[General Discussion] What have you been playing this week?

[PRO_TOO]

Been playing “sky” on an iPad Pro I got lend from a friend! Connected the DS4 real quick. Works like a charm.
It’s a little nice tablet game and I do like the mood of these kind of games.
Might take advantage of that free month of Apple Arcade.
Oceanhorn2 could be the game I couldn’t be expressing my secret Zelda appreciation with.

It was a nice change from the usual gaming I do. Still I prefer more solid software on a more solid machine. Not saying those mobile games haven’t come a long way and getting better and better every year... and I could sure enjoy some of those games when on a plane or train.
Still, I do prefer the “regular” setup at home.

Just a glance at the game when I was testing the screen recording functions on that iPad Pro:

 

[gabe.paul.logan]

Death Stranding just arrived for my PS4 for about 25 pounds. Another incredible +60 hours game to enrichen my shelf with. Perhaps when ill be a pensioner once i will play through all these.

 

[PRO_TOO]

Death Stranding just arrived for my PS4 for about 25 pounds. Another incredible +60 hours game to enrichen my shelf with. Perhaps when ill be a pensioner once i will play through all these.

i'm waiting for this one till a patched PS5 version drops. same with TLOUpartII.
i just love the atmosphere and what can i say, i'm a kojima fan.
for me personally, there will be more than enough software to play with towards spring 2021. not sure yet how to find the spare time needed...

 

[gabe.paul.logan]

i'm waiting for this one till a patched PS5 version drops. same with TLOUpartII.
i just love the atmosphere and what can i say, i'm a kojima fan.
for me personally, there will be more than enough software to play with towards spring 2021. not sure yet how to find the spare time needed...

+ sorry im an idiot it was 15 pounds. Caught a great local deal last week.

 

[PRO_TOO]

+ sorry im an idiot it was 15 pounds. Caught a great local deal last week.

Yeah. Great price.

I can see a lot of PS4 titles, that will get an update, being sold for cheap the coming month (if users don’t know or not interested).
And that’s my rough plan: grabbing some awesome used PS4 titles for a low price and then playing them on PS5.

 

[rockstrongo]

I'm playing Alien Isolation right now,kinda came from nowhere but I'm really liking it,and that lonely feeling walking around in the Sevastopol space station,ready to crap my pants whenever something pops up

 

[Isslander]

I really wan't to get into Alien Isolation, I think it was the first PS4 game I bought, but couldn't get into it back then

 

[Chris Davies]

There's been a ton of pretty great games (IMO) all released at the same time.

I tried this PC game called Old World a while ago, which is like Civilization (in-fact, it's from some of the team behind Civ 3 and Civ 4), but with a much greater focus on the human element of ruling, and a procedurally generated storyline to go along with it. It's fantastic, and the missus likes it, so whenever I get any gaming time she will shove me off whatever I'm playing and ask me to put Old World on in hotseat mode. WIthout doubt the best 4X game I've played.

If I get to choose what I play, I'm loving PGA Tour 2K21 on PS4/Xbox/PC. It's the hardest golf game I've played in a long time, but it's given back the feeling of satisfaction just to get a par - not, as with every other golf game, getting annoyed if you don't birdie every hole. The gameplay is so good. I haven't even managed to qualify from Q-School yet! It's like old-school PES - lots of holes that are pretty evident (e.g. bugs on the leaderboards when playing the AI) but with gameplay so good, you don't really care.

(It's even got a non-dumbed-down Nintendo Switch version that looks amazing!)

On top of that, PC game Crusader Kings III has just released, and is pretty sensational. It takes real historical figures and puts you in charge of them (from being the leader of a small town to being the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, whatever you like). Trying to keep your subjects happy, keeping an ear on the ground for murder plots (and concocting a few of your own)... Basically, Game of Thrones without the fantasy (in-fact, the previous version has a Game of Thrones mod and I've no doubt this version will get one in time). The depth is stunning.

And finally... Well, I finished Borderlands 1 and 2 with the missus a long time ago, but she's now asked if we can start playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, with a view to eventually getting around to Borderlands 3.

(This is despite Baldur's Gate 3 coming out soon, a game we've both been waiting for since we finished the Divinity: Original Sin games, the first of which is without a shadow of a doubt my favourite game of all-time, and hers too.)

I still haven't bought The Last of Us II, despite really looking forward to it (because my PS4 Pro overheats so easily I just don't want to risk it) - and the more I hear about the new crop of football games, the more I want to spend the next year getting good at the golf game instead...

 

[rockstrongo]

I really wan't to get into Alien Isolation, I think it was the first PS4 game I bought, but couldn't get into it back then

I've had it on my harddrive for a year or so,played a few min gave up,but started Playing it Sunday again,and it's really really good.
I'll advise you to just play,you'll get hooked after a while

 

[rockstrongo]

There's been a ton of pretty great games (IMO) all released at the same time.

