So, what're you playing?

[Samwise]

the first time Nintendo's moved from a PowerPC system architecture to x86, which would throw away at least a decade of development experience to start from scratch.

Are all their game developers really working close enough to the metal for that to affect them?  That seems insane to me.

[Quinton]

Given the performance difference between their current PPC systems and midrange PCs / xbone / ps4, I'm doubtful that even if they were throwing out a ton of hand-tuned PPC assembly (seems somewhat unlikely, really, given modern development practices), for straight C/C++ code, they'd come out ahead.  Unless their teams are completely incapable of moving to a new platform there's no way it's going to take a decade to do so in any case.

[Jeff Kelly]

Funny story: I'm currently working on an embedded project that uses a Freescale MPC56-based microcontroller. I've recently had to dig through the startup-code delivered with their Codewarrior based IDE because of a bug and there are still code fragments hidden in there for the gamecube. As far as platform change is concerned, the Nintendo 64 was MIPS-based (NEC VR 4300) so it doesn't seem tobother them too much since the Gamecube was PPC-based.

As for Nintendo competing against Sony/MS I'd rather move the discussion to the Console Wars thread.

One remark though. I don't think they know how they could compete or even what they did wrong. The Wii was an outlier. Even when Nintendo had the cheaper and more powerful units in the market than the competition it failed to translate it into sales. The Nintendo 64 was both cheaper ($199 vs. the PS One's $299 and the Saturn's $399) and more powerful but was completely trounced by Sony, the same happened with the gamecube where they even lost out against the original Xbox.

They stubbornly stuck with cartridges because they made much more money on the cartridge licenses on the 64 and then couldn't compete with the PS One's CD-ROM based 650 MB of data storage with their measly 64 MBit and then they decided they'd use a proprietary Mini-DVD format on the cube two years after the PS2 came out with a DVD drive and so they only had about 1.2 GB of storage vs. the PS 2's 4.8 GB per disc.

[Shannow]

FiFA 14
MWO
State of Decay.

[rk47]

[Tarami]

I have no problem with the concept, but that just sounds boring. What's the point unless it models the progression of the diseases? I wouldn't worry much about HIV if it only gave me -5 Magicka and could be cured by drinking a soda.

[Signe]

I don't want an STD.  Not even a cartoon one.  I used to get syphilis all the time in Discworld.  It was unpleasant.  Sometimes I'd be infected several times all at once.  I never figured out who was doing it, either.   

[Ironwood]

Discworld ??

[Signe]

Discworld Mud.

[Bzalthek]

Hah, I played that for years!  I don't think I actually did anything but walk around burying shit and mapping several cities on graph paper, and redrawing them to make them accurate  (at this point I was still insisting the layout of these places had to be logical and mappable.  i.e. I was pretty stupid)

[HaemishM]

I'm noodling around with Bioshock Infinite in between bouts of Battlefield 4. Infinite is... well, it's goddamn gorgeous artistically and the story is somewhat intriguing (and yes, I know the twist). But the shooting mechanics are really bland, and the immersion breaking need to pilfer through every garbage can looking for apples that I immediately eat, as well as the lack of any inventory whatsoever totally brings down the game. In other words, a lot of the game mechanics remind me I'm playing a game instead of experiencing a story - and since it appears story is really what they were trying to make me experience, it really highlights just how whorey a lot of the early glowing reviews for this game were. Citizen Kane my fucking ass.

[Shannow]

I spent the entire night on my son's Xbox. Usual quota of FiFA 14 games (too much of a cheapskate to buy it for my PC this year) and then I started up Assassin's Creed (the revolutionary war one). First time I've ever spent all night on a console and not touched my PC.

I feel a little dumber this morning.

[Hawkbit]

I've been playing AC4, which would be a phenomenal game if not for the Assassin's Creed part of the game.  Make this game about pirates and I'm in!

I was digging up a treasure and witnessed my first ship battle that I didn't start.  It took me totally by surprise and I had a 'wow' moment.

[naum]

Picked up SMTIV on sale.

This game has the hardest beginning of any SMT I've played. Jesus christ.

I died a lot in this…

[Margalis]

Picked up SMTIV on sale.

This game has the hardest beginning of any SMT I've played. Jesus christ.

I died a lot in this…

When I was doing the tutorials I got the one where you befriend a demon. Did the first one fine. Then I was attacked by a group of 2. They got initiative, got some weakness/critical hits, and killed both my party members before my turn came. Then I reloaded and the same thing happened again. I think I died 3 or 4 times total on that tutorial, which is like the second simple tutorial of the entire game.

I like the fact that even groups of jobbers can kill a member or two of your party if they get lucky, and that reviving party members isn't trivial, at least at this point. I'm often at the point where most of my dudes are dead.

[schild]

Fucking minotaur was a nightmare.

[Ard]

Minotaur was a bit too random for my liking.  The next few bosses are a lot more reasonable by comparison.

[Sir T]

Now that I finally have windows 7 I downloaded Sword of the Stars II (which I bought when it came out and hever touched as it was universally panned and I was still rocking windows XP) and am giving it a whirl. So far its ok but I haven't actually done much with it yet. The "mission" system they are using to send fleets around is still pretty clunky to me and will take some getting used to, but I guess they wanted to automate stuff.

