The "What are you playing now?" Thread

[Walter White]

Well, supposedly Rocksteady is done with the Arkham series now, so it'll probably have to be someone else who takes over. Then again, maybe that was a play on words and they are starting a new Batman series that isn't titled Arkham. The prequel that other company made was competent enough, though, and had better writing than the first two Arkham games, so if they take over it wouldn't be terrible.

What I think would make the best Batman game ever, making it co op. Or at least having a co op mode, either through online but preferably split screen. One person gets to be Batman, the other gets to be Robin, Night Wing, Bat Girl, Cat woman etc. etc.

I think that would be ALOT of fun. At least if not the whole game, make a separate story mode or mode designed for that. There has been a big lack of good split screen games in recent years, that's why I miss the old days. Battlefront might bring it back some though, me and my brother had a good time playing that, still play it on ps2 once in awhile if we can.

 

[Otsego Mar]

Your mom.












Sorry, every time I see this thread I've been meaning to say it.

 

[Marcus]

So I got pretty good at this whole gwent thing in Witcher 3...

By the way, it's insane how overpowered the Nilfgaard card faction is in gwent. I don't think I've lost a game in the past twenty hours or so of playing Witcher 3, and I play it relatively frequently (every time I meet a merchant I haven't played before, in fact). I'm pretty sure the last time I actually lost was in the big tournament at the Pasiflora, and I went into that with a weak set of cards (relative to my deck now).

Spy cards are just so fucking powerful. If you get a lucky draw with two or three of them in your hand, you've basically won the game already. Combine that with a decoy that you can use to swap out an opponent spy card if they play one, and the Nilfgaard leader card that lets you steal a card from an opponent's discard pile (hint: steal back one of your spy cards), and it's damn near impossible to lose unless you get absolutely fucked on a draw.

I remember how frustrating gwent was when I was just starting out in the game. Now my entire hand is typically a decoy, a scorch, a commander horn, spies, medics, and heroes.

I've got probably five or six spy cards in my deck and at least two or three decoys. I end up drawing almost my entire deck when I play. I play as the Northern Realms, but I don't think it matters much because a lot of my cards are faction-neutral cards like heroes anyway (one of the best being Mysterious Elf, which has 0 attack power and counts as a hero so your opponent can't decoy it).

Nilfgaard is pretty cheap, though. They automatically win tiebreakers and their standard unit cards are pretty strong.

That being said, it's going to be quite a while until I collect all the cards for that quest. Just doesn't seem reasonably attainable unless you dump a minimum of 100 hours into this game.

Can't wait for the DLC to drop in October, although new game plus should keep me busy until then.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I've got probably five or six spy cards in my deck and at least two or three decoys. I end up drawing almost my entire deck when I play. I play as the Northern Realms, but I don't think it matters much because a lot of my cards are faction-neutral cards like heroes anyway (one of the best being Mysterious Elf, which has 0 attack power and counts as a hero so your opponent can't decoy it).

Nilfgaard is pretty cheap, though. They automatically win tiebreakers and their standard unit cards are pretty strong.

That being said, it's going to be quite a while until I collect all the cards for that quest. Just doesn't seem reasonably attainable unless you dump a minimum of 100 hours into this game.

Can't wait for the DLC to drop in October, although new game plus should keep me busy until then.

I've already gotten all the cards. Finished that quest at around the 80 hour mark. It's really not that difficult. I found a site online where you can check mark the cards you've already acquired, and it tells you where the ones you're missing can be found (or if they are randomly won by beating merchants). I also used google to just find a list of merchants who play gwent, and then went around and found ones I hadn't played before. The trickiest one is probably the merchant from Claywich, as the merchant himself is being held captive in a bandit camp a ways away that I probably never would have found (at least not in any reasonable amount of time since I'm not actively seeking out the question marks on my map right now) without the guide online. He sells four or five cards that you can't get anywhere else, so if you don't find and rescue him, you can't complete your deck.

That site isn't perfect, as it's not always totally accurate, but it worked well enough for me to find everything in just a couple of hours. I like gwent a lot, though, so I didn't really mind doing it. The only downside is that I have almost no reason to play gwent any more. It would be nice if you could wager more than 10 gold on a match. It would make me more inclined to play it for fun...not that I need money at this point in the game.

I agree that Nilfgaard is kind of an overpowered deck, but fuck it...I'm playing to win.

 

[Marcus]

I've already gotten all the cards. Finished that quest at around the 80 hour mark. It's really not that difficult. I found a site online where you can check mark the cards you've already acquired, and it tells you where the ones you're missing can be found (or if they are randomly won by beating merchants). I also used google to just find a list of merchants who play gwent, and then went around and found ones I hadn't played before. The trickiest one is probably the merchant from Claywich, as the merchant himself is being held captive in a bandit camp a ways away that I probably never would have found (at least not in any reasonable amount of time since I'm not actively seeking out the question marks on my map right now) without the guide online. He sells four or five cards that you can't get anywhere else, so if you don't find and rescue him, you can't complete your deck.

