What are you playing at the moment?

[BetaB17]

Seconding New Vegas. One of the best Bethesda-formula experiences ever, and arguably the best Fallout game to date.

I have yet to finish it.. or start any of the dlc...

[dremorababe]

New vegas is great! Fallout 3 looks great too. I kinda bit off more than I could chew off by starting way too many games at once. Which is why I've been so inactive. AnywaysI hope I can finish them all off before Skyrim's Special Edition pops up. Cause I know I won't be playing anything else once I get that.

[Will Zurmacht]

Morrowind, as a Redoran/Imp Legion/Imp Cult sword and board posterior kicker. Eighty percent of my time in this game is spent navigating the fast travel network. "Strider to Balmora, back to Seyda Neen, boat to Khuul, oh wait do I have a mark back at my manor? Maybe I should Almsivi Intervention back to Ald'ruhn and use the mage guild teleport to Sadrith Mora and take a boat from there..." etc. etc. infinito.

Also there's a funny wealth accumulation dynamic at play, where I was constantly broke trying to pay for training, fast travel, bribes, and adventuring supplies (no stealing). Then around level 16 I suddenly started running across glass and ebony gear and my character is now instantly and permanently rich. From wage slave to Donald Trump in the blink of an eye.

[Argonanza]

Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Seasons.

I played it when I was a wee lad, but I don't think I ever finished it. I... think there's a kangaroo involved at some point?

[Fiar]

Legend of Zelda - Oracle of Seasons.

I played it when I was a wee lad, but I don't think I ever finished it. I... think there's a kangaroo involved at some point?

Yeah, you get some companions you can ride around in. The kangaroo is awesome since he has tornado punches!

So, you never beat it ? Are you aware that if you beat both Ages and Seasons, you can unlock the real final boss?

[Argonanza]

That's pretty neat.

[LugkAgumbuk]

Morrowind, as a Redoran/Imp Legion/Imp Cult sword and board posterior kicker. Eighty percent of my time in this game is spent navigating the fast travel network. "Strider to Balmora, back to Seyda Neen, boat to Khuul, oh wait do I have a mark back at my manor? Maybe I should Almsivi Intervention back to Ald'ruhn and use the mage guild teleport to Sadrith Mora and take a boat from there..." etc. etc. infinito.

Also there's a funny wealth accumulation dynamic at play, where I was constantly broke trying to pay for training, fast travel, bribes, and adventuring supplies (no stealing). Then around level 16 I suddenly started running across glass and ebony gear and my character is now instantly and permanently rich. From wage slave to Donald Trump in the blink of an eye.

:0 I'm now jealous.

That's it. I'm going to boot up Morrowind now, as a Corrupt Imperial Hlaalu (sic) man

[The SheoDovah]

Slowing down Dragon's Dogma and for the first time in years, playing MGS4:Guns of the Patriots. The graphics have aged well! I mean, they looked fantastic in 2008, they look fantastic in 2016. Sure, it's more cutscene then gameplay but it was meant to be the final MGS game and well, MGS is kinda famous/infamous for it's plot. They had to tie up everything where they could. Will admit, i did get spotted a few times but oh well.

EDIT: OH COME ON! REALLY!? KONAMI!? REALLY!? ***** took down the extras without really bothering to inform anyone. Really anger inducing as i've wasted half an hour fixing my PSN password, connecting to it and daaaaaargh! Second MGS they managed to ***** me off with! At least, throw it on the PS Store. Or just remove Extras in that same patch! Stupid Konami.

[BetaB17]

Anybody played the indie game Little Inferno? Because.. like.. damn.. I really want to

[Kerr]

I'm playing The Witcher and probably will be playing Witcher games for the next six months because they're long and now that I'm working I have less time to play games. Still in Chapter 1 but I'm liking it quite a bit so far.

I will say though, having sex with a woman who you just gave a potion to help treat her life threatening injuries, maybe not the best idea. Seems a bit strenuous for someone who was only seconds ago bedridden, if I was Triss I'd take probably want to take it easy for a bit. But what do I know, maybe the potion is very fast acting.

[KingFeraligatr]

When I played Witcher 1, the amount of women hitting on my character was really annoying. And it also [&@%!] me off that there was a forced "romantic" subplot in the game. I still managed to sleep with no one my entire run and keep the romance [&@%!] down, but the all things of that nature being forced down my throat was annoying. And the game really did not potray women in a good way. And you could tell the devs supported some of their decisions. Disgusting/

Witcher 3 is already more tasteful in this regard by having less hyper sexuals, far less forced romance, less sex in general, better treatment of women, etc. And when the romantic and sexual [&@%!] pops up, it feels far more logical than W1 (I still don't go through with it though). I like to play my characters as single people like I am when I have the choice (and I pretty much don't play the games that force romantic/sexual [&@%!] or are about romantic/sexual [&@%!]). Feels way less alienating, creepy, resonating, etc. If I have to break hearts in video games, so be it. I see nothing wrong with it and it's what makes me comfortable. Still doesn't mean I can't be friendly though.

