What are you playing?

[Mossy Toes]

Uhh... Hearthstone, honestly. The release of a mobile version finally hooked me. And I will say, honestly--for a game so wholly based around UI, the phone version's UI is so much cleaner and more satisfying than on the computer, now that I've backward-migrated to see the original.

Seems somewhat frustrating in the long grind for marginally better cards (or just plain crazy legendaryies who can walk all over a newcomer's deck), but it's still a fairly level playing field, and the cleaner, simpler system than something like Magic: the Gathering--to say nothing of the intelligent use of the online elements to automate what would be tedious health-amounts and the like in a physical version of the game--in a smaller, self-contained system that is fairly balanced... means I'm having quite a bit of fun, honestly! I'll endeavor to keep it fun by only doing the daily quests and the occasional Arena when I save up the gold, I think, and not overplaying it into the ground.

Favorite class has to be the Druid. Ramp up that mana-curve extra quick then play something big and nasty every turn!

[David Earle]

I found the single-player quest packs were well worth the cost, at least for the humor value and the challenge.

More Bloodborne. Killed a boss on my first attempt (Vicar Amelia) and I'm still kind of baffled I managed it. Of course as a penalty the game now becomes much harder.

[Mossy Toes]

I found the single-player quest packs were well worth the cost, at least for the humor value and the challenge.

And for the $50? I mean, sure, I want a Grim Patron, but not that badly...

Really, though, I'll take it under advisement. I don't have too strong a bond to WoW itself, so it's not like I'd be replaying raid memories or anything, but--well, the introduction tutorial mission were certainly amusingly written, so I wouldn't object to more banter in that vein.

[David Earle]

Well, you can save up for them with gold if you're inclined. I'd recommend doing at least one that way, see if you enjoy them.

[Mossy Toes]

Well, you can save up for them with gold if you're inclined. I'd recommend doing at least one that way, see if you enjoy them.

Aha, I just saw the "buy all wings" option in the shop--digging around a bit I see how you can unlock one wing at a time for gold, now. I think I will save up for those now: it'll make a fun alternative to Arena matches.

[J D Dunsany]

I do like Hearthstone, but I love Marvel: Puzzle Quest. It's my casual game of choice at the moment. (Which is pretty much all I have time for at the moment, the Steam summer sale notwithstanding...)

[Mossy Toes]

I do like Hearthstone, but I love Marvel: Puzzle Quest. It's my casual game of choice at the moment. (Which is pretty much all I have time for at the moment, the Steam summer sale notwithstanding...)

Ah, steam summer sales.

Well, in terms of "free to play timesinks" a whooole bunch of card games in the vein of Hearthstone just got announced at E3. Also MOBAs. Sigh.

The Last Guardian getting a confirmed release date is nice (trying not to get my hopes up, on account of not having a PS4), though, as is the announcements of Mass Effect: Andromeda, Dark Souls 3, and the thought of playing as Emily in Dishonored 2. I guess I might finally play an HD remake of FF:VII, but I was never invested in the series in the first place, so it doesn't tickle me quite so pink.

[Vivia]

The Sims 3 I Rampljuset EP:

After Drömjobb I got the showtime expansion because it's one of the cheapest in case it was bad. I wanted to add more jobs, the different careers aren't that plenty in my opinion, and now there is the show-business jobs. Another cool feature I thought was the town of Starlight Shores, the LA in the sim world. The new careers are decent, one of my sims is striving for "world renown magician", funniest was when she had a disastrous show outside a fast food place.
Ambitions EP brought on the detective career and it's pretty rewarding, much more than the empty ghost hunter career. It's very film noir, music and all, and since this is The Sims it's also an entertaining parody.

One of my complaints, apart from the lack of diversity in careers, are the skeletal towns in the game. With the last EP I got two different towns, took me some time to discover Twinbrooks. oh, well. None of these towns outside of Sunset Valley can compare with it, they're devoid of life. I can't put my finger quite on why since all of them contain the exact same type of places, it's their layout, or the lack of. It's a bit of a bummer because I had high hopes for Starlight shores, but not enough parks I found out. Sunset gives the impression of a bustling small town with random encounters of people at all hours of the day, the other towns don't have this I believe. Starlight doesn't have good places for collecting for example, what's up with that. So yes, LGR was right about the price of store towns, he had similar experience with lacklustre content for 30 dollars. I won't pay for them if the EP towns are like this.

TS3 is an amazingly bugged game. From what I read it gets worse with every EP, such things as broken career paths, the ghost hunter is one, broken challenges, broken story mode etc. And since this is an EA game most of the help and mods is found through fans and not the company. Not all are annoying, some are in the tradition of hilaribad glitches we have come to love in the sims games. It's amazing a company would ask money for such a broken game, at least the Sim City scandal taught them something and they have released free content for TS4.

Origin is having a summer sale at the moment and The Sims 4 is on 50% off, I have never seen The Sims 3 being on sale the same amount of times The Sims 4 has been, something is afoot. I'm actually tempted, the games is still fairly lacking in many, many things, no toddlers (to torture) so far, no new towns either.

[Mossy Toes]

Finished Valkyria Chronicles. Well, I say "finished" but it's really "lost patience with the final boss battle and didn't want to grind 3-5 more levels to have enough damage that the enemy boss wouldn't just heal through it all, so watched the last 20 minutes on YouTube." Pretty interesting mash-up of turn-based strategy with a flavoring of strategy. Also plays very much like a season of some anime, and I am in no way surprised to have learned that they made one based on it.

