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

I'm close to finishing Final Fantasy XIII for the first time since dropping it at chapter 11, well... Thirteen years ago 😂

I'm now on Chapter 12 so it's finally new ground for me but while this game certainly has a "love it or hate it" status among fans, There's a lot I love about it, especially the sights and sounds and the game's themes surrounding indoctrination and persecution & family...

But dear lord the actual gameplay is a slog. Chapters 10 & 11 are just downright insulting in terms of repetition and padding. It's nothing but huge dense hallways with nothing stimulating to offer other than running from one end to the other and opening a door or operating some kind of elevator and finding relentless hordes of monsters along the way. It's more tedious than waiting for the grass to grow on Mars.

I've gotten this far and really want to accomplish completing it myself as a massive fan but I'm also using cheats to at least end these battles in 1 kill or else I'd have definitely given up by now.
 
First time in 10 years ive played Mycareer on 2K and i did it on my last played games on that mode,2k14 and 13.
had a lot of fun but got quite frustrated being a 63 OVR rookie with no skill sets at all, did some cheating on 14 and had a lot more fun being 79 OVR.
Two solid games from two gens ago, though 14 on XB1 is far superior to its pc version i had quite a good time
 
Rush Rally Origins on my Nintendo Switch Lite. Great top down game, actually prefer it over art of rally.

Lego Star Wars : The Skywalker Saga again on my Switch Lite. Completed IV A New Hope. It’s the best Lego game to date for sure. Looks great, it’s fun to play. Stud grinding is fierce though. Only two True Jedi levels achieved so far. Grinding to get to a million to unlock the 2x Stud multiplier

FIFA 23 on Switch Lite. One quick game. It’s FIFA and portable. Long way from GBA FIFA for sure.

The Takeover : Switch Lite again, it’s not bad; very like Streets of Rage, only two player, not that matters much on Switch Lite. It’s plays really way, love these old Beat-Em-Up games. When on offer around £2.50 definitely worth a pick up. Streets 4 is probably still the pinnacle. TMNT with Six player would be a total joy with mates I think.

Retro Bowl : on iPhone, played the demo years ago, didn’t warm to it. Then bought the full game at 99p in, 5 Franchises all into year 9 now. Not one is my favourite team either! Great fun in Franchise Mode.
 
Carl said:
Rush Rally Origins on my Nintendo Switch Lite. Great top down game, actually prefer it over art of rally.

Lego Star Wars : The Skywalker Saga again on my Switch Lite. Completed IV A New Hope. It’s the best Lego game to date for sure. Looks great, it’s fun to play. Stud grinding is fierce though. Only two True Jedi levels achieved so far. Grinding to get to a million to unlock the 2x Stud multiplier

FIFA 23 on Switch Lite. One quick game. It’s FIFA and portable. Long way from GBA FIFA for sure.

The Takeover : Switch Lite again, it’s not bad; very like Streets of Rage, only two player, not that matters much on Switch Lite. It’s plays really way, love these old Beat-Em-Up games. When on offer around £2.50 definitely worth a pick up. Streets 4 is probably still the pinnacle. TMNT with Six player would be a total joy with mates I think.

Retro Bowl : on iPhone, played the demo years ago, didn’t warm to it. Then bought the full game at 99p in, 5 Franchises all into year 9 now. Not one is my favourite team either! Great fun in Franchise Mode.
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Carl??!

84-years.gif
 
Crysis on my Switch Lite. It’s pure witchcraft the fact this is running on a Switch. It’s fun though I am playing on easy as it can be tricky enough when getting shot at from far away.
 
Desperate - truly desperate - to play Baldur's Gate 3 in co-op (based on absolutely loving Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, two of my favourite games of all-time).

Sadly, there's no Xbox version yet because of the damn Series S being near-impossible to get split-screen working on. Absolutely gutted.
 
@Chris Davies if you have an old potato PC gathering dust somewhere, you might try the streamed game from "GeForce now" platform (got to get it on Steam, there's option for GF Now too).

Don't know about overall quality you get, since it runs "somewhere in the cloud" and is streamed to you.
Hope the refund is still an option if the quality of the stream will be utter crap, just don't spend more than 2 hours in character creator, like certain @Tom s :P


Edit: or perhaps skip it until Xbox version is released - apparently, gf now has tiered and paid membership ranks. Free tier imposes session duration limits (apparently 1 hour), then you're booted and possibly put in a waiting queue for another session (depending on servers congestion), rinse&repeat style
 
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Chris Davies said:
Desperate - truly desperate - to play Baldur's Gate 3 in co-op (based on absolutely loving Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, two of my favourite games of all-time).

