The greatest games of all time & what are you playing now?

[david]

I know we have some very passionate and experienced gamers here on this forum. So I'd like to get member's opinions on the following topics:

• - What are the greatest games of all time, and why?
  - What are you playing at the moment, and how is it?

Here are mine...

Greatest game of all time: Goldeneye (Nintendo 64) closely followed by Crysis 1 (PC) and GTA Vice City (PC)
I'm a pacifist, but I love FPS and 3PS's... Goldeneye was so satisfying to play, and the multiplayer was fair, and fun! Crysis 1 is an oldie but I still mess with the North Koreans in this game occasionally, the AI is quite smart, and the suit's powers give some interesting tactical choices. I loved GTA Vice City for similar reasons, it offers decent tactical choices in completing missions along with plenty of opportunity to mess about in a fun sandbox world.

What I'm playing now: Darksiders 2 (PC) and Just Cause 2 (PC)
I'm downloading Darksiders 2 right now, because it looks like a lot of flashy, fast-paced fun. And I've been enjoying Just Cause 2 recently because though it is an old game, it offers a huge, beautiful sandbox world with lots of tactical options (a bit like Crysis and GTA Vice City), solid gameplay (once you get on top of the controls) and plenty to blow up!

I've been gaming forever (I remember Breakout and Space Invaders in the arcade) but my choices are really shallow in terms of story! On the flipside, I'm really looking forward to playing something a bit deeper, like Journey, when I can get my hands on a Playstation one of these days. In choosing books, movies and games, I do occasionally try out the heavier classics, like Dear Ester, but I'm mostly about fun.

I still believe that terrific, fun games can have great stories, interesting characters and thought-provoking ideas too: one day I'll find a game that is both fun and deeply satisfying as art too... though I suspect that Journey is this... and, hopefully Ghost of a Tale will be too! Here's the ancient Breakout and Space Invaders, but modern games are waaaaaaay better:

[evilkinggumby]

Hoo that's a hard one. My moods change so often that I don't stick with a game for too long and swap back and forth. Likely why I don't always finish games.

The handful of games I always find myself going back to would be

Burnout:Revenge
SSX Tricky
Fallout 3
Persona 3 or 4

Strange assortment I guess. I love the gameplay and different ways to play Burnout, and even though I stink at racing games I love the fact after failing at a time trial or race a few times you can swap to something more aggressive and let your anger out for a while before trying it again. With SSX Tricky, I just love the controls, the overall level design, the "fun" and gobs of personality and charm the whole game has. I'm not much for sports games, so this is the odd one.

Fallout 3 because of my fascination with the decay of the world and this weird pre-occupation with wanting to see what stuff looks like after nature has taken it back. There has been plenty of modern movies and games that do this, so that's just fun. But yeah Fallout 3 was just fascinating, and the modding for it made it all the better.

Persona 3 and 4 are older games (originally) but I loved how they took typical rpg'ing and changed it enough that I really developed a sense of caring and interest in some of the characters and sub plots. They eat up a lot of time, but I've played the 2 of them many many times.

Currently Playing: What I am playing the most right now is Might & Magic: Heroes VI, but I am only on the second tutorial mission and not doing very good. I've been away from turn based strategy rpg's so I guess I just stink

[Pulsar]

I guess I haven't really played that many games and my age means I haven't tried too many classics, and so my selections are a bit random!

My favourite is probably Call of Duty 4, it was just such a good FPS and definitely my most hours in any game, which I guess is to some extent a good measure. (In terms of FPSs I find Crysis strange in that I think it is a hugely overrated game.)

I also loved Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (on the Wii, lol) but I haven't played any of the other Zelda games.

I guess a mention should also go to the recent Bioshock Infinite, with an amazing story and world.

At the moment I have just finished my Hotline Miami experience and I am playing World of Tanks (a random F2P a friend got me into), FTL and occasionally Just Cause 2 (have you tried the multiplayer mod beta? )

I think I would really like a game like Fallout 3, but it came out in a period where I wasn't really playing anything, or Skyrim, which my PC has only recently been good enough to play, and I often ponder whether to buy them but have decided to wait for the next thing like them as it seems too late to really get all the hours into them.

