Games you are currently playing - Part 7

[Osprey]

Started Hogwarts Legacy on PC. Got a good deal on it during the Steam Fall Sale. About 3 hours in and enjoying it. I will say, playing 1440p Ultra with RT on (I've changed settings since) it's legit the first game to bottleneck my CPU (Hogsmeade) since I built my PC last year.

Unless you have a 4090, you might just want to turn RT off. It barely makes any visual difference in the game, yet really hurts the framerate and frametimes.

 

[93LEAFS]

Unless you have a 4090, you might just want to turn RT off. It barely makes any visual difference in the game, yet really hurts the framerate and frametimes.

Yeah, I've messed around with settings a bit and have decided to basically run 1440p ultra with no DLSS and ray tacing over running 1440p ultra with DLSS quality and ray tracing. The performance hit in this game is just massive. Usually at those levels of quality my 3080ti gets bottlenecked (which is fine and expected) but in this one it was either hitting my CPU (13600k) or my Ram (32gb 5600 CL 36 DDR5). Just not something I've encountered until this game.

 

[SimGrindcore]

When achievement hunting with Far Cry 3, Kona and Rise of the Tomb Raider lately.

 

[Jovavic]

Those three Tomb Raider games are all really fun, IMO. More adventure than Uncharted but still has good action.

I wanted to play Mass Effect 3 so that meant buying it...again. I didn't have a 360 when the first ones were released so I got the first two on PC. I eventually got a 360 and all three games. Then, they finally came to PS3, so I had to buy them. I even got ME3 on Wii U because why the f*** not at that point. Got the legendary edition for Series when it came out....and I just bought it again for PS5. I need help lol

 

[JaegerDice]

Still playing Diablo 4. Duriel is kicking my ass but I just had the Harlequinn drop from a Helltide chest, and Im reworking my paragom board to boost my armor. Thinking the maggot f***er might finally go down this week.

Also bought WWE 2K3 and immediately downloaded most of the AEW roster. I will say, they did a great John Cena spotlight. Instead of playing as Cena, you play as opponents that have beaten him in big matches throughout his career, and he’s there hostjng the mode as the guy out to re-write history. Its very well done.

 

[Petey O]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a chill, simulation-like, relatively idle management game that's a good time sink? Can be 2d, 3d, 3rd person, FPS etc.

PC

 

[Ceremony]

I'm playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider right now and I may be getting old but I'm not going to be complimentary with it.

 

[King Makar19]

Just finished Metroid Dread....screw u Raven Beak

 

[SimGrindcore]

I'm playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider right now and I may be getting old but I'm not going to be complimentary with it.

I absolutely love this game. Better than the 2013 reboot in every way IMO.

Edit: Sorry I read "Rise of the Tomb Raider" Haven't played SOTTR...

 

[Jovavic]

I'm playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider right now and I may be getting old but I'm not going to be complimentary with it.

20 paragraph review incoming?

 

[Ceremony]

20 paragraph review incoming?

I don't even know if I'll manage that much. One thing I'll say is when I looked it up and saw it cost over one hundred million dollars to make I was quite distressed.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I thought the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot was the best one but it might just be how fresh it felt and it skewed my view of the game. Rise of the Tomb Raider kind of felt like a generic cover shooter and while I still enjoyed it, felt like a step back. I actually enjoyed Shadow of the Tomb Raider more than Rise of the Tomb Raider but it was definitely more about puzzles and exploration than combat so to each their own. I can see why someone would hate it. I still don't think it was a particularly great game but worth the few bucks you can get it for on sale.

I've been playing through Dodgeball Academia myself. It starts really slowly but it definitely becomes really enjoyable after the first hour or so. The dodgeball game play is pretty fun even if a bit basic and the story is good for some corny laughs.

 

[mouser]

I’ve enjoyed the 2013 Tomb Raider series reboot, but it’s a very different series of games than the original Tomb Raider series. Far more FPS.

My first instinct when playing Tomb Raider is they reused the Shadow of Mordor game engine. Disclaimer: 2013 Tomb Raider was released before Shadow or Mordor, but I played them in reverse order.

