So, what're you playing?

[Father mike]

When you fire up Ultima 4 and take the personality test, for the love of God, DON'T ever choose
 unless you want to play thru a very special brand of hell.

[schild]

Thanks for letting us know - I can't speak for everyone else - but playing through Ultima 4 again was near the top of "things I'm definitely doing before I die."

[Lucas]

Beside being the first CRPG I ever played (and what an introduction to the genre it was), I experienced it on a variety of platforms.

First ever playthrough on an Atari 800xl in monochrome; messed around with it again on a C64; finished it on the Atari ST and again played it on the PC (not that graphics made a huge difference)
-------------

The "bonus", so to speak, to play it as a kid, was the way imagination worked at a young age, of course: IMO, "the history of Britannia" is still a masterpiece today when it comes to immerse you in the world (the Book of Magic too). Also, when you met monsters or merchants in the game, you actually pictured them as in the beautiful drawings of Denis Loubet, no matter you were staring at some pixellated square monstrosity on the screen  

[Druzil]

I picked up Owlboy. It's really good! It's not $25 good, but it's about as much of a complete package as you can get from an indie game. The gameplay is good, the design is good, the graphics are good, the music is good, and the story is interesting enough.

It is however, insanely short. Reviews will say 8 hours, I'll say like half of that. And this is with me basically having what I'd consider a 90% complete save.

Yikes, I didn't know it was that short.  I almost bought it yesterday, maybe I'll wait for a price drop.  It does looks really good though.

Edit:
I've mostly been playing Civ 6 and DQ Builders.  I think I'm almost done with DQ Builders unless they patch in some changes to the endless mode, which seems unlikely.  I also played some Lumo which is a an Equinox/Solstice-like shitty perspective platformer.  It seems alright but I don't think it really adds anything new to what the 25 year old versions were doing.

[Sky]

Beside being the first CRPG I ever played (and what an introduction to the genre it was), I experienced it on a variety of platforms.

First ever playthrough on an Atari 800xl in monochrome; messed around with it again on a C64; finished it on the Atari ST and again played it on the PC (not that graphics made a huge difference)
-------------

The "bonus", so to speak, to play it as a kid, was the way imagination worked at a young age, of course: IMO, "the history of Britannia" is still a masterpiece today when it comes to immerse you in the world (the Book of Magic too). Also, when you met monsters or merchants in the game, you actually pictured them as in the beautiful drawings of Denis Loubet, no matter you were staring at some pixellated square monstrosity on the screen  

Yeah, that's the thing. Having it on multiple floppies (and I believe mine was not a legit copy, hole punch ftw), there was something magical about 'insert the town disk'. Like going through a portal or something. Kids are so fucking spoiled today! Also why I don't have gamer nostalgia, I like modern games just fine (even if I still end up playing minecraft more than anything else).

That said, playing minecraft.

[Shannow]

Playing the crap out of Lost Portal on my iphone. (I'm seriously not being paid to promote this game, it's that fun imho). Super addictive CCG with lite RPG overlay.

[Signe]

Playing the crap out of Lost Portal on my iphone. (I'm seriously not being paid to promote this game, it's that fun imho). Super addictive CCG with lite RPG overlay.

I still don't understand playing games on a phone.  And talking phones.  I don't understand those either.  The other day my nephew was here talking TO his phone and his phone was talking back!  I'll never get a mobile phone.  All I need is another thing talking to me.  Sheesh. 

You people are all going to end up with brain cancer in your thumbs.

[Sky]

How do you even dookie?

[apocrypha]

Checked out the special edition Nexus to see if there were any mods for Skyrim SE yet. There were 1000s. Installed a few for lols, fired it up. Yeah I've played 25 hours of it now. 

[Rendakor]

Is the special edition even any different on PC? I thought it was just a console thing.

[Draegan]

Ultima 3 was the first RPG I played on my Apple ][e+.

Memories.

[taolurker]

Ultima 3 was the first RPG I played on my Apple ][e+.

Memories.

Literally the same thing, except mine was Ultima 2.. still have the discs too.

[apocrypha]

Is the special edition even any different on PC? I thought it was just a console thing.

Not massively. It's got some improved graphics features that were hard/impossible to mod in, like SSAO and better AA, and it's a 64 bit .exe now so it's easier to pile the mods on.

It just kinda hooked me again, a bit like a 'for old times sake' fuck with an ex. We both know it's not going anywhere but it's easy, nostalgic fun for a while.

[Kail]

When you fire up Ultima 4 and take the personality test, for the love of God, DON'T ever choose
 unless you want to play thru a very special brand of hell.

[Rasix]

Finished MGS V with about 70% completion doing a large number of the side ops, but none of the hard-mode missions. Outside of the awkward and jarring first couple of hours, this was a really solid game and should be held up as to how to do a open world implementation in a game world that typically hasn't featured them. The narrative flow was largely absent, and you got a self paced plot that sputtered and jumped in and out of your experience. There was more focus on Snake and his actions, rather than long, overly drawn cutscenes and exposition. Still the plot wasn't all terrible, and, despite outward appearances, did a really good job with the characters introduced. Hell, even Quiet was great. Sure she Kojima's inner-mind made flesh, but her arc was probably the best part of the story other than the grand reveal.

Lots of fun to play this one and would recommend giving it a shot beyond the first couple of missions to really grasp what you're getting. I hated the shit out of the tutorial and first mission. It felt like they took one of my favorite games and completely fucked up its transition into this new framework, but it settled into a good groove rather quickly.  

It's still not the masterpiece that 4 was (it's a lot easier to enjoy in small chunks, however), but it's a really good game and possibly the best thing I've played this year. Well, outside the fact that my Witcher 3 playthrough bled into 2016.

