What games are you playing now?

My Ubi overload continues: Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (PS4)
No long rant, just two sentences:
The prologue is utter crap, but stay vigilant - this game really gets better by the hours.
Valhalla is everything you love AND hate in a Ubi game.
 
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Trails of Cold Steel three
I have no idea what are others waiting for.
The game addressed it's major problem of overlong final dungeon - it's still long, but at least in my case I didn't reach the point of irritation.
There is however one problem others will refuse to admit - the game still forces MC into romance with the blonde archer. The witch and the swordwielder girls are no go as the game suggests they have a thing going on between them and Fie (who'd be my choice) is totally uninterested in life completely. The new girl is trying to replace a certain Tits character by obscene and doublemeaning remarks, but it's not as funny nor effective.
Can't wait your impressions when you finish it and input on a certain cliffhanger.
Valhalla is everything you love AND hate in a Ubi game.
What I love from Ubi games is that they don't shy away from mature content. You saying loads of it is in?
What I hate in Ubi games is microtransactions scamware in a fullpriced game. Oddly no mainstream rewiews mentioned any of it, is it finally removed?
 
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Valhalla is everything you love AND hate in a Ubi game.

What I love from Ubi games is that they don't shy away from mature content. You saying loads of it is in?
What I hate in Ubi games is microtransactions scamware in a fullpriced game. Oddly no mainstream rewiews mentioned any of it, is it finally removed?

On mature content in a Ubi game:
Hmm, I haven't seen any serious mature content in Ubi's games except these two:
Far Cry 2: You have to be grey during a meaningless war.
Watchdogs: Technology is ambivalent - you decide how to use it.
(plus a VERY DISTANT honorable mention: AC: Rogue)

Sure, no Silent Hill 2 deep maturity (guilt in sexuality and relationship), but IMHO far better than the usual young adult adventure Ubi themes such as: oppression is bad - rebellion is good, freedom over everything else, betrayal by a trusted one, Rabbids are the reincarnation of evil, etc, etc. These are standard storytelling 101 tropes and I'm pretty tired of them. Good pulp fiction, but nothing that will make me think about the story long after I finished the game.

Needless to say, this mature theme thing is utterly subjective: if, say, someone thinks that Thanos is the shining example of a complex character in fiction, I won't disagree with that person. I'll just remark that I read Borges too much. ;)

On microtransactions in Valhalla:
YES there are microtransactions, and on PS4 it is mandatory to have a UPlay account (seriously? c'mon!), but I haven't seen encountered any paywalls yet (except the obligatory DLC season pass).
Note: I've finished Odyssey without paying anything extra (except the obligatory DLCs), so I think Ubi repeats the the same trick -- microtransactions are for:
- cosmetic stuff (if you need this sort of thing, you are hopeless anyway)
- optional timesaver stuff (emphasis on "optional")

For the record, my Ubi bias is the following:
LOVE: production values
HATE: bugs
LOVE: pulp fiction mix of history and myths
HATE: simple stories
LOVE: world building
HATE: bloated gameplay
As far as I can see for now, this is Valhalla in a nutshell.
 
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What I wait for these days is when the urge actually strikes me to play a game, and if the price is something I'm willing to pay. I just don't throw sixty bucks at games anymore, except for a few that I might consider kick starting. I'm a value bin kind of bloke these days, plus since I'm raiding in EQ2 my discretionary play-time is a tad lower, for now at least. Cold Steel three hooked me with a free trial plus discount, and I'm not sure how long it will take me to finish but I thought that I'd pay up simply because of how much fun I had for those eight hours that I played over the weekend.
 
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I've found a very pleasing gaming loop: play AAA for the spectacle, play indies for some breath of fresh air, and replay a few selected golden oldies for reminiscing.

Now it is time for some indie goodness: Legends of Amberland (Switch, also on PC)
Whoa, this is Might and Magic IV reincarnated.
Very nice to play (automap, journal, quick battles, unlimited respec, clean graphics), but somewhat on the easy / boring end of the spectrum. Nevertheless, a quick and fun diversion, best consumed in small doses.
Congratulations to the dev team!
 
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Now it is time for some indie goodness: Legends of Amberland (Switch, also on PC)
Whoa, this is Might and Magic IV reincarnated.
Very nice to play (automap, journal, quick battles, unlimited respec, clean graphics), but somewhat on the easy / boring end of the spectrum. Nevertheless, a quick and fun diversion, best consumed in small doses.
Congratulations to the dev team!

I enjoyed this quite a bit till around level 20. After that point it seemed I never found any new loot. It was just repeats. I played it well over a year ago, so not sure if they ever tweaked it.
 
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Well, got through roughly half of wasteland 3 and decided to restart due to a couple frustrating turn of events. Having gotten back to the point of re-recruiting a previously dead Polly, I'm not at all regretful - best 'companion' since Morte!
 
