Old_Man_Harper

@themightyant incidentally, if you’ve got the complete edition of KCD, you get a series of ‘ancient maps’ which lead to treasure hidden in graves. They aren’t particularly cryptic and you get good cash and high level gear for the price of a spade. It does make the early game easier.

@themightyant Forging becomes quicker with practice and levelling up. I was ultimately able to produce a masterwork Toledo steel longsword in about 90 seconds. Likewise, potion making improves with experience - eventually you get four potions for every one you brew. Practice makes perfect!

Great, I’m there. I finished it recently (205 hours and I didn’t do a huge number of side quests!) and it’s the best game I’ve played in ages. Totally gripped by it.

When I read the headline I assumed it would be something like Dominos or Pizza Hut, not some micro-chain that doesn’t exist in Europe and isn’t even widespread in the US!

Good to hear that they are getting on with something new. I thought Hellblade 2 was superb in an art house sort of way. I liked the way that the ‘magic’ was drawn from the Icelandic landscape. It really does need to be played with headphones for the full effect.

I recently finished KCD2, which I thought struck just the right balance. It is largely open world with side quests etc. but when the story requires it, it becomes quite linear.

This just seems like an attempt to part PlayStation owners from their money for what is now a pretty old game. I mean it’s still good fun - but there are a lot of corridors and courtyards and everything that was new and wow about it back then has been done to death in other things since.

More KCD2 on Series X. I think I’m getting close to the end now - just had to do a glorious bit where a character, impersonating a Cardinal, has to adjudicate a dispute at a church council, whilst maintaining a sufficient level of drunkenness to speak Latin confidently.

KCD2 is a whopper of a game, but the length of time it’s taken means that I’ve now got a heck of a backlog of good Game Pass stuff, so frankly I can manage without GTAVI.

To paraphrase The Donald, I guess we’ll “have two games instead of 30 games”. 😄

It doesn’t bother me much, as the last first-party Xbox game I bought was Sea of Thieves, after which I got game pass, so the only games I buy now are 3rd party. However, I suppose they’ll go up too.

187 hours(!) into KCD2 and still plenty to do, so everything else is having to wait for a turn, although I did make an exception for the comparatively short Lost Records (very good, I thought).

More KCD2 - around 170 hours in and nearing the end of the story. Still having a great time with this and there are actually a ton of side quests I haven’t done.

I’m 170 hours into KCD2 and during that time an absolutely enormous backlog of games I want to play has developed on game pass alone! Frankly, even if they delay GTA 6 I’ve got more than enough to last the rest of the year.

@Valhura try Gears Tactics, Metal Slug Tactics or Wargroove 2, all on game pass

Some extra gaming days this weekend, so I played tape 2 of Lost Records. Not as good as tape 1, I thought - not as interactive - but I still enjoyed it and hope they make more.

Now back to KCD2.

I picked up the first KCD game with all dlc for less than a tenner. 🙂

Still on with KCD2 on Series X. It’s an immense game! I also a quick look at Blue Prince before adding it to the ever-growing backlog - seems interesting.

Whoah, they are actually promoting the console that they make? Radical thinking from the marketing department there - completely contradicting their previous strategy of ‘the odd tweet about it or nothing at all’!

Oooh, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 for me - 125 hours in and I’m not yet half way through! I really need to do some reading on that period of history, Wenceslas and Sigismund, Zizka and the Hussites.

Also a shout out for Lost Records - Bloom & Rage, which more than made up for last year’s slightly disappointing LiS game. Looking forward to Tape 2 next week and hope it does well enough that they can make this a series of games.

Heh heh. Always entertaining when audiences defy critics. 😁

I spent the entirety of March on KCD2 and will likely be the same in April, so I didn’t vote - I haven’t had the chance to play any of them yet.

I thought Botany Manor was terrific. It’s sort of similar to Obra Dinn/Golden Idol - you must deduce how to grow weird rare plants from clues you find around the manor and grounds. Very engrossing and you can probably complete it in a weekend..

KCD2 on Series X. I’ve reached the Kuttenberg area now, still exploring it and picking up side quests. I tried the photo mode today and was amused to find that after taking a picture and returning to the game, Henry says things like “That’s a good one!” or “What a view that is!”

I played it quite a bit when it came out, but it fell off my radar a few years ago.

KCD2 - I had to go back to a save before the big wedding when it became very clear I wasn’t levelled enough for the ensuing sections! A bit more grinding - including actually learning how to sword fight - and I’m much better levelled and equipped to progress. I really enjoy the pace of the game.

It would have to be Baldur’s Gate 3 for me, I’ve played it through three times, 100+ hours each time, and I still find new things I’ve missed or new ways to approach situations.

I had a lot of fun and put a lot of hours into Grounded as well.

Sounds good to me, although at the rate I’m going, I won’t have finished KCD2 until autumn.

