So, what're you playing?

[Malakili]

I'm halfway through my second play through of DA.  Still loads of fun.  Probably going to get Mirkwood but I really need to kick the MMO habit.  Still on the fence regarding Borderlands, heard solo isn't as good as MP.

If you are only going to play single player I would wait until you can get it for around 20 bucks.

[Stormwaltz]

Been a strange week.

Still no DA. EA's latest recommendation is to make a new Administrator account on my machine and try to install on it. I'm fairly sure their next piece of advice will be "wipe your hard drive, reinstall your OS and tell us if that helps."

So it's been a mix of LotRO (I chop wood to earn leaves to trade for a horse ), DoW: Dark Crusade to get my explodeys, and Plants vs. Zombies. Steam had it on sale, and Jeremiah (my four year-old) had loved "playing" it with one of his friends in Edmonton. He's watched Jamie and I play for hours every night.

[Sjofn]

... and Plants vs. Zombies. Steam had it on sale, and Jeremiah (my four year-old) had loved "playing" it with one of his friends in Edmonton. He's watched Jamie and I play for hours every night.

Aw! That's cute. 

I've been playing the Sims 3 expansion, because I am broken like that. Once I finally play it into the ground, I'll probably make Ingmar play L4D2 with me.

[Signe]

I'll probably get the expansion soon, too, because I am also broken like that.    

[Sky]

I got the lotro expansion for free on a deal a while ago and I'm bored with lotro and not interested in playing, heh. Guess I should log in and play a little since I paid for it, though. This season is all about Dragon Age imo. Hell, I think I'm halfway through my first play-through!

[Mrbloodworth]

LotRO is a nice looking game, but the amount of delivery quests in the pre-30 game usually makes me leave.

Don't level in the shire. Its one of the most pacifist starting areas in any game.

[Sir T]

Stuck in a week long game of sword of the stars right now. In a 4 vs 4 team game and I've gone from having 2 of my allies dead and one of my allies nearly dead and me under preasure to driving back the mongol hoards and I'm on way to winning. Despite not getting every vital tech you can imagine, and having really shitty node placement, meaning I could not actually get to where the jerks were streaming from. No Point defence tech eather till I salvaged it 

[Ard]

Don't level in the shire. Its one of the most pacifist starting areas in any game.

But... but... I like the Shire...

Beat Ratchet and Clank a week back.   Still more of the same.  Still want more of the same.
Beat Infamous finally this weekend.    Should play through again as evil, but I'm lazy.
Started up Resistance 2 since I never got around to the single player.
Started up Majesty 2 since it was finally on sale.  Makes me want to go buy Majesty Gold now.
Still working on Dragon Age.  Stupid drakes.

[Mrbloodworth]

Don't level in the shire. Its one of the most pacifist starting areas in any game.

But... but... I like the Shire...

Me too, I think it is quite fitting for the hobbits, the contrast is awesome, because you get pushed right into the old forest. The contrast is like a "Time to grow up hobbit" moment.

Its just that some may not enjoy the hobbit early life do to the type of quests.

[Ingmar]

Still no DA. EA's latest recommendation is to make a new Administrator account on my machine and try to install on it. I'm fairly sure their next piece of advice will be "wipe your hard drive, reinstall your OS and tell us if that helps."

Lately when I have problems like your DA problem, it seems like it always turns out to be some .NET issue if it isn't a permissions issue. So I'd say reinstall the latest .NET framework and see where that gets you. Unless you've already done that, in which case I weep for you for no DA. But then again you probably already got to mess around with it at some point before the job change. You bastard.

[Brogarn]

Its just that some may not enjoy the hobbit early life do to the type of quests.

*raises hand*

Fat, lazy, nosey hobbitsesss....

[Paelos]

I downloaded the Stainless Steel 6.1 mod for TW: Medieval 2, and I've been playing Torchlight for my hack and slash fix. I also ordered a new computer today, so I should be able to play some of those higher requirement games I had to pass on in 2009 before I got my new job.

Horray! 

[Thrawn]

Playing through Mirror's Edge that I grabbed during the Steam sales.  I'm actaully really enjoying it and very glad I picked i tup.

[Nightblade]

I picked up the Diablo Battlechest for $21.00 so I'm going to be playing that. Im still wondering whether or not to play the two games in proper order.

