What are you playing right now?

[AmarettoPie]

Currently playing Bug Fables because I wanted some Paper fucking Mario like how it used to be, and it doesn't disappoint. Also, call me a big ol' kid because the writing's tone is a mix of Paper Mario and Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon, and I love it and will probably never outgrow it. It's kiddie as fuck, but it's charming and innocent and kinda super therapeutic after a stressful day of adulting.

Also, Leif is best bug and I relate to him on a spiritual level: I also give not a single solitary fuck and throw snark all over, all while somehow simultaneously being both the most mature and the most childlike in any group. Bonus points for him being a moth.

I threw on the Hard Mode badge because I told myself I'm not a scrub. ...But regular encounters in earlier areas can still wreck my cheap ass because I'm not using the special moves as much as I probably should in order to conserve items, and my timing isn't as good as it needs to be. So I'm learning that I am, indeed, a scrub.

 

[c-no]

Been juggling my play time with COD: Infinite Warfare and Skyrim: Special Edition. With the former, it feels like the COD name was tacked on, at least with the single player campaign. It felt like it would of been a different game. For the latter, I been playing my first Skyrim character through Special Edition after getting a face mod that was ported to the SSE nexus along with a character editing mod that lets me save and load face presets. Kinda half-way in the game and I got to face some bullshit in the form of a few enemies that can finally match me thanks to not levelling up heavy armor any further for better perks.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was $1.49 on GOG. I never played it before and I kept hearing good things about it, so I figured, what the hell, why not.

It's an engrossing game I must say. Even though it's taking some heavy liberties with the source material, for the purpose of the game it makes for an engaging narrative. I just got past the first chase sequence of the game and I do hear the game becomes more action-focused, but even so those beginning portions nail Lovecraft's best qualities.

 

[Cod of War]

LoZ: Age of Calamity Demo, never a DW but I always enjoyed playing the demos and this is no exception. I'm eh with Impa but fucking shit up with Link was cool, currently on the mission with Zelda. If I do get this it will be after I play BotW.

Speaking of Zelda, obligatory pic.

 

[Roast Chicken]

Life is Strange 2. Oh god, it's so bad. The graphics and mechanics are fine, the writing and characters are awful - this game is basically "WHITE PEOPLE BAD: The game"

I wasn't even 15 minutes in and the two Mexican main characters were being set upon by their racist, white neighbor and then their dad was killled by an incompetent, WHITE trigger-happy cop.

Then after wandering around in the woods for a few days they come across a petrol station where the boys yet again are set upon by an old, WHITE dude who ties the older brother up in his office, even making some remarks about contacting ICE and topping it off with "people like you are why we need to build the wall!"

People sat around a desk and got paid to write this garbage. And I bought it with my own money. It's so OTT and in-your-face it could easily be a parody.

But oh, it doesn't end there: the boys are then picked up by a friendly caucasian neckbeard who ditched his rich family to live on the road and writes articles for his blog. He even referred to himself as an activist and made a self-deprecating comment about being a "good capitalist" when earning a pittance for the content he produces.

I was facepalming throughout this segment. He was the only white dude I'd encountered so far who was depicted positively but only because he was an anti-capitalist ally who probably stated his pronouns in his Twitter profile.

The only good white characters in this game (who aren't socialists) are:

Sean & Daniel's grandparents
The trucker who gave Sean a lift later in the game
Chris (Captain Spirit)

The brothers also go on to join a group of homeless people a hippie commune who earn their keep by working on a cannabis farm. Yes, really. There's even a mini game where you snip the ends off cannabis plants while the hippies at the table bitch about having to do work.

Some shennanigans happen and the brothers are separated; Sean ends up in hospital and on his way to juvie but thanks to the help of a friendly black nurse he learns of Daniel's location snd escapes in a stolen car.

Only a few miles from his destination, he camps out in the desert for a few hours to get some sleep but apparently we need some more Trump-voting strawmen to spice things up! Sean is awoken by a belligerent hillbilly who informs him thst the large swathe of desert he's parked on is his property. He orders Sean to get out of the car and subjects him to some abuse and humiliation involving his race and nationality just to make sure we didn't assume the writers had finally snapped out of their manic cracker-bashing frenzy.

Sean finally manages to get away. His car runs out if fuel and he's forced to walk across the desert to his destination. This part gave me flashbacks to the Navajo chapter of Beyond Twol Souls - the shot of him walking up a dusty highway in the Nevada Desert is practically identical to Jodie's trek through the desert.

But the biggest bullshit pulled is probably the introduction of the mum character, who bailed on her family when Sean and Daniel were little. And her reasoning for doing so basically amounts to:

"I wanted to find myself".

