What video games are you playing?

[LittleRaven]

I did a quick play through of Shadow of Mordor this weekend to get ready for the sequel. (can't wait)

And of course, Heroes of the Storm. That's a constant, though, since that's my social game.

[MissKittyFantastico]

I am playing Yoshi's Island on my adorable little Mini SNES.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I finally started Mass Effect: Andromeda. I feel like the funky, shiny, automaton-like models and extremely sophomoric dialogue combine in a weird way to produce an overly negative impression on a lot of people (including myself). It ruins your willingness to give the game the benefit of the doubt and suspend disbelief. Cheesy or clunk aspects of the original trilogy were easily overlooked because the gamer was actually invested in the story, which is obviously not the case for many Mass Effect fans in this case.

I know video games aren't generally known for their dialogue, but the stuff in Mass Effect is amazingly artless and lazy. When you talk to the crew, they literally summarize their personality traits as if they're reading straight off their wiki page. The characters not only lack individual voice (which is admittedly hard to pull off with such a huge game), but even the different species use the same vernacular with no effort to account for setting. It's just... really bad. The story is hardly inspiring so far either, and I'm disappointed that they chose to knock off the originals in so many ways right from the beginning.

With all that said, it isn't actively bad in a lot of ways. Just in a couple of important ways that damage the rest of the experience, especially since those ways used to be strong points of Bioware.

[Karha of Honor]

I finally started Mass Effect: Andromeda. I feel like the funky, shiny, automaton-like models and extremely sophomoric dialogue combine in a weird way to produce an overly negative impression on a lot of people (including myself). It ruins your willingness to give the game the benefit of the doubt and suspend disbelief. Cheesy or clunk aspects of the original trilogy were easily overlooked because the gamer was actually invested in the story, which is obviously not the case for many Mass Effect fans in this case.

I know video games aren't generally known for their dialogue, but the stuff in Mass Effect is amazingly artless and lazy. When you talk to the crew, they literally summarize their personality traits as if they're reading straight off their wiki page. The characters not only lack individual voice (which is admittedly hard to pull off with such a huge game), but even the different species use the same vernacular with no effort to account for setting. It's just... really bad. The story is hardly inspiring so far either, and I'm disappointed that they chose to knock off the originals in so many ways right from the beginning.

With all that said, it isn't actively bad in a lot of ways. Just in a couple of important ways that damage the rest of the experience, especially since those ways used to be strong points of Bioware.

Cheesy or clunk aspects
Like?

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Cheesy or clunk aspects
Like?

Well, the gameplay in Mass Effect 1 is really clunky, but the storytelling is a bit more solid than the later games. Mass Effect 2 is the best mix of gameplay and story, imo, but it's kind of missing a middle (or "rising action" or whatever you want to call it). Mass Effect 3 obviously has the issues with its ending. I think video games also bring inherent advantages and disadvantages when it comes to storytelling, and some of the compromises made to allow for fun, action-oriented gameplay also tend to make people take games less seriously as a storytelling medium.

I don't have any bad dialogue in mind in particular, but a game with such a huge number of words (written and spoken) from a number of different writers is bound to have some weaker stuff mixed in with the good stuff. But I do appreciate that in the original trilogy, A salarian has a distinct voice, as do turians, asari, and the other major species. The things the characters say in Andromeda all sound like they were written by subpar writers who aren't able to create any voice or style other than simply transferring their own.

[phantom000]

I must have spent at least $100 on video games this year and i barely play any of them. About the only game i bought this year that i played a lot is Civ 4 and that's because i could not get the game to work on my laptop so when i saw it on GoG i had to have it.

Even Diablo II is disappointing because i have no one to play it with like when i was a kid.

[Robovski]

Currently spending a lot of time with Renowned Explorers, a fun turn-based game where you travel the world in your flying steam dirigible with a team of explorers making friends with sheep, terrifying cultists, and beat nuns into submission to become the top explorer in the society this year.

[ORCACommander]

currently murdering my half brothers to reclaim my father's holdings in ck2

[Admiral X]

I'm trying to make my way through Halo 2 (PC) again, but it keeps locking up when I get to the end of the cut scene at the end of the Gravemind level.

[Karha of Honor]

Still did not finish my patched additional content Kotor 2.