What are you playing in quarantine? Also, MP invites here..

[Zaxxon]

I grabbed it but it feels exactly like the ones in-game. Maybe I'm misremembering but this style of puzzle features heavily in the main game.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Decided to pick up Divinity Original Sin 2 where I had left off last spring. I can’t remember why I stopped, but thought I was pretty far into the game. Turns out I only had about an hour of gameplay left before beating it. Oh well, guess I’ll need to find another game to keep me busy for awhile...

[hitbyambulance]

i want to play something new but i have _too many games_ and my brain can't make sense of sifting through hundreds of titles. i gave up in despair trying to find something.

super annoyed - i thought i got a back-up of the Escape From Rosecliff Island save games, but it didn't.... i was seven levels away from completing it when my hard drive died. no way am i playing through that one again.

EDIT: decided to try Hitman: GO (which i got in that charity Eidos bundle). it's clearly one that started life as a mobile phone game, but i can see myself playing all the way through to the end - the Hitman license doesn't really mean anything for a geometry-based puzzler. i like the boardgame-style presentation.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

GOG's summer sale started today. Picked up Age of Wonders 3 and Legend of Grimrock 2 for a total of ~$13. So I guess I now know what my next games will be!

[Skinypupy]

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition comes out on Friday, so I'll probably be setting aside Tales of Berseria and jumping into that. While the ToB story is still excellent, the graphics are somehow getting worse the further I get. A couple of the areas I was in last night would barely pass as PS2 graphics, much less current consoles. They're bad to the point of distraction, which certainly isn't a good thing. Combine that with the introduction of somehow even more complex combat mechanics that don't make any sense (12 hours in, no less), and I'm finding my interest plummeting.

I'm also tempted by the new ESO xpac, since it takes place in Skyrim. I finished the main quest for the base game (which I still consider the best ESO quest out of all the games. Fight me.) along with the Morrowind and Summerset expansions, but bounced of Elsewyr pretty hard. Will give it a few days for queues to go down (was over an hour last night, which I've never seen in ESO before) and see what the feedback is on the Greymoor content.

[hitbyambulance]

GOG's summer sale started today. Picked up Age of Wonders 3 and Legend of Grimrock 2 for a total of ~$13. So I guess I now know what my next games will be!

got the remaining two Deadly Rooms of Death titles i didn't have (DROD 4 and 5). i'm nowhere near ready to play those, but thought i would throw some support GOG's way.

[Scraper]

I finished up Assassins Creed 2 last night. While the game was still very playable it really shows just how far the series has come with Origins and Odyssey. The combat in particular is just awful. Still the story was enjoyable and the graphics weren't as distracting as I thought they would be.

I'm moving onto Bard's Tale IV Director's Cut on the PS4. I'm about 2 hours in and so far I'm really digging it in an old school 1st Person CRPG game kind of way. Kind of reminds me of Arx Fatalis. I know this game would be better on a PC, but I don't have a gaming rig setup right now.

[YellowKing]

I grabbed the Dungeon Siege collection in the GOG sale. For $5 was kind of hard to pass up. I'm perfectly aware of the "it plays itself!" criticisms (particularly the first game), but I always had a soft spot for the series.

I've tried to refocus and not get too distracted, though, so I plan to finish up Mafia III first.

[Rumpy]

FWIW, I found the boss in DS II to be almost impossible on modern computers. It becomes so twitchy at this point. Apparently you have to avoid the boss' magic, but unless I was doing something completely wrong, I wouldn't have enough time to react to his onslaught before dying. It was happening way too fast, and given cheat codes didn't have any effect on his fight, I had to shelve it.

[hitbyambulance]

I grabbed the Dungeon Siege collection in the GOG sale.

got this in the recent EIDOS charity bundle. (already have Dungeon Siege 1 on CD!*) i have a feeling i want to play through all three of these...


* i was super excited about this title for some reason that i can't remember and i bought it at the Electronics Boutique in the Mall of America just after it came out. i was soooo disappointed after playing it for a while, and never got close to finishing it.

[YellowKing]

* i was super excited about this title for some reason that i can't remember and i bought it at the Electronics Boutique in the Mall of America just after it came out. i was soooo disappointed after playing it for a while, and never got close to finishing it.