[Samprimary]

back to elite dangerous to relax and space-mine

[Velorath]

Almost imported a Famicom Mini but decided to wait until the price comes down a bit. They aren't selling for as much as people are selling the NES Classic Mini for (and shipping accounts for some of the cost), but I still don't want to pay a 100% markup. I'm sure I'll pick up both eventually though.

[Druzil]

Almost imported a Famicom Mini but decided to wait until the price comes down a bit. They aren't selling for as much as people are selling the NES Classic Mini for (and shipping accounts for some of the cost), but I still don't want to pay a 100% markup. I'm sure I'll pick up both eventually though.

I heard the on those are really tiny, not sure I could deal with that.   They do look pretty neat though.

Think I will start something new this week while I count down the days to FF XV 

[schild]

There is literally no reason to buy either mini when you can just get a raspberry pi.

Emulators are literally better than the real thing at this point.

[Yegolev]

I saw a video and I agree.  I think more work must have gone into the shell design than the emulation.

[Velorath]

There is literally no reason to buy either mini when you can just get a raspberry pi.

Emulators are literally better than the real thing at this point.

I'm aware that emulators exist and have existed for a long time now. That's kinda not the point.

[Rendakor]

What is the point, then? I have a coworker who was really excited for the Nintendo thing and I had to remind him how trivial it was to emulate the entire NES and SNES catalog.

[Velorath]

They look pretty cool and by all accounts they're fairly well made (people complain about the short controller cord length and the fact that you have to hit the reset button on the console to save, but those are the only real complaints I've heard so far). It sounds like the emulation is pretty good as well (people can beat Punch-Out without having to worry about input lag). On top of that, if I take it to a friend's house or to a family thing, people are going to be much more interested in a mini NES with 30 games on it than some tech thing loaded up with a bunch of emulators. Plus they're only $60 once you're able to get them somewhere other than scalpers so saying "you know you can just pirate all that shit right?" isn't that compelling of an argument.

[Samprimary]

back to elite dangerous to relax and space-mine

so ok

in the most appropriate and prototypical Frontier move ever: the day after, and i mean literally the day after i did this and set myself up to have fun doing passenger missions, they dropped a patch that was supposed to 'mildly adjust' 'some' mission payouts and instead turned out to have cut passenger mission payouts by over 80-85%

[Jeff Kelly]

I'm playing entirely too much Binding of Isaac in preperation for the "Afterbirth +" Expansion that's expected to hit in December.

It's probably the worst game I've spent hundreds of hours playing and can't stop. It's broken and deeply flawed and unbalanced and still rather bug-ridden and I still play it for hours on end.

[Yegolev]

back to elite dangerous to relax and space-mine

so ok

in the most appropriate and prototypical Frontier move ever: the day after, and i mean literally the day after i did this and set myself up to have fun doing passenger missions, they dropped a patch that was supposed to 'mildly adjust' 'some' mission payouts and instead turned out to have cut passenger mission payouts by over 80-85%

Stop having fun the wrong way!

[Rasix]

I tried the Stanley Parable. Eh. Not really my thing, but kind of interesting. It was less than the price of my daily coffee, so no great loss that I didn't love it.

Time to play Humble Bundle/Steam/GoG game roulette and come up with something to tide me over until the winter steam sale, where I can buy things to stare and contemplate playing when I'm bored. The cycle continues. There are a couple full priced game options that I find interesting, I just don't feel like paying anything near retail this close to Christmas.

[Samprimary]

back to elite dangerous to relax and space-mine

so ok

in the most appropriate and prototypical Frontier move ever: the day after, and i mean literally the day after i did this and set myself up to have fun doing passenger missions, they dropped a patch that was supposed to 'mildly adjust' 'some' mission payouts and instead turned out to have cut passenger mission payouts by over 80-85%

Stop having fun the wrong way!

i did some calculations and it looks like i have to grind for a week what i would lose if i got interdicted and destroyed once during that playtime.

the end result is that i ended up cutting all my components down to d-grade and stowed my prismatic shield for the duration of the economic crisis. every interdiction is submit->boost->jump

[PalmTrees]

Quit Black Desert, rng just too harsh. Finished Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. It was a decent jrpg, will pick up the second chapter sometime. Currently playing Secret World. I didn't give it much of a chance when it came out. Enjoying while simultaneously being frustrated by the investigation quests in Kingsmouth.

[apocrypha]

Continued with my attempt at denting the Steam backlog. Got bored with Euro Trick Simulator 2 after a couple of hours. It's very well done, but it is a simulator and driving on motorways is, frankly, both dull and a bit stressful at the same time.

So, moving on down the list, I tried Gunpoint, Bastion, Trine 2 and Satellite Reign. I wasn't really in the mood for any of them. Gunpoint and Satellite Reign I will definitely go back and give some more time to when I get an urge for those kind of games. Bastion looked nice, had some nice touches, but I doubt I'll ever be in the mood for that kind of game. Trine 2 gave me herpes almost immediately and I will never touch again.

So, um, Minecraft again for a bit. 

[Sky]

So, um, Minecraft again for a bit. 

Yay!

I forgot that PO2 uses ender cake to get to the End, so I waited to get my magical crops armor and flew around looking for a stronghold (not using the pure skyblock). Woops. And that OP xbow I got as a rare reward one-shotted the dragon...

[apocrypha]

Lol, nerf! 

I'm giving the 1.10.2 Infinity Lite a whirl. I've done some tweaking ofc, but planning an architectural build of some kind.

[Sky]

[Rendakor]

875 hearts!? Dafuq.

[Sky]

That's on the bow, so it's melee only :p