What are you playing now? [2018-2021]

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Vampyr via Game Pass. I’m quite enjoying the heavy dialogue-driven narrative. It has a neat system of needing to talk to various folks or doing things in order to unlock more dialogue, and then sometimes how you choose dialogue affects certain outcomes in a fairly natural way if you’ve paid attention. In that respect it is an extension of Life is Strange’s dialogue puzzles, if that makes sense.

I only have GP for another week, so I need to hurry up or put it off until the next deal. Performance is adequate for One S, but the initial load time can be off putting with occasional zone loading.

I’m only playing on story mode to get through the combat (it’s functional, but nothing I want to spend too much time on ala Witcher 3). There is a light crafting component to the game, but so far nothing particularly irritating. You can craft medicine to give to any of the folks you come across that need a particular remedy or cure for their ailment.
 
I liked Vampyr but had the same issue with the combat as you. It's fine, but it wasn't why I was playing the game.
 
I reached the normal ending of GoW. I expected something more epic in the vain of the previous games.
Still it was shocking and cool in it's own right. Totally unexpected. I did suspect though that the mother's hidden identity was deliberate.
It makes it almost certain there will be a sequel and I ve found out there is also a secret ending.
I am trying to finish the side missions now
 
Loved that game. My only two complaints were:
-mostly weak mandatory boss fights. The truly great boss fights (against the Valkyries) were all optional unfortunately.
-not a fan of the rigid gear leveling system. Might as well forget about taking on a bunch of enemies 2 levels higher than yourself. Just feels wrong when the God of War himself cannot take on a bunch of Draugr because they have a 7 on top of their health bars.
 
Loved that game. My only two complaints were:
-mostly weak mandatory boss fights. The truly great boss fights (against the Valkyries) were all optional unfortunately.
-not a fan of the rigid gear leveling system. Might as well forget about taking on a bunch of enemies 2 levels higher than yourself. Just feels wrong when the God of War himself cannot take on a bunch of Draugr because they have a 7 on top of their health bars.
I agree with those points :)
 
Risk of Rain 2. This is Early Access done well. The game from my experience so far has been refreshingly bug free.

I was skeptical whether they would be able to successfully transition the IP from a 2D side scroller rogue lite to a fully 3D action rogue lite, but for the most part it's extremely well done.

Game is relatively light on content at the moment (6 of 10 characters implemented, lots of items still not implemented, new features to be added in the future, probably more levels as well) but still provides about 20 or so hours of play if you try to unlock everything currently available. More if you just like killing stuff and seeing what kind of builds the RNG gods bestow upon you.

Regards,
SB
 
Sekiro

So far I'm rather underwhelmed by it to be honest. From kept all the things that made their previous games hard (hard, erratically hitting enemies, punishing deaths, low vitality) and thrown out all the things that made overcoming said difficulty so fun and rewarding (awesome loot, weapon variety, build variety, loads of approaches to tackle different situations, intriguing level designs with loads of hidden nooks and crannies)
What remains in the end is a fairly basic action game (compared to the likes of DMC, Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta) that feels unfair more often than not. Imagine a DS game in which the only way to proceed was to parry and riposte all damn day. And just like in DS, one or two botched parries send you back to the latest bonfire. Learning from your mistakes becomes damn near impossible when there's literally no room for error.

Update: starting to get the hang of it. Still, there's a couple too many instances of leftover crap from the Souls engine messing with your shit here. Like a rather unreliable lock-on feature and camera problems. That stuff was part of Dark Souls and Bloodborne as well, but Sekiro's heightened focus on reading enemies correctly at all times exacerbates those issues greatly.

Update: game finally started to open up. Now I have the choice pf plenty of different walls to bash my head against instead of just the one :)

Update: almost done with it. Final boss and a couple of optional ones are still waiting to be taken down, but other than that I mopped the floor with everything the game has to offer.
Game is a tough one to master and not exactly flawless (the camera is gonna kill you time and time again), but it's incredibly rewarding. Not From Software's best, but a damn good game in its own right. Due to its surgical, single-minded approach to combat gameplay I suspect it's gonna lack in replay value. You cannot really build different Shinobis here. On the other hand I finally got why the game is so damn challenging: it wants you to master its combat system in order to be successful. That wouldn't be entirely neccessary if the game was easier.