@oopsiezz I played it after the Christmas patch and had no issues.

@GuyinPA75 I’ve played all of them and with the exception of LiS2, which I’ve mentioned (and which is probably the weakest of the series) I’ve never felt I was having an agenda pushed on me. If that had been the case, I’d have definitely found it off-putting.

@GuyinPA75 Not notably. LiS 2 had some fairly heavy-handed commentary on anti-Mexican prejudice. Max is gay and Alex could be so if you wanted her to be, but the LiS games aren’t like (say) Dustborn, which is heart-on-sleeve left wing.

I installed it once - there must have been a fleeting planetary alignment that caused me to think I’d be interested in baseball - but I never played it. I don’t suppose it has much traction outside the US.

I enjoyed it, but it isn’t as good as True Colors. I think it needed quite a bit more work, the male characters in particular seemed two dimensional and forgettable (I couldn't remember the name of any of them) and it didn’t achieve much of a sense of place. If you’ve liked the other LiS games I’d still recommend giving it a try, although Lost Records has the same feel and is a better game than DE.

Yeah, I reckon, I’m pretty happy with Xbox to be honest. Personally speaking, the Series X (with Game Pass) is the best console I’ve ever owned and I’ve owned most of them, starting with the Atari VCS!

More KCD2 on Series X. Got a horse now, which saves on shoe leather and also makes it easier to avoid bandits. Still relatively early in the game, doing side missions today, maybe a main quest mission tomorrow.

It looks good, but I don’t know anyone who’d be interested in playing it and, to be honest, I’m not really interested in playing with other people.

I wanted to like it, but I haven’t got a clue what is going on or what I’m supposed to do. I certainly haven’t felt anything like addiction, or even a desire to play it again.

On Series X I’ve started Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. It throws you in at the deep end a bit, but I’ve now got freedom of action and will be looking to make a bit of money, preferably by non-violent means, as I’m pretty poor at fighting!

I played MHWorld for a bit, but was put off by the cruelty. Okay, it’s just a game, but chasing down and killing a creature that hadn’t attacked me in the first place and was fleeing for its life just made me sad. ☹️

I finished Lost Records tape 1, I thought it was terrific. Looking forward to the second episode.

I’m playing Lost Records tape 1 on Series X (I bought it not realising it would be on PS+ which I also have - duh 🤦‍♂️) I thought I’d have a break between mega-RPGs.

It’s basically a Life is Strange game in everything but the name. I’m quite early into it - it encourages you to look at everything around and even video it, so the pace is quite slow, but I like that in this sort of game.

The story so far reminds me a bit of ‘Yellowjackets’ in that it has two timelines - middle-aged women in the near-present day and their teenage selves in 1995. So far so good, I think.

Rogue Trader… crikey, I’m never going to clear the backlog!

It looks interesting, so I bought and installed it (whilst sitting at my desk at work - what a world we live in now!) I’m planning to play this as a palate cleanser between BG3 and Avowed, or Kingdom Come 2, I’ll make my mind up which.

BG3 Durge run - past the point of no return for the final showdown, but it’s beer o’clock now, so I’ll save the last battle for tomorrow. Not sure what I’ll play after that - I bought Kingdom Come 2, but I’m tempted to play a palate cleanser-type game and wait for Avowed.

@Millionski I’ve played it for the last few weeks, so the version I played was after the patch they did at Christmas, but before this patch. It’s fine, not noticeably buggy at all in about 60-70 hours I’ve played. It wasn’t happy with quick resume though, so I got into the habit of saving and fully quitting the game.

NPCs are going to start looting the best gear from corpses… aw, I like waiting in cover while NPCs fight it out and then looting the bodies! It’s a good way to get guns and ammo, especially early on. But it’s obviously what they really would do in the Zone.

It looks good and apparently it is possible to do a playthrough in about 30 hours, which gives good scope for replayability, as by all accounts there’s a lot hidden in what is a quite small world.

@themightyant It does make me wonder why companies (Square Enix notably, but most recently EA) are so quick out of the blocks to declare a game’s sales a disappointment, essentially labelling them a failure, when they quite often keep selling!

@Fiendish-Beaver Not that old yet - I’m 56, but I’m the oldest of my circle of friends, hence the name! Old enough to have played Space Invaders, Galaxian, etc. in arcades back in the day, when they were new and totally thrilling…

Continuing my BG3 Durge run on Series X. Broke into the Devil’s house to nick his hammer. He wasn’t best pleased. A very tough fight ensued (although they are all pretty tough at this point) and I haven’t been able to win it yet. I’ll give it a few more tries, but I saved just before going there, so I might skip it as it’s not really necessary for the endgame - I was just interested to see it.

I have bought and downloaded it and it’s on the ‘to play’ pile. God knows why I do that when I could pick it up cheaper when I’ve finished the other games I’ve still got to play! 🤷‍♂️