That site isn't perfect, as it's not always totally accurate, but it worked well enough for me to find everything in just a couple of hours. I like gwent a lot, though, so I didn't really mind doing it. The only downside is that I have almost no reason to play gwent any more. It would be nice if you could wager more than 10 gold on a match. It would make me more inclined to play it for fun...not that I need money at this point in the game.

I agree that Nilfgaard is kind of an overpowered deck, but fuck it...I'm playing to win.

Don't worry about linking the site or anything.

Truth be told, I think I'm actually pretty close to collecting them all. I haven't been playing much of anything lately, but I think it's something I could probably knock out in a few more days. I think I've got Geralt at somewhere around level 40, so there shouldn't be anything I can't face and win at this point.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Don't worry about linking the site or anything.

Truth be told, I think I'm actually pretty close to collecting them all. I haven't been playing much of anything lately, but I think it's something I could probably knock out in a few more days. I think I've got Geralt at somewhere around level 40, so there shouldn't be anything I can't face and win at this point.

I didn't bookmark the site or I would have linked it. I imagine if you google something related to finding gwent cards it will pop up.

 

[AuxiliaryPie]

HumbleBundle is killing it right now. Build your own Telltale games bundle...
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/bundle/telltalegames/

• Game of Thrones + Tales From The Borderlands + A Wolf Among Us + The Walking Dead Seasons 1 & 2 = $19.49

 

[Walter White]

I got a 25 dollar gift card on ebay that expires soon. I'm trying to figure out something smart to do with it. I have a Ps4. Should I put it towards MLB the show 15? Never played it and it's like 30 bucks on ebay.

Or trying to get creative, I'm trying to see if I can use the gift card to buy a Playstation store card. Or turn it into a 20 dollar Amazon gift card and put that towards a pre order like 2k or Battlefront.

Decisions, decisions. I'm really trying to stretch this. Or I could buy something on sale for ebay that was 100 dollars and is down to 20 to get the most value, and then even re sell that at retail to make a bigger profit if I don't want it.

But I'm guessing nobody else thinks this much about these things.

 

[gourimoko]

Playing L.A. Noire...

Great game concept, amazing setting and vibe, but.. it has some serious flaws...

The investigative mechanic is just outright bullshit. It's essentially just a modified version of point and click adventure which then turns into a guessing game with interrogations.

I say that because while telling if someone is telling the truth or not is generally fairly easy; telling whether or not they are lying is less so. Also, "lie" means to always make an accusation of deceit, which in turn, always means guessing the correct evidence to back up your assertion. At times, you might think one piece of evidence naturally links into another but the game developers didn't think it through.

It's unfortunate, but it really brings the game down from what it could've been.

The game would've been infinitely better with naturally branching dialogue trees based on the evidence you've collected. You could have a system that wouldn't allow you to ask more than a certain number of questions before someone lawyers up; but so often we here the threat of violence - I don't get why lawyering up would even end the interrogation. That part also makes little sense.

Also, considering it seems apparent that violence is a regular part of these investigations; I'm not sure why that isn't in the game. It's not beneath Rockstar (see GTA V, Trevor interrogation), so it isn't a moral issue. And your character continually references "giving out lumps." So... not sure why that isn't a way to reset interrogations even if it means reducing your stars at the end of the case.

Also, you're clearly charging the wrong guy in a lot of cases - and you know it, but there's this invisible, artificial barrier, preventing you from NOT continuing on with the prosecution.

Another thing that's upsetting is the random street crime you face during your investigations. It's generally placed at seeming random locations throughout the map - but this is tiresome and boring. Driving constantly back and forth between these locations is annoying - but the reality is is that if you choose not to, you'll level up very slowly making the game more difficult (more guesswork).

The game teases that you can solve cases early, but that's not really true. You can solve cases incorrectly, but never truly early.

And worse of all, and this is probably true for all GTA's from 3 to 5 including L.A. Noire, is the scripted car chases.

Driving in GTA is awful. Straight up, the driving mechanics in these games are terrible, and I say that as someone who is quite good at it, but man is it cumbersome compared to even the simplest racing games. So when you're constantly chasing criminals on the road, and you expect them to suffer the same shit mechanics only to see their cars actually teleport across the road - it's insane.

You may never notice this if you're not really good at racing in GTA, but if you are, try to get up on a guy too early in the script, and try to run him into the side of a building. The physics in the game completely breaks and he'll somehow manage to evade you - even if it means hoping to the other side of traffic. That gets old after the 3rd or 4th time it happens.