I tried this PC game called Old World a while ago, which is like Civilization (in-fact, it's from some of the team behind Civ 3 and Civ 4), but with a much greater focus on the human element of ruling, and a procedurally generated storyline to go along with it. It's fantastic, and the missus likes it, so whenever I get any gaming time she will shove me off whatever I'm playing and ask me to put Old World on in hotseat mode. WIthout doubt the best 4X game I've played.

If I get to choose what I play, I'm loving PGA Tour 2K21 on PS4/Xbox/PC. It's the hardest golf game I've played in a long time, but it's given back the feeling of satisfaction just to get a par - not, as with every other golf game, getting annoyed if you don't birdie every hole. The gameplay is so good. I haven't even managed to qualify from Q-School yet! It's like old-school PES - lots of holes that are pretty evident (e.g. bugs on the leaderboards when playing the AI) but with gameplay so good, you don't really care.

(It's even got a non-dumbed-down Nintendo Switch version that looks amazing!)

On top of that, PC game Crusader Kings III has just released, and is pretty sensational. It takes real historical figures and puts you in charge of them (from being the leader of a small town to being the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, whatever you like). Trying to keep your subjects happy, keeping an ear on the ground for murder plots (and concocting a few of your own)... Basically, Game of Thrones without the fantasy (in-fact, the previous version has a Game of Thrones mod and I've no doubt this version will get one in time). The depth is stunning.

And finally... Well, I finished Borderlands 1 and 2 with the missus a long time ago, but she's now asked if we can start playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, with a view to eventually getting around to Borderlands 3.

(This is despite Baldur's Gate 3 coming out soon, a game we've both been waiting for since we finished the Divinity: Original Sin games, the first of which is without a shadow of a doubt my favourite game of all-time, and hers too.)

I still haven't bought The Last of Us II, despite really looking forward to it (because my PS4 Pro overheats so easily I just don't want to risk it) - and the more I hear about the new crop of football games, the more I want to spend the next year getting good at the golf game instead...

For me,playing non sports games is very satisfying,I played very little of that in 19,and I think my mood was way better then.
I know I'll get hooked on 2k21 (or keep going on 20) bit I'm deffo going to play a lot more of non sports game from now on (though I'm playing a lot of FIFA 20) or combining more often

 

[SmichiW]

Most the last days i have played BF 5, COD, Scum or Escape from Tarkov.

 

[rockstrongo]

Forgot to mention that I've played The Talos Principle for the past 2-3 weeks as well,getting ridiculously tough now

 

[el niche]

There's been a ton of pretty great games (IMO) all released at the same time.

I tried this PC game called Old World a while ago, which is like Civilization (in-fact, it's from some of the team behind Civ 3 and Civ 4), but with a much greater focus on the human element of ruling, and a procedurally generated storyline to go along with it. It's fantastic, and the missus likes it, so whenever I get any gaming time she will shove me off whatever I'm playing and ask me to put Old World on in hotseat mode. WIthout doubt the best 4X game I've played.



On top of that, PC game Crusader Kings III has just released, and is pretty sensational. It takes real historical figures and puts you in charge of them (from being the leader of a small town to being the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, whatever you like). Trying to keep your subjects happy, keeping an ear on the ground for murder plots (and concocting a few of your own)... Basically, Game of Thrones without the fantasy (in-fact, the previous version has a Game of Thrones mod and I've no doubt this version will get one in time). The depth is stunning.

How is Old World vs Civ? I enjoyed my time with Civ6. Saw Old World but at the time I needed a break of 4X games. Is it pretty much a copy paste with a more RPG type in the ruling? Combat is similar?
As for CK3.... I have hard time getting into Paradox games besides Stellaris which to me was the most approachable.... If I couldnt get into ck2, chances are ck3 is similar right? I have it in my gamepass but dont know if its worth the download if I will have the same experience as CK2

 

[Chris Davies]

How is Old World vs Civ? I enjoyed my time with Civ6. Saw Old World but at the time I needed a break of 4X games. Is it pretty much a copy paste with a more RPG type in the ruling? Combat is similar?

I liked Civ 5 but found each game was very similar. I found it a bit too "numbersy", and Civ 6 was a step backwards in many ways - I think the reviews at the time said the same thing.

Old World has similar concepts but it feels all-new at the same time, because your focus is on your ruler's needs, your family's needs and all of the families who live in your kingdom. Plus it's locked into a short period of history (200 years as opposed to going from the stone-age to the iPhone-age) which feels more natural to me - you don't end up fighting a nation with horses when they've got tanks and that kind of thing that sometimes happens in Civ...

