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Just finished The Last of Us...

Going to grab sim city tmw, and cities of tomorrow.I love the whole "working together" concept. It amuses me.

Much to my own surprise I'm still really enjoying Dragons Prophet. The combat mechanics are fun, the whole pokemon with dragons stuff is also fun.

If anyone wants to play it, here's my referral link, wink wink, nudge nudge.

https://signup.dragonspropheteurope.com/en/mmorpg?fi=dx5tuyqq1tpplz41

I play on the Osira server IIRC.

BF4 servers are undergoing maintenance, so I am currently playing the waiting game

I got Banished on Steam the other day; I used to love city-building games when I were a wee lad. Nice to see the genre be updated

M.A.V. (<- that's a link) is in it's last stretch on the Kickstarter! Just a day or two to go- pledge at the $30 level and you get a copy of the soundtrack if we reach $30,000 (already funded, just stretch goals now!)

Swing by and support us if you enjoyed ChromeHounds or are a fan of fully-customizable Mech combat. Also, tell your friends!

Playing and loving the hell out of Bravely Default. Its a good step by Square back to the older format while keeping it fresh with the new combat system. Being able to change difficulty and encounter rate on the fly is a great touch as well. They also had one hell of a composer on this as well, the music kicks ass. All around loving this game to death

Word of warning ahead of time if you plan to get the Digital version. It's bloody gigantic. ALBW was only 5,000 blocks. BD is... 26,000 So just make sure you have the room for it. I'm going to have to upgrade because of the thing!

Playing a lot of banished the past week, I love my management sims.

This one though has one key difference about it that is really making it a challenge. Every other game of this type usually involves two steps:

1. Increase population
2. Build infrastructure to handle new population.

Banished on the other hand works in the exact opposite way. If you don't have the housing and food supply ready for an increased population people are going to start dropping fast. I'll be starting my fourth settlement tonight after about 25% of my population died this morning.

GTA V

Dust: An Elysian Tale.

Beautiful indie game with cool action to boot.

Episode 2 of Season 2 of Walking Dead. It was intense as usual.

^Oooh, I still need to finish the first one, and then look that up. Was pretty neat when I played it the first time around.

Gonna give diablo 3 another whirl. Not one to stay stuck in the past and lament that it isn't d2 (which is a totally viable position, it definitely is not d2), I'll see if the loot 2.0 and modified features are worth it. A couple of my long standing gamer buddies are playing it, and that is usually more a deciding factor in what ends up being fun than the content or execution of the game itself.

Now away! Much toads to be rained upon the demonkind, and little time to do it!

I've just been playing xcom: enemy unknown, wargame: air land battle and dawn of war 2: chaos rising. Lately it's been more of the first two.

Gotta say I don't remember xcom being this hard. It's almost like impossible difficulty became even harder than it was.

Wargame is interesting. I'm surprised just how powerful some of the soviet stuff is. Lots of brute force over America's shoot and get away airplanes and fire and forget systems. That's not to say America can't be potent as it has some crazy airplanes and apaches are pretty sweet. Some of the soviet helicopters are brutal at anti-ground though and they have some of the best tanks around if not the best. Nato seems to have better air overall but soviets have better transports. There are a lot more differences on each faction but lately I've been drawn towards the soviet union, the usa and the 2 german factions. Most of the other faction do it for me. They just lack some of the fun toys.

Due to a fairly lengthy update process i have been playing the single player of Battlefield 4 PC while i wait. It's odd how buggy the game is, say what you want about Call of Duty but their campaigns are always super tight. The campaign has it's moments though and is certainly a little better than 3's that, bar one mission, was god awful. The sound design even through fairly bog standard headphones is also magnificent, realy nailed virtual 7.1. Also i'm playing on controller and it works great, even on the 'test range' where aim assist is off.

The game looks amazing for the most part though (a couple sequences look supremely unfinished), only playing on the recommended settings for the moment but the game play is really smooth.

So I finished up Bayonetta the other night, and I thought I give my thoughts on it:

For the record, I am still kind of newb-ish at these kind of games, but I found it to be a relatively fun and challenging game without being too unfair overall (There are some parts that you really need a split-second reaction to dodge it, but I am not sure if this was intentionally designed or a glitch). The combat and gameplay is the big part as well, as it has a considerable depth to it for being a beat-em-up game, in which gives a good amount of incentive to go back and try to platinum the other levels. The music is a strange choice considering it is a beat-em-up, but with how the character and the setting of the game, I feel it fits relatively well.

