What games are you playing now?

The last days I started a new-game-+ in Horizon Forbidden West on highest difficulty in order to test, how far I will come...
But now suddenly I felt the urge to replay Horizon Zero Dawn first and I am just installing...
So I will probably play both in parallel.
 
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bkrueger said:
The last days I started a new-game-+ in Horizon Forbidden West on highest difficulty in order to test, how far I will come...
But now suddenly I felt the urge to replay Horizon Zero Dawn first and I am just installing...
So I will probably play both in parallel.
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Sometimes I wonder how people have that much time for gaming. Did you clone yourself or something? ;)
 
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JDR13 said:
Sometimes I wonder how people have that much time for gaming. Did you clone yourself or something? ;)
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That would be a good strategy! But seriously I don't believe that it is a question of more time but of selection: I don't try to play all new games but stay to one game for one or two months usually. For example since January I only played Titan Quest, Tini Tina's Wonderlands (this only for a day or so, didn't grab me, though I loved the earlier Borderlands-Expansion with her), Persona 3 Reloaded and now the Horizons. Last year I only played eight games, so one and a half month per game seems plausible...
 
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Yesterday when I concluded my plat-time in Grimrock two we'd just discovered an area that took a bit of time to fully explore, one part led to an area of the beach that I'd not been able to access before and now I know why, as you had to arrive from below. I left off having just found a new spell for my poor under-used mage, a meteor spell, so I'm keen to see how that will fit into his repertoire.
 
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The past few days in Grimrock two I've found some new amazing weapons, specifically a lightning bow, meteor hammer and a bone blade just earlier today. My squad popped up from underground, in the river area from the Hub and I found a spot that I overlooked earlier, some graveyard or cemetery, so that's where we're exploring now. The underground area was really rough, I ran into some floating creatures that could blind my team at range, which was rather annoying.
 
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Bought Kingdom Come and Expeditions Vikings in the spring steam sale. Played both for a few weeks each. Very good games. Liking Vikings a little bit more...can't recall playing anything Viking themed so really digging that. Strangely liking the full Viking pillage and loot path. KCD feels sort of Bethesda to me. Will probably finish Vikings at some point. KCD probably not unfortunately.

But somehow I wandered back to BG3 and am just loving it all over again. Which is crazy because I played it so much last year. Playing the Durge and have discovered a ton of content I didn't see in act 1 last go around. Darn it I just love this game!
 
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I've not played Baldur's Gate three yet though those other two games you've recently played are quite excellent and you'll have something to return to playing once you've completed the one you're on. And yea, Expeditions Vikings really got a lot right about the culture and lore, imo.
 
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I've tried my hand at a few hours of Stalker - Clear Sky, and while the premise is decent, I don't like the constant rushing and pushing to drive the other faction out of the swamp.
Just makes things stressful and doesn't just let me explore and cover ground at my own pace. I might try just leaving my faction at their own devices and do my own thing, but I worry that at some point I'm going to regret it.

Also, for some reason some times the bandages don't stop the bleeding. Other times they do. Real annoying.
 
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bizorker said:
KCD feels sort of Bethesda to me.
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It gives the same freedom to players, if not more, and it's a big world, but it's not a fantasy game and the story / quests are better. I can see why it gives this impression at first, but I don't think they've got so much in common.

EDIT: I've just seen your other post in the KCD2 thread, about the combat being too difficult. It's normal to feel that way at the beginning of KCD. The game does give you the impression you're a nobody and everything is hard. You have to be patient, not take up too difficult tasks, and train your melee combat and other skills. After a while, it will become much easier.
 
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I've not played a lot of KCD so I can hardly compare them to Bethesda. But Bethesda had decades to learn and improve, and did not really do much of that.
I'd rather be playing a more janky game that is ambitious and wants to explore new experiences, than a more polished game that has all it's interesting parts smoothed out so much that you can't experience anything.
Unfortunately recent Bethesda games are a weird mix of jank (not as significant as AA studios) and also less ambitious.

That being said, and coming back to Stalker, I've kind of had enough jank with Stalker. So I don't think I'm in the mood right now to even try Call of Prypiat.
Clear Sky I'll probably not even continue, since I watched a few reviews and it was mentioned that this one has constant gunplay, unlike the original. That certainly is not what I appreciated most in the original.
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
I've not played a lot of KCD so I can hardly compare them to Bethesda. But Bethesda had decades to learn and improve, and did not really do much of that.
I'd rather be playing a more janky game that is ambitious and wants to explore new experiences, than a more polished game that has all it's interesting parts smoothed out so much that you can't experience anything.
Unfortunately recent Bethesda games are a weird mix of jank (not as significant as AA studios) and also less ambitious.
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I don't entirely agree, but I think it's just a matter of personal perspective.

