What have you been playing recently?

I like this idea.

How is Saints Row IV? I used to raid on WoW with a bunch of guys from Volition Studios, I sometimes wonder how many of them got to keep their jobs when THQ sold them, and if any worked on that game.

Recently I've been playing a lot of Civ V, notably in between rating pages for work. I also picked up Final Fantasy XIV, and so far it's pretty good, the class system is so much different from what I'm used to with games like WoW, where you had to make a different character for each class. In this all I have to do is switch to a different class by equipping a special item, so I only need to level one character.

I picked up Rayman Legends this week. My son and I are having a ball with it. The music levels are a work of genius!

I'm really just waiting for GTA V later this month. Summer dull drums.

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Recently, just STOnline. Been too busy to do anything else. I might spend tomorrow morning or the next taking another shot at the basement in Kingdom of Loathing, though.

FFXIV: ARR. I'll post pics when I have time. Sadly, there's not much of that in abundance lately.

Sky Gamblers: Cold War.

On a whole bunch due to Square not getting their act together and the servers being overflowed. But I'm on the Coeurl server and Hyperion server. Will probably switch to Adamantoise to play with friends or an RP server for fun when they allow server switches.

Switch to Adamantoise! I'm on there.

WoW and Civ IV (Fall From Heaven 2 and Destiny mods). Mario Kart Wii and Smash Bros Brawl when sister and brother in law are over.

Was going to play Star Wars online, but I got the Synching Files thing, and at 5 minutes it was 2.4% complete so I said fuck it.

Civ 4

Total War-Empire.

Oblivion has been off to the side for the summer, but now that I have the monster TV

Oh, and Majesty 2.

As is my tradition I've booked a week off to play GTA V following its release.

I've been playing two games mainly: Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Papers, Please.

ETS2 is a game that makes you think "How the hell did that get turned into a video game?" But once you play it, you find that not only did someone make a game of it, but it's actually fun and interesting.

I'm currently level 5, with a starting city of Amsterdam. I'm saving up for a truck of my own by doing work-for-hire jobs. The only real problems I've had so far (apart from getting used to driving a big rig with a trailer) is transitioning between left and right road systems. My first drive on English roadways ended up being an experience which, if done in real life, would probably end with a prison visit.

But you can't beat the experience of driving down a European highway listening to live streaming European radio. Favorite station so far is EKR radio, a rock station out of the UK.


"Papers, Please" is another "How is this fun?" type of game. You play as a border inspector at a border checkpoint for a fictional Soviet-esque totalitarian state called Arstotzka in the year 1982, and the whole game is your daily job checking immigrant paperwork and accepting/denying entrance depending on whether the paperwork checks out. As the game goes on it gets harder and more complex, due to things like politics with neighboring countries and terrorism, and all the while you're driven to move people along as fast as possible because you're paid based on how many people you processed that day, and you have to support your large family with your salary. And if you don't make enough, your family will have to go without food or heat for a day.

The game touches on issues like human rights. For example, you can have people strip searched (and there's full nudity). Also, there will be situations where, for example, a couple will come in and only one of them has the correct paperwork, and you have to decide whether to separate them like a good worker, or let them both in and take a penalty (you get fined for mistakes). There's also a story line as the game goes on where a secret society working to bring down the country will try and enlist your help, and you have to choose to accept the bribe and help them or refuse.

The game is relatively short, but there are 20 separate endings so it encourages replaying.


I highly recommend both games!

been cracking out old school on super Mario 64. got it down to 3 hours, 39 minutes!

Star Trek Online. Almost every damn day. I never want to spare the time for anything else, because it would be time lost on the various grinding to advance things in STO.

I hope STO comes to consoles one day. I played Star Trek The Game on PS3 and it was overwhelmingly mediocre. All it did was make me realize how much I'd love to play a good StarTrek game. Until then, there's always Mass Effect.

more racquetball and less golf.

I just don't see how it could, unfortunately. The interface would be way too clunky and hard to streamline. However, the main factor is there just isn't enough money to be had to spend and recoup on porting most MMOs to a console, with Final Fantasy being an exception to the rule. Especially STO in its current state and population count, although its way better now than when I paid $60 for it and it's a great game for trekkies. A Star Trek console MMO would have to be a whole new game from the ground-up, in my opinion.

Still would rather play MMOs on the PC though, mouse and keyboard offer a much better experience for such interface heavy games.

I finally decide I have all the gear I want. I'm DONE with the collection grind.


But, you know, that one set may be of use...

yeah, I've watched the speedruns for both the 70 and 120 multiple times. that dude is insane!

oh man, it's been forever since I played crash bandicoot games. my roommate has all the nintendos so we mostly play those. I forget that I have an old ps2 in the basement.

I hear you, we've got two of our friends stuck on Shiva (EU). They're just dying for the paid character transfers to start so they can play with the rest of us (there's 4 so far on Adamantoise).

Nick, what's your username? My group on Adamantois is dying to add more members to their free company or whatever and asked if I knew anyone.

Since both you and my friends are on that server, this will most likely be the one I play my main on.