 

[mouser]

Finished Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

I had very high hopes for this game: love survival crafting, exploring, co-op games to play with friends. Yet my overall takeaway is disappointment. There are multiple UI/inventory management design flaws in the game any quality QA team or a Beta test should have resolved long before they officially launched the game.

- The main quest objectives feel very unpolished and unclear in places.
- You can mine tons of different ore and other resources, but there’s rarely a reason to actually use the resources to build something. I finished with 80%+ of collected resources unused.
- The game allows fast travel between bases, so little incentive to building out more than one base. adding onto that:
- The main quest and Moria layout is mostly linear with some random area generation. There’s no incentive to build out a second base when you don’t know where you need to explore next.

I‘m going to give LOTR: Return to Moria a 7/10. That includes a bonus point for all the LOTR lore, otherwise I’d give the current version of the game 6/10.


Short summary: the game feels like it should be in Early Access, not a full “1.0” release.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Started Sniper Elite V, it's a Sniper Elite game alright! Pretty consistent franchise of fun sniper game that you can enjoy the short campaign of then move right on to the next game in your backlog.

 

[aleshemsky83]

I figured id get around to trying mighty fight federation which was a free arena brawler with online multiplayer that epic games store was giving away...theres 12 people online. I guess 9 pm is a little later but it its interesting how theres only like 5 online games anybody plays. Theres no small playerbases for PC multiplayer. Its 200k concurrent players or 12.

Edit: okay this game is terrible, I understand why nobody plays it. They spent a little too much time on the character models and getting guest fighters and not enough on tuning the gameplay.

 

[pistolpete11]

I started God of War : Ragnarok.

God of War (2018) was one of the first games I played when I started gaming and I loved it.

Ragnarok I think is objectively better, but I also don't enjoy it as much as I did back then. More enemy types, you have both weapons from the start and they added in a few other combat mechanics, the dialogue is well written and performed, the story is interesting enough, it looks great...objectively it's a great game so far, but it just doesn't grab me in the same way. I don't know if it's because it is a sequel or if it's because my tastes have changed after playing so many other great games since I played 2018.

 

[Jovavic]

I started God of War : Ragnarok.

God of War (2018) was one of the first games I played when I started gaming and I loved it.

Ragnarok I think is objectively better, but I also don't enjoy it as much as I did back then. More enemy types, you have both weapons from the start and they added in a few other combat mechanics, the dialogue is well written and performed, the story is interesting enough, it looks great...objectively it's a great game so far, but it just doesn't grab me in the same way. I don't know if it's because it is a sequel or if it's because my tastes have changed after playing so many other great games since I played 2018.

I agree and I felt the same way about Horizon and it's sequel. The first games were so great and fresh, both 9s out of 10. The sequels are super solid games but I'd give them 8s, they didn't grow the gameplay enough between the first game and the sequels and I attribute that to Sony putting the sequels on PS4 as well as PS5.

I haven't yet played Spider Man 2 to see if there's that jump in gameplay since it's PS5 only.

 

[flyersnorth]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a chill, simulation-like, relatively idle management game that's a good time sink? Can be 2d, 3d, 3rd person, FPS etc.

PC

Rimworld (depends on your definition of chill, but it's amazing)
Cities: Skylines

I've sunk hundreds of hours into each of these.

 

[pistolpete11]

I agree and I felt the same way about Horizon and it's sequel. The first games were so great and fresh, both 9s out of 10. The sequels are super solid games but I'd give them 8s, they didn't grow the gameplay enough between the first game and the sequels and I attribute that to Sony putting the sequels on PS4 as well as PS5.

I haven't yet played Spider Man 2 to see if there's that jump in gameplay since it's PS5 only.

Good point about jumping console generations. I hadn't played any video game since PS3 and then played God of War 2018 on PS5. Video games have come a long way (in some aspects ).

Didn't care for the first Horizon even a little bit.

Spiderman was OK, but I had played Batman Arkham Knight before and they are very, very similar. To your point, maybe Spiderman 2 will wow me being next gen, but I'm also not running out to get it. It will have to be a steep discount for me.