[Raggon]

Lol when I was younger I had the SNES and loved Yoshi's Island the best. Then we got a gamecube and played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door to death. I'm not sure if that just had a great story, or I just was too easily pleased.

[FrozenCherry]

The current games I've been playing are:
Cart Life. About the life of three persons as they sale newspaper, or food from street carts.
Papers, please. About a immigration inspector in a fictional dystopian USSR-like country in 1982.

[einarwh]

Oh, that's difficult, since all lists will be incomplete and fail to do justice to some games. Some games I've spent an inordinate time playing though (in no particular order):

• Pirates!
• Civilization
• Angband
• Populous
• Defender of the Crown
• Monkey Island
• Baldur's Gate
• Red Dead Redemption
• The Witcher
• The Bard's Tale
• Ascheron's Call
• King's Quest III
• Ultima III
• Faery Tale Adventure
• Below the Root
• Elite

[KwisatzHaderach]

Yoshi's Island and Goldeneye sure were great games!

The greatest game of all time...? Would have to pick Little Big Adventure 2, because I'm one sentimental bastard! Made by Frenchmen too btw!

Also highly recommended:

Archimedean Dynasty (Schleichfahrt)
Dark Forces II
Gothic II
Risen I
Faster than light
Dishonored
Natural Selection II (incredibly well done asymmetrical team based FPS/RTS hybrid)

I'm presently playing Master's thesis - Investigating the northern alpine molasse basin. It's very boring though, so I'll give it a little more time until the end of this month, before I'll return to Natural Selection II

[JeremiahPena]

I've played far too few games to make a statement on the greatest games of all time. I play mostly indie games, with a few big titles here and there.

Right now I'm slowly making my way through Super Meat Boy, and Bioshock Infinite. I'm in the middle of Miasmata (really beautiful game, the best exploration in any game I can think of, and some truly terrifying moments), but I haven't actually started it up in a month or so.

On my favorite games list, Amnesia and Penumbra (first two) are the top, followed by the likes of Roller Coaster Tycoon (most played), Dear Esther, Portal, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (on Sega Genesis).

[einarwh]

So with respect to the second second question, not really playing anything in anger these days - combination of having kids that fill up my spare time pretty efficiently and not really having been spellbound by any game in quite a while - of course, Ghost of a Tale should rectify that

In the meantime I've been spending some evenings with Defender's Quest and will have a go at Dishonored when it arrives in the mail.

[david]

such a wide selection of games, on a variety of platforms

@EvilKing... I have Burnout on my laptop, but I need a higher spec machine to play it properly... I'm getting too much control lag atm, but I'm lookin' forward to a quicker machine. My favorite car racer is Outrun 2 SP, in the arcade, which just controls so well. SSX Tricky looks great! Reminds me of the Alpine Racer arcade game I happily play whenever I see it. I love to ski and snowboard (and surf) so I'm still looking for a home option to scratch these itches

@Pulsar... Just Cause 2 would be a lot of fun in multiplayer, I'll definitely look into that. It's weird though, I had a couple of Nintendos (N64 and a DS), but I've never played a Zelda game: for sure I'll be watching for an opportunity to try one out. Btw Seith is a Zelda fan. I haven't played Call of Duty 4, but I like shooters, so I'm sure that I'd enjoy it... also Bioshock Ultimate is on my future playlist. Its a personal thing, perhaps, but the sunny open world tropical island setting of the original Crysis, human AI, and tactical options were a lot of fun (aliens not so much).

@Raggon... wow, Yoshi's Island and Paper Mario, those are classics (that I've never played, sadly) from back in the day!

@FrozenCherry... Papers Please and Cart Life are two utterly mad slices of indie genius - who would have thought that they'd be hot games! It warms my heart to see such off-beat topics and themes explored successfully. Incredible!

