What we’re playing

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After a hiatus of more than a month, “What We’re Playing” returns this week. Not too much has changed. People are still playing Red Dead Redemption (and I’ve still barely started), we’ve got people obsessing over the StarCraft 2 Beta (once again), and Pete & Ash are playing Carcassonne. I bet they’d play Carcassonne if they made a board game out of it (oh wait).

Here’s this weeks rundown… have a great weekend.

Gary Noonan: Fallout3 (PC) w/ many great fan-made mods.

Ashley Cheng: Carcassonne for iPhone/iPad.

Caedmon Somers: Super Stardust in 3D and Uncharted 2.

Pete Hines: Carcassone iPhone, Castle Crashers, NCAA ’11, Crackdown 2

Frank Matzke: I’ve at least unwrapped my copy of Red Dead (dunno whether this counts as playing?), then there’s the occasional round of After Burner Climax (brings back a lot of great memories) and I was really happy to finally get two extra characters (incl. my 2nd favorite Cammy) for the iPhone version of Street Fighter IV.

Shannon Bailey: Resonance of Fate.

Ryan Salvatore: Hopefully some more Red Dead Redemption, some WoW, and seeing if I have the hard drive space to install some of the 20 games I bought last week off of Steam.

Matt Grandstaff: Finishing Alan Wake, starting Red Dead Redemption, and waiting for NCAA Football 11.

Matt Weil: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age, and League of Legends.

Michael Musick: Just finished Alan Wake (I was particularly impressed with the musical direction). Playing through Wolfenstein 2009 right now, along with the original Quake and Shatter on Steam.

Ryan Lea: Super Mario Galaxy 2 and World of Goo.

Amber Hinden: Puzzle Quest 2 and Blue Dragon.

Ken Barner: I’ven’t played a game since last week. I was playing Vampire: Bloodlines which has some great content but was too bug-riddled for me to tolerate. It’s a game that demonstrates the importance of balance between the provision of time/money by publishers, the restraint in content addition and efficiency of content correction by developers, and the timely thoroughness of bug discovery and documentation by QA.

Greg Hounsom: FIFA South Africa 2010.

Jon DeVriendt: StarCraft II Beta!!

Mark Lampert: Red Dead Redemption.

Nick Heller: I’m in the middle of Red Dead and Uncharted 2.

Alistair Hatch: This weekend I will be attempting to play Split / Second – havent had this much fun with a racing game for ages. Red Dead – slowly working my through it. And I might start Singularity if I have any time. However, I have a wedding to go to and it’s the world cup final this weekend, so lots going on!

Aaron Mitschelen: Trinity Universe, Deathsmiles, Persona 3 Portable, and Record of Agarest War.

E McNeill: Returning to my old loves – Civilization 2, Lords of the Realm 2, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

Alec Ahearn: I’ve got over 90 hours in Demon’s Souls and still play every night. Plan to start ModNation Racers here pretty soon and am still having regular MW2 Lan parties with my friends

Andrew Buscaglio: The Secret of Monkey Island 2: SE, Counter-Strike: Source, and waiting on Star Craft 2.

Dan Ross: Fallout: New Vegas, DoW2: Chaos Rising, and Clean Up After The New Puppy.

Nate Purkeypile: TF2 Engineer update, Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising, and Blur.

Rob Bartholomew: Carcassonne, Galaxy on Fire and Darkstar One, yes I had a bit of a thirst midweek for a decent update of Elite, would love to hear recommendations.

Matt Killmon: Mass Effect 2 and Ace Attorney 3 (finally!)

Michael Lattanzia: Monster Hunter Tri, Lord of the Rings Online, and trying out lots of games on my new PC!

Matt Ponton: Alan Wake.

Max Cameron: Playing inFamous and eagerly awaiting for my copy of Dragon Quest IX to arrive next week.

Marisa Lyon: Dabbling in Bioshock 2 Multiplayer and starting Lego Harry Potter.

Sam Bernstein: Fallout: New Vegas.

Andrew Langlois: Team Fortress 2: Engie Edition, Puzzle Quest 2, and Red Dead Redemption.

Allan Jaffee: Finishing God Of War III, Re-Playing Heavy Rain, and Lanning Left for Dead 2.

Reader Comments

  3. Gstaff: Is Alan Wake any good? I unfortunately suffer from Yahtzee Croshaw syndrome and take every word he says as bona-fide fact, so it leaves me in the dark….

  5. 2 Ken Barner – have you used unofficial patch, now in its version 7.0 ? With it the game is pretty much bug-free. It still remains an RPG with the best written and acted characters, even 6 years after release (for shame, other devs!). Easily one of the best games ever made.