Only major complaints I have is how the camera is done, as it moves slower than one would expect, which can screw you over in combat potentially. The others is the use of OTE's and the length of some of the cutscenes, which makes the tempo the game tries to set out of whack at times. However, I feel that these problems are only a slight annoyance at worst.

Overall score if I had to give one is about 8.15/10, which means (by my standards at least) it is a pretty good game that brings a lot to the genre and a damn well made game, but there are some flaws that I mention that bar it from getting a 8.5 or 9 out of 10.

Currently playing Supreme Commander.
I'm finding the UI to be a bit clunky.

For example, how do you know if your strategic / tactical missile launcher is loaded, and with how many weapons? I did not see any indicator.

Also, is there a limit as to how many they can hold?

Finished Dust, only 1 achievement missing. Lovely, lovely game, loved the characters and the world but the combat can get a bit repetitive. It's always the same combos, you never get new ones besides some powers. Still, there's no way I couldn't see the end of this lovely story.

Started Trine, it's tons of fun and the music is beautiful.

Edit: That last achievement was pissing me off it's now taken care of, Dust fully completed

Finished The Wolf Among us part 2. Felt way to linear compared to the first chapter.

In the past few weeks, I've kind of ... split up my gaming enthusiasm between several titles, jumping back and forth depending on mood and time availability.

If I feel like having to relax a bit after a hard day, I tend to do so in Banished, having jumped onto that bandwagon as well by now (and having succeeded in convincing a few co-workers to give it a try as well ).
By now, the intense pull of the game that I felt in the first days is dropping a bit, which is probably due to there being no more buildings to build. Still, I want to see how large I can make my town, continuing the slow expansion that helped my current village to fare so much better than my first two (I'm not counting the third ... goddamn tornadoes ).

Kind of idyllic...

Then, of course there is the new Dragonfall DLC for Shadowrun Returns, which I've been addicted to last week. It has been a good ~20 hours of fun, and considering that 12 of them have been spent in two 6-hour mammoth sessions of gaming, it probably says a lot about how captivating that game and its plot can be. Excellent writing, and the characters are great. I can't wait to see what the developer comes up with for the next expansion. In the mean time, I guess I'll check out a few of the fan-made modules, because right now, Dragonfall got me hooked on Shadowrun again.

HK227 SMG, Ares Predator, alphaware cybereyes, hotsim-rigged chipjack with smartgun i/o and encephalon enhancer, move-by-wire system with reflex booster, and a pair of cyberarms, one with a built-in autoinjector ... ready to take on the streets of Berlin 2054 AD!

And lastly, on a hunch I actually took a dive back into TOR as well to check out its new Galactic Starfighter update. Turns out there have been a few other neat additions during my absence as well, from new events to level-matching and role-independent "tactical flashpoints". Unfortunately, the latter feel a bit "grindy" (possibly a result of the matchmaker throwing together groups in a matter of seconds unless you are playing in the midst of night), but I suppose they are good for when you've already burned through the planetary storylines and would rather not see them again with your umpteenth character. Anyways, Starfighter itself seems to be a "either you love it or you hate it" affair, and even though it plays very twitchy, personally I've grown to like it. A welcome step forward from the boring "on-rails" shooter that the earlier space game was, these battles throw you into a PvP arena where daring pilots can test their mettle against other human (or alien) star warriors. Game modes are fairly standard; you either get a domination scenario where you have to capture and hold a bunch of satellites, or you're pitted against the enemy in a straight team deathmatch. The maps, fortunately, are somewhat more creative, and are littered with all sorts of dangerous objects, from asteroids to artificial facilities to capital ships. Needless to say, crashing into this can put a quick end to a dogfight, but if you've got someone on your 6 then this may be your chance to shake them loose. Currently, there are four different classes of ships (Bombers, Gunships, Strike Fighter, Scouts), each with 3 specific models, some of whom you have to unlock first. Notably, this mini-game also features a host of customisation options for your ship, from visual decoration to ship components such as different weapons, engines, or types of armour, and each of these may be further enhanced by a sort of skill-tree in which you can sink requisition points in to unlock either a bonus or some special trait. If you're curious, give this build calculator a try!

Sith Duelist Nemera Rhun's customised S-12 Blackbolt preparing for an attack run on a Republic shipyard

Playing South Park: The Stick of Truth
hilarious game （⌒▽⌒)

I am enjoying stick of truth so far. I think it would be more enjoyable if I was a serious southpark fan rather than someone who has watched a episodes here and there but not watched a significant number.

@Lynata: You've been back and forth but mostly gone. Nice to see you back though.