@Einarwh... you are right it is incredibly tough to choose! You mention a whole bunch of classic and seminal titles, going way back to the early eighties.... what platforms were you playing on? I recall the original Elite on my humble ZX Spectrum and a friend's Commodore 64 as maybe the first first-person game I ever played... kind of made my dreams come true... an awesome spaceship-dogfighting and trading game. I love Rockstar's games, especially the GTA series, so I've wanted to play Red Dead Redemption for a while now... but I haven't had the Sony hardware to play it (or Journey).

@Kwisatz... If you liked Gothic II and Risen 1 you are in the right place - as you know Seith is certainly looking to them as references for GoaT, though there may be less combat. I'm intrigued by Natural Selection II and Dishonored... dammit if only I had more time and money!

@ Jeremiah... bless you, you musical genius. Even if you had recommended Desert Bus for the Sega Genesis CD, possibly the worst videogame of all time (deliberately), you would still be a hero of mine: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/e ... eated.html

[evilkinggumby]

@David- Burnout on the laptop eh? I am guessing Burnout: Paradise? I actually don't own that, but I did see a good bit of it on my friend's rig. I Like the fact it really made a big open explorable world to play in, though the fact they were straying away from the style and fun of the prior games bummed me out a bit. Really, I wanted crash mode to stay so the fact they took it out (and instead just let you do a pseudo-crash mode whenever you wreck) steered me away. Burnout: Revenge was on ps2 and xbox 360 so if you have either it's worth checking. Even on ps2 it is a great looking game.

SSX Tricky is very.. over the top so don't expect a realistic snowboarding experience It is also tweaked to make it less realistic (read: difficult) and more fun and forgiving. But, it has a ton of challenge too. Easy to learn, pretty tough to master. The other entries in the series are hit or miss. I like the new SSX they released (sort of called SSX Deadly Descents unofficially) for xbox 360/ps3 but it is not as full of attitude, a lot more realistic, and a LOT harder overall. Still fun, but some of the mountains you access are impossibly tough.

For anyone who did enjoy Zelda and old school rpg's I'd reccomend grapping Evoland if you can off steam. At least, if it's on sale cheap. It's a fairly short campaign, and the final boss fight is a little rediculously hard, but the overall game and concept is total nostalgia fun. I played it on my pc using a usb snes controller.. haha. Seeing the game evolve from old school to newer 3d graphics is just fun.



Currently started out with Dragon Warrior 7 on the PSX and have to say it's charming, hard, but seems pretty damn kool. Robust, massive, nice visuals and great music. Since it is notorious for being one of the longest games on the system to play through, I'm likely going to be enjoying it for quite some time. Hopefully worth the money spent.

[einarwh]

Well yeah, I suppose I'm something of an old-timer. My first machine was the Commodore 64, then I had an Amiga 500, and finally my dad had a PC (for word processing and running statistics, no web yet). I recall being thoroughly unimpressed by the graphics of the early PC games compared to the Amiga. Such humble beginnings, and look at where we are now! Unreal. Anyways, looking back, I see that a lot of the games that left a lasting impression on me were made around 1987-1990, which corresponds to my being like 12-15 years old. So I suppose I'm just being sentimental and reminiscing about being a kid

[david]

@EvilKing... yeah, my version is Burnout: Paradise for the PC. Darn it though, you are tempting me to pick up an old PS2, there are a raft of great titles that can be bought for nothing. I left mine behind when I left London. Evoland with that little SNES controller looks so very, very cute.

@Einarwh... I'm an old gamer too! Our first home game machine was a ZX Spectrum (sadly, the mighty Commodore 64 was too expensive in Ireland). Like you, we then moved up to an Amiga... for me that's exactly when home video games started to become good... the graphics moved beyond pixelated sprites. I remember awesome titles like Lemmings, Robocop and Wing Commander. Eventually, we got a laptop PC with Doom.. yay!