[WindupAtheist]

Someone who knows I liked Baldur's Gate got me to try Icewind Dale 2, but I haven't even made one satisfactory character. As far as I can tell it's "Here's like 20 races, now make 6 humans or fuck you!"

[Rasix]

IWD 2 is pretty bad.  The game just ENDS too.  You think there's more to go and it just fucking ends. At least that's my recollection, it's been a while.  The combat was pretty good but the rest is junk.

[WindupAtheist]

D&D combat isn't even that good in my book, and I'm just not prepared to put up with shenanigans like utterly worthless skills put in because the pen & paper game had them, but which in practice are just "HAHA FOOLED YOU INTO WASTING POINTS, NEWBIE" traps. Think I'll pass.

[Strazos]

This is why you:
1) save often, especially before leveling, and
2) read lots. Those games had thick manuals for a reason.

Also, the different races actually have a point, and are useful. I think my last playthrough had 0 normal humans.

[Rasix]

Yah, but IWD2 is still hella bad.  If he doesn't care for the combat, there isn't much else there.  I'm doing him a favor here.

[caladein]

LittleBigPlanet PSP came in via GameFly today.  It's pretty awesome, but something about the PSP-3000 just kills my hands after a half-hour of playing.  On PC, I'm bouncing between Aion and Trine for the most part.  I was playing Red Faction: Guerrilla (PC) and enjoying it but the motion blur has pretty much made it a no-go.

I'm such a pussy .

Yah, but IWD2 is still hella bad.  If he doesn't care for the combat, there isn't much else there.  I'm doing him a favor here.

I wouldn't have called it bad, but you're right that the Icewind Dale games are just the combat-centric cousins of the BG series.

[Vision]

I started playing Diablo 2 since I never played it when it came out.
Like it, but not sure I wanna invest  a ton of time in it unless I can find someone to play through it with online, and sort of give me the rundown.

[Ironwood]

IWD 2 is pretty bad.  The game just ENDS too.  You think there's more to go and it just fucking ends. At least that's my recollection, it's been a while.  The combat was pretty good but the rest is junk.

You are indeed.  IWD2 was a waste of time and effort all round.

[Azazel]

No fucking time for gaming this week. Sucks.
Just a tiny bit of SP Borderlands on PC. 

[WindupAtheist]

You are indeed.  IWD2 was a waste of time and effort all round.

It does beat the shit out of Baldur's Gate when it comes to character portrait art. I'll give it that much.

[Samwise]

I just played Sniper Elite for half an hour and uninstalled it.   

[Endie]

It turns out that patch 1.3 of Hearts of Iron III is, if you are careful, kinda playable and fun.  Bear in mind that I find playing 1936-1939 as Germany fun, which is, for many people, the annoying bit before you get to the fights.  I like planning things so that I know, as I start shelling Danzig, that I have things well set through until at least Barbarossa.  Very Prussian.

But, while things are better (the USA now seems to build things that aren't transport ships), there are still a lot of issues.  I decided to try commanding at the theatre level: simply giving my generals orders to take Warsaw, Torun, Krakow, Lodz and Lwow and letting them handle the fiddly stuff.  The air at the OKW HQ was filled with recriminations as Panzerarmee Endie swept into Warsaw on the same day that Polish cavalry swept down Under den Linden and set light to the bits of the Reichstag the Red Threat had missed: the AI had taken my orders literally and driven straight past Danzig, failing to screen it, in a headlong dash to get their towels onto the deckchairs by Torun's swimming pool.  I quite literally won every battle but lost the war.

Reloading and issuing orders at the Army Group level worked far better, although my boisterous western Generals refused to sit still and had decided that the best form of defence was to conquer the Low Countries for the glory of the Fatherland in the mean time.

Everything was fine and relatively historical until it came to the invasion of Britain.  Clearly someone had hammered into the AI on both sides the hitherto solely German idea that Seelowe was, indeed, just a river crossing on a large scale.  Like the computer in Wargames, constant consideration of the logistical issues involved had revealed that stepping stones are, in the absence of bridges, the best way to cross any watercourse.  Virtually my entire invasion force promptly decamped to sit in Normandy.  Closer inspection found that they were merrily demonstrating their National Socialst zeal by grinding themselves into dust trying to take the Channel Islands which had, so far as I could see, the entire British Expeditionary Force, heavily reinforced with empire troops, to the tune of some forty divisions.  Time to restart, and maybe this time I'll look up how to mod the Channel Islands into La Manche.

