General Gaming Megathread: What are you playing?

It was an xBox 1 launch title that is ok.

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LotR Online is pretty decent actually. I like free games. No intrusive shop nonsense that pops out really.
 
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Being the Near Future, Prehistory, The Wild West and Distant Future chapters in a Live a Live and i'm enjoying the game so far. While the difficulty hasn't been super high, the game really isn't afraid to throw some tough encounters.

The combat is a fusion of turn based, ATB and tactical on a grid. Which sounds like a mess but actually can be pretty fun. You fight on a grid, each combat unit has a charge gauge (it's basically the ATB system from Final Fantasy games like 5 and 6) and each attack has their own range, meaning your position on the grid matters, that means having to move on the grid to be able to hit enemies (each step on the grid lets every unit get a little more charge in their gauge) and you do more damage and have higher chance to hit based on the position of the target (attacking from behind nets more damage and higher chance to hit, opposite for the front).
 
Xenoblade 3 has quite a few issues.

The battle system is improved upon(kinda) but also feels like if you fail a fight it will nearly always be because you are not leveled enough. Strategy seems non-existant so far. Trying to run past enemies will also cause the controller to vibrate each time one sees you and will cause a splitsecond slowmo effect everytime. Not to metion all the bright blue target lines that fill the screen as you run away. The battlescene is a bigger mess than an mmo if you get more than two enemies at a time.

There are many, many, many cutscenes and they are also pretty lengthy. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't written like trash and didn't feature bad pacing and enemy designs so dumb you don't know if the developers are fucking with you. I had interest in the story at first but the absurd cutscenes will beat it out of you quickly. One 5 minute cutscene ends and you think it's over only for the next one to pop-up after you take your 5th step. First jrpg where I skip most story moments. You can guess what will happen and be 90% accurate anyways. The main characters are also more shallow than 1 and 2.

The tutorial system is the most obnoxious I have ever seen. Do not force me to do these. I will look it up when I actually need the features, which is likely never.

Level design seems good but they're just kind of littered with enemies and highlighted item junk, much more so than previous entries. Makes the maps a chore to navigate and seems really uninspired.


I like the interactive campfire for leveling, cooking and saving. There's nice little animations for the team members that help add to their story and relations. Stuff like this might have been a better way to tell the story vs machine gunning cutscenes at the player. Jrpgs should really try different storytelling techniques sometime. More rpgs need to use campfires/tents like this. Dragon Age did it great and then everyone else failed to follow.
 
Morgan_ said:
Xenoblade 3 has quite a few issues.

The battle system is improved upon(kinda) but also feels like if you fail a fight it will nearly always be because you are not leveled enough. Strategy seems non-existant so far. Trying to run past enemies will also cause the controller to vibrate each time one sees you and will cause a splitsecond slowmo effect everytime. Not to metion all the bright blue target lines that fill the screen as you run away. The battlescene is a bigger mess than an mmo if you get more than two enemies at a time.

There are many, many, many cutscenes and they are also pretty lengthy. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't written like trash and didn't feature bad pacing and enemy designs so dumb you don't know if the developers are fucking with you. I had interest in the story at first but the absurd cutscenes will beat it out of you quickly. One 5 minute cutscene ends and you think it's over only for the next one to pop-up after you take your 5th step. First jrpg where I skip most story moments. You can guess what will happen and be 90% accurate anyways. The main characters are also more shallow than 1 and 2.

The tutorial system is the most obnoxious I have ever seen. Do not force me to do these. I will look it up when I actually need the features, which is likely never.

Level design seems good but they're just kind of littered with enemies and highlighted item junk, much more so than previous entries. Makes the maps a chore to navigate and seems really uninspired.


I like the interactive campfire for leveling, cooking and saving. There's nice little animations for the team members that help add to their story and relations. Stuff like this might have been a better way to tell the story vs machine gunning cutscenes at the player. Jrpgs should really try different storytelling techniques sometime. More rpgs need to use campfires/tents like this. Dragon Age did it great and then everyone else failed to follow.
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What all games you got for the system?
 
Having beat Xenoblade 3 now I think this is a lowpoint for both the series and MonolithSoft. Easily the worst writing out of all the jrpgs I've played. Most of the time it just drones on about friendship and various life lessons or whatever. Gargantuan monolagues suck, sadly looks like they aren't going anywhere in jrpgs. Ah yes, good things are good and bad things are bad. Amazing.

Other times it forces things to happen to function as a plot point when those things were easily avoidable.

"Oh no, I can't reach the lever therefore I shall die."

(Sure you can, just reach your arm out)

"No, this is my purpose in life. You go on ahead".

Just wow.
3 basically replaced most of the cringe of 2 with just being lazy and dragging things out. The combat is less enjoyable than previous entries too. Chain link was a mistake to introduce. It feels like cheating and takes too long but if I don't use it I have to slog through a bullet sponge with lack luster gameplay while healers choose to stand infront of the enemy and get smacked by AOEs. Not really hard but it gets old seeing it over and over.

Why they chose to go with this kind of game vs what they made with Golden Country I have no idea. Torna is still the best thing in the Xenoblade series by a mile.

6/10
 
Aurelius Of Phoenix said:
No confidence at all but hopefully it is good.


This on the other hand is more interesting. Getting a Jigoruku: Hell's Paradise vibe
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Both looks ok. More excited about f. Jap f games are always cool. Why do they use f in alternate games though? I think they did that with SMT or was that something else.



I wanna play this soon I think.
 
