Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!
Please don’t forget to use the spoiler tag as soon as you start talking about a storyline.
I’ve played a few hours now of BG3 and i have a hard time getting into it.
I never played a D&D game in my life but want to give this a try.
I’m just so clueless what to do with classes, jobs, etcetera.
But the game looks great and story is interesting so I’m eager to see how it plays out.
Also tried getting into it. I put ~10 hours in but I just played less and less every day until I stopped entirely. One thing I never really got used to was the camera controls for example.
But I also played alone, so I think this game is more fun with friends.
I’m just so clueless what to do with classes, jobs, etcetera.
Don’t worry about trying to pick the “best” or “strongest” thing, just do the thing that sounds fun. There are different ways of handling things so you don’t have to worry about doing it the “right” way, just pick something that works for you and go with it. If you really want you can worry about maximizing your build or playing a different class in a second run.
I dug out my old Logitech Driving Force GT from the closet and blew off the dust. I haven’t gotten into a new (to me) racing game since Gran Turismo 5. The hardcore simulationist trend doesn’t interest me, I miss proper career modes and I have just had some awful bad luck with games being broken. I just occasionally revisit some classics.
So after many enthusiastic recommendations I grabbed Forza Horizon 5. My first impressions were great. The intro was a lot of fun, with the big set pieces causing me to fight my wheel as it bucked after being long out of practice.
But this was not representative of the actual game. The vast majority of the content is filled by fairly normal races with long stretches driving to them, back and forth across the same stretches of empty open world. It’s sort of like a Ubisoft game, but just cars.
This still could have been a good time. I like the driving model well enough, there is a large selection of cars and the environment, while bland, is certainly much less of an eyesore than what awaits me if I go back to play Need for Speed: Most Wanted for the umpteenth time.
I’ve got some criticisms of the actual racing (the way it generates opponents and their vehicles sucks, the tracks are boring), but what really killed it for me was this slowly creeping, eerie discomfort that built up in the back of my mind over hours until it became overwhelming. The vibes are fucked.
This is Fortnite, the racing game. It’s full of cameos and tie ins with influencers. Brands are plastered everywhere. Microtransaction adverts in most menus. Everyone talks in this creepy, corporate approved “wholesomeness” and aware of how “epic” what they’re doing is. There is a really uncomfortable tension between this huge festival that completely empties Mexico of pedestrians and how much the game fetishizes Americaness.
I wanted to scream during a sub-plot where you race a bunch of rich douche bags who are beefing with some guy at the festival. The game throws out shit like “they shouldn’t be discriminated against for their money, they can’t help the fact they are rich” and talks about fucking therapy. All the writing is this bad, I hate every single character in these inexplicably unskippable cutscenes.
The radio selection is dogshit too.
It’s absurdtpo me how basically no racing game company realizes that one of the key points to have your game be fun is to have some kind of progress. Contemporary racing games literally just throw cars at you in hope to make it fun by constantly giving you new toys.
I get that this is a thing that sells to the masses who /want/ those shiny new toys, but man. Imagine if a big studio actually took the time to improve on the vintage NFS progression formula :(
I hate that a lot of the ones with a progression settle on XP to unlock tiers of cars rather than money and buying them too. I liked going to the used car dealer ship in Gran Turismo and seeing what I could afford.
Contemporary racing games literally just throw cars at you in hope to make it fun by constantly giving you new toys.
Forza Horizon 5 is bizarre for this. It has an acquisition system, but right after the intro you pick one of three cars, all new and not cheap. Then you get a custom rally car from the next race. A bunch of unlocks are going to give even you more cars afterwards, and will keep doing so regularly.
Like hang on, maybe let me work up from one of your cheap, older cars first and work my way up?
But this is also the game that unironically calls you “superstar” from the jump and sucks you off constantly.
Baldurs gate 3 on my steam deck. Great game so far though I wish it ran a bit smoother on the deck. Maybe I’ll try to tweak it some more.
I’ve played a few hours now of BG3 and i have a hard time getting into it.
I never played a D&D game in my life but want to give this a try.
I’m just so clueless what to do with classes, jobs, etcetera.
But the game looks great and story is interesting so I’m eager to see how it plays out.
