New thread! Whatcha all playing! I’ve been playing more blasphemous 2. Really really into it 🙏
Still playing Baldur’s Gate 3
Judgement - this is basically just Yakuza Kiwami reskinned as a light detective game. I love the Yakuza games so I’m enjoying this. I wish the detective elements were a bit deeper, but they always do a great job stuffing the world with different weird side quests and characters.
Stellaris (console edition) - first time playing. This is Civilization in space. There’s a learning curve of course, so I started out on easy. I like the bit of detail they add in descriptions of strange sci-fi events, although this probably gets repetitive after your first game. They did a great job with the controls for console. Overall I’m enjoying it but it’s very much like Civilization where AI civs hate you for no reason.
Sea of Stars - this is good. I’m around 10-12 hrs in. The story picks up a lot after the dull intro thankfully. I’m slightly disappointed with the music. It’s fine, but none of the tracks are something I really want to listen to again. I’m impressed with the amount of detailed artwork and animation. I like the verticality of the world which adds interest to running around and provides good ways to hide secrets. The battle system is good. The only thing is I wish there was a bit more to the character customization. It’s pretty standard physical/magic attack and defense and there are very few armor and weapon choices so far. Overall, I’m enjoying it a lot.
Baldur’s Gate 3
It’s incredible so far. I just made it out of Act 1. For the most part, you can come up with plans and ideas on your own, and they’ll usually work, which makes you feel like a genius, but I have to call out two times that this specifically did not work the way I thought they would.
some light spoilers ahead
Early on, there’s a target that you have to either eliminate or side with, and I choose to side with them, with the express purpose of getting them to let their guard down so that I can separate them from the group and eliminate them. The dialogue options even allude to the fact that this is a strategy they want you to use. This target wants you to sneak into another (good) faction and open a gate for a bloodbath of an assault on that faction, but the target also leaves their battle plans out in the open. So I figure I’d steal the battle plans, give them to the other faction, and just not open the gate, and then that target dies. Well, it doesn’t work that way, and progressing that far along with the target invalidates the other quest entirely. Bummer.
The second is a fight right near the end of Act 1 where you’ve got to eliminate or side with a target again, in a room with a lot of lava, some slaves you can try to rescue, and a lot of enemies. Depending on how the dialogue goes right before the encounter, you either side with the target against the room full of enemies (but the slaves die), or you fight everyone. There are about 15 enemies in the room, which means they get a lot more turns than you, and since they’re all grouped in that room, there’s no real way to isolate them and take them out stealthily ahead of the encounter. I tried using a bard Performance to get them to all clump up so that I could push large groups of them into the lava, which was fairly effective, but then the slaves would join that group too, and it was very easy to aggro them. Worse still is that the slaves will happily fight you if you aggro them, but they won’t join you to fight the other enemies in the room that enslaved them, let alone the target you’re trying to eliminate. The only way I found through it was to reload an earlier save and to make different dialogue choices with a particular NPC so that some of those 15 enemies end up on my side in that fight when the time comes.
end of spoilers
The game usually lets me get away with whatever crazy plan I come up with, but I just wish these two points so far were a bit more flexible.
For the fight in Grymforge you’re talking about, there’s also an opportunity to get some of the duergar on your side, which makes the fight a lot more manageable.
Also, the game never explains this, but you know the buttons in the bottom left of the screen during cutscenes? You can use these to trade with characters that don’t normally have an option for it, to switch party members to sneak around while the one in conversation distracts an NPC, or to attack before a cutscene finishes playing out. Doing these things can affect the outcome of game events!
Please elaborate on this trading feature! When did it change NPCs/quests? Maybe keep spoilers hidden or to things already discussed here.
Trading specifically I’m not sure if it changes anything, but you can buy things from NPCs that normally you can’t trade with. I do know that stealing from NPCs and attacking before a cutscene plays out can change the survival of some NPCs.
One thing I learned about the game fairly early on (actually in that same area, with a certain imprisoned bear) is that once you do something that makes NPCs hostile, they are going to stay hostile for good. That’s not to say there aren’t opportunities to flip allegiances a bit, but going fully subversive isn’t well-supported. And to a degree, that makes sense; a good DM’s going to make it difficult on you, because once you’re seen with the enemy, it’s going to take a lot of convincing.
For the Grymforge event, you can also just…
spoiler
not excavate and let Nere die in the poison trap.
But again, my expectation is that I had other ways to go hostile against these folks, especially after the goblin camp. But that scenario is basically set up to make that combat encounter next to impossible, but I didn’t know that ahead of time, because after you clear the obstruction, the state of the map changes.
Yes, there are a couple of situations in the game where one can end up in a dead end situation, and that’s probably the easiest of the bunch to stumble into. The player pretty much has to either make a deal with the chief ahead of time or just not do the battle. It’s not ideal, especially since it’s likely easy for a player to go into it when needing a rest, too.
For your second fight, you can actually get above all the enemies (there’s a platform, to access some other parts of the map) and just completely break the AI, because they can’t get to you. I don’t remember if the slaves even joined the fight, but they all survived.
You can use this “tactic” in multiple locations, if you’re not above cheesing fights. If the enemy doesn’t have a ranged attack, or have no easy way to get to you, they just run in circles.
I’ve seen that area but had absolutely no idea how to reach it after looking around for a while.
I case you want to know
spoiler
you can either jump to a small outcropping down below, near the “entrance” of the big room, where the slaves are, or on the other side of the map, are a bunch of dwarves trying to go through yet another wall (these have like two goats with them), and go from there.
Metroid Dread on Switch, at the final boss
Good luck!