Foot-chases suck.. Why can't I catch up to a fat old man when I'm a cop and former Marine? What the fuck? When you get close to early, every guy turns into Usain Bolt and just darts off. I've never lost an assailant, but the scripted chases are fucking annoying.

The game is really fun and engrossing, but that's because of the setting, mood, story, and the very interesting characters. Very much like GTA V. Rockstar and Bondi did great on that front, although there are some obvious issues - its generally forgiven because it's still a video game and expectations are generally low with respect to story and character development.

All in all, I'd give the game a solid 8.5. I take away points for being slightly monotonous with overused minigames (investigation/interrogation) that weren't very well thought out. Also take away points for having basically no mods and no DLC after 5 years of being released. You can beat this game relatively quickly (25-35 hrs), and replayability is low, I think, since you know the outcome of the cases and since the game tells you if you fucked up an interrogation (so you'll remember who lied and who didn't - I dunno why it does this, it removes suspense from the game).

Hope they do a part 2 to the game; but make it more difficult with less hand holding and a better interrogation system.

 

[Walter White]

Playing L.A. Noire...

Great game concept, amazing setting and vibe, but.. it has some serious flaws...

The investigative mechanic is just outright bullshit. It's essentially just a modified version of point and click adventure which then turns into a guessing game with interrogations.

I say that because while telling if someone is telling the truth or not is generally fairly easy; telling whether or not they are lying is less so. Also, "lie" means to always make an accusation of deceit, which in turn, always means guessing the correct evidence to back up your assertion. At times, you might think one piece of evidence naturally links into another but the game developers didn't think it through.

It's unfortunate, but it really brings the game down from what it could've been.

The game would've been infinitely better with naturally branching dialogue trees based on the evidence you've collected. You could have a system that wouldn't allow you to ask more than a certain number of questions before someone lawyers up; but so often we here the threat of violence - I don't get why lawyering up would even end the interrogation. That part also makes little sense.

Also, considering it seems apparent that violence is a regular part of these investigations; I'm not sure why that isn't in the game. It's not beneath Rockstar (see GTA V, Trevor interrogation), so it isn't a moral issue. And your character continually references "giving out lumps." So... not sure why that isn't a way to reset interrogations even if it means reducing your stars at the end of the case.

Also, you're clearly charging the wrong guy in a lot of cases - and you know it, but there's this invisible, artificial barrier, preventing you from NOT continuing on with the prosecution.

Another thing that's upsetting is the random street crime you face during your investigations. It's generally placed at seeming random locations throughout the map - but this is tiresome and boring. Driving constantly back and forth between these locations is annoying - but the reality is is that if you choose not to, you'll level up very slowly making the game more difficult (more guesswork).

The game teases that you can solve cases early, but that's not really true. You can solve cases incorrectly, but never truly early.

And worse of all, and this is probably true for all GTA's from 3 to 5 including L.A. Noire, is the scripted car chases.

Driving in GTA is awful. Straight up, the driving mechanics in these games are terrible, and I say that as someone who is quite good at it, but man is it cumbersome compared to even the simplest racing games. So when you're constantly chasing criminals on the road, and you expect them to suffer the same shit mechanics only to see their cars actually teleport across the road - it's insane.

You may never notice this if you're not really good at racing in GTA, but if you are, try to get up on a guy too early in the script, and try to run him into the side of a building. The physics in the game completely breaks and he'll somehow manage to evade you - even if it means hoping to the other side of traffic. That gets old after the 3rd or 4th time it happens.

Foot-chases suck.. Why can't I catch up to a fat old man when I'm a cop and former Marine? What the fuck? When you get close to early, every guy turns into Usain Bolt and just darts off. I've never lost an assailant, but the scripted chases are fucking annoying.

The game is really fun and engrossing, but that's because of the setting, mood, story, and the very interesting characters. Very much like GTA V. Rockstar and Bondi did great on that front, although there are some obvious issues - its generally forgiven because it's still a video game and expectations are generally low with respect to story and character development.

All in all, I'd give the game a solid 8.5. I take away points for being slightly monotonous with overused minigames (investigation/interrogation) that weren't very well thought out. Also take away points for having basically no mods and no DLC after 5 years of being released. You can beat this game relatively quickly (25-35 hrs), and replayability is low, I think, since you know the outcome of the cases and since the game tells you if you fucked up an interrogation (so you'll remember who lied and who didn't - I dunno why it does this, it removes suspense from the game).

Hope they do a part 2 to the game; but make it more difficult with less hand holding and a better interrogation system.

I forgot I had this game. Back before I sold my Ps3 and all my games to get a Ps4.

It was pretty fun. I liked it a lot more than most people. A lot of my friends and other people hated it.

