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Back into Warcraft after a long break.
Quite enjoying it, had forgotten how fun some of the pvp battlegrounds were. Go go restro droods.

Horizon Zero Dawn was super impressive given that Guerilla Games was previously known for their work on "Killzone"(a semi-generic FPS--that I still maintain had some of the coolest near future-ish designs!).

H:ZD is a great, great game. Well crafted, plausible story, gorgeous visuals, and robot dinosaurs. I recommend it every time.

 feeder wrote:
H:ZD is a great, great game. Well crafted, plausible story, gorgeous visuals, and robot dinosaurs. I recommend it every time.

The only gripe I have about that game is the overabundance of nihilistic grimdark. You think it'd kill developers to put any sort of bright spots in the storylines nowadays. They had sequel fodder in the making simply with the colony ship, but they made sure that THAT was a grimdark dead end as well.

Oddly enough, I finally finished H:ZD a couple of days ago. I don't own the DLC, but I'll probably grab it before long.

The Odyssey story (the aforementioned colony ship) was odd. The Viewpoint monologues are written from the PoV of someone who was involved in its construction. And his final monologue indicates that it launched successfully, which gives the writer pride both for the future that the ship represents, and also for the work he did on it. But then elsewhere there's a quick note in an unrelated data point that you can find that indicates the actual fate of the Odyssey. And it's kind of a smh moment. You went through the trouble of tracking down the Viewpoints to find out about the Odyssey and its successful completion, only to have it off-handedly disposed of elsewhere.

But having said that, I found the grimdark to mostly be in the distant past. And that's understandable, given that the past in question revolves around the literal destruction of all life on the planet. The present - particularly if Aloy gets heavily involved in helping out those around her - looks much more optimistic.

I started playing around with the Valkyria Chronicles 4 demo this evening. Gameplay is similar to the first game (never played 2 or 3), with the added addition of the mortar class. The mortar is very handy in the right circumstances, and I'm dreading what will happen if the other side gets them later on.

I do have one complaint about mortars, though. The game has you position the aim point along the ground, as is normal for area effect weapons. And it also allows you to adjust the Z-axis of the camera while you're aiming the weapon. But the mission that introduces the mortar has you using it against targets that are located along the top of a wall. And you can't raise the camera quite high enough to get a look at the precise position of the targeting reticle on the top of said wall. As a result, I had wasted shots that either fell just short, or overshot just a bit. The direction of the shots was accurate. But I couldn't compare the distance properly.

The game is set concurrently with the first game, but the focus this time is on a unit of soldiers from Gallia (the country that the militia was from in the first game) who volunteered for the Edinburgh (Great Britain stand-in) army. Since Gallia is officially neutral, and not part of either the Federation or the Empire, Gallians who want to join a proper military frequently join Edinburgh's army (which has a good reputation). As in the first game, you control a team of unique foot soldiers, and a single tank (which this time is a mass-produced model, instead of the first game's unique vehicle). I've heard that an APC of some sort also joins your unit later in the game.

If you played the first game and liked it, then you'll probably like this one as well. If you're not familiar with the gameplay, then you can download the demo to check it out. Any progress made in the demo can be saved and carried over to the full game (which is set to release next month), and doing so is supposed to grant you an extra goody when the game releases.

Interesting, I enjoyed Valk Chronicles 1, so I'll check out the 4th.

Splitting my sparse spare time between Sniper Elite 4 and Orwell, which was free for grabs over at Humble Bundle. Quite enjoying the latter, a bit limited in what you can do, but it makes for a neat interactive novel experience.

I've dug into my older collection again, and played a few more Mass Effect 2 campaigns - previously, I always played as Soldiers, with one Infiltrator, but this time, I played as a Biotic Adept, and as a Sentinel. I never realized how potent powers are,especially used in combos, up until now. So that's fun.

I'm thinking about getting Andromeda - I'm wondering if the single player in Andromeda is anything like ME2? In terms of building a team, and being able to flit about doing sidequests, upgrading, and exploring. I know the Paragon/Renegade thing got removed, but are stuff like loyalty missions still in there?
I've heard a lot about bugs and stuff, so I'm also a bit concerned about that, unless it's been patched? I'd be playing on XBone, if that makes any difference?

Getting back into Fallout 4 now, just starting with the whole Nuka World expansion. I finished Vault 88, and got about half way through that island of misfit synths one

Most of the Andromeda bugs have been patched. And there's plenty of stuff in it relating to Loyalty missions.

As it stands nowadays, Andromeda is fine, with the only real problem it has being that there's too much content in it that isn't really content. - There's these vast worlds and missions and... A lot of them they kind of don't matter...

So what I've experienced most from watching other people I know play Andromeda is, they kind of fall into the "MUST DO EVERY SIDEQUEST EVER" and burn out on the game. Then start resenting it and get grumpy with it by the end.

If you don't overdo the sidequests, focus on the main story and the loyalty quests, you do have an enjoyable game out of it, in my view.

And if it's any consolation, the 100% ending is like a bonus cutscene that happens anyway, even if you do finish it off after the main story.

Eh, my main gripes with Andromeda were with the writing. Whether it was dodgy voice acting, weird word choices in the script (the much maligned "my face is tired" being the most widely shared example but it is not alone) or a lack of responses in conversations (one example being when the engineer tells you of her faith, you only have two options in how you respond which are something like "you're dumb" or "believing in God is great, I believe too!"), it just seemed so lacking in quality from the previous games.

