What have you been playing recently?

Been playing a good deal of No More Room In Hell lately.

I've been playing a lot of Path of Exile lately. It's been called the game that Diablo III should have been and that's not wrong. Decent, if not cutting edge, graphics that are appropriate for the kind of game, and the character development system is by far the best I've ever seen in that type of game. It's pretty well balanced for both solo and party play. There is a PvP mode that I haven't tested out, but seems well implemented from what I've read. On top of that, the game is free to play. Not free to play if you want a gimped character who has no access to the best stuff, but genuinely free to play. The game was a major kickstarter success and continuing financing is mostly through cosmetic transactions that make your character look cool but have no gameplay effect. Or, if you spend enough money you can get to design an artifact that will make it into a later edition of the game, but you don't get a free copy of the artifact. The only gameplay effect you can buy is an increased stash size, which is mostly a matter of convenience as you can accomplish the same effect by creating a bunch of mule characters.

Anyway, a definite recommend if dungeon crawls are your thing.

To advance you will absolutely be forced to engage in the trading meta-game. You are also insanely at the mercy of the random number generator for item drops, socket colors, and socket links. Even if you use a one of those reroll things, what you get is random. Also, that skill web isn't impressive when you look at what most of the nodes are. +10 health, +1% dmg, etc...

I've advanced pretty well without doing any trading, though I can't say how it might go in one of the hardcore leagues. Finished Dominus on merciless, clearing most maps 75 and below without dying. As for those +10 nodes, you shouldn't be taking a lot of them and if you build properly the few you have to take aren't so useless in the end. For example, when you have a lot of +% to energy shield, mana, and mana regeneration, the handful of +10 intelligence you have to take along the way synergize well and add up nicely. Also, you'll eventually find equipment that meets your stat needs for using gems and you can respec out of any stray +stat nodes that weren't along the path to more valuable things.

Sure, the most powerful builds rely on specific high end equipment that you're unlikely to get without trading, but there are still a lot of versatile, powerful builds that don't require a lot of specific equipment. I'm using only one unique item, and that mostly just helps to clear faster rather than to clear more difficult levels. It helps a lot to look at some sample builds and to plan out your development. Remember that there are no saving throws--creatures are either immune to status effects or they always work, so that something like Conversion Trap, which other games might lead you to ignore, is insanely powerful. If you neglect defenses you'll speed through a lot of the game with ease and then hit a wall. Synergy, in general, is very important to builds, and it's hard to see how the various nodes, gems, and equipment modifiers synergize without looking at some sample builds. Spoil yourself about quest rewards, and you won't be nearly as much at the mercy of the RNG. Spoil yourself about what you can profitably sell to vendors--socket colors aren't a major problem if you have several heaps of chromatic orbs from selling items with linked red, blue, and green sockets. By the time you really need to start improving your equipment sockets and links in merciless, you'll be finding otherwise useless items with six sockets; sell them all and you'll have no problems getting four linked sockets of useful and probably optimal colors on the best rare armor you find.

Been playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup because of the recent tournament. I'm slow, but this is my best game so far -- I've gotten to Level 11 and fought most of the way through the Lair of Beasts.

About to play along with the live-stream development of a post-apocalyptic wasteland zone in Kingdom of Loathing. These are always fun to watch.

shadows of mordor.

Lolololololol

DDO now lets you deactivate some of your hireling's abilities! Now that stupid wizard won't waste time and spell points delevelling generic enemies!

I've been playing 2 hames of late

final fantasy 14 realm reborn which is ok but very much like guildwars 2

and 7 days to die which is like a grown ups version of minecraft. pretty fun. its still in alpha but I enjoy it, going round getting killed by zombies getting killed by running off cliffs a little building, and dieing a lot.

The Walking Dead: Season 1 (love it!), Driveclub (great graphics, but not much more.), FIFA 15 (ok game, but not much improvement since FIFA 14).

Yeah, got a PS4 two months ago. Good console, but still not enough games. I hope DA3 will not disappoint.

Thx for the suggestion, it's loading! Yes, I have a plus account. I'll give it a try when I am finished with TWD Episode 1 and 2.

TWD is such a primitive game... Can it even be considered a game? However, it's so relaxing. I enjoy it more than Driveclub, for example. Such a powerful console, but the so-called nextgen games don't impress me much.

found a box with my old DS games, been playing Advance Warsual Strike and Freedom Wings

Not playing anything at the moment but I'll be playing Dragon Age: Inquisition in a few days.

The Walking Dead is an interactive story rather than a game, the modern incarnation of Choose Your Own Adventure books. It branches a lot less and tells a much better story, but the idea is fundamentally the same.

Yes! I'm trying to move through DA2 as fast as I can to prepare.

I wouldn't bother to be honest since you can't import saved games into DA3. And I'd hate to go through DA2 again...
Use the Dragon Age Keep to import all your major decisions from DA1 and DA2 into DA3.
https://dragonagekeep.com/

Yes, I know, thanks; but I can hardly remember the game and would like to have a feel for what happened in "my" version.

I've been playing Archeage the past month or so. And despite all the problems, this game has me in it's grip.

Got Shadows of Mordor, Company of Heroes 2, and Civ: Beyond Earth for Xmas. So far I've been busy killing Orcs but the other two look good as well.

KoL Crimbo was plenty of fun this year, with fighting, mining, and a robot optimization minigame. I wish I'd had another day or two of play to earn enough credits for the smithing skill, but I was just so busy this past month. Looks like Uncle Crimbo will be minimalist on technology next year, so we might have a dirty hippy theme.

I've been playing GTA-V, it's a funny game.

In a drunken stupor last night, I got "Game of Thrones" (season pass) and "The Wolves among us" from the Playstation store. Today I remembered that I never really watched Game of Thrones for more than a few minutes and have no clue about what's going on in the "Wolves..."-universe... So I went and bought the first three seasons of GoT on bluray so that I can enjoy the game afterwards... I will watch the three seasons in the next few days, despite being not very fond of it... I'm such a ridiculous Telltale fanboy, it's embarrasing!

Odds are extremely high that you will be a GoT fan by the end

I hope not... I'm already obsessed with TWD. Being a fan of another ultrapopular mainstream TV series would destroy the rest of my elitist hipster street cred! Thank you very much, Telltale Games!

I tried the Game Of Thrones Telltale game and I really enjoyed it... but I am a GOT superfan. I don't understand why some are not as fond of it as the other Telltale games. At some point, I will try Tales From the Borderlands too.