Running video games (and consoles) thread

Alert, if you're a straggler like me who hasn't had time to play the greatest game of 2018, Red Dead Redemption II is selling for $39.99 today on Amazon Prime. Mine should be showing up tonight.

 

Ha, I'm only just getting to Horizon Zero Dawn now - that's a hell of a game. So, I'll probably get to RDR2 in 2020, at this rate. I played Fallout 76 for about three months - it has issues, but it is still a B-, fun version of Fallout online. Also have Dragon Quest 11 on my shelf, waiting to be played.

 

Holy crap, thanks for reminding me! I downloaded HZD at the end of 2017 and completely forgot about it. I finished Spider-Man and was just killing time on the old Arkham games. RDR2 is too much of a time sink given the sporadic alignment of my free time and wife's goodwill. That goes out the window when Cyberpunk 2077 gets released. I may have to get my own apartment whenever Borderlands 3 comes out.

 

Borderlands 3, unfortunately, might be vaporware at this point. There is a pretty ugly dispute between the CEO and former CFO, I think, of Gearbox, and the game hasn't even been formally announced. So, who knows?

 

That would suck, but it wouldn't be a surprise at this point. I think Gearbox was set back pretty bad with Battleborn being such a flop. BL2 was fantastic. A really long campaign, interesting story and a series of DLCs that provided great entertainment and value.

 

I'm video-game monogamous, mostly - I play the shit out of one game exclusively until I'm tired of it, and then I (usually) never pick it up again.

For the last few months, it's been Overwatch. .... but then the new Civ VI update dropped last week. ....

 

Can I confess that I haven't found Civ6 all that fun to play? Like, I'm not a huge fan of having to juggle the policy cards, and while the art style is neat and distinctive, I just kind of prefer how Civ5 played. I think it might be because I'm so much more of a filthy casual player now that I'm older - Even on low difficulty levels, barbarians and other civs are competent in Civ6, and you can't pursue everything.

 

I spent four hours on Sunday with RDR2 without realizing it. Super addicting. I haven't turned it on since because of work stuff. Will probably give it good run next week when I get back from Pinehurst.

My video game habits have changed immensely. I enjoy sitting down for a game or two of FIFA, but that only takes 45 minutes or so. I haven't sat with a game like RDR2 for a long time. It should keep me entertained through 2021 at least.

 

Civ is like that for me. "Just one more turn!" .... eight hours later ....

No. You can't say that. I'm proud to say the Civ VI lead designer is one of my best friends. So now I hate you

I've won games at the Emperor level for the last few Civs, but it's such a brain drain of constant optimization. I frequently prefer to play at King or the level right above King, survive an early scare or two, get the science lead and then decide how I want to win the game.

As with all the Civ games, you get the initial release, which is pretty cool. ... and then start adding the DLC, and the systems get more refined. Civ VI is reaching a pretty good spot, especially with the Gathering Storm DLC that just came out.

As for the competence of the AI in Civ6: 1. Know if you start next to the more aggressive civs, they're going to be launching an early DOW on you. Survive it, and you'll be in good shape. 2. The AI is still weak against early Archer rush. So Warrior-Slinger-Warrior-Builder-Slinger-Warrior-Slinger-Slinger, and then upgrade all those Slingers to archers, and you probably have enough to take out your closest neighbor.

In Civ 5, "vertical" became a really popular play style (Between 1 and 4 awesome cities were enough for your Civ). They wanted to kill that play style in Civ 6, so more cities usually is better for you. Therefore: Early rush to take the two or three cities your neighbor has founded puts you on really, really good footing going forward.

 

IT'S HAPPENING

 

I am finding that I only turn on RDR2 like twice a week. I love it, but good lord is it easy to just get sucked in. Don't have enough time during the week to dedicate to playing it hours at a time. My favorite part so far was when I was riding my horse back to camp from a mission and a random KKK initiation was happening in the woods. They accidentally set the initiate on fire and he was running up the trail screaming. Fucking crazy thing to add to the game.

 

Eight months later ... finally finished the main story and epilogue for RDRII. Very satisfying. At about 90 percent total completion, and I'm not sure I care enough to go back and finish all of the hunting and fishing and cigarette card missions, etc., to get to 100.

Never played the original, but it's on Playstation Now. From what I understand, RDRII was a prequel, so maybe it's worth playing the original.