Topic: What PS5 Games Are You Currently Playing?

@JohnnyShoulder Ah! Thanks for laying out all those connections. That's very fun. It's a shame they can't connect either Max Payne or Quantum Break more directly due to all the legal stuff. I'm sure they would have if they could. Since this is the best they can get away with though, it's still very interesting stuff.

@CaptD A big tip is to not use any of the items that give you an instant level up until right at the end of the game to save yourself some of the grind on those. I think I ended up buying an extra pack of three as they were heavily discounted when I was doing the grind (and felt dirty for doing so).

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN It’s going well. I had time this weekend to make some progress and I’m finally about to enter the end game process. You know, where an NPC says to you something like “If you proceed then you won’t be able to come back here, so make sure you’ve done everything here that you want.” I’ve heard that the end game area is rather large though, so no telling how close I actually am. Still enjoying it though, and feel confident I can take on the final boss.

It's been about 16 months since my last post!

Just thought I'd drop by and have a see where everyone was upto these days and going back a few pages its nice to see its nearly the same old faces 😂

I am currently 5 hours in to Death Stranding and I'm really looking forward to playing a lot more of this game. I'm not too far but far enough to know that this could end up being a really really good game.

@MaulTsir Good to see you! Oh what a treat you are in for, I wish I could erase my memories and start DS again for the first time 👍

Be sure to check out the thread and post any thoughts and questions.

Exciting!

@Bundersvessel Further to our conversation earlier, in The Cricket Thread, I acquired my first scadutree fragments today, after some early exploration of the Land of Shadow, and levelled up accordingly. Also, the internet on my PS5 went down recently, and after it had been repaired I was able to get my 'Shardbearer Mohg' Trophy to 'pop' on PSNProfiles. Was chuffed with that, considering you get no trophies for the DLC.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN No trophies? It's all for the journey then.

Re: your earlier post, I love the true immersion going on with the way of the samurai, crafting Sekiro style builds is pretty cool to see and a testament to the effect that, that game and the wider culture you're absorbing has had on you. Super cool 👍

I won't pretend to understand all the lingo but i'm anxious to follow your journey again and i know there are probably only three people on here that I need to turn to when I properly attack the genre.

Oh I completely forgot, you asked what I was playing. I'm planning to pick up my Death Stranding Director's Cut playthrough again, as last year was a bit of a non starter gaming wise. I have already played it on PS4 but I would like to finish this version before moving onto the sequel.

I dunno if anyone else even owns FC26 but it’s really genuinely truly a terrible game. They come out just after my birthday every year and they last the season so it’s usually at least a decent game to ask for. But this year’s one is honestly one of the worst games I’ve ever played. The sad thing is that it actually started out ok, but the patches have turned it into an all-time low. I really hope it’s true that 2K are making a competitor, not because it’ll be good but because any competition might make EA wake up.

@Bundersvessel Thanks for noticing that, much appreciated. Just for clarification purposes, the scadutree fragments are in-game items that you use to increase your attack and defence stats, completely within the Land of Shadow (DLC Area) - those boosts don't transfer over to the main game. Good luck with Death Stranding, Director's Cut. I wish you all the best, with your own journey, Coop! .

Started The Outer Worlds 2 the other night. I never finished the first game, I doubt I will finish this one, but it is definitely filling a void at the moment as I still can't commit to a Death Stranding 2 playthrough.

It feels just about RPG enough to be a good bit of casual fun. You can't just max everything out so actually have to make choices. And my initial choice was to be a Lucky, Brilliant, but rather Dumb Ex-Con. Incapable of ever learning to hack or do any science, but very capable of talking myself into or shooting my way out of trouble, or solving things with the odd obscure solution that only this brilliant, lucky idiot can see.

It does seem weird to lock myself out of some massive gameplay elements, but I never feel like using many science weapons anyway. Pistols, stealth and critical chance will do me just fine.

I feel like I cleared all the first town's mini quests fairly quickly, it was nicely laid out and i've levelled up a fair bit from random side quests or tasks. Some of them had some fairly funny moments, too. Or were kind of satisfying to resolve in a way I wanted. Others I was basically forced to murder some poor hungry people because I have no leadership or medical skills and violence was the only outcome as they were not going to give themselves up 😬😁

There was also a guy I found who was doing some very, very dumb science on Crabble eggs (our characters were basically meant for each other) but maybe I shot his prized crabble egg just to see what happened and blamed a muscle twitch (finally a game action that suits my actual rp character, rather than it just being me wanting to see what happens on a normal character that wouldn't actually do that) the 4th wall break response was kind of cool, and I didn't need to reload and let him carry on.as normal, as my character would totally shoot his egg to see what happens 😁 poor fellow, no yolk based skip drives for you!