This selfish cow fucked off because she regretted starting a family, only to appear again when her sons are fatherless fugitives, one is half-blind and the other is in the clutches of a crazy church sect. Also her poetry is shit.

I haven't gotten to the final chapter yet, but if the preview which involves the camera panning across the legendary wall between America and Mexico is anything to go by, I'm due another lecture.

Why do I play these shitty games? Because they have easy trophies. I'm all about the trophies, no matter how mediocre, preachy and ridiculous the storyline of the game is.

 

[Jeff Boomhauer]

I'm playing Mother 3 (fan translation) for the first time. I liked the first two games, and I've been interested in this one since finding out about it whenever Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released. Even with all of the spoilers Brawl threw around namely Hinawa's death and Porky being the one behind everything, I didn't know enough about the game to want to skip it.

I just started Chapter 7, and I'm unfortunately not liking it as much as I had hoped. Despite having more characterization than the other games' parties, I just don't find Lucas and co. all that interesting.

There are also some parts of the game that find me rolling my eyes, namely the magypsies being genderless despite very obviously being drag queens and the fact that Tazmily Village was this perfect little utopia that became horribly ruined by the eeeeevils of modern civilization. Maybe I wouldn't have felt this way if I had played it before 2020.

I also wonder how the translation would have fared if it were done by NOA in 2006. This fan translation feels a bit wordy at times, especially with the humor.

 

[UnclePhil]

I'm replaying Red Dead Redemption 2 for 100% completion. I was worried it was going to be less appealing the second time, blinders off after hype has died. While large parts are repetitive and stupid easy, it's an insane emotional roller coaster.

Hard to describe really, but there's something about

Spoiler

building a house for my wife and kid, meeting up with my old friends after all our lives changed in almost Final Fantasy VI-level apocalyptic circumstances eight years ago—then remembering that before this I spent three dozen hours with a completely different guy I watched grow from a vicious mule to Cowboy Jesus while a disease destroyed him. Then when I'm settled on the ranch I get to ride off on long errands to finish 100%'ng the game in a beautifully rendered historical facsimile of 1907, essentially replaying RDR1 in HD...

It's the only "deep narrative" or "movie game" I've cared about enough to give a second run. It's a shame Rockstar will abandon and let it rot like they do all their other games.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Grinding my way to an ascension 20 victory as Silent in Slay the Spire out of sheer boredom and it being one of the only games I can reliably get into and out of in 5 minute bursts during work downtime. 17/20 down and the difficulty spike past 14 is pretty obscene.

Jimmy and the pulsating mass. It's a really trippy rpg maker game that is really addicting, i've been playing it for a few days and wish i had more time.

It's still an rpg maker game but you can skip random battles once your strong enough and enable easy mode if you're stuck or need to grind so it gets reaaaally close to frustrating but never crosses the line. Good classic rpg with a lot of content.

I just finished all the postgame save for the gigantic Mario Party homage bonus dungeon last month, excellent game.
The bit that sticks out in my mind over most everything else though is the cutscenes, the game can crack the thematic whip harder than a mid-80s Stephen King book and you almost never see it coming.

The author's working on a new game too, made in something other than RPG maker. Nothing shown yet aside from his sporadic bimonthly posts about it and mentioning he thinks it's going to outdo Jimmy thematically.

 

[GenociderSyo]

Life is Strange 2. Oh god, it's so bad. The graphics and mechanics are fine, the writing and characters are awful - this game is basically "WHITE PEOPLE BAD: The game"

It really felt like a propaganda game.

Twin Mirror even though it was really pushing the shes now a man thing was not as bad as Life is Stange 2. It at least had mechanics in it that made sense.

 

[Livecorpse]

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.

Fun, but very much a 'warts and all' experience.

 

[Mongo0o]

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. The amount of detail and content in this 19 year old game is mind boggling. It completely deserves it's metacritic score.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I'm debating starting Monster Hunter World and Iceborne from scratch with the sole intention of getting every achievement.

My problem is, they added a bunch of events since last I played and I think the next event is the 20th of december for when all past event quests become availible again.

IIRC the only ones from the base game that have no giant or small crown quests are all elder dragons, so Nergigante, Kushala Daora,, Val Hazak, and Kirin if I'm not mistaken

Iceborne has no large or small crown quests for Scarred yian garuga, Silver Rathalos, Gold Rathian, Upgraded Nergigante, Velkahana, Black val hazak, Lunestra, and Namille.

