What Are You Playing?, Games! Options

[Hobbes]

I've been replaying Half Life 2, as well as playing these for the first time:

Assassin's Creed
Call of Juarez
Rainbow Six Las Vegas 2
FarCry 2

[Pikasyuu]

Dragonquest 5!
Pretty effing good so far. I wish I could carry around a portable walkthrough, though. Yes, I'm that girl, the one who consults google whenever she enters a building in an rpg.

[Hobbes]

Finished replaying Half Life 2: Episode Two yesterday. I'd forgotten how good it is. It is far superior to Episode 1, and also has quite a lot going for it compared to HL2 itself. Makes me desperate for Episode 3 though.

[Hobbes]

I've recently finished the main game of Batman: Arkhum Asylum. It frustrated me sometimes, because it held my hand far too much thoughout the whole game: telling me exactly what I should have done whenever I messed up something. It kind of tries to be semi-open-world, but guides you around on a leash. And yet... I'm still playing it to find all the secrets, and I enjoy the fight challenges too. It is very much a console-style game (I'm playing it on the PC), but it's actually a fair amount of fun.

I think an excellent Batman game would have to be built from the GTA mold. Give us the whole of Gotham, plus Batman's vehicles and gadgets, and then just stick various crimes all over the place to deal with, as well as a main 'story' to follow when we want to. Perhaps one day...

EDIT: ...Ah... which it seems is what the new game, Arkham City, is gonna try and do to some extent.

[Mata]

I would be very surprised if the Arkham City turned out to be much more open - although it is reportedly a lot larger. I loved Batman:AA so I'm looking forward to the sequel.

I'm currently playing Mass Effect 2 on the Insane difficulty mode. It is named correctly - mostly I've only had moments where I got stuck for about an hour. Currently I'm stuck on a fight that I have been trying for about three hours. I think I've come close to finishing it a few times, but I've not done it yet. I recall it being one of the sticking spots on the last play through (on Normal) so it's not surprising I'm finding it tough going. My average life span is around 90 seconds.

[Hobbes]

The original Mafia was about £1.75 or something ridiculous on Steam this week, and I vaguely remembered playing the demo a while back, so thought I'd give it a shot.

I'm really not enjoying it at the moment :/ I've tried to keep plugging away at it, in the hope that it'll evolve as I play somehow, but so far it's not looking good. I've read some very positive reviews of the game, which is why I'm persevering, but I'm finding it very frustrating to play.

I would like to say that maybe it just shows its age (almost nine years ago now), but I think it's more than just that

[Hobbes]

Just finished Call of Jaurez: Bound In Blood.

It felt like a struggle getting to the end... frustrating and not overly enjoyable sometimes. The only thing that kept me at it was liking some of the bigger shoot-outs. I ended up skipping cutscenes (which I NEVER normally do) just to get to the end of the game quicker.

[Phantom]

I was playing Catz for the Wii, simple simple simple,but clever interface design, there where only two times in the whole game I had
to think for myself.. but still I do enjoy the game it has enough diversity for young and older and is easy to grasp for everyone

[CrazyFooIAintGet...]

I've been playing my humble indie bundle games:

Crayon Physics Deluxe
Cogs
VVVVVV
Hammerfight
And Yet It Moves (already owned this)
Steel Storm: Burning Retribution
Atom Zombie Smasher
Braid (already owned this one but not on linux)
Cortex Command
Machinarium
Osmos
Revenge of the Titans

not bad for a few dollars. VVVVV was tons of fun and I'm now working my way through Revenge of the Titans which is a really good tower defense thing.

[Hobbes]

Really enjoying Drawception at the moment.

http://drawception.com/

A cross between Chinese Whispers and Draw Something. Some funny results from time to time. Some trolling, naturally, but a good community at the moment.

[BigMistake]

Really enjoying Drawception at the moment.

http://drawception.com/

A cross between Chinese Whispers and Draw Something. Some funny results from time to time. Some trolling, naturally, but a good community at the moment.

Max Payne 3 \o/

[Mata]

I'm currently trying to decide whether to give up on Dark Souls. I can see why masochist 'old school' gamers like it, but by modern standards it's shockingly poor. The signposting is dreadful, systems are completely unexplained, decisions are arbitrary, and the enemies are willfully difficult. I've got to bit called 'Sen's Fortress' and they are now combining a quite large load of combat in a highly-hazardous environment where you stand a high chance of being knocked off of an edge with very few checkpoints. It was interesting, but now it's heading towards being dull and it doesn't look like it's going to pull out any impressive new features any time soon. Hmm.

[Hobbes]

Recently I've been playing:

Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - because it never arrived on the PC, but my girlfriend has it on the PS3 so I thought I'd have a blast. It's... not bad, but I think it suffers from having lengthy moments of 'chat' when all you are doing is listening and riding a horse for several minutes. I wonder to what extent that can be called 'gameplay'.

Fallout 3 (PC) - spent a long time playing this a while ago but suddenly stopped for some reason. Now I've begun playing it again from the beginning. Always enjoyable. Always buggy. I'm surprised at some of the stuff I don't remember from the first time around, but a little disappointed with how easy it is to "break" the game (particularly the story).

Hotline Miami (PC) - A friend recommended this to me, mainly due to the soundtrack. It does sound fantastic, it's very brutal, very retro, but lots of fun. I don't think I've ever played another game where I've died so many times, yet continued to try again without feeling frustrated.