So, what're you playing?

[Teleku]

Ha, I was just thinking about Starbound last night, thinking maybe I should fire it up again to see all the stuff they've added since I last played (which was maybe around April). 

Nope!

[Kail]

For Starbound, they've switched to a daily patching schedule, but you have to opt in at the game settings.  Right click the game in your library -> Properties -> Betas -> Nightly.  They were tired of people bitching when save games got broken or corrupted so the "normal" version is the stable version which never gets updated, the unstable version is also that but I guess gets it a few days ahead of time, and the nightly updates are the unstable "back up your save games first" version.

Though, frustratingly, not that much has changed in the last few months anyway.  They've at least started posting progress updates on their webpage, but in terms of actual completed work it's pretty thin.  The big progression revamp is still "coming", Novakids aren't in yet, there's a big overhaul to weapons and armor planned (it'll be based on "paths" now so there will be a preferred armor for ranged combat and a different on for melee combat and a third one for "magical" combat using the psi-staff) but most of the improvements they've made in the last few months have just been optimization and standardization stuff as far as I've seen.

[schild]

I bought a PS4. Between The Evil Within, Silent Hills, and Bloodborne it was simply inevitable.

[Zetor]

Man, what are the chances of THREE good cRPGs being released in one week?! I'm currently splitting my time between Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director's Cut and Wasteland 2... while Elminage is giving me disapproving glances from my steam favorites list.

[Goldenmean]

Played the hell out of Endless Legend this weekend. Ended up "One more turn"ing myself until 8 AM Sunday morning, decided that going to sleep then was completely futile and just started up another game which ate up the rest of the day. Solid little fantasy 4x by the people who made Endless Space.

Factions are very different (and you can customize your own using one of the existing ones as a template), and each one actually has their own storyline baked in consisting of a series of quests you do throughout the game for miscellaneous rewards and eventually an alternative victory condition, though you can totally ignore that if you feel like it. Worth taking a look at if you like that sort of thing. My only complaint is that the tactical combat is a little janky, but I just started auto-combating everything and it's still a perfectly satisfying strategic game with that stripped out.

[Fabricated]

What I've been playing:

[schild]

<random_game_published_by_chucklefish>?

[Fabricated]

<random_game_published_by_chucklefish>?

Kicksharter. Gambled on it despite the dev (Discord) only having a puzzle game and a soldat clone to their name. Been pleasantly surprised so far by the alpha. The dungeons are randomly generated from premade rooms, and they moved to a ripoff of the <foo> Souls games currency/levelup system. Health can only be restored at save points or by using a health potion from your (zelda-style limited) reusable bottles.

[Druzil]

Gauntlet so gooooood.

[Shannow]

Shamefully I have given money to EA again and bought FIFA15.

Who am I kidding, I pre-ordered the game and spent 4 hours playing last night and have spent too much time at work this morning buildings squads for my Ultimate Team.

It's supposed to actually be for my son..hah.

[Signe]

Now that I'm all better... cold in my chest... a C-cup epidemic, I tell you... I'm going to rev up Destiny again.  I think I only got to level 4 or 5 before I had to reluctantly stop playing so it'll be from the beginning again.  I will still be a robot because why would I be anything else?  

Also, Wasteland 2 and Bejeweled 3 when I have lunch because stupid Lucas said it was free but didn't say it was addictive.  Stupid Lucas.  Stupcas.

[Quinton]

Gauntlet so gooooood.

This Gauntlet?  http://store.steampowered.com/app/258970/

[rk47]

[Druzil]

Gauntlet so gooooood.

This Gauntlet?  http://store.steampowered.com/app/258970/

Yep, that's the one.  I mean I know most people aren't going to want to pay full price for it but I'm sure it will be cheap here shortly.  Just hop in for some random 4p co-op, no chat, no voice, elf steals all the damn treasure.  All the characters play differently which I did not expect, for example the Elf has dual analog controls while the Wizard has to enter button combos for spells sort of like Magika.  Reminds me of Alien Swarm from a game play/progression standpoint if you liked that game.  You just play levels over and over and slowly rank up and get more powerful.   Game length may be an issue for some people if you don't want to play the same game multiple multiple times to get your $15-20 worth.

[Jeff Kelly]

What I've seen of Gauntlet so far looks soulless, sterile and boring. It looks like someone decided to remake Gauntlet that had only ever heard of it but never played it. I watched the Giantbomb Quicklook and a few reviews and nothing about that game seems enticing at all to me.

