The non-ME3 games recently enjoyed by ME3MPrs

I've been playing XCOM2, now with more mods!

Borderlands 2

Recently finished my second playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins. Some random thoughts: dual-wield, cunning rogue all day the combat can get pretty boring with either warrior or mage IMO, but a rogue requires a modicum of attention to shine; it also requires setting up a sound strategy for shedding threat (aggro), which in turn calls for some synergy in the team. Oh, and if you find geth stagger aggravating, this game might not be for you: the amount of time you spend disabled is rage-worthy. I tried to stay away from I-win buttons, but once mages started throwing crushing prisons at me, I retaliated by grabbing mana clash

I like how nicely the story flows, and the narrative is more than decent, especially considering the modularity of the game.
The best narrative moment for me is the lead up to the Broodmother fight, with the mood progressively darkening, until the final encounter, and then the final twist delivered once all seems over. A great way to inject some lovercraftian horror and madness into an enemy that was looking more and more prosaic with every skirmish. I love the set up, but I hate the fight, IMO the most difficult (and aggravating) one in the game for a melee-oriented party.
Unfortunately, in what seems to be a Bioware tradition (one only ME2 seems to have escaped), the end game is a boring, overlong slog; the game also never seems to decide on who the real villain should be, so that while we are supposed to care mostly about the Archdemon, the poor thing ends up being little more than a blurry scarecrow used to set up the real action, so that actually taking it on at the end feels oddly unsatisfying.


(Un)fortunately, as I was playing, DA:I went on sale for a pittance, and this time I couldn't resist and bought the goty edition, so I might not be re-joining the fight against the Reapers in earnest any time soon. I have managed to avoid most spoilers, so I am going in blind - I am honestly pretty stoked about it! I have only just started it, and it's my first game with the frostbite engine. So far, it looks gorgeous! Unfortunately, the engine seems to have... trouble with faces. Character creation is not even an exercise in avoiding the uncanny valley, but rather a desperate struggle to claw your way out by climbing its sheer cliffs. I am not very particular about my in-game appearance, but it took me a dozen tries to come up with something that didn't look like a wax statue left too long in the sun Combat feels fluid so far, and the world is huuuuuuuuuge. Bioware did a bold thing in adding so many systems and activities into the core of such a big game: for all the diversity, there's the danger of one specific system grating on a player enough that it prevents further enjoyment of the game; likely candidates for me atm are the clumsy inventory, and the overwrought crafting system - one that adds the aggravation of having to collect everything.
The narrative starts with casting the protagonist as a super-special being, which I hope will lead to something interesting and will not be played straight all the way throughout the game. More worryingly, the starting team is composed of pure archetypes without any sort of depth or refreshing departure from cardboard cutouts: gruff no-nonsense veteran, silver-tongued dashing rogue, tight-lipped hermit mage of mysterious origin. The contrast with DA:O's uncompromisingly, failingly human cast is a bit jarring, and dampens my expectations when it comes to the atmosphere/banter.
I doubt I will look into the mp side, that's what ME3 is for after all (I don't think auto-attacks and behind the scenes dice-throwing to resolve hit/misses make for good mp), but I am looking forward to many hours of exploring new and amazing environments, while watching an hopefully grand story unfold!

I do own it. With that said, my CS days are behind me. It just doesn´t capture me.

Frozen wilds DLC for horizon zero dawn.
Playing it on NG+ ultra-hard

And yeah it's tough but I like it that I have to play conservatively and not go steaming in all rawr-like. It's got me totally hooked again. So beautiful, gameplay is sooo good, and side missions etc are really well done. Interesting npcs, they always add something gradually rather than bore you to death with a long conversation. It's rare for me to replay a game, and so I'm glad I had a long break between playthroughs.

I thoroughly enjoyed that game! Much more than I thought I would; picked it up in a sale earlier this year and had such fun with it. Orcs are so funny to listen to.

I'm waiting for a good price drop on Shadow of War before I get that one though...

Finally managed to boot up "A Criminal Past" DLC for Deus Ex Mankind Divided. So much DLCs and games in my backlog and so little to no time to play. I did not even want to spend the time to reconfigure the controls again so I just played with a controller instead of mouse/keyboard and decided I would not get into too many firefights...

PUBG has been the game I'm spending most of my time on atm.One of the most addictive games I've played in a while.

Derailed or not, ME2 is still the best Single Player experience the franchise has to offer (Point 3 still stands, though).

As a standalone game, I agree. But its tangential narrative ruined the main plot of the trilogy and caused the mess that is MEA. It would have been better as a side game without Shep as the lead.

Weird that I didn't think MP would be any good in the ME franchise, yet in the long run it is the best part.

I didn't play it at my place and missed out on some parts but for the most part I have played "Little Nightmares" plus the DLC at a friend's place. Very cool game although a bit short, but you should pick it up during sale.

Welp, I somehow managed to receive a copy of Fallout 4 for christmas so I might not me getting around to ME3mp for a good while. I'm not very far in yet but the game seems super cool so far. To make it even more interesting (or rather hilarious) I made my character super fat because I've always wanted to play a fat person in a game (too bad you couldn't make tubby characters in other Bethesda games or even the ME series)