What have you been playing lately?

[Joka]

Anyone bother with Skyrim: SE? I read enough to work out it’s not worth my time apart from 64-bit for PC, but the mods I use are probably equivalent to SE.

[Dark_Wolfe]

[quote=“Joka, post:1342, topic:27, full:true”]
Anyone bother with Skyrim: SE?[/quote]

Mysty hasn’t turned it on yet but she downloaded it. As regards the mods have heard that the officially added prettiness is far inferior to the modded prettiness, both in actual results & computing power necessary to bring about said results.

[Charlie_Miso]

I did. Played it on the clusterfuck that was the PS3 first time around. Game was so borked that I could only do 15% of the main quest due to bugs.

Still checked in about 60 hours doing shit.

But with 2 main minor quests, the main quest, and the DLC to play still - it was an easy decision to make.

[Sam]

I played the intro to the Special Edition - couldn’t really tell any difference. Maybe some ‘god rays’ through the trees?

No mods though, and my favourite Skyrim game is spending hours seeing how many mods I can cram into it, then playing for a few minutes before going and doing something else.

[Joka]

I had a look at some comparison shots and found that some of the original shots, looked better. One shot of the intro had too much lighting and looked washed out, as the original looked darker and more thematic…or maybe it’s just me

[Scubafinch]

I’m still playing with PS:VR, specifically Batman VR (trying to get the Riddler trophies), Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and also RIGS. RIGS is an mech based arena shooter and it’s a very polished experience. Could do with a little more content, but most VR games seem to be suffering from that same limitation.

The office where I work has a few large TVs and a corporate PS4, so on half-day Friday (last Friday in the month) I brought in the PS:VR for folks to try. I probably get more entertainment out of watching other people play as opposed to playing myself (the social screen aspect really helps here). One of my colleagues screamed the office down during the Kitchen Demo!

Other than dipping into the excellent Forza Horizon 3, I am trying to play through Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox One. I’m really struggling to get enthralled by this game (about 5 hours in). I played through the original reboot on PC, PS3 and then the remastered version on PS4, so I like the direction the franchise has taken. However I am finding the story pretty ‘meh’ so far, with flat charactisation and generic voice acting (Camilla Luddington excluded).

The game play is solid, but we’re back to the trope of not being able to pickup enemy assault weapons. These is also a strange situation with enemy equipment vendors, which doesn’t make sense in context and is just plain weird. Will persevere because every man and his dog rates the game highly, but it’s not working for me at the moment.

[Joka]

Interesting to hear about Rise of the Tomb Raider. I started the reboot on 360 version a while back and my brother loved it (he’s been a WoW gamer forever!) but he’s keen to get the next instalment. It’s been years since I’ve played a TR game but enjoyed the short play.

Still going through War in the North with the wife and another save glitch.

I’m getting NBA 2k17 for my birthday so I’m looking forward to firing that up on the new PS4.

[Joka]

I spent last night unpacking the PS4, setting it up. The controller…feels quite nice. I normally wouldn’t say that for a peripheral, but comparing that to the PS3, it feels much better. Still no basketball action, but will most likely happen on the weekend.

[ryvman]

I wanted to get some split screen going with my nephew so put in the Master Chief Collection and we were playing Halo 4 on co-op. I haven’t taken it back out of the Xbone since. I think it was @DexX who asked about games that are like comfort foods in a previous thread, or maybe that was back on Fairfax Screenplay, I may or may not have answered Halo at the time. But there it is.

[Charlie_Miso]

The best thing about the PS4 version of Skyrim for me is how short the load screens are.

[Sam]

I was reading about the upcoming Total Warhammer DLC/expansions that people have sussed out through datamining the game files - so I dove into a goblin campaign as Skarsnik. You really need overwhelming numbers as your infantry just melt when they go up against armoured humans or dwarves.

Upcoming DLC

DLC 5 Wood Elves
DLC 8 Tomb Kings
DLC 10 Skaven
DLC 13 Chaos Dwarves
DLC 15 Ogre Kingdoms

Expansion 1 (rumoured to be a new continent)

High Elves
Dark Elves
Lizardmen

Expansion 2 (Chaos Gods)

Khorne
Tzeentch
Nurgle
Slaanesh

[Joka]

Finally got a few games in of NBA 2k17 in MyCareer mode. The face scan technology is fairly weak at this stage as I don’t look anything like what was scanned as the first one looked scary. Very little improvement after a number of scans.

My wife got started on Dragon Quest Builders and got herself hooked. I had a feeling it was a game she would enjoy and while I bought it for myself, I always try to get some games that she might enjoy.

I’m looking forward to the next iteration of Dragon Quest on the PS4 though.

[Scubafinch]

My wife got started on Dragon Quest Builders

The kids and I enjoyed the PS4 demo and I may give the Vita demo a bash to see how it performs there. Looks like a good game for the long flight to the UK next year!

I’ve progressed further with Rise of the Tomb Raider, and still enjoying myself despite my reservations re: story etc. It maybe because I keep stalling due to the open world, trying to complete all challenges and optional tombs. It’s a common problem I have when presented with open world games, generally to the detriment of the driven narrative.

