What are you playing this weekend?

I'm playing Scarlet Nexus. I'm having fun exploring its weird world.

I finally decided to give Cyberpunk 2077 a go. For reference, I played and greatly enjoyed the Witcher 3 — but based on that experience knew going in that Cyberpunk would benefit from a bit of aging. With CD Projekt Red recently announcing that they consider the game good to go, I picked it up on sale ($20) and I’m playing it on next gen hardware (an Xbox Series X). I’ll also add that I’m a big fan of Deus Ex-like games, the movie Blade Runner and when it comes to games, I enjoy narrative most.

Whew… That’s a lot to share upfront but I think if ever a game deserved this level of preface, it’s this one.

With all of that firmly in mind, I’m genuinely enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 immensely. Like the Witcher 3, initially the story didn’t grab me. But after I settled into the world, I’m firmly into exploring Night City, running missions, sometimes adopting Deus Ex stealth tactics and other times going in full guns blazing.

Are there bugs still? I’d say it’s comparable to any other game at this stage, which is to say that if you are fixated on finding them, you will find them and notice them. But for the most part, this feels polished, narratively rich, futuristically weird and dark and I’d recommend Cyberpunk 2077 without any hesitation.

I think I'm going to be able to finish Trails to Azure this weekend, which I've been pushing hard at for awhile. Beyond that, it's time to get into Monster Hunter Stories for the JRPG club, and I've starting messing around with Slipways, and it seems cool if I can stop being terrible at it.

Rezzy wrote:

... figuring out why Dragon Quest 11 now crashes when I try to start it.

Cause discovered. From the time stamps it looks like a pooched Windows Update took bits of my graphics card driver down with it.
Manual reinstall of Drivers and Geforce Experience and I'm back to playing Dragon Quest XI.

To cheer myself up while the game was broken and because the kids weren't home I picked up Max Gentlemen Sexy Business!. I'm having enough fun that I'm continuing to play while the kids are distracted.

The Last Spell is an interesting roguelike I'm diving into. It's a combo of a base builder and zombie horde game, but turn-based and with roguelike character progression. Within the game, you get upgrades after each night based on your performance, and once you are wiped out, you start again, but with incrementally better gear and such, again based on performance. Oh, and it's intended to be brutally hard. You *will* lose over and over, Dead Souls style.

Quite fun tactical turn-based base defense.

Robear wrote:

The Last Spell is an interesting roguelike I'm diving into. It's a combo of a base builder and zombie horde game, but turn-based and with roguelike character progression. Within the game, you get upgrades after each night based on your performance, and once you are wiped out, you start again, but with incrementally better gear and such, again based on performance. Oh, and it's intended to be brutally hard. You *will* lose over and over, Dead Souls style.

Quite fun tactical turn-based base defense.

Its also Early Access. I hope they tune the difficulty a bit. This is one of those roguelikes that requires you to die over and over again. I dont think there's any way to succeed on the first try (or first 10). You won't have the skills/items/heroes/city unlocks you need.

The Far Cry 3 plans didn’t pan out: Uplay insisted that my password was wrong even tho it had been stored unreferenced in my password manager for a long time. The password reset emails also never arrived so I figured screw it. I didn’t want to play it that badly!

PolyPusher, they do warn that it's meant to be brutally hard. So... It probably won't get easier.

Robear wrote:

PolyPusher, they do warn that it's meant to be brutally hard. So... It probably won't get easier. :-)

Well I'm comparing it to other roguelikes with a heavy meta-game. Take Rogue Legacy for instance. Its hard, but you can win on the first generation, with no meta game unlocks/perks, with skill. I don't get that sense here and Im not sure if thats because it's how they want it or because it needs tuning.

Robear wrote:

The Last Spell is an interesting roguelike I'm diving into. It's a combo of a base builder and zombie horde game, but turn-based and with roguelike character progression. Within the game, you get upgrades after each night based on your performance, and once you are wiped out, you start again, but with incrementally better gear and such, again based on performance. Oh, and it's intended to be brutally hard. You *will* lose over and over, Dead Souls style.

Quite fun tactical turn-based base defense.

I've been absolutely obsessed with They Are Billions lately, and this looks like a fantastic game to dive into next. Thanks for the heads up!

After finishing off Tokyo Mirage Sessions, I am now ready to start Yakuza: Like A Dragon. I've only put about 30 minutes into it so far, but early impressions are good. Very different, but very familiar! I made a very quick switch from the English voice-over to Japanese though - just didn't seem right.

Still plugging away at The Evil Within 2 as well. The only complaint I have so far is that it does the thing that some games do where they let you explore, so you find something obviously plot related, only you can't actually do it yet because you haven't activated the right plot point. This has happened a few times now. Not a big deal, but it does discourage exploration. On the other hand, sometimes it makes exploration very rewarding, so it's hard to know whether you should.

