What games are you currently playing?

[Ambidextroid]

I actually haven't enjoyed a Jak and Daxter game after the first. I played 2 and 3 and while I don't remember 3 at all, Jak 2's GTAish open world was a pain to navigate and made moving from one place to another boring where Jak & Daxter's fully connected platformer world was fun and interesting. The tone of 2 with the gritty theme and dark colours I also found really dull, where the first game looked gorgeous. Finally the gameplay was just not as good, I much preferred exploring the levels and collecting stuff than doing errands.
So pretty much everything from visuals to music to gameplay I preferred in the first game. Though to be honest I haven't played any of the games in ages apart from the first so maybe my tastes have changed.
Oh and I played Daxter on PSP which I stopped playing after the first level but I think I'll give it another go.

[Bzzit]

Jak II is actually my favourite one. I love the drastic transition from the first game to the second, and admire how they made the effort to maintain so many elements of the first; They could have just dropped everything about the first game and tried to be as mature and different as possible, but no, the story ties in to the first one, there are locations that feel straight out of the first game, like Mar's Tomb, Haven Forest and the Mountain Temple Temple. I just love the effort that went into linking it to the first game and ensuring it still feels like the same world, with the same lore and mythology, despite the tone change.

The only issues I have are some bad checkpoints, and yeah, it does take too long to drive from mission to mission - I think Haven City is really cool though, so it's not that big of an issue for me.

The animation, cutscenes and overall story are still some of my favourites too.

[incognito]

For God's sake inco, "serie" isn't a word!

Whoops, I guess.

[Dart]

I actually haven't enjoyed a Jak and Daxter game after the first. I played 2 and 3 and while I don't remember 3 at all, Jak 2's GTAish open world was a pain to navigate and made moving from one place to another boring where Jak & Daxter's fully connected platformer world was fun and interesting. The tone of 2 with the gritty theme and dark colours I also found really dull, where the first game looked gorgeous. Finally the gameplay was just not as good, I much preferred exploring the levels and collecting stuff than doing errands.
So pretty much everything from visuals to music to gameplay I preferred in the first game. Though to be honest I haven't played any of the games in ages apart from the first so maybe my tastes have changed.
Oh and I played Daxter on PSP which I stopped playing after the first level but I think I'll give it another go.

That is basically my experience with the framchise as well, and honestly I think the gameplay of Jak 2 was so poor (particularly vehicle segments) that I could never bother to finish it myself

[Adsolution]

I initially thought I liked Jak II more, but if I were to pick one to go back and replay, it'd easily be the first one. Haven City was cool, but each area felt a lot more disconnected than it did in the first game. You also don't really feel like the game ever drags on in the first (which tends to be a problem with errand games) - each new area is so different from the last.

[Master]

While I do agree with those points, I still prefer Jak II and 3 over The Precursor Legacy, I liked the more mission based format and the abilities the morph gun gave.

[Rayfist]

After replaying Jak 2 with Adsolution I can say I agree with a few of the people here- it really isn't as great as I remember it.

While there are some fun missions in the game (the mission where you're invading Barons fortress was pretty badass) the game has way too many annoying missions for it to be one of my favorites. To name a couple: the mech levels had an awful camera perspective that made it way too difficult to see, and a lot of the driving missions. I think Jak 3 sort of made the driving missions a little more bearable by having less floaty vehicles but still.

Jak 2 and 3 are still good games, but going back to both of them on my vita now and then, I'm sort of disappointed the direction Naughty Dog took for these games. Jak 1 to this day is still one of my favorite 3d platformers, I really love that game. The environments were all incredibly varied, and it was all in one seamless big world, while Jak 2 had an interconnected city with some very minor variation here and there. It's a shame we will never get a game like Jak 1 again, I've always wanted to see a prequel of some kind for the PS4 but we know that is never happening.

[Master]

Hmm, fair enough. I admit it has been some time since I've ran through the trilogy. And since I don't have the PS3 and the HD Trilogy, the only current option is emulation.

[Rayfist]

There are a lot of graphical issues that plague the emulated versions of the game, with few remedies. I would just stick to PS3, the console is really easily affordable now, so you should go get one, just work a part time job or something.

[Pirez]

A quick recap of the games I've been playing recently.

The Legend of Zelda : Breath Of The Wild (Switch)
It truly deserves all the praise it gets. This game is a true sense of wonder and redefines the world exploration. This is the only game in a very very long time that I still wanted to play after finishing it (at the expense of another game on this list). What amazes me about this game is how persistant fanboys and trolls still speak about it. It's two weeks later and pro-Sony are still "it looks like shit 0/10". The gameplay is empty 0/10", where in fact not only are both of these statements wrong, it also shows how much the industry can crumble under a massive dumb of shit if only it looks nice and has explosions everywhere.
You'll notice I don't speak that much of the game, and that's because everything that needs to be said has already been said. So far it's easily my game of the year.

