The "What are you playing?" topic.

[frogbeastegg]

I completed my Mass Effect playthrough at level 59, so I started another on hardcore. I ran through the story in ~7 hours; it was quite easy, with the exception of one or two spots. Master immunity combined with spectre X gear meant my character was a near-invincible tank of doom. It's far more fun on hardcore difficulty, as you need to use all of your abilities and squad powers frequently to survive. Taking cover is something other than a gimmic; I didn't think the game had so many ways to die in a single shot!

I'm intending to hunt down the remaining silver keys and gargoyles in Fable II. Once I'm done with that I'll head back to Mass Effect and try insanity. Three playthroughs completed and I still want to play it again; that's practically unique for me.

[Gregoshi]

I bought The Elder Scrolls IV, GOTY edition for the 360. I only barely scratched the surface but it seems interesting so far, I'm hoping I'll get sucked into it as much as I did with Fable II.

My son got this back in September. We've both been playing it since. I've logged about 110 hours into the game so far and have barely scratched the main story. There is so much to do, I get distracted - then I get distracted from the distractions.

[frogbeastegg]

Mass Effect's insanity mode should have been named bullet sponge mode. All they did was add shed loads to every enemies' health and damage resistance, and make all of the organic enemies spam immunity.

That's it, 1050/1050 achievements, all difficulties completed, all paths viewed, and all three main classes used. It only took me 5 playthroughs, or 83 hours. Bring on Mass Effect 2.

I haven't chosen what to play next. No particular preference, so long as it's not Mass Effect!

[Martok]

You should try Birth of the Federation next.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[frogbeastegg]

I'm slowly chipping away at it, never you fear I do like it; it's steadily beginning to make sense.

PC games have a unique disadvantage in gaining my attention at the moment: it's pretty cold here (currently ~2 inches of snow outside and more falling) and the room where my PC resides has no heating. After a bit I can't feel my fingers properly. My consoles happen to live in a heated room.

I went with Bully: Scholarship Edition on the 360. Think 2 parts Grange Hill, 1 part Dennis the Menace, 1 part Carry on Teacher, and 1 part GTA style sandbox. The emphasis is very firmly on fun. It's an update of a PS2 game so it's no looker, and certain parts of the design are a tad archaic. The audio is quality; the voice acting remains at the high end of what's been seen in gaming.

[shlin28]

Currently installing old games onto my new laptop. Installed various games perfectly, then I when I finished installing NWN1, I got an urge to play it again.

Two hours later, I decided to install Diablo 2... and started a new character on it.

Two hours later, I am posting in this thread

[naut]

Hehe. The same happened to me when I got my new computer.

[TevashSzat]

Two hours later, I decided to install Diablo 2... and started a new character on it.

Excellent, that game is still quite fun and a classic.

I really should try to finish Hell with my Riftadin.....I remember him being stuch in Act 4 Chaos Sanctuary of Hell which basically destroyed all of my motivation for playing Diablo 2 anymore and has led me to this now about 4 month Diablo 2 break

[CountArach]

I reinstalled Morrowind (GOTY Edition) and whacked a couple of mods on there. I had forgotten just how engrosing this game is - so much better than Oblivion.

[Xiahou]

On the handheld front, I've been trying to slog through 'The World Ends With You' for quite awhile now and just can't do it. I always end up disinterested in end up not playing my DS at all because I'm trying to force myself to play through it. It has near universal acclaim, but for some reason I just can't get into it....

So yesterday, I finally set it aside in favor of Final Fantasy 4. I probably haven't played this game since I was about 14 and, so far, the DS version doesn't disappoint. I was worried that it couldn't live up to my fond memories, but I immediately got wrapped up in it- great stuff.

Here is a juxtaposition of the old SNES version and the new DS version, pretty cool stuff.
(Kain's voice (heard at 2:09) is great )

[frogbeastegg]

Xiahou, have you played the DS edition of Dragon Quest IV yet? If not you really should. I've been playing it for the last couple of months and IMO it is easily the best JRPG on the system. NB: I haven't played Chrono Trigger yet as that was released here last week.



I completed Bully. Nice game. Very silly, very fun, and a far better game than GTA4. If you like any of the following
a)sandbox games
b)fun games
c)games with a decent plot and excellent voice acting
then you should consider getting it. It's out on most platforms and is crazy cheap these days.

I am now revisiting Fallout 3. People might remember I found it to be sadly lukewarm. The replay is either an exercise in self-torture, or an effort to give the game another chance to impress me. Hard to decide which. A bit of both, I suspect. Or perhaps I felt like a western RPG and can't think of any that I'm not already playing (NWN2, the Witcher) or haven't played already (seemingly everything else).

I've made a more snipey-stealth character this time, put the difficulty up to hard, and am mainly wandering the wastes in a bid to get my new character into shape. I might try the operation anchorage DLC later. It's ok.

