Computer game thread

Mike Ventrella

Mike Ventrella

Duke
Let's have a thread about computer/console/video games you're playing now.

Tell us what game you're playing now; give it a review. Let us know if you recommend it.

I only play on the computer. I worry that if I got a console, I'd play too much and never get any writing or other work done. Plus, Heidi would never let me hook it up to the TV so I'd have to buy a screen too and find a place to play. Because of her arm condition, she can't really play computer games which is very sad because then we could play together.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Bethesda-type games: Elder Scrolls and Fallout and big sandbox first-person worlds where you have a lot of freedom.

I usually only play a few games a year because I don't get that much time to play. Plus I like to get the big games like Skyrim and play the hell out of it for six months or so.

I just finished playing Risen 2 (Pirates, yarr!) and enjoyed it. Great voice acting, and a first person game with different factions to join and different endings and so on. The first Risen was on Steam cheap so I just started that.

So! What is everyone playing?
 
Just finished Phase 3 beta testing of the FFXIV remake. So much better than the old game. I look forward to playing it until whenever the hell Wildstar decides to come out.

I have Dishonored sitting here asking to be played, and I need to finish Bioshock Infinite and replay Dragon Age.
 
I currently play two games for the most part, Crusader Kings II and World of Tanks.

Crusader Kings II is a historical fiction game where you start off with the world more or less as it was at some point of your choosing between 866 and the Reformation. You play as a member of a dynasty, and within the rules of the game seek to make your dynasty the most memorable in history, as well as whatever objectives you give yourself. I've successfully beaten off the Norman & Norse invasion of 1066, then sought to unite the British Isles. I've reformed the Romuva faith and kept it from falling to the march of Christianity. I haven't managed to mend the Catholic/Orthodox schism yet as the Byzantine Empire, but that's one I'm working on. If you like games like the Civilization series, but want a more person oriented approach this game is definitely for you. If you like flashy graphics and intense pulse pounding gameplay, give this one a pass.

World of Tanks. Get in a tank, hop into a room with 29 other guys in tanks. Your 15 man team vs their 15 man team. Blow up tanks, try not to get blown up. It's simple stupid fun. There is a lot of skill involved in this, and it's much less twitch based than say... Team Fortress 2. If you like your first person shooters a little more strategic, and little less manic, this one may be for you. If you do decide to check it out, I'm IronHammer in game and if I'm on I'll hop down to my lower tier tanks and show you around. Oh, and it's free to play, so that's nice. :)
 
I played Dishonored but it's really difficult to go through the whole thing without getting into battle. You have to be really, really patient.

I enjoyed it but once I was done, I wasn't interested in playing it again or getting the extras.
 
I have spent the last few months with the following games:

1. Witcher 2. Again, mind you. I think I'm at four play-throughs now! :blink: I've played the games and I've read the novels. I just love this entire gritty fantasy setting that this franchise is based in.
2. EVE Online. Because who doesn't like spaceships? Or spreadsheets? Or both!? In all seriousness, I frequently fly in huge fleets of hundreds of ships and shoot at other fleets of hundreds of ships. Tons of fun.
3. Skyrim. All of the mods out there just make this game able to be replayed and replayed and replayed. I've been a huge fan of the Elder Scroll games since Morrowind came out so this is unsurprising.
4. Towns. It's a fun indy game that lets you run the town above a dungeon. You build an inn, amenities, etc and get adventurers to come to your town and protect you from the monsters. Hard to get into but a fun waste of a few days and it's only $15 or so. http://store.steampowered.com/app/221020/
5. Medieval 2: Total War. I love all of the Total War games but I keep coming back to this one. I cannot wait for Rome 2: Total War to come out soon! Install the Stainless Steel 6.4 mod and this game gets just a bit better. You can find it for $15 on Steam and the expansion for another $5. Graphics are a little dated but the gameplay is great.
 
youthculture said:
Just finished Phase 3 beta testing of the FFXIV remake. So much better than the old game. I look forward to playing it until whenever the hell Wildstar decides to come out.

I have Dishonored sitting here asking to be played, and I need to finish Bioshock Infinite and replay Dragon Age.
Click to expand...

I cannot express how excited I am for Wildstar. It looks like a game I could really get sucked into.
 
In preparation for the new expansion coming out in the next few days, I've been playing a lot of Civilization V recently. Yesterday I completed my first diplomacy victory.

I'm a big fan of games that allow me to build and customize. Minecraft's a perennial favorite, and I bought into the paid alpha of Cube World.

I ate Bioshock Infinite up. Couldn't put it down.