Kingdom Hearts 2.8 (PS4)
Two games in one, plus one movie (short but still a movie) : quite the bargain but still a harsh at full price, especially if you've already played Dream Drop Distance, which is the low point of the serie in terms of story telling (which is unbearably atrocious). It's also a bit weird that the remake of KH3D has only been upscaled to PS3 standards and also the controls are way less intuitive than in the 3DS version... Basically what I'm trying to say is that is port is not very good and the game was already disappointing in the first place.
As for KH 0.2 - A fragmentary passage, it's fairly fun for a tech demo. The PS4 graphics and the gameplay style showcase what may be an amazing KH3 but it's absolutely too short (1h30 tops) even if you care to do all the side stuff which is not interesting. Also it's also very much inept in terms of storytelling, again... In this game which is supposed to help us understand the complexity of the whole story and Aqua as a character, we learn that... Aqua was there at the end of KH1. That's it. But even worse, the way the game is structured tells us that the writer have no fucking clue on how to create a coherent story. Aqua goes through a castle, finds nothing. Fade to black. She finds a mirror, solve its puzzles, defeats her shadow self. Fade to black. She enters a forest of thornes, finds nothing. Fade to black. She finds Mickey, does nothing. Fade to whoops, end of story. How about she goes through a forest, at the end of which is a castle, inside of which is a mirror, which gets her to fight her shadow self, and then armed with courage and wisdow the cracked mirror sends us to Shadow Destiny Island where she can rescue Mickey with all her newfound strengh? See how easy it is? Even I can make this up. This, on reflection, bodes poorly on KH3 which is supposed to wrap up the story.
And finally KH Chi, a short movie retelling the adventures of the mobile game which I haven't played because my brother is addicted to this shit (he already payed more tha 300€ in microtransactions). The animation is nice and the story is pretty much well told because you almost believe that there's a mystery. There isn't by the way, because the writers are not intelligent enough to understand that maybe the villains should not wear big black coats (in fact they are the only one who do)
Long story short : KH 2.8 is a grim precursor to KH3.

Shovel Knight Specter Of Torment (Switch)
A nice platformer pretty much old school but with completely retooled gameplay compared to both the original Shovel Knight and Plague Of Shadows. I recommend it. Now it is more based to reflexes which can be a bit nasty a times but never unfair, and the game provides you enough ways to help if you're stuck with only the scythe. I'm a bit disappointed that the overworld is now gone but it fits in context. It nice to see that the levels and bosses are also retooled to match the gameplay of Specter Knight which also give the setpieces more epicness. But in a way that works against itself story wise because where did all this cool shit go once Specter Knight is done, because it sure doesn't happen in the Shovel Knight or Plague Knight campaign. Also, without wishing to spoil, I was a bit disappointed by the ending. It's good but predictable. I expected something a bit more outside the box on that one. Still, it's a good game.

Mass Effect Andromeda (PS4)
Admittedly I haven't played this one for long (because Zelda and stuff) but it's also a testament to how much I have trouble immersing myself in this game. I also had trouble getting into the original Mass Effect, true, but all the pettiness of the Initiative annoys me a bit more, it doesn't feel as true as the first game where shit goes down because of you. But once you get into the first planet Eos, the sense of wonder is really immersive. In fact at this point I played four hours straight without noticing it. The gameplay is hard to get used to but once to get the hang of it you have a really dynamic game that polished the issues of the original trilogy in kind of a clever way. Unfortunately after Eos you go back to the Nexus and its pettiness which cooled me right down again. Currently this is where I'm at. I haven't encountered many bugs and in fact I'm pretty sure that reviewers do not update their game on purpose just so that they can record them. Also it's ture that the facial animation are god awful. Maybe that'll get patched later. Overall, I'm kinda disappointed so far, but that was also true of the original ME and at the end I was hooked so I will continue to give it a chance.

[Mathew444]

I started playing Ingress a month ago. This is one of the most popular MMOG games. It is fun and has a large player base. In order to take portals players have to go out, it allows them to interact and to play on the fresh air. If you need the items, it is possible to buy them in the Ingress shop. I haven't tried a game whiich connects the real and the virtual worlds before, and I haven't tired of it yet

[Master]

Well, Club Penguin is now dead. It's weird, I haven't played it in years, but still. I can't help but mourn, it's the first MMO I ever played, and I used to enjoy messing about within the world it had. Stuff like the Spy Missions were always such a blast, and I remember my surprise when they got rid of the older Spy HQ for the newer one.

[NyaNyaLily]

Sonic Unleashed (PS2)

Why are so many night levels in this version!? I like the night levels, but they went waaay overboard with them in this version, each act lasts around 10 minutes and you often have to play 3 or more of them to get to the day levels. And after you speed through the day levels in 20 mins, you're playing 45 mins worth of night levels again.

[Bzzit]

Been playing Ty 2 HD on Steam. Pretty good game so far. I think the level design is an improvement over the first game.

[Μaster]

Runescape, currently.

[Master]

Who promoted the clones? Hoody's being too generous on the ramen, I see.

All things considered, I do want to sink my teeth into something else. But with exam season and the like, I find RuneScape's relative simplicity and point and clickiness to be less effort, which helps with procrastinating.