There's definitely some "glutton for punishment" thing going on here, because I remember being extremely disappointed in it as well and I just kept playing. I fired it up today just to see the graphics and wound up playing an hour (while complaining about the graphics and controls the whole time).

[Skinypupy]

* i was super excited about this title for some reason that i can't remember and i bought it at the Electronics Boutique in the Mall of America just after it came out. i was soooo disappointed after playing it for a while, and never got close to finishing it.

There's definitely some "glutton for punishment" thing going on here, because I remember being extremely disappointed in it as well and I just kept playing. I fired it up today just to see the graphics and wound up playing an hour (while complaining about the graphics and controls the whole time).

Your post got me thinking "I remember enjoying the Dungeon Siege games. Maybe I should buy this revisit them." Had them all loaded up in my GOG cart, and decided to check in my Steam library on the off-chance that I had already picked them up.

Sure enough, all three games were sitting there in Steam...and I have yet to even install one of them.

[Blackhawk]

I grabbed it early on and remember being disappointed as well. But then I played with Zaxxon and Gellar- my first online co-op game! - and had a lot of fun that way.

[Rumpy]

* i was super excited about this title for some reason that i can't remember and i bought it at the Electronics Boutique in the Mall of America just after it came out. i was soooo disappointed after playing it for a while, and never got close to finishing it.

There's definitely some "glutton for punishment" thing going on here, because I remember being extremely disappointed in it as well and I just kept playing. I fired it up today just to see the graphics and wound up playing an hour (while complaining about the graphics and controls the whole time).

They were popular enough to receive 3 sequels plus the spinoff Space Siege, not to mention the terrible movie. I think it was novel for its time in the way you were able to move through the game world and its camera, but now it just feels rather quaint. Interestingly, while the first two were PC exclusives, the 3rd one marked the first time the franchise was on consoles, and yet while it would technically be more widely available, I've yet to have heard from anyone who's played it. I also don't remember hearing any marketing from when it came out.

[Zaxxon]

I grabbed it early on and remember being disappointed as well. But then I played with Zaxxon and Gellar- my first online co-op game! - and had a lot of fun that way.

That one definitely benefitted from multiplayer with friends.

[Blackhawk]

I grabbed it early on and remember being disappointed as well. But then I played with Zaxxon and Gellar- my first online co-op game! - and had a lot of fun that way.

That one definitely benefitted from multiplayer with friends.

Dated 7/23/02

[Zaxxon]

Damn, we're old.

[hitbyambulance]

have 15 puzzles left in Sigils of Elohim. i'm enjoying it



(this is a freebie promo game from Croteam for The Talos Principle, also available on Android and iOS. after every eight puzzles completed you get a code you can redeem in that game for additional content)

finished. gotta find another puzzle game (like... maybe i could actually finish Talos Principle now...)

[Skinypupy]

The Xenoblade Chronicles remaster on Switch is REALLY good. They did an excellent job of streamlining the bazillion sidequests into a far more manageable process (map markers, paths to the objective, instant completion instead of having to return to the questgiver, etc), and actually making them fun instead of frustrating. I’ve probably completed more in my first 5 hours this playthrough than I did in the first 10 or 15 hours on previous platforms. Plus, it looks fantastic.

[Scraper]

The Xenoblade Chronicles remaster on Switch is REALLY good. They did an excellent job of streamlining the bazillion sidequests into a far more manageable process (map markers, paths to the objective, instant completion instead of having to return to the questgiver, etc), and actually making them fun instead of frustrating. I’ve probably completed more in my first 5 hours this playthrough than I did in the first 10 or 15 hours on previous platforms. Plus, it looks fantastic.

I picked this up too. I agree the side quests are implemented much better. Since you finish them instantly I just pick them all up and complete them if I wonder across them.Although I wish I had played this prior to playing Final Fantasy 7 remake, that game is so damn good that it makes Xenoblade Remake look and feel 2nd rate.

[Skinypupy]

Yeah, I can definitely see how going straight from one to the other would be quite jarring.

Still, I think they did a really good job on this XC remake. This is now the third time I've played it and I'm enjoying it far more this time than my previous two attempts.

[Scraper]

Yeah It's not really a knock on Xenoblade, it's more of a compliment as to how good FF7 remake is. It definitely raised the bar. The Xenoblade remake hasn't raised the bar on the genre, but it definitely made a good game even better.

