What are you playing right now?

[PeanutButterToast]

Trying to get into MMO's with SWTOR free to play. I'm going through my first playthrough as a scoundrel/ruffian. I still am not sure ofthe mechanics of MMO's and rolse and stuff but it is a fun game.

[Sun Fin]

My wife and I have just bought the remastered Crash Bandicoot games, we're excited to relive our childhood memories!

[Kong Wen]

I'm plugging away at Fire Emblem Heroes on mobile (great for in bed or on commutes... if I'm not driving).

On console, I'm juggling. I have Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age on the go, but I thoroughly completed that when it originally came out, so I'm just playing casually as a nostalgia trip. I also just picked up Undertale when it came out on PS4. I haven't played it before, and I'm enjoying it.

I'm going to have to make time when Destiny 2 comes out, though. That's going to be my bread and butter for a long time to come, I imagine.

[Dong Zhou]

Trying Dynasty Warrior Godseekers which seems to be trying to trying to DT with a bit of DW style, Japanese dialogue but English subtitles. Premise: Zhao Yun and scholarly childhood friend Lei Bin hear of Turbans seeking something buried and seek to stop them. What they find will lead them across the land...

The tutorial section aka the opening doesn't go well, story isn't the best I have ever seen but is alright so far, I think it is more the fights feel so simple and easy at that point that it gets boring. Once one gets to training camp and chance for little non-story battles in Chang An (for levelling up and rewards), I did enjoy the fighting (though still easy to win at moment) more then merging or selling the weapons I got. I only have two units so far and so hopefully will get even better once I get other units and learn how to recruit them. Is stuff tutorial could do better at like how to use skill board effectively and to win the final syncro training required doing stuff I don't believe it had taught me I could do.

As an example of the different tone where DT units would have skills like raid, flank, aid, fire attacks, pit where the unit troops were heavily involved, your attacks on this seem very much "Zhao Yun unleashes such and such" and plows through the troop DW style.

Finished the story. It remains easy even fighting on hard mode throughout, the skirmishes are "you know what type of battle, you see every unit so go do what you need to do" which is pretty much build up synrhco then use it to slaughter your way through. The camapign battles do throw things up like a sudden ambush or trick but I was never defeated by it, tended to be able to do the "defeat so and so/kill this many units" tasks each time though sometimes struggled with getting the "get charge up to" ones.

Despite it's easiness, I did tend to enjoy the battles once I had multiple units particularly the camapign ones where I could be suddenly sending my five units back to HQ. Thanks to synchrony, easy to level up even level 1 figures by including them in such an attack and figures do feel more powerful as they get more and more attacks, status effects come into play, the slower units begin to improve mobility. Skill tree is based on type rather then individualized but provides enough variety, just wish there had been more ranged units

Is story great? No, it is nice enough but while there was one good ending note, I didn't particularly warm to the OC's or care overall about the story. I did like the path of destiny which gives you little characters moments, some like Huang Zhong are surprisingly good (instead of "oh I'm old, so old", it was more a wise mentor), others like Han Dang keep old issues and females are a bit too obsessed with the men folk. Love the wallpaper rewards, some beautiful artwork there

All in all, a nice popcorn game that I was drawn to despite it not being a great game

[LiuBeiwasGreat]

I recently picked up Shadows of War for the PC. I am enjoying it so far, though chapter 2 is getting a bit repetitive. I am going from region to region killing/subverting captains, taking out Warlords, putting my people in their place then invading the castles. I have three out of the five regions and from what I remember reading after I conquer all of them I have to do a ton of really hard defensive battles before I can get the true ending.
I am excited to see how long it will take before I get bored of a game which should be amazing. It is weird to have a game which I find to be a lot of fun but at the same time kinda boring.

[Mikhail]

I'm playing a couple of things at the moment. Too many, if I'm supposed to give my attention fairly, but enough to keep me busy.

For PC, it's dominated by Total War Warhammer 2 and Football Manager 2018. I've also dabbled in PUBG, DOS2, and Holdfast Nations At War recently. For PS4, the list is a little more condensed. Star Wars Battlefront 2, Fortnite (Battle Royale), and Grand Theft Auto 5 (Online).

