So, what're you playing?

[Rasix]

MGSV.  Kojima is weird. Can we stop making everything open world now? Pretty please?

Game is interesting enough to keep playing. I miss the masterpiece that was 4. This just seems so disjointed in comparison.

[PalmTrees]

Finally started Nuka Cola on Fallout.  Accidentally shot one of the raiders while trying to skip dialog in their enclave and had to kill them all.   Oops.

Four fat men later and I now have killed them all and Gage won't talk to me.  Guess I'm done here.  Worst DLC ever.

Playing that now as well. I took the trader's side deliberately though. Completely unsupported after you finish off the raiders. No quests from them at all. Gage, who is otherwise a companion, is completely unresponsive. Only thing that happens is that after a week or so the traders lose their clothes after the slave collars come off. Fat old man merchant in his undies makes me regret going lightside. I'm still finishing up exploring and there's some minor stuff to do outside the park itself. Bethesda completely dropped the ball. Sometimes I think modders are really enabling some lazy behavior on Bethesda's part.

[Kail]

MGSV.  Kojima is weird. Can we stop making everything open world now? Pretty please?

Game is interesting enough to keep playing. I miss the masterpiece that was 4. This just seems so disjointed in comparison.

Weird, I'm in the exact opposite camp.  I haven't played MGS4, but the videos I saw of it made it look like a complete mess (like, they seriously expect me to take Liquid Poop seriously as an actual character now?).  Meanwhile, the open world stuff in MGS5, I'm loving so far.

[Druzil]

MGSV.  Kojima is weird. Can we stop making everything open world now? Pretty please?

Game is interesting enough to keep playing. I miss the masterpiece that was 4. This just seems so disjointed in comparison.

MGSV is one of my favorite games of the last few years and one of the best open world games I've played.   Even though the main missions take place in the world like most open world 'story quests' the way they just drop you in and tailor the specific event really feels great.  There are a large chunk of side missions which are the open world content but they always felt better to me than marking Assassins Creed icons off of a map.  A big part of that is probably just because I liked the game play so much that it didn't feel like busy work.  Also the side missions fed you materials and cash into the base building and research which was another part of the game I really liked.  Similarly, I think that's part of why I thought Assassins Creed 2 was so good, you had that town to build up which was a fun diversion while you were going through the story.

[Rasix]

Ohh, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Beyond the early distaste for checkpoint spacing, I'm having a good time. Might be my favorite game of I've played this year. It's also very satisfying when you pay it well.

It's just MGS4 was something else entirely. My reasons are a bit more beret-worthy. 

[Chimpy]

When I am bored, I am working on completing the last 2 badges I have not gotten in Bejeweled 3. Yeah I am lame but it will be the first time ever I have gotten every achievement in a game.

[Father mike]

Icebreaker and poker modes killed my inner child.  If you get all the achievements in those, my wife may leave me to hunt you down and worship at your feet.

[Chimpy]

Icebreaker and poker modes killed my inner child.  If you get all the achievements in those, my wife may leave me to hunt you down and worship at your feet.

All I have left are the "get X number flushes" and "score 500,000 in classic mode", IceBreaker combo probably sucked the most, though the last-hurrah lighting mode one was a pain in the ass.

[apocrypha]

Sunless Sea has some DLC just released, so the base game was cheap. Picked it up for £4 or so. Very text-heavy, but really liking it. Slow, sedate, scary and very Jules Verne.

[Selby]

Poker made me mad, I play bejeweled for the gems. I did get all of the classic badges except the poker related ones...

[Chimpy]

Poker mode sucks, but all I need to do is muddle through another few days and get 49 more flushes and I will have completed it all.

[Velorath]

I'm currently playing the Mac version of the original Wizardry. Partly for nostalgia and partly because it's really easy to play while watching a movie.

[Rendakor]

I reinstalled ArcheAge after a former coworker talked me into it; I really like the farmville aspect of it, although I wish it had Black Desert's auto-driving for trade carts.

Still working on SMT IV:A; I nees to finish that so I can buy Dragon Quest Minecraft.

[HaemishM]

Got this game in one of those Green Man Gaming mystery bundle things - Rise Battle Lines.

Did you like the combat portion of Heroes of Might and Magic, but don't want to spend the time on the actual strategy part? That's pretty much what this game is. Two opponents on opposite sides of a hex map. A random roll determines the troops available, then each player drafts a unit one at a time until there are none left. Then they fight. Does that sound fun? Yeah, it's not really as fun as it sounds and it doesn't sound very fun. I mean, it's $6 so I don't suppose I should be surprised but I played one game against the AI and decided it was not for me. It is multiplayer and I think you can even play asynchronously so if that sounds interesting, it's $6. Games last about 15 minutes. I uninstalled it.