[evilkinggumby]

I haven't played much lately, but currently I am stepping back to old rpg gaming on my pc. I grabbed a cheap copy of Septerra Core on Steam and so have been playing that for about a week now. I actually already own it from many years back on cd, still in it's case, but I wanted to get a already patched copy that would be easy t just download and get rolling.

I never finished the game back then, as the internet was not the wealth of info it is now, and I had become stuck not knowing how to deal with a puzzle early on. Now I am much farther into it and despite being an old game and all, it holds up pretty good. Mostly-ok voice acting (they voiced almost everything spoken, surprisingly) and generally good graphics for its time. Back around that time they used high detail CG renders baked into 2d sprites and backgrounds, so you had the illusion of high def 3d models without actually using them. Think Donkey Kong Country or Killer Instinct. Though "high detail" back then is not like now. And the game runs at a base 640x480

I guess I mostly like it for it's weird aesthetic, strange imaginative world scenario, and strange characters. I'd csall it a bit of a "hidden gem" as it's not as instant classic as most rpg's of that time, but worth a look for those willing to give it a try.

[david]

@EvilKing... that is weirdly cool and exotic if you like vintage rpg's, I think (not sure) Seith is a fan of 'Legend of Grimrock', which was more of a hit in Europe than the US.

You might find the official 'Legend of Grimrock' website at www.grimrock.net strangely, unusually familiar... that's b'coz Seith asked me to build the GoaT website just like it.

[evilkinggumby]

@EvilKing... that is weirdly cool and exotic if you like vintage rpg's, I think (not sure) Seith is a fan of 'Legend of Grimrock', which was more of a hit in Europe than the US.

You might find the 'Legend of Grimrock' website strangely, unusually familiar... that's b'coz Seith asked me to build the GoaT website just like it.

Actually I've owned it for a while. I haven't played it full through and beaten it yet, but I did grab it for sure. Great throwback to old games.

[david]

Disclaimer: I support more peaceful themes in video games 100%, but I haven't found a satisfying pacifist game yet, except the original Lemmings on the Amiga way back. Fingers crossed that it will be GOAT.



"Splinter Cell - Blacklight", the sequel to my favorite game "Splinter Cell - Conviction" was discounted on a Steam sale a few days ago. I bought it and I'm delighted with it!

The new(er) game is exceptional: controls, visuals, structure and AI have all been taken to the next level. It also seems to have even more replay value, with lots of extras too, like Spies V Mercs and multiplayer. For me, the story is the usual military tech save the world macho drivel, which we've heard a million times but c'est la vie.

Anyway, the tension of sneaking around silently, the sensation of power as I ease into a favorable position. finally getting the drop on my enemies gives me an immense buzz. There are plenty of interesting tactical choices to make, regarding routes and cover.

So far, so good, but what makes Splinter Cell (both Conviction and Blacklight) awesome is that, if I carelessly make an error, the game flips 180 degrees. Suddenly, control and silence becomes chaos and bedlam as the excellent AI shouts, opens fire, and converges on my position. I have to scramble desperately to survive. If I give myself away, it often comes down to a frantic open gunfight, for which my character isn't really equipped but can prevail in panic-mode, at a pinch. Or I can make a mad dash to hide elsewhere, sometimes getting wounded as I break line-of-sight to get away, perhaps needing to wait to recover, weakened, trapped in a dead end, and hope the AI doesn't find me.

One thing though, the 'mark and execute' mechanic makes it too easy... the true Splinter Cell operator does things manually. It's way more fun and risky this way

[evilkinggumby]

I blame David and his fondness for violence for my current game of choice: Valkyria Chronicles on PS3.



It is challenging but not impossible. I like that it takes on some of the complexities of war, but with a very different tone. The music sounds more akin to a whimsical fantasy RPG and the art style is also sort of light and painterly (I love that they tried to make it look like pencil sketch anime instea dof hyper-realistic graphics). In a way it is 180 degrees from modern gritty violent shooters. It also uses a sort of turn based system. Imagine playing a war game where a lot of the combat was in Fallout 3 or NV V.A.T.S. system, except you have free abilities to move around the battlefield as you choose (within a certain range) .