Plus, I really love the win conditions. You pick up a new objective with each ruler (you age a year with each turn and when you die, you become your heir and they have their own ambitions). So instead of the entire game being based around "kill everyone" or "finish off the tech tree first", it's much more interesting. It's "first to ten ambitions completed", and every ambition is a bit different.

My current ambition is to assign myself as the general of a military unit, putting myself in the field and getting 20 kills to prove to the other families in my kingdom that I'm hard enough to be their king. Every time I choose to attack a unit instead of running away, I'm taking a big risk - if I die, that ambition becomes a "legacy" ambition. Meaning, not only is it worth less XP to the next character, but it may also be 10x more difficult (if their "courage" is poor)!

Not only that but the tech tree is card-based, so you can't just choose the thing you want - you have to "draw" it. If you don't draw it, you have to work on something else. There are ways to increase your chances (and reduce the time until your next "draw") but all of this makes the game much more interesting, and variable. Plus you have to pick which laws you want to abide by (e.g. slaves or no slaves), which always pisses someone off, who you then have to win back around later in the game.

Not only THAT... But the story events are brilliant too. Some are simple (choose who to marry), some are much more difficult, such as... A comet passes by - the religious leaders think it's an omen, and this presents an opportunity to tell your subjects that they've made God angry, which makes them more compliant - but if you choose that, you might find that a year later, your scientists tell the populace you're full of crap. What do you do then? Kill them and lose your science stats (which means slower tech advancement), or ignore them and lose the trust of your people (which means you might have to fight off some rebel gangs)?

It's really good - and it's still in early access too. I highly recommend it.

As for CK3.... I have hard time getting into Paradox games besides Stellaris which to me was the most approachable.... If I couldnt get into ck2, chances are ck3 is similar right? I have it in my gamepass but dont know if its worth the download if I will have the same experience as CK2

CK2 was really difficult to understand, and with no help whatsoever. The dev team's entire focus for CK3 is to make it approachable to complete newbies.

It's as deep as it ever was (much deeper than Old World for example), but you get much more help in terms of the UI keeping you on the right track and explaining what you need to do. They've also made it a little more "human-focused" (similar to Old World) and if you don't keep your ruler's "stress levels" down (by taking actions that match their personality, and keeping their family alive), they do things that are out of your control.

There's a great example of that in this review:

"Recently, I threw a party for my nearest and dearest, plus a few special guests. There was loads of booze and I put on an incredible spread because I just wanted everyone to enjoy themselves, you know? Instead, I got absolutely shit faced and stabbed my cousin in the face, then pressured a witness into lying and covering for me. I got off scot-free; nobody ever found out."

Again, it's really good. Really deep - to the point where I don't know if I'll ever have time to play it - but it's 10x more user-friendly and easier to understand. It's really satisfying to see your plots unfold and keep a happy court as you expand and multiply - but even better to see the little bits of humour here and there when your personal life goes awry, like in the above example.

 

[wolly1979]

tour de france 2020 on PC.. and PGA 2K21

 

[el niche]

It's really good - and it's still in early access too. I highly recommend it.


CK2 was really difficult to understand, and with no help whatsoever. The dev team's entire focus for CK3 is to make it approachable to complete newbies.

Daaaaaaaammmmmmnnnnnnn, thanks for the detailed answer!!! You've kinda sold me in Old World.... Will probably buy it in the coming days (need to trim a bit my backlog and sept-oct is not a good time for another new game). I was def expecting you to say CK3 is as complex to get into as CK2. However now Im intrigued and will take the download from the gamepass to try it out. Thing is with those games you can play 15000 hours and only scratch the surface... Just dont know if I have the time to sink into it

 

[rammeal]

I have been really into Risk of Rain 2 but I have so many other games I need to finish like Persona 5 Royal. I haven't had time to log on my PS4 the past month.

 

[fd1972uk]

PES 20 and Ghosts of Tsushima


FD

 

[bsmaff]

Thought I would give Crusader Kings a go after @Chris Davies recommendation.

Not that into it yet, but thought I would mention to everyone it is available on GamePass.

If you sign up now it is £1 for the 1st month then £3.99 a month, and the number of games are pretty impressive.

 

[rockstrongo]

Thought I would give Crusader Kings a go after @Chris Davies recommendation.

Not that into it yet, but thought I would mention to everyone it is available on GamePass.

If you sign up now it is £1 for the 1st month then £3.99 a month, and the number of games are pretty impressive.

Might check it out after Alien isolation
But that's on pc right?

 

[PRO_TOO]

The story of Henry the manure thrower!
What a lovely game (world) it is!!
I’m talking about “Kingdome Come deliverance”!

THPS 1+2: best Remaster I’ve ever played.
...bet it’s only till Mafia drops, but this skating game is outstanding. 9/10!! Just can’t give away a 10/10 but it’s pretty close.
One award I’d give away blindly: best soundtrack in a video game EVER!!!

