The Gaming Thread

[Tallyfire]

Ooh, I love haunted house levels. I tried Astro's Playroom, I guess Astro Bot is something like that writ large?

Yeah, Astro Bot is just a bigger pumped-up version of the Playroom. If you’re a long-term Playstation player it has another level of fun beyond the gameplay (it won GOTY last year) in that major characters from Playstation history are collectible and somewhat interactive bots. They have levels dedicated to big titles like God of War and Horizon: ZD (still looking forward to that one). There’s so much humour in it.

Differences between 1 and 2 have mostly been positive. I thought going to an ammo count would be annoying, but it's fine, and makes me switch weapons more often. The bypass and hacks at this point are getting a little tedious, and I'm kind of tired of scanning planets for resources. I think I prefer the weapons and armour system of the first game. It's very common for me to have a big pile of credits but nothing to spend them on.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying it! Yeah, that stuff is tedious. They improved on it in ME3, which feels like a sleeker sequel to ME2.

Oh, and I bought some fish but didn't realize I had to periodically feed them in-game, and they died. But I nailed my direct report and she has rewarded me by offering to feed my new fish while I'm away

That’s the spirit, haha. This game has a lot of replayability, especially with character interactions. If you’ve not done it already, femshep is great for a renegade playthrough. Her voice actress makes the maleshep pale in comparison.

 

[Stuart Dren]

How's your experience with the game? It’s one that’s been on my wishlist for ages but I fear the time sink it will be.

Dwarf Fortress-lite.

It's notorious for sucking people's time. Typically one rage quits for a few days/weeks after the first several colony disasters, but it's got gravity that pulls players right back in, especially when they realise just how vastly customizable the experience is with DLC and mods. I turn down its adaptive difficulty to basically nil, however, because thumbing the scale seems antithetical to the storytelling experience I would want from a simulator.

Since a mod can be as little as an XML file and a PNG (I can't think of anything in the game that uses a sprite sheet), I've even made a small mod for the thing, though that's a deep pit I'd rather not fall into.

 

[BeastBlood1885]

Love Elden Ring. I feel the message about mods screwing up saved games way too hard. I don't know how many campaigns in Total War: Warhammer III I've lost to updates and broken mods.

 

[Night Herald]

I don't know how many campaigns in Total War: Warhammer III I've lost to updates and broken mods.

Oof, that is rough. Happened to me a few times. I love the Total War series, one of my very favorite gaming franchises. Back in the Rome and Medieval II days I used to dream about a Warhammer version, I'd yearn for it, and scour the internet for mods—at least one was eventually made for M2, Call of Warhammer I think it was called, and it was pretty good.

It's so cool that we now have it officially, with all the factions and stuff. I must have about a thousand hours across all the Warhammer ones, maybe fifteen houndred, hard to say as a lot of them are unlogged. Incidentally I downloaded Warhammer III the other day, I really didn't play it that much compared to the first two, and I'm thinking of getting started on a new campaign. It's been way too long since I sank into a Total War experience. I'm not sure what faction to go with, I already did Kislev so probably not that. Any of the campaigns you'd recommend in particular?