I think Bethesda improved their own vision, which is one of a streamlined and not-too-involving game. It's not what everyone of us likes, but it had a lot of success.

I haven't played Starfield because I'd need a new computer to do that, but from what I saw, it didn't feel jank at all. It's actually more ambitious, so much so that they couldn't quite make it. Space exploration is one of the most demanding type of games because you must make many worlds available, and they mustn't feel empty or copy-pasted. Bethesda isn't the first one failing (if that's what they did, but it sounds like it).
 
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Redglyph said:
I haven't played Starfield because I'd need a new computer to do that, but from what I saw, it didn't feel jank at all. It's actually more ambitious, so much so that they couldn't quite make it. Space exploration is one of the most demanding type of games because you must make many worlds available, and they mustn't feel empty or copy-pasted. Bethesda isn't the first one failing (if that's what they did, but it sounds like it).
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I sort of did not include Starfield in my above remark. I played a couple of hours of Starfield, and mechanically and gameplay-wise it's probably the most decent of all their games. The shooting mechanics are actually good.
What they botched was the other core component of their games, exploration. The auto-generated planet-size plots of land are quite uninspiring and don't really motivate exploration. The small hand-crafted locations they do spawn also feel repetitive. This could've probably worked had they hand-produced a lot more of these POV locations and made them considerably different. They tried to mold their usual TES games into a space game and it just wasn't that compatible imo.

Also way too much effort was wasted on building a sort of sandbox, with their usual build your ship and your settlement mechanics. I'm just not that kind of person to enjoy that.

To be fair, I'm probably one of the most luke-warm fan of their games overall. The only one I spent a significant amount of time was Morrowind, and also the only one I finished.
All their games just feel too meandering and uninteresting to me. The plot is always uninteresting. The combat is pretty awful overall, even in Morrowind (but that one has other strengths to counter-balance). The only thing all of them have is the huge hand-crafted world, which was always nice. Which they did away with in Starfield.
That's why it feels to me impressive how little their games have changed or improved. It's like, for the most part, they just kept remaking the same game, while also taking out anything that could be too much of an effort for the player.
Were they also the first big name rpg to implement level scaling for all enemies? That was probably the worst thing imaginable. Taking out all of the interesting parts of leveling up and overcoming difficult encounters.
Just taking every opportunity to dilute the experience.
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
I sort of did not include Starfield in my above remark.
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Ah, OK. I can't say much about FO4 and FO76 since I didn't play them, if you were thinking about those games.

I thought Oblivion, Skyrim, and FO3 were OK in their own style. I felt the most motivated in Morrowind, and maybe Skyrim for all the things to discover.
 
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I tried Stalker Clear Sky for another hour, trying to get myself out of a less I left my savegame in.

It's just insane how difficult the beginning of the game is. I can't find any bandages, even though I went through 4-5 bandits I had just killed. None of then had anything to heal or bandage; so I'm in a continual rush for time as I'm bleeding, in the middle of an enemy base I'm raiding, surround by what feels like an endlessly spawning number of bandits. I had counter 5-6 initially, I killed around that number, and now I just made a run for it in the middle of them, to count them again, and there were another 5-6. All with, what feels like, pinpoint accuracy. No wonder one of the reviewers I watched mentioned these bandits are like pinpoint snipers even with sawed off shotguns. So annoying. I think this might really be it for Clear Sky. I just don't have it in meet to keep at this.
 
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My comparison of KCD and Bethesda games was purely based on the rich world graphics and open world (wandering around and randomly getting into a fight or getting a side quest). I agree they are not alike in most other dimensions - setting, combat, etc. I would probably come back and play KCD, but they are releasing this new game, so I'm guessing will just play that one instead at some point.

Also...I am very down on Bethesda games now. Haven't had any desire to try Starfield. I agree with a post above generally critical of them just making the same old stuff. And the engine seems really dated and clunky to me. I would need to see some rave reviews that they've really done something different to buy one of their new titles. Would much rather try this new KCD2 game instead for example.
 
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