[Rayfist]

Well, Club Penguin is now dead. It's weird, I haven't played it in years, but still. I can't help but mourn, it's the first MMO I ever played, and I used to enjoy messing about within the world it had. Stuff like the Spy Missions were always such a blast, and I remember my surprise when they got rid of the older Spy HQ for the newer one.

Yeah that game took up large portion of my childhood strangely enough. Looking back, I never knew what it was about that game that I found so compelling, I guess my creative instinct came out with the igloo creation. I remember for the first year I was playing it how jealous I was of the members, and how badly I wanted a membership, eventually my dad offered to pay for it and I was ecstatic, and ended up spending a stupid amount of time with that game. I don't know, it's strange to me because looking back at my younger self for enjoying those type of games with an aimless goal feels so weird now. Though I generally feel this way with majority of MMO's now. I just can't devote enough time to something like that. I'd rather put all that time into the plethora of RPG's in my backlog.

[Master]

I don't think I ever got membership on Club Penguin, I just remembered having fun with the minigames and grinding for coins. I also enjoyed some of the multiplayer minigames now and then also, stuff like Mancala or the Card minigame.

I think the issue with modern MMOs is that there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to community. I think the drive to grind has become so integral that you don't feel compelled to hang out. I know that while RuneScape is an MMO, I tend to not chat about or interact as much as I did back with my original accounts in the older days. Of course, there are still aspects like clans and friends chats, but they always felt somewhat insular, there's not much in the way of public conversation, only private chats and the like.

[Hunchman801]

Conker's Bad Fur Day

Only played this game a bit at my cousin's when it was released and I would definitely buy it if it were available on platforms other than Nintendo 64 and Xbox (can't really be bothered with emulation). Loved the stupid humor, the developers' creativity, the off-beat between the main character and the adult (teenage? ) themes. The multiplayer was good, too.

Silent Hill

Always wanted to the play the series, so I bought Silent Hill 1 & 2 last year. Don't know when I'll get to play them but I'm looking forward to it!

And even if it were, it would be spelled "sery" or something.

What about newbie and cutie then?

Anyway, after finishing Uncharted 4 (I could repeat everything Keane said but there's no point, it really is an awesome game), I played the first one, having only played 2 and 3 before. And well, it's really good too, especially for 2007! One can definitely see the few aspects they've improved along the series, such as controls (climbing is sometimes a bit clunky), but there wasn't much to complain about. The games feels a bit shorter than the others and most of it takes place in the same location too.

And then, I started Assassin's Creed last week. Given the hugely successful series it started, I was sort of expecting a masterpiece and I was very disappointed. It's true that I had played it a bit in the past, and remembered having mixed feelings about it, but that's all I could recall and I hadn't played the whole thing anyway. Well, I haven't finished it yet, but it looks like I'm pretty close to the end, and it shouldn't matter as I already find the story original and interesting (the present-time bits have been pretty boring so far but I guess it might change). The game is beautiful and immersive too, and it's a pleasure to walk (run) through those open areas. The Holy Land during the Third Crusade couldn't be a bad choice anyway.

But then, there's the missions. There's like what, five types of them, and that's it. All the others are strictly identical to one of these in terms of gameplay, and you'll find yourself climbing highpoints (the only one I didn't get bored of, thanks to the views), saving citizens from guards or stealing someone's purse dozens of times. At first, I completed them all, but very soon, it became so boring and frustrating that I only did the amount required to unlock the assassination and left the others aside.

Why frustrating? Well that's the other problem with this game, and probably the worst: the gameplay. Man it feels so clunky, you're often running from hordes of guards and yet you constantly find yourself stuck under a porch, behind a crate, etc. Your character almost never jumps where you expect him to, but often to the bottom of that tower you were about to climb rather than onto that ledge on top of it you were going to scan the area from, or into the water (which insta-kills you) rather than on that goddamn pole you need to use to get to the other side. There's just no way to precisely control your character. Even the climbing often turns to be a pain in the ass, where you won't be able to make it to the next hold unless you position yourself on the exact spot and not a millimeter further. And then, there's the fights. The game automatically locks you on your enemies all the fucking time, which means that very often, running from a fight with quite a few enemies will take you ages.

They've also introduced two types of inhabitants that will make your life harder: drunks/madmen and beggars. The former hit you, and the latter stand if front of you, making it a lot harder to discreetly walk to your destination. Fine, it's not a bad idea to add some challenge, except that as the game progresses, the only way the developers found to increase the difficulty is to add shitloads of them. The streets become packed with those annoying bastards, sometimes there'll be three of them on you and you'll end up killing them in rage and cursing them and their offspring for several generations, getting you noticed in the process (that's the other thing that gets harder, guards pretty much chase you as soon as they spot you at some point), forcing you to either kill another regiment of those turds in armor or run to the other end of the city, wasting another five minutes in the process.

So yeah, at some point all of this becomes increasingly frustrating and you leave aside all optional quests to perform the assassination as soon as possible (it's not like they make it much easier anyway). I'll see if anything changes my mind by the time I finish the game, but even the best story in the world couldn't make up for a faulty gameplay. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game. It's just that I was expecting a great game, and it's just average.

[Bzzit]

Playing through Oblivion again. Such a great game. Forgot how fun the Dark brotherhood quest line is.