[Rook]

^ Wew, lad.

@Kerr: If you like TW1 this much, 2 and 3 are gonna blow your mind. The gameplay and voice acting of 1 have aged pretty terribly, but the story and world are still solid and faithfully presented from the books. It plays like an extended version of one of Sapkowski's short stories.

[MetaCthulhu]

Speaking of witch(er), I just beat my first boss in Witcher 2! I was supposed to play Deus Ex first, but I kept getting some really bizarre acceleration issues . I really have to admit this is the closest I've felt to my first Skyrim playthrough in years. You know that feeling that you search for, the reason you play games? This one is giving me that feeling.

Spoiler:

Although I hate the Krayon. Stupid squid monster. Probably killed me 30 times.

[umber hulk]

my ps3 or my ps3 disc of Oblivion, one or the other, decided to [&@%!] itself and won't load properly, kind of a bummer as i was pretty happy with the character i'd made, efficiently leveled to 14 with 90ish str, int, and willpower, and working solidly on agility to eliminate that stagger, a very comfortable playstyle, and i was potentially gonna go all the way to godlike, but oh well...

i'm back to Alien Isolation, my third playthrough this year, fourth in total, and I've only one achievement outstanding - complete without dying, which i feel i could manage without cheesing, not this run, but maybe the next. I love this game.

^I felt the same about the first two witcher games re the peurile characterization, found it really offputting, i appreciate that 3 might be improved in that way, but there are other reasons I cannot warm to the franchise, namely it doesn't feel like enough of an rpg to me- not being able to design a character, or even choose a weapon- basically my input feels incidental, the developer designs for 'the player' in general, and doesn't allow for enough individuality, which is fine for an action game but on that subject the whole thing plays with a pretty poor rhythym IMO; the walk is too slow, the run is too fast, and the transition between the two is jarring, same goes for the way they pile on dialogue and cram in cutscenes. CDPR are a developer i just cannot get behind.

[MetaCthulhu]

Okay, I just beat Witcher 2. On the one hand, the consequences of my decisions always came back to bite me. On the other hand, I feel that I made the best decisions I could given the information I had.

My decisions:

:

I told Newboy to wear armour
I didn't kill Aryan
I gave Iorveth his sword (Resulting in rioting)
I sided with the Scoia'tael
I saved the elven women (Resulting in the town being sold to the Kaedwini)
I didn't let Stennis be lynched (Resulting in a poisoner being a King)
I helped Saskia instead of Triss (Resulting in a witchhunt)
I didn't let Sile die
I killed Letho

[Will Zurmacht]

The Elder Scrolls: Legends, Dire Wolf Digital and Bethesda's new online card game. Besides being more complex, more sober, fresher, and just plain more fun than Hearthstone at the moment, another interesting thing is the way the game implements TES conventions about the various races, cultures and factions.

Red decks often feature Nords and play up their bloodthirsty barbarian nature with lots of Charge creatures (can attack immediately), strong weapon cards, and creatures that favor power over health. All about aggression.

White decks contain Imperial themed cards that encourage fielding large amounts of individually weaker troops, but which can be buffed by Imperial leaders and support cards to steamroll the opposition. Legion grunts, sergeants, battering rams and more create the feeling of building up the mighty force that mastered Tamriel. Even General Tullius makes an appearance as a legendary card. The plethora of life leech mechanics in this color emphasize the traditional staying power of the Empire.

I've tended to view Argonians in the series as sort of a joke race/culture, what with the tree hugging, being enslaved, perpetual underdogs etc. but the raw power of Argonian cards in the green and black (or purple) sets goes a ways toward tempering that view. Argonian druidic culture is elaborated naturally through the way cards interact, and I picked up roundabout knowledge and grudging appreciation for it just by examining them and theorycrafting decks based around their mechanics.

TES lore makes its way into the sets in surprisingly subtle ways, like with the blue card Dres Tormentor, a Dunmer slave driver who punishes foes by quite thematically leveraging the game's Shackle mechanic.

There might be enough here for an expanded set of observations posted to the TESL forum.

[Crawldragon]

What you're describing sounds awesome but just listening to the basic game mechanics makes it sound a lot like Magic: The Gathering TES edition. Hopefully they'll be nicer about reprinting classic cards than the staff on Magic.

I've tended to view Argonians in the series as sort of a joke race/culture, what with the tree hugging, being enslaved, perpetual underdogs etc. but the raw power of Argonian cards in the green and black (or purple) sets goes a ways toward tempering that view. Argonian druidic culture is elaborated naturally through the way cards interact, and I picked up roundabout knowledge and grudging appreciation for it just by examining them and theorycrafting decks based around their mechanics.

To be fair, the Argonians have always been depicted as strong warriors. They fought off the Black Marsh front in the Oblivion crisis pretty much by brute force and have been shown overcoming their physical weakness through guerrilla tactics much like the Khajiit. I do believe they were also the first to declare their independence when the Empire started falling apart. Maybe that doesn't always come across in the games, though, especially with how much literal tree-worship they do.