[Fabricated]

Still playing XCOM2 with mods. I'm at the endgame and I almost don't want to finish it because the last mission really isn't super fun rather than another "Here's just like a shitzillion guys to kill" thing.

[Rasix]

27 hours on MGSV and I'm only at 20% completion (might be a little more). Yeesh. 

[Venkman]

Fnally finished second Tomb Raider, now catching up to Assassins Creed Unity. Actually not all that bad. Surprisingly stable, and seems even more fluid than the last one I played (4).

[Lucas]

124 hrs of /played in Witcher 3, still have to reach Skellige; I regret nothing.

More and more convinced that this is the best CRPG ever made.

[Sky]

I had a moment when I decided I just had to get the plot moving because I was some dozens of hours in and not through the Baron's story yet. It's that it's not just side quests, almost the entire thing feels like you're actually hanging out in some medieval countryside inhabited by actual people.

Took a break after I finished off the Baron's story and then was completely lost when I went to the first city part. Holy cow.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I've been splitting time between WoW and Dragon Quest Builders. 

WoW continues to be a bizarre mix of best-in-class + wtf really? Latest expansion is pretty thin, I'm having more fun doing pet battles fOr the first time. Which tells you how long ago I last played. Combat seems like it should be fun but it's really just tediously mechanical. I do enjoy my pally though. Gating crafting through PvP zones and Dungeons looks like it is driving of the casuals in droves.

DQB really is Minecraft crossed with a classic Japanese RPG. Too bad it's saddled with console controls and no first person camera which make building an exercise in frustration. I would love to see eIther this exact game or many of its systems built into real Minecraft on PC. The Countess likes to watch me play a bit then goes back to the real thing.

[apocrypha]

Took a break after I finished off the Baron's story and then was completely lost when I went to the first city part. Holy cow.

I've done this too, except I got distracted before I'd even got that far. Going to have to restart from scratch when I go back probably.

[Druzil]

DQB really is Minecraft crossed with a classic Japanese RPG. Too bad it's saddled with console controls and no first person camera which make building an exercise in frustration. I would love to see eIther this exact game or many of its systems built into real Minecraft on PC. The Countess likes to watch me play a bit then goes back to the real thing.

You can click the right stick when you are in a house or a cave for a first person view.  Also try holding down both L1/R1 to make building easier if you're not doing that already, that took me awhile to figure out.

My biggest gripes with the game are no co-op and that there's no true survival mode equivalent.  If the free play mode actually had monsters and a world to explore just like the rest of the game it could be an amazing game.  Without that stuff it's just a good single player one play though and done game.

[naum]

Hearthstone

Shadowverse (a "Hearthstone like", Japanese CCG in Anime lore minus the parts developers didn't like about Hearthstone -- i.e., Hero Power/Weapons, RNG), iOS/Android, don't know if there is a PC/Mac client yet

Civ VI

Stellaris

[Sky]

Rocksmith
Minecraft (All the Mods)
Mafia III
Civ VI

[satael]

Finally did a full-length CK2 game (and created India for the "My Very own Subcontinent" steam achievement) so now it's time to switch over to EU4 (which I should get familiar enough with before the Christmas sale to decide which DLCs I want).

[apocrypha]

Finally did a full-length CK2 game (and created India for the "My Very own Subcontinent" steam achievement) so now it's time to switch over to EU4 (which I should get familiar enough with before the Christmas sale to decide which DLCs I want).

When you work out which DLCs are the ones to get could you post here or let me know? I've got CK2 and EU4 sat in my Steam queue unplayed, partly due to freezing in terror when I look at the gargantuan list of DLCs for them both.

[HaemishM]

For CK2, I generally stick to just the expansions (except for the Aztec one because I don't care about alternate history). The content packs and music packs are just cosmetic doodags for the units and new songs. The portraits are just more variance of pictures in your rulers - not necessary but can add some variety.

For EU4 I've kind of done the same thing. However, unlike CK2, I find it real hard to get into EU4 (or EU3). It's not as approachable whereas CK2 just feels like it has more personality. I keep meaning to get back to EU4 at some point to try harder.

