What are you playing?

[Jonas]

Hah! Good old Edwyn. He is prolific

[nerdenstein]

I'm really looking forward to M4-78EP.
I've been replaying TSL with TSLRCM. I bought it on Steam to save me the hassle of installing from several discs and patching it.
It seems far more stable than the old CD retail release actually.

[bobby 55]

Skyrim: I'm a vampire. I was too late in taking the disease cure potion, and after talking to a barman I visited the dude in Morthal. Unfortunately after visiting him I took a couple of days to get back with a filled soul gem, now all he wants to do is kill me...as do the rest of the town.

If there's no other option I guess I'll have to feed on some poor soul so I can eventually get cured. I might try sneaking into a bandit's camp at night and see if I can creep up on one who is sleeping.

[Hassat Hunter]

Just bought Mass Effect 3. Going to play it first without the Extended Cut... I want to see that infamous ending for myself.

It's been a long time since ME2, hopefully I don't need to completely relearn stuff... and I hope I remember what I did in the past (I often ran into ME1 NPC's in ME2 without a clue what they were talking about)...

[Jaedar]

Just bought Mass Effect 3. Going to play it first without the Extended Cut... I want to see that infamous ending for myself.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Jetsetlemming]

CS:GO. Replaying Batman Arkham City so I can play Harley Quinn's Revenge. Doing these things very slowly because school's started and I live with a girl and have lots of homework and these things combine to give me very little time for gaming.

[shadowblade34]

CS:GO. Replaying Batman Arkham City so I can play Harley Quinn's Revenge. Doing these things very slowly because school's started and I live with a girl and have lots of homework and these things combine to give me very little time for gaming.

I've heard that Harley's Revenge is nothing great, just a decent bit of DLC. And school's starting for me again in a few days. I'm actually looking forward to going back even though I know I won't be playing games that much. Just trying to complete Max Payne 2. But I'm especially going to enjoy the multiplayer games a lot more now, and Torchlight 2. Can't wait for that to release. Also buying Battlefield 3 since it's reached the reasonable price of £20

[Chris]

Half Life 2 done.
It was freaking intense! Holding your positions in Nova Prospekt on hard mode was close to impossible!
But i did pass it anyway. [-( .
I had an old video graphics card, SiS Mirage, but it worked fine anyway. The Citadel Freeman was all badass! He was walking around with 200 Body armor and 100, running and killing everyone with his enhanced Zero Energy Point Manipulation Emmiter (Gravity Gun).
The Citadel and G-Man's face in the beginning are the only things that made be laaaaag so bad... .
I say it was fu*¥$€£¤° amazing! Real intense and all.
BTW the beaches with Bunkers near Nova Prospekt looked perfect for an Omaha Beach Setting. Just add some mines and dead bodies and a defilade and German and American Troops, and some of those things that look like spikes, and there ya go!
EDIT: Uhh... forgot to remove the Antlions...
DOUBLE EDIT: Add foggy afterstorm-like weather

[bobby 55]

Max Payne 1 is done. Strangely I enjoyed the story bits more than the shooty bits. The action was okay initially but got a bit repetitive mid-game and beyond.

[kdawg88]

Replaying System Shock 2 since playing it last about 2 years ago, using the third-party gameplay patch ADaOB, (can't remember what that stands for ), the 'SHTUP' texture replacements, the 'Reborn' character model replacements and some gun model replacements. The engine's never going to look fantastic but the mods sure do make a difference, and I'll always love the lighting in the Dark Engine.

In terms of the experience, nothing will leave a greater impression on me than the first playthrough, but still, this time everything clicks again and it feels great. I'm gonna put this behind DX as my second favourite single-player game.

[Jaedar]

So. Dark Souls.

I stand by my original assessment that the port is crap, legendarily so. And its a god damn shame. But disregarding that the game is pretty great. As a package, its still good. But I'd like to talk a bit about the supposed difficulty.

The games subtitle says it really well "Prepare to die". Which is what you must do, because you will die. But death is not a failure its an opportunity to learn. Not just in dark souls, but in games in general. And dark souls is challenging in a very specific way. It doesn't require much twitch skill or muscle memory. What you need to complete the game is knowledge. I'm in my second playthrough, and it is at least twice as fast as my first time going through the game. Because I know shit now. I know where to go, how to survive and kill the enemies. I gained that stuff from dying. There's really not a single boss I can think of that can't be destroyed in a very trivial fashion once you figure out how. Which you do, through death and experimentation. Or by looking it up on gamefaqs if you really must.

But yeah, its not a western AAA game that's been designed so everyone and their grandma can beat it. You have to try and be willing to suffer some setbacks. There's even a gameplay mechanic forcing you to learn. When you die, you lose nothing: assuming you can progress as far as you did before you died. Otherwise, you lose the money/exp/humanity from the first try. Basically: Death is meaningless as long as you learned from it and can progress as far or further. And it's the same if you die a bunch of time and have to redo the section leading up to a boss or something. You learn to do it faster, kill the enemies without losing as much health. Maybe find a shortcut to let you do it in a fraction of the time. Which is rewarding in itself, even if you're stuck, you can still get better.

I think that's pretty cool.

But the game has its flaws. Sometimes the controls are a bit unresponsive(like you press dodge a millisecond too late, take a hit, and then your guy dodges.... bit too late). Sometimes there's stupid elevators between a checkpoint and a boss. At least one boss is complete bullshit. And to my knowledge, parrying and the encumbrance system are never explained in the game(and neither is really obvious).

[Jonas]

I'm playing Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on a Wii I borrowed from a friend. This is my first non-NDS Zelda game, and I'm enjoying it so far, though it's clearly a children's game and the camera is godawful annoying. The problem isn't just that it's a children's game, but that it speaks down to you a bit - all the writing is over-the-top obvious and caricatured to the point of blandness. By the third time the characters repeat something I understood before I was even told the first time, my patience is wearing thin.

The world is very charming though, the monsters are decently original, and the fighting mechanics are great. Now that I got the hang of controlling the bird, flying around above the clouds is a lot of fun too. I wish wooden shields didn't break so damn quickly, but the way the shield and sword are controlled with the Wiimote and nunchuck is tons of fun. I find myself assuming swordfighting stances even though I really don't need to.

[Jaedar]

The world is very charming though, the monsters are decently original, and the fighting mechanics are great. Now that I got the hang of controlling the bird, flying around above the clouds is a lot of fun too. I wish wooden shields didn't break so damn quickly, but the way the shield and sword are controlled with the Wiimote and nunchuck is tons of fun. I find myself assuming swordfighting stances even though I really don't need to.

You're not supposed to block with the shield, just counter.

[Jonas]

Okay I guess I just need to stop sucking then.

[Jaedar]

Okay I guess I just need to stop sucking then.

Just making sure you were not misunderstanding its purpose.

If you do like the game, I recommend wind waker as another good zelda game. Hasn't aged as poorly as ocarina either.