I’m in my third play through of it. It’s such an amazing game, so many emotions and amazing storylines.
Where are you up to?
In the goblin camp first playthrough. I’m a human bard, been interesting
Oh man, you’ve got sooo much to go! It’s great. I love that whole starting area. It’s so much fun.
My second play through was a wood elf bard. She was pretty fun to play. Considering I’m a barbarian player usually. First play through was a half orc barbarian, she was really cool.
Been playing a lot of Valheim and Trailmakers this week to get myself in the mindset for the upcoming Enshrouded EA release
Just tried the portal: revolution. Obviously missing GLaDOS’ voice, but the puzzle are neat so far.
I’m addicted to Grand Turismo 7 right now. I don’t play anything else which is rare with me. I even got to the point where I bought PS VR2 just for this game.
I have yet to pick up a PS5, but when I do, GT7 is the first game I’m picking up! What are you enjoying the most from it?
It’s the sense of speed and degree of realism is higher than in Forza games. GT Sophy AI is also amazing. It adds personalities to the AI cars so they no longer follow predefined lines but they block, attack, crash or spin from too much throttle.
Across The Obelisk, love me a roguelike deck builder
That’s been sitting on my wishlist a while. It caught my attention when I saw RTGames playing with his friends; but I’ve been hesitant to pull the trigger because I’m worried it’ll be one of those games that’s only fun with friends.
I haven’t played with friends and am quite enjoying it!
Age of Wonders 4! So good. The the art, the lore, the game play, the everything.
Roboquest! It’s a combination of DOOM and Borderlands, but in roguelike form. Super smooth gameplay, well optimized, and it looks great.
Guitar and a bit of ukulele since a few months
Re4 remake. Pretty good so far, but Ashley is such a pain.
They made her significantly less of a pain in the remake. And they kept they that you can hide her or she just stays out of the way in a lot of fights. And doesnt have a health bar. Big improvements comparatively in my opinion.
Been playing Sons of the Forest. Visually stunning, this is good looking game. I like how it can be played as a shooter or an adventure or base building or combination of all three. The map is huge, backstory mysterious and the atmosphere is incredibly immersive, particularly in the caves which are creepy AF.
How does it compare with the original Forest? I liked that game, but after you explore all of the caves there’s not much to do. Building is fun, but I think some stronger enemies were needed.
It’s an improvement. The enemies continually increase in strength and number. More weapons and the map is bigger. I’m avoiding using the cheat maps for the most part and it feels like it would take a very long time to complete. I’m playing it on normal difficulty.
The game is still in beta for another month and building options are somewhat limited, which I assume will be expanded. If you liked the original, this one makes a lot of sense.
Great, thanks for the info. I’ll give it a go at some point :)
Just started Lost Odyssey. I’d heard it was like a Final Fantasy game but I don’t think I was prepared for just how much Final Fantasy X DNA is in the game. Mostly enjoying so far.
I’m away from my PC/consoles for the next year but I’ve been all over Polytopia on mobile. Easy to learn hard to master. Very complex little game that I can play through a few times a day with lots of replayability.
Fallout 4! I’m playing on Survival mode for the first time and having a lot of fun. I have a ton of mods installed too, but nothing to make it easier really lol
I’ve found that mods like iHUD, removing the cash register sound for XP, directional pipboy light, flashlights, darker nights, and storms (these can be set to be just visual rather that radiation inducing) all help make the game more immersive without dramatically changing the difficulty.
I do enjoy the health rebalancer which removes scaling health and instead makes some enemies baseline tougher and some weaker. IIRC it also makes headshots on humans instant death. No more blasting away at some scaled raider as they just keep attacking.
Recostuming the Minute Men in something closer to surplus military clothes makes them instantly less lame.
Also replacing all the pipe guns with weapon packs of real world handguns and machinepistols is for me nessesary, as I do not at all enjoy the FO4 pipegun designs.
Finally, the backyard bunkers mod allows a bomb shelter with a hatch you can place inside a settlement. Going inside moves you to a private space. NPCs won’t barge in and it’s a safe place to store extra gear.
Replacing pipe guns and re-clothing the minutemen sound like good ideas! I’ll have to look into those
say hello to Preston for me,