I don't think there is a thread for this game, but I know some people here did play it recently, so if anyone reads this i'd be happy to hear what builds they went for, how they found it etc.

I've been looking for AFK ways to making infinite wealth in Infinite Wealth. Everything in the game costs so much and I've hardly been able to play but it looks like I cracked the system. Now I can go shopping for some real weapons etc. At first I thought 'oh God why am I on this island?' then I realized I could use it's potential to earn even when I wasn't on the game, that's two days worth of shady tactics that paid off.

@Ravix That dumb was funnier than it should have been. I feel like someone else mentioned that game recently, possibly Tjuz. I skipped the first one, I heard it was very linear with not much of an open world. Is two more open?

@GirlVersusGame they are kind of like little seperate worlds, I haven't played enough of it to say, but it seems fairly similar to the first, but maybe a slightly larger area. It is fairly well designed in terms of where things are located and how you clear things on your way to various quests you have collected in the towns.

They are basically like Bethesda games but smaller and a bit quirky. I never really finish Bethesda games either as there is just too much stuff and I stop caring about all the factions and little side quests and the main stories are hardly riveting. So, as I have no intention to play more than once, I get drawn in to trying to see everything in one playthrough but it doesn't really suit that. TOW2 is maybe helping as I will be locking myself out of some things with my build and RPing to just do stuff I want.

I think you'd kind of like them. They are alright games.

@Ravix Never really finish Bethesda games either as there is just too much stuff and I stop caring about all the factions and little side quests and the main stories are hardly riveting.

• Are you saying you've never finished Skyrim? I've done everything to one hundred percent twice, you are missing out on picking and collecting ninroot (not really) After what you said about not going for one hundred percent it makes sense. I knew someone once who only played games for the story, I play for the side content. And then there's the cheese.

That's what I do after there's nothing left to do in a Bethesda game.

That was on PS4, I filled the whole house. PS5 only one room.

@GirlVersusGame I am saying that, yes! 😱 but I only played Skyrim a few years ago, so it was already ancient and new games came out so I stopped. I was going into the world/realm within that bit of jewellery or whatever at the time 😅 fallout 4 is just a bit annoying with everyone calling on your help every 10 seconds, plus I built some really cool bases, and the game mechanics just ignored my walls and fences anyway by spawning enemies inside and I felt betrayed by that game, depite enjoying it for the most part 😅

This is why KCD and The Witcher is more my type of game, they take some of the stuff Bethesda do, but have fully voiced protagonists, better stories and still have that kind of feel that made Elder Scrolls games popular, too. I have no reference to Morrowind, and only played some of the Oblivion remake, but the stuff they do well (freedom, immersion, charm, rpg elements where you can do what you like, goofiness) I feel like KCD does better and in a more focused way alongside a narrative and more meaningful game mechanics that mean I simply find them much easier to see them through/complete them (multiple times) 😄

I really think you'd vibe with KCD if you go in with an open mind to it being an RPG you'd recognise in a lot of ways, but set in a real historical setting with more realism and focused game mechanics running in the background that reward thinking for yourself.

I do respect your dedication to cheese, however. Although I bet that would seriously stink!

@Ravix Another settlement needs your help, you didn't glitch the game for your base? I did, a lot. It removed the build limit without needing to use Mods so I still kept trophy support. It removed the limit for defenses too, I had maybe fifty turrets, doing that is supposed to crash your game but it was fine. I built a lot of things from scratch, towns, museums and the game chugged along. You only recently playing Skyrim makes me only recently seeing Friends not as bad, Skyrim feels thirty years old too. The engine it runs on probably is. I'd play a Kingdom Come game if they set one during the Crusades like Kingdom of Heaven, but I probably will end up trying Kingdom Come at some point. Maybe just for the story, it's gotten a lot of praise. It's funny how you thought I never played The Witcher 3. I need to return to Oblivion eventually, I'd gotten addicted and had to stop. Right now I'm doing school exams in Infinite Wealth and Ace-ing them all too (I'm cheating) I don't want to be playing this forever. I'll probably play a small Indie after this, then something bigger. I have no backlog, just 'it could be anything next'.

That's why I'm cheating in school, who's going around measuring Sonic?

