The "What are you playing?" topic. [Archive] - Page 11

Prussian to the Iron

06-01-2011, 20:11

I'm appalled, people shouldn't be so afraid to try something different. Problem probably is steep learning curve. Ah well I had an absolute blast with the campaign.

So now on to Killzone 3 (mp). So far it's every bit as fun as 2, but much better looking, graphically it destroys everything including Crysis 2. Shooting just feels exactly right

I agree with the fact that people should try different things. It's truly sad how many amazing games are out there, but that rarely or never get played because people are perfectly comfortable playing the same rehashes over and over again. I see this in anybody that I try to talk to at school, on the subject of less mainstream games. While there are some people who agree that it's pretty cool and there are some really great non-CoD games out there, most people are perfectly happy doing the same thing, in the same multiplayer, with the same engine that they have been for years. It really is a shame.

I must disagree, however, that Killzone's graphics are better. I have both, and I don't know about your definition or your TV, but I play on 1080i on a 28 inch, and it's very obvious to me that Crysis 2 is far superior graphically. However, I have to concede that Killzone has a different style of graphics entirely, and thus isn't even really comparable. I think Killzone has more Gears of War-esque graphics, whereas Crysis 2 went for as much photo-realism as possible. Both are still great games though, as I'm sure you agree.

Why do you think the COD series are such a hit now?

(After acknowledging that this was a rhetorical question) Definitely because our generation is happy doing the same thing over and over again, and feels some safety when buying a game they know they will at least moderately enjoy. To be honest I stopped enjoying CoD when Black Ops came out; they've gotten lazy, and not only is it the same engine, worse graphics, the same gameplay mechanics and essentially a re-skinning mod of MW2, W@W, and MW1, but it suffers from incredible lag problems.

Instead, I've learned to love Battlefield, Crysis, and Killzone, some truly amazing games that never get old, and are progressively better than the last game released.

Fragony

06-02-2011, 15:58

Why do you think the COD series are such a hit now?

They are very good, adding rpg elements to mp-fps was a touch of genius, never wanted to win so badly NEED THAT THING muhaha rifle nades

Xiahou

06-06-2011, 20:38

I recently finished playing the storyline of Splatterhouse (http://us.splatterhousegame.com). I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it's definitely not one for the kiddies.... or anyone else with delicate sensibilities. It earned every bit of its M rating. :yes:

Drunk Clown

06-06-2011, 20:51

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.

It's just brilliant; every aspect.

Splitpersonality

06-07-2011, 01:02

Mafia 2. Bought it a bit ago but never played it. Using it to hold me over until I can get out and purchase LA Noire.

Quite happy with the story so far :D

Centurion1

06-07-2011, 01:12

people like the rpg element thats what kept me hooked. i thought black ops was trash though.

im playing mount and blade warband...... still addicted after 150 hours.

Fragony

06-12-2011, 08:45

Killzone 3 MY FIRST KILLSTREAK OF 5 WITH MY MEDIC (I suck)

Shame you don't get any cool stuff like the mechs from the sp, only experience points

HA getting the hang of it, 4 times first in a row. I only die because I don't know the maps all that well, I hardly ever die in duels. And the infiltrater class is the bane of all that's good in the world. But I'm going to rock at this once I'm no longer randomly running around.

Fragony

06-23-2011, 07:11

Beat the campaign, gawd. Killzone 2 didn't explain anything, it was a relentless push into enemy territory, it was downright nightmarish. Killzone 3 is just silly. Even worse it's EASY. In Killzone 2 confronting 2 enemies was certain death, in 3 you are butchering whole squads. Even worse the ai of your teammates sucks, I never had to nurse them in 2. In an especially poor level I just abandoned them the idiots kept running into the open. Even worse, a lack of polish. Sound lags behind in the idiotic cutscenes. A (truly) spectacular endgame that feels completely out of place in the Killzone universe can't save this mess. The multiplayer can though

phonicsmonkey

06-23-2011, 07:34

In between bouts of Shogun 2 I'm playing Batman, Arkham Asylum. I got the GOTY edition on Steam for ten bucks Australian.

It's great!

Peasant Phill

06-23-2011, 11:34

people like the rpg element thats what kept me hooked. i thought black ops was trash though.

im playing mount and blade warband...... still addicted after 150 hours.

How is warband? I've played M&B really a lot but in the end it all came down one meaningless battle/skirmish after the other.
I loved the beginning but after a while it seemed like you constantly did the same thing over and over.

Prussian to the Iron

06-23-2011, 13:44

it's fairly similar, its the same spirit but it's a larger game world, more diverse people and missions and such, generally more to do but as you said, once you get to a certain point its just hunting down bandits and steamrolling dudes :/.

The beginning and for a while after is always very fun though.

Fragony

06-25-2011, 17:50

MUHA I know what I will be playing tommorow, Shadows of the Damned is out, latest game by the guys who made Killer7(most disturbing game ever, a real mind-youknow, like insomnia it gets to you) and the ultra-ultraviolent and just plain sadistic No More Heroes. I know what to expect, stylish perversion

Gregoshi

06-25-2011, 19:39

I finally got around to playing Ghostbusters (Wii). It is great fun and the writing on the cut scenes is top notch and very funny. Looks to be short as the reviews have mentioned. I've played about 2 hours and am 25% complete.

a completely inoffensive name

06-25-2011, 21:14

Still playing Fallout: New Vegas since it came out. I have 260 hours logged on it so far.

Centurion1

06-26-2011, 02:23

How is warband? I've played M&B really a lot but in the end it all came down one meaningless battle/skirmish after the other.
I loved the beginning but after a while it seemed like you constantly did the same thing over and over.

it is i logged about 60 hours standard warband (never completed a game kept me enthralled and woulda kept playing) then went on to mods. Fantastic as you can imagine from the type of game it is. Total overhauls, expansions, tweaks, etc. I have settled on prophesy of pendor a total overhaul mod done so well it semms damn near professional. Check it out you wont be disappointed. like really really high quality work no bugs total revamping good texturing etc.

tibilicus

06-27-2011, 00:19

Just tried the Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga because the game is currently on sale with Steam and I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it's pretty much your typical run of the mill rpg but the combat seems solid and it seems to have potential. Considering it's currently only £15 I might take the plunge. Users on the Steam forums say there 100+ hours of game play there and it seems pretty similar to Dragon Age, obviously lacking the big studio production value however.

Xiahou

06-27-2011, 14:07

I started playing Ocarina of Time 3D. I haven't played the original in many years, but the remake seems great. :2thumbsup:

Beirut

06-30-2011, 18:38

Rise of Flight

A very polished WWI flightsim. Good fun but not easy. A real flightsim, not an arcade game. You get a half-dozen flyable planes with the sim and can buy others for about $8 to $14 a pop. A bit funky having to buy planes, but the quality and detail of the planes is really first rate. Crank up the settings and this sim looks great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB-0ImSpQhw

Fragony

07-02-2011, 12:02

Playing Bayonetta, it's awesome. 10/10. Maybe I am being way too juvenile for loving the fact that she gets naked as I string up combo's but it works for me. It looks great, and it plays great, add to that tons of visual (creepily sexual) flavour that goes brilliantly with upbeat jazz and I'm so into this.

CountArach

07-05-2011, 11:39

I played through the first mission of F3AR today... It was really impressive. It feels much like the previous two, in terms of the way you have to play it (though with a revamped and improved cover system). The AI is even better than it already was - for example if I ducked behind cover for too long they would throw a grenade to flush me out whilst also outflanking me, meaning that at least once I died from being caught in a cross fire.

I recommend it, particularly if you liked the previous ones.

Fragony

07-06-2011, 08:56

Beat Bayonetta, no easy task. This is a very challenging game, and imo the best of it's kind. Fun rediculously sexy heroin, awesome music, ultra stylish combat. I'm especially fond of the enemy design, does a great job of making the armies of heaven terrifying, really twisted creatures with cool names like 'beloved'. Story is also good, nothing new to light and dark but I totally buyed it. Great value for 10 euro

Centurion1

07-07-2011, 04:29

DOW2 Retribution

Addicted.

about 50 hours in a week so far. Multiplayer has me hooked im at about 1200 elo in 2v2 and team.

Hooahguy

07-13-2011, 00:33

Right now:
Assassins Creed 2: really fun, except Im stuck on this one part where I have to outrun some guy and get the flags. Its really frustrating because he gets faster every time. Ive gone through it so many times. Ive gotten two out of three flags, but then the guy gets three in a row. So annoying.

Borderlands: still getting a grip with the game. Its interesting so far, the cartoonish look is refreshing.

M&B Warband: SP is addicting, not a fan of MP because I suck.

Mafia 2: Really good, but driving is a pain.

Drunk Clown

07-13-2011, 01:00

Haha, that's funny. I suck more in SP than in MP with M&B.

Hooahguy

07-13-2011, 01:21

I find that hand to hand isnt my strong point. Im much better at archery, which is funny since in SP its the opposite.

Fragony

07-27-2011, 12:02

My playstation had to crash at some point because it's made by Sony, byebye all savegames. On the bright side, started a Tactician class in Killzone 3 and it fits like a glove, objective based teamplay in Killzone 3 is way too complicated for me I just want shootouts, I always win 1 vs 1 encounters and usually 1 vs 2 by a margin. All the tactician has to do is capture spawnpoints, and scan for enemies to be usefull. Can rely on my skill without understanding what the heck is going on, perfect. Highest tier secondary weapon is a bazooka, awesome

Prussian to the Iron

07-27-2011, 14:10

My playstation had to crash at some point because it's made by Sony, byebye all savegames.

Hey, still alot more reliable than an Xbox. My Xbox has gotten the Red Ring of Death 4 times since I got it back in '07 (luckily they fixed it for free each time). PS3 only got the yellow light of death once since I got it in '06. And it doesn't cost any money to play online.

Fragony

07-28-2011, 06:58

Hey, still alot more reliable than an Xbox. My Xbox has gotten the Red Ring of Death 4 times since I got it back in '07 (luckily they fixed it for free each time). PS3 only got the yellow light of death once since I got it in '06. And it doesn't cost any money to play online.

It's very telling that they copied the red ring of death and made it yellow, IT WILL CHANGE HOW WE THINK OF SYSTEM FAILLURE FOREVER.

Sony.

Anyways, I am thinking of picking up Catherine at full retail, this sounds very interesting

http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDUQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHELNxOzcVpw&ei=bPowToqUKM3qOY3PsdwL&usg=AFQjCNF7pYDsAaJBQYvpAyS_eQBXmpiSbA&sig2=9_WwgxsNKfmWzRNH3-JmXA

Prussian to the Iron

07-28-2011, 14:32

http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDUQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHELNxOzcVpw&ei=bPowToqUKM3qOY3PsdwL&usg=AFQjCNF7pYDsAaJBQYvpAyS_eQBXmpiSbA&sig2=9_WwgxsNKfmWzRNH3-JmXA

I've heard the new Alice in Wonderland game is supposed to be really good, albeit pretty dark. Lots of friends recommend it.

I'm going to start playing Red Dead Redemption, which is difficult for me because it means I have to kick all the other kids off the Xbox whenever I wanna play. But I will finish this game!

Monk

08-01-2011, 15:49

I'm going to start playing Red Dead Redemption, which is difficult for me because it means I have to kick all the other kids off the Xbox whenever I wanna play. But I will finish this game!

If you intend to complete the story then remember the golden rule: It ain't over til you see the credits roll, no matter what happens. The plot has a number of "false stops" where it FEELS like its over.. but it's not. Trust me.

Skullheadhq

08-01-2011, 17:33

ATM I'm playing Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom and Hitman 2: Silent Assasin. Both great games.