FFXIV beta has me excited, and I too am waiting anxiously for Wildstar. SWTOR is fun and I am fond of it but as the RP has been waning, so too has my enthusiasm.

Do you guys remember Wrath of the Lich King? God, what a great expansion that was.
 
The Burning Crusade was the best expansion, but I might just be seeing it through rose-tinted glasses. Fights like Vashji and Illidan were just so well thought-out, challenging and rewarding. Wrath was alright, I guess. Rehashed Naxx was pretty boring, Ulduar was the best raiding tier ever (I loved challenges like Firefighter) and Crusader's Colosseum was just awful. ICC was a solid raiding tier, though.
 
Well, this sucks. In Risen, you have to choose one of three factions. So wise guy me tried to do them all, playing them against each other. And now, apparently because of that, I can't progress any further in the plot, because the game won't let me speak to the person to move this thing into chapter 2.

Grr.
 
Skylanders Giants is ubiquitous in my household.

Stacey and I just started playing through Dungeon Siege 3 together because options for local co-op have gotten pretty limited.

She also just picked up Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2 after... 5 years? Now I want to play through it again too.

That reminds me that I'm still mad I can't find my Alpha Centauri disc, because I have been craving that game recently.

I am looking forward to the upcoming Thief title and am curious about the teased Smash Brothers release on 3DS.
 
Dragon Age, whichever of the three, waiting for Inquisition.

Skyrim, pretending I'm playing a stealth game. That's until Thief comes out.

I'll probably go back to Mass Effect sometime in the next few months while I wait for that release.

I'm looking forward to Persona 5 happening someday.
 
The Last of Us.

Easily one of the best pieces of video game narrative I have put my hands on.

If you own or have access to a PS3 you owe it to yourself to play this game at some point.

My other recent favorite has been Guacamelee by Drinkbox. It is a downloadable title on home consoles. I actually wrote a review for it on my site. It was some of the most fun I've had playing a metroidvania style game in YEARS.
 
I've got $70 to spend on Steam. Any suggestions on games to pick up, that are not available on console?
 
EricMarsters said:
I've got $70 to spend on Steam. Any suggestions on games to pick up, that are not available on console?
Click to expand...
Witcher and Witcher 2 have been on sale on Steam for quite a while now. I think at one point Witcher 2 was down to $7 or something. Check those games out.

Edit: Looks like they are $10 for Witcher 1 and $20 for Witcher 2 right now. I absolutely adore both games, I think they are some of the best RPGs I have played in a long, long time. YMMV.

Witcher 1: http://store.steampowered.com/app/20900 ... _151_150_1
Witcher 2: http://store.steampowered.com/app/20920/
 
If you like Star Trek, then FTL is the absolute priority. The game is amazing.

With that said... we should be bumping into a Steam Summer sale soon enough... so wait until then and your $70 will go REALLY far. They slash their prices like crazy.
 
Steam Summer sale starts tomorrow! :lol:
 
Ok sweet.

The dont spend a dime till tomorrow.

Then just log in when you wake up and in the evening and spend your $70 its going to be bonkers!
 
Due to my addiction to Dungeons and Dragons Online for the past 7 years I am a bit behind on games.

During that time I have been watching Steam for good sales and purchasing games I would like to play, but never actually playing them. So now my Steam Library is pretty large with a bunch of games that I need to play.

In addition to that, there are two games coming out in July and October (I think) that have me really excited! Shadowrun Returns is being released on July 25th and then War for the Overworld is coming out in Octoboer.

Shadowrun Returns is based off the tabletop RPG and including ties to the stories of both the SNES and Genesis Shadowrun games. The playstyle looks pretty reminiscent of Fallout Tactics (i.e. 2.5D grid based game).

War for the Overworld is effectively Dungeon Keeper 3 without the Dungeon Keeper name. In fact, the studio that is developing WFTO asked for and received permission from the old Bullfrog developers (the ones that made Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2) before embarking on this project. It sounds like it is incorporating as much of the good stuff from both DK1 and 2, adding some extra improvements, more contemporary graphics, and more. For those that don't know what Dungeon Keeper was, it was a grid-based dungeon management game where you built dungeons to meet goals/objectives and kill the pesky heroes that entered it.
 
I also highly recommend the Witcher series.

Everyone seems to like Mass Effect and I enjoyed the first two -- not so much the third, where it seems I'd have to sit through a long movie cut-scene and then have a fight which, if I lost, knocked me back to the cut scene again, and then near the end it was like one long 20 minute movie I had to watch and couldn't skip or even save in the middle of, so I just gave up. I like having more control over the game than that (and the same thing goes for LARPing -- the player should control the direction of the game and not just watch things happen).
 
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