When I first played it on the Wii I probably got about 30 hours in and left lost interest. A lot of it had to do with the side quests and how vague there were to complete. This time around I don't see myself having that problem. I will just grab them and then ignore them until they become convenient to complete by stumbling onto the location of the thing you are supposed to kill/collect.

[Defiant]

I've started playing Police Quest 1 (the VGA remake). I haven't played any Sierra games in close to 10 years (even though I used to play them a lot), and haven't played much point and click adventures in general in recent years. I'm using the hintbook, because I don't want to deal with the stress of deadends and such (and I want to complete the games - I've got a bunch I never played or completed).

So I've played the following:

Police Quest 1 (VGA) - eh, not the greatest Sierra game I've played, but ok. Glad I used the hintbook, because there were a few potentially very annoying deadends you could get to (like going on the undercover without knowing beforehand to find and save your bosses phone number in the computer database). There were some annoyances in the driving system, but I imagine it was an improvement on the original. And the poker game, thankfully, can be optionally skipped.

A Golden Wake - I originally bought this largely without looking to closely at it (it was on sale for cheap, It had positive ratings, it was a point and click adventure game, it had art deco design - I probably thought it was pulp-y). So I played it and it wasn't what I expected at all. It's more like an biography of a fictional real estate salesman in the 20s (who interacts with real historical figures). It's described as "an innocent man's descent into greed and corruption, and his eventual redemption", and that's a good description. On the one hand, it's probably not something I would rush to play (or read), but it's something different and I'm glad for having played it. That said, the strong narrative does have a few issues - first off, there were some choices that the character made that I wouldn't have made if given the option, so it felt kind of forced. Also, some puzzles felt very forced and didn't fit there. Still, worth playing, especially if you like point and click adventure games or you like that era.

Spoiler:

(I think the game could have done a better job of showing the playing character becoming disillusioned with his boss. And in terms of forced puzzles, the finding the shack piece felt really, really forced)

Clue Chronicles: Fatal Illusion - played this years ago, but never completed it. It's very much full of mystery tropes (magicians, seances, a ghost, new years eve parties on boats and in a clifftop mansion, a cable car ride, riddles, jewels, secret passages, archaeological artifacts, a hypnotist, a psychologist, murders, lies, distrust, divulged secrets, lots of accusations - at one point, Colonel Mustard even accuses you!, etc), which were great fun. The puzzles are a mix of regular, if easy, inventory and dialogue puzzles, a maze and the occasional annoying minigame (eg, pushing buttons in a right order to unlock something and similar puzzles). The accepts range from terrible to over the top funny (and one character responds with "Bah!" to about 90+% of the questions you ask him). The story is entertaining enough, and while there are a few plot holes, it mostly makes sense (though at one point, you need to read the closed captioning to understand something, because the character never speaks the line, but it's in the captioning). One of the minigames is really, really annoying and difficult to get through (you have to push a ball in some game, avoiding certain holes while going in others, , presses buttons and controlling the ball isn't easy).

That said, the game shows it's age. The graphics, which no doubt looked great then, looks very dated. And the interface isn't great. You move from point to point (or turn around) by pressing arrows on each screen, but a few times I didnt see certain arrows for ages). Also, sometimes, you can't directly interact from certain screens, even if you can see it, you need to go to a certain location. For example, I entered a persons bedroom, and could see them sitting at a table, but in order to speak to them, I had to go in further, to the bed, and then turn around in order to face them). Also, this was the first of what were going to be three games (which may explain the reason for some plot holes), but it ended up being the only game. Anyway, for a description of the story:

Spoiler:

