SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
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What Are You Playing?
Oh there's a game thread! This is great! My ability to read is fried right now, but that's OK because I've fallen face first into Subnautica on Switch (also available for your weapon of choice most likely). Game play: Crash land on an oceanic planet and meet the local wildlife! Explore, build, and find out why you crashed! See if you can make it home!I haven't been this sucked into a game in a while. I'm on my third play through of the story. I like the exploration and discovery. It's scary, but not too scary, mostly. Just really a gem of a game.
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It has a sequel too, but I haven't gotten to that yet. Still just replaying the original LOL.
Subnautica is pretty good. I haven't finished it yet, but I especially like that you can turn off the survival elements; those are definitely not my thing. Honestly, I'm still trying to recreate the experience I had years ago with Endless Ocean on the Wii. Games have come close (there's a few this gen: this, Abzu, and Beyond Blue) but none have quite gotten there (even the second Endless Ocean game didn't feel quite as great.)
I missed out on Wii; Endless Ocean looks like an amazing game. I see it's available on an emulator, which is a little out of my league right now but I have hopes and dreams! (I probably won't make any moves toward gaming on PC for another year at least though.)Just popped Abzu into my shopping cart. I will keep an eye out for Beyond Blue when/if I get the Playstation back on the internet.
I do love that Subnautica lets you play in four different modes. Really power to the player there. My next play will probably be in creative (read that as non-dying if you haven't played) so I can cruise around and look at all the sea beasts I was too scared to approach in the main game.
Wow. Went down a YouTube hole looking at subnautica and it looks like fun but also terrifying. I am both fascinated and scared of the deep sea. Thanks for the rec, adding it to my to play list.
Ooh, Subnautica! I haven't finished yet, partly because it does kind of scare me (and I HATE (view spoiler)) but it sure is gorgeous and so much fun to explore. I've also been contemplating getting In Other Waters on Steam, which has a similar concept but looks like a very different playstyle and visuals.
YouTube holes are easy to find for Subnautica! (I did accidentally spoil myself for a few things that way, so there is that to mind.) It is a scary game, but I think what scares you will depend on the person. (There are some situations that have a disorientation/claustraphobia combo that gets my blood pumping pretty good - they communicate the sensation of being about to drown really well. And some places where one swims over a ridge and suddenly the water is D E E P and that is terrifying.) But on the whole I consider myself a wimp and I don't do any kind of horror qua horror, and I love it, so I definitely recommend giving it a go!Goodness yes I hate (view spoiler)!
Wow I am getting so many good recs too. In Other Waters is available on Switch too, so I'm getting it.
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "And some places where one swims over a ridge and suddenly the water is D E E P and that is terrifying."This was one of my favorite things about Endless Ocean; the ocean felt so huge, but the deep parts were so dark and foreboding and there were definitely those ridges where the world just seems to fall off.
And the game makes you go down there. There are parts of the game that are pitch black, and you have nothing but a little light to see in front of you.
(At the same time, it is a stress-free game. No enemies, no survival mechanics. I can't even remember if there was a limited O2 tank.)
I definitely have to find a way to play that. It sounds so wonderful.
I just glanced at ebay, I'm actually shocked at a.) how many are available, and b.) the fact they're still affordable. I still have my Wii U, though it's buried in a closet somewhere. It's a shame these games were never released digitally but it might be worth hauling it out and hooking it up to give these games another spin.
I actually never got that into the second game. I feel like a lot of the reason why is they dumped the Hayley Westenra music lol.
Music makes a huge difference. I am currently restraining myself from buying an entire system to play one game, but I did think about it!I finally got bored enough with Subnautica to do something besides just start another play through. Sampled these on Switch last night:
*PixelJunk Eden 2 - Sounded magic; I thought it would be something like Flower, which I really enjoyed. And it may well be! Unfortunately, I'll never know. The controls remind me a lot of Katamari Damacy, and I cannot for the life of me ever get anything like that to work.
*Shinsekai Into the Depths - Also sounded magic, but it turned out I wasn't in the mood for a Metroidvania. I'll give this one a go again later.
*In Other Waters - Actual magic. After a really frustrating start trying to figure out the controls, it all came together. (That part is part of the story experience, but I would have appreciated slightly more explanation, as I had pressed every button with no response. Turned out I needed to press one of the buttons twice.) It's radically different than anything I've played in recent memory. Almost like a text based RPG of old! Might be frustrating if you play it while visually impaired; the text is on the tiny side for the amount of reading involved, limited to specific sections of the screen due to the interface, and it's orange. That said, the story pulled me right in. The entirety of the visuals is the map, which seemed boring at first, but the first time I got my diving suit to go down a hole it suddenly became very exciting. Really curious to see where it's going to go. I think I'm going to love this one.