[David Earle]

About 2/3 of the way through Bloodborne (not counting chalice dungeons, which are... just this whole thing...). Notable moments:

"Man this forest is big WHY ARE SNAKES COMING OUT OF THAT GUY'S HEAD"

"Sadako and Brundlefly made hideous monkey love and THEIR ISSUE IS KILLING ME"

"You seem like a nice guy, here's an invite to the palace OH MY GOD THE QUEEN THERE'S SO MUCH BLOOD WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING"

"Huh free clothing set WHY AM I FLOATING IN MIDAIR OH GOD GOD HAS KILLED ME"

"Okay, kill the old man in the wheelchair, then kill the ogre. WHY IS THERE ANOTHER OGRE. WHY IS THE OLD MAN ALIVE AGAIN AND SHOOTING ME. WHY ARE THE OGRES ALIVE AGAIN"

"Huh, tiny lunatic. Doesn't see me. Backstab, visceral attack. Boy that didn't do as much damage as I thought. OH GOD THERE'S THREE OF THEM RUN"

"Oh look, it's the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst! Wow he's quick DEAD"

[David Earle]

Just viewed the last of three endings to Bloodborne (through save scumming - I've got no interest in New Game+ twice). Boy that is some ambiguous stuff! And boy did they save the best boss for last!

Now I'm on to the chalice dungeons, in between sessions of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, which should be arriving in my mailbox this afternoon. Keep in mind I'm playing these games at night, streaming to my Vita while a tiny human sleeps in my lap... I could be at this for awhile.

[Vivia]

I'm taking a much needed break from The Sims 3.
It's back to Big Fish Games: I finished Awakening: The Sunhook Spire, now I'm on Awakening: Redleaf Forest, the last game in the series. The last! This series was what got me into iOS games and they're such beautiful, calming games.
I'm getting so many free games because of the Big Fish Game Club it's almost embarrassing. Well, free and free, I pay a monthly fee for my membership.

[David Earle]

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin. If you like to use a strategy guide (and who can blame you with a Souls game), this is the most frustrating experience you can have. Everything is different from the base game release - not just DLC, but vital items and enemy encounters are all juggled around and changed. You also can't trust anything on the Internet because people keep confusing base Dark Souls II with Scholar.

I will say I like it better than Dark Souls, which I gave up on around the time the dragon showed up. I much prefer Bloodborne's play style, but being a big guy thumping people with a mace is fun too.

[Vivia]

Downloaded The Walking Dead: Season 2 game for iOS. I'm fairly impressed by the game, the graphics are beautiful, anything that isn't CGI gets my approval, the characters are believable, I say more games with children in the main role. Despite this, it's not my kind of story, zombie apocalypse is a snooze-button for me, the tv-series is so boring and drawn out because it's an apocalyptic soap opera. What the hell-hole. I hope in the game they keep that down, it's Lost all over again. The game looks like a vast improvement from the series, it's still slow and drawn out, but it does keep my interest for more than 5 minutes.
Another thing, where have the women gone? Just like Lost it's inexplicable populated by mostly men. My wish for the future is a post-apocalyptic story with one woman in a desert. No dialogue. And I wonder why I stopped watching TV. Silent cinema, everything is forgiven! (I'm aware the original is a comic book. Heeh.)

This is also exactly the game I should avoid according to my therapy, anything that triggers anxiety and stress is a no-no. So, in general no horror stories, maybe in a year or two. Goodbye for now, game.

Biggest surprise was Fallout Shelter, it's so cute! This is my type of story, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic world. This is why I prefer sci-fi over fantasy, it raises questions about humanity and survival. The layers, oh, the layers.
The cutest is also the most cruel: we know the meaning of the shelters in Fallout so there is a sense of dread and bitter-sweet feelings. Free lunch boxes!

[Major Rawne]

Downloaded The Walking Dead: Season 2 game for iOS.

*cries*

[Xisor]

A good deal more Star Trek Online for me. Really enjoying them having trotted out the Voyager cast recently; especially the soothing sounds of Tim Russ. Very satisfactory.

[David Earle]

Still Dark Souls II, mainly. I cannot say enough vicious, hateful things about the Ruin Sentries. I've switched to a caster build, but still with some heavy thumping potential.

I'm also on the last push of Bloodborne, at least until DLC starts coming out.

Spoiler: Not that I'm excited to beat up on a woman in a bloody wedding dress, but by all accounts she deserves it and can more than hold her own.

[revelation]

Still Dark Souls II, mainly. I cannot say enough vicious, hateful things about the Ruin Sentries. I've switched to a caster build, but still with some heavy thumping potential.

I'm also on the last push of Bloodborne, at least until DLC starts coming out.

Spoiler: Not that I'm excited to beat up on a woman in a bloody wedding dress, but by all accounts she deserves it and can more than hold her own.

Just checked this thread for the first time in ages. Glad to see a fellow Boltholer enjoying Bloodborne. It's a brilliant game.

I'm on NG+ and depth 4 Chalice Dungeons atm.

Good luck on the last stretch of the game.

[Mossy Toes]

Finally downloaded and played through Arkham Asylum, which has been sitting on my Steam account for quite some time now. It was... good, yes, but there are definitely tonal issues that are trying, trying so hard to drag me in... while I just roll my eyes at them. Happy to have beaten it, happy to uninstall it... and hell, I may get around to Arkham City eventually. In no rush, though.

[David Earle]

Continuing with Dark Souls II. Last night I hopped on for "just a few minutes" to refight the Skeleton Lords boss, on hard mode, to swipe a spiffy caster ring they drop. Managed that in two tries, solo (whoop), then decided to hop over to Brightstone Cove Tseldora to pick up an Estus Flask Shard (extra heals) I'd heard about. A five minute task. I got completely lost trying to find it and ended up fighting the final boss of the zone, and kicking its anal glands in, before I came up for air. At which point I realized it was midnight and I kind of needed to sleep.

Very fun game now that I've got the rhythm, but still very frustrating.