A Nerd

08-01-2011, 19:09

Prussian to the Iron

08-02-2011, 02:57

I bought the Stronghold pack on steam. I played a bit of Stronghold then tried Stronghold 2. Collecting resources in Stronghold 2 happens too quickly, I don't like that. Also, I hate mission based campaigns which are present in both. The fact that you can build the castle walls and such in a second is kinda annoying. I hate that infantry can knock walls down by just hitting them with their weapons too, this is way lame! So I guess I don't really like the games. I might play Stronghold more for it is better than Stonghold 2, but not by much in my opinion. I long for a good castle building sim like the game Castles from the early 90s. That was a good game! I saw it on gog.com, I should download it, but it is so dated!

I hope Stonghold 3 is better than it predecessors!

From the looks of it, Stronghold 3 seems to be essentially Stronghold 2 with updated graphics.

If you intend to complete the story then remember the golden rule: It ain't over til you see the credits roll, no matter what happens. The plot has a number of "false stops" where it FEELS like its over.. but it's not. Trust me.

Yeah, I figured that out by now haha. Just today I went through like 3 missions, each where I thought I was gonna get to kill Dutch.

Didn't happen yet.

I did, however, manage to get mauled by a Bear after unsuccessfully trying to light it on fire with the Molotov thing you get.

BTW: I would highly recommend this game to....anybody basically. Very fun and addicting, and gives you a huge amount of freedom. Love the game.

Though I do find myself wanting in the "stuff to buy" department. ATM I've got over 4000 bucks, and nothing to really spend it on. In my opinion, the entire map should've been open from the start of the game; by the time you get to hunt the big game (Bears, Buffalo, Elk), odds are that you don't need the money anymore. Unless you haven't hunted at all the entire game, which would dramatically cut down on the play time.

phonicsmonkey

08-03-2011, 04:23

I'm playing Mount and Blade, which I'm enjoying but hasn't really grabbed me completely yet

And Fallout NV which I consider an extension of my love for Fallout 3. I even recreated my last FO3 character with whom I didn't finish that game, an Asian chick melee expert and serial killer. I just lolmurdered everyone in Goodsprings and am in search of new victims having put all the bodies in amusing poses around the town.

Prussian to the Iron

08-09-2011, 07:17

So after beating it, my conclusion of Red Dead Redemption:

Amazing gameplay, very fun to play, good story,and an all-too rare setting rich with the minor details that make a game more than just good. But the ending was probably one of the worst I've ever had the misfortune to experience. I'm talking worse than the Halo 2 ending (which is notorious for pissing just about everybody off with the end).

For anybody that's wondering, it's not much of a spoiler but I'll put it in spoilers anyway:

Basically, the goal of the whole game is to kill outlaws for the government so that they will release your family. The government can use them as leverage against you, because you were formerly a gang member who committed a huge amount of crimes.

Anyway. You finally get back to the farm with your family on it, and it's a happy reunion. The story should have ended here, with a tear-jerking happy ending where the family is re-united. Perfect ending.

Instead, you get back to the farm and meet with your family (who seem to have very little chemistry with your character and each other) in a somewhat emotionless manner. You then proceed to do some chores, namely:
herding cattle several times, delivering corn on a stage coach, roping wild horses, shooting some crows, following a dog for 5 minutes to find a couple elk to kill, and saving your son from a bear in the woods.
After completing these menial, fairly uninteresting tasks, the US Army suddenly attacks for no apparent reason, and after holding them off and killing a ton of them, your character sends his wife and kid out on a horse to safety while he opens the barn door, kills a couple guys, and then gets shot a few hundred times from point blank, instantly killing him. No dialogue with the G-men responsible, no explanation, just a random attack followed by your character being killed.

Then it skips ahead a few years and you play as the son that you saved, whom you play as the rest of the game (should you choose to continue playing for 100% completion or just for S&G's). You can complete a mission with him (not required mind you, it is a side mission and thus can be easily missed) where you briefly hunt down the government agent responsible for killing your father. Here it is, you think as you confront him. Now I'll know what the purpose was for just mindlessly killing my father, and ruining the perfect ending. Now I can finally have my redemption and learn some cool back-plot that explains everything.

Nope. He tells you to stand down, you say no, you draw your revolver and kill him. And that's it. The end of the story mode.

Apologies if that was a bit lengthy, most of it is criticism and not actual spoilers. Sort of spoilers, but really the horrid ending spoiled itself. Had I known it would be that bad, I would've turned off the Xbox as soon as I got home.

But as I said before; great game, very fun to play, polished and perfected in many ways, especially in a world where Wild West games are a rarity, and ones as good as this are nigh-impossible to find. However the un-emotional re-union, un-explained ending, and monotony of the closing missions truly ruined it for me.

Beskar

08-17-2011, 20:28

Game Dev Story is pretty good, for the mobile phone. Better than silly Angry Birds.

Secura got me to download, I have to admit, I definitely got my money's worth back already.

Kekvit Irae

08-23-2011, 21:32

Deus Ex 2: Human Revolution. Sooooo good!

johnhughthom

08-23-2011, 21:44

Deus Ex 2: Human Revolution. Sooooo good!

:inquisitive:

You serious?

Hamata

08-23-2011, 22:19

Hmm total war shogun 2 wich is obvious. crisis 1 and a little bit of call of duty 5 lan

Kekvit Irae

08-24-2011, 08:19

:inquisitive:

You serious?

Yes. It is everything I ever wanted in a Deus Ex sequel (or, rather, prequel). The stealth mechanics are just as good as Thief 2, and the game gives you a crapton of choices for augmentations.

Fragony

08-24-2011, 11:45

Yes. It is everything I ever wanted in a Deus Ex sequel (or, rather, prequel). The stealth mechanics are just as good as Thief 2, and the game gives you a crapton of choices for augmentations.

Sooooooo glad to hear. I actually liked IW because it was the only game it's type available at the time, but it was of course a disappointment

johnhughthom

08-24-2011, 12:25

Rethinking decision not to buy HR.

Fragony

08-24-2011, 14:52

Rethinking decision not to buy HR.

If fans of the orinal are happy, well no questions asked. I mentally blocked it's very existance until the reviews. It shall be mine.

It it also gives a me a bit of hope that Thief 4 could very well not suck aircaft-carriers through a straw like Thief 3 did.

Kekvit Irae

08-24-2011, 17:24

That's not to say the game is perfect; but as a Deus Ex successor, there is no finer game.

A few gripes I have with the game include not being able to rebind the Enter or Tab keys (I use Enter as my Use command on all FPS games), and most people you talk to move like they are bobbleheads with Parkinsons (hilarious, but a bit distracting). Other than this, HR is every bit as much of Deus Ex as you could want.
The dialogue also gets a nice revamp (especially with the social augment). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VgbNg_3EOA) Spoiler warning for an optional sidequest, and language warning.

Oh, and some nice hidden stuff too. The very first passcode you get to open up the tutorial mission is also the same passcode you use to open up the shack on the side of UNATCO in the first game (0451). It's also nice to see that Square Enix makes fun of itself. (https://i.imgur.com/3RqiB.jpg)

Fragony

08-25-2011, 13:38

First one was also flawed, braindead AI, combat was boring, stealth was broken. What annoyed me most were the inconsistancies in the dialogue. Manderley 'terrorists who died at your hands tonight' after Lebedev's death. Que? I would never

Picking up HR friday, look forward to a non-violence spree

johnhughthom

08-25-2011, 13:57

If fans of the orinal are happy, well no questions asked. I mentally blocked it's very existance until the reviews. It shall be mine.

look forward to a non-violence spree

My thinking exactly.

Preloading now.

Kekvit Irae

08-25-2011, 23:11

The new HR patch fixes the long loading times. According to the patch notes...

Improvements to loading speed. The speed increase depends on machine spec and settings, but loading time improvements of over 50% have been measured on some machines.

Forgive me if I'm not enthusiastic about the game anymore or the fact that Dungeon Keeper 2 came out on GoG. My three year old cat just died today. I had to dig my first grave. For a three year old.

johnhughthom

08-25-2011, 23:16

Forgive me if I'm not enthusiastic about the game anymore or the fact that Dungeon Keeper 2 came out on GoG. My three year old cat just died today. I had to dig my first grave. For a three year old.

My condolences, losing a pet is tough, especially when it's still so young. That's the thing with cats though, always up to something dangerous. You can keep dogs pretty safe, cats do what they want.

Husar

08-25-2011, 23:52

Sorry to hear about the cat.

As for what I'm playing, mostly Men of War: Assault Squad, it's like a better Company of Heroes mostly.
Only downside is that it can be frustrating when your units are acting dumb again and your tanks get themselves shot up/disabled by smaller ones or your infantry doesn't fire back on the move etc.
Other than that it's a fine game though with more attention to detail.

Have also been playing Infamous on the PS3 now and then since I got that from the two free games thing and Xiahou recommended it strongly.
It seems a bit shallow and I missed a lot of the story shards so people are mentioned even though I know nothing about them but overall it's not a bad game for the less serious gaming hours.

Fragony

08-27-2011, 11:08

MUHAHAHA ha Deus Ex HR is awesome. The cover-system makes stealth extremely satisfying, and the mood is just right, very Deus Esque yay. And to think I argued with myself of picking up 'Catherine' instead, which I eventually absolutely will of course

tibilicus

08-27-2011, 13:06

Brought S.T.A.L.K.E.R a while ago in the Steam Christmas sale and decided to give it a go, honestly has to be one of the stupidest games I've ever played. By going for the "hardcore" game approach it simply becomes unplayable. For some reason I cannot stop myself from bleeding to death, no matter how man bandages I apply. This means that no matter what I will die as my last save game has me bleeding out. This essentially has made the game unplayable and means I have to start again, which I have zero interest in doing.

I'm pretty disappointed as the game had a lot of praise.

Husar

08-27-2011, 14:10

Prussian to the Iron

08-27-2011, 14:47

Either you encountered a bug or you're doing something wrong, or you only have one bandage or so.

You can die quickly in Stalker sometimes but bleeding to death has never ruined the game for me, just make sure to loot all the enemies for bandages, I often ended up with so many, I had to put them away or sell them to make room for other loot.

+1

Probably a glitch. bandages are found aplenty off dead bodies and loot.

Kekvit Irae

08-27-2011, 22:00

I finally won Deus Ex: HR. The ending isn't all that spectacular, but the post-credits scene... oh wow. Seriously, don't skip the credits!

MUHAHAHA ha Deus Ex HR is awesome. The cover-system makes stealth extremely satisfying, and the mood is just right, very Deus Esque yay. And to think I argued with myself of picking up 'Catherine' instead, which I eventually absolutely will of course

If you are getting Catherine thinking it will have the same quality of character interaction as other Atlas games like Persona 4, you're going to be SORELY disappointed. There's only two areas in the ENTIRE game you interact with people: the bar and the resting point between levels, and even these are just slapped on.

Brought S.T.A.L.K.E.R a while ago in the Steam Christmas sale and decided to give it a go, honestly has to be one of the stupidest games I've ever played. By going for the "hardcore" game approach it simply becomes unplayable. For some reason I cannot stop myself from bleeding to death, no matter how man bandages I apply. This means that no matter what I will die as my last save game has me bleeding out. This essentially has made the game unplayable and means I have to start again, which I have zero interest in doing.

I'm pretty disappointed as the game had a lot of praise.

Have you tried the STALKER Complete 2009 (2012) (http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009) mod? It fixes a crapton of bugs, adds new textures, and many other enhancements. Vanilla STALKER is pretty meh, but the Complete 2009 mod makes the game quite wonderful.

Monk

08-28-2011, 10:37

Have you tried the STALKER Complete 2009 (2012) (http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009) mod? It fixes a crapton of bugs, adds new textures, and many other enhancements. Vanilla STALKER is pretty meh, but the Complete 2009 mod makes the game quite wonderful.

I highly recommend that mod if you intend to play it, i believe there are complete mods for every Stalker game currently released... But even with the mod it will still be Stalker, and you should know that going in. The game is quite unapologetic in its apathy toward the player's welfare. If ever you could describe the way that game treats you, no other phrase would put it better, though there are splashes of contempt for you in there too.