Sadly, there's no Xbox version yet because of the damn Series S being near-impossible to get split-screen working on. Absolutely gutted.
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The issue is that Microsoft demands all games to be available with the same features in both X/S. As it is I can't see how Larian can make co-op available on Xbox S without dropping the quality of the graphics at 720p medium/low. There's a lot going also into the background regarding the battles and I won't even mention the effects of spells etc.
Microsoft should be more flexible and react fast as we're talking about one of the best games of the last 20 years. Microsoft must splash the money to Larian and make it available on console only gamepass Xcloud through the Xbox X blades. Win/Win situation for all. Maybe they're waiting to see if the PS5 version sells well. I have my doubts though because the console audience is quite different. I don't think the majority of 20yrs old console only gamers will touch this one. I hope I'm wrong though.
 
fear said:
Baldur's Gate 3.
See you all in 1 year.
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Tom said:
Been playing Baldur's Gate 3 for ~seven and a half hours. Finally done setting up my character.

@Carl : 💙 💙 💙
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Im really interested in this game. I watched the gameplay videos, seems really interesting. Now... As someone who didn't really get into DoS2. Tried multiple times and it just didn't click. Wasteland 3 was a bit more accessible for me even though I lost interest later in the game. Dont know if im DoS2 it was complexity or reading all the descriptions. I'm guessing if I didnt get into that BG3 wont be for me either right? Hows the learning curve for someone new to the game/genre?
 
el niche said:
Im really interested in this game. I watched the gameplay videos, seems really interesting. Now... As someone who didn't really get into DoS2. Tried multiple times and it just didn't click. Wasteland 3 was a bit more accessible for me even though I lost interest later in the game. Dont know if im DoS2 it was complexity or reading all the descriptions. I'm guessing if I didnt get into that BG3 wont be for me either right? Hows the learning curve for someone new to the game/genre?
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Being someone who doesn't know anything about tabletop games and the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset they've based BG3 on, it's definitely the most complicated Larian game I've gotten into thus far, not gonna lie. There's a myriad of dice checks the game makes when approaching all sorts of interactions and their outcome depend on a million skills and traits your characters have. It's definitely a bit to digest and pretty overwhelming at first. Buuuut: It's also a Larian game, they've made it as accessible as possible to peasants like me without letting numbers and rules get in the way of the sheer fun and soul their games usually provide. There's explanations for everything provided in-game. Still, watching some Youtube guide videos to get the hang of things surely doesn't hurt either.

So, going by your experiences with D:OS2 and Wasteland, I'd tend to say that it might be too complex for you. It's still very much like Original Sin 2 in terms of its general loveable presentation and many mechanics but with a way more and mature in-depth approach to its underlying ruleset due to the whole DnD shebang.
 
Tom said:
Being someone who doesn't know anything about tabletop games and the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset they've based BG3 on, it's definitely the most complicated Larian game I've gotten into thus far, not gonna lie. There's a myriad of dice checks the game makes when approaching all sorts of interactions and their outcome depend on a million skills and traits your characters have. It's definitely a bit to digest and pretty overwhelming at first. Buuuut: It's also a Larian game, they've made it as accessible as possible to peasants like me without letting numbers and rules get in the way of the sheer fun and soul their games usually provide. There's explanations for everything provided in-game. Still, watching some Youtube guide videos to get the hang of things surely doesn't hurt either.

So, going by your experiences with D:OS2 and Wasteland, I'd tend to say that it might be too complex for you. It's still very much like Original Sin 2 in terms of its general loveable presentation and many mechanics but with a way more and mature in-depth approach to its underlying ruleset due to the whole DnD shebang.
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Thanks for the detailed write-up, after checking the "beginners guide" to understand DnD rules and dice roll and I agree I will probably take the L here and stay away from it for now. Looks very interesting and seems the reviews are glowing for both it and its developers. I got a bit burned out and dissapointed with Diablo 4 so wanted to check another isometric game (I know its a different genre though). Will try once again to get into DoS2. Maybe in story mode. Thanks though
 
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el niche said:
Thanks for the detailed write-up, after checking the "beginners guide" to understand DnD rules and dice roll and I agree I will probably take the L here and stay away from it for now. Looks very interesting and seems the reviews are glowing for both it and its developers. I got a bit burned out and dissapointed with Diablo 4 so wanted to check another isometric game (I know its a different genre though). Will try once again to get into DoS2. Maybe in story mode. Thanks though
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I wouldn't even touch Diablo 4. Even though I'm in my mid 40s I never understood why the Diablo games are so popular.
My advice is to try and invest some time playing Baldur's Gate 3 especially now when the majority of AAA games are atrocious. Trust me you won't regret it. We have a a game of this quality every 6-7 years or maybe more. Right now there are more than half a million playing the game on Steam which imo is bonkers for a turn based CRPG with D&D rules.
Oh I forgot. The replaybility is through the roof. It's not only impressive but scary also. I can see people playing this one for 4-5 years straight. There are other great cRPGs but this one is incredibly polished.
 
