What videogames are you playing in 2025?

[MarkB]

Though, I absolutely resisted Andromeda...

I didn't. It had its frustrations, but there was good gameplay in there too, enough that I finished it.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The thing with Elden Ring is, there's always a solution, but sometimes that solution is just going and grinding souls (or whatever they're called in Elden Ring) to raise your Vigor - i.e. HP, or improving your weapon/summon (which can also take some grinding and/or exploring - rarely is your armour the issue, interestingly) and sometimes it's changing your approach so vastly that it isn't doesn't seem like it would work! And that all can be pretty challenging or annoying.

Personally I subscribe to the theory of "at least 20 Vigor as your #1 priority" and then "40 Vigor as soon as is practical after that" (i.e. after raising stats to reach minimums necessary for your weapons/sorceries etc.), because even naked, with 40 Vigor it's very close to impossible to get genuinely one-shot (which is indeed the main threat on certain bosses). Once you've got 40 you should be able to handle everything until NG+.

I really love Elden Ring though because there's just something weird depresso vibe of the world/setting that absolutely works for me in a way more traditional grimdark (c.f. the Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, for example) or cheerier games do not. Also the weird Graeco-Arthurian vibes of the mythology/lore absolutely rock.

Elden Ring has this wonderful mythic quality to the world. It stands in contrast to Dark Souls, which I always liken to a very old-school grim and gritty Greyhawk-y dungeon crawl.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I competed ME Andromeda. The story was incoherent rubbish, the villains were dull, I’ve completely forgotten the companions, but the gameplay was okay - once.

 

[MarkB]

I competed ME Andromeda. The story was incoherent rubbish, the villains were dull, I’ve completely forgotten the companions, but the gameplay was okay - once.

The game had this really annoying thing where, every time it opens up a whole new range of areas for you to explore and you're getting ready to finally head out, it immediately bombards you with half a dozen new quests to do in the area you just finished. It's incredibly annoying, and is what stalled me in my attempted replay.

It does have at least some decent writing, though. I still get a chuckle out of all the little stories in the data terminals in the Krogan colony.

 

[Bohandas]

I'm playing Shotgun King and Cobalt Core mostly. And the demo of Deck Of Haunts, the full version of which isndue to drop any week now.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I competed ME Andromeda. The story was incoherent rubbish, the villains were dull, I’ve completely forgotten the companions, but the gameplay was okay - once.

Sounds about right. There's really something tremendously "Star Trek: Voyager" about Andromeda (derogatory). They want the villains to be a mash-up of the Borg and Species 8472 but they actually appear more like the Kazon Ogla with fancier tech. They want the characters to be compelling but we up with a bunch of Tom Parises, Harry Kims, and worst of Chakotays! Not a Seven of Nine or EMH to be found, let alone a Garrus or Tali (despite them really, really wanting Vetra to be that, she's actually incredibly thinly-sketched and nearly personality-free). Hell PeeBee is Neelix levels of "oh just go away please".

Despite that it's still kind of an okay RPG, but it's not good. At the very end, like the last 10% maybe, it just starts to come together, and you can maybe see what they were going for, but it's too damn late.

The game had this really annoying thing where, every time it opens up a whole new range of areas for you to explore and you're getting ready to finally head out, it immediately bombards you with half a dozen new quests to do in the area you just finished.

A couple of other RPGs of the 2010s did this, and it's incredibly irritating. Like, it's fine if the story naturally takes you back through a location, but don't just suddenly give me a bunch of minor reasons I have to go back to a place.

Elden Ring has this wonderful mythic quality to the world.

Yeah I think that's a lot of why I vibe with it so much. There's also something about how well the gameplay design works in an open world imho.

It stands in contrast to Dark Souls, which I always liken to a very old-school grim and gritty Greyhawk-y dungeon crawl.

Yeah I still remember being so shocked by the original Demon's Souls, because it had such profound mid-late 1E/early 2E vibes to me. Somehow Dark Souls 1 was even more 1E.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I replayed the crap out of it for the dialogue pieces alone. I was almost always a biotic though. I’m not sure I’ve ever done infiltratior?

It’s a very slow, meticulous, precise play style; standing way back and taking sniper shots, with the occasional power thrown in. You might hate it, if that’s not your cup of tea.

I mean, that's one way to play Infiltrator, particularly it's how ME1 Infiltrator tends to play.

But it's not the only way, nor, I would suggest, the optimal way. In ME2 and ME3, you can play "shotgun Infiltrator", where you use your Cloak to reposition in a very aggressive way, you can get on top of and behind enemies a lot of the time - that plays a hell of a lot faster and more frantically (in a good way) than "sniper Infiltrator". In ME2/3 the shared cooldowns on powers means you can also be very aggressive with powers at times, particularly Incinerate. The nice thing is you can always just got to a sniper mode if the mission demands it (but not many do).

 

[trappedslider]

graphic related bugs can be amusing

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In ME2 and ME3, you can play "shotgun Infiltrator

That defeats the object.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That defeats the object.

No, that IS the object. Stealth assassin. It's not like they have silencers in Mass Effect!

To be fair I thought it was demented until I tried it. Now I'd never go back!