The same with Wasteland 2. Videos make it seem stuffed full with exposition and text but what I saw so far of the game mechanics seem to be pretty basic even compared to its spirutual ancestors like Fallout or the original Wasteland. What I saw of the combat made me feel bored after about 5 minutes. This makes me fear for Pillars of Eternity which I fear may be a similar game in the sense of it being chock full of text, background info and stuff but lacking in the 'game' department.

[Lucas]

While I wait for, let's say, the dust to settle a little more in Archeage, I'm having some fun back in TERA and damn, don't know why but, all things considered, this is still my favourite DIKU style MMOG since WoW. WTF is wrong with me :P

[jakonovski]

After randomly getting bored with it 2 years ago, I finally finished Borderlands 2. It was fun, but ultimately yet another game that shows how limited modern AAA games development is.

[PalmTrees]

Recently finished Bioshock:Infinite. It was good except the ending was a bit wonky.

Started up X-Com and have been enjoying it. Civilians really need to learn to hide better.

Also playing some FF14 in between, but winding down on that one. It's a decent mmo, but  I'm at the point where you either get on the raid treadmill or jump ship. Been trying other jobs but there's just not enough content to make multiple 1 to 50 trips interesting.

[Rendakor]

ArcheAge. Lots of ArcheAge. I feel like this is the MMO I've wanted for a long time, but we're still in the first-month-honeymoon period so who knows. It's certainly killed my desire to raid in EQ2 or grind loot in Destiny.

Still working on Nep Nep on the Vita, and a bit of LoveLive on my phone.

[Yegolev]

After randomly getting bored with it 2 years ago, I finally finished Borderlands 2. It was fun, but ultimately yet another game that shows how limited modern AAA games development is.

Did you get any DLC?  The one to get is Dragon Keep.

I am taking a break from Destiny because I need sleep.

[jakonovski]

Did you get any DLC?  The one to get is Dragon Keep.

At some point I realized I never play the DLC I buy, so I stopped.

[Yegolev]

Did you get any DLC?  The one to get is Dragon Keep.

At some point I realized I never play the DLC I buy, so I stopped.

Normally I'd leave this alone but Dragon Keep is the best DLC that was ever created across all gaming.  I don't mean that it, by itself, does things that go outside Borderlands 2, but if you even remotely enjoyed the main game then you really, really need to play this add-on.

[Rendakor]

Did you get any DLC?  The one to get is Dragon Keep.

At some point I realized I never play the DLC I buy, so I stopped.

Normally I'd leave this alone but Dragon Keep is the best DLC that was ever created across all gaming.  I don't mean that it, by itself, does things that go outside Borderlands 2, but if you even remotely enjoyed the main game then you really, really need to play this add-on.

+1

[jakonovski]

Did you get any DLC?  The one to get is Dragon Keep.

At some point I realized I never play the DLC I buy, so I stopped.

Normally I'd leave this alone but Dragon Keep is the best DLC that was ever created across all gaming.  I don't mean that it, by itself, does things that go outside Borderlands 2, but if you even remotely enjoyed the main game then you really, really need to play this add-on.

I watched a trailer and I may need to make an exception for this one. But I'm going to wait for a sale.

[Yegolev]

You'll either come back here and say you should have bought it earlier, or you'll keep that shame to yourself.

[Rasix]

Yah, Dragon Keep is probably one of the best DLCs I've ever played.  It was well worth whatever I paid for. I'm not usually one for DLC, however, so my sample size is pretty small. My all-time top DLC is still ME2's Shadow Broker.  

I'm hate-playing Wasteland 2 and still messing about in FF XIV.  

[Fabricated]

Destiny, and Thi4f which I got for like $4-5.

Goddamn is Thi4f wasted potential. I thought it'd just be a complete shitshow top to bottom but it's not quite the disaster I was told it was. They really did a good job visually; I know people are going to whine about "muh steampunk" not being really present but they did make a really pretty cityscape here.

