What are you currently playing?

[gearsofcrabs]

Pillars of Eternity.

[CraigTheCylon]

Done with Halo 2, and...I don't really know what to say about it, actually. Partly because it is very much more of the same after the first Halo, and my opinion hasn't really shifted on it since then, but it's more than that; there's just something about how the campaign plays out that makes it fade from memory very fast. There are some improvements, mind you. Environments don't feel quite as repetitive (though there is still a noticable bit of that going around) and have more visual variety, not to mention convince more as real places as opposed to the overly clean concrete kids' playparks you spend most of 1 running through. Some wonderful person saw the light and fixed the Warthog; it still skids whenever it turns but it can safely go in a straight line now, and there's even a dedicated powerslide button. And there's a bunch of new guns, with varying degrees of usefulness. I'm a sucker for the Brute Shot and the Beam Rifle, and of course getting to use the Plasma Sword instead of just running away from them is deeply satisfying, though I'm less keen on the default rifle being turned into a burst-fire weapon. Story-wise, a lot of stuff sure happens, but it almost feels like too much at times, as the game never slows down enough for its major beats to sink in. Like, the Covenant find Earth, something that the first game made very clear should never ever happen or humanity is f***ed, but we barely stay on Earth for an hour's worth of invasion-repelling before we're off to another big ring, and it's never clear exactly how bad things get in your absence. And as you may have heard, the ending is barely an ending at all - it's more like Bungie just decided they'd done enough work and cut the game off at the nearest available lull in the action. Thank goodness for the Arbiter, though. As well as putting a face on the Covenant and making them more interesting as enemies, he's simply a far better-defined character than the Master Chief; a humbled man whose blind trust, stemming from his faith, is abused time after time by the very beings his faith is defined by. His is a far more gripping plight than whether or not the green dude will reunite with his naked blue Siri.

Next is...well, I already said I was gonna do Republic Commando BEFORE Halo 2 but then I got distracted, so I guess it's back to that then.

[CraigTheCylon]

Finito goes Terminator Salvation. Never a good sign when a single game has 4 different development teams credited to it - especially since we're talking about a movie license here - so the fact that I can call this one 'average' is quite shocking. And it is average - the controls are what you expect, the visuals aren't impressive but they're not rubbish either, everything feels and behaves how you expect it to without pulling any pleasant surprises. Which makes it an arse to talk about, mostly, because there's only so many ways to say 'generic'. Focusing on the few interesting points...well, the cover system is great. Y'know how if there are 2 short walls side by side, a game will let you smoothly step from one to the other with a prompt? Salvation upgrades that to let you direct yourself towards any other cover in a 90-degree arc from your side to straight ahead, and it always works. Honestly very helpful. Battles are a bit different from other 3rd-person blasters since you're never playing whack-a-mole with the heads of AI guys doing the same cover-hugging trick as you - even the more humanoid enemies Skynet throws at you don't bother with hiding since, duh, Terminators. There's not a great deal of variety, but having every gunfight feel like the occasional 'heavy' battles in other shooters gives the game a different feel and encourages a different approach from the player. There's an interesting vibe to how the story goes, too. A lot of long-ish pauses between fights where you're left to lead your small squad through crumbling but recognizable infrastructure and overgrown weeds, minimal chatter, and more time spent with scruffy downbeat apocalypse survivors than hard-bitten resistance fighters...it feels a lot less like any Terminator film and a lot more like The Walking Dead, just with robots instead of zombies. Kinda made me wonder what a Telltale Terminator game would look like. Sadly the answer is 'a lot more interesting than the thing I was playing'.

Moved on to Dark Void, which joins Jurassic: The Hunted in the Bermuda Triangle subgenre. Seems promising so far, but it's killing me knowing I'm getting a jetpack and the game's not given me it yet.