[Ingmar]

IWD2 was a bit better than IWD1, imo. Neither of them are really near BG2 level of good, as they set out deliberately to be much less story focused, but then don't go far enough towards the Diablo 2 end of the RPG spectrum to make up for it.

The music (for both as I recall) is fantastic though.

[WindupAtheist]

Coincidentally someone talked me into trying D&D Online today. I got a sinking feeling as soon as I hit character creation and saw an ugly avatar dressed in rags "showing off his moves" by doing the same two slow, jerky, badly-animated attacks over and over again to the tune of completely forgettable music.

[Nebu]

Coincidentally someone talked me into trying D&D Online today. I got a sinking feeling as soon as I hit character creation and saw an ugly avatar dressed in rags "showing off his moves" by doing the same two slow, jerky, badly-animated attacks over and over again to the tune of completely forgettable music.

It's really more like an action-y version of the tabletop game than the type of MMO we're all used to.  I found the game more of a puzzle game than I did an MMO.  Sadly, the puzzles get less interesting after you've done them a few times.  Just can't get into DDO, even for free.

[Yegolev]

Let's see.  The wife is really into Dragon Age (PS3).  She doesn't read the codex too much but she does most everything else.  She is farther along than I am.  I'd like to be able to take shots to display here because I made a dwarf that looks like perhaps Jimmy Walker and Gary Coleman had a baby, with the best part being that she is the dwarf princess and everyone seems to think she is gorgeous.  My other guy looks like Lemmy with a face tattoo.

Ratchet & Clank, wherein I have reached the endgame and then backtracked in order to obtain and level the RYNO.  This should greatly reduce the need for me to use tactics and patience in the final battle.   I also have the Chimp-o-matic which, so far, seems like the worst transform-enemies-into-animals weapon ever.

LotRO: Siege of Mirkwood.  OK, my highest character is lv43 so I'm not actually in Mirkwood, however the Skirmish system is getting some playtime due to being both fun and rewarding, in quantity as well as quality.  In fact, I'm tacking on a skirmish at the end of my play sessions instead of go to bed like I really should.  The new shared bank has put my resource-gathering-and-distributing into high gear and I seem to be full-up with animal hides at the moment due to ease-of-use.  Also performance is better and the water looks nicer.  And the Breeland quests make sense.  And there's less bullshit in Lone Lands!  And I have more than one mount.  One of them is a goat.

Some Torchlight and Borderlands on PC.  Nothing to say about them that hasn't already been said.

Fuel, PS3.  This is good for relaxation, just go into free mode and drive around.  A facsimile of going on a road-trip without the life-obstacles.

[Segoris]

Dragon Age mostly

Madden '10 and soon MW2 just for when a couple buddies of mine that moved away feel like gaming a bit so we can get some multiplayer going.

[jakonovski]

I discovered Escape From Butcher Bay for the first time. So much awesome.

[Tarami]

LotRO: Siege of Mirkwood. Like Yegolev already pointed out (I think that was the subtext anyway), it's a really nice expansion. Mirkwood is a bit small but really smooth and well-rounded levelling.

[Le0]

Mostly playing DA, I need to get the dwarves to help me then I can start the Landsmeet thingy. Guess I must not be very far from the end, really enjoying it.
I had to cheese a few fight, like the High Dragon Sacred Urn temple which totally raped me in normal difficulty. I was level 14 too and that fight was quite boring because I play with tactical slot deactivated, so everytime the dragon maul on my guys, they get thrown back a bit and won't attack again, I always had to tells them to do it quite cumbersome.

Also enjoying myself a bit of NHL 10 on the PS3, very well polished game and it has the Swiss teams :D A bit disapointed by the AI though.

[stray]

Finally ponied up for a 360 and bought Mass Effect. It was bundled with Pure and Lego Batman but I'm not sure I'll play them (not anytime soon at least).

Thus, I begin the ritual of sitting for hours trying to make a decent looking face for an RPG.. Everyone looks like ass. The default Shepherd is OK, so I might just do that and be done with it. I really hate just about every "western" designer's take on faces, I think. They are not more "real" looking. They look like fucking ass. I'd take a stylized faggot emo ladyboy with turquoise hair any day (and proudly). The games are good though....

Anyways.