I have received my copy of ABZU as well and I will probably give that a spin this weekend.
*ETA: I did get to it and it was a short, sweet delight. I didn't realize it was by the Journey team when I went in. Very nice.
I haven't soured on FFXIV, but my sibling's current lack of enthusiasm for it, and their upcoming vacation, has more-or-less left me in the company of strangers, so it's on semi-hiatus for a couple of weeks.In the meantime, I'm playing a couple of roguelites since I can typically finish a full game of those in an hour or less. Monster Train is a combination of card deck-building and tower defense, and Luck be a Landlord is a roguelite slot machine where the "winnings" necessary to pay your rent continually go up. Also picked up The Survivalists on sale, a survival game with the same aethetic as The Escapists, but that seems like it will have a much longer per-game arc so I'll likely not do much with it for now.
Hello Everyone!I just started playing Rocket League for some reason after so many years and I'm absolutely enjoying it. It's weird how no developer thought of this concept before because it's an amalgam of 2 of the most popular sports.
I started playing Cozy Grove on Switch, which has generally been very relaxing and cute. Every once in a while though I get a quest that sends me off looking for an object that's "by a dead tree" that I can somehow never find. Like 20 laps of the island turns up nothing. And then it's not so relaxing.
Nearly done with Psychonauts 2. Such a great game, and so faithful to the first game. I haven't even played Witcher 3 since it came out. Some time in the next week, I'll be resubbing to FFXIV. I probably wasn't gonna do it this soon before the expansion (which is still over two months away), but they're bringing back the FFXV event with the car mount which I missed last time, so it forced my hand.
I'm completely done with Fallout 76. It's actually impressive how little there is to do in that game once you're "done." I don't know how people have played it for years.
Jordan wrote: "I started playing Cozy Grove on Switch, which has generally been very relaxing and cute. Every once in a while though I get a quest that sends me off looking for an object that's "by a dead tree" t..."Cozy Grove was pretty neat for a little while, but I can't stand time gates in games. Let me play at the pace I want to play, thanks.
Playing Genshin impact and The Witcher
I got sucked in to ff14 by a friend. I am enjoying it quite a bit.
Currently I am playing Deponia on the switch. It´s a point&click adventure with kind of humouristic and satire-like baseline as the main character is presented as a kind of egoistic jerk. From the story I like it until now (but more because of the funny elements than of the story arc - but I am not finished yet), but from the gampleay I find it a bit difficult. But that could also be because I´m usually not a Point&click-player.
I just started playing Magnum Quest on the google play store. If anyone else is playing I'd love to share links.
Joon wrote: "Jordan wrote: "I started playing Cozy Grove on Switch, which has generally been very relaxing and cute. Every once in a while though I get a quest that sends me off looking for an object that's "by..."Yeah, I usually don't have a ton of time to play, so it doesn't really bother me so much that I'm limited in what I can do each day. But I can see where it would get annoying otherwise.
I've been playing chill games like Stardew Valley, Spiritfarer and Calico.
Back to Everquest II. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
Jane wrote: "Back to Everquest II. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”"I used to play that a lot! But I seem to have lost some of my characters in one of their transitions.
That’s a pain. I find if you are away for a while, they warehouse your toons. But there’s a way to get them out of storage—forgotten exactly how.
Florian wrote: "Currently I am playing Deponia on the switch. It´s a point&click adventure with kind of humouristic and satire-like baseline as the main character is presented as a kind of egoistic jerk ..."I've got that too and have been meaning to get back to it. I don't usually like playing characters who are jerks but they've done a nice job with the humorous perspective on it...
I wonder what's going to happen with the blizzard franchises especially now that Amazon is starting to develop some promising titles.
Blizzard will likely settle whatever California throws at them, they’ll cut a few of the head honchos. And still come out of it making new games.It’s 2021 and the gamer community can still be extremely toxic. I see it all the time the complaints about SJWs and devs trying too hard to please commercial audiences on very public forums.
This whole thing has made me ashamed to be a gamer, honestly.
Though I can safely say I don’t play or support WoW in any form.
We Are Watching Eliza Bright is a book I’m reading right now heavily inspired by #GamerGate. It’s pretty enraging to read but so very relevant sadly.
Well, to be honest, Blizzard needs some kind of "back to the roots". WoW story went to hell after Legion. It probably did even before, but Legion had a storyline that felt like WoW story and made sense within the universe even with the issues it had.BfA had so poor twists just to start the faction war that it made the war in Cata and MoP pale in comparison and had me wonder if it's worth just reading about the story. Shadowlands is even worse. Sure, WoW always had some darker themes, but it also always had some kind of hopeful feeling to it, that things will get better sooner or later. That's something that was too weak in BfA and is, for me, completely missing in SL. I'm keeping an eye out for what they'll come up with next, but I don't believe they'll come up with a satisfying story anymore.
