So, what're you playing?

[Khaldun]

I thought Valhalla was fine. I enjoyed it kinda like I enjoyed Origins and Odyssey. But none of them after Ezio and maybe Black Flag have stuck with me and no AC ever has made me want to replay it, not even for a second. Which is just not true for the games that I really regard as super-fine memorably good. It's kind of striking for a long-running series--it is in that space between "so annoying misexecuted or misconceived that I anger-quit" and "so well-done that I have dreams about it and could tell you stories about what happened in it".

I liked Ezio's games the best and yet I mostly can just say, "Well, he wore this outfit and I liked his accent and that version of Italy was cool and I fought the Pope, I think, though I dunno." Black Flag I can say, "There were pirates and pirate ships and my guy wasn't an assassin per se and it in the Caribbean and there was fun and I think somehow there's somebody from the other games who comes back to England with you, maybe?"

Origins it's like "It's Egypt and really beautiful and your character had his kid fridged and his wife is mad at you and eventually you can fight a god in the desert and maybe you invent the assassins?"

Odyssey is "Kassandra is really compelling and there's some kind of tie to the present-day and there's a lady Desmond you have to do occasionally and Kassandra fights her brother but she can convince the brother to join up and Socrates is hilarious". I mean, about half of Odyssey I just remember because I actually know who the people are and I enjoy the Greek being pronounced correctly.

Valhalla is mostly just "I played an angry murder machine but my jarl goes crazy and I can't do anything about it, and we sometimes raid monasteries only without the rape and murder of the innocent."

In almost every AC game, you learn that if you climb to a really tall place the bad guys give up because only you regard scaling a thousand foot cliff as no problemo.

I can remember WAY more about 20-30 other games I like better, but I mostly don't remember AC the way I remember a different 20-30 games I really hated.

[Sky]

I'm extremely happy I have the ability to suspend disbelief.

[Khaldun]

I'm fine with the lack of realism--I love being able to actually climb everything for once and being in charge of a basically indefatigable murder machine. It's mostly just that the games play so repetitively and the minigames seem so blatantly game-mechanical. They want to have so much of everything that they really don't have much of anything particular--no real mood or feeling a lot of the time. Ancient Egypt, classical Greece and medieval England end up feeling mostly like reskins of one another.

[Sky]

I agree completely on that level. The only reason I like the AC games is that it's a big open sandbox to dick around before I go to bed. Though to be fair, I felt that the protagonist in Origins had a great motivation that kept me engaged through the entire game. And Kassandra was amazing, the storyline was weaker but the actress was so damned good.

[Rasix]

I haven't played an AC game since the first. The formula rapidly got stale for me. If I was that turned off by the first attempt, are the others worth checking out? Gameplay wasn't that bad, but it just wan't varied in an interesting way.

I think I'm near the end of Disco Elysium unless there's a whole nother chapter waiting for me. For me this has been a good, but not great game. It would not have taken my GOTY. It is uniquely funny and has some of the most interesting writing I've seen in a game in a very long time. Just feels like an adventure game, however, and not a RPG.  Which is OK, just not totally what I was looking for.

I think I'll putter around in a survival crafting game until PoE league release. New league mechanic doesn't look that interesting, but there's a lot of QOL going into this league as well. Maybe I'll actually beat Maven this league (doubt it). I don't see me going that hard in this one, but that's not a bad thing as my game backlog is still somewhat large. I am having fun trying stuff out, even though I find myself not liking some genres as much as I used to.

[Trippy]

I haven't played an AC game since the first. The formula rapidly got stale for me. If I was that turned off by the first attempt, are the others worth checking out? Gameplay wasn't that bad, but it just wan't varied in an interesting way.

The first one was janky as heck. They improved the controls / mechanics a lot starting with II. But the formula really hasn't change except that in the newer RPG-style games stealth isn't as important as it was in the earlier titles.

[DevilsAdvocate25]

My favorite is still AC: Unity set in France during the French Revolution. You could play online with other people and do missions, but I'm a Francophile and I loved running around and climbing on all of the famous landmarks. Also, I set the language to French with English subtitles to heighten the immersion. It was the only AC game I finished the story in, although I got close in AC III.

[Rendakor]

I haven't played an AC game since the first. The formula rapidly got stale for me. If I was that turned off by the first attempt, are the others worth checking out? Gameplay wasn't that bad, but it just wan't varied in an interesting way.

The first one was really bad, as Trippy said. 2/Bro/Rev have a pretty good story set in the Italian Renaissance, and are at least better mechanically than the first one. They're still mostly stealth games, which is a selling point to me. Later titles have shifted to more of an open world RPG format, which is still entertaining but pretty radically different.