I've been playing a lot of Highfleet lately, a game with some very clear Homeworld inspirations but still manages to create an extremelly unique and immersive experience. It mixes strategy, shipbuilding and a very cool 2d ship to ship combat where a lot of different things are being taken in consideration. It also has some very light RPG elements that change the worldview over your character based on certain actions and dialogue.

And talking about dialogue, this game also has a very cool recruitment minigame where you basically have to convince other captains to join your cause. Them you will have 5 turns to convince them, and for this you will need to understand what is the captain's worldview and use arguments that will make him happy. Sadly it is a very cool system that is a bit underdeveloped as there aren't many consequences over your action in my opinion (even tho this clearly isn't the focus of the game).

It might look like a complicated game at first glance, but once you understand how each thing really work it becomes very simple and enjoyable game. I just wouldn't recommend if you are prone to seizures...
 
Ghostbusters the Video game after I was in the mood for Ghostbusters related media again after watching the trailer for Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed.

How I felt about that movie is probably the topic for a different subject but sufficient to say, I was not as impressed as a lot of the Ghostbusters fans on the internet were. I wouldn't say 'good', but perhaps 'cute', but relying way to much on nostalgia references of the first movie. I also don't think it was really that much of a comedy.

I didn't get far with replaying GB2009 as I had also been watching a longplay video of it.
Now that I had seen the cutscenes that I wanted to see I did not really feel like going through the game again.


Next was Return to Monkey Island.

The Secret of Monkey Island was the game that got me into PC adventure titles and probably also making my interest shift from console gaming to the PC.
While I think MI3 and Tales are okay, 4 I found rather average in general (and I hate Monkey Kombat), there was always this feeling that these were MI fan fic stories, some more than others.

The third game felt a bit more like a return to the original games, but it has its own issues.
While playing this game I had this feeling that it wanted to make clear to me that we all eventually have to move on from the past. The main quest is basically about trying to recapture some of the past glory but also having to make the decision to eventually let go.
That does somewhat hit home.

The rather meta ending left the fan base divided. It was indeed hinted at it in the first two games and I think I understand why Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman went for it, but for some people it can really come over as a slap to the face for
The game leaves room for a sequel but it is pretty much a finale to the series with any possible entries after it being more like fan fiction.

Had I been younger I do not think I would have been happy with this conclusion after having to wait for so long for .
Now it feels more like “Okay, I guess that it is over now.”

I still think that a third game by the original writers should have been done decades ago, or perhaps not any more at this point.


And since Thursday I have finally been able to play Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed. I think it is a well designed Ghostbusters game as it playing a ghostbusters is pretty fun. It plays sort of like a hide and seek game until you find the ghost after which you have to capture it with your neutrino wand.
Playing as a ghost has its own fun aspects as you have to haunt a location and drive out people while at the same time make sure that you are not caught or the rifts that serve as extra lives are not destroyed.

The game is however not fun to play for a long time solo as it is really designed to be played with other players as a sort of party game. It becomes repetitive when playing alone as it is basically playing skirmish over the same five maps again and again.

I played it mostly for the little campaign it has. It feels rather unfinished as it hints at something much bigger but never continues on it for now.
 
I just hate that the Ghostbusters guys never got along in real life. But let us be entirely honest it was Bill Murray they could not get along with because the dude is a jackass.
 
Bill Murray probably had the typical big ego and agressive behavoor of all cokeheads.

I have been playing Temtem, that game doesn't respect your time one bit, kinda getting tired of it.

I will start Scorn soon.
 
TorontoReign said:
I just hate that the Ghostbusters guys never got along in real life. But let us be entirely honest it was Bill Murray they could not get along with because the dude is a jackass.
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Yeah, I have heard that as well.
If it had not been for whatever problem he had with the other actors or the director, I read somewhere that he was pissed at Ramis after Groundhog Day, we could perhaps had a third movie in the 90s with all of the original actors, after which a 'passing of the torch' storyline could have been done in the fourth movie.
I don't think however that the Ghostbusters movies could not have been continued indefinitely. Moving to comics and games would eventually be a good move once all the movie stories have been told.
 
Yeah Groundhog Day ended their relationship because Murray wanted it to be all serious and shit. What a douche.
 
TorontoReign said:
Yeah Groundhog Day ended their relationship because Murray wanted it to be all serious and shit. What a douche.
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A realistic "Groundhog Day" would be very depressing as it would eventually be a story about a man who wants to die because he keeps living the same day over and over again. Whatever he does to change the day, it doesn't matter as tomorrow everything is reset again.
We saw in the movie what happens when the reality hits Murray's character that this is going to be it for the rest of eternity.
The humor is needed to counterbalance this scenario as we the audience would also fall into depression.

At some point Murray's character even starts to crack because what else would you do when you come to realize that there is no escape.
I imagine that it would play out like some games I have finished so often that there is nothing new to do. You start doing crazy stuff for shits and giggles like for example killing people in various increasingly more blood thirsty and creatively disturbing ways in order to feel something.
Now I imagine a version of Groundhog Day in which Murray's character goes on a killing spree as it is something he hasn't done yet, shouting that it doesn't matter as everyone will be alive again and forgotten about this tomorrow.
 
Occasionally I start replaying games such as Metroid Dread and Okami HD which I know that I liked, but after playing a good chunk of them I start asking myself if I really want to finish this game again and if I could not better look up walkthroughs on Youtube.
Anyway, those are the last two games I played.

I did pick up Secret Weapons over Normandy and Crimson Skies Road to Revenge for my Xbox One last week but I have not tried them yet.
 
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