It has it's clunky flaws but overall I really like it and it's one of the few games that, despite failing repeatedly at a mission, I'm compelled (almost obsessed) to retry it and make it work.



Sadly it only had this one game on PS3 and most of the other games are on portables. I may beef up my collection of them on the psp/vita when Sony TV hits this winter so I can check em on my tv large scale (though lower rez). We'll see.

Otherwise I have had a small bit of time to mess with Watch Dogs as I am building a new gaming PC for a friend and his video card came with a free digital copy of it. Was a lot to tweak to get it to run smooth and look great, but I pulled it off and it is a pretty nifty looking game (one I want to play in full when I can grab it cheap).

[david]

I blame David and his fondness for violence for my current game of choice: Valkyria Chronicles on PS3.

Hah, you blame me for leading you astray, and yet you've run amok through Pandora in Borderlands 2 a gazillion times. I'd be surprised if you've left any creatures still alive on that planet

Those Valkyria Chronicals visuals are spectacular. I too really like that visual style! It reminds me a of Borderlands and XIII mixed with a dash of Persona.

[evilkinggumby]

Nope. All David's fault. He keeps trying to talk up violent Splinter Cell games andnow I'm all " shoot the bad guy!" lol.. before that I NEVER played violent games.. nope... *hides copy of fallout*

LOL

And you should check a trailer or video if you can, seeing the render in action is pretty kool. preferably in at least 720p so you can see the detail.

Haha Pandora would be weird if it didn't have respawn timers on stuff. imagine crossing all zones and everything was dead and still rotting well after you cleared an area? hehehh.... That would actually be kind of neat as a first chapter in an offshoot of the borderlands game. Like a zombie holocaust one where you crashland and need to cross back to the main city and then you see everything begin rising up to attack.. go from quiet spooky holocaust to OMG RUN

at least first time out.. hehe

[david]

@EvilKing... I checked out a couple of videos on Valkyria Chronicles. It really, really looks like XIII, which is good because that was a sensational game. But your game has adorable manga girls with machine guns... so wrong, yet so beautiful... sigh

Darn that it is turn based! I like the immediacy of action / shooters (I had some fun with Worms 3d, which was also turn based). This is also why I also shied away from the Fallout series even though the premise interests me.

A second playthrough of a game -using the creatures that you killed the first time as the undead- is sheer GENIUS! I can just imagine them rising from the place they were killed on the first playthrough, with their original wounds and relevant body parts missing. I bet someone'll do this

[Alberto]

Greatest game of all time?
Quake.
And its two expansions - especially Dissolution of Eternity.

A nice, very playable weird bird?
Medievil.

By the way: David, is this website a brainchild of yours?
It's very polished and usable!

[david]

@Alberto... I did play quite a bit of freeware Doom but I never got around to playing Quake. Seith also played Doom fairly extensively back in the day, I'm not sure if he played Quake though.

I had a PS 1 and 2, when I lived in London, but I didn't get around to using them much unfortunately, I hadn't heard of Medievil... it looks intriguing, and I really like the comedic approach to hack 'n slash.

By the way: David, is this website a brainchild of yours?
It's very polished and usable!

Thank you! I assembled it and customized a few things, but imho most of the credit goes to WordPress (overall tech), Suffusion (WordPress theme), phpBB (forum tech) and Seith (for the graphics). Actually, Seith really liked the original Grimrock site and forum (it has changed a bit now) so we used the same tech and as a visual reference too.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Grimrock site (http://www.grimrock.net) as it used to look before... familiar eh?