  6. I hope Ken knows about the unofficial patches, because missing out a gem like Vampire : Bloodlines now that we can play it almost bugfree would be really really really bad.

  7. [ Sam Bernstein: Fallout: New Vegas. ]

    Sam Bernstein one step ahead of us in the future where one day we too shall be.

    [ Gary Noonan: Fallout3 (PC) w/ many great fan-made mods ]

    Same here enjoying the likes of MART’S MUTANT MOD, THE OUTBREAK’S WASTELAND MOOD SERIES, KBAT RADIO, BETTER BOOZE, WHATS YOUR BRAND, Anime Babe Posters + Billboards by Olurum which was just released.

    Also playing-
    MORROWIND with VIBRANT MORROWIND 4.0 by skydye, Darknut’s Little Weapons Mod Complete, Better Skulls by tronvillain & nONatee.

    OBLIVION with OSCURO’S OBLIVION OVERHAUL and MARTIGEN’S MONSTER MOD for OOO.

    DAGGERFALL
    COMMAND AND CONQUER 3
    DIABLO 2 with the hi-res patch
    STARCRAFT with the hi-res patch
    DAWN OF WAR 2 CHAOS RISING

  9. Saw quite a few Red Dead’s on there. It’s a great game, multiplayer is alright, it’s a lot like GTA IV’s but with the wild west setting and the addition of gang hideouts in free mode. The single player is really where it’s at. Rich and full of depth, not as engaging as GTA but still on par with a Rockstar title.

  10. to Rob Bartholomew, have you tried the X-Universe games?

    Personally I’ve been playing NWN1 and Discworld MUD, might re-install X2: The Threat now that I’ve remembered it.

  12. @Rob: If you haven’t tried Freelancer you might want to give it a go; it’s still a lot of fun and even has a fairly active modding community. It has a nice atmosphere and the galaxy is fun to explore. Unfortunately it was published by MS so it’s not on any digital distribution service as far as I’m aware and might be hard to find.

    A more recent game in that ilk is Darkstar One, but that one was ultimately very repetitive and a bit tedious and had little sense of adventure. Then there’s the X series and Privateer, of course.

  13. @Paul and WorstUsernameEver

    I heard about the fan patches. I thought the patch I installed was it but guess I’ll do a bit more looking and give it another go.

  14. Uh? For some reason it looks like I didn’t post a comment earlier. By the way, http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php here is the latest Bloodlines Wesp’ Unofficial Patch (7.0).

    If that’s what you were using Ken, I don’t really know what to tell… I never had any problem with 6.4, and usually Wesp’s patches have always been very reliable.

  15. i highly recommend the Carcasonne board game. start with the basic set until you figure out how to play like a vicious bastard, then add the Builders & Traders, Inns & Cathedrals, and The River expansions. my friends and i have big 6 player games with large sets, either free-for-all or 2v2v2. the cathedral and farm battles get ridiculous, and the smack talkin’ is awesome. (“Five generations my family tilled that land, then you came in with your pinstripe suit and fat cigar and just took it over!”) i played a full iPhone Carc game against a buddy for the first time, it’s an excellent implementation.

    gosh, i guess i should warm up the ol’ SC2 beta again. i still get some Bad Company 2 in, it’s fun and adequate for a squad-centric tactical FPS. hrm, and maybe i should finish off that Fallout 2 char…

    i finally finished Broken Steel, but not from being behind the times. i’ve finished the retail and other DLCs several times, but i’d voluntarily sworn off totally completing Broken Steel until the New Vegas pre-order was available. i wanted the wasteland to always hold something unknown.

    i might actually start a full pen and paper RPG character for the first time – perhaps not a good sign heading to my 30th birthday. a friend knows a good GM nearby that we can play Shadow Run with, especially since i just can’t do fantasy.

  16. [Alphax wrote on July 11th, 2010

    @Rob Bartholomew

    Have you tried Oolite, a remake of the original Elite? http://www.oolite.org/ ]

    Thanks Alphax for the great link! Takes me back to the old days of playing space simulators and shooters on my Commodore Amiga500. Closest thing to this i’ve played recently was the HOMEWORLD series and that was years ago.

    Wonder what the space travel to other planets will be like in The Elder Scrolls considering the other planes of existence are actually other planets or so i’ve heard.

  17. I’ve been playing Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, which I’d REALLY recommend for any Elder Scrolls fans. I’ve not finished it yet, but so far it’s a complete joy – the dialogue and quests are really interesting and the balance and combat is really good fun. For such an old game, it’s rivalling, say, Mass Effect 2 in my affections at the moment.