We've got these threads for books, movies, music, etc., I figure it's about time for a video game thread that isn't all WoW all the time.
So, watcha playin'?
My current game of choice is
Demigod, an "action-RTS" from the designer who did
Total Annihilation and
Dungeon Siege and the publisher who did
Sins of a Solar Empire. I'm liking it a lot so far. It builds on the idea of the hero units you see in a lot of the newer RTS titles, to the point where you only control the hero (aka demigod). One review I read compared it to watching World War I unfold in real time, and that's pretty accurate. Each map has a number of prebuilt fortifications and AI-controlled troops spawn regularly and throw themselves at each other in predictable ways. They're perfectly matched (until you start spending gold to upgrade them, anyway), leading to an endless meat grinder until you, as the demigod, intervene to create breakthroughs for your allied armies to exploit. Naturally, the demigod on the other side is trying to do the same thing, and you can play with 1-4 demigods on each side.
There's a hokey backstory about some god breaking the divine rules and subsequently being destroyed by the rest of his pantheon, who then host a tournament among his half-mortal offspring, who fight over the right to ascend to godhood as his replacement, but the game itself has no story. So far, I've been having a lot of fun with single player (although the difficulty curve is a bit steep...Normal is far too easy, but Hard is kicking my ass), but I may actually try online play, something I haven't done with an RTS since
Starcraft. Usually I have trouble with the rapid micromanagement and divided focus required to compete in multiplayer RTS, but
Demigod eliminates most micromanagement. I think I can handle steering one guy around, as opposed to twelve groups of troops.