Even with the complete mod, you're facing a very isolated and lonely game. I know there's a huge plot and a lot of exploring in the game, but i'm not joking when I say one of the biggest obstacles of that series is simply learning how to survive for more than 15 minutes.

I know a lot of my friends who quit the game in frustration and never went back, largely due to how "hardcore" they found it. It's not for everyone and has a steep learning curve - but I can also say its produced some of the most frightening gameplay i've experienced outside of Amnesia. There are some true scares to be found in the Zone, as well as a lot of fun.

tibilicus

08-28-2011, 16:56

Going to download that mod and give it another try. See how I get on this time round.

tibilicus

08-28-2011, 21:55

Well with S.T.A.L.K.E.R complete I tried again, it seems like this really isn't for me. It's not that I don't like a challenge, it's simply too challenging it isn't fun. I go to far of the path, I die of radiation. I walk down the road, enemies spawn,I die. This frustration has also been felt recently in the form of Braid which was at least challenging in a fun way. I'm of the view that if a game makes you reload about 20 times within as many minutes it's probably not worth playing. The final straw came in the form of trying to get down some tunnel. A guide said something about throwing a bolt, it didn't work. No that it would matter considering I'll probably get radiation poisoning and die once I make it to the other side.

I'm sure it would be great if I could persevere but sometimes you just have to cut your losses and play Borderlands.

johnhughthom

08-28-2011, 21:56

Husar

08-29-2011, 00:38

Err, the tunnel thing is about throwing bolts so you know where the anomalies are and can walk around them.
The bolts do not deactivate them, they just activate them, thus showing you where they are, if you throw a bolt and nothing happens, you can walk safely in that direction. If you throw a bolt and an anomaly goes off, don't go there.
The early game is a bit hard but once you get above the level of pistols and submachine guns it becomes a bit easier IMO.
Some radioactive areas can later be traversed using a protective suit, when the geiger counter starts to crack away, you shouldn't go ahead, in the beginning you are weak, you just fell off a truck without any equipment after all. It's part of the character development/atmosphere for me, the suspense is a lot higher but once you earn yourself a place in the world, enemies and other dangers become more doable and survivable. :shrug:

Fragony

08-29-2011, 08:40

Too hell with non-lethal! I decided this Deus Ex is much more satisfying as a silent assassin. I did it, I killed a guard, I didn't mean to it was an accident I held the button too long. I am now a murderer and noob, and noobs use guns

Gregoshi

08-30-2011, 05:29

I felt like playing something light and fun so I'm on to two games. I started playing Lego Harry Potter on the Wii. Lots of fun so far and the cut scenes are quite funny. I also saw Railroad Tycoon 3 on my shelf and decided I wanted to play with trains. Despite non-compatibility issues with Win 7 I saw on the web, I've managed to install and play without issues. I lost my first scenario, but that wasn't the point. Laying track and watching the trains is. :2thumbsup:

rajpoot

08-30-2011, 19:56

Laying track and watching the trains is. :2thumbsup:

Doing stuff one did as a kid is always fun (more or less). That's why notch's Minecraft is minting money with it's blocks.

tibilicus

08-31-2011, 01:09

Playing a bit of Borderlands and its an interesting one. At first I was fairly neutral considering I spent hours killing Skags but around 3 hours in it really picked up. It's important to understand it isn't an RPG, more a "loot based" FPS but a fun one none the less. To be honest it's exactly the fun easy going game I've been going for even if at times it becomes more intense than relaxing. All in all so far, a really fun game. Glad I got the GOTY edition for a fiver now.

Fragony

09-01-2011, 07:00

Yep something really strange must happen if Deus Ex isn't my GOTY (sorry Crysis 2 I still love you). Man I'm pleased. Haven't been playing very long and no mindblowing story-twists so far, but it's Deus Ex alright

Monk

09-01-2011, 18:37

no mindblowing story-twists so far

Give it time...

Fragony

09-02-2011, 06:59

Give it time...

Too bad I expect it to come, the original took me completely by surprise, greatest wtque-moment in video-game history. After that and moving to Japan it got really really interesting, if something matches the genius of Maggie Chow's apartment and Tokyo in general I'll kiss their feet and swallow whatever I find between their toes as a bonus. Such great storytelling. And nothing prepared me for what Icarus exactly is, I actually felt sorry for JC because of how incredibly big the conspiracy really is and the choices he has to make, all choices being horrible.

*sigh* nostalgia

Montmorency

09-03-2011, 03:36

He was in Hong Kong, not Tokyo.

Fragony

09-03-2011, 07:14

He was in Hong Kong, not Tokyo.

You are just saying that to make me feel better

$%^&*&^%$ yes level was set in Hong Kong theyalllooktehsame

Kekvit Irae

09-03-2011, 10:12

Give it time...

^ This.
Trust us.
Give. It. Time.

(playing a certain sidequest and waiting for the credits to end helps)

Monk

09-03-2011, 10:13

^ This.
Trust us.
Give. It. Time.

(playing a certain sidequest and waiting for the credits to end helps)

I finished the game three days ago and I'm still high off the ending. Seriously.

Game of the year.
Every year.

Kekvit Irae

09-03-2011, 10:21

I finished the game three days ago and I'm still high off the ending. Seriously.

Game of the year.
Every year.

I'm eagerly awaiting for November to come around for the hoard of raging children to say that Skyrim has the most depth and complexity of any game in history. Then I'll laugh my butt off and point them to a game that's almost 12 years old.

Fragony

09-03-2011, 18:48

^ This.
Trust us.
Give. It. Time.

(playing a certain sidequest and waiting for the credits to end helps)

Oh I will, you are talking to a rabid fan of the original. And Thief and System Shock yougeddit, like you

johnhughthom

09-04-2011, 02:23

Playing through the best Final Fantasy game again. No, not 7, 8.

rajpoot

09-05-2011, 20:13

Finished Deus Ex Human Revolution just now. Excellent game, certainly going to do at least one more play through, now.
Found the endings rather unsatisfactory though. IMO they shouldn't have tried to rationalize the player's choice the way they did, because I found that their reasons and my reasons for the same ending didn't match. I would've liked it far better had they done endings where they showed how the key characters were affected and said something about the future (something, even if it was to be vague).

Now I understand that this is a prequel, but still......unsatisfactory is unsatisfactory.

Prussian to the Iron

09-05-2011, 20:17

I played the demo for Warhammer 40k Space Marines:

Awesome. Feels like God of War fighting, Gears of War gunplay and models, and a totally unique Warhammer universe and setting. Sadly I probably won't get the game for a while, solely because of the other games coming out soon, along with school, work, and track starting in november.

naut

10-08-2011, 04:52

Either you encountered a bug or you're doing something wrong, or you only have one bandage or so.

You can die quickly in Stalker sometimes but bleeding to death has never ruined the game for me, just make sure to loot all the enemies for bandages, I often ended up with so many, I had to put them away or sell them to make room for other loot.
This. You should make sure your game is a) patched and b) don't get shot. Early on it is punishing, but it's such a beautiful and rewarding game. If you don't want to continue with it, your loss.

Kekvit Irae

10-08-2011, 22:02

Currently I'm dividing my time between Fable III co-op with my roommate, Frozen Synapse (awesome 2D version of Rainbow Six before the Rainbow Six series turned to crap), and Dungeons of Dredmoor (graphical Rogue-like with a LOT of humor and gaming references).
Good times.

Fragony

10-12-2011, 09:36

before the Rainbow Six series turned to crap

:sweetheart:

Playing single player of MW2, quite enjoying it. Graphics look dated but at least the shooting feels really good. Finally saw the notorious 'No Russian' scene and it's pretty horrific, but I can't shake the feeling they removed WaW's excellent gore for this scene, understandable, but worth it? Nothing like absolutely shredding an enemy with an LMG. I don't really like how confined the gameplay is, you got to do what the game wants you to do, but all COD games are dressed-up shooting galeries so that's ok.

Prussian to the Iron

10-12-2011, 22:14

Just started Call of Pripyat (again) only this time with the SMRTER mod. So far enjoying it, the enemies are alot tougher and if you get hit a couple times its very unforgiving. However one gripe is that since some enemies spawn with high-tier weapons, the large volume of people fighting all over the place make it too easy to pick up rare weapons. I haven't even started finding a helicopter and I already picked up a G36C off some dude who got killed in a huge firefight between STALKERS and Bandits.

On the bright side, the stalker v. bandit war is large scale and awesome as of right now.

CountArach

10-13-2011, 13:57

Picked up Game of Thrones: Genesis today on a bit of a whim.

This is a truly unique game. Rather than your usual RTS fair with building units, rushing your opponent and fighting attles, this focusses on diplomacy and underhanded tactics. You can never be sure if any of your characters are working for you or if they have been paid off by the enemy, in which case they are working against you whilst appearing to be on your side. Truly unique.

LeftEyeNine

10-13-2011, 16:25

CountArach

10-14-2011, 09:13

Is it indeed ? I've been seeing that around yet couldn't make sure of the reception so was reluctant to look into it.
Yeah, I'd read some reviews for it, just to make sure it is the sort of thing for you before you buy it. This review (http://www.rtsguru.com/game/237/features/216/A-Game-of-Thrones-Genesis-Review-The-Things-I-Do-For-Love.html) helped me a lot.

Monk

10-14-2011, 20:28

Orcs must die! - I have to say there's a soft spot in my heart for tower defense.. even more so for the emerging Hack/slash defense genre, and OMD is a great example of one. So much mindless fun, but I'm nearing the end (on the finale stage) after only 5 hours of play. Seriously disappointed in that regard, but its been a lot of fun for the most part. ~D

johnhughthom

10-14-2011, 20:33

I'm eagerly awaiting for November to come around for the hoard of raging children to say that Skyrim has the most depth and complexity of any game in history. Then I'll laugh my butt off and point them to a game that's almost 12 years old.

Won't they be too busy playing Modern Warfare 3?

CountArach

10-15-2011, 11:38

I've been intermittently playing the HD remake of Shadow of the Colossus. This is really enjoyable and is one of the first games in recent memory that is challenging enough that I actually rage quit at one point...

Kekvit Irae

10-16-2011, 02:51

Now switching between Dungeons of Dredmoor and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. DoD has certainly lived up to my expectations of what a indie title should be. It's just so good!

Fragony

10-25-2011, 15:18

Continuing with Deus Ex hr. It's good, and quite the challenge. The AI is too dumb to understand that you just just could be behind the door you went through but they do have excellent eyesight. Getting around in the levels is great fun, much more vertical possibilities than it's older brothers. Icarus-system + jump enhancement really open up the excellent enviroments. Regret investing in cloaking it is never really usefull. The robots are terrifying awesome design

frogbeastegg

10-25-2011, 17:49

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. I don't know, I'm not feeling it. I really liked the first game, loved the second, and this time ... it's ok, nothing special. I'm at roughly 11 hours, near the end of sequence 4.

I look at Rome and I feel that it's tiny compared to the areas I explored in the past games. Aside from the various Roman ruins, it's not a very interesting environment because there isn't much variety in traversal or atmosphere. For the first time ever in the series I am spending most of my time on the streets instead of the rooftops as it feels like a more interesting way to travel. I'm progressing through the storyline so quickly that I am afraid it will be over in no time, and I am spending the bulk of my time on side missions and assassin training. Speaking of which, I don't care about having my own pet assassins. It feels like a combination of busywork and a god-mode button, and quite unnecessary since I prefer to plan my kills so I execute in a single unexpected strike instead of a free-for-all massacre. I don't much care for the main story or characters this time. It feels very much "Look at how we destroy everything you achieved in the last game! Now go restore the status quo so this game ends slightly ahead of the last one and we can drag the series out some more." Ages ago this series was meant to be a trilogy, and I think that would have worked better than what's beginning to feel like Ezio the Endless and his Apple Adventures.