Front page:


Forums:

[david]

@EvilKing... it looks like one of your games is coming to the PC, and the people at Eurogamer are celebrating... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014- ... =net-daily

[evilkinggumby]

omg yay. my biggest hope is they either sell it with VC2 included or they follow up with a valkyria chronicles 2 release as well, cause THAT has a ton more content than 1 did. If they updated the visual engine in vc2 to use vc1's design it's be even better. I'd buy it, for sure.

i may grab it anyhow. seeing the game render in 1080p with added visual tweaks would be nice. it looked great in ps3 but the aliasing jaggies on everything and some of the pixelization on textures was annoying. Most might ignore it, but when you sit close to the tv like i do.. more noticeable. hehehe

[Alianin]

I'm a sucker for an immersive story and fun gameplay. I grew up on the Sierra adventure games, so anything along those lines gets my vote. There's so many games that I remember fondly, so it's hard to list my greatest. Here's a few:

Day of the Tentacle
Ultima series
Sierra "Quest" games
Monkey Island series
Mass Effect series
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Games I'm playing now:

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Because Star Wars. I'm excited for Revan in the upcoming expansion.
WildStar - Great lore and gameplay.
Batman Arkham Asylum - The mechanics are pretty fun and I'm a completionist, so I love looking for the Riddler's puzzles all over.

[david]

@ Alianin... Due to my backlog, I've held off so far but I might find myself getting into Mass Effect 4, because I enjoyed the playing demo for 2 (or was it 1?). Again, because of backlog, I didn't get beyond the first hour of Batman Arkham Asylum but -with your recommendation- I'll give it another try. I bought the original Monkey Island on Steam last year, with the intention of getting to grips with it, but it remains untouched. Dammit I'd love to have more time!

I really, really liked playing the demo for Sierra's tactical FPS SWAT 3 (or was it 4). I hope they do a remake... they can take my money! I might even go to GOG to see if I can buy the full version of this classic. I'm hoping that Ubisoft's forthcoming Rainbow Six Siege coming in 2015 -which will have broadly similar gameplay to SWAT- will be decent. Coincidentally, after a dramatic ride with various owners, Sierra made a comeback at Gamescom 2014 (me and the GoaT team were there too!) where they announced Geometry Wars 3 and a new Kings Quest game.



And speaking of 'back in the day', though it was around close to the time I started compulsively reading and re-readingvideogame magazines -around 1982- and then, once we got a ZX Spectrum computer, actually playing games -around 1985- I never actually played (or even saw) a game from the seminal Ultima series. It has always seemed an exotic beast to me, so this afternoon I watched a Gamespot video (link below) to get a better flavor of what the series was all about. It will be fascinating to see how Shroud of the Avatar turns out:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/geomet ... 0-6421666/



PS. Here's an article from Eurogamer yesterday on WildStar, which appears to be in a spot of trouble (MMOs are fiercely competitive these days) but EG seem to be backing it: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014- ... ar-out-yet

[Alianin]

Shroud of the Avatar has been a fun one to follow. They've included the community in monthly pre-alpha testing for a while now. I like seeing the progress from one build to another and all the work that actually goes into building a game. They're using Unity as well.

I remember playing SWAT when it came out. The only part I really remember is slicing the pie. It was a good game, but I'm not that good at FPS games, especially when you throw mulitplayer into it.

WildStar has had some rough patches in a cutthroat world of MMOs but I still think it has promise. I'm enjoying it for the great visuals, great ambiance music, off-beat humor and creative gameplay. I'm in the middle of some great world story lore.

[david]

@Alianin... its really interesting they are using Unity too, the Shroud of the Avatar visuals are coming together nicely.

I've played a lot of single-player FPS's, and I blithely assumed that I'd be decent enough at multiplayer... but when I tried it with Halo , Battlefield 2142, Battlefield Heroes, and Team Fortress a fair bit but -unless I chose a more supporting role away from the actual fighting- I was often cannon fodder!

I'm still hoping it was the lag from Hong Kong and China -because otherwise I'm just inept and cack-handed! One day, when I'm in the US or Europe, I'll test myself fairly with a decent connection. I've been gaming since I played Breakout in the arcade, so there can be no excuses!

I'm rooting for WildStar!