I stand by my opinion that they should've put WoW to rest after Legion.
At this point, I'm playing a bit of Sims 4 (yeah, really) and I bought a game that's pretty much a train dispatcher simulator.
Ugh, FFXIV has got its hooks firmly back in me. Looks like it'll basically just be this until like January.
I'm in a strange, bicameral situation in my home: mobile gaming upstairs, console gaming in the basement. Working, slowly, on the PS1 port of FF V downstairs; Mega Man 9 on the Switch upstairs.Having never played FF V as a kid (because there was no way to do it without Japanese hardware), I'm confused by how it seems so much like FF III, and so little like FF IV *or* VI.
So I just caved in on the current Steam sale and bought Civ VI. Looks like sleep deprivation due to the "just one more turn" effect is in my near future.Scanning my bookshelf and interestingly enough, it appears I favor the even number releases of Civ throughout the years. Not sure why that is. Maybe it's pure happenstance. Maybe I'm slow on the draw.
Or perhaps it's like the Star Trek TOS movies where I gravitate most to the even numbered ones.
Jane wrote: "Back to Everquest II. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”"I've played the pre-40/soloable parts of EQ2 at least three times now. I love exploring the areas and dungeons in the early part of the game. But for whatever reason, it loses me after that. Maybe it's one of those things you need a stable group that is friendly to ppl who haven't been through the content 700 times to appreciate, and I never found that.
Now I'm bingeing on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Definitely scratches that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night itch.
Todd wrote: "So I just caved in on the current Steam sale and bought Civ VI. Looks like sleep deprivation due to the "just one more turn" effect is in my near future.Scanning my bookshelf and interestingly en..."
Oh, Civ is always fun to play. I played it last when it was on sale for the switch about in the beginning if the year. I can play it for hours, as well
I started Breath of the Wild this weekend. It was such a good weekend.
I spend so much of my life immersed within the world of Warcraft when it first came out. As I look back however, it was all fun and positive time spent. The wrath of the lich king pretty much killed my enthusiasm and vanilla WOW will always be my favorite.Then I got heavy into game development for a while, testing betas writing code only to realize making games made playing games no fun. So I left that to start writing stories that I was going to use as games instead. =D. Now I have all of you.
Finished Alien Isolation for the first time. Easily one of my favorite games I’ve ever played.
That looks really amazing. Too scary for me, but amazing!I am stalled on Breath of the Wild. I tried Littlewood last weekend, and I was absolutely sucked into it for two days, but now I'm stalled on that too. (It may be that I don't know what I want right now?) It's a nice game though. I originally thought it was just a Stardew Valley knock off, but instead of having a fixed amount of time to spend, you have a fixed amount of actions to spend in a day, which is a very different dynamic and very interesting. I may start it over now that I have some understanding of the gameplay and see if I can avoid overwhelming myself with too many decision trees at once.
Or I may try something else. Who can say?
I doubt I will get anywhere with the second one when I am not feeling it with the first one! I may start BOTW over and limit myself from the open world aspect of it to avoid the doldrums I am currently experiencing. I really hate the weapon breaking though. Also, Cloud Catcher Chronicles and Doki Doki Literature Club just arrived this week, so I will probably give one of those a spin at least this weekend.
I've been playing Metroid Dread. I love Metroid, so I've been super excited about FINALLY getting a new game. Enjoying it so far, although I am less enjoying the sneaking/frantically running when I get caught bits.
Finally got a PS5 so I've been all over the place lately. Mostly Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Sackboy. I've been eyeballing Doki Doki Literature Club as well.
I’m still drowning in FF14. Finished Heavansward and the post-expansion, and started stormblood this week.
Heavensward was really, really good. Stormblood is.. not as good. It’s about the same level as ARR, which means it’s uneven and scattered.
If Everyone didn’t swear up and down that Shadowbringers is amazing, I probably wouldn’t put in the effort… but it’s amusing enough.
After the whole NFT debacle started my guild turned me on to a private server for neopets and I've just been in that black hole and totally consumed by it lol.
I'm restarting my poor neglected island on Animal Crossing after hearing about all the new update stuff coming. Also still slowly making it through Metroid Dread. I finally got the morph ball, which seemed to take forever and I'm enjoying it a lot more now.
I’m currently playing Animal Crossing, Final Fantasy 14 and Fallout 3 (I had to hunt this old game down on eBay and drag my PS3 out of storage). I also just bought the remastered version of Mass Effect and Fallout New Vegas.
I've been playing a ton of Stellaris recently. I only have the base version so far, but it's still super addictive, to the extent that I can't play on work nights because there's too much risk of staying up way too late. This is one of my first strategy games (I tried Surviving Mars but did not survive long) and on easy mode it is very good for learning.
The wolves never get less annoying. They're pests.