The game starts with an introductory video in egypt, taking place almost 30 years before the game, where a man in an archeological dig is in his tent. The murderer opens up a briefcase with all the clue weapons, picks out the knife and murders the man. Skip ahead to December 31, 1939 - you're invited to a party by a mysterious rich Mr Masque, who has built a mountaintop mansion. You're a detective, and are there with all the regular clue characters and a few others (a German psychologist, a painter, a Russian spy(?), a magician). You start on a boat ride to the mansion, where you're asked to go get a chinese puzzle box for the host. He appears and you give him the puzzle box, which he opens and dies. You investigate and ask people questions, get a glove so you can open the box, manage to unlock the door to the bridge of the ship (where the captain is a steampunk automaton that you need to repair. You arrive at the cable car, which you need to fix, and then arrive at the mansion. There, each of the traditional clue characters has a riddle you need to solve in order to find gems. Once you solve them, the magician performs an illusion, which goes horribly wrong and kills him. You perform a seance, where the ghost of Mr Masque appears, and then the story really starts picking up. I managed to figure out that the dead masque was an imposter, because he had a tattoo, which Scarlet (an actress) recognized from one of actors she had met. Scarlet pretends to get shot, though you don't realize this, and while performing your investigation, Mr Green attacks you, but is knocked out by Scarlet. You manage to get a key, to unlock a very unusual game room (well, at least two almost identical gamerooms, one of which has a secret passage) Going through the secret passage, you find masques bedroom. You learn that masque is really the son of Mr Boddy (who was the guy who died in the video, except according to him and Ms white, Boddy died in a plane crash?), but he wanted to uncover the discoveries boddy had found, which was hidden in the mountain estate before Boddy Jr/Masque fixed the estate up. You find the mummy's sarcophagus , in which you use the jewels you found to unlock the sarcophagus. At that point, Boddy Jr and Green arrive to steal it from you and Scarlet, lock it in and set up a bomb. You also learn that the magician and the actor and green are working for boddy jr, and that the magician killed the actor, and green killed the magician (to keep them from talking). Anyway, assuming you escape, there's an end video, where Scarlet runs up to the two bad guys, and pretends to be working with green and that she and green had set this up together to get the treasure, in order to make Boddy jr suspicious (this is only explained if you read the captioning - it makes less sense if you don't). This causes Boddy to be suspicious of Green, and the two fight, with boddy falling off the cliff. Green then points out that Boddy set up other bombs in the estate, and so everyone (still living) rushes down in the cable car, as the bombs go off, the estate explodes, and an avalanche starts up. You manage to get to the boat, and leave. It's implied that there's a bomb on the boat at the end, though...

The end credits do show some pictures that describe some of the behind the scenes stuff - including that Mrs White sabotaged the cable car (no explanation given - I figure she had enough with the murder and danger, and wanted to put an end to this. It doesn't explain who killed the guy in the intro video (possibly that's unrelated to the main mystery), why Masque would invite a detective, or why Green seems to get off without any punishment, but oh well, it was a fun ride.

Also managed to play the original Sid Meier's Colonization from GOG. managed to get it to run in a large window, rather than full screen. And, after a couple of short games to refresh my memory of the mechanics and such, I played a nice long game and managed to win independence (on easy mode)

Not sure what I'll play next (maybe Freddy Pharkas? Or maybe Imperialism 1 or 2?), but I've been enjoying revisiting gaming from years past.

[Skinypupy]

I want to try Phantasy Star Online 2 on PC, but am reading some REALlY bad feedback on its implementation through the Windows Store.

Sounds like it’s buggy as all hell, so I might wait a bit to jump in.

[Blackhawk]

I have been bouncing off of games left and right. My mood is off. I don't know whether it is stress and depression because the world sucks, a mood, burnout, or if I am just going through A Change.

I finished Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, plus Assassin's Creed: Black Flag this year. Right now I'm doing a few levels per night of Metro: Last Light Redux.

[Rumpy]

There were some annoyances in the driving system, but I imagine it was an improvement on the original.

Oh, it definitely was an improvement on the original for its time. In the original one, the car was represented by a tiny rectangle with movement not dissimilar to a pong tablet, and it was very twitchy and you could easily crash the car.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/po ... Id,331731/

The remake which I think had been released around the time of the 3rd game had a similar system to that game and was far less reliant on reflexes.

[Defiant]

The remake which I think had been released around the time of the 3rd game had a similar system to that game and was far less reliant on reflexes.

It was, but it also was glitchy in a few spots on the map (eg, press to turn right and it goes left, one location could only enter a location if you were driving in one direction, not the other, etc). Nothing major, but annoying.

[Rumpy]

Are you sure you were coming at the turn from the right direction? As far as I can remember, one of the games had it where if you were coming from the opposite direction, it was actually inverted input, and as far as I know they had designed it that way on purpose, to be tricky. They saw it as part of the puzzle. Games from the 80's and 90's were kind of brutal that way I do remember at least one location that could only be entered via one direction, a park maybe?

[Skinypupy]

Madden 20 and Devil May Cry 5 were both $17 on PSN, so they've now been added to the ever-growing pile.