I miss play Red Dead Redemption. That was like my favorite game ever. I could just sit there and play poker for 2 hours. So much to do. I hope they bring Red Dead back strong on next gen.

 

[Walter White]

I don't know why I'm posting in here so much, but random question for Ps4 users.

Has the rubber on the grips of the analog sticks began to crack and rip off yet? I have two controllers and it has happened to both of them. I'm thinking about buying thumb grips to see if that is a solution. I think it should cover it up and prevent it from getting worse. Anyone else done that?

I swear man, that is my one complaint about Playstation. Their controllers always have issues where it should be an easy solution. I honestly think they do it on purpose so people have to buy more controllers and it makes them more money.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Driving in GTA is awful. Straight up, the driving mechanics in these games are terrible, and I say that as someone who is quite good at it, but man is it cumbersome compared to even the simplest racing games. So when you're constantly chasing criminals on the road, and you expect them to suffer the same shit mechanics only to see their cars actually teleport across the road - it's insane.

I thought GTAIV was where they really broke driving. They added that physics system and tried to make driving realistic, but apparently not a single person at Rockstar pointed out that, in a game like GTA, it's supposed to be fucking fun, not realistic. Nothing else about GTA is even remotely realistic, so why should driving be that way? It didn't make any sense. They made it better in GTAV, but it's still not great. At least in V you had Franklin's special ability to get you out of tough scrapes during chases (at least when you were allowed to play as him).

Generally, though, cars really should handle better in GTA, and I don't know why they don't. GTAIV was by far the worst offender. Driving in that came was an absolute chore, especially when you failed a mission and had to drive ten fucking miles to get back to the start point because some asshole didn't think auto-saving would be a good idea.

 

[gourimoko]

I thought GTAIV was where they really broke driving. They added that physics system and tried to make driving realistic, but apparently not a single person at Rockstar pointed out that, in a game like GTA, it's supposed to be fucking fun, not realistic. Nothing else about GTA is even remotely realistic, so why should driving be that way? It didn't make any sense. They made it better in GTAV, but it's still not great. At least in V you had Franklin's special ability to get you out of tough scrapes during chases (at least when you were allowed to play as him).

Generally, though, cars really should handle better in GTA, and I don't know why they don't. GTAIV was by far the worst offender. Driving in that came was an absolute chore, especially when you failed a mission and had to drive ten fucking miles to get back to the start point because some asshole didn't think auto-saving would be a good idea.

If that's what they call "realistic" I dunno what to say.. I mean, it's abysmal...

I don't know why they don't just copy another popular racer's mechanics, like Burnout, or something that everyone is familiar with. I'm not asking for the game to handle like Forza or Gran Turismo (although, if that were an option, that'd be amazing); but.. this is really shitty.

Hell, even Mario Kart handles better...

 

[Jack Brickman]

If that's what they call "realistic" I dunno what to say.. I mean, it's abysmal...

I don't know why they don't just copy another popular racer's mechanics, like Burnout, or something that everyone is familiar with. I'm not asking for the game to handle like Forza or Gran Turismo (although, if that were an option, that'd be amazing); but.. this is really shitty.

Hell, even Mario Kart handles better...

I just remember them making a huge deal of the physics engine in GTAIV and how it would make driving so much more realistic. Then you played the game and it was absolutely horrible any time you needed even remote precision.

Again, realism is not part of GTA, so I really don't know why most of the cars just can't handle amazingly. It would make it so much more fun.

 

[gourimoko]

I just remember them making a huge deal of the physics engine in GTAIV and how it would make driving so much more realistic. Then you played the game and it was absolutely horrible any time you needed even remote precision.

Again, realism is not part of GTA, so I really don't know why most of the cars just can't handle amazingly. It would make it so much more fun.

See, I don't mind most of the cars not handling well; what I mind is the mechanics themselves.

The way the game handles racing physics is a joke. Spinouts are absurd, the breaking mechanics are simply wrong, and cars steer like large trucks - when this isn't the case in "reality."

My problem is that, whatever it is their attempting to do, simple driving in GTA is tedious because it's difficult. Also, scaling is fucked, so average distances make no sense. In GTAV this is much better, but in L.A. Noire and previous GTA's it's awful.

The problem has to do with the game and physics engines themselves. They aren't actually using a dedicated vehicle-based physics engine, but the engine found in almost every other game engine (Bullet). That engine is designed, from the ground-up, to be extremely lightweight, crossplatform, and capable of running on low-end hardware.

So what we end up with is very unrealistic and unnatural vehicle physics.

The larger issue is that people have a fairly good, almost innate, feel for how the natural world should behave. So when you're driving or flying in GTA and it feels - weird - it's a distraction.

Sadly, for financial reasons, it's not likely this will change anytime soon. As far as their concerned, it's likely good enough.