[evilkinggumby]

ok i have to plug this. I haven'tplayed it yet but watched a vid by Jim Sterling of the first few minutes. Being native american, seeing a game that is based on the culture and lore of eskimo's just hit me the right way.

and the game looks like an interesting combination of magical, adorable, and harsh at the same time.

currently on sale on steam for 10% off. I can't wait to play this. it even has 2 player co op

http://neveralonegame.com/

[david]

@EvilKing... yeah, Never Alone is looking really special. I love what they have done with the Eskimo art style and using traditional stories. The developers seem to be putting together a really wonderful experience, on several levels.

It's awesome that you have a native American background. As you know, this would also be a very rich culture to explore in a game, many games in fact

[evilkinggumby]

CUrrently I am all over the place playing a few different games.

Guild Wars 2 because I am friends with a dev on their team and aside from the initial purchase price, it's one of the few MMORPG's with no monthly fee's and yet has a crap TON of land to explore and things to do.. craziness...

Valkyria Chronicles 2 on PSP: I recently grabbed a sony psp 3001 and a handful of games for it including this sequal to a game i played the hell out of on ps3 and pc. the psp version is definitely a toned down, bite sized version of the other game, but it is not without its charm. I hooked my psp to my tv as I can't stand tiny screens, so I play the game on effectively a 36" widescreen instead of the psp's tiny 3" or whatever screen.

Catlateral Damage : kickstarted this and it JUST released yesterday so I only got 5 minutes in on it in litterbox mode but it seems cute. I can see that mode getting very lame after you get the initial feel for it, so I'll have to try and "goal driven" part instead, but it's worth a laugh I guess if you can get it cheap. very much for cat lovers lol

P3P(Persona 3 Portable, also on PSP): grabbed it digitally during the Atlus sales, this is a preened down version of Persona 3, with the option to see the story as a female protag. They made a LOT of changes to squeeze the game onto 1 UMD so a fair amount of 3d explorable environments are gone, which is a shame, and they redid a lot (but not all) of the voicework to allow for altered dialogues. They also cut down on the textures' detail and polygons for the characters so the overall look is lackluster to the original ps2 game, but the rest is still there and on a portable, thats a lot to appreciate. I may not slog through the whole of the game anytime soon, as it takes 100 hours or more, but I will pick at it over time.

Grim Dawn: this is still considered an alpha cause they're still technically buulding it, but there is a ton to play and appreciate if you get early access. this is one of the few games that is doing early access RIGHT. multiplayer works (more or less) and there is tons of content to mess with. It is done by a lot of the team at Iron Lore that made Titan's Quest, so there is a lot of similarities to that game to be had. Think "diablo clone" for overall game style, but with a weird apocalyptic fantasy world that is a mix of magic, swords and pistols and shotguns.. lol. I killed a lot of time working on a few characters in it and me, my wife and my friend all played a ton, maxing our characters level and mostly clearing the entire available map.

I was playing Dragon Age Inquisition for a bit but took a break to mess with other things. I do like it, just is a HUGE game and there is a lot to do and it is fairly tough in spots so I'm going to take my time and enjoy it.

I played the first episode of "Life is Strange" and the second just hit so thats going onto my "to do" queue. The first chapter was good, the voicework was generally good but the lip sync'ing was terrible. I will say it is fairly short and there isn't a TON to do, so it feels like a TellTale adventure game but with even less freedom..almost visual novel like, but with more options and branching than a VN. Your mileage with it may vary depending on if you like to immerse in a fictional world, especially one where you follow a slightly emo girl at a university in a mountain lake town trying to find herself and deal with a new.. ability she discovers.

Also am on the last dregs of Wasteland 2, though I hit a road block or five due to poor quest design and my lack of forethought with certain abilities. It is a fun game, I just need to grind a few levels roaming in random fights so I can knock out a quest that unlocks a quest that unblocks a quest.. sort of crap.. lol

[alexzorg]

Witcher 3
GTA V
Mortal Kombat X

[alexzorg]

CUrrently I am all over the place playing a few different games.

