What are you playing?

[sandwich_bird]

I haven't been watching much stuff lately but I've been playing a bunch of games. What about you guys?

In the last 2 months I finished Final fantasy 8 and 9(HD versions), Metal Gear Solid 1: Twin Snake version, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Helltaker. I've played all these games years ago (except Helltaker) but never finished them.

Won't talk about Helltaker since it's just silly fun and can be done in <1h but, for the others, from a story perspective, they all have some great ideas but the execution isn't great. Exception being FF9, which has some glaring plot holes but overall has good execution. Also, I'm not into love stories but I'd say that the love story in FF9 is probably one of the best I've seen in a video game (not that the bar is very high haha). This is kinda ironic considering that 8 is supposed to put that love story at the forefront and it's just damn horrible. Speaking of which, FF8 has one of the worst story I've ever seen in plot-centric video game. It doesn't help that every single character is so damn unlikable. Basically, the party dynamic can be summarized to: main guy is an asshole that has to put up with a bunch of retards. Somehow though, I gotta say that the game is still enjoyable. It probably helps that the music, art and universe are great (gameplay is okay but easily abused).

Anyways, as for the MGS games, #1 is ridiculously over the top and corny(and I mean that in a very bad way). Nothing about that game aged well. What's worse is that the devs expect you to have played the old NES games to understand half of what's happening. I'll say though that, once again the music, art and universe are great. I particularly enjoy the back story that deals with the realities of nuclear armament.

Switching to MGS2, everything was much better in all departments. Though the plot is still over the top, cheesy and doesn't have the best execution, it's better written. The story beats are more interesting and there's a few events in there that took me completely by surprise. Adding to this, there's an exchange in particular that to me stands as one of the best dialogue ever written in a video game(I think I posted it in here before) and it's VERY relevant to the current world. Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good experience. Enough so that I'll be moving on to the next games in the series.

I'd give these games:
FF8 - 5/10
FF9 - 8/10
MGS1 - 5/10
MGS2 - 7/10

Now I'm moving on to Zelda Twilight Princess and MGS3. I wanted to play Nier Automata but the game keeps crashing on PC cause the port is poop. Might have to pick it up on PS4 later.

[Mislagnissa]

I’m playing Command & Conquer Remastered. The source code was released under GPL, so now there’s loads of mods on Steam.

[ragnarok]

Back to playing Far Cry 5 for now to get some more details on the story. Helping some people with their FC5 fics.

[The_Blade]

Heh good topic.

Honestly, I was not playing much of anything before the quarantine. Probably a bit of BW and SC2 here and there just to chill (I'd uninstalled every other Blizz game a year or so before the Hearthstone/China incident). However, now most of my RL and online friends starting playing "social" games frequently. So my list of games would be:

-Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition
-Civ V and VI
-LoL and Dota2
-Rocket League
-CoD Warzone and Overwatch
-Jackbox 3 and 5 party games

From this list, I enjoy the most out of AoE2 and the Jackbox series of games. I enjoy the hell out of AoE2 when playing with RL friends, because I get to finally flex on my RTS skills often fighting them 1v7 (or the most fun special mode: Blade and most noob friend vs everyone else, where their win condition is to kill the noob king). Although, I also have fun having more competitive games with online friends, as a few have played more of AoE than WCIII or SC. I can finally get that satisfaction after all those years of being forced to play FPS or Fifa. Jackbox is also a wild fun among a close knit group of friends you might have, as most of the fun is through already existing rivalries. I could live without the rest of the games and only play them with friends as I hate either the gameplay or the multiplayer community.

That being said, I also went back into my steam account, borrowed the family's Switch and a friend gave me a great emulator packed with a ton of old games to spend out some solo time. It's crazy how much time you gain from not needing the daily commutes everywhere, or being forced to stay at home and not spend your time elsewhere. Here's a few memorable games I've played on my own for the past 5 months:

-Darkest Dungeon (sank a few hours into a new town on the hardest difficulty)
-Sonic Adventure 2
-Breath of the Wild (finally got down from the great plateau, not even close to finishing)
-Witcher III (ilmao I will never finish this game)
-Final Fantasy VII remake
-Mario Sunshine
-Zelda Windwaker

Now I'm moving on to Zelda Twilight Princess and MGS3. I wanted to play Nier Automata but the game keeps crashing on PC cause the port is poop. Might have to pick it up on PS4 later.

Honestly Twilight Princess has to be one of the most underrated Zelda games of all time. It's easily on my top three. Guess I will replay through it in a week or so, too!

[sandwich_bird]

I see you guys are playing some older games as well, good stuff!

-Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition

Is it just me or did the AI in this got A LOT better than it used to be haha? I've played a couple of games and got screwed over fast but I ain't no pushover at RTS games lol. I think it's even worst in AoE1: DE. The first campaign mission I had to wall up with houses and do all kind of abuses to win and I wasn't even on the hardest difficulty. I don't think someone that's not at least Diamond level in SC2 could even beat it.

Honestly Twilight Princess has to be one of the most underrated Zelda games of all time. It's easily on my top three. Guess I will replay through it in a week or so, too!

It's good so far. There are things that I don't like about it such as killing the twilight bugs (so tedious..) buttt once you're done with the first 3 dungeons and all these things are gone, it seems to get better. I like it anyways. Much more than Breath of the Wild which I finished previously and find kinda meh (contrary to the entire planet haha). It just felt cheap to me after a couple of hours and not as "hand crafted" as the other ones. It has some good bones though. All they need to make it really good is to:

-Personalize the map and the dungeons a lot more (no more asset re-use everywhere)
-Improve the cringe voice acting (that zora girl = kill me now)
-Remove the breakable weapon bs... especially for the unique ones

Then it would be great. OoT remains at the top for me right now. Still need to play Skyward Sword and all the DS ones though.

[Mislagnissa]

I’m trying out Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars. I preordered and got access to the beta. It’s a mix of Total War and Magic: The Gathering.

It has a linear single player campaign with named characters. 4x games rarely have those. Reminds me of my nearly forgotten memories of playing Lords of Magic’s quest pack.