General Gaming Megathread: What are you playing?

I have replayed and finished Halo ODST which I have not played since I sold my old Xbox One.

I never disliked it as much as some of the fandom did though it was indeed very expensive for its time for something that was originally intended to be an expansion pack.
The setting was fine but I can not say that I found the storyline and the characters that engaging.
Whenever Halo tried to be full on space military drama it in general always lost me as the writing was never that deep how some of the fandom tries to make it out to be.

Before ODST I replayed Halo 2 and 3 (didn't feel like playing Reach, and I only played a little of CE/Anniversary again) but going through them again I did not feel any of the little enjoyment that I had when I played these games many years ago.
The old Halo games like so many other old FPS games have just not aged well.
I can not even really call them nostalgia shooters because in some ways they feel so very limited to other contemporary FPS games.

Multiplayer is completely wasted on me as I don't want to put in the time to become a decent player as I have other things I want to do.


Recently also been giving Star Wars Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith again, a game that along with its "master" (the game it serves as an expansion pack to; Star Wars Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight) I enjoyed a lot in the late 90s.
This is another game that just has not aged well, the gameplay which was grealy improved on in Jedi Knight Outcast and Jedi Academy, the level design (some levels are bare bones and really really bland)

Even the storyline wasn't that great. Instead of an ongoing narrative the player just goes through four separate stories. Of these four I enjoyed the opening story with the Imperial Remnant and the fourth story with Mara Jade looking for Kyle Katarn the most.
The two stories in between just feel like a lot of filler.

I would not mind if any of the remake projects had ever been finished as playing it now... well you need to be a die hard nostalgia fan.
 
I could still jam out some of the Bungie Halos. I don't think they've aged one bit. But I also don't really think things age much at all. Hell, Halo Online which was just Halo 3/Reach but multiplayer only played just fine for me. The only thing I'm not big on is the way the vehicles handle and using that on a KB/M rather than a controller. But I always kinda disliked it and felt it worked better on a controller.
 
SquidVan said:
But I also don't really think things age much at all.
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From experience they definitely do. There are a lot of games that i thought controlled great when i was younger, but going back to them and with the advances they have made to those controls since then, they are definitely a lot clunkier now because those advancements improved them a lot. The only reason we didn't find them clunky at first was because that was the current peak for them, so there was nothing to compare to.

And there are cases where games don't age at all and are just as good as they were at release like Chrono Trigger and A Link to the Past. Then again, i'm starting to notice 2D games age a lot more gracefully than 3D games, specially from the N64/PS1 era for 3D games.

The Halo games have aged somewhat well, same for a lot of late 90s to 2000s FPS games.
 
I guess if you compare it all to the refinements of today then yes, a lot of things age and not well. I always think of the non-modded/non-enhanced edition of System Shock 1. People will tell you it aged horribly but if you look at the reception of it back then, people still said it felt very clunky. Nothing has changed besides what we've made easier and streamlined over the years.

So, we're used to more luxuries of things and to me, that's just not age it's just learning. Aging to me is something becoming a relic or unknown. The jokes in Fallout 2 will likely age before the gameplay ever does in my eyes. One day, people who never saw the movies or read the books will never get the jokes if they play Fallout 2.

It also doesn't really help me agree with things aging when people really mean, "It's old and I wasn't really into it."
 
What are you playing?
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I have resumed a run through the Disciples series; picked up where I left off six years ago. Presently in the latter half of Disciples 3: Renaissance, with D3: Resurrection, and D3: Reincarnation remaining.
 
Getting into the autistic decision of whether to play Halo CE: Refined, a mod for custom edition that restores the original graphics or play the busted and soulless Gearbox port that's on MCC, but I get the completion and achievements.

You'd think enjoying Combat Evolved as it was meant to be played visually would trump having virtual boxes ticked, but apparently not.

Decisions decisions.
 
At some point, I think you stop caring about achievements in games. I largely do. I only have worried about Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne's recently and it was because I liked the games so much and I just wanted to check off everything in the games and gave me motivation to replay them soon after an initial playthroughs (something I usually take a few years to do).