PES 2020 vanilla: still some fun to be found here for me.

 

[el niche]

Thought I would give Crusader Kings a go after @Chris Davies recommendation.

Not that into it yet, but thought I would mention to everyone it is available on GamePass.

If you sign up now it is £1 for the 1st month then £3.99 a month, and the number of games are pretty impressive.

Thats what Im doing now, tried crusader kings but after a while I was just staring at the screen not knowing what to do. I really want to get into it so Im going to watch a lets play on youtube. it is def more user friendly than CK2 and has a short but somewhat helpful tutorial. and yeah, gamepass is the best deal of any service out right now.... for some reason my subscription for $1 ended and then I got the offer back twice. so 3 months for $3.

 

[rojofa]

That £1 for 1 month offer for Game Pass can be used differently to get much longer out of it. It doesn't just give you 1 month Ultimate membership, it also converts any other subscriptions you currently have into Game Pass Ultimate up to 36 months.

I bought and applied 3x 12 month XBL Gold membership cards for £35 each, then used the £1 for 1 month offer to get 3 years of Game Pass Ultimate for £96.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/xbox-game-pass-ultimate/cfq7ttc0khs0

Click "More" on that page to see the info I snipped.

 

[Carles P.]

Assetto Corsa Competizione

It makes so much fun. But I'm a totaly noob and only play with Xbox360 gamepad on PC.

And I need time to learn how to be a good player so be patient is the first step.

The graphics, the sound and the realism are so great.

 

[el niche]

Thought I would give Crusader Kings a go after @Chris Davies recommendation.

Not that into it yet, but thought I would mention to everyone it is available on GamePass.

If you sign up now it is £1 for the 1st month then £3.99 a month, and the number of games are pretty impressive.

It takes a few hours of getting into it to get what is going on... I sure I've only scratched the surface, but I'm having a great time with CK3. Glad I could try it, as I will end up getting it. I've been trying survive with Ireland, marrying my 10 year old son to a 45 year old princess in Scotland because nobody wants to marry me because I have a wooden peg leg

 

[rockstrongo]

Assetto Corsa Competizione

It makes so much fun. But I'm a totaly noob and only play with Xbox360 gamepad on PC.

And I need time to learn how to be a good player so be patient is the first step.

The graphics, the sound and the realism are so great.

If or when you get a steering wheel for it...it's so much fun

 

[rockstrongo]

Alien Isolation,getting tough as hell now,some Mafia 3 and probably 10-15 games of FIFA 20

 

[PRO_TOO]

I’ve been pretty continuous this week, so I played a PES 2020, kingdom come deliverance, and Tony Hawk Pro skater again and again and again.
There’s not much else... maybe I need to fire up snow runner again for some change.

@rockstrongo alien, the brand, I like a lot but I’m too afraid to play those games! I don’t watch horror movies as I don’t get scared by stuff like voodoo, magical stuff or eastern witches and such.... What makes me jump are “jump scares”,When something surprisingly happens, out of nowhere! And I don’t like that.

 

[rockstrongo]

I’ve been pretty continuous this week, so I played a PES 2020, kingdom come deliverance, and Tony Hawk Pro skater again and again and again.
There’s not much else... maybe I need to fire up snow runner again for some change.

@rockstrongo alien, the brand, I like a lot but I’m too afraid to play those games! I don’t watch horror movies as I don’t don’t scared by stuff like voodoo, magical stuff or eastern witches and such.... What makes me jump are “jump scares”,When something surprisingly happens, out of nowhere! And I don’t like that.

Man,this game is so scary,suddenly that thing pops out from the vent,or walks around and you have to hide,but still need to search for stuff.
I have been scared more than once,trust me!

The general atmosphere and tight spaces of a space station makes it worse,plus with headphones on...
Great game though!
Have you been out hunting on Kingdome come yet?

 

[PRO_TOO]

Man,this game is so scary,suddenly that thing pops out from the vent,or walks around and you have to hide,but still need to search for stuff.
I have been scared more than once,trust me!

The general atmosphere and tight spaces of a space station makes it worse,plus with headphones on...
Great game though!
Have you been out hunting on Kingdome come yet?

„Enjoy“ mate, enjoy.

well, I have been through some main missions by now and it’s all unfolding. I have a Bow, which I stole from some house. I’ve not been on a tutorial hunting mission by now. But it’s so lovely how the story unfolds and how you get “tutorialed” into the world!

minor details like your stamina is going down when you have a person on your back and walking or you have to eat on the regular basis all the time.... I really do like that right now. Even when I know this game takes a lot of time and I probably won’t finish it, I’m having having a blast with it at the moment. It’s really special, in my eyes!