[Tratorix]

Playing through Persona 3 for a second time. Probably the best Jrpg i've ever played. I'm also trying to get into Baldur's Gate 2 for about the fifth time.

[Xiahou]

Xiahou, have you played the DS edition of Dragon Quest IV yet? If not you really should. I've been playing it for the last couple of months and IMO it is easily the best JRPG on the system. NB: I haven't played Chrono Trigger yet as that was released here last week.

Both DQ4 and Chrono Trigger are already in my DS queue. Which may partly explain why I finally ran out of patience for TWEWY- too many other excellent RPGs waiting to be played.

Playing through Persona 3 for a second time. Probably the best Jrpg i've ever played.

Do you have the FES version? I won the original, but want to replay it with the FES version for the bonus content & expansion.... Of course then there's Persona4...

[Tratorix]

Do you have the FES version? I won the original, but want to replay it with the FES version for the bonus content & expansion.... Of course then there's Persona4...

Yup, got FES.

Not really sure if i'd reccommend it if you've already played the original though. Since i've only played FES, I don't really know what bonus content they added, but the expansion is really lackluster. It has little story and completely throws the social link aspect out, meaning it's basically around 30 hours of dungeon crawling. But, you can pick it up for around 30$, so if you want to get it for the bonus content go for it.

[Spartan198]

CoD4, both on and off line (but only free-for-all death matches---I'm not a team player).

[drone]

MTW:VI - Swiss/Late/Hard. I'm a glutton for punishment (and cuckoo clocks and fine timepieces).

[CountArach]

FEAR: Extraction POint. After this I will play Perseus Mandate and then I'm gonna buy FEAR 2.

[naut]

HOI2 as Italy. I never know how to effectively use brigades though.

[frogbeastegg]

I've reached level 20 with my second Fallout character, and I've collected the handful of achievements I didn't get the first time around, so I'm calling it a day. My opinion on the game hasn't changed much.

Wandering the wastes, scrounging and killing to get by, is great. I only did 17 quests total with this character, so almost all of my XP came from wandering. Finding the little stories hidden in the landscape is wonderful. Two skeletons in a car in a quiet spot, two bottles of wine and a teddy bear lying nearby. They must have been on a date when the bombs fell. SPECIAL is good, far better than the Elder Scrolls' mess of a system.

It's the rest of the game I'm not impressed by. Poor plot, poor side quests, cardboard NPCs, disappointing vocie acting, tedious conversations, mediocre writing, plot holes, logic holes, extremely boring tunnel dungeons and caves of exactly the same type which flood Oblivion and Morrowind, and so on and so forth.

Fallout 3 is a baking tray full of water. It's big and wide - and shallow. Nice if you like that sort of thing and it's certainly better than having nothing to put water in, however I'd prefer to drink from a glass a la Mass Effect et al.

I am now going to focus my attention on finishing Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Quest 4. It seems like I have been chipping away at them forever.

[Xiahou]

I finished the main part of LIT, a wiiware title that came out recently. I'd describe it as a horror puzzler. It took me a little less than 6hrs to get thru all the puzzles, but there's still some replay value left and even still, it was a bargain for only $8.

After making my way through the entire school and defeating the bosses, I unlocked Rachael as a playable character. I may end up playing through it as her at some point, because I'm under the impression I'll get a different ending if I do- at the very least, you get to hear the other side of all the phone calls you got from Rachael. Also unlocked, is the very sadistic "dark mode"- I'll probably take a look at it, but it just sounds too trying to bother with.

Also on the Wii, I got House of the Dead: Overkill. Let me just say it: best on rails shooter- evar. It's very M-rated and the cheesy grindhouse theme fits it to a tee. 3 Chapters in, and I'm in love with this game.

Lastly, I'm still trying to put in about an hour a night on FinalFantasy4 on the DS and it continues to impress.

[Vuk]

I've reached level 20 with my second Fallout character, and I've collected the handful of achievements I didn't get the first time around, so I'm calling it a day. My opinion on the game hasn't changed much.

Wandering the wastes, scrounging and killing to get by, is great. I only did 17 quests total with this character, so almost all of my XP came from wandering. Finding the little stories hidden in the landscape is wonderful. Two skeletons in a car in a quiet spot, two bottles of wine and a teddy bear lying nearby. They must have been on a date when the bombs fell. SPECIAL is good, far better than the Elder Scrolls' mess of a system.

It's the rest of the game I'm not impressed by. Poor plot, poor side quests, cardboard NPCs, disappointing vocie acting, tedious conversations, mediocre writing, plot holes, logic holes, extremely boring tunnel dungeons and caves of exactly the same type which flood Oblivion and Morrowind, and so on and so forth.

Fallout 3 is a baking tray full of water. It's big and wide - and shallow. Nice if you like that sort of thing and it's certainly better than having nothing to put water in, however I'd prefer to drink from a glass a la Mass Effect et al.