[Kong Wen]

Monster.
Hunter.
World.

This game is great. They refined past MH games and astoundingly did a good job with pretty much every tweak. The game manages to maintain the incredible complexity and obscurity the series is known for while also being somewhat accessible for beginners. The game still doesn't really tell you how to do anything, though, so you either have to figure things out or hear about them from your friends.

The squad functionality is actually really neat. If you're in a squad (clan), you can choose to join a squad session right from the main connection menu. If someone in your squad has already created a session, you'll join them. If not, you'll create the session and your clannies can then join you. Simple and slick. You can be in 8 squads at the same time. Each squad can hold 50 people. Each session can hold 16 people, and of course, each hunting party can be up to 4 people.

The flipside of this is that MH:World is Capcom's best-selling game of all time, having pushed 7.5M units in just over a month (WHAT). That means several people have been experiencing connection errors at peak times. Sometimes, you'll be unable to connect with a squad/friend/room, so it'll put you in another hidden room. You can still join other hunters' SOS quests and fire SOS flares of your own... you just seem to have access to a different host/server group that your friends. Mildly annoying, but at least it still lets you play the game. Hopefully this is something Capcom is working on.

If anyone around here has the game or is thinking of getting the game, I do have a This Old Neon squad setup.

[Xiahou Jia]

Got a question, Kong Wen. About Monster Hunter games. I've never played any of the past games. So is this a mostly an online game? I mean, can I simply play and enjoy the full content offline without pvp and coop? Or is coop required to face some bosses? I'm a huge fan of Nioh for example because online modes are completely optional and don't interfere with singleplayer gaming in the form of say invasions or some unique quality gear rewards.

[Kong Wen]

Got a question, Kong Wen. About Monster Hunter games. I've never played any of the past games. So is this a mostly an online game? I mean, can I simply play and enjoy the full content offline without pvp and coop? Or is coop required to face some bosses? I'm a huge fan of Nioh for example because online modes are completely optional and don't interfere with singleplayer gaming in the form of say invasions or some unique quality gear rewards.

It's mostly online, but online is not required.

Online can make some parts easier, and some parts harder. When you have more players in a hunt, the monster difficulty scales up. You also split the monetary rewards (but you each get your own material loot). So calling players in to help can make some fights more difficult. There's one monster in particular I prefer to solo.

You have a little AI partner who will be very helpful if you're playing solo. There's actually a benefit to being in a squad and making friends even if you don't play with them--their little AI partners can randomly be found in your game world and they'll follow you along and help you too. You can also make alliances with some NPCs in the field who will help you on some certain hunts, so if you're really on top of things, you can have a 4-person team consisting of you and 3 NPCs.

You're in full control of when you want to play online/multiplayer. There are no invasions or anything like that. If you want to start a mission with people, you can join an online session. If you get into a mission and find that you need help, you can shoot up an SOS flare which allows people to find and join your game.

One of the big advantages of playing online is if there's a particular monster part you're having trouble harvesting. For example, I play with a Long Sword. I sometimes have trouble breaking tough monster horns (because they're resistant to slashing damage) and wings (because they're far away from me). If I don't want to invest significant resources and time learning how to play with hammers or bows, I can bring in a friend who's using those weapons to help me bust those parts.

Here's another thing: I know for a lot of people who don't like playing online with other people, it's because they want to be quiet or mind their own business or not necessarily be social all the time. Well, even if you're playing in an online session, you can set your own hunts/quests to be 1-player and no one else will join you. But this still gives you the option of having other people around in case you want to join them. Hunts themselves can be more fun with additional communication, but it's not necessary/required for success. So you could even join multiplayer hunts and not feel the pressure to have to join a party chat and talk to those other hunters all the time.

Hope that's helpful info!

EDIT: One thing I forgot! There are a couple of multiplayer-focused trophies/achievements. They're not really hard ones, though. By far the hardest achievements are just run of the mill gameplay ones that don't require online.

[Xiahou Jia]

Thanks for answering, Kong Wen. I think I gonna try the game when I have a bit more spare time.