Currently playing a lot of Minecraft with my daughter and her boyfriend. Have set up a server so we can pop in and out when we want to. Having a blast.
Also playing started playing sea of stars. Beautiful game and excited where it will go.
And there is always time to play another round of enter the gungeon!
That’s a really nice idea! And a great way to connect with your children.
Sea of Stars! It’s great so far. I only like turn based RPGs once in a blue moon, and this one really hooked me
Been playing Spirit of the North this week. I’ve actually finished it, including 100% achievement completion, because it’s not a huge game. What is really sticking out to me right now, though, is that I adore this game. I like a lot of games, but it’s pretty rare for me to absolutely love one.
I’ve also just finished a run through Baldur’s Gate 2, playing a bard for the first time ever. I enjoyed the class more than I thought I would. Onwards to Throne of Bhaal next week!
What did you like about Spirit of the North? I got it with PS Plus but haven’t bothered with it because it got pretty middling review scores. Looks beautiful though.
So, yeah, the fact that it’s a beautiful game is definitely part of it! Visually it’s stunning, and the music is also really beautiful. I also think it’s superbly written: there’s absolutely no dialogue, but there is still a narrative as you play through each area, and I think that’s genuinely very hard to do well, but Spirit of the North does. I really got invested in the relationship between the two characters. There’s also no combat or fighting in the game, so it’s all focused around the platforming and puzzle elements.
I can definitely see why it’s not to everyone’s tastes. It got “very positive” on Steam, so it’s rated more highly on PC than on the PS, and the negative reviews it did get are complaining about either the controls or the game not telling you what you need to do. So the former is fair, I think: the devs focused on making a beautiful game, so it’s about the experience, not the mechanics. The controls aren’t bad as such, but they’re not as smooth as you’d expect for a platformer, I guess? You get the occasional moment of “why didn’t I make that jump?” But there’s no “miss the jump, die, restart the level” mechanics, so it’s normally 1-3 jumps that you need to repeat if you fall. I found the platforming elements really forgiving in terms of not punishing you for screwing up.
The second criticism, that the game doesn’t tell you what you need to do, I think is unfair. The direction you need to go in is always the way that feels most intuitive, either because of a path, wall, or just the shape of the terrain. Some of the puzzles need you to stop and think about them, and the game doesn’t hold your hand by going “and do this here, and that there, and then that”.
The game I’d most compare it to is Abzu, but with more Nordic and less ocean vibes. If you’ve played Abzu and enjoyed it, then you’ll probably enjoy Spirit of the North too.
Nice, thanks for the write-up! I will definitely bump this up the list then. Honestly it looks so appealing I think I’ve just been looking for an excuse to give it a shot that outweighed my wariness from the reviews.
It’s definitely worth a shot. It’s actually a pretty small game: I didn’t rush, and spent 6 hours on it the first time I played (and 16 hours for 100% achievements). So even if you find it’s not for you, it’s a pretty small time investment to find out. :)
Baldur’s Gate 3 on my partner’s days off when he wants to play games, that game is That Game, so freaking good, I think about it all the time. Because I don’t want to progress the game past our co-op session’s progress, and I’ve replayed Act 1 solo a few times over by now, I am back with good ol’ Skyrim otherwise.
I know it is a meme, but I genuinely have the thing of only modding and not playing Skyrim. I am proud to say I am at a point where I just play, instead of finding more mods. I feel like I have a pretty stable modlist, seldom crash, and this is because last winter I spent a lot of time with the crashlogger thing weeding out problematic mods. It is really hard not to go to nexus, I actually don’t visit it anymore at all, it is intense FOMO when I see others’ screenshots. My main achievement is that upon returning to Skyrim after a break, I even picked up my same character instead of starting over with fresh mods–it was like, not giving up progress.
I’m shelving Baldur’s Gate 3 for now after a full run plus more. Had a great time with it, but I think I’d rather wait for more polish first before I tinker with it any more or check out the story branches/side quests in Act 3 I didn’t see.
I started playing Hardspace: Shipbreaker and I was surprised at how quickly it grabbed me. The story has a very similar vibe to Papers, Please and something about the UI and the artistic design is reminding me a lot of old space sims. Surprisingly cozy game, though I might look into seeing if I can swap out the music. Don’t know if I like what it says about me that I really like games that are work simulators, though.
I have Hard space Shipbreaker on my list. I’m hoping it’s the type of game you can pick up and play I short, relaxed bursts. Is that how you’d describe it?
For sure. The core gameplay loop is in 15 minute segments, at least at the point I’m at.
Voices of the Void. Because I like the subtle feeling of dread and knowing any action could result in something horrific.
Factorio. Optimization can always be improved upon.
Kenshi. Finally got my base built. Only cost a few arms and legs… and some of them weren’t mine!
Oh nice! I super want to get Blasphemous 2. I loved the first one.
I’m continuing my slow progress through Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
You def should! It’s basically an improvement in every way imo over the first. I’ve heard some don’t like the cutscene art style as much but it doesn’t bother me
Oh cool! I can’t wait! Cheers!
Had no idea there was a Blasphemous 2 ! Will try
Way too much Tetris on an emulated SNES
I’ve started playing Ghostrunner. I’ve really missed level based games, and the gameplay is just thrilling. It’s really been a blast trying to go faster than my friends, as well as collecting all the items in some really well designed levels
Baldur’s gate 3
I am, too.
Just finished Rakuen not too long ago and I love(d) it. The game play is really simple, any of the puzzles are simple enough, the music is for the most part pretty solid, and the story was pretty good. Nothing to complain about besides how short it is.
Not sure what the next big game I’ll be playing is, but I have been thinking about saying screw it and playing Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters again.