Guild Wars 2 because I am friends with a dev on their team and aside from the initial purchase price, it's one of the few MMORPG's with no monthly fee's and yet has a crap TON of land to explore and things to do.. craziness...

Valkyria Chronicles 2 on PSP: I recently grabbed a sony psp 3001 and a handful of games for it including this sequal to a game i played the hell out of on ps3 and pc. the psp version is definitely a toned down, bite sized version of the other game, but it is not without its charm. I hooked my psp to my tv as I can't stand tiny screens, so I play the game on effectively a 36" widescreen instead of the psp's tiny 3" or whatever screen.

Catlateral Damage : kickstarted this and it JUST released yesterday so I only got 5 minutes in on it in litterbox mode but it seems cute. I can see that mode getting very lame after you get the initial feel for it, so I'll have to try and "goal driven" part instead, but it's worth a laugh I guess if you can get it cheap. very much for cat lovers lol

P3P(Persona 3 Portable, also on PSP): grabbed it digitally during the Atlus sales, this is a preened down version of Persona 3, with the option to see the story as a female protag. They made a LOT of changes to squeeze the game onto 1 UMD so a fair amount of 3d explorable environments are gone, which is a shame, and they redid a lot (but not all) of the voicework to allow for altered dialogues. They also cut down on the textures' detail and polygons for the characters so the overall look is lackluster to the original ps2 game, but the rest is still there and on a portable, thats a lot to appreciate. I may not slog through the whole of the game anytime soon, as it takes 100 hours or more, but I will pick at it over time.

Grim Dawn: this is still considered an alpha cause they're still technically buulding it, but there is a ton to play and appreciate if you get early access. this is one of the few games that is doing early access RIGHT. multiplayer works (more or less) and there is tons of content to mess with. It is done by a lot of the team at Iron Lore that made Titan's Quest, so there is a lot of similarities to that game to be had. Think "diablo clone" for overall game style, but with a weird apocalyptic fantasy world that is a mix of magic, swords and pistols and shotguns.. lol. I killed a lot of time working on a few characters in it and me, my wife and my friend all played a ton, maxing our characters level and mostly clearing the entire available map.

I was playing Dragon Age Inquisition for a bit but took a break to mess with other things. I do like it, just is a HUGE game and there is a lot to do and it is fairly tough in spots so I'm going to take my time and enjoy it.

I played the first episode of "Life is Strange" and the second just hit so thats going onto my "to do" queue. The first chapter was good, the voicework was generally good but the lip sync'ing was terrible. I will say it is fairly short and there isn't a TON to do, so it feels like a TellTale adventure game but with even less freedom..almost visual novel like, but with more options and branching than a VN. Your mileage with it may vary depending on if you like to immerse in a fictional world, especially one where you follow a slightly emo girl at a university in a mountain lake town trying to find herself and deal with a new.. ability she discovers.

Also am on the last dregs of Wasteland 2, though I hit a road block or five due to poor quest design and my lack of forethought with certain abilities. It is a fun game, I just need to grind a few levels roaming in random fights so I can knock out a quest that unlocks a quest that unblocks a quest.. sort of crap.. lol

too much explanation

[johnlee]

alexzorg what a comment

[johnlee]

you put the river in a glass

[holmebrian]

new games out now there are so many i cant list them all but Big Pharma and Digimon Cyber Sleuth along with Terra Tech are the games im currently playing!

[sentoki]

Ori and the Blind Forest is a great one! I was so touched by the story, gameplay and atmosphere.
A challenging, and highly rewarding platformer. One I won't forget for a long time.

[Thomas_Huayra]

To me, personally, nothing can top Far Cry 4. That's my very subjective opinion. Not a perfect game, but it's perfecter to me than the other games I've played. It's like Far Cry 3, but much improved and expanded. Bioshock Infinite is a close number 2. (B:I gets the gold medal for DLC, omg!). I won't list all the games I played, but I think all things considered, Far Cry 4 is very likely to be my favorite game in existence, even taking those I haven't played into account.

And right now I'm playing GoaT