Right now I'd rank the From games as follows: Bloodborne = Dark Souls > Dark Souls 3 > Demon's Souls = Sekiro > Dark Souls 2.
I've only ever touched Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, managed to beat the first and dropped the latter after 4 bosses and never gone back again :). The amount of soul breaking torture is quite enough after the Nth amount of tries, yes at times it was satisfying and rewarding but for me it's totally not worth the grind. Ain't coming back without it being more...accessible.
 
Sekiro actually is more accessible I'd say. The game is a lot less nebulous in its story and systems. It's just really hard. Unlike in BB and DS, the means to make the game easier (like grinding vitality or simply going at it with a group of players) are also few and far between. Another reason the game seems so punishing is that its surface level similarities with the Souls games leads players to approach it like a Souls game during combat as well. Except in Sekiro, abusing the dodge mechanic is a surefire way to get yourself killed. The sooner one realizes to treat Sekiro's combat differently, the sooner it's gonna click. It's probably an easier game for non-Souls veterans because they don't have years of muscle memory working against them.
 
I liked Vampyr but had the same issue with the combat as you. It's fine, but it wasn't why I was playing the game.
Just binge finished it yesterday. I ended up embracing a couple folks whom I thought kinda felt could have used a peaceful death to stop their suffering. One guy I thought was just kinda scum even after helping him with remedies a couple times. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Pretty neat story. I really like the idea of having things change according to your actions. I think they could have done more on there, but I did appreciate a number of the social messages to the player throughout. I got lost for a couple hours trying to get to the ascalon club (couldn't find the open passageway), but I guess I ended up spending time to get folks healed anyway.

The game reaaaally needed a fast travel option.
 
Pretty neat story. I really like the idea of having things change according to your actions. I think they could have done more on there, but I did appreciate a number of the social messages to the player throughout.

Yeah, I'd like to see the dev team take this concept and run with it more.
 
A couple of days worth of GTA V better than it's ever ran and I just got Watch Dogs 2 installed with Prey lined up right behind it.

What else have i missed in the last few years? Mafia 3? Just Cause 3? Just Cause 4? How many Far Crys are there now? How many Bioshocks?!?
 
Figured I'd pick up Borderlands 2/Pre-Sequel (whatever's left in the Handsome Collection since I already own the first game) since that's on sale... guess they put out an official HD texture pack :?:

Also picked up Ion Maiden... seemed like right up my alley, and don't mind supporting the ol' team (3D Realms) for $20CAD.
 
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Days Gone. I like it. I don't love it. But I'm also not that far into it so things could very well change. I'm already thankful the game isn't stuffed to the gills with activities and collectibles, though. Very refreshing.

Dragon's Dogma on the Switch. One of my all time favorite games. I'd probably put it into my top 5. Maybe even top 3. And now I can play it whenever and whereever I want. Good port as well. Sure, on the big screen I prefer my PS4 version with its unwavering framerate, pin sharp image quality and improved draw distance, but on the small Switch screen these differences almost melt away. The game looks and runs significantly better than it did on the PS3 and 360 (it has all the visual improvements of the remastered game) and seems to run either at the screen's native resolution or very, very close to it.
TLDR: It looks and plays lovely. This is still one of the most unique and ambitious rpgs out there. And if the idea of taking this on the go sounds appealing, then this port gets a green light from me.
 
Days Gone. I like it. I don't love it. But I'm also not that far into it so things could very well change. I'm already thankful the game isn't stuffed to the gills with activities and collectibles, though. Very refreshing.

Days Gone was a bit of a slow burn to love for me too, but it's got me now. The controls took a while to appreciate, as did the bike which I now love. It's definitely a game I appreciated and enjoyed the more I played and there are only a few oddities like in a weapon based economy you can't sell weapons.
 
I read that the aiming with weapons is really bad. Is it ? Nothing more frustrating to me than false difficulty introduced by bad controls...
 
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