[Khaldun]

I love Kassandra's voice actress and her character modelling--every time I play it I stare with happiness on her scars and her visual distinctiveness in general.

I think a lot of us loved Ezio because the jank of the Altair game went away mostly. But the stealth mechanic is kind of ridiculous in some way in the recent games--Kassandra can meaningfully hide in a patch of weed in the brightest sunshine of the Greek countryside despite being the least disguised human being in every respect imaginable. The Valhalla characters can hide effectively under almost any conditions despite being people who don't believe in hiding per se (like, nobody has the least problem if you hop off the murder boat near a monastery, secretively kill all the guards despite being an overtly Norse motherfucking warrior, and then blow your horn just so folks can come in and help you take the goodies). I mean, speaking of realism, that should be totally cool--"thanks for secretive murder plus lots of riches, nobody dies" only it also runs counter to most of what your character and the other characters talk about all the time.

[SurfD]

I haven't played an AC game since the first. The formula rapidly got stale for me. If I was that turned off by the first attempt, are the others worth checking out? Gameplay wasn't that bad, but it just wan't varied in an interesting way.

The first one was really bad, as Trippy said. 2/Bro/Rev have a pretty good story set in the Italian Renaissance, and are at least better mechanically than the first one. They're still mostly stealth games, which is a selling point to me. Later titles have shifted to more of an open world RPG format, which is still entertaining but pretty radically different.

Yeah, the first game was very very much the test pilot for the genre they wanted to eventually build.  After having played some of the later ones, attempting to re-play the first one is an absolutely aweful experience because it almost immediately becomes clear that the entire game is basically just repeating the exact same 5 or so actions endlessly in a vaguely different looking town or city.   Once you have done any section of any city, you have basically done everything the game has to offer, and it gets real monotonous, real quick.

The subsequent games improve on this significantly by at least adding a moderately more interesting story to follow along in the "past" surrounding the character you are playing as well as varying the mission styles so things don't seem quite so lather-rinse-repeat samey.

[eldaec]

I haven't played an AC game since the first. The formula rapidly got stale for me. If I was that turned off by the first attempt, are the others worth checking out? Gameplay wasn't that bad, but it just wan't varied in an interesting way.

I was the same, I had this pegged as a less interesting Hitman.

But since then they've made a bazillion of them so I keep thinking I should play another one to see what all the fuss is about.

[Tale]

I haven't played an AC game since the first. The formula rapidly got stale for me. If I was that turned off by the first attempt, are the others worth checking out? Gameplay wasn't that bad, but it just wan't varied in an interesting way.

Same here. I got the first AC free with a PS3, played it a few times, thought it was a bit weird and didn't continue. Apart from one night trying Origins, I never played another AC game until Valhalla.

[Cyrrex]

I think all this is partly why I can never pick an AC title and actually take the plunge.  So many different ideas about all of these games about what is good and what isn't.

[Khaldun]

The series has some of the best parts of Hitman (intricate settings for chained assassinations) without any of the narrative craft or design specificity of Hitman. E.g., sure, in any AC you figure out that you can swing from a chandelier and kill the top level monk or philosopher or bureaucrat but who cares, by that time you've probably murdered everybody else anyway and nothing's really screwed if you miss the landing, whereas with Hitman if you're three seconds off on poisoning the debutante with Nerve Toxin Zima and assuming the guise of a coke-addled aerobics instructor before slipping into the wine cellar to kill Mahatma Gandhi's great-grand nephew while he recalculates the yeast percentage on his cabernet sauvignon you'll have to restart the whole level.

[Tale]

Every time I see "an AC game" I think "Asheron's Call" anyway.

[Hawkbit]

...with Hitman if you're three seconds off on poisoning the debutante with Nerve Toxin Zima and assuming the guise of a coke-addled aerobics instructor before slipping into the wine cellar to kill Mahatma Gandhi's great-grand nephew while he recalculates the yeast percentage on his cabernet sauvignon you'll have to restart the whole level.

A buddy was telling me how great the series is but his description kinda killed it for me. You just repeated why he liked it, which makes me doubly positive I would absolutely fucking hate Hitman games. The idea of playing the same thing over and over is my hell.

[Sir T]

The people who like Hitman games are the type that set challenges for themselves. Only kill the targets with a sniper Rifle. Only shoot at the ultimate targets. That sort of thing. You can go in like the terminator if you want but you will get shitty points. Basically they see it as a form of relaxation to get to know the missions so well they can do it like a ghost.