I'd rather have a good experience with a game than have achievements on my profile no matter what though. If you're not having fun, then you are really wasting your time I'd think.
 
I'm currently replaying the first Nier.
I completed it back in April, but I decided I wanted to play it again.

I think it may actually be my all-time favourite game.
 
Jesus, Halo 3 ODST makes my head hurt. I can really only play Heroic Warzone because that and Reach are the only Warzone modes there. Those red brute guys with the gravity hammers are the bane of my existence.
 
SquidVan said:
At some point, I think you stop caring about achievements in games. I largely do. I only have worried about Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne's recently and it was because I liked the games so much and I just wanted to check off everything in the games and gave me motivation to replay them soon after an initial playthroughs (something I usually take a few years to do).

I'd rather have a good experience with a game than have achievements on my profile no matter what though. If you're not having fun, then you are really wasting your time I'd think.
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It still plays the same and if anything the vibrating controller feedback on the MCC version makes combat feel meatier. It's just that visually the MCC version is the fucked gearbox port that makes the game look like it's had a grey filter from it and removes a layer of character from the visuals.
 
Speaking of Halo on PC I think it's pretty nutty too how 343i and Sabre Interactive went from what I'd consider to be one of the worst remakes of all time with Combat Evolved Anniversary to what I'd consider one of the best with Halo 2 Anniversary.

CEA is the epitome of bad remake. It rehashes assets from 3 and Reach without a care so it is lazy, it completely annihilates any sense of mood or atmosphere that the original created for eye sore inducing overdesigned LED strip coated nonsense so it fails to retain the spirit of the original in literally any sense (Including butchering one of my favourite sci-fi designs of all time, the original rendition of MJOLNIR Mark V), and on top of that the remade graphics don't align with the original hitboxes so the poor visual design literally impacts the gameplay in a negative fashion. On top of that, whilst the ability to switch between graphics is cool it uses an objectively visually broken port done by Gearbox so it even replaces the original version with something literally uglier. Offensive to the original game in all senses.

Halo 2 Anniversary on the other hand uses all-new assets, perfectly carries the tone and atmosphere of the original art-direction to an extent I've never seen with an AAA remake and has high-budget incredible looking Blur CGI cutscenes which currently represent the absolute peak of the franchise.

With the track record of the post-Bungie handling of Halo as a series I don't know whether it was just an example of legitimately following up on fan feedback and criticism or an absolute fluke.
 
I don't get why achievements would really be bothersome. Funny enough though, opened up Facebook and in some gaming group someone posted this.
Man, people really care about these damn trophies. Reminds me of the gamerscore shit people argued about in high school.
 
I'm only caring about the achivements/completion because I'm doing a Halo marathon on MCC and seeing all the other campaigns read 10/10 Missions complete but CE 0/10 complete would irk a miswired part of my dumbass brain. Either some obsessive compulsion or autism, can't be sure.

Generally I've never really paid attention. I think the closest I've been to 100% game is NV and I never even actually tried to get achievements, just got like 80% completion out of sheer exposure to that game.
 
"Gamification techniques are intended to leverage people’s natural desires for socializing, learning, mastery, competition, achievement, status, self-expression, altruism or closure. Gamification strategies use rewards for players who accomplish desired tasks or competition to engage players. Types of rewards include points, achievement badges or levels, the filling of a progress bar or providing the user with virtual currency. Making the rewards for accomplishing tasks visible to other players or providing leaderboards are ways of encouraging players to compete."
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I only care a little for achievements for games that i like, to the point i actually attempt in getting them (emphasis on attempt). But even then, i couldn't care less if a game has achievements or not, their existence doesn't increase my enjoyment of the game.
 
The only achievement I need is knowing I am actually playing a good game for once. After my cousin is done with Wasteland 3 I am trying it out.
 
I am waiting for the next (or the one after next) patch to release.

There are a LOT of bug listed on their forums right now.
 
With my left hand being a casualty of carpel tunnel I've taken to playing XCOM 2 with my right hand almost exclusively. Works pretty well. The only time I gotta use the left hand is for when I need to rotate the camera and pressing the button a few times for that doesn't matter much.
 
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