Contrary to this, I started Uncharted 4 up on the PS4 Pro to get a feel for the upgraded resolution and didn’t put it down for a few hours as I was caught up in it all again. Naughty Dog’s environmental story-telling is so good that wandering around Nate and Elena’s home at the beginning is an adventure in itself. Revisiting the game without that initial anticipation, I’m starting to believe that it may be better than 2.

I returned to Infamous: First Light, again to test the Pro and ended up finishing all the arenas and challenges and gaining the platinum. 4K mode is very pretty, but the high frame rate mode really helps the game.

[Sam]

Taking a break from strategy games and started a Shadowrun campaign (picked up Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong in a cheap bundle a while back. Found out you could play the original Shadowrun Returns campaign in the Dragonfall engine if you own them both). Only a little way in but I was surprised how ‘xcom-y’ it feels - which is good! The problem I have with lots of these DnD style games (see also Pillars of Eternity) is they are front loaded with a lot of stat heavy choices you are choosing blind without knowing what they will do. But a Troll Street Samurai packing an SMG seems a solid choice.

[Swordfactor]

I’m finally trying to finish off Fallout 4. It’s become a bit of a grind really, there aren’t any enemies that can take me down any more, and after my last RPG was The Witcher 3, I’m finding most of the missions/dialogue to be extremely mechanical and dull.

Problem is that I can’t decide which faction to support in the run home… I’m up to the proverbial fork in the road, where taking on certain missions mean that other factions no longer like me. The Railroad are the nicest people, but I don’t think there’s much of a satisfying ending there; the Institute could end up with a more interesting ending for the Commonwealth, but I don’t like their superior attitude; I want to see how the Brotherhood finishes things off, but they really just want me to murder everyone else. Feels like every path now just involves killing off everyone else… “play how you want”, until the game makes you kill-kill-kill. Should be more political/sabotage type options.

I guess I could delay the inevitable by downloading the Far Harbor DLC and playing through that, but I think I’m almost worn out on the game mechanics.

I think Bethesda need to refresh the Elder Scrolls/Fallout franchises with a new approach… I love those games, but I think they are well and truly starting to show their age.

[DexX]

What astonished me was how much I cared. It’s such a simple medium for delivering plot - static faces and text - but in no time i was really invested in the characters and their stories. It’s a really impressive bit of writing.

[Vroenis]

I’ve spent a bit of time with both the Vive and the Playstation VR now and while the Vive seems to have slightly higher quality screens, the Playstation VR is quite a fair bit more comfortable to wear for extended periods of time for me and would be my purchase preference were I to buy one.

Which I’m not just yet.

So far of all the things I’ve played and experienced, only Rez Infinite in VR is worth it. It tracks the target reticule to your head and you may think this would have you tracking wildly but you don’t at all, it actually makes Rez a bazillion (scientifically measured) times easier than using the analogue stick, and the game a kajillion (also scientifically measured) times more enjoyable than it was before, which seems impossible but it is. The game is astonishing in VR and an absolute blast.

On rails experiences seem to be the best, but as for user-controlled movement, in comes the nausea.

I don’t know if it takes getting used-to, but both the owners of the units, everyone they’ve given demonstrations to and myself, have all experienced varying degrees of nausea in games where we control our own movement with a stick and not our bodies moving within a limited three dimensional space - ie, FPS controls. Standing up, moving the character forwards makes me feel like I’m falling slightly backwards, and if I instinctively pull back on the stick, the nausea leaps ten-fold. For me, if the walls are closed-in such as in a hallway, the nausea increases whereas one of the owners experiences it more in open areas. They actually experienced much more nausea than I, as I endured quite a bit farther in a particular game than they did, but I still couldn’t stand it after a while.

So at the moment, I can’t justify buying one just for Rez. I’d love to try it with Bound and see if it’s as nausea inducing if the implementation is more of a chase-cam rather than a first-person perspective, but even then, two titles still doesn’t warrant the cost.

The last concern I have is one of dept of field which I discussed on twitter and won’t repeat here - long story short, for the most part, I still don’t think the illusion of depth is created effectively enough, consistently enough, and for the money, that’s a problem.

[Joka]

I haven’t played Builders yet, in fact she asked me if I would. I just told her I’d wait until she’s finished. That could be a while.

Meanwhile, I did buy Stardew Valley, 2 weeks ago for $13. I love it, though I get little time to play lately. I can’t fish for the life of me but I enjoy the town and the little activities. Possibly the best $13 I’ve ever spent!

[DexX]

Stardew is wonderful. The official wiki is a godsend, as well.

[dylillama]

Hello you guys.

Been on a four week holiday to introduce dylillama jnr to his relatives in Australia. Was good to be back! No back in London, where winter is stetching its tenticles. So only mobile games, Pinout which was great, and Sorcery! which seemed good but I wasn’t in the mood for.

Trying to resist Civ 6 right now. When did £50 new release games for PC become a thing??

Also pondering Titanfall 2. Loved the first one.