I'm also finding that the controls let me down quite often. I don't remember having problems with my character randomly jumping off into space instead of leaping to an obvious nearby platform before, or with him failing to jump to the next grasp spot on a wall, or being magnetically attracted to running up walls when I'm trying to sprint down a corridor after someone. It does not feel as if the game was set up very well either, it's like they expect you to start it straight after ACII which was impossible at the time and I'm not replaying ACII now in order to get a useful interface tutorial. The two prior games gave you decent tutorials. They also came with proper manuals, not a pamphlet which tells you your legal rights and little else. Some parts of the control design feel stupid, like not being able to assassinate when I sneak up behind someone unless I specifically select my hidden blade. What else am I likely to want to do in that context? I can't remember how the older games handled this, but this time it's beginning to chafe. I feel like I am constantly needing to swap back and forth, back and forth between ranged weapons and hidden blade. There are so many gadgets and weapons now that it's getting tiresome because the interface was not designed for this and the game has only given it a quick fix instead of a re-think. Worse, a lot of these options do not feel legitimately useful. It's bloat.

:sigh: I suppose this is another game to add to my list of series which gained MP mode and subsequently had IMO inferior SP experiences compared to the previous instalments. Far too many of them recently, makes me wonder how much longer I will be a gamer.

rajpoot

10-25-2011, 18:32

The assassin brothers were actually pretty unnecessary, like you say. The game's easy even without them.
Revelations is reforming the whole system though. AFAIK, in it, there will be different types of recruits with strengths and weaknesses and more thought will be required to use them properly.

About the controls, are you playing on the PC? Are you using the arrow keys instead of WASD?

frogbeastegg

10-25-2011, 18:58

About the controls, are you playing on the PC? Are you using the arrow keys instead of WASD?
I'm playing the xbox version, same as I did with the other two. The PC versions have too many DRM complications, and the games feel better suited to a big TV and couch anyway.

rajpoot

10-25-2011, 19:50

I'm playing the xbox version, same as I did with the other two. The PC versions have too many DRM complications, and the games feel better suited to a big TV and couch anyway.

Well in that case, I got nothing.
I too had problems with the controls but that turned out to be using the arrow keys with the numpad.

JagRoss

10-25-2011, 19:54

One thing I missed in AC:B was getting 49000 florins from Monteriggioni, I don't really understand how the income from a town is more than the income from the city of Rome.
From what I remember in AC:2, you also had to switch to your hidden blade to do assassinations, but since I played it on PC, all I had to do was tap 2, so I have no complaints there.

Fragony

10-26-2011, 03:54

AC games completely fall apart when caught, navigating the city is fun, but would should be the most fun is just tedious; you can just finish them of one by one. Points for atmosphere though, I hope they get it right one day as I really want to like them for what it do well

JagRoss

10-26-2011, 12:39

You can switch to the hidden blade with your d-pad if the wheel was annoying you.

frogbeastegg

10-26-2011, 12:50

If AC2 also required you to select the hidden blade before you can assassinate I must be getting cranky in my old age, because I don't recall being driven batty by it back then. Then again, I wasn't using a crossbow and smoke bombs in addition to close assassination and sword fighting back then. Sword and blade was all I used in the first two, with the occasional throwing knife.

Escaping from a full alert is one of the few things I think the first game did better than ACII. I loved the way the entire city went onto high alert after you made your target kill, with alarm bells ringing and extra patrols sent out. Escaping from that was an adrenaline rush, and then picking a careful path back to the hideout without re-sparking the chase gave me a certain delight in Altair's agility. So much better than the rather gamey busywork notoriety system. Removing 4 posters fixes everything, and said posters are located in the daftest of places like ledges well above street level. The other methods of removing notoriety, like heralds, are less convenient unless you happen to be right near one. Notoriety gain can be a little bizarre too, and I'm sad to see AC: Bro hasn't fixed this. Killing a lone guard on a rooftop when there's no one around to see? Notorious. Kill a mob of guards in a crowded marketplace? Not notorious provided all of the guards die and no new ones show up during the fight. In ACI I mainly dealt with trouble by running. From ACII onwards I stand in place counter-killing until there are no more guards and then jog off to shred a few posters.

Martok

10-27-2011, 10:24

Been playing a lot of Distant Worlds the last couple weeks. It doesn't quite compare to Birth of the Federation or Armada 2526 (at least for me), but it's still a heck of a lot of fun!

Despite being in real-time (although the pacing is more like Europa Universalis, as opposed to Starcraft), I love the how the game works. The automation options help a lot in running a large empire, and the civilian economy is honestly one of the most brilliant features I've ever seen in a 4x title (or any grand strategy game, for that matter). The interface is admittedly a mess, but the Return of the Shakturi expansion reportedly fixes this. I'll probably pick that up when Matrix Games releases the second expansion Legends, which is likely due out in the next couple months or so; hopefully a bundle package will be available. :sweatdrop:

Prussian to the Iron

10-28-2011, 04:53

Battlefield 3. Infantry combat is awesome, I wish the Jets and Helo's would have more splash damage with the main weapons so that they could be used against infantry, but I'm able to easily take down tanks, helicopters, HMMWV's, and other jets seeing as I'm awesome at flying. Feels very balanced and an overall great game, I love it.

Fragony

11-01-2011, 22:22

Playing the ICO/SoTC HD-remakes. Both games still freak me out especially ICO, the loneliness makes me feel so uncomfortable after a while. Both are pure genius of course but I decided that just having them in my collection is enough for me.

frogbeastegg

11-05-2011, 01:00

I have finished Assassins Creed: Bugfest Brotherhood. Or rather, I've done the main plot and most of the important side missions and have no will to drag myself on further. The Da Vinci mission chain has come to a premature end thanks to one of the many bugs I encountered. It spawned the person I was meant to follow inside a wall. All I could see was his left hand and foot! I've had enough. I kept battering away at the mission which failed every time I killed the clearly marked target, eventually making it past when the game checkpointed during the de-sync animation so I ended up resuming right after the problem murder. That took me many, many repeated goes before the fluke let me pass. I repeatedly restarted the mission where no one at all spawned including crowds until eventually it decided to spawn the cardinal I was meant to stalk. I battered away at the one where I kept getting spotted in an area without any guards until I suddenly got through by doing nothing differently to my failed attempts. I persevered with the mission which several times spawned guards literally right on top of me out of thin air, causing me to de-sync before I knew what happened. I put up with the wonky controls. I burned through gallons of medicine after the many leg-breaking falls caused by Ezio randomly jumping in the wrong direction. I escaped the dozens of fights caused by Ezio deciding to wrench some random person on the far side of the street off his horse because I was trying to gently walk through a crowd and escape the notice of some guards. (That oft-repeated headache was all due to the unholy combination of mapping both functions to the same button without even a toggle between states, and incomprehensible move priorities which seem to ask "What is the player most likely to be wanting to do in this situation?" and then doing the opposite! See also: deciding to tackle some random civilian instead of the Borgia courier I have targeted and am right next to on no less than separate 4 occasions.) I ground my teeth but kept going the times when the game abruptly made my parachutes disappear so pressing X led to fatal falls instead of a safe landing. I tolerated my mini map displaying feathers I had already collected and hiding one which I hadn't, and used an internet map to compensate. I eventually managed to fix the occasion where my pet assassins lost their AI and turned into statues in the middle of the street, preventing the bar from recharging so I could summon more. I spent over 10 minutes repeatedly doing one simple jump over and over until Ezio finally agreed to catch hold of the pillar instead of smacking his face into it and sliding off. I kept going through scores of other, more minor issues. But enough is enough. My stalker target is in a wall. He can't move. Enough! Leonardo can rescue himself.

No idea what to play next. After having such an unhappy experience with a game I expected to love I'm viewing my games shelf with trepidation. I want something which reawakens that feeling of delight I used to get from good games. Costume Quest and Shogun II are the only titles I can think of which have given me that feeling in the last 12 months. :wistful sigh:

Prussian to the Iron

11-05-2011, 05:02

I have finished Assassins Creed: Bugfest Brotherhood. Or rather, I've done the main plot and most of the important side missions and have no will to drag myself on further. The Da Vinci mission chain has come to a premature end thanks to one of the many bugs I encountered. It spawned the person I was meant to follow inside a wall. All I could see was his left hand and foot! I've had enough. I kept battering away at the mission which failed every time I killed the clearly marked target, eventually making it past when the game checkpointed during the de-sync animation so I ended up resuming right after the problem murder. That took me many, many repeated goes before the fluke let me pass. I repeatedly restarted the mission where no one at all spawned including crowds until eventually it decided to spawn the cardinal I was meant to stalk. I battered away at the one where I kept getting spotted in an area without any guards until I suddenly got through by doing nothing differently to my failed attempts. I persevered with the mission which several times spawned guards literally right on top of me out of thin air, causing me to de-sync before I knew what happened. I put up with the wonky controls. I burned through gallons of medicine after the many leg-breaking falls caused by Ezio randomly jumping in the wrong direction. I escaped the dozens of fights caused by Ezio deciding to wrench some random person on the far side of the street off his horse because I was trying to gently walk through a crowd and escape the notice of some guards. (That oft-repeated headache was all due to the unholy combination of mapping both functions to the same button without even a toggle between states, and incomprehensible move priorities which seem to ask "What is the player most likely to be wanting to do in this situation?" and then doing the opposite! See also: deciding to tackle some random civilian instead of the Borgia courier I have targeted and am right next to on no less than separate 4 occasions.) I ground my teeth but kept going the times when the game abruptly made my parachutes disappear so pressing X led to fatal falls instead of a safe landing. I tolerated my mini map displaying feathers I had already collected and hiding one which I hadn't, and used an internet map to compensate. I eventually managed to fix the occasion where my pet assassins lost their AI and turned into statues in the middle of the street, preventing the bar from recharging so I could summon more. I spent over 10 minutes repeatedly doing one simple jump over and over until Ezio finally agreed to catch hold of the pillar instead of smacking his face into it and sliding off. I kept going through scores of other, more minor issues. But enough is enough. My stalker target is in a wall. He can't move. Enough! Leonardo can rescue himself.

I feel bad knowing that i had literally no bugs when I played it right on release. that said, it wasn't exactly great. not revolutionary like the first or even second one, just kinda....eh. same old same old.

Fragony

11-05-2011, 08:33

No idea what to play next.

Since you liked Beyond: Good & Evil I feel pretty confident recommending 'Enslaved'. It has that same charm few games can match. Gameplay is nothing special but I loved the characters and gameworld.

frogbeastegg

11-07-2011, 17:49

Since you liked Beyond: Good & Evil I feel pretty confident recommending 'Enslaved'. It has that same charm few games can match. Gameplay is nothing special but I loved the characters and gameworld.
I played it late last year and was not keen. If I'd played it a few years earlier I suspect I might have enjoyed it more. Instead the terrible frame rate annoyed me and the clunky, framerate-lagged controls ruined any chance at liking the gameplay. I didn't appreciate the game's habit of killing me with zero warning if I got too far away from Trip either; it never bothered to define how far was too far, and always murdered me while I was looking around for a route to a required location. That minefield area near the start was particularly bad for it.

Yes, I know. I have no soul. I came to terms with that when I realised I'm the only person on the planet who thought Portal 2 was massively over-rated. :sigh:

Fragony

11-08-2011, 08:24

Give it some time, never said the gameplay was any good. It's the character interaction that makes it a little gem

frogbeastegg

11-08-2011, 13:32

Give it some time, never said the gameplay was any good. It's the character interaction that makes it a little gem
I completed it.