[Panfoot]

I played about 3 hours of the Steep open beta and I really want to like it...but it's got a lot of problems. The wingsuit and parachuting stuff just isn't fun to me so I'm not going to even really talk about those, same with the skiing since it's pretty much identical to the snowboarding. The snowboarding is where I spent the bulk of my time and I did have a lot of fun exploring the mountain and finding new paths. The trick system is just strange, it's got your basic spins, rolls, and grabs, but you don't have that much control over how you perform them, it's more like hitting the right direction will queue up the move and the game will automatically perform it. I found that kind of frustrating, I much prefer the Tony Hawk games style where it's on you to actually land the tricks. The other annoying thing about the trick system is the G-Force system, which from the looks of it(I don't recall it ever actually coming up in the tutorial so all of this is just observational) is almost like a recharging health bar. When you land tricks, you lose a little bit, which then eventually recharges, meaning you can't constantly being doing tricks every couple of seconds without wiping out. I have no idea why this system exists, the design of the mountain doesn't let you go crazy with tricks like the Tony Hawk games do, so it doesn't' seem necessary to put it in there to try and keep the game more grounded. I'll still pick it up eventually more than likely as it's not a total bust, but it could easily be a lot better.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

Watchdogs 2

[GreenLanternRanger]

Still playing Pokemon Moon, beat the main-game & post game and have my pokedex like 95% complete. Now i just need to get the few i'm missing and find the the rest of the Zygarde cells & i'm good.

Also started Dragon Ball Fusions, playing as a Majin. Fun stuff.

[JCAll]

Well, I marathoned my way through Ratchet and Clank 2016. I waited a long time on it, I wasn't sure I would like it, but it turned out to be great. I don't really like reboots in general, but all the stuff they added was pretty good. Thing is, they also took out a lot of stuff I also liked, owing to the rushed development that kind of disappoints me. But most disappointing of all is what they did to Chairman Drek. He's still my favorite villain in the franchise, and he was absolutely wasted here. He even had is role as final boss hijacked.

Still, the game looks great and plays great, and if you haven't played the original you won't likely have the same problem I had with it.

[gearsofcrabs]

Finished up Metal Gear Revegeance and started up Shadow Complex Remastered.

[nickthemkfan]

Finished up Metal Gear Revegeance and started up Shadow Complex Remastered.

Me too with Shadow Complex Remastered, such a good game!

[MikeP]

I finally finished Skyward Sword. This is the first time finishing a Zelda became a chore. The motion controls did nothing to enhance this game, but instead made it frustrating. I've never wanted to throw my controller so often. Its sad because the story is one of the strongest I've played in a Zelda. So far, its looking like Breath of the Wild will correct all the issues I had with SS.

Now I'm playing Dying Light, or as it should be titled, Kick Zombie. Its very fun.

[Robotech Master]

I finally finished Skyward Sword. This is the first time finishing a Zelda became a chore. The motion controls did nothing to enhance this game, but instead made it frustrating. I've never wanted to throw my controller so often. Its sad because the story is one of the strongest I've played in a Zelda. So far, its looking like Breath of the Wild will correct all the issues I had with SS.

Very odd. I found the motion controls to be extremely easy, intuitive, and fun. The additions to the Wii version of Twilight Princess were pretty pointless, but I really enjoyed everything about the controls in SS. My only criticisms for SS was that I wished the overworld was more connected instead of being isolated waypoints traversed through the sky, and having to fight the Imprisoned so many times.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Very odd. I found the motion controls to be extremely easy, intuitive, and fun. The additions to the Wii version of Twilight Princess were pretty pointless, but I really enjoyed everything about the controls in SS. My only criticisms for SS was that I wished the overworld was more connected instead of being isolated waypoints traversed through the sky, and having to fight the Imprisoned so many times.

I haven't played it, but from what I've seen, I'd also toss in a standing complaint about the Zelda series not having an option to alter text speed to something above the pace of a drowsy snail caught on the event horizon of a black hole.

[THE KZA]

juggling a lot of games right now since I purchased a lot on black friday!

gears of war 4
tmnt mutants in manhattan
dragonball xenoverse 2
king of fighters xiv
nba 2k17

[bruceleegreyhulk]

Final Fantasy XV

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Mortal Kombat Mythologies (PS1)
Why do I like this game? It's uncontrollably bad, but I enjoy it.