Anyway I've been playing more 'xcom: enemy within'. Maybe I'm going crazy but I think I finally have another stable game. I lost 5 countries but for the current month my research has been really fast, my weapons are pretty good, I have more than 6 fairly experienced soldiers, interrogations and other stuff from captured aliens is also helping. Currently I only stopped because I can't decide which country I want to help against their abductions. I could either go for a country with 4 engineers as a reward which might help save me time if I build a big satellite relay instead of trying to go for multiple workshops, I could go for scientists which probably won't help a lot or I could go for an experienced soldier which may or may not be helpful if I lose a guy or one is in med-bay though that country wouldn't be at full panic and in danger of leaving if I didn't choose that mission (a rare thing in impossible difficulty). So I think i'll do the engineers mission if only so I can have enough engineers to make a super satellite relay. The funds for it may not happen but here's to hoping it does.

World of Tanks, World of Planes, Company of Heros 2, and Diablo 3.

I throw in Age of Empires 2 and Doom every now and again

Been playing Battlefield 4 multiplayer on PC, with a controller . After several hours of getting my Butt handed to me i am slowly getting used to life without aim assist.

Some of the maps in BF4 really are fantastic, some of the best i've played. However when the opposition dominates in conquest i find myself dying ALOT trying to cross open ground. The insane skill of some players in attack helicopters is especially annoying. Apart from that SAWs seem WAY over powered, people run around toting LMGs like they're uzis and still riddle me. In BF3 and BC2 there was some actual balance, a SAW always lost in CQB, the movement modifier just destroyed the accuracy.

 DA's Forever wrote:
Playing and loving the hell out of Bravely Default. Its a good step by Square back to the older format while keeping it fresh with the new combat system. Being able to change difficulty and encounter rate on the fly is a great touch as well. They also had one hell of a composer on this as well, the music kicks ass. All around loving this game to death

Ah.. so you think it's definitely worth playing then?

The name is pretty amusing, sounds like one of the terrible translations from an 80's/90's 16-bit game "He is all too strong.. so we must bravely default!" (meaning run away).

Will just finish the 3DS Fire Emblem first I think then before I pick this up, funny you should mention music, the orchestral score in that game is amazing as well. Beautiful actually, that machine has a great little sound processor in it.

D3, Smite, World of Tanks, Banished, and TF2

Trying out the new loot and other changes to D3. Fun so far.

Also decided it was high time I catch up on the pokemon games so I'm working my way through Yellow right now. It's pretty entertaining, I had forgotten how unforgiving some of the older games can be. Seems like these days if you aren't curb stomping multiple opponents then you're doing it wrong, but here an even match can actually be kinda close. Fun.

I just wish Metapod would hurry up and evolve already... the thing is just unreasonably phallic... and it really doesn't help that it uses moves like 'Tackle' and 'String shot'.

Well, as I'm house/dog sitting for my buddy, I've been actually playing quite a bit of 360 (i don't own one, as I'm firmly a playstation guy)

But, I've been bouncing between unlocking as many guns/accessories for the Support class on BF4, getting as much money and cars as possible on Forza4, my own characters on Fable 3, and my own copy of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, on my ps3.

It's kind of funny, because before my buddy left, he commented on how I was ruining his CoD stats online, but at the same time, his BF4 stats were climbing up all the time. (Im much, MUCH better at bf4 than i am cod, but still honestly prefer MoH's online play)

 Pacific wrote:

 DA's Forever wrote:
Playing and loving the hell out of Bravely Default. Its a good step by Square back to the older format while keeping it fresh with the new combat system. Being able to change difficulty and encounter rate on the fly is a great touch as well. They also had one hell of a composer on this as well, the music kicks ass. All around loving this game to death

Ah.. so you think it's definitely worth playing then?

The name is pretty amusing, sounds like one of the terrible translations from an 80's/90's 16-bit game "He is all too strong.. so we must bravely default!" (meaning run away).

Will just finish the 3DS Fire Emblem first I think then before I pick this up, funny you should mention music, the orchestral score in that game is amazing as well. Beautiful actually, that machine has a great little sound processor in it.

Well worth the pick up. Im quite a good way into it now and I'm still not losing steam. Its very very good. The way they laid out the job system is simple, but complex enough im still finding small tricks that are amazing me. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with a 3DS. It very much scratches an itch for Old FF style RPG's.

So I have been playing Thief Gold due to a recommendation of a friend of mine (and another friend gifting it to me for my birthday last year, which I kind of dropped since I was playing a lot of different games at time).

You know, for a stealth game that came out in 1998, it actually puts almost any stealth games in the modern era to shame and can actually learn from (Yes, I am looking at you Assassin's Creed) and still amazes me thus far of how it is delving me into its environment despite its aged graphics.