I disliked Piggsy so the part where he died was a relief and undermined the mood of that section. When Monkey put that headband back on I wanted to smash his head against a wall until brain damage made him smarter. Making yourself into someone's death-slave isn't how you demonstrate love, and given the context of their interaction thus far Stockholm Syndrome would have been a more appropriate label than love. Trip ... I appreciated what they tried to do with her but it didn't fully work for me. Still, it was nice to see something different to the usual 'man with boobs' and 'distressed damsel' female game roles. She was allowed to be occasionally horrible without being a villain, smart femaledog, or antagonist template, and that's quite unusual in games.

The last couple of hours made me wish the game had ended sooner, in terms of gameplay, characters and in plot. The first hour or two were quite promising. The entire stretch in-between beginning and end was a steady downhill.

All in all I felt that Heavenly Sword, the developer's previous game, had a far more intriguing story to tell. I really wanted to see through to completion. Unfortunately tedious button-mashing combat and punishing quick time events made me give up after fighting some boss named ... Fox? A tall, skinny dude with a ridiculously long QTE kill sequence which gave you 1/2 a second to hit each button and which reset most of the battle when you failed.

Fragony

11-08-2011, 19:21

Hmmmmm I really liked it the other way around, first hours were soso and it kept getting better imho. Especially the mech-cemetary was awesome. I thought it was all pretty heartwarming. Admit it you want to be dominated.

Sp4

11-13-2011, 17:27

Eve Online xD Waiting for buddy to log in, so we can continue our S2TW coop campaign =O

CountArach

11-14-2011, 01:38

I've played about 10 hours of Battlefield in the past 4 or so days. Despite its limitations as a (supposedly) squad-based shooter it is still a lot of fun. Better than COD.

CountArach

11-14-2011, 22:34

Going to pick up AC: Revelations now, and I suspect I'll be playing that for a few hours.

Fragony

11-15-2011, 07:25

I've played about 10 hours of Battlefield in the past 4 or so days. Despite its limitations as a (supposedly) squad-based shooter it is still a lot of fun. Better than COD.

Just started, they gave me a nice x4 scope for the m16 when I levelled. Cute of them but I DON't WANT A FRICKING SCOPE ON MY M16. I get killed because of it. How do I get rid of that blighted thing. And when do I get a smg.

Prussian to the Iron

11-16-2011, 03:58

Just started, they gave me a nice x4 scope for the m16 when I levelled. Cute of them but I DON't WANT A FRICKING SCOPE ON MY M16. I get killed because of it. How do I get rid of that blighted thing. And when do I get a smg.

lol Battlefield noobs, I will tutor you in the ways of the Battlefield pro.

To equip/remove attachments (and change guns, perks, and entire loadout), at the spawn menu you can press a button to customize your class, it should tell you at the bottom of the screen (PS3 it's square, Xbox I believe it's X but I'm not totally sure). You can also, at the main menu, go to "My soldier" and there should be a customization option there.

SMG's I believe are all-class weapons now? Once you get to certain ranks you unlock them. They're not very good though. Carbines behave fairly similarly IMO and are usable by the Engineer class.

BTW I love BF3. Whether I'm wiping out tanks in a jet, strafing the battlefield with a helicopter, or mowing down the enemy with an infantry class, it's very sensible and intuitive for me and I just love it. The only reason I'm not on it 24/7 is because of Track, work, and Skyrim. Which is probably the Game of the Year for me, favorite game to play ever.

Fragony

11-16-2011, 06:37

'lol Battlefield noobs'

HA played the pc aka TEH REAL battlefields to death

CountArach

11-16-2011, 15:00

'lol Battlefield noobs'

HA played the pc aka TEH REAL battlefields to death
You beat me to it :P

But yeah go into the customise class screen, hit "Accessories" I believe it is called and then scroll the scope until it says "Iron Sights", or whatever else you want.

It is strange you found it annoying because I preferred it with the scope and couldn't stand the iron sights. Of course now I've got a much better assault rifle with red dot sighting that helps me just tear people up.

Fragony

11-17-2011, 04:18

I play very aggressively, I am either dead or close. Don't have any use for 4xzoom, I feel better in CQB area's

Prussian to the Iron

11-18-2011, 00:26

I play very aggressively, I am either dead or close. Don't have any use for 4xzoom, I feel better in CQB area's

See I prefer tactical defense, rush forward and then chill at a vantage point with an assault rifle and an ACOG on semi-auto, just pick em off from there.

thefluffyone93

11-18-2011, 00:40

Skyrim.
Goodbye respectable GPA.
We never had a chance...

johnhughthom

11-18-2011, 01:42

Well I haven't had to worry about exams for a long time, but I think Skyrim is starting to affect my work. I spent all today convinced it was Tuesday, I don't think I made any mistakes that will come back to haunt me...

Martok

11-18-2011, 05:37

I've resumed playing Armada 2526/Supernova.

Now that I have internet at home again (huzzah!), I was finally able to download the 1.04 update. I'm playing the Volmar, one of the three new races introduced in 1.04. :2thumbsup:

Fragony

11-18-2011, 05:37

See I prefer tactical defense, rush forward and then chill at a vantage point with an assault rifle and an ACOG on semi-auto, just pick em off from there.

That I SHOULD play, but I lack the patience and I'm bad at multitasking; if I play tactical I am a serial-faillure. But I never lose from a close encounter.

Fragony

11-23-2011, 12:06

Braid, it's fortunate that I am fully aware of the fact that I'm not very smart. It's really well made, when I finally give up (happens at almost every puzzle) and go to youtube it's 'ah', that's pretty neat I could have figured that out. Really. Nice game

Kekvit Irae

11-23-2011, 21:47

Prussian to the Iron

11-24-2011, 05:06

Started back up my gaming habit after returning from MLG Providence and finishing up my cloak making.
Ditched Skyrim in favor of Saints Row The Third. Finally, a sequel that isn't a bad console port (Skyrim), isn't a copy-and-paste of the previous game (MW3), and doesn't insult its legacy (BF3). Besides, there's something strangely satisfying about running around beating the crap out of people with a rubber sex toy attached to a baseball bat.

Skyrim has far greater longevity than pretty much any game out there IMO. and it's not a bad console port. yeah it's designed mainly for consoles, but it plays just fine on PC as well. I love it, and it's nice to see even jocks and track stars at school loving it too.

Fragony

11-24-2011, 05:31

Also got me Trine, Braid reminded me I need more sidescrollers, I really miss my DS that was STOLEN from me. Really fun game. Oldschool gamers will hate the 3D graphics but it looks great. What makes it good is that you don't feel like you are solving puzzles, you are just messing around with the physics. There are supposed to be multiple solutions, awesome if that's true, must be as shooting a rock into place with my Thief did feel like an unreasonable amount of work, but it worked. Geddit. Another nice game

frogbeastegg

11-24-2011, 13:13

Also got me Trine
Trine is a wonderful game. It starts out as a very pretty platformer with some mild puzzles, then picks up a few light RPG elements, then begins to let you play with the abilities and physics, then get trickier ...

Fragony

11-25-2011, 10:58

Great fun. Any more PSN games I should know of. I miss my DS, need awesome sidescrollers/platformers and adventures.

frogbeastegg

11-25-2011, 13:42

Great fun. Any more PSN games I should know of. I miss my DS, need awesome sidescrollers/platformers and adventures.
I only use PSN for the PSOne classics; the UK store is more expensive than xbox live. I think all of the following should be available on PSN:

If you have not played the original Rayman that's available on PSOne classics; classic old school style 2D platforming with graphics which hold up well. There's the older Oddworld games too, if you haven't tried them.

The Misadventures of P B Winterbottom is a puzzle platformer, very nice visual style and time controlling concept. I prefer it to the posterboys that are Braid and Limbo.

Costume Quest. This is currently my favourite live arcade game full stop, absolutely charming and delightful. It's a light RPG with good humour and a sense of childish wonder.

Stacking. Nice ideas, quite relaxing as it's not that challenging, rather unusual in its gameplay. Ultimately a little disappointing for me as I found the silent movie melodrama cutcenes irritating after the first few and it's not possible to skip them.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was good too, completely different from the standard Tomb Raider. Co-op mode is good too and changes the game's levels quite a bit; my boyfriend and I had a lot of fun with it last year.

Deathspank is good if it meshes with your sense of humour and horrid if it doesn't. Try the demo. The second game is decent but follows directly on from the ending of the first. The third game's demo is horrid, and the true ending of game 2 means that game 3 should not exist at all! So ignore 'The Baconing'.

There's Limbo, which I am practically alone in finding overrated.

Shadow Complex is a solid Metroid style 2D adventure. Quite a lengthy game too for a download.

Ilomilo is a puzzle game and ... it doesn't explain very well. Try the demo and make sure you keep going to the end as most of the early levels are brain-dead easy and thus do the game no favours. The demo ends at the point where it begins to improve.

Bastion is well worth a look. If PSN didn't get it you can find it on steam.

If you want a difficult 2D platformer there's 'splosion Man and Miss 'splosion Man. Haven't played more than the demo of the first as the humour wasn't my thing at all, but people speak highly of them.

Outland is one I have not played yet. It's a cross between Metroid and a bullet hell game. The latter part is what gives me pause.

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet wasn't my cup of tea, you may find otherwise. Think 2D space ship exploration with tools to find, secrets to locate, bosses to kill, and enemies to shoot. The demo level is supposed to be a compressed mash-up of the normal gameplay; I can't say if that's true as I found the demo far too shooter heavy and don't fancy risking money on the full game.

Do try the Rayman Origins demo. I don't get on with the gameplay in that one but how I wish I did!

Oh - and stay away from Islands of Wakfu! Don't let anyone tell you that it's like Zelda, Secret of Mana, or any other 2D adventure classic. It's not. It's pretty, yes. It's also boring, overly saccharine, repetitive, lacking in exploration, slow, occasionally outright cheap, and just blergh. It's one difficulty doesn't fit all, with crazy difficulty spikes for SP and boringly easy for co-op.

Kekvit Irae

11-25-2011, 23:04

Skyrim has far greater longevity than pretty much any game out there IMO.

A game is not about longevity, but rather about how much fun you have with it in the time you play it. Steam clocks me in at 31 hours on Skyrim, and 24 for Saints Row 3. I'm having so much more fun in SR3 than I did in Skyrim, and that's what's important to me.

Prussian to the Iron

11-25-2011, 23:21

A game is not about longevity, but rather about how much fun you have with it in the time you play it. Steam clocks me in at 31 hours on Skyrim, and 24 for Saints Row 3. I'm having so much more fun in SR3 than I did in Skyrim, and that's what's important to me.

It is about fun, but if you beat it and it has no replay value after a week or two, it's not really worth 60 dollars.

But anyway, may I ask what you like about SR3 and what you dislike about Skyrim?

Kekvit Irae

11-26-2011, 00:13

It is about fun, but if you beat it and it has no replay value after a week or two, it's not really worth 60 dollars.

But anyway, may I ask what you like about SR3 and what you dislike about Skyrim?

SR3: The over-the-top plot that doesn't sacrifice on gameplay. The over-the-top gameplay that doesn't sacrifice on plot. Oh, and this (http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/630731953246791696/FC1332B91EA0D96F48A580F0FBA51A53B662AA3A/).

Skyrim: This (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?138930-Official-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-thread!&p=2053396788&viewfull=1#post2053396788) and this (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?138930-Official-Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyrim-thread!&p=2053398089&viewfull=1#post2053398089).

easytarget

11-26-2011, 03:10

Arguing over which is more fun is like arguing about what your favorite color is.

Kekvit Irae

11-26-2011, 04:26

Arguing over which is more fun is like arguing about what your favorite color is.

YOU LIKE PINK
You cannot objectively prove me otherwise.

Husar

11-26-2011, 11:17

YOU LIKE PINK
You cannot objectively prove me otherwise.

