What games are you playing now?

[sesselpupser]

So I chose to follow Unmetal up with Overload, I played it a bit in 2020 so I already knew the story is largely inconsequential but it's the perfect Steam Deck game - runs well, looks great and the extra buttons on the back are super handy for sliding up/down and rolling, but most importantly it's easy to pick up and put down, my main complaint last time was that it's too samey to play in long sessions so doing three hours in one sitting (as I used to do in those days) was boring, but doing three hours split into 2-4 sessions is much more entertaining. Plus having a controller with enough buttons to control the ship properly really helps!

The graphics, sound design, weapons, enemy variety and AI, level design... So much of it is genuinely really good, and yet because of the lack of variety of things to do - find access keys to move deeper into the map then either fight a boss or destroy a reactor core and escape - and the uninteresting story, it feels unfortunately unfinished or at least unbalanced, like a tech demo spun out into a whole game. Still, the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun so long as you remember you have six degrees of freedom (so often I'll just dodge left and right while moving backwards, but then I remember that buttons on the back exist so I can roll and slide up and down too, which almost immediately makes it feel "cool") so, like I said above, in short sessions it's actually pretty great.

 

[Spacegoat]

In the phase of being bored with most of my games at the moment, so I've dipped back into NBA 2K23. Just doing a new franchise with the Indiana Pacers starting in the early '90s for something to do while catching up on podcasts.

Noticed the Dredge DLC is just about to be released though, so I might have to jump back into that on the weekend to finally finish the main story off and check it out.

 

[PletdeKoe]

In the phase of being bored with most of my games at the moment, so I've dipped back into NBA 2K23. Just doing a new franchise with the Indiana Pacers starting in the early '90s for something to do while catching up on podcasts.

Noticed the Dredge DLC is just about to be released though, so I might have to jump back into that on the weekend to finally finish the main story off and check it out.

Nba23 is such a nice game. Being able to relieve the 90’s is such a blast.

 

[Spacegoat]

Nba23 is such a nice game. Being able to relieve the 90’s is such a blast.

Yeah, the Era's mode is literally the only thing I play 2K for. Fun reliving all those classic teams and rewriting history.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Besides my retro PC backlog (phew) I'm finally tackling CP 2077: Phantom Liberty in my Series X, after 14 hours of so of story. And I downloaded and was instantly charmed by Sea of Stars (PC) which I'm playing with my non-existent gaming keyboard skills.

 

[Spacegoat]

Forgot what a wonderful game Streets of Rage 4 is. Dipped back into it last night for something different to do and am completely addicted to the Survival Mode again.

 

[sesselpupser]

I've gone back to Arcade Paradise as life has been more stable for me lately and it feels less like some sort of cautionary tale or something, still not really digging the fact that I'm basically just playing a collection of largely OK alternate history arcade games while I wait for the numbers to tick upwards enough to buy more machines but I'll see where it takes me I guess.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Urgh, just not feeling Assassin's Creed Mirage so I uninstalled from PC. I may pick it up later on a console (thus saving me hard disk space on the PC).

 

[Doncarlone]

Since xbox fanboys love to 💩 on forspoken and sony fanboys love to 💩 on redfall, I bought the 2 of them for cheap on black friday to figure out witch one is the worse.

 

[Nacho Libre]

Well talking about recent and maligned games, I downloaded the Immortals from Aveum demo from Steam, mostly to see about its performance, now that FSR 3.0 and frame generation features are available for my graphics card (RX 6650 XT).

It is very interesting that the graphical options have a points pool for your CPU/GPU combo, and you get to allocate such points (RPG- style) to the various settings in order to balance the performance. So far so good, with framerates above 100 fps on average, with dips here and there and slowdown in some cutscenes.

I'm liking it better that Forspoken, another recent FSR 3.0 demo that I tried, but I'm also see some issues around the worldbuilding, story and character. I think that it tries too hard to be a blockbuster right from the start, instead of taking a slower route getting there so you can get a better sense of the world and build up your character so you can have a more personal involvement (see Horizon Zero Dawn).

 

[sesselpupser]

Since xbox fanboys love to 💩 on forspoken and sony fanboys love to 💩 on redfall, I bought the 2 of them for cheap on black friday to figure out witch one is the worse.

Never thought I'd see actual science being done in this thread!

I finished Arcade Paradise, turns out I didn't have long left to go when I shelved it before. I liked it but holy hell I wish I'd bought the assistant manager's assistant upgrade early on, the constant "x hopper is full" the minute I decided to play anything was so annoying.