I'm getting my second vaccine later today, so if the side effects get really bad I may not be able to play much. If I am though, the plan is to continue Monster Hunter Stories (iOS) and possibly some Trails to Azure (PC) on the side. I may finish LEGO Builder's Journey (PC) as well.

Days Gone
Old World
Marvel Spider-Man

++ watch the new Resident Evil Netflix series

Still leveling Dark Knight in Final Fantasy XIV, heading to Lincolnshire in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and streaming (maybe finishing?) Disco Elysium.

Have a tattoo session so my gaming time will be shortened a good deal. I will likely play some Dragon Quest XI S at home, and spread my commute time on the 2DS with Monster Hunter Stories and OoT 3D.

My playthrough of the Ys series has reached Ys Seven and I'm really struggling with this one. Ys III and V are the black sheep of the franchise, but I enjoyed them both to some degree. Ys Seven though is just so tedious and bloated. I'm not having any fun at all. I'm going to give it another shot this weekend, but I'm seriously tempted to end my Ys series playthrough here and now.

The Witcher, but I have been playing that thing nonstop for the past few weeks. I may need a palate cleanser from all the monster hunting and bandit pillaging.

More Final Fantasy XIV Online. A lot more.

Probably more God of War 3, along with a new game I bought a week ago - Batman Returns for NES. It's a decent beat-em-up, but the controls are a bit stiff.

Also want to get back to either Koudelka or Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Garth wrote:

The Witcher, but I have been playing that thing nonstop for the past few weeks. I may need a palate cleanser from all the monster hunting and bandit pillaging.

That's on my list to restart in the coming weeks. I got to some swamps around midgame over a decade ago and then stalled out.

Been so dog tired this week but I'm going to try streaming some W40K Inquisitor: Martyr tonight as well as on Sunday.

Finally got around to fooling around with Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate on the PS4 and I want to get served up a can of whoopass online so I'll take the plunge into Ranked with the vale tudo lady and see how I fare.

Debating whether to push on with Ninja Gaiden Sigma or move on to playing the Sigma'd love of my life, Ninja Gaiden II...

I'll be going through my steam sale haul. Mainly Persona 5 Strikers, but also some Mundaun, and maybe dipping my toes into Blasphemous for a bit.

If I get time, it'll be another game of Old World and continuing on in Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Glued to Summer Games Done Quick, with the occasional break for Sekiro.

More Persona 5 Royal. I hit 100 hours today, so I am very close to the finish line!

Monster Train. But I also want to try Assassin's Creed Odyssey too....

I picked up Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin, after having a great time with the demo.

Moved to a new state so been about two weeks since I've had a chance to play anything. So will be back on Days Gone.

Also bit the bullet and got Horizon Zero Dawn from GMG as they had it for $26. Already owned the base game on PS4 and put in 10-15 hours in to it. I was hoping it would show up in this months Humble Bundle but nope. So justified the $26 for the full experience and ability to play on the PC with an Xbox controller (don't care for the PS4 controller). I wasn't sure if it would run well on my computer. And sure enough it ran terribly when I booted it up for some testing. But after some minor tweaking (Borderless to Full Screen and force G-Sync via Nvidia Control) it was smooth at High setting. So that is lined up after done with Days Gone.

Warhammer 40K Inquistor: Martyr Prophecy, of course, what with the new season starting. And Roguebook, which is actually a good Slay the Spire competitor from Richard Garfield. Logistical 3: Earth, too, Bahrain is not going to supply itself hrrr hrrr.

Alright, f*ck Ys Seven. I'm done with it.

I'm playing Shin Megami Tensei IV now. I did buy this game about 5 years ago or so, but I dumped it once I reached Tokyo. For those who don't know, a good chunk of the game is set in Tokyo and the game's map is the worst in any game. You get a real life map of Tokyo, but without any names on the map. This means you'll be told to go to say Shinjuku National Park, which is a real place, but unless you live in Tokyo you won't know where that is in the game world. You either need to print off a fanmade map, use Google Maps, or stumble around for hours until you stumble on the right place by dumb luck. No accommodations were made for non-Japanese players.

I loved the game though and SMT V has me hyped, so I'm giving it another shot. I have a fanmade map printed off and I'm ready for when I reach Tokyo. I shouldn't have to do this, but it is what it is.

Please God, help me. I cannot stop playing Deep Rock Galactic.

I don't even find the game that exciting anymore. 130 hours in and it's comfort food. Mindless games to play when I don't want to play a lore-heavy game... even though I love lore-heaving games. It's my bread and butter.

SOMEONE HELP ME.