Nothing simpler than that, because pink doesn't exist, there is only minus green:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9dqJRyk0YM

Fragony

11-26-2011, 13:58

Bloodrayne Betrayal YAY now this is great stuff. This type of gameplay is just better in 2D, Ninja Gaiden and God of War are great games of course but this just feels better

easytarget

11-26-2011, 16:21

Nothing simpler than that, because pink doesn't exist, there is only minus green:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9dqJRyk0YM

then it's settled, my favorite color is minus green, and i'm ok with that

nice find on the video explanation of that too btw

Kekvit Irae

11-27-2011, 11:18

Started playing Grotesque Tactics. It's a bad game, and I already feel bad for paying money for it. Sad, since I want to see how it ends before trying Grotesque Tactics 2.

If you make a game and your first language isn't English, PLEASE hire a competent translator, preferably one with at least a decent grasp on grammar. If you make a game and more than half of the time spent is looking at some random scenery because of an autoscroll function that you cant control, you're doing it wrong. If you make a game where the writing and the art assets sound more like a VERY bad self-insert fanfiction than a clever satire, you're going it wrong. If you make a game where you die every single battle and have to set it to easy just to play the damn game, especially when a high difficulty curve is not one of the game's features, you're doing it wrong.

I so hate this game. I don't have high hopes for the sequel.

A Nerd

11-27-2011, 13:42

I downloaded Deus Ex HR as it was on sale. Loads of fun. I kept getting killed on the tutorial mission though so I had to dumb down the difficulty, still supplying me a challenge though. Good times.

johnhughthom

11-27-2011, 18:24

I so hate this game. I don't have high hopes for the sequel.

I got it ages ago when it was on sale, haven't gotten around to playing it. Not sure I ever will.

I downloaded Deus Ex HR as it was on sale. Loads of fun. I kept getting killed on the tutorial mission though so I had to dumb down the difficulty, still supplying me a challenge though. Good times.

If you want the achievement for completing the game without killing anybody, make sure not to kill anyone in the tutorial. It seemed that almost the entire interwebz found that unfathomably difficult to understand on release.

Kekvit Irae

11-28-2011, 03:44

Whelp, no more Grotesque Tactics for me. Ran into a game-breaking bug. If one member of your party has an affliction that persists outside of combat (rage, sleep, stun, etc), and they are standing a 1x1 chokepoint, there is absolutely no way to ever get past them, and that was after a really long battle with no autosave function for quite some time. This would NOT be a problem if you could take control of individual party members outside of combat, but instead you are left controlling ONLY your party leader during this point, and the other party members move only when you move. If you cant move, they cant move, and so you're stuck in place. And since you have no control over party members outside of combat, there is no way to remove the affliction.

Time to uninstall this mess. Remind me to never buy from Silent Dreams ever again. A+ for premise, F for execution.

EDIT: I will say one thing good about the game: The humor is less ham-fisted than UnEpic (http://www.unepicgame.com/en/game.html). But even then, I'd rather play UnEpic than a game where the title is EXTREMELY fitting.

EDIT 2: I was so ticked off by this game, I wrote my own review to ward off anyone from making the same mistake as me.

Grotesque Tactics, developed by an indie German studio by the name of Silent Dreams, is a turn-based strategy game in the same vein as Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, or any of the other hundreds of games with "Tactics" tacked on to the title. But let me clear the air here: unlike the aforementioned games, Grotesque Tactics is bad. Not "bad" as in Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing bad, but more like "all I wanted for Christmas was a Nintendo 3DS but all I got was a Nokia N-Gage" type of bad. You know, the type of disappointment you get when you are hyped up on all the good things, but are let down on every level.

The plot is nothing to write home about. There are no plot twists, no overly-emotional scenes, nothing. Just you and your party against an evil empire. You play Drake, a drop-out from the Glory Military Academy. By a stroke of luck, the very fact that you were the only dropout in the history of the academy has saved you from death in battle at the hands of the Dark Church (the aforementioned evil empire). Being mopey and emo (and yes, the game makes use of "emo" way too much), Drake finds the courage to fight back against the Dark Church with the help of the Semidivine Holy Avatar, the stereotypical "I'm better than you, and women love me" beefcake of the game. Together, you and Holy scour the world rescuing maidens, recruiting party members, and completing side-quests. Like I said before, it's nothing to write home about.

On that note, I should mention the writing. I'm guessing Silent Dreams hired a 16-year old high-school dropout to translate the game for them, because even though the game has had an extensive grammar overhaul for the English version, the writing would make even a first-year college student cringe in terror. Grammar and spelling mistakes abound, and any hint of humor the game wanted to convey has been lost due to the horrid translation. For example, Candy, one of the three maidens you rescue and recruit, constantly says "Hihihihihi" instead of "Hehehehehe" or *giggles*. The only thing that would make that worse is if Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was put in the game and constantly said "HEY! LISTEN!" every ten seconds. But even then I would have fond flashbacks to my time playing an infinitely-better game. Grotesque Tactics just makes me want to punch babies.

And then there's the humor. I'd like it to be known that humor is NOT universal; it is purely subjective. Unfortunately, the game is billed as a parody of other great games. If anything, Grotesque Tactics is a parody of computer game designing. There is a difference between parodying a game and simply referencing a game, and Grotesque Tactics references the hell out of other games. The humor is extremely in-your-face, much like playing an interactive version of the Meet The Spartans movie. While it's not as ham-fisted as UnEpic, at least UnEpic is a good game.

The entire cast is a tragedy upon game design. The main character is an emo who isn't really emo all that much except in certain combat situations, the supporting character is the stereotypical knight-in-shining-armor with sunglasses, the rogue is a goblin who joins you because you killed his buddies, and various other travesties. Oh, and if any reader of this review is black and you want to see how German game developers portray black people, play this game. The only way the token black dude could get more stereotypical is if he had fried chicken in one hand and purple drank in the other. Yes, this is what Silent Dreams considers a parody. Sad, is it not?

From the moment you boot up the game, you can already tell you're in for a world of hurt. The pre-game loading screen features Holy Avatar and the three maidens, but the whole thing looks like it was made in Poser. Then the game starts and the Poser-like art is replaced by anime character portraits. Holy is pretty much the douche of the group, while the three maidens and other female characters are in various states of undress. Let's not forget that while you are rescuing said maidens to recruit them, they are screaming about getting their clothes torn off. The character interaction, combined with the almost-ecchi artwork makes me believe that this game is the lead designer's attempt at a VERY bad self-insert fanfiction rather than a clever satire of RPGs.

And finally we come to the meat and potatos of the game: the gameplay. As I've said before, it's a clone of the various Tactics games you see or have seen on the market. Turned-based strategy on a battlefield with positioning. Nothing new, so let's move into what makes Grotesque Tactics stand out from the crowd (other than the sad attempt at German humor).

Items are extremely standard; new weapons and armor are always going to be an upgrade from your previous one, and there's no reason to keep your old weapon or armor once you find/buy something new. Potions come in various forms from healing to mana to recovery to permanant stat increases. Unfortunately for you, there are no "THIS IS A PERMANENT UPGRADE" labels on potions, so figuring out what is permanent and what isn't is a matter of (extremely expensive) trial and error.

The really big thing about the game is the Obsession system. The game flat-out tells you in the tutorial that this is a limit break (I'm guessing Silent Dreams' thought process was "LOLOLOLOL! I MADE A FINAL FANTASY 7 REFERENCE! LAUGH, PEONS! LOLOLOLOL!"). Each character has their own way of increasing their Obsession, from hitting stuff (Drake) to getting hit (EVERY SINGLE PARTY MEMBER). Each Obsession does their own unique thing, but more often than not it involves the obsessed party member attacking another party member. West goes berserk, attacking anything in range (friendly or not), the maidens and the angel simply attack a party member, the goblin rogue blinds everyone in a radius (again, no thoughts to friendly fire) and warps to Holy, and Drake buffs nearby party members' attack rating but at the cost of halving his attack rating a few turns afterwards. Drake is obviously the most benefitial of the party, but that's not saying much considering everyone else is geared toward screwing you over.
Oh, and I'd like to point one very important thing out: You know Holy? The guy with a huge sword, platemail armor, and tons of hitpoints and defense? You'd think he was the tank of the party and would want him to take all the hits he can. WRONG! All three maidens in your party are linked to him. If he takes damage, their Obsession increases. So now, instead of one party member going batguano insane and attacking your own people , you have THREE party members doing it. Let's not forget that Holy's Obsession triggers from combat as well. I want to physically punch the douche who thought this was a good idea.

Inside combat, you control all characters in order based on their agility. Outside of combat, however, you can only control Drake while the others automatically follow him. This works out fine, except for one major game-breaking bug that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me: Afflictions aren't removed once combat is over. In the battle leading up to getting the mage party member, West went berserk due to his Obsession. I ended combat right next to a treasure chest in a narrow 1x1 area in the forest with West blocking the only exit in or out. Since he was technically still berserk, he refused to move, and I cant move through party members. Needless to say, I was stuck and had to reload the entire damn mission. Have I told you yet how much I hate this game?

And lastly, I come to the deal breaker: the camera. Or, rather, the automatic camera panning. Any time there is dialogue or a character is moving, the camera will pan to that character. This isn't such a big deal if the damn thing would actually CENTER on said character. Instead, it trails behind a moving character. Trying to manually compensate for this means your camera goes out of whack and ends up 50 feet in some random direction. Again, this wouldn't be such a big deal if we could turn automatic camera panning off, or if movement outside of combat wasn't in real time. Alas, no on both accounts. This will, more often than not, lead to clicking the wrong square or giving you a fit of nauseua.

And there you have it. My review of Grotesque Tactics. Please note that my own personal experiences may differ (however unlikely) from yours, and this review is mostly subjective. My verdict? If you've made it this far and you still want to know my verdict, Grotesque Tactics was made for you.

CountArach

11-28-2011, 23:22

The Misadventures of P B Winterbottom is a puzzle platformer, very nice visual style and time controlling concept. I prefer it to the posterboys that are Braid and Limbo.
I can confirm this. Picked it up for 75 cents last time it went on sale on Steam. It is worth far more than that, if only for the originality of the concept of time control within a platformer.

Fragony

11-29-2011, 04:02

Kekvit Irae can be so cute sometimes

Kekvit Irae

11-29-2011, 23:38

Went back to playing Dungeons of Dredmor, especially now that the new 1.0.7 patch with the female character is Humble Bundle exclusive.

frogbeastegg

12-08-2011, 12:30

I've gone back to Fallout: New Vegas while I wait for Bethesda to fix the mess they've made with the Skyrim 1.2 patch. Previously solid, playable game converted into a broken, barely playable mess. Good job there, Bethesda. The swap from Skyrim to NV has been ... well, if I were a safe bystander I'd say it was amusing on some meta level. Run from bugs, find bugs.

NV was buggy at release. In some ways as bad as Fallout 3 was, in other ways better. I encountered far fewer bugs, yet those few were more severe. Where my Fallout 3 playthrough was plagued with crashes, minor bugs, and broken quests, my NV one survived a few minor glitches only to end with a single spectacular bug: it crashed every time I tried to enter the strip. That area is required to advance all of the main plot variations. After a few fruitless attempts to break through this crash the game corrupted my saves. Much investigation by players revealed that the crash was caused by a bounty hunting quest from the Atomic Wrangler. When you kill the final guy and take his hat, you break the area. You can only get back inside if you bring along a cowboy hat.

It's a little over a year later now. I started a new game from a fresh, patched up xbox install. When I get to the strip all is well! Until I complete the bounty hunter quest and the game crashes every time I try to re-enter the strip. Gah! That is supposed to be fixed. It's on the fix list for one of the numerous patches, and all of the internet complaints I found about it dated from last year. Fortunately this time I had kept a save before the bounty hunter quest, so I reverted to that and can continue. Crisis grudgingly averted. The fun wasn't over. When I eventually went to see Mr House I got told my companions must wait outside. They vanished. Completely and totally. I looked all over for them and not a single sign did I find. The game acted as if I still had them in my group, and wouldn't let me pick up replacements or do anything which required me to be alone. Some 11 hours of play time later and I'm passing through the strip on another side quest. Who do I see standing on the steps to the Lucky 38? Boon and EDE. They weren't there any of the other umpteen times I passed through. Oh well, they're back and that is the main thing. I'm now afraid to do anything else which removes them from my party in case they vanish again. I still see bark scorpions falling through the world at two specific spots. Seems like those patches fixed the problems I never encountered the first time, and ignored the ones I did. Huh.

