What are you playing?

[BoneSnapDeez]

Monster World IV is solid, but not one of those unbelievable Japanese hidden gems that everyone needs to experience (like Mystic Ark or Xak).

Axion Verge I have played but didn't love the controls. Haven't made much headway into it. Anyone else got it on Wii U?

[BogusMeatFactory]

I am playing ..//hack Fragment, the Japanese MMO of the PS2 ..//hack series. All menus are translated in english and is run on a private server, since the game has been shut down. The game plays smooth so far. I haven't come across other players, as my play time has been in the middle of the day on a weekday. If anyone is interested in learning how to play and teaming up, let me know! I loved the series for it's strange world and this seems to be no stranger. The main lobby areas are the same as in the single player series. There is apparently a story, but it is still untranslated and in japanese.

The game plays much the same as the original series, but now you get your pick of class and rely on the help of others in dungeons. If anyone is interested, check them out at Their Website

And don't hesitate to ask how to get it all working. It was fairly simple and can even be done on the original hardware.

[BoneSnapDeez]

That's really cool. I love seeing "defunct" online games receive continued support via a private server. Makes me wanna log onto Blue Burst again...

[prfsnl_gmr]

Monster World IV is solid, but not one of those unbelievable Japanese hidden gems that everyone needs to experience (like Mystic Ark or Xak).

Axion Verge I have played but didn't love the controls. Haven't made much headway into it. Anyone else got it on Wii U?

Uh...yeah. It’s available for other systems?

[Arenegeth]

I am playing ..//hack Fragment, the Japanese MMO of the PS2 ..//hack series.

I'd love to play that one day, but I want to play the single player games first, and I own 0 of them and both my PS2's are busted, so it won't be for some time until I'm ready for this game. Hopefully by then the story would be fully translated.

I'm currently in a bit of a flux when it comes to what I'm playing, I'm mostly trying to set up my Dragon Quest XI save file for Seed Farming which will be the culmination of my perfect save file, so I can do daily runs on it while I mainly play other stuff.

Other than that, I recently restored my old Dreamcast (it only needed an internal battery change really and some Retr0bright possibly down the road) and now I'm thinking of going back to Sonic Adventure to pick up all the Emblems.

I already did that for the DX version on the Xbox Live Arcade some years ago, but I'd want to do it for the original version too, won't deal with the Chao Garden until I sort out all the DLC that was available for the game back in the day, since some of it gave you some exclusive Chao. I may go back to Crazy Taxi too, to make some Craaaazy Money!

If I do start a new project it will probably be the PC version of Shadowman with a texture pack on, I did 100% the game on the Dreamcast all those years ago and I was looking for an excuse to replay it, so I got the Big Box original UK release a couple of months ago.

[Nintendork666]

Darksiders be wild fam.

Bouncing between that and Grandia 2 whenever I have play-time

[Sload Soap]

Currently I have Dante's Inferno, Far Cry 2 and Grip on the go, although Dante's Inferno may get dropped if it keeps it up with annoying platforming. I like the OTT nature of the game and its depiction of hell but possibly not enough to sustain me through 3D platforming with fixed camera angles. Truly hellish.

Far Cry 2 is much better than I remember. It's got a weird vibe to it, long periods of driving to locations, quietly scouting areas and then very short but brutal gun battles that can very quickly go to shit. Lack of savestates and absence of the usual Ubisoft collectothon stuff marks it out as well.

Grip is a cool new racing game that was free on the game pass. It is basically Rollcage 3 with some shiny HD graphics. For me that is absolutely fine. Lots of content as well just not the best presentation and also pretty unforgiving.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Been playing Vampyr. It's super fun! Like Bloodborne's combat and London-y aesthetic (minus the Lovecraft) meets Yakuza's more forgiving (while still challenging) approach to combat/checkpoints and NPCs and quests. It's just Vampyr has a lot more talking to its NPC's than something like Yakuza. A super fun game so far! Definitely another game I've played this year where I'm surprised at just HOW much I'm loving it ^w^

[BogusMeatFactory]

So a little update on my Dot Hack MMORPG update. First things first, this game is insanely tough playing solo. You need friends 100%. If you want to level, there is an untranslated offline mode where you can power level, but I find that to not be in the spirit of the game. What is crazy is that I am learning a whole bunch of bananas stuff about how this game works. So essentially, the game is comprised of a series of servers that players set up. You select what city hub you want as your server and you can even create custom dungeons and worlds for players to fight in. What is bananas is that, as players play on your server, it levels up and gives you access to more rare gear and powerful monsters to fight. Supposedly this is easy to do so I am gonna look into this further.

Also, all the features of the original game are in there, so Data Drain, hacking, Grunty raising and races are all a part of the game still. The combat system is now fully real-time with a slew of shortcuts that you set up for your spells and abilities. There are even supposedly raids in the game, which I have not seen hide nor hair of, because I'm simply a level 3 wavemaster (the big spellcaster). You can even set up a guild with a guild bank and personal shopkeepers for your guild.

The thing that really draws me to the game is the dynamic sandbox aspect of the game. I love playing around with using keywords to generate hunting zones and dungeons, figuring out what words produce what outcome, be it grunty food to gather, environments, elemental, dungeon and enemy types etc. There is something just fulfilling with creating a phrase to generate a hunting zone and wondering exactly what it is you will find. I really hope someone out there gives it a shot, because I think is such a great time to support these old online games that were almost lost to time. The fanbase is dedicated and there, but most of them are old hats to the game. I want to play with folks like me who come with fresh eyes and enjoy experiencing the natural progression of the game, experimenting with the mechanics and discovering new and interesting things. You don't need previous experience with the series to jump in and you can even play on original hardware, which is awesome. So if you all want some more info on the game or want to jump in, please let me know. I would love to play with you all!

[BoneSnapDeez]

So, Kirby's Epic Yarn has a two-player co-op mode. This is perfect for playing with my five-year-old daughter -- you can't lose a life, and one player can instantly "teleport" to another if they get stuck in the scenery or whatever. Genius!