I think Teardown next, in honour of its console release, but I don't expect it to work all that well on a Deck. Guess we'll find out.

 

[inCloud]

Should I complete MGS3+5 or start playing Starfield? Like every old school Fallout fanboy I hate what Bethesda did with Fallout, but F4 is solid looter ARPG(and disgusting Fallout). Starfield looks like better version of it. I did 20 hours of MGS5 back when it was released, but droped it for whatever reason. Solid thing, afaik.

Or I could join

redfall

And blame Bethesda for killing my beloved Arkane.

 

[Nacho Libre]

So, I did finish the Immortals of Aveum demo. As I mentioned above, the performance calculator is a great tool to allocate your CPU/GPU resources, and coupled with FSR 3 (Quality, no frame generation) I got very good performance (1080 p, 88 fps on average, most sliders in high).

However, from what I glimpsed, the game's story/character does not have a resonance that entices me to play the whole game, and the gameplay, while responsive and intuitive, feels rather shallow. It's too bad because on the technical side is rather impressive.

 

[zaxs]

Bought PS5 and yesterday stared with God of War - after 2 hours good impressions.
But it's not standard GoW as I know it from it's history.

GT7 playing every day, so it's to mention it only one time.
With PS5 I got FC24, so this will be choice to play too.

But plan is to finish GoW and then get Ragnarok.

 

[Doncarlone]

And blame Bethesda for killing my beloved Arkane.

Still playing forspoken, redfall will be next. Actually forspoken is not as bad as I thought. Not a great game by any metric but not a horrible monstrosity either.

 

[sesselpupser]

So, Teardown, not at all what I was expecting (but I had no idea what to expect so I'd say that regardless of what it ended up being), really difficult too, but practically unrivaled in terms of the satisfaction when a plan finally comes together. If you've ever enjoyed a game so much that you try speedrunning it, it's kind of like that, but that's the entire game; learning how to shave off a few tenths of seconds here and there, joining some dots that miraculously save multiple seconds and seeing things differently more and more as you play. It's not unlike learning a circuit in a racing sim, actually.

It's not without some annoyances, though, specifically vehicle handling (I would've preferred it if they handled a little less realistically to reduce the Austin Powers-style 100-point turns needed to position them precisely and also to reduce unlucky things like your truck getting beached on a piece of rock you hadn't seen during your heist execution) and alarm boxes (there's a surprising amount to learn about what you can and can't get away with - you can dangle an item on its alarm cable so long as there isn't much slack on the cable when you drop it, you can move objects that contain an alarm box but you can't completely bisect them), but with free quick saving whenever you want, these issues aren't that significant so it's still a fun game overall.

 

[Casey]

Bought the Warner bros bundle on Humble bundle and I'm playing through the Batman Arkham games.

Also some of the new WRC game.

 

[PletdeKoe]

Somehow I am trying to get into Red Dead Redemption 2 for the third time. Have to say I think it will click this time around. The rythm of the game is just so different to so many other games.

 

[GTboyz]

Somehow I am trying to get into Red Dead Redemption 2 for the third time. Have to say I think it will click this time around. The rythm of the game is just so different to so many other games.

First chapter is so slow but I was hooked by chapter 2.

 

[Meythia]

But plan is to finish GoW and then get Ragnarok.

GoW:Ragnarok didnt really tick the boxes for me, the urge to finish the story was not as strong as with the previous one.

Currently playing:
Skautfold: Usurper - ohmygod, this game is slow, but now I have to finish it.
Baldurs Gate 3 - coop session +1 player.
MythForce - more coop session +2 players.

Finished just before:
Lords of the Fallen - to me the remake is the best soulslike outside of Dark Souls 3, if only the multiplayer worked better.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite - solid team shooter, but the expected difficulty was higher than actually experienced, except for a single mission that was pushing us to the limits.
Rogue Legacy 2 - funny improvements compared with the first game.

Lost interest:
Age of Wonders 4 - much, much too slow and repetitive.

 

[NLxAROSA]

So I chose to follow Unmetal up with Overload, I played it a bit in 2020 so I already knew the story is largely inconsequential but it's the perfect Steam Deck game

Playing this on my handheld too. Amazing game, though the default controller layout was not to my liking. Fully configurable, so now have a setup that works well. 👍

 

[JohnBM01]

Let's just say that I've gone on a Flatout Wreckfest lately. I've entered a realm of racing I normally do not take part in as a racing/driving game veteran- combat racing. I've played two different Burnout games before and even the classic Death Rally. However, I tried out one series and a popular game recently.

