What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

It'a ll been No Man's Sky for me. So far I really enjoy the new elements, and have just started with base building. This is something I didn't care about at all in Fallout 4, because it's not what I go to Fallout for and it exacerbates one of the main problems with the Fallout world since #3, but in NMS it's just fine. It's a great way to just relax, which has been what I've needed lately.

After hearing your initial vibe about NMS and reading the reviews, it seems like you've warmed to this. I'm glad they finally added the base building stuff, despite that being one of my least favorite things in gaming.

Forgot that I also got several matches in of Quake Champions. I was originally worried that the hero powers would ruin the game, but in practice they end up spicing it up in various ways, and overall don't alter the outcome much. Just like Quake from the olden days, knowledge of the map and skill in maneuverability is more important than accuracy.

I like the game, and I hope that its F2P model doesn't hurt it. So far it seems like it will be okay. Saying that, it will definitely not be as good as if none of that was present, and you just bought the game and were done.

SuperflyTNT wrote: After hearing your initial vibe about NMS and reading the reviews, it seems like you've warmed to this. I'm glad they finally added the base building stuff, despite that being one of my least favorite things in gaming.

Oh, I was stumping for NMS from the get go, when everyone else was all "BUT BUT I CAN'T PWN N00BS AND THE GAME DOESN'T GIVE ME PRESENTS FOR WATCHING"

Perhaps I misread your sardonic wit. It seemed like you were kind of saying it was too samey.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Where to begin? I mean, really? How can such a flawed game be so truly great?
The paper RPG came out during my formative young adult years, and my friends and I played this obsessively for nearly a decade.
This video game is a distillation and metaphor for my time spent playing that analog RPG.

This is my fourth play through of this game. I have never actually finished it since it is so buggy, despite patches that are still released, to this day, for this game. I always try to play a different character so I can explore new bits of the game. I keep coming back for the music, the writing, the familiar setting and the memories of a youth wasted.

I'm glad I never got rid of this game. It may be nearly broken and the graphics are naff compared to contemporary fare (but still somehow better than mass effect andromeda) but it's still leagues better than nearly every game ever made.

The bittersweet is real. Fuck I love this game.

There are two games I kept the discs for when I moved to the US. V:TM-B is one of them*. Such a fantastic failure.

*Grand Prix Legends is the other.

We've still been plugging away at XCOM 2. Finished the game on whatever "normal" is, with a bunch of rewinding whenever a bunch of people would die or we didn't finish a mission on time. It taught us some stuff, mostly about moving very quickly on the timed (by round #) missions. Now we're almost done with an Ironman playthrough on the same difficulty. We basically just have to jump into the final mission. Will likely try the first of the two hard difficulties on Ironman after that. (With Enemy Unknown, we finished Classic Ironman, and are most of the way through a very promising playthrough in the expansion: Enemy Within. We put it on hold for a bit when we moved and everything). There are a few nice changes to the game, like how you can select the class of your rookies if you send them into training for 5 days- it really helps fill in your ranks after casualties. After the early half of the game, it's not much of an issue though. It's also neat that you upgrade all of your weapons of a given type at once, rather than have to decide whether to build that second expensive sniper rifle or whatever.

It's kind of funny that the classes all have a clear analog to the first game. "No, it's totally new and different." This is how I rate them in ascending order. There are some minor spoilers here if allusions to abilities will make you sad.

The Sniper becomes the Sharpshooter. They start with Squadsight, which is great, because it eliminates that awkward phase where you have to baby them. And you can focus on becoming a really good sniper, like you probably did in the first game, or you can get all of these neat pistol-centered abilities, like the one that allows you to fire your pistol at everyone within range. Which is pretty fun, especially if you spring for fancy ammo that ignores armor or lights dudes on fire. Overall, the sniper which ended up being so powerful and dominant in the first game is probably the worst class in this game, especially since you often need to move forward faster to keep up with the mission timers and objectives.

Assault becomes the Ranger. Instead of Run & Gun* and the old pistol that they carried, they have a sword now! Yep, it's 2035 and it's time to use swords. It's rather satisfying, especially early on when your guys have crap aim, to just get to run up and slash guys. The damage on the sword definitely tails off later on in the game, and I actually like focusing on the sneakiness of the left tree- which gives you more concealment and insane crit damage with your shotgun.

*Run and Gun is still available around Sergeant rank.

The Heavy becomes the Grenadier. Gone is the clunky rocket launcher that requires you to not move before firing, and instead you can fire off a variety of grenades with a greater explosion radius and farther range than all the guys left throwing them. In fact, it's typically slightly farther than the distance you can fire your gun, and still doesn't ever miss. With the correct upgrades, Grenadiers also become very deadly at focused damage to one target and softening them up for further attacks from your allies. They're a necessity.