[hitbyambulance]

super annoyed - i thought i got a back-up of the Escape From Rosecliff Island save games, but it didn't.... i was seven levels away from completing it when my hard drive died. no way am i playing through that one again.

i couldn't let this one rest, so i did some more research. save game data was located at %appdata%\Roaming\SpinTop Games\ - and copying the data over actually worked. looks like i was just five levels away from completing this, so I WILL FINALLY DO IT

so now the currently playing list is:
RAD
Escape Rosecliff Island
7 Wonders of the Ancient World
Deadly Rooms of Death (the first one)
Hitman GO

completed:
Sigils of Elohim

done with (for now):
Pac-Man 256

[coopasonic]

I keep playing Tales of Berseria, but I really don't know why (OK, I do know why, nothing else is calling out to me). The combat is endless and super repetitive. There are no meaningful choices to be made. I am apparently less than halfway through the game... I'm not sure I can keep it up.

[Hrothgar]

RAD

Is that RAD or R.A.D.? I played the latter back in the day. Weird, but fun.

[hitbyambulance]

RAD

Is that RAD or R.A.D.? I played the latter back in the day. Weird, but fun.

the former. it's the same kind of gameplay as Bastion/Transistor, but DoubleFine'd. the corny late-80s-VHS aesthetic actually kinda works here and the soundtrack is pretty good at times. i'd like to see this title get a Diablo III/Grim Dawn length of development time and budget - i could see it really shining there. as it is, i think it's going to be pretty small in scope and no more than a 20-hour diversion.

[YellowKing]

The combat is endless and super repetitive. There are no meaningful choices to be made.

Oooh keep talking..you're really selling me on it.

I haven't picked it back up since my first tiny excursion. I'm just in complete gaming ADD mode right now. I can't stick with anything for any length of time.

My latest acquisition is TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER which I'm really looking forward to diving into, but check back with me next week and I'll probably have shelved it.

I guess what I'm saying is don't pay any attention to anything I recommend in this thread.

[coopasonic]

The combat is endless and super repetitive. There are no meaningful choices to be made.

Oooh keep talking..you're really selling me on it.

There must be *something* to it (other than Velvet's breasts which the camera appears to always focus on) because I have kept at it for around 20 hours now.

[Skinypupy]

Realized last night that in the 17 hours I've currently spent with Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, I have progressed nearly twice as far into the game as I did in over 40 hours with either of the previous versions (Wii or 3DS). It's a testament to what a fantastic job they did in streamlining the questing, navigation, and advancement systems (or how utterly horrible they were before).

Some of these new zones look absolutely amazing as well. It's one of the few JRPGs that I just enjoy exploring for the sake of exploring.

I keep playing Tales of Berseria, but I really don't know why (OK, I do know why, nothing else is calling out to me). The combat is endless and super repetitive. There are no meaningful choices to be made. I am apparently less than halfway through the game... I'm not sure I can keep it up.

You're far more patient than me, I bailed about 16 hours in.

The combat did nothing for me, the story was 'meh' (although some of the characters were great), the graphics were terrible, and the music was completely forgettable.

[hitbyambulance]

Escape Rosecliff Island

this one is way waay waaaaay too long for the sameness and lack of variety it possesses

7 Wonders of the Ancient World

i need this one buried in a landfill and out of my life

[pr0ner]

After putting it away for a month (for no real reason), I've made more progress in God of War. I just escaped Helheim for the second time, so I think I'm starting to approach the end game. My next big tasks will likely be to finish Muspelheim, the combined Brok/Sindiri favor, tie up some loose ends on Lake of Nine areas/quests, and then finally give Niflheim a try before getting into the end game of the quest.

[Zaxxon]

Started in on The Talos Principle on Switch after picking it up in the summer sale for $11. Still just as awesome the 2nd time through.

[hitbyambulance]

i'm trying out GET EVEN, from Polish developer The Farm 51. wasn't sure what i was expecting with this one, but it's really a walking simulator in a stress-inducing 'dark psychological trauma' disguise. like if there was a Condemned hidden-object game. or Manhunt match-three or Silent Hill solitaire or something... relatively little shooting so far, and more use of scanners/IR/UV cameras. it seems very linear/scripted and story-heavy which is not my thing, but at least the plot doesn't treat you like an idiot and the voice acting is competent. i had best not play this before bedtime