Bugs included, NV is a considerably better game than Fallout 3 IMO. I felt that way at release and I feel that way now. 3 always felt like a safe, cheesy themepark of a wasteland filled with banal, bland and boring, as wide and deep as a puddle in a car park. NV has teeth, dirt, and personality. Importantly, I'm level 19 now and still get eaten by the wastes if I'm not careful. I was an unstoppable demigod of uber-everything by level 8 in both of my Fallout 3 games.

I don't like the combat much. The ironsights stuff does make it a bit less VATS dependant and dull compared to 3. The engine's animations are still twitchy and too fast, and the AI stupid, so the main problems remain. Enemies always charge straight at you, flitting around at unbelievable velocities and cornering like moths on speed. It's still possible to completely miss when unloading both barrels of a shotgun point blank into someone's face, or unload an entire 24 round clip of ammo into a charging deathclaw's torso without 'hitting' it once. Sneaky sniping is definitely the way to go.

Hardcore mode is pretty pointless. Drink the occasional bottle of water, carry some doctor's bags, choose a couple of weapons and stick with them, sorted. Unless you have companions - oh the pain! Thanks to the lousy AI companions will frequently suicide. I got tired of reloading due to companion suicide and turned it off.

I do miss Skyrim's smithing system though. And the way NPCs don't fill your screen and stare at you with the Eyes of Death(TM) whilst barely animating through their conversations.

At around 24 hours of play time I now have most of the wasteland explored. I'm starting to focus on the side quests. Once they are done I'll tackle the DLC. After that I'll choose a side and do the main plot.

Kekvit Irae

12-09-2011, 07:52

Fragony

12-09-2011, 09:46

Downloaded BF3 expansion. It's good, great in fact. There's the problem, the revamped BF2 maps are just better than anything BF3 offered initially. 15 Euro is also a lot for a few maps, no matter how good.

Husar

12-09-2011, 11:07

15 Euro is also a lot for a few maps, no matter how good.

Haha, yet when Modern warfare 2 started offering them for that price, they ended up among the top sales on Steam.
No surprise that we get more and more of that then.

phonicsmonkey

12-09-2011, 11:35

Hardcore mode is pretty pointless. Drink the occasional bottle of water, carry some doctor's bags, choose a couple of weapons and stick with them, sorted. Unless you have companions - oh the pain! Thanks to the lousy AI companions will frequently suicide. I got tired of reloading due to companion suicide and turned it off.

I kind of enjoyed it but only by banning myself from using bottled water. If you restrict yourself to toilets and drinking fountains it's either more fun or more annoying depending how you look at it. harder at any rate.

I took to leaving my companions out of dangerous fights, which again made it harder. That was good.

Overall I really enjoyed it and was lucky not to encounter any gamebreakers like your wrangler quest bug (I killed everyone in goodsprings at the start to make it harder). Only problem I had was in the main quest I tried to keep my options open for too long and ended up pretty much railroaded down one route - I should have seen that coming though.

Fragony

12-09-2011, 11:56

Haha, yet when Modern warfare 2 started offering them for that price, they ended up among the top sales on Steam.
No surprise that we get more and more of that then.

Guilty of making it so easy for them, stopped buying COD games after WOW kept putting me in servers with maps I don't have making the game unplayable FU, but couldn't resist this one. But DLC when the game barely launched and is still fully priced make it hard not to feel cheated. When epic launched Unreal Tournament that to their surprise eclipsed Quake 3 we got an absolutely massive pack for free. Which was apreciated

frogbeastegg

12-09-2011, 13:32

And now I find that EDE's companion quest is bugged and totally inaccessible because I went to the Gibson scrap yard before I fixed the 'bot. That's another old, well known bug. What did those patches fix?!

>Grab companion
>Go to safe location
>Tell companion to Wait Here

Free companion perk without the disadvantages of babysitting.
But - but - but pack mules! That's the whole point!

Overall I really enjoyed it and was lucky not to encounter any gamebreakers like your wrangler quest bug (I killed everyone in goodsprings at the start to make it harder). Only problem I had was in the main quest I tried to keep my options open for too long and ended up pretty much railroaded down one route - I should have seen that coming though.
It's a fairly typical Obsidian/Black Isle game. Above average writing, world and quest design, below average technical polish. I'd rather play a buggy Fallout: NV than a polished Fallout 3. Such a pity that their next RPG is that South Park tie in.

johnhughthom

12-09-2011, 14:04

Such a pity that their next RPG is that South Park tie in.

No! Really? :disappointed:

frogbeastegg

12-09-2011, 15:32

No! Really? :disappointed:
Really. (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/328428/obsidians-south-park-rpg-gets-first-details/). First Obsidian RPG I've zero interest in playing.

johnhughthom

12-09-2011, 16:06

Whats the betting this is the game a publisher actually allows Obsidian to finish?

le sigh.

Crazed Rabbit

12-10-2011, 02:38

Really. (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/328428/obsidians-south-park-rpg-gets-first-details/). First Obsidian RPG I've zero interest in playing.

The South Park guys did write a very critically acclaimed Broadway musical about Mormons. It'll be interesting to see, at least.

CR

frogbeastegg

12-10-2011, 15:07

In addition to Fallout: New Vegas I've been dabbling with a pair of 3DS games. I seem to be getting most (all?) of my Christmas presents early this year. My family has never been that bothered about timing things for the yearly commercial-fest.

Mario Land 3D has proven one thing to me: games can still provoke that feeling of raw, playful joy. I'm not a Mario fan; I only like the first two Paper Mario spin-offs, Yoshi's Island, and Mario 64. There's just something about the way this one is put together. Cheerful worlds, catchy music, masses of imagination, spot on controls (normally I find Mario far too skiddy), the first implementation of 3D which adds something to the game, bite-sized levels packed with secrets to replay for, nods to old games, plenty of new material so that it feels fresh - it's a wonderful package. Having flown through the first world and a half I'm having to force myself to complete no more than 2 new levels per day so that I don't binge on it. I can't remember the last time I found myself smiling at a game, or replaying levels after I've collected everything.

I was given Tales of the Abyss at the same time. I've been waiting 6 years for that game to reach the UK! 6 years! Excellent gift: the game's print run is almost entirely sold out within a week of release so I'd never have managed to get a copy if I'd had to pay for it myself. What is it with companies refusing to release Tales games here, and then on the rare occasions they do so making a tiny print run so hardly anyone can get the game? Then they complain that it didn't sell as much as in parts of the world where ten times the number of copies were available. I believe the phrase is "Well, d'uh!". Ahem. The game. Amazingly, after 6 years of waiting it doesn't disappoint. It's quite amusingly written, the cast is better than 95% of JRPGs, the battle system is nicely featured, it's got a proper world map instead of the menus this generation keeps trying to foist on players, the voice acting is decent, and thus far no character has a voice pitched high enough to cause dogs to wince. The conversion from PS2 to 3DS hasn't caused any cutbacks in quality; from most player reports the 3DS version is the superior one due to the lack of load times. The 3D effect is completely pointless in that I can't tell the difference whether it's on or off, which is fine by me.

I suppose over Christmas I really should play that copy of Xenoblade Chronicles which has been sat on my shelf since release day. I'm honestly afraid to. This JRPG generation has not been very successful for me, not at all. A genre I formerly liked and was able to laugh at has ended up as something I now eye with trepidation. If it's not badly thought out innovations which backfire spectacularly, it's yet another round of tired old factors tepidly warmed over and served up to give food poisoning. That's before you get to the increasingly tiresome characters and plots.

The South Park guys did write a very critically acclaimed Broadway musical about Mormons. It'll be interesting to see, at least.

CR
It could be objectively the best written game in the history of the universe and I'd still not touch it. I can't stand South Park.

rajpoot

12-10-2011, 16:24

But - but - but pack mules! That's the whole point!

Well you can simply use the console to set them as essential... setessential <NPC id> 1
A command which has been working in all Bethesda RPGs since Oblivion.

frogbeastegg

12-10-2011, 17:14

Well you can simply use the console to set them as essential... setessential <NPC id> 1
A command which has been working in all Bethesda RPGs since Oblivion.
As I mentioned a few times across the posts, I'm playing the xbox version.

rajpoot

12-10-2011, 17:54

As I mentioned a few times across the posts, I'm playing the xbox version.

Ah :sweatdrop:
My bad.

Prussian to the Iron

12-10-2011, 19:23

Fragony

12-11-2011, 15:02

Hmmm I know what I'm going to keep track of.

'The Last of Us' as I always love the HUMANITY IS SO SCREWED-genre. It's made by the awesome folks who gave us the Uncharted games, it's a big-budget Sony exclusive, it simply can't go wrong. Trailer breaks forum rules but it looks awesome.

Spec Ops: The Line, shooter set in a Dubai reclaimed by the desert. It aims to be like Heart of Darkness, it wants to disturb. I want to be disturbed, disturbed is good.

Fragony

12-14-2011, 13:03

YAY Dark Souls, the pc game you have been waiting for, console only. It's a better game than Demon's Souls. That's saying a lot. It weirdly looks less good, sometimes PS2'ish badly in fact, and it can't be a hardware thing, xbox could run Demon's Souls just fine. But it's a more compelling game, better in every way by taking a step back. It's clumsier. It's also cheaper hehgotya-technically, A lot. They are making fun of you and you realise that at every sorry step you make. You will die a lot, no questions asked byebye. And I love it.

Kekvit Irae

12-15-2011, 19:55

Roommate got me a Wii and some games as an early Christmas gift. I returned the favor by giving her a plane ticket to Maryland to see her parents (and get her out of my hair for a week while I play said games, but that's another story...).

New Super Mario Brothers Wii sucks. The controls just aren't as tight as Super Mario World.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is interesting, but extremely annoying to play. I just want to press a button to swing my sword or thrust with the shield, especially since waggling either the wiimote or the nunchuck doesn't register half of the time.

Monster Hunter 3 is full of awesome and win. And it plays with a Classic Controller, so there's another plus. The only problem is that the Monster Hunter games are put out on systems nobody cares about (Wii and PSP). If Capcom put the games out on a system that was relevant, they would see a huge influx of sales.

WiiSports. Kicking my roommate's tail in 2-player bowling. I don't need to say anything more.

Super Mario Galaxy is surprisingly fun, but it suffers from the same flaw that Super Mario 64 had, but worse: bad controls. I'm never sure if the controls will inverse or not whenever I am walking upside down.

And lastly, ActRaiser and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Delicious.

Oh, and I've been playing Ultima Online again between Wii gaming sessions. Nostalgic and fun, especially now that they did away with the 3D client and gave us a choice of using the old 2D client or a hybrid 2D/3D client.

Kekvit Irae

12-19-2011, 18:03

Ultima Online is still around!?

Guy that designed that game in the first place deserves a Nobel Prize, IMO.

He didn't get a Nobel Prize, but he did go into space (http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/30-million-buys-Austin-resident-a-ride-on-Soyuz-1763515.php).

frogbeastegg

12-20-2011, 19:32

After around 110 hours I finished 3 out of the 4 main endings for Fallout: New Vegas, plus the various DLCs. I've done most (all?) of the major side quests and a whole bunch of minor stuff too. All I have left is the Caesar's Legion ending. I think I shall start a new game and do that on hardcore mode as a melee fighter ... another time. I'm rather Vegased out. It will be nice to play something which doesn't crash at least twice per play session.