The Support becomes the Specialist. Sometimes I feel like games are trying SO HARD to make playing the Cleric fun,** to the point that they break them. Early on, these guys aren't too exciting- they replace the old smoke grenade of the support with a little drone that can be flown to give just one guy +20 defense. Unlike the old smoke grenade, the drone can be used many times in a mission. They've got two sides to their tree, one is about healing allies and removing status effects, and the other is more aggressive and lets you do direct damage and even take control or stun robotic enemies. All specialists can also use their drone to hack nearby security cameras to give themselves or their allies various combat bonuses, or achieve critical mission objectives from afar without endangering themselves or their squad mates. Most of the non-offense drone abilities also don't end their turn, so they can heal a guy from afar, and then do something else that's useful. I almost always want to bring around 1 "healy" one, and the more 'tech,' guy.

**I've not played much Gloomhaven, but after I played my one scenario of it with the Scoundrel and then looked at the Tinker post-game, I just said, "WOW!"

The Psionic troopers are insane. Insane! You get the ability to build the psi building pretty early in this one, but you probably want to upgrade some of your weapons first for your whole team. Unlike the previous game, you send a rookie into the psi building, and then they just train new abilities over time- they don't need to go on missions at all until you want to bring them out to start wrecking people. Very broadly, they're good at taking opponents out of the fight temporarily, or doing lots of direct damage that avoids armor. All of their special abilities are on cooldowns, but as they get enough special abilities, they can pretty much do something great all the time.

It might just be because we haven't cranked it up to hard yet, but the game seems really easy now. The threat meter gets much less threatening about 80% of the way through the game, to the point that it becomes a joke, while in the first game you hit that point where you can't send satellites out to reduce panic levels because you've already done it, and the world is on the brink of collapse. There's a bit more variety in the missions, but a lot of it is: do the same thing, but faster. The new ambush/concealment mechanic just ends up making the first encounter or two per mission quite easy to game. By the end of the game your crew gets so many tools at their disposal that most enemies just don't give you that same sense of dread. In addition to some of the classes getting very good abilities, there's also more customization for your equipment, which get very powerful when you get to the 3rd tier of gear.

One big difference combat-wise is that there are a bunch of status effects. And while it's annoying to have a guy temporarily unusable, later on in the game you're typically outnumbering your foes 6 to 3 or 4, so if you both use an ability to take someone out of the fight for a turn, you come out way ahead. Some of the stuff the enemy does is also slow-developing. They'll do some powerful charge move that will blow your guys away... next turn, so you have time to avoid it. Or they'll set a flare on the ground telling you that reinforcements are inbound, so that you can put your whole squad on overwatch and kill them off as they appear, and then even when they DO land, they'll spend that first appearance time on getting behind cover or at most going on overwatch. All of this can slow you down on those timed missions, but as you wean yourself off of snipers and use some dashes early on in the missions, they're just minor speed bumps.

I've seen that there are expansions that have been out. Which, if any, are good?

My son accidentally deleted my save file for Breath of the Wild, so I guess I'll continue to play that for the foreseeable future.

Oh SNAP

Yeah, I had all four divine beasts and about 78 shrines. I guess I can now experience the non linearity of the game.

Played a mission of Space Hulk Ascension last night. That game is alright. And Jexik... it's basically Space Hulk X-Com so you might be interested.

I finally finished up the Mass Effect Trilogy. Great characters. Great story. Epic Universe. Black Barney was right, ME 2 was the best one out of the three. Spoilers prevent me from commenting on the impression that ME 3's plot and events left upon me.

I'm now continuing on with the last of Bioware's true games before its decline with EA: Dragon Age: Origins. My investment for this one is $5.

I could never stomach DA:O (slow combat, non responsive control, difficulty spikes). I got it free though. Hope it fares better with you.

So for the long weekend, I played HotS a couple of times. I'm ok with the game. I suck with warriors & specialist, ok with assassins, and actually got MVP as support.

The thing with HotS is that every map has its own rules. It takes a while to get used to.

When my son plays videogames...it's Splatoon all day. I don't think many of his friends play so he's going head to head with Japan non-stop and does really well.

When my daughter plays videogames...it's Animal Crossing: City Folk. The whole family tools around with it a little, but she absolutely loves it. Is that AC party game thing on the Wii U any good?

When I play videogames...it's Street Fighter II or Shovel Knight. I generally play 20-30 mins on Friday or Saturday night. The kids lay in bed and watch a little before they fall asleep. Both titles allow perfect stopping points so they can sleep and I can move on to something else.

When the kids and I play videogames together....it's Tatsunoko Vs Capcom...still. Such a fun, accessible fighter with fantastic characters. That simple control scheme option really closes the handicap gap so even my 6 year old can compete. She wants to go as Chun-Li for Halloween this year and has taken to using her 'victory' hand sign in family photos...