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fear said:
I wouldn't even touch Diablo 4. Even though I'm in my mid 40s I never understood why the Diablo games are so popular.
My advice is to try and invest some time playing Baldur's Gate 3 especially now when the majority of AAA games are atrocious. Trust me you won't regret it. We have a a game of this quality every 6-7 years or maybe more. Right now there are more than half a million playing the game on Steam which imo is bonkers for a turn based CRPG with D&D rules.
Oh I forgot. The replaybility is through the roof. It's not only impressive but scary also. I can see people playing this one for 4-5 years straight. There are other great cRPGs but this one is incredibly polished.
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Thanks. I would love to get into bg3 , but again i dont think i have the time and drive to learn the systems. Ill put it this way. I need simple to learn games to play in short bursts. Something casual. I thought about bg3 in story mode but dos2 couldn’t keep me invested. Maybe crpgs are just not my type of games
diablo games and similar are fun for the loot, build building , combat, gameplay loop. Different genre that scratches a different itch.
 
There's a story mode for bg3 too - which apparently makes everything more lenient, and giving player permanent buffs for myriads of background checks and rolls in and out of combat.

Plus, on all difficulties, you can respec pretty much everything (self, and party members) as many times as needed (costs only gold) so experiment away :)
 
I'm nearly at 50h in the first area in BG3 and I'm still learning new things. It's insane.
I hope Bethesda have polished their Starfield game. If not, the backlash will be huge.
 
I finally finished Final Fantasy XIII. Feels like closure even if it was bittersweet, I started this game in 2010 when it launched, was FF mad and couldn't ewait for the all-new, first HD version in the series. Dropped it halfway through back then as it became a mind-numbing slog and being younger I didn't quite understand the plot.

I came back to it over Christmas and slowly dipped in and out of it being older and wiser I understood the plot and themes of the game a lot better although it's notoriously poor at delivering its story as effectively as it could.

But fuck me, one thing that never improved is the tedious and repetitive pacing of the gameplay overall. It just drags, drags, and drags. The last dungeon in particular where you have to fuck around with teleporting to different areas and fight a bunch of faceless sub-bosses for no particular reason before the big bad was just infuriating, uninspired padding. I haven't felt this insulted completing a game since MGSV and the flat ending that goes down about as well as a fart in church.

Nonetheless, it feels almost cathartic, to finally shut the book on a game I was so ready to adore when it launched, a game that would become notoriously polarising in the FF series and a game that is lined with a gorgeous soundtrack and insanely stunning visuals and polished presentation marred by unforgivably vapid pacing and depth.

Also cool to finish Final Fantasy 13, well... 13 years later.
 
fear said:
I'm nearly at 50h in the first area in BG3 and I'm still learning new things. It's insane.
I hope Bethesda have polished their Starfield game. If not, the backlash will be huge.
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Im not a fan of turn based combat but Im getting BG3 when it hits consoles.
Looks like its one of these games that everyone has to try.
 
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Im revisiting older rpgs lately. The ones I touched and the ones I missed.

Mainly 'Dragons Dogma' and 'Kingdoms of Amalur'. And they are fucking awesome!

Dragons Dogma has a sequel in development and I couldnt be happier. Combat in that game was never matched in any rpg that came after.

Kingdom of Amalur I missed altogether and I only found this game by accident. THQ Nordic, the guys behind Way of The Hunter, bought this IP from a dead studio and re-released the game, adding brand new DLC to it. I really hope that they have bigger plans for this IP and that these are just first steps before they announce sequel.
This games combat, mechanics depth and lore could easily compete with Skyrim. And art style is just awesome. Its if Fable and World of Warcraft had a baby. There are also some really brutal moments, straight outta God of War.

Loving both.
What great games!
And AI and difficulty is just so fun to play against. Its like with football games - the depth we used to have is just crazy.
 
Crazy amounts of PES 2014, so cool and different to do a South American ML, both on a domestic level (Argentina) and on a continental (Copa Libertadores) level with San Lorenzo
 
Emroth said:
Im revisiting older rpgs lately. The ones I touched and the ones I missed.

Mainly 'Dragons Dogma' and 'Kingdoms of Amalur'. And they are fucking awesome!

Dragons Dogma has a sequel in development and I couldnt be happier. Combat in that game was never matched in any rpg that came after.

Kingdom of Amalur I missed altogether and I only found this game by accident. THQ Nordic, the guys behind Way of The Hunter, bought this IP from a dead studio and re-released the game, adding brand new DLC to it. I really hope that they have bigger plans for this IP and that these are just first steps before they announce sequel.
This games combat, mechanics depth and lore could easily compete with Skyrim. And art style is just awesome. Its if Fable and World of Warcraft had a baby. There are also some really brutal moments, straight outta God of War.

Loving both.
What great games!
And AI and difficulty is just so fun to play against. Its like with football games - the depth we used to have is just crazy.
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I almost got dragons dogma. Are you on pc. How are the graphics? Gameplays still holds up? Been reading its a hidden gem
 
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