There's also the in-joke that Agent 47 is inexplicably good at everything. He can be the perfect bartender, the perfect fashion model etc.

[HaemishM]

The first of the new series of Hitman games was good, but you have to recognize eventually that it isn't an action game, it's a puzzle game disguised as a shooter. It's fun enough on one playthrough for me, but I don't understand the mentality that wants to play the same mission multiple times in multiple ways. Some players are like that - my buddy played like hundreds of hours of GTA4 and while he did the main story, he mainly just liked seeing what kind of destruction he could get up to. Some people like sandboxes, some don't.

As for Assassin's Creed, I played the first one and haven't touched the series since. The future story was an interesting idea that they just never bothered to develop in the first game, and you could finish the past stuff and just be stuck in the future doing nothing without any resolution to your story. It made the game feel unfinished. Plus, the past story spent the whole game making sure you only fought with stealth and assassinations, but then to finish the game, you literally have to fight an army like you are a goddamn superhero. The game design felt completely schizo because of it. I'm sure they've refined it somewhat since but I just couldn't be assed to care.

[Gimfain]

Started playing games again.

Wasteland 3 was a huge upgrade compared to WL2. Combat was bit messy, certain mods just made specifics weapons way too powerful and on highest difficulty combat was decided whether you got the jump or the other side.

Disco Elysium was fantastic, very stylistic and a good combination of adventure game with RPG layered on top.

The last of us 2, never played a game which managed to combine great elements with utter shit elements to this level. Extremely well made cut scenes and there was one flashback scene that was amazing, the main story felt grating and it just got worse and worse as the game progressed. Combat was better made but not particularly fun to play.

Shadof of the tomb raider. Why the hell did I play this one. At least it was shorter than the last of us 2 which makes tomb raider a better game.

Ori and the will of the wisps, started playing it and I'm enjoying it so far. Feels like relaxed platform adventure fun.

[eldaec]

...with Hitman if you're three seconds off on poisoning the debutante with Nerve Toxin Zima and assuming the guise of a coke-addled aerobics instructor before slipping into the wine cellar to kill Mahatma Gandhi's great-grand nephew while he recalculates the yeast percentage on his cabernet sauvignon you'll have to restart the whole level.

A buddy was telling me how great the series is but his description kinda killed it for me. You just repeated why he liked it, which makes me doubly positive I would absolutely fucking hate Hitman games. The idea of playing the same thing over and over is my hell.

I'd certainly recommend trying it when it is on sale. It is like that, but that isn't how it feels.

It is never fiddly, your first playthrough you just follow the breadcrumbs and kill the guys the way the way the system suggests and learn the layout. Then subsequent playthroughs you choose alternate routes to follow which take you through entirely separate and very pretty areas. After a while you start trying to do the challenges that don't have breadcrumbs, or do the alternate missions with different targets in a really well crafted environment that you know well because of the main missions.

It also helps that the game gets faster as you play it, you unlock start positions that help speed up the challenge you are working on, and you continue to learn smart ways to get around the map. It never feels like 'oh I have to start all over'.

Completely right to say it becomes a puzzle game though. It isn't twitchy 'be 0.2 seconds out and you die', it is mostly about looking for the relatively clever ways around obstacles.


The levels - in particular the hitman 2016 levels, are best designed open world areas I can remember in a game. Both as an area to play a game in, and as believable working example of whatever the level is supposed to be.

[Khaldun]

I think the thing that disappointed me is that the clever kills aren't a matter of improvisation in an object-filled environment with agent-based AI on all the NPCs, they're extremely precise puzzles that function like baking recipes--you must do everything just so and you will get that new kill credit. You can generally muscle your way through any mission but the game makes it very clear that this is bad and it is disappointed in you and you should do it again more elegantly, and in some sense the game is right. There is no challenge at all in just murdering people or even in murdering people and not being seen--the goal is to murder your target by making it look like he choked to death on french fries when in fact you managed to secretly close his larynx with a tube of superglue stuffed into one of the french fries and then created a timely distraction by attracting six hungry raccoons to the garbage bin outside.

[eldaec]

That hump you hit when you complete a level on first playthrough but don't understand it enough to be interested in going again is a real issue they've never really solved.

Every time steam achievements tell me someone completed all 6 maps for the first time on one evening then never played it again, it makes me a little bit sad that they are not having fun the correct way.

[Sky]

Hitman is a game I should by all rights love, but instead I just can't dig it. I've tried multiple times over the years and made a really concerted effort with one of the higherly-regarded new ones, but nah.