[satael]

For EU4 I've kind of done the same thing. However, unlike CK2, I find it real hard to get into EU4 (or EU3). It's not as approachable whereas CK2 just feels like it has more personality. I keep meaning to get back to EU4 at some point to try harder.

The difference between CK2 and EU4 is that CK2 is about playing a dynasty whereas EU4 is all about nations. This means that personalities have a far smaller role to play in the game.

[Signe]

Nothing.  I'm playing nothing I like.  :(  Maybe I'm done with this hobby.  I should collect souvenir thimbles or something instead.  Shot glasses.  Teapots. 

[apocrypha]

That's just a different kind of game. With really crappy achievements.

[Chimpy]

I am down to 1 more badge in Bejeweled3.

39 more Flushes in Poker and I will have completed everything.

[Venkman]

That's just a different kind of game [teapots, thimbles]. With really crappy achievements.

No no you got it all wrong! The teapots must only come from places you visit, with modifiers based on distance from home, cost to get there, cost to get it back, and time spent on the trip. At level 10 you get powerups based on the number of photographs taken there that match Google Image search results. Then you launch league play for fantasy players and rake in the sponsorship dollars.

Well shit. Now I want to collect teapots.

[Kail]

Took a bit of a break from Ultima but eventually decided to give Ultima 3 a shot.  So far, it is not very fun.  It adds some stuff that the series really needed, like a max HP counter and an actual leveling system (even if raising your stats is still total nonsense) but it also added sound effects (as in, old school PC Speaker sound effects, which I think are more correctly classified under "noise") and worst of all, you're no longer by yourself, now you have to adventure with a party.  A party of four people.  And EACH of them has their own inventory.  So every time you talk to someone or open a door or get a chest or do ANYTHING you have to specify WHO is doing it so the game knows who is spending the money or using the key or whatever.  And yes, each of your party members has their own separate stash of food which they will not share with each other, and even their own wallet.  There is a command (J) to pool the party's funds, though even THIS requires you to specify who will be carrying the purse.

So, let's say you want to buy 100 food for each person in your party, and you're standing right in front of the guy selling it.  Your keylog ends up looking something like this:

J (to pool money)
1 (to give it all to the character in slot 1)
T (to talk to the shop keep)
1 (character 1 is going to do the talking)
Direction (towards the shopkeep, to specify who you're talking to)
100 (the quantity of food you're buying)
Enter
J
2
T
2
Direction
100
Enter
J
3
T
3
Direction
100
Enter
J
4
T
4
Direction
100
Enter

And you have to do this EVERY TIME you go to stock up on food.  For comparison, in Ultima 2, the same task was

T
Direction
100
Enter

And I thought THAT was tedious, wow.  Just doing anything in this game, from casting spells to opening doors, takes like four or five separate commands.

Also, the game now has wind, which changes direction about once every second.  This has no effect in game that I've found so far, except that if you try to sail in a direction when the wind is against you or calm, you don't move and instead get the "Invalid move" sound effect.  So to imagine what sailing is like, picture playing something like Doom, except every step you take you have a 2 in 5 chance to not go anywhere and instead hear the Windows error chime every frame.

Edit:  Also, movement is different than it was in the older games.  Like, you know how if you hold down a key when you're typing, it types the letter a million times, and keeps typing it after you've let go?  It does that.  So you can't just hold down left to move left anymore, you have to move one tile and then release the key and move one tile and then release the key and move one tile and ughhhh.  It's one of those really tiny changes that has such a massive impact on how everything feels.

[Torinak]

At least in the PC version of Ultima 3, you can hand food from person to person in your party using the "H" command, and "F" for food, IIRC.

There's also at least one fan patch for Ultima 3 PC version that upgrades the graphics to VGA, adds MIDI music, tweaks food consumption to be not so insane, and a bit of other stuff. I think I got the one at http://exodus.voyd.net/download.html but it's been a while.

[Rasix]

Up to 38% on MGSV!

My son's still pretty much into DotA2 over LoL right now. Recent bug has Easy bots playing at Hard (maybe even worse, perceptions vary) difficulty. He still lanes pretty well, but it's hard to last hit with how brutal the bots are about harassing and denies. Hell, it's even hard for me. I don't last hit well in DotA2 as is, so I have to pick complete stomps for lane matchups and hope my AI team doesn't shit the bed.

It's strange how good his map awareness and perception of danger are compared to mine. "Dad, that wasn't smart. Top was missing."

edit: It's a little bit baffling that they don't have a profanity filter in name creation. At least I've convinced my son not to repeat the names when talking about DotA2 around his mom.