I think they just added a large and small crown quest for brute Tigrex, but I'm not sure if that's sticking around or is it going away since it says it's celebrating the first year of iceborne and will be discontinued in 2021. They say it's the sequel to the Lavasoth quest which is still around, but I can't find any solid info on the Brute Quest's status.

So if my math is correct it's only 12 monsters that need to be save scummed with the proper bounty rewards, but I can't remember if any achievement shit is locked behind Shara Isvalda I remember that fight being a fucking cunt in the second phase and I really needed help with that one, i dunno if people would be available or want to fight that since fatalis armor is the new hotness.

 

[Gun Safety]

Life is Strange 2. Oh god, it's so bad. The graphics and mechanics are fine, the writing and characters are awful - this game is basically "WHITE PEOPLE BAD: The game"

I wasn't even 15 minutes in and the two Mexican main characters were being set upon by their racist, white neighbor and then their dad was killled by an incompetent, WHITE trigger-happy cop.

Mexicans are the only group of people I've known who say the n-word (nigger), only third generation Hispanics who went to college care about anti-racism.

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.

Fun, but very much a 'warts and all' experience.

Hell yeah. Been playing AOE2 DE off an on since it came out, been thinking about taking it a bit more seriously. Hovering around ~1300 elo 1v1 but it feels like breaking out of this would take some dedication and I don't know how seriously I want to take the game.

 

[derpherp2]

I was going through my old emails and I suddenly ended up in runescape.
I thought "gee osrs looks bad to me now, I'm gonna play the new one again maybe the new one is better."

Two weeks later and I have 99 Mining, Smithing, and 113 Herbology and I'm pretty sure I accidentally increased herb prices by 30%. Please help.

 

[JonIrenicus]

I've been playing Assassin's Creed odyssey, and while it's a perfectly fine game and enjoyable - plus i love history - the entire thing is very derivative of Witcher 3 and Shadow of Mordor games. Even the soundtrack is reminiscent of Witcher 3.

And there's the mercenary system, which is copied wholesale of the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor but more broken and irritating Let me tell you the tale of Talos Stone fist, the first mercenary and his broken AI.

So Talos spawns and he hovers around and follows you at a distance, homing in when you do anything interesting. It became extremely annoying to do quests as he was higher level and would kill me, and he would hover around quest areas making them annoying to do.

I go to the nearby island of Ithaca - the ancient home of the greatest Greek mortal hero, Odysseus/Ullysses.

Talos doesn't know how to combat this. I can see from the eagle mechanic he is just hovering around the edge of the last island and doesn't know how to cross. I explore Ithaca; there isn't much there, but it's cool to see Odysseus' palace ruins i guess.

So as i return to the main island, something clicks in Talos' dumb as shit AI and he begins running over and swimming to Ithaca. This allows me to begin filling him with arrows shoreside. At this point the AI breaks completely and he just sits like a moron in the water and i just cheesw him off.

It's a fine enough game, certainly more interesting quests and things to do than Origins. But i've played it all before. Valhalla looks intriguing, i'll get it when it lowers in price.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Finally reached the final boss of "Bravely Default" (lost lol).

Finally did it: defeated the final boss of Bravely Default, and finally finished that game.

(Making everyone white mages and using Meteor and Reraise from time magic helps a lot. Also being around level 80 does too.)

 

[Übertroon]

Got Ace Combat 7 when it was on sale. Phenomenal campaign and production value, but I'm worried it's a bit light on content with just a 20 mission campaign and multiplayer skirmish. Definitely something I wouldn't recommend buying full price.
Project Wingman just released and was made by fans of Ace Combat. It has the graphics you would expect from a triple A studio, and I'm interested in the Conquest mode where you build an army and capture territory. Definitely something I'll buy when I have to the time.

 

[Ravana]

Just finished Yakuza Kiwami 2 and after starting a file in 3 I decided instead to try out Resonance of Fate instead and come back to Yakuza afterwards.

 

[Roast Chicken]

Vampyr. I like it, it feels like grittier Fable with more in-depth gameplay (currently playing in story mode). Dr. Reid's voice is all chocolatey like a suave, highly educated Englishman but when he chastises or accesses a hint while talking to characters his tone turns sharp and menacing, as though the beast he's harboring underneath surfaces for a moment.

I haven't killed anyone important so far. Just cleaving through vamp hunters and skals while munching on rats for sustinence.

 

[Jimboree]

Got a bunch of stuff off the recent sales, been hopping from game to game looking for something to stick with. Clear frontrunners are Rogue Legacy (old flavor of the month roguelite), Bloodstained (DS Castlevania in 3D), and Wasteland 2 (the director's cut).
In between all that I've been playing a little-known puzzle game called DROD. It's a good time waster.