I entered the realm of Flatout by doing a time trial and a quick race. The action was quite frenzied while also running smoothly. I thought the experience was pretty cool. Maybe it will be better as I get some better cars and do some tuning.

Thought I only cared about Flatout 1? Think again! Flatout 2 I tried also. For some reason, maybe I treat Flatout 2 a bit like the Burnout games. It has the same level of intensity, only Flatout 2 is more extreme. I think I'm going to be quite busy trying to survive in this game. And speaking of survival...

Wreckfest was the final game I tried out. Having seen it streamed a lot, I finally decided to delve into this game and give it a try. I got too interested in wrecking for a single race. Then, I ended up trying out two Demolition events. I did two demo derby against 7 others. The first race, I wrecked out in 5th. The second race, I won and wrecked two cars in the win. You would think a game like Wreckfest would be rather arcade in nature. Actually, there is some realism to Wreckfest. I almost forgot this used to be called "Next Car Game." I might actually enjoy vehicular mayhem in this game.


Not a bad tour of combat-type racing for me.

 

[JohnBM01]

I debuted in Serious Sam: The First Encounter tonight. The game seems to feast on battling hordes of enemies, like classic DOOM games. Things can be pretty hectic. I can tell this game is going to be seriously crazy.

 

[sesselpupser]

@JohnBM01 I never got into Serious Sam myself despite owning almost all of the games on Steam, I think I even have some of the VR games somehow, maybe they were free. Just seems like a load of screaming and shooting? I dunno.

I'm on part 2 of Teardown now after kind of rushing the second half of part 1, there were some really fun missions that let me exercise a part of my brain that rarely gets to see any action - how to be lazy and (intentionally) destructive in pursuit of saving time - but I honestly don't have enough time to figure out the optional objectives, I would probably end up playing it for tens of hours in pursuit of those and I just don't think I have that much enthusiasm. The stealthy aspect of part 2 was a pretty gripping spin on the concept, though, I really enjoyed the last mission I played which involved patrolling robots that either can't be killed or I haven't worked out how yet... Except for the one I peppered with rocket boosters and launched off of a balcony and into the sea!

 

[NLxAROSA]

Currently playing Alan Wake 2 on the handheld. Also got Thief Simulator 2 and put that in the backlog.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Started playing Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron on the PSP again Friday and I have been having a good time with it! Lately, I have been missing my PSP games a bit, so I am back to messing around with it again.

Wasn't really feeling it with Need for Speed Underground for some reason. I don't know if it's me or if the game just isn't as good as I had hoped, but I found myself not really enjoying as much. I am going to give it another go soon and see if I have the motivation to continue with it, but I don't know if I will or not.

 

[JohnBM01]

@JohnBM01 I never got into Serious Sam myself despite owning almost all of the games on Steam, I think I even have some of the VR games somehow, maybe they were free. Just seems like a load of screaming and shooting? I dunno.

Well, @sesselpupser , Duke Nukem is still king. However, Serious Sam's personality is fairly cool. I'd still take Duke Nukem over Serious Sam any day of the week. The charm is there for Serious Sam.

 

[sesselpupser]

I finished Teardown last night, somehow managing to cram 24 hours into the space of a single week which is pretty rare - really feeling it now, though, because this meant accidentally staying up past 1am a few times which is uncomfortable when you have a 2-year-old who's liable to wake you up at 4 and again (properly) at 6am. Didn't feel like 24 hours though, that really flew by.

Next up I'm going to try The Spectrum Retreat, HLTB says it's a five hour game which is what I'm looking for.

 

[TypeRDC5]

I wanted to wait until the Phantom Liberty DLC was on sale before jumping in but I caved in and bought it at full price (well slightly discounted through cdkeys) and after finishing everything in the main game I needed more Cyberpunk in my life.

So far it's great although I expected the new area to be much bigger, not really a complaint as I can actually get around without looking at the map in Dogtown.

Glad I waited until update 2.0 to get this game, loved every minute of it.

Also doing a few races against Sophy in GT7 when I only have a short time to play, it's a game changer for the GT series.

 

[Nacho Libre]

So, with Remnant II shadow-dropping today on Game Pass (Series consoles AND PC), all other gaming has been suspended until further notice. The gameplay is just as good as the original, but with more complex (and hardware-demanding) graphics.