What video games are you playing?

[Edvarius]

I'm playing the Dragon Quest 8 re-release on the 3DS. I'm really enjoying some of the changes they made, like the extra side quests and instant alchemy pot.

[Eishtmo]

Star Trek Online mostly. All I really have time for.

[graymorality]

Playing through DBZ Xenoverse and finally playing Last of US

[ORCACommander]

hehehehe time to corrupt the world with the new ck 2 expansion

[Steve]

I've been trying out the Star Trek Total Conversion mod for Stellaris, "New Horizon". It's fun enough, I suppose.

[Arkle]

I bought a used copy of the first Dark Souls game. I cannot get past this first part at all. I knew it was an infamously hard game (You Died became a meme for a reason), but damn. Only my 4th enemy, and I can't get past him. Largely because I can't level up yet, there are no other weapons around, I have chincy armor and a broken sword to only does 2-4 points of damage to a 1000+ point demon...

First person who sarcastically says "Git gud" is getting blocked. I have no time for Gamer Bros. Tips or GTFO.

[rickgriffin]

The first time you run into the huge demon at the beginning? You avoid him and run for the exit.

Of course that's the only tip I can give as I only got to the main hub of the game and trying to get a handle of the controls feels like a wall thrown up in front of me. I get that the controls are difficult only because they're supposed to give you all your options, and that you need to deploy your strategies against enemies carefully and deliberately. But to me it feels like an impossible balancing act without much reward on the way there.

And it's not like I hate mastery. On every Mario Kart that comes out, I run the time trials over and over until I can beat the ghosts because I *want* to memorize the track layout so I can execute it expertly and on reflex, so that's out of my mind when I then have to deal with all the damn blue shells in GP. The difference is that mastery in Mario Kart feels enjoyable from beginning to end, while I suspect Dark Souls mastery only feels fun once you're at the top.

[Edvarius]

I bought a used copy of the first Dark Souls game. I cannot get past this first part at all. I knew it was an infamously hard game (You Died became a meme for a reason), but damn. Only my 4th enemy, and I can't get past him. Largely because I can't level up yet, there are no other weapons around, I have chincy armor and a broken sword to only does 2-4 points of damage to a 1000+ point demon...

First person who sarcastically says "Git gud" is getting blocked. I have no time for Gamer Bros. Tips or GTFO.

You think that's bad? You should try one of the predecessor games, King's Field: The Ancient City. I literally died within 5 steps of the starting point the first time I played. Seriously, the ground collapsed under me and I fell into lava. After that I was more cautious and carefully inced forward while looking down to see the slight color difference that determined whether the ground was solid rock or a thin crust. Made me real nervous when enemies showed just on the other side, as hit and run it a chancy tactic when hot molten death is right behind you. And possibly in front of or to the sides of you. To be honest though I didn't care for that game and didn't play very far into it, not because of the gotcha death traps, but because I positively HATE equipment degradation in games. I don't care if it's "more realistic", it's a frustrating pain I don't want to deal with.

Now I did really enjoy Kings Field 2. Man, that must have been one of the first games I played on the original Playstation. Good game, that.

[nebagram]

I'm reminded of one of the all-time classic 'bastard hard' videogames, namely the ridiculously improperly titled 'The Immortal' for the Sega Genesis (and I think it originally came out on the Amiga too). One of very few games where it was possible to die before even taking a single step.

[Beastro]

Raid on EQ prog server with my old guild from back in the Good Old Days. Nice to be hanging around on that server being the only guild that consistently acts its age.

Single player wise: Completed the Thief Trilogy, working on Neo Scavenger and recently started up The Chronicles of Riddick, which despite its praise is a very underrated game.

To be honest though I didn't care for that game and didn't play very far into it, not because of the gotcha death traps, but because I positively HATE equipment degradation in games. I don't care if it's "more realistic", it's a frustrating pain I don't want to deal with.

When a game is built around it can work. In Neo Scavenger the central focus is on the nuances of survival often ignored in such games right down to the obscure stat ratings and a lot of tedium to inventory work that is meant to imitate actually digging through bags. It forces you to be very pragmatic and degradation plays into that, you work with what's good and what will last longest, reusing what you can in other ways and throwing away what is useless.