Maybe as we get higher speed storage and it's just a two second blip to try again from a checkpoint or something (a nice list of checkpoints to choose from would be ideal, pick where you want to branch off your approach).

It always felt like I had difficulty grasping how to play it (despite being a stealth OG), like the game wanted me to do something but I keep getting it wrong.

Wildlands is a bit vapid (like modern AC, really), but I'm trying to at least progress it enough to give it a fair shot. I've stalled a bit in Valheim, once I unlocked stone and could build my little fort, I kinda lost interest in progressing because it looks like it swerves into 'upgrade to fight tougher guys to upgrade to fight tougher guys'. I've got the stone building stuff and the big ship, I'm good. But unfortunately it doesn't quite hold up as a builder once the utility of the structures matter less (and it was already 90% my internal rp that had me building anyway).

New strings are amazing for Rocksmith. Cut down my downtime between sessions while my fingers heal up. Used to be a few days between sessions, now I can play daily if I keep it to 1 hour sessions (and even that I think can get pushed now that I've been able to play more frequently). Had Summertime by the Holding Company pop up randomly, I think it's the single fastest time for a song to make my staylist. Fuckin' Janis, man. Pretty simple bass and it seems to lead the changes, I imagine it would be a fun live jam. No Doubt's Move On has also crept into the playlist, what a cool quirky tune I had completely forgotten about (I was into that album back in the day).

[eldaec]

It autosaves every few minutes now. And you can go back to any if the last few autosaves so you really can't lose more than a couple of minutes.

But I do know what you mean. The presentation doesn't sugar the pill of looping back to the same areas the way for example a metroid game does and getting into a new map can be a slog.

And the breadcrumbs story system makes the initial run-throughs easy, but not necessarily fun.

[Khaldun]

Went back to Early Access Old World and it feels pretty much like the people involved have decided not to finish the game, it still spams me with a bunch of development build messages and doesn't really work that well. It's like a bad marriage of Civ and Crusader Kings that CK III lapped and won and went on to join another race in.

[Jeff Kelly]

Right now I’m playing not going mad, trying to prevent my dad from poking a paranoid and psychotic schizophrenic with a stick and to relax I have started another playthrough of Dark Souls.

I’ve also tried Binding of Isaac: Repentance but Ed McMillan simply hates fun and while they added an absolute megaton of new content they also nerfed almost every item made the game even harder and added additional levels of tedium after tedium because unlock everything!

[Raguel]

So the next potential game I'll buy on the cheap but probably won't play until I'm tired of CK3 is: Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire-Obsidian Edition.  gog.com just gave me a 70% off code (so about $18) Yay or nay?

[Reg]

I liked it. I liked it enough to go back and finish Pillars 1 just so I'd have a character to import for a replay of 2.

[Phildo]

I loved Deadfire, just finished replaying it.  Totally worth it for $18.

[Mosesandstick]

I really enjoyed Deadfire as well. One of the better story driven RPGs of recent years, though it falls apart a bit at the end imho. I think it's pretty much a universal improvement over the first Pillars mechanically.

[schild]

Deadfire is free on XGP

[Khaldun]

kinda surprised that the new Stellaris DLC made it illegal to be a human being, unless I'm misunderstanding.

[Sky]

kinda surprised that the new Stellaris DLC made it illegal to be a human being, unless I'm misunderstanding.

That's woke af!

[SurfD]

I liked it. I liked it enough to go back and finish Pillars 1 just so I'd have a character to import for a replay of 2.

I actually picked up Pillars 1 on an Epic Game Store free game deal several months back.  Pretty sure I enjoyed it, but I only put maybe 10 or so hours into it before I got sidetracked by something else.

Any advice on good builds to play around with?  I think my character was a Monk, just cause I kind of enjoy punching my way through things.  Vaguely remember I stopped playing after encountering a spawn of like 3 trolls + a wight or something like that in the middle of a map that just stomped me flat (I was at the relative level where 2 trolls at the same time was a decent challenge).

[Reg]

I played a cipher in Pillars 1 that was just incredibly powerful. Ciphers get mana from doing physical damage so I stayed at range and shot people with my trusty blunderbuss. Then I'd use the mana to cast a destructive spell from a good selection of them. In Deadfire I played a paladin and he wasn't as much fun. But then he was a tank and I hate playing those.

Look for builds on Google. I think most classes can be made overpowered with the right build choices.

You're right, there are some challenging fights early on. Just keep trying til you get through or get another level or two and go back. Things get easier as you level up.