTA games that were ever released on PC for $10 in a Steam sale.

I've also been playing some HellMOO again. It's a MUD (think an ASCII MMORPG, like World of Warcraft mixed with Dwarf Fortress) set in a post-apocalyptic environment. It's hideously NC-17 and has more than a little bad taste, but it's surprisingly deep and very difficult. Crafting alone can be mind-boggling, and you can spend weeks simply grinding around the starter city before ever venturing into the real wasteland.
 
Obnoxion said:
Be wary of amazing Dark Souls sperging
Rating: 0

Meanwhile, I die over and over again in the Catacombs. Maybe going there after making it halfway to the Depths and without any divine weaponry was not the best decision. Bonewheel skeletons are very fun, and so is losing 25,000 souls and 4 humanities by taking a dumb fall on accident. Another black knight was mean to me and did not drop his sweet greataxe. I guess that's what I get for losing all that humanity which would give me a substantial boost to item drop rate. Well, I still have a bitchin' Zweihander +5. It's unwieldy as hell and I get hit a lot because of its super slow attack speed, but the Wolf Ring found earlier in the Darkroot Garden coupled with Havel's Ring and Oscar's armor (Elite Knight set) make my character really, really hard to stagger. And wielding the Zweihander in two hands wrecks the skeletons in one hit, which is awesome.

Eventually, I ended up switching out for some light leather armor and a Halberd +5 because seriously how many times am I going to fight these boring skeletons and die over and over again on the bonewheels - also, there is this one necromancer whom I just can't find and who keeps reanimating his skellies, which is annoying.

So yeah, I eventually just started sprinting through the area and ignoring all enemies, turning Dark Souls into Super Souls Boy. That made me realize how elegantly shortcuts are handled in the Catacombs - you can just fall from the rotating bridges to the ground below, saving you plenty of time and allowing you to skip most enemies.

Pinwheel died on the first attempt, but that's kind of to be expected. I mean he's the hardest boss in the game, am I right? I also really wanted to join the Gravelord Servant covenant, but I can't find the way to do so. I heard I need to look for a coffin. Maybe it's located near that skeleton blacksmith I haven't reached yet. I seriously hope it's not near the titanite demon, because I don't know if I can take him out in melee..
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Early game catacombs runs are tricky, but rewarding as all hell. As for the necromancer you might have missed, there's one that's tricky to find. He comes right after the second bonfire and the second rotating bridge (the one Patches tries to kill you with). There's a message half hidden in a wall; smack the wall and it breaks. If you walk through (beware of fall and skeletons), then you'll come through a lengthy passage, at the end of which should be the necromancer. I can't think of any others that are really hard to miss; most of them are along the critical path or at least make their positions obvious.
 
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Bought Papers, Please during the Steam sale and almost finishing it to the end.

Jorji Costava is my favourite character so far. :ween:
 
Iä! Iä! said:
Is he the one with the self-drawn passport?
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Yep. :ween:

FalsePassport.png
 
Springblossom said:
Early game catacombs runs are tricky, but rewarding as all hell. As for the necromancer you might have missed, there's one that's tricky to find. He comes right after the second bonfire and the second rotating bridge (the one Patches tries to kill you with). There's a message half hidden in a wall; smack the wall and it breaks. If you walk through (beware of fall and skeletons), then you'll come through a lengthy passage, at the end of which should be the necromancer. I can't think of any others that are really hard to miss; most of them are along the critical path or at least make their positions obvious.
Click to expand...
Oh yes, I missed a hole in the wall next to the giant skeleton which leads to the lenghty passage you mentioned. Thanks! Strangely, nobody ever tried to kill me with the rotating bridge. I heard that happens sometimes, but have never really seen it. Maybe I did some sequence breaking which caused Patches to move to Tomb of the Giants already, no idea.

It also turns out the coffin which allows you to join the covenant is not located behind the titanite demon and you don't have to kill it.

Imminent Dark Souls update
Rating: 0

All in all, the Catacombs were really bountiful. The rite of kindling, a powerful greatsword and a very cool-looking miracle for joining the Gravelord Servant covenant are all awesome. The expedition made fighting the Gaping Dragon a piece of cake.

Surprisingly, I never died in Blighttown. I stacked up on moss clumps beforehand because I knew what was coming, namely status afflictions and murdering my FPS even more than the game usually does. I should probably be thankful for some player who left a "secret passage ahead" message which allowed me to discover the shadow set with its high poison and fire resistances. I think it took me about two hours of very slow and steady exploration, but I eventually made it to Quelaag, who exploded me once because I wasn't looking at her. I got her on the second try. Ceaseless D murdered me about 30 times before I discovered his patterns (I was looking for the way to instakill him by dropping him into a pit, I saw it in some videos - it still makes no sense to me what you're supposed to do before you can make him fall down). The gold-hemmed black set coupled with Gravelord Sword makes my character look all grim and dark and metal and gothic.

The traps in Sen's Fortress got me more times than I'd like to admit. The Iron Golem was thankfully very easy and went down on the first try. I didn't manage to get him to fall down either, but the tried and true method of going behind the boss's back and attacking from there worked perfectly. It also worked on the Stray Demon, although I died about five times because I realized I set the game brightness way too low and could barely see him.

So it's off to Anor Londo, then. My body is ready.
 
Trying to finish Black Mesa now before I continue watching Freeman's Mind; I want to catch up as much as I can to where the series is before watching it, and I love it way more than Half-Life Source or the original Half-Life.

It's probably the prettiest Source game I have, and it runs so smooth it might be powered by unicorns.
 
I finished Duke Nukem 3D on Come Get Some difficulty. All four episodes.

Fighting the alien queen is a bitch if you don't have a set of scuba gear. But I did it.
 
I heard that some fan-game called Fighting is Magic had gotten released despite Hasbro giving it's original developers a cease & desist. After giving it a try, I feel they should give a tutorial but then again it reminds me why I'm not a fan of fighting games.
 
Beat Black Mesa. Now I just need to wait for them to release the Xen levels. In the meantime, I'm going to redownload SMOD and beat Half-Life 2 with it.

I'm also trying the PC originals of Unreal II: The Awakening and Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter. Both were pretty average FPS's from around 10 years ago that got shitty console ports, which I happen to own. I wanted to see just how much of a difference the PC versions have.

Mace Griffin is still a vaguely entertaining generic FPS (the only real interesting part is seamless transitions between space combat and ground combat, including being able to leave the controls and walk around the ship as it flies), but now it has waaaaay faster loading times; something that took almost 30 seconds on PS2 is maybe one second on the PC. But Unreal II is phenomenally better. The Xbox port not only deleted frames from the animation to save on memory, but it removed all of the "walk around the ship and talk to your crew between missions" content and replaced it with pre-rendered cutscenes going over all of the different conversations without your input.
 
Got back on RDR, after making it to the Galleon level in DK64. I still have the N64 plugged in though, I'm also enjoying me some good ole Goldeneye.
 
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