So, what're you playing?

[Rendakor]

Sorry for my initial misunderstanding spiraling into many others making the same mistake.

[Sky]

I made that mistake actually playing the game, because there are so many similar elements to the Avengers interface that I just assumed that's where they would head for the endgame in this one, too. I now actively dislike the male voice actor, he's just horrible in this role.

Anyway, I wish someone had mentioned that Elden Ring is a great game. It cures almost everything I disliked about Soulzzz (in my very limited experience, primarily gating). Top tier explorer game. Only a few cheese enemies, but so far the worst have been avoidable or limited in necessary encounters. I kinda skipped the storm castle somehow, so I should probably turn around and head back there (I've been exploring Liurna because I think I exhausted the early areas of t2 upgrade stones).

[Velorath]

We talked about Elden Ring a lot in Discord but I guess maybe not as much in here. Yeah, the game gives you a lot of freedom to explore and a lot of stuff to do at any given point if you don't feel up to completing one of the main "dungeons".

[Sky]

We talked about Elden Ring a lot in Discord but I guess maybe not as much in here. Yeah, the game gives you a lot of freedom to explore and a lot of stuff to do at any given point if you don't feel up to completing one of the main "dungeons".

I was joking about not mentioning it, more or less. I guess I could scroll back through a year of discord chat to catch up though  Anyway, I normally jump into these games much later than the discussions around them, so I like to make obtuse jokes about it.

I can see how the earlier games turned me off, but I'm surprised they reward casual exploration in a pretty satisfactory way. Feels like the exploration part of Gothic, which probably helped train me for this style of combat (and definitely playing Outward first was a good idea, I was already in the correct mode for Elden Ring without knowing it!).

[Typhon]

I got the joke!  Was about to post something similar and realized that there is no way you missed all the gushing about Elden Ring.

[Falconeer]

Elden Ring is clearly the game of the decade. Disco Elysium is there too, but let's say they don't deny each other.

[01101010]

Actually just started a fresh new game play thru over Christmas and can't really believe all the shit I missed the first go round and I explored more my first play thru than I usually do in these games. The vastness is pretty shocking right out of the box without any DLCs...yet.

[Khaldun]

Disco Elysium stirs contradictory feelings in me like nothing else I've ever played.

[schild]

Disco Elysium stirs contradictory feelings in me like nothing else I've ever played.

This is the post you make that isn't 4 paragraphs long?

bro

[Khaldun]

Inexpressibility is a thing, bro.

[schild]

Hey, you said contradictory feelings. What feelings. What are we working with here?

[Khaldun]

Disco Elysium is too smart.

[Khaldun]

Or clever. Clever is closer.

[Mandella]

Or clever. Clever is closer.

And it is constantly reminding you of that.

[Samwise]

It insists upon itself.

[schild]

It insists upon itself.

Yes, that's what I'm reading.

[Samwise]

I mean that's basically every conversation about Disco Elysium, 80-90% of the room thinks it's great and can't exactly articulate why beyond "the writing is very good", and the remainder thinks it's annoying as fuck and can't exactly articulate why beyond "the writing is very pretentious", or something along those lines.

[Sky]

Playing Midnight Suns, I could go for some pretentious right about now.

What are the games that had better dialog and writing in general? At the very least, Disco Elysium was interesting.

[Samwise]

Playing Midnight Suns, I could go for some pretentious right about now.

What are the games that had better dialog and writing in general? At the very least, Disco Elysium was interesting.

I think I recommended "Stories Untold" a page or two back.

[lamaros]

I mean that's basically every conversation about Disco Elysium, 80-90% of the room thinks it's great and can't exactly articulate why beyond "the writing is very good", and the remainder thinks it's annoying as fuck and can't exactly articulate why beyond "the writing is very pretentious", or something along those lines.

I think it's quite pretentious and also fucking great.

[Khaldun]

Yes.

[Cyrrex]

Somebody kidnapped Khaldun and has him locked in their basement.  The last 5 of his posts have a total of 6 sentences, which must be code for something.

[Rasix]

Finally beat Maven in PoE.. 2 years after that boss was released. To be fair to myself, I really only tried the first league she was put in the game, but the fight has way too much samey colored, cluttered effects for me to even visually process it. At this point, I figured I would try due to having a build with a gajillion dps.  The memory game portion is still brutal, I can't even pick up the flashing sometimes, and especially not while I have to dodge shit in the last phase. Still, it was pretty easy. Damage makes mechanics a moot point.

Trying for another go in Valhiem, but I'm not sure I can deal with the ore grind. Getting over the initial leather scrap grind was bad enough. Neat game and there's 2 biomes I haven't completed, so I may just kind of casually keep a save going.

[Sky]

Valheim was cool when it was fresh and new. But every time I think about going back, the thought of the grind kills it. Heck, I only made it to the winter biome in my first run. The building and exploration just weren't enough to offset the lack of content and grindiness, and the ganeplay itself was mediocre at best.

That's why the flaws in Midnight Suns are getting a pass from me, for the most part. The actual game part is decent enough (moreso if you dig Marvel).