@GirlVersusGame all of those answers are pretty big for a hedgehog, too, so it has me questioning the legitmacy of Sonic 😁 I played some of the first Ichiban game, but I can't ever finish Yakuza games as they get too repetative for me. They are cool for a time, though, and I can see why people love them. The game before you had to catch pokemon, but the pokemon were men in nappies. (I'm pretty sure that is what it was haha) there was definitely some nappy based side quests and some pokemon parody involved in the game 😂

Ah, but there is another kind of crusade about to be happening at the time of KCD, to be fair, where the pope (one of them, anyway) is annoyed that people were doing things like... questioning his organised religion's hoarding of gold. For shame! So he sent his hit squad to sort things out (failed a bit) and it all kickstarted a rather brutal part of history. This is a very basic analysis of the period, but it's kind of what happened. I think there were a total of 5 crusades at the time in the region

So the games are basically a massive prequel to the Hussite wars, which is an incredibly interesting period. And also, coincidentally (and bloody perfect for me) the subject of Andrjez Sapkowski's semi-fantasy 'Hussite Trilogy', and those books almost have the same exact feel as KCD does as a game, but with a bit of magic thrown in as well as the socio-political backdrop. So where the Hussite Trilogy has literal magic, despite it being pretty much a full on historical fiction by an author I love set in a time I have come to be very much interested in because of KCD, KCD has excessive drunkeness and alchemy instead 😁

@Ravix He's 100cm so about the same height as a doorknob, that's pretty short. I haven't seen the movie, I have to see him standing beside a human. You have to catch men in this game too called Sujimon and then battle them which I haven't done yet because you need a PhD in Pokemon to do it. I'm probably going to play it for most of the night and catch up, I'm enjoying the calm again.

There's a Czechoslovakian movie trilogy set in the Hussite period, way back from the fifties. I watched them years ago, they are well known in that part of the world as is the director Otakar Vavra. He filmed a lot of propaganda for the old Communist Party and worked on a lot of movies for the State. His Hussite trilogy are worth watching if you haven't already, if just for the battles.

I haven't read much about the period but Vavra was very important for Czech cinema, and of course for the Communist Party. Maybe Kingdom Come Deliverance renewed some interest in his movies. I can't think of any other movie or show that focused the Hussites. I know about the Hussites mainly through Communism. There is a kind of romanticism there as certain ideology's lined up, Jan Hus would probably still be seen as a national hero, their history is complex, as is proto-Communism. I understand it more from the position of the State than the Church, my Dad would have known a lot more about it. He understood a lot more about that region and about Czech history. I think now most young people might not be raised with an understanding of the Hussite's influence, some people see them as heroes others as pillagers of their own lands. I was raised around a romanticized view of Communism so there's definitely bias there, I doubt the Hussites were Saints, no one is during war. I didn't know the Hussites were in the game, that makes me more likely to try it.

@GirlVersusGame both sides ended up being truly awful, like absolutely barbaric, but some of the ideals of the Hus side were maybe slightly more favourable to begin with. As with all things everything gets overblown and used for another agenda. It is very strange, as is all of human history. Kind of weird how Sapkowski and Daniel Vavra (kcd) both lived under communist influences, both made work pertaining to Hus and all of those works really appeal to me 😅 Sapkowski is kind of Neutral politically (or he says he is) but you can tell the kind of thing he is against through his work and his work is pretty liberal, especially as it was coming out of 80's/90's Poland, but then Vavra is staunchly anti-communism, unlike his namesake, and that really leans into his rejection of anyone he sees as trying to censor things today which is seen as conservative. Politics really sucks. As do most organised religions. But boy is the history of it interesting as fluff!

I think to truly understand either you have to have grown up or been around those situations. But yeah, The Witcher books (and therefore the Witcher games) and The Hussite Trilogy, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance, I imagine all will have some things you understand far more than me and have some appeal to you. But I know I bloody love them all and their unique perspectives certainly add so much flavour.

And as I say KCD is almost like a prequel to the Hussite Wars, rather than focusing on them, especially with the introduction of a certain character in KCD2... but they are set in 1403. (The Hus religious asepct stuff is kind of background flavour in KCDI, but the political tensions are like the forewarning for things that are about to go down. Wenceslaus, Sigismund etc) The Hussite Trilogy books are set maybe 1418-1435 and cover most of the wars so the two things pair really well, even if it has a bit of magic in, it is immensely good historical fiction, and you can tell Sapkowski's main love is the history of that area and that period!

I have not heard of those movies. My movie buff-ness does not yet cover Czech communist productions 😁 but I will try to remember to, ahem Czech it out. Is it mad that liberals, and those that made propaganda to support communism in an oppressive way both kind of have a similar stance on liking Jan Hus. This is why I can't do politics and religion. It's all mad, and only power matters, not beliefs.

I recognise the name of that video by the way, in terms of it being The Battle of Vitkov Hill, due to a certain commander with a fairly good win/loss record, and what I have assimilated through The Hussite Trilogy and random research.

(I couldn't post the example I wanted as it won't post correctly

But I think you'd enjoy the codex pages in KCD and KCD2