Except:
-Positional audio is utterly fucked up, like I hear conversations from people like 100 feet away glaringly loud, meanwhile later I'm 10 feet away from two people in the shadows and I can only hear one person in a conversation.
-Everything is way too 'sticky' and overly animated. The lootgrabbing takes too long, cover/peeking is awful, Garret takes way way too long to engage/disengage from picking/safe cracking/etc, knockouts are fiddly, etc
-"Focus" is retarded and requires way too much investment to be useful when even as rusty as I am and as jank as some of the stealth elements are I can go like 5 hours of gameplay without using focus once.
-Guard AI while okayish unalerted is horrendous when alerted.
-Map is horrible, lack of usable onscreen compass (don't say the map one it is useless) is bad, backtracking to some NPCs if you were curious about sidejobs is a nightmare due to Z-axis tricking you into thinking you can get to place one way only to discover no you cannot.
-Garret the character is awful, his plucky female sidekick who "dies" in the prologue is awful, plot is nonsense.

I'm kinda hate-playing it. Even though it obviously is a clusterfuck from changing directors and having full-team turnover like a half dozen times supposedly there could've been a redemption for the series here.

[Sky]

Thief 1 and 2 are a couple of my favorite games ever and I have so little interest in the 4th one.

Instead...minecraft and SWTOR. The only other things remotely tempting are Rocksmith and Civ. I'm a creature of habit, I guess. On the upside, the new(ish) Strongholds in TOR are the knees of the bees for crafting alts as all your legacy can access the legacy vault and craft using materials in it from anywhere. For a game that does so little QoL stuff right, that was a big surprise.

[koro]

Took a break from Curtain Call to try out Crimson Shroud on the 3DS, and I'm digging it a lot.

It's basically a tabletop RPG session in videogame form, from the DM narration of everything, to the Dungeon Tiles-like area looks, to the fact that the characters themselves are literally miniatures (base pedestals and everything) that just turn and tilt back and forth rather than actually animate. You even roll actual dice to determine successes or failures.

Combine it with Yasumi Matsuno's worldbuilding and story, Akihiko Yoshida's character design, and Hitoshi Sakimoto's music, along with a relentlessly dark plot, and I'm hooked.

[schild]

Didn't even know that was a thing. Buying it tonight.

[koro]

The actual battle mechanics themselves are interesting. No character levels, so all advancement is done via gearing up, and skills you can acquire after fights. Chaining elements in sequence can get you bonus dice you can roll to add onto hit percentages or damage, or save them til after battle to add to your pool of loot points you can spend to grab drops.

I've heard the game's not terribly long, but for $8 I don't mind a short game. I hear a follow-up title may be in the works too?

[Fabricated]

I need to start turning on Shadowplay. Last Thi4f session was a clusterfuck.

Of course there's a brothel level, but hey that one in Dishonored was so tame man this is like thief we're turning it up so all of the girls have their tits out and you can see them actually fucking their clients whoaaa. I break their opium HVAC system so it's supposed to knock everyone out, but it seems to only do it as you move around the level and the character AI activates so as I'm creeping around afterwards when I move past whatever triggers the next bit of the map to stream in I hear a chorus of "UGH!" "AHH!" "ARGH" and thuds as everyone faints into modern art pieces on the floor. Also I guess some of them did so on stairs and died which got me fucking kills for using the "non-lethal" option.

And there's a lame puzzle near the end of that section where you're in a hidden hallway/chamber wrapping around some of their rooms and you have to peek in on the guests/whores to spot glyphs on the walls of their rooms. There's a particularly loud BSDM customer who is in one of the rooms and due to the fucked up positional audio after I got done peeking and went to solve the puzzle I got to listen to him say "Unf, pinch my nipples harder" over and over while I did so.

Then after a really boring stair puzzle section and escape I tried to start the next mission and all of the NPCs went like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzwFpzdO3DY

This game is fucking clownshoes.

[murdoc]

Took a a little break from Dark Souls II to try out Shadow of Mordor.

And... well... I really like it. The combat is extremely fluid and visceral, the Orc hunting and how they level and change is really well done. The game play mechanics themselves are extremely fun. It's just SO not a game that belongs in the Tolkien universe. Shoehorning Gollum into it actually took me out of the game.

I'll just pretend it's called Shadow of Modror: Orc Hunter or something.

[MisterNoisy]

Played the crap out of Forza Horizon 2 yesterday with my brother - this game is fantastic (despite some launch glitches related to digitally-purchased copies) if you're into racing games/cars at all.

[Nebu]

Played the crap out of Forza Horizon 2 yesterday with my brother - this game is fantastic (despite some launch glitches related to digitally-purchased copies) if you're into racing games/cars at all.

Do any of these driving games translate well to the PC or am I pretty much obligated to buy a console if I want to enjoy them?