 

[Osprey]

@Frankie Spankie I know you like both retro shooters and stealth games. I just learned of a new game called Blood West that seems like Cultic with stealth elements. It sounds right up our alley. I don't want to start it and then not finish it before I go home for Christmas, so I'm going to wait until after the New Year to play it, but I thought that I'd tell you about it.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I actually tried it while in early access. It was when it first came out and it was really rough around the edges. I ended up refunding it at the time but I definitely do plan on giving it another shot at some point. My backlog is just so damn big though, not sure when I'll come around to it.

 

[Sad People]

Finished Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

I had very high hopes for this game: love survival crafting, exploring, co-op games to play with friends. Yet my overall takeaway is disappointment. There are multiple UI/inventory management design flaws in the game any quality QA team or a Beta test should have resolved long before they officially launched the game.

- The main quest objectives feel very unpolished and unclear in places.
- You can mine tons of different ore and other resources, but there’s rarely a reason to actually use the resources to build something. I finished with 80%+ of collected resources unused.
- The game allows fast travel between bases, so little incentive to building out more one base. adding onto that:
- The main quest and Moria layout is mostly linear with some random area generation. There’s no incentive to build out a second base when you don’t know where you need to explore next.

I‘m going to give LOTR: Return to Moria a 7/10. That includes a bonus point for all the LOTR lore, otherwise I’d give the current version of the game 6/10.


Short summary: the game feels like it should be in Early Access, not a full “1.0” release.

Did you enjoy Valheim?

 

[mouser]

Did you enjoy Valheim?

Absolutely love Valheim, would rate it 9/10, maybe 9.5/10. Was hoping LOTR Return to Moria would be something closer to Valheim in quality of crafting, base building, exploring and co-op play, but it isn’t anywhere close to Valheim in its 1.0 version.

For example: My co-op group built a couple massive bases in Valheim to use as stepping stones to explore the wider world, plus many smaller forward bases. Valheim also allows you to create portals between bases like LOTR RtM, but you can’t take the most important crafting materials through a portal. Have to actually sail the materials back to your main base or build a new forward staging base with the forging equipment in Valheim.

Valheim also has far more crafting and base construction options than Return to Moria. We overbuilt a lot of stuff in Valheim simply because it was fun and looked cool. LOTR RtM isn’t delivering anywhere near the same incentive to build things for the joy of building.

Another example, exploration differences: In Valheim you have a wide open world to explore, where some biomes are far more dangerous than others, so you dodge around these higher level areas while sailing until you’ve progressively geared up you equipment. LOTR RtM has some elements of RNG map generation, but mostly the path to higher difficulty encounters and materials are gated by non-RNG encounters and fixed map sections.

 

[Sad People]

Absolutely love Valheim, would rate it 9/10, maybe 9.5/10. Was hoping LOTR Return to Moria would be something closer to Valheim in quality of crafting, base building, exploring and co-op play, but it isn’t anywhere close to Valheim in its 1.0 version.

For example: My co-op group built a couple massive bases in Valheim to use as stepping stones to explore the wider world, plus many smaller forward bases. Valheim also allows you to create portals between bases like LOTR RtM, but you can’t take the most important crafting materials through a portal. Have to actually sail the materials back to your main base or build a new forward staging base with the forging equipment in Valheim.

Valheim also has far more crafting and base construction options than Return to Moria. We overbuilt a lot of stuff in Valheim simply because it was fun and looked cool. LOTR RtM isn’t delivering anywhere near the same incentive to build things for the joy of building.

Another example, exploration differences: In Valheim you have a wide open world to explore, where some biomes are far more dangerous than others, so you dodge around these higher level areas while sailing until you’ve progressively geared up you equipment. LOTR RtM has some elements of RNG map generation, but mostly the path to higher difficulty encounters and materials are gated by non-RNG encounters and fixed map sections.

Yeah Valheim was a really cool game. I spent too much time on my first base and over did it a bit so I lost interest before I could really progress through the story only made it past the first boss. One of these days I gotta do another play through and limit myself to my base builds before I burn out.