What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

SuperflyTNT wrote:

I downloaded Ultima 4 off of a pirate BBS and loaded it from a Bernoulli drive, if that dates me

I had an Atari 400, with the user-proof keyboard. Star Raiders was the shit way back when.

As for what I'm playing, Darkest Dungeon. It's okay. I think watching your party go crazy is the best part.

RobertB wrote: SuperflyTNT wrote:

I downloaded Ultima 4 off of a pirate BBS and loaded it from a Bernoulli drive, if that dates me

I had an Atari 400, with the user-proof keyboard. Star Raiders was the shit way back when.

Duuuude. I had an 800XL. Star Raiders was indeed the shit. Pitfall 2 was brutally hard and I never beat it. But the best game was Star Raiders. That game accomplished a lot for being on the 400/800. It even put most NES games to shame. You are literally the first person besides myself I have ever heard mention, let alone fan Star Raiders.

RobertB wrote: As for what I'm playing, Darkest Dungeon. It's okay. I think watching your party go crazy is the best part.

I really liked the game but I had to stop. Too punishing. And I say this as someone who 100%s dark souls and bloodborne stuff. The tax of finally grinding up a high party, getting to later dungeons, then having them all die and facing that grind again is just way too high.

I would recommend playing on Radiant difficulty, tbh, the easier one. The big thing it does us level up your characters faster.

Black Barney wrote: Lego, so what do you do in that game that keeps it engaging for you?

Well for a while I had a ginormous cargo ship in which most of the slots were broken, so I was gradually getting them repaired. Now they're all fixed.

I enjoy flying to planets and trying to find all the animal species. And I like that I can play it and listen to podcasts or just chill. The game isn't yelling at me about shit I need to do, it lets me do whatever I feel like, and nothing is necessary.

see, that sounds really nice to me as well. The reviews weren't that great, but when we first saw trailers I kept thinking, "if you can just fly places and do whatever, then I'm fine with that"

It sounds pretty Zen to play.

That's how I used to play ESCAPE VELOCITY (Ambrosia Software, Mac System7). You would just cruise around bringing things here or there, maybe run a blockade for a little spiciness. You could become a pirate if you wanted, but that seemed like work. Great game.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_(video_game)

I've also been dabbling in DARKEST DUNGEON, caught a sale on the Switch. It's hard to even figure out what to do, honestly. The UI is insanely busy. The mood is hilarious and the writing is very good, so I will plug away. I'll take your advice on difficulty though. I don't need to kill myself on the first time though. Compare to FTL--the harder levels are there if you want them after.

Still having a good time in OVERWATCH. Even playing Comp a little bit, trading off with my 12yo. I think we're 6-2 in placement matches, but starting from like tin level. I didn't play it for months. The go-to Hero in comp is Brigitte. We'll switch out if countered, but for the most part we just jump around and kill everyone. We had a nice k/d of 42/3 in one recent match.

I started playing Dark Souls 3. I first played DS1 a couple years ago and loved it. It is one of my favorite games. I played DS2 about a year ago and was severely disappointed in the mechanics changes, the constant stream of mini bosses, and regular bosses that generally weren’t all that hard or interesting. I had to make myself finish it, whereas I played the first one two and a half times in a row. I knew it was made by a different team than the first one, so I was hoping DS3 would be a return to form. And so far, it has been; I’ve really been enjoying it. I’ve been doing a thing that feels like cheating, but I can’t help myself: when I come upon a boss fog door, I put down my summon sign and help someone else fight the boss so I can get some risk-free reconnaissance, as well as some other goodies along the way. I don’t think I’m very far in despite my 20 hours. I just beat the Crystal Sage and I’m currently rolling around Farron Keep swamps.

I also bought the DS1 remaster that came out a bit over a month ago. I’ll probably wait a while to start it after finishing 3, but I know it’s there waiting for me.

I do want to play Bloodborne one of these days, but as I don’t have a PS4, I’ll have to wait for it to come to PC (not likely), or try it if it comes to Playstation Now.

That is 100% not cheating. I really liked DS3. It's a little incoherent storywise and the last boss is just dumb but I think the mechanics are spot on. They made the combat faster and tighter. I will say I've never tried it as any sort of caster so I don't know how the game holds up to various builds. I only played with a rapier and a big giant sword and armor.

Bloodborne is wonderful. I'd definitely make an effort to play it sometime, though you're right that buying a ps4 just for it isn't worth it. Unfortunately, Sony paid a lot of money for Bloodborne iirc, so I wouldn't expect to see it on PC.

Gary Sax wrote: I will say I've never tried it as any sort of caster so I don't know how the game holds up to various builds. I only played with a rapier and a big giant sword and armor.

Those are basically my two preferred builds as well, except the Bandit's Knife instead of a rapier.

Gary Sax wrote: Bloodborne is wonderful. I'd definitely make an effort to play it sometime, though you're right that buying a ps4 just for it isn't worth it. Unfortunately, Sony paid a lot of money for Bloodborne iirc, so I wouldn't expect to see it on PC.

Maybe with the new consoles coming out in a few years (?), I can borrow someone's dusty old PS4.

Colorcrayons wrote:

Duuuude. I had an 800XL. Star Raiders was indeed the shit. Pitfall 2 was brutally hard and I never beat it. But the best game was Star Raiders. That game accomplished a lot for being on the 400/800. It even put most NES games to shame. You are literally the first person besides myself I have ever heard mention, let alone fan Star Raiders.

I saw it at a Circuit City as the demo for an Atari 800, way back in 1982, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. About the time I had the cash to spend on a system, you could get an Atari 400 or a VIC-20 for the same money. That wasn't even a contest.

My favorites for the Atari, besides Star Raiders were Archon, M.U.L.E, and Seven Cities of Gold. IMO M.U.L.E. is the best multiplayer game ever, bar none. I have an Atari 800 emulator that I drag out and still play M.U.L.E. once in a while.

{cough} www.planetmule.com/ {cough}

jeb wrote: That's how I used to play ESCAPE VELOCITY (Ambrosia Software, Mac System7). You would just cruise around bringing things here or there, maybe run a blockade for a little spiciness. You could become a pirate if you wanted, but that seemed like work. Great game.

Oh man, thanks for the memory trip - Young Me spent so much time playing Escape Velocity, and the sequel EV:Override. Back when some aspects of video games were still magic (aka before everything could be easily found online), and I would "happen upon" the storylines in the planetary bars after spending days and weeks just doing trade routes to incrementally upgrade to better ships... That series is definitely high on my early years list of time spent on games.

Shortly after my last post about Dark Souls 3, I reached the Abyss Watchers boss. It's a multi-enemy boss, which means its especially hard. I was just getting destroyed. However, I refused to summon help. The only boss in the entire series that I did not beat by myself is Ornstein & Smough, and I have regretted it ever since (going to have rectify it with the remaster). So I wasn't about to get help this time. It then took me 7 hours of trying before I finally beat them. I slowly got better and better and barely got hit in the final encounter. Aside from being extremely gratifying, I got a lot of practice with parrying, which will be quite helpful going forward.

It's always super interesting to hear others' struggles in souls games, it's always so cool that hard bosses for some are a breeze for others and vice versa. I had a big long running mostly me thread on the game in these forums.

Nearing completion on our first play of XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. The expansion is neat and adds some cool customizability, but ultimately gives you even more tools to make the late game trivial. We're only on the "normal" difficulty, but so far it has been rather easy. I'll have to try a hard Ironman run after this.