I am now going to focus my attention on finishing Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Quest 4. It seems like I have been chipping away at them forever.

I liked Oblivion. :P I did not care for the storyline or the quests, but I liked the gameplay. :P

[Martok]

Galactic Civilizations 2: Ultimate Edition. Am currently trying my hand as the evil Drengin Empire in an Immense-sized galaxy. I rarely play the "naked aggressor" races in these types of games, so we'll see how long I survive.

[Don Esteban]

Warhammer: age of Reckoning mainly but, for more intelligent moments, still playing MTW:VI XL - seriously, after all these years I haven't found a game with so much replayability!

[Polemists]

F.E.A.R. 2 and MTW 2 at the moment, and some Vampire Bloodlines (Still one of funnest and funniest rpgs around).

I normally don't like FPS's and have been very impressed by the action, pace, and story of FEAR 2, it's just a fun game all around. Kudos to Monolith for bringing back my joy in the genre

[Mailman653]

I've played the demo to this Rome building sim a week ago, the name of the game escapes me but visually it's pretty neat. The game reminds me of a simpler Caesar III. But unlike Caesar III, I can't get my city off the ground; I seem to be stuck in a vicious loop of failure. I need to feed my people so I need to build homes, but after the homes I need resources to build the farms, after that I need praefects to stop fires which plague my farms so I need to build a school then study the tech, once I study the tech I need a forum (mind you my farms are burnt to the ground, my people are starving and I have to wait around for them to gather resources in this condition) I get my forum then I build praefects, but now I need the middle class, I build middle class homes but with the lack of food no one moves in, then my other buildings burn down and I have to rebuild, finally my people just revolt and burn everything down. I've tried four times to build a city and all four times I meet the same fate.

[frogbeastegg]

I've played the demo to this Rome building sim a week ago, the name of the game escapes me but visually it's pretty neat. The game reminds me of a simpler Caesar III. But unlike Caesar III, I can't get my city off the ground; I seem to be stuck in a vicious loop of failure. I need to feed my people so I need to build homes, but after the homes I need resources to build the farms, after that I need praefects to stop fires which plague my farms so I need to build a school then study the tech, once I study the tech I need a forum (mind you my farms are burnt to the ground, my people are starving and I have to wait around for them to gather resources in this condition) I get my forum then I build praefects, but now I need the middle class, I build middle class homes but with the lack of food no one moves in, then my other buildings burn down and I have to rebuild, finally my people just revolt and burn everything down. I've tried four times to build a city and all four times I meet the same fate.

Is it Grand Ages: Rome, by any chance? The demo for that came out fairly recently. If so then it is supposed to have a very different resource system to the standard city builder. I have the demo downloading as I type.

[Mailman653]

Is it Grand Ages: Rome, by any chance? The demo for that came out fairly recently. If so then it is supposed to have a very different resource system to the standard city builder. I have the demo downloading as I type.

Yup, that's the one. I'm trying to like the game, but if only I could get past that first map, I could try out the second one which is supposed to have some kind of battle in it I think.

[frogbeastegg]

Yup, that's the one. I'm trying to like the game, but if only I could get past that first map, I could try out the second one which is supposed to have some kind of battle in it I think.

I'm fortunate enough to have seen some developer posts detailing how the game works before I downloaded the demo. It's very simple when you know how. Each building has a maintenance cost in bricks, wood, stone or marble. You need to be producing enough of the required resources. That's it. No need for a prefect's office. If the building requires workers then it needs to be staffed, otherwise there is no one 'there' to fetch the resources and patch the building up. You don't even need to have a 'distrubuting' building nearby to hand out the maintenance goods; they are all classed as flow resources and thus are automatically available city-wide.

To check how many of each resource you are producing and how many units are require for city maintenance click on the materials button on the bottom of the screen. Put your mouse pointer over a resource and a pop up will tell you. If you aren't making enough to meet maintenance needs just slap down another producer building.

I find the game works best if you build slowly and steadily. Only build as many houses as you need to staff your buildings, and set the city up one stage at a time. On the demo map you're talking about I put down 1 woodcutter and 1 insula, then when they were done I put down a brickworks and another insula. Once they were done I placed a wheat farm and a pig farm, and the houses to support them. Once they were done I did a farmer's market near the houses, followed by a school. IIRC the housing required to support those buildings took me up to 9 insulae total. I researched the techs which helped me produce more basic goods, like wood and what. Once all of this was nicely settled I expanded a bit more, adding in a stone works, slave market (to provide workers for the stoneworks), water mill, bakery, a second woodcutter and a second brickworks, plus the housing to match. Once that was running smoothly I built my forum and an arena. By this point I had hammered the objectives, including the optional ones.

The second mission is indeed a basic military scenario.

It's a really good demo; I like it.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I'm currently working on unlocking the new Scout stuff for Team Fortress 2. The new shotgun is awesome!

[Fragony]

Killzone 2, and you are all mere mortals.