[Soulflame]

I have to agree on the grind re: Valheim.  It's too much effort to get the materials together for each tier.  The first two tiers especially are a long grind.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I felt that with Valheim. Replaying Conan Exiles with sorcery added I had some of the same reactions--when you're building endgame structures, you have to have multiple furnaces and blacksmiths churning away all the time. But at least you have a dancer with big tits next to you, I suppose.  The sorcery stuff is, btw, pretty damn gruesome.

[Velorath]

Over the last few years (pretty much since the pandemic had started, everything was shut down, and I had the time to go through all of FFXI's story content) I've been playing or replaying a bunch of Final Fantasy stuff. Went through XI, Endwalker, the Pixel Remasters of I through V (still have to do VI), Stranger of Paradise, and FFVIIr, and FFXV which I hadn't played through until now. XV and V were both in the past month.

Recent D&D talk has got me wanting to play through some old D&D PC games again since I've bought a lot of that stuff multiple times (the SSI stuff I own on both Steam and GOG, and same with a lot of the Enhanced Edition Baldur's Gate style stuff). While I do have a habit of replaying some of the Gold Box games every few years, I decided to start off with the Enhanced Edition of Planescape: Torment.

In a post Disco Elysium world it maybe doesn't hold up as well as it used to. The writing is still fairly good, but there's a lot of FedEx side-quest padding in this game. Getting to the Hive after getting out of the Mortuary is a lot like getting to the Citadel in Mass Effect after getting off Eden Prime. It's just hours of side quests going back and forth across a handful of areas.

Never played Torment: Tides of Numenera so I don't know if they updated the basic gameplay formula for the spiritual successor at all or if it's even worth playing (not planning on dropping $35 right now for it anyway).

[Zetor]

I played Torment Numanuma way-back-when. It's ok, 7/10 stuff, more if you don't mind reading walls of text, less if you want gameplay in your video games. It feels like a proto-Disco in some ways (e.g. failure moves you forward, feels like a hybrid of a VN and a narrative tabletop RPG, etc), but is very inferior IMO.

[01101010]

Monster Hunter: RISE hit Gamepass so I downloaded it for my Xbox. Feels easier than WORLD but also less epic - probably something to do with it being ported from the Switch. Still, scratches the itch and not paying for it is nice  .

[Trippy]

Yes, that's an accurate summary. Hunting sessions are a lot shorter thanks to drift doggo, wirebugs and much simpler maps for super quick traversal compared to World and generally easier monsters in the "base" game, which benefits a portable device.

[Rendakor]

Are either World or Rise generally like...accessible to a solo player? I've always liked the idea of Monster Hunter significantly more than the execution, and have futzed around with a few here and there. None have ever really hooked me, mostly because it's felt like inventory management was more important than actually hunting the monsters. So many weird items, subcomponents, byzantine crafting systems, etc., paired with limited in-game documentation and terribly small inventory sizes.

[Velorath]

I played World early on and it was fairly solo friendly I seem to recall, although long-term I probably would have had more fun playing with other people. As a solo thing the game wasn't particularly sticky for me and after a few weeks of play I dropped off.

[Trippy]

Both games are definitely accessible to solo players in the sense that all monsters, that I'm aware of, can be defeated solo. Rise, being the easier of the two, is, I would say, more solo-friendly than World. Rise also lets you bring in two pets to fight with you solo (or duo) rather than just one in World, and while pets don't normally do much damage they do act as distractions so monsters usually spend less time beating on you. So two pets will give you more time to drink potions to heal up and stuff than one. Both games are definitely easier if you are playing with others that are at least as good as you but it's not required and mentioned above. Some weapons are more "solo-friendly" than others for new players as well.

Both games also have an "SOS" feature where you can start a mission by yourself but if you are having trouble finishing it you can let other people join in mid-mission to help out. That way you can try to solo something yourself but if you find it too hard you can let others join you without having to redo the mission from the beginning.

The games are very "fiddly" and the controls complicated, making use of every button on a controller, so the barrier to entry is higher than most games. Inventory management is similar between Rise and World and a critical component to the games but you can save loadouts in both making it fast to get prepped for a hunt if you spend the time to setup and save loadouts for at least your most common setups.

The mechanics of crafting are pretty simple once you understand how it works but the game has a lot of stats so once you get past the very early stages of the game, where every new piece of gear is clearly better than what you are currently using, figuring out if a piece of gear is better than another can be tricky. If you don't like "build-crafting" / "theory-crafting" weapon and armor stat and skill combinations you might have trouble progressing in the game since crafting the right stuff for what you are trying to do is how you get stronger in the game.

[Surlyboi]

Forspoken has eaten up the last few days. A bunch of gamer dorks have shit on it as being watered down Elden Ring with “cringe” dialogue but I’m loving the hell out of it. The worldbuilding is solid and the combat/traversal mechanics are cool as shit.

[01101010]

Forspoken has eaten up the last few days. A bunch of gamer dorks have shit on it as being watered down Elden Ring with “cringe” dialogue but I’m loving the hell out of it. The worldbuilding is solid and the combat/traversal mechanics are cool as shit.

I saw a few gameplay vids - looks like a fun game, it is a Square Enix game right?