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Hero-U, West of Loathing. After the Phoenix Point blunder I checked out Wasteland 3 and was surprised to see the "very large font"-option and how consistent the UI was. Because of the right-click move its still unintuitive, - fighting with the UI during exploration and battle, but at least the combat is good enough. The game got to an acceptable level at their second try. Still far from Fallout Tactics or 1-2, but good enough. Especially compared to Phoenix Point's horrible everything outside of the Battlescape.
 
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I think I’m pretty much done with Fallout 4. I have not quite completed the campaign but I have little interest to do so. My character reached a point where combats are no longer fun. I seldom discover anything new, my skills / equipment I care about are maxed.

Instead, I installed Atom RPG. Same post-apocalypse setting but much darker. The interface is dated but at least, it doesn’t feel consol-ish. Dialogs are poorly written, especially their french version, but I like how realistic the world feels. But the difficulty… oh gosh. I don’t remember having ever reloaded so much in a game… Except for Age of Decadence.
 
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I think I’m pretty much done with Fallout 4. I have not quite completed the campaign but I have little interest to do so. My character reached a point where combats are no longer fun. I seldom discover anything new, my skills / equipment I care about are maxed.

I've had the same experience with every RPG from Bethesda since Morrowind. If you don't use mods, you're going to be overpowered long before the end of the game.
 
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Yeah man, Fallout four was a legitimate joke, honestly. I remember playing it right on release, and just simply blowing through any and all opposition. That is, to date, the only Fallout I'll never replay. I didn't demand money back for it, as I did play from start to finish, but man, what a joke compared to every other incarnation of the franchise. One two and three plus New Vegas I'd play over, have and likely will again, but never the fourth. And based on that last game, I'd be taking a very hard look at any future releases before plopping down my coin.
 
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Just finished another run through The Outer Worlds on Switch (patch definitely helped a lot!)

Now playing Fire Emblem Three Houses on Switch. Hadn’t played a Fire Emblem game in over 10 years (since Shadow Dragon on DS), and really enjoying the depth and story and of course the turn-based strategy combat system.
 
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Tried out latest backer beta of Xenonauts 2, out of curiosity. Their last year demo of "direct combat with sectoids in the wild countryside" was way better than this new, UGLY FCKD UP TrainWreck SHT.
On my old fav 5:4 ratio monitor the fonts were truly ElectronMicroscopic. Game is slow as a slain Snail on Mogadon.
Gameplay - as this is an alien killing game - should be absolutely-excitingly-fantastomatically-awesome: INSTEAD the gameplay is a boring braindead ugly FCDK-UP derailed train on a bridge that collapsed into a chasm and everything exploded into a napalm hell then finally turned into scorched molten wreck.

Probably the dogfights were the least repulsive part.. dunno why though..

The Battlescape is the better part of this SHT-heap of a "game". CAN'T ZOOM onto the 3D battlescape.. WHY?

Globe turned flat 2D map maybe got better a notch, but scientist + mechanics characters and all World-management UI elements are very low level, drawn with colored pencils?

Anyway. Combat was so boring and the sound-effects were so bad with the UI being HORRIBLE, that I only like the soldier movement + shooting system and how nicely my soldiers performed the kneel animation. Yeah, the game is that bad. I can't imagine working in their team. It must be hell.

What are they thinking? They are creating a product equal to a new type of chocolate, that has new ingredients of warehouse-dirt freshly swept up from the floor filled with spit and mouse-shit plus dead cockroaches.

WOW!!!!!!! :-OooOOoo Maybe the whole Xeno2 dev team has become moaning zombies???
 
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Playing Call of Duty 2 right now. I was in the mood for a WWII shooter and decided to go with an old favorite.

It's the first time I've played it in 10+ years. It actually hasn't aged as badly as I was expecting, but I don't remember the AI being as bad as it is.

Also still messing around with the Baldur's Gate III EA a little.
 
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Nier Automata. Why didn't anybody tell me this is a shmup and not an arpg. Sticking with it as the story is supposedly good. Graphics are not very good (for a ps4 game) and the world is just empty.

Playing Call of Duty 2 right now. I was in the mood for a WWII shooter and decided to go with an old favorite.
I stopped after CoD 1 and 2 which were great games. There is a new CoD out now which seems to be getting good reviews for the campaign (and ray tracing !)
 
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I stopped after CoD 1 and 2 which were great games. There is a new CoD out now which seems to be getting good reviews for the campaign (and ray tracing !)

I stopped playing CoD years ago. I did play through the Modern Warfare arc, but I've never tried Black Ops or any of the rest.

The WWII titles were great for their time though. I considered replaying CoD 1 as well, but I find that one a little rough by today's standards.
 
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On my old fav 5:4 ratio monitor the fonts were truly ElectronMicroscopic. Game is slow as a slain Snail on Mogadon.

The fonts are a problem in the first game. They were tiny, fortunately there were fan mods so you can avoid eye strain. They always struck me as a slow & lazy developers.
 
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Because I have a PS4 I spent way too much money on for along with almost every game for the system I wanted, I reinstalled Might and Magic 7 and started a playthrough once more. It's been so long I couldn't remember much about the character building process and had to consult a guide. Going Monk/Paladin/Archer/Sorcerer for no apparent reason.
 
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