 Compel wrote:
Most of the Andromeda bugs have been patched. And there's plenty of stuff in it relating to Loyalty missions.

As it stands nowadays, Andromeda is fine, with the only real problem it has being that there's too much content in it that isn't really content. - There's these vast worlds and missions and... A lot of them they kind of don't matter...

So what I've experienced most from watching other people I know play Andromeda is, they kind of fall into the "MUST DO EVERY SIDEQUEST EVER" and burn out on the game. Then start resenting it and get grumpy with it by the end.

If you don't overdo the sidequests, focus on the main story and the loyalty quests, you do have an enjoyable game out of it, in my view.

And if it's any consolation, the 100% ending is like a bonus cutscene that happens anyway, even if you do finish it off after the main story.

Honestly, the main story is the weakest part. 'Exploration in post ME-trilogy' far too quickly devolves into 'kill the orks.' The sidequests are the game's only opportunity to shine.

Wrapped up Sniper Elite 4's main campaign and the DLC. Maaaaaaaan, the voice acting took a turn for hammy at some points, the Italian mob boss and German big bad in particular were just horrible with their horrendously forced accents and pretentious banter. At least I finally unlocked the Lee Enfield rifle, so I'm going to ace that one for sure.

Also picked up Monster Hunter World for the PC this weekend. So far so good, aside from the fact that it's not a game you can quickly pick up and play when you're in the field.

I picked up a little game called Halfway. It's a turn-based strategy game from Chucklefish (the guys who made Stardew Valley IIRC), where you control a group of survivors stuck aboard a runaway spaceship that is infested with strange creatures that want to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes (okay, maybe not that last part!). It's pretty fun so far, but I'm not even halfway (sorry not sorry for pun!) through the game yet.

Bayonetta 2 on Nintendo Switch.

Orion: Prelude. Little fun game consisting in slaughtering dinosaurs, with poor graphics but pleasant gameplay.

Getting back into Path of Exile again. Was feeling like playing Diablo II, you know? And Torchlight is just a little too cartoony in style.

I had a Templar, but I'm currently trying out a Witch- found a neat spell called Animate Weapon, but sad that it only works on in-world weapons, and not for too long. Might try to base a build around it if I can, though. Would be silly fun.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Orion: Prelude. Little fun game consisting in slaughtering dinosaurs, with poor graphics but pleasant gameplay.

I remember that game! Could never find people to play with, but it was certainly a cool execution. Gotta give kudos to the devs too, for making what was formerly a disaster more playable.

Paradise City Remastered, pretty and shiny HD walls are even better at ambushing me than their lowly low res brethren

The original Star Wars Battlefront on my newly resurrected PS2, and the occasional game of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne on BattleNet. I've been playing since 2003, I think I'm finally getting good

Picked up Monster Hunter World again, trying to find a weapon that works for me, though according to my brother, playing with mouse and keyboard instead of a controller is the main reason I play so poorly..!

Also played a few rounds of local versus in Worms WMD, which I think is the latest instalment in the series and quite entertaining, with some odd but fun weapon choices in there. My skills with ballistics in this game are as poor as ever.

Funny, I was playing some Worms Armageddon today, and its pretty much the same as you, struggling with windage and rockets.

We gave up on that and resorted to using other weapons instead, even breaking the "no kill sat / armageddon" clause at one point to get to the last hiding worms.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lion on my phone. Gonna be a Dark Knight!

Picked up Monster Hunter Generation Ultimate for Switch. Need more time to play.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lion on my phone. Gonna be a Dark Knight!

Great call! Easily my favourite game of all time. While I'm not a fan of many of the changes from the original the big key improvements were worth it.

Sudeki. It's good, but whilst it does have a great first impression, it begins to fall apart later on.
What's the point of pushing the whole "four heroes" plot point if most of the game your quartet is separated? What's the point of a fast travel system if the game forces you on a narrow path for hours after unlocking it? What's the point of introducing different merchants with different sell prices, if you will never have a chance to use them because of the aforementioned linear design? There's a lot of questionable decisions. Its not terrible, but it could have been better.

My computer was stuck downloading for a few hours so fired up the odd PS2 and had ablast Playing Tomb Raider Legend and Colony Wars

Wrapped up a victorious Skaven mortal empires campaign in Total Warhammer 2 (as Queek)

The bulk of it against Dwarfs, sadly, which sucked a little joy out of it, as they are way overtuned. (Seriously, the High King Thorgrim and 5 units vs a full twenty stack should not be considered an auto-win for the dwarf side). But it's finally complete (and I took a few extra turns for the research achievement as well), so I'm feeling some satisfaction.

Ended up with Khemri and the Elven Refugees (Tor Elithias? rogue army) as my closest allies (plus the silver host vampires trapped in a Lahmia-sized pocket), and the dwarves finally became so desperate they colonized Orion's home and the Oak of Ages as I pushed them out of Zhufbar (their final proper dwarfhold). Ungrimm was the last to die, pulled down by a horde of rats in a ramshackle dwarf-colony in Orion's Glade. Thorgrim and a few followers died in an ambush outside it. I hope the ignominy of those deaths lasts a long, long time.