[Will Zurmacht]

What you're describing sounds awesome but just listening to the basic game mechanics makes it sound a lot like Magic: The Gathering TES edition.

Some older MtG players are making that comparison as well. There are a host of key differences, among them the lack of lands, the inability of creatures to block without a special keyword, scarcity of card draw, the presence of two separate lanes for creatures with special rules for each, the rune and prophecy system, etc.. The game also pulls many elements from Hearthstone, while avoiding some of that game's missteps like overabundant RNG and an overwhelming free-to-play grind for new players. A number of MtG players who were getting their online card gaming fix with Hearthstone (WotC's online version of MtG apparently being a substandard product) are making positive comments about TESL's hybrid of elements from both games (plus unique elements).

[GamerAim]

I've been playing a lot of Borderlands as of late on my Xbox One (which is neat because the DLC is free on here) in preparation for Borderlands: The Handsome Collection. I have to say, it starts out slow, but once you get around level 20, your playstyle starts to solidify and it's a blast, especially with all the new areas and quests you suddenly start unlocking. Quests are kind of generic mechanically, but most have some fun writing behind them, avoiding the pitfall of Skyrim and Fallout 4's boring fetch quests. It's better with friends, but I find it working great solo so far on a sniper/melee build and I find myself almost staying up late on it because it's so fun.

[Crawldragon]

Pin-Bot is coming dangerously close to becoming my new favorite pinball table. It's epic in all of the right ways, makes you feel awesome for getting bonuses like extra ball, has a clear objective involving traveling the solar system, which is awesome in and of itself, and the whole thing is moderated by a badass robot sidekick who you activate to get multiball. The only word to describe the experience is "cool," and maybe "retro." It has all of the best qualities of the golden age of arcade, right down to the sound design, which makes me think of Joust, another arcade classic that dominated my life for a long time. The robot even says "I see you" during the attract mode just to spook people walking by, which I think is a nice touch.

The aesthetic is also very eighties while still maintaining this creepy air of being on a dangerous mission through space. It makes you want to succeed, to advance to all nine planets and eventually reach the sun. It gives you the feeling that whatever you're doing, it must be important. Other tables on my favorite pinball list like Black Hole don't really do that, or if they do it's buried under a ton of comic relief like Attack From Mars did. I guess in the eighties they took this whole thing a lot more seriously. I guess it helped that science fiction was more popular at the time.

The aesthetic is also interesting in that it's not anime, but it feels like it would appeal a lot to an anime fan, if that makes sense. Maybe it's the weird effeminate robot on the artwork, or maybe it's just that the aesthetic is gritty and dark in all the right places. It's not quite as campy and colorful as a lot of anime, but for some reason it just hits the right notes in my brain where I'm like "for some reason this feels like I'm playing an anime pinball game."

This is also one of those weird cases where I like the original but not the sequels (yeah, it's very rare, but occasionally a pinball machine will be so awesome it gets sequels) because they feel so unnecessary and I think the whole "Bride of Pin-Bot" thing kind of misses the point. Jack-Bot is also really cool but again I don't really see why they had to tie it to the original Pin-Bot or why his creepy wife is back again. This happens a lot, actually, where I think a series has a really solid first entry but they cock it up on the sequels. Maybe it's just the way my brain is wired, because the franchise itself was successful enough to go on for three games and get cameos in pop culture, so it must have been pretty popular all the way through.

I was born way too late to enjoy games like this as a kid. I wish arcades would come back.

[ProphetDragon]

In one of my gifts I got The Secret World, it has a pegi 16 patch on it.

Never heard of the game before, I hope it will be interesting.

[Aarah]

^I got The Secret World a couple of years ago.
Couldn't get into the story, myself, and was a bit all over the place, but I also had slow internet which made it lag and was not used to MMORPGs.

I hope you enjoy it! You can be in the Illuminati if you like!

[Fiar]

Fallout: New Vegas: Headshot, legshot, buckshot...This describes my play-through so far.

*Loads another 20 gauge shell into Caravan Shotgun*

WHO WANTS SOME!

[The SheoDovah]

MGS4, Metro Last Light, WWE2k16 and 14, The Last of Us and Assassain's Creed:Black Flag are games i have been playing for the past few weeks.

I still feel AC:BF was the last decent AC game and pirates are cool. Plenty of epic moments so far, love trolling via berserk darts and naval combat is awesome. Feels like I am actually fighting on the sea and taking down Man O Wars is a challenge but doable. Do wish that there was an "Autopilot." just for scenery purposes or as an alternative to boarding, jumping over with your crew during vollies. But oh well.

[MARS]

Still playing loads of FTL...why is the Slug Cruiser so garbage, I was really looking forward to unlocking it. :(

But hey, at least my high score is now held by The Gila Monster.