Tried Planetside 2 tonight as well, and basically wandered around without a clue about what I was doing for an hour and died a lot. Ho hum.

[schild]

Minotaur was a bit too random for my liking.  The next few bosses are a lot more reasonable by comparison.

I just leveled and fused until everyone had Bufu and killed him in 2 rounds. Same with Medusa and Zan. Getting Zanma was relevant for that battle. I feel like boss fights are happening a bit too often.

Also, I have no fucking clue how to summon things like the minotaur.

[Margalis]

Fucking minotaur was a nightmare.

I just got to that guy last night right before going to bed.

Did not go swimingly.

Edit: Today I tried again, I beat him with all my guys dead except for one random monster at 30 hp. Then I forget to save, ran into an enemy, died, and didn't have enough to revive. Then it took me like another hour to beat him again...

[jakonovski]

I played Remember Me and instead of me beating the game it beat me. Seriously, I just up and uninstalled and watched the endings on Youtube. Towards the end the devs must've run out of time or ideas, because it all became such a repetitive bore with horrid encounter design. And the endings were really bad too, they just had to use the worst cliches imaginable. Such a pity, the premise was so promising...

In its place shall be Risen 2, which I'm sure will not frustrate me at all. But I do need to watch Risen 1's ending on the 'Tube again, because my save went with my old hard drive. I was a hair from beating it too.

[Ard]

Risen 2 is far less brutal than Risen 1 was.  I'd almost say they erred on the side of too easy.  It does have one very very nasty bug that can break plot progression that you should look into before starting into Maracai Bay.  You can get around it if you run into it, but you lose a chunk of the plot.

[tazelbain]

Dominion 4. Its been long time since I have overwhelmed by sheer complexity of a game. I hope someone makes a wiki.

[Paelos]

Assassin's Creed Revelations. I can already tell that I like it less than Brotherhood, but we'll see if these features pan out.

I mean a tower defense game? The hell?

[Hawkbit]

Revelations was my least favorite of the series, without question.  They built a beautiful world that I was completely uninterested in.  Then, they tacked on tower defense and bomb making; the whole thing was just cluttered.

IV is a lot better gameplay, but the story is weaker than ever. 

[Paelos]

The bomb making makes absolutely no sense, and I can already tell that. I'm an assassin, not a munitions expert, dammit.

I play this series to stab stuff, not to craft 1,000 different bombs from an awful UI menu.

[Ingmar]

I'm playing Cisco VOIP rollout project and pew pewing Imps in SWTOR: Galactic Starfighter when I get a break.

[Ironwood]

Watch out for the Cisco endboss.

He's Hard.

[Falconeer]

Playing a shitton of Smite, the arena mode (not the moba mode) is amazing unadulterated PVP action.

Then Final Fantasy XIV because the partner was a FFXI addict ten years ago and all of a sudden decided to go back to MMORPGs and now she's hooked again playing 14 hours a day. I have a hard time keeping up (in fact I am not, she has extra characters to deal with my slower pace).

Always playing a match or two of MechWarrior Online every day while waiting for more juicy content.

Disgaea 4 from time to time, before going to sleep. Loving it, but have to take it in small doses these days cause the sheer amount of numbers and things you can do to improve your characters and items tend to make me anxious.

[satael]

I've been playing Metro:Last Light and it does have some great details if you take your time to look around; like an old man doing shadow figures with his hands and the kids watching him guessing that they are all mutants of one kind or another while the old man tries to explain about elephants and such (which the kids have never seen) until he tiredly gives up.

[Falconeer]

I really loved Metro 2033. I know I am gonna enjoy the shit out of Last Light, I just decided to wait a bit because I was so crept out I needed some fresh air. It's always like that for me after I play an heavy, scary, lonely game. Have you played 2033 Satael? How does the second do compared to the first?

[satael]

I really loved Metro 2033. I know I am gonna enjoy the shit out of Last Light, I just decided to wait a bit because I was so crept out I needed some fresh air. It's always like that for me after I play an heavy, scary, lonely game. Have you played 2033 Satael? How does the second do compared to the first?

Pretty much the same. It continues the story a little after what happened in Metro 2033 (and you play the same main character) and the gameplay is pretty much the same (there might be some improvements but nothing major as far as I've seen) so if you liked the first game (I did) then the second should be worth playing too.

[MisterNoisy]

Started in on Super Mario 3D World, which is hilariously the first game I've bought for my WiiU, despite owning it for about a year (I borrowed Lego City Undercover from a friend).  Like the other multiplayer Mario games, it gets pretty chaotic when you're playing with friends, which is great if everybody's had a drink or two.  Peach is still OP.

[Ingmar]

Watch out for the Cisco endboss.

He's Hard.

Well... the Cisco stuff has been basically fine but AT&T keeps tripping on their dicks.

[Zetor]

I've been playing... WOW... again. Again.    I blame my guildies for dragging me back this time!

Other than that, Paper Sorcerer has been a pretty interesting party-based dungeon crawler, sort of reminds me of the old Wizardry games with a Dark Spire-esque hand-drawn aesthetic. In fact, I'd say it's one of the best RPGs released lately... and the price was something silly like $5!