I started a new game this afternoon. It's philosophically complex, and poses thoughtful questions about the nature of life. It has a lot to say about race relations, and about the nature of heartless technology versus the lesser efficiently combined with capacity for feeling of organic life. 'Orcs must Die'. There's these orcs and they need to die - the game recognises the fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of death! And don't get me started on the challenging nature of its questions regarding life-direction decisions! Do I want to fill the hall with massed arrow traps and giggle, or should I pursue a more efficient strategy in order to maximise my score? Very deep stuff; my froggy mind is blown. :yes:

smooth_operator

12-23-2011, 05:49

Minecraft, Civ 5 and NFS Undercover

rajpoot

12-23-2011, 21:03

World of Tanks!

Made over 20000 Xp in one day, with the premium I got from a promotional offer. Could've been better, but still...
Another 6 thousand and I get my IS...which truth be told is pretty useless. My current KV3 is ten times better.

econ21

12-28-2011, 00:46

Monk

12-28-2011, 08:49

Playing Star Wars: the Old Republic. I now have a level 36 Jedi. If anything, I'd say the game is better than I said during the beta:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139179-SWTOR-beta-impressions

And probably better than both KOTORs, which is high praise from me.

46 Imperial Agent here (operative advanced class, medicine spec). Trying to play as much as I can now while my obligations are low due to the holidays. Things are about to get crazy busy, but so far i'm really enjoying the post-launch game.

Crafting got serious boosts in the last builds leading up to launch. I've been comfortably making all my own armor as I leveled, or i was, until I put together a custom armor set that i've been upgrading. The custom armor system is probably my favorite feature about the game, now that we're in post launch. If you' take your time you can craft a look that is really unique, and thanks to the nature of the modding system, you can keep that look all the way to end game. I've yet to come across another player who looked like I did, which makes me feel like quite the special snowflake.

It probably helps that I also picked one of the more underpopulated classes. Everyone wants to be a sith or a jedi and wave their glow bats around looking tough. :laugh4:

As far as i'm concerned, though, everything depends on Bioware. Lots of little bugs are still running around in the launch build, if Bioware can squash them I can see myself hanging around swtor for quite a long time.

CountArach

12-30-2011, 15:33

rajpoot

12-30-2011, 19:33

I've been playing Audiosurf all evening. A truly unique na dinnovative game. I just love the option of having my own music in-game and them having that affect the game itself. Given that my music is all very high tempo and racy, with several break-downs it makes for some really tricky courses.

Finally a fellow Audiosurf fan! :beam:
If I might make a suggestion, try out this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnotize_%28System_of_a_Down_song%29) song whenever you get a chance.

Martok

12-30-2011, 20:13

Having finally purchased both expansion packs Return of the Shakturi and Legends, I've been playing Distant Worlds pretty solidly the last few days now.

I'm definitely liking all the changes and additions made by the expansions: New storyline, improved UI, more (and better) automation options, a good character system (despite intelligence agents dying too easily and not reappearing often enough), race-specific victory conditions, a new territory/borders system (my personal favorite new feature so far).... The overall experience is much improved.

I liked the original game well enough. Now, I might just love it!

Hooahguy

01-06-2012, 09:13

Spec Ops: The Line, shooter set in a Dubai reclaimed by the desert. It aims to be like Heart of Darkness, it wants to disturb. I want to be disturbed, disturbed is good.

Ive been following this game since it was announced. Not sure how I stumbled upon the page. When I first saw it, all we knew about it was the setting. Interesting stuff, projected release date is Spring 2012.

frogbeastegg

01-08-2012, 15:43

I'm currently in the middle of strategy game overload.

After years of intermittently trying and failing to get into EUIII I finally have a game going which is not making me want to quit. Huzzah! I'm playing as France in the grand campaign, and for once the game is living up to its reputation as a blend of warfare, diplomacy, and advancement.

Thanks to some help from an American friend I managed to get a copy of Distant Worlds minus the £15 price hike they wanted to apply based on my IP. Playing feels like the wrong word. I'm watching Distant Worlds play itself and spending a lot of time reading the encyclopedia. That doesn't sound good I know - I'm actually doing this by choice. I find it fascinating to watch the universe go about its business. It's almost therapeutic. The encyclopaedia is decently written and helpful, and I wish more strategy games would take note!

I have a silly campaign going in Shogun 2. I'm playing as the Mori and letting other people decide what I should do; it's Christmas themed and attempting to be funny. That's over in the Tea House. I'll probably wrap that up soon as people are running out of ideas and I'm close to owning half of the map, with only the east left to go.

Rounding out the list is Sengoku, which I picked up cheap in the gamersgate sales. I haven't really done much with it yet. Nice music, nice art work, and my gosh does it feel shallower than both Shogun II and Crusader Kings. I'm trying to consider it as a lighter type of strategy game instead of a full-on Sengoku kill 'n character fest.

Mouzafphaerre

01-09-2012, 00:36

Have been playing the 1866 mod for Mount&Blade since last summer exhaustively. Just started playing Lord of the Rings Online after having it sit idle for a few months and -except the camera system- I'm loving it! Actually, it's been Alt+Tabbed on the BG right now. ~:)

Fragony

01-09-2012, 17:22

Ive been following this game since it was announced. Not sure how I stumbled upon the page. When I first saw it, all we knew about it was the setting. Interesting stuff, projected release date is Spring 2012.

Hope it's not going to turn out as a mediocre shooter, the setting is fascinating

frogbeastegg

01-12-2012, 16:23

I'm playing the Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo, mainly from morbid curiosity. I can't decide if it's 'So bad I need to keep playing in order to see what awfulness occurs next' like FFX-2, or just plain bad.

Bonus points:

It has a setting for larger text. My eyes, they thank you! I wish more of these HD/high res games would remember the myopic.
The battle system is still pretty interesting. I could swear that the demo gives you more control than the 5 chapters of FFXIII I slogged through 2 years ago ...
It's a big demo. Several hours from start to end.
That shopkeeper. Chocolina. I just .... what is ... I don't even ... wah!?
You get your own pet flying moogle which follows you everywhere. It glows purple and randomly smashes into things. I think it's trying to tell me something, kupo. Shockingly it doesn't have a squeaky voice.
Towns. With people. Who talk. Also, not corridors.
Camera invert options for both axis, check.
Player friendly checkpointing and save system, check.
One enemy is a cat stuffed into a flying jar. You can capture it and make it fight on your team like an internet memes go pokemon.
Difficulty settings which can be adjusted on the fly.

Negative points:
That thing you call Serah, it looks very similar to Vanile. I hated Vanile. A lot. On the other hand this Serah person doesn't behave as though she took a bad head injury so maybe I can tolerate her.
Once upon a tie these games had music I liked. This one? When it's not bland it's unpleasant.
Quick time events in the battles. The series has been doing this since the SNES so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Quote of the day: "After battling a huge arm, Serah and Noel explore the Bresha Ruins for a way to defeat the limb's fully manifested form"

I think it might end up in the FFX-2 camp. Nice battle system and :dizzy2: at the rest. That special brand of Japanese craziness is much better than the po-faced wawa-wailing from FFXIII.

Xiahou

01-13-2012, 03:56

I started a new game this afternoon. It's philosophically complex, and poses thoughtful questions about the nature of life. It has a lot to say about race relations, and about the nature of heartless technology versus the lesser efficiently combined with capacity for feeling of organic life. 'Orcs must Die'. There's these orcs and they need to die - the game recognises the fleeting nature of life and the inevitability of death! And don't get me started on the challenging nature of its questions regarding life-direction decisions! Do I want to fill the hall with massed arrow traps and giggle, or should I pursue a more efficient strategy in order to maximise my score? Very deep stuff; my froggy mind is blown. :yes:I grabbed that one on sale for a couple of dollars- good clean fun to break up my Skyrim sessions with.....

Here's a link (http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/612720649857084260/23C6C17E1972A41E19CB9C444C0A4B5AC24DF637/) to a screenshot of one of my finest feats of engineering. :2thumbsup:

Do I want to fill the hall with massed arrow traps and giggle, or should I pursue a more efficient strategy in order to maximise my score?In my experience, the two aren't mutually exclusive. I always try (and have succeeded thus far) to get 5 skulls before moving on to the next level. The idea is to kill em quick and kill em all- that idea led to my 5 skull creation linked above. :yes:

frogbeastegg

01-13-2012, 12:20

Here's a link (http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/612720649857084260/23C6C17E1972A41E19CB9C444C0A4B5AC24DF637/) to a screenshot of one of my finest feats of engineering. :2thumbsup:
Such lovely wallpaper! I bet the little orcs love visiting your place for tea and biscuits.

In my experience, the two aren't mutually exclusive. I always try (and have succeeded thus far) to get 5 skulls before moving on to the next level. The idea is to kill em quick and kill em all- that idea led to my 5 skull creation linked above. :yes:
There's skull score and points score. The two are somewhat exclusive. High combos (i.e. killing orcs slowly with many weak, fast hits) boost the numerical score. Killing quickly and without any orcs getting through boosts the skull score. Numerical score chasing is a bit of an art, the sort of thing to do once you've 5-skulled everything. There's a useful youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI7f_OPKfPA) which really goes into detail on score chasing. Fascinating stuff; the game's a lot deeper than it first appears.

I overdosed on the game and had to put it down due to hearing orc screams in my sleep. I'll go back in a while ...

Martok

01-15-2012, 14:45

Well after almost a week of RL events have conspired against my having been home much (aside from sleep) -- and therefore not having had much time for gaming -- I've finally had a chance to sit down and play a bit since I woke up last night. (Huzzah!) :sweatdrop:

Not surprisingly (knowing me), I've found myself engaging in an "all-4x" binge this morning:

I started off playing out my turns in my various PBEM campaigns I've got going in Armada 2526 Supernova (I'm involved in 6-7 of them atm). In addition, I've been dinking around with the Volmar (one of the new races introduced in the 1.4 update) in a singleplayer game. I suspect they might be a bit overpowered, but they're quite different from most of the other races, and so are a lot of fun to play.

I've also resumed my AAR campaign in Birth of the Federation (BOP mod), playing as the Romulans. I've still not met any major races yet (I'm playing on the "super-sized" maps), but have run into a number of minors who could prove...useful to me. ~D

Last, but definitely not least, I spent a good 3-4 hours playing Distant Worlds: Legends (and am going back for more later on today!). I'm still getting used to all the changes, additions, & improvements introduced in the expansions (I've just started discovering the joys of fighters/carriers, for instance), but overall I'm liking what I see.

Ironically, I think I'm less impressed by a lot of the new "cool" stuff (not that it isn't still welcome!), and instead am more enamored with the less sexy features. Things that have greatly increased my enjoyment of the game include the improved ship/fleet automation (and related fleet management tools), the race-specific victory goals, and (especially!) the drastically-improved UI -- navigating my way around the game is no longer such a chore, which was something I wasn't so keen on in the original version.

Of the "cool" features introduced in the Legends expansion, by far my favorite one is the new territory system (which is represented by your colonies' "Spheres of Influence"). I realize I've mentioned it before, but I really do love that neighboring races are now prevented from mining and colonizing planets within your "borders", and vice-versa!

The new character system is worth a mention as well. There's an RPG-like aspect to them: First off, they can "level up" their various abilities over time, and how quickly they level up appears to (at least sometimes) depend on their actions. (So an Admiral who engages in 8 different battles will level up his/her abilities more quickly than an Admiral who's involved in only 3 battles during the same time frame.) In addition, both the race you're playing as (some races are more likely to get new military commanders, others new scientists, etc.) plus your actions (e.g., engaging in a lot of diplomatic activity will increase your odds of getting a new ambassador) affect the frequency of what kind of characters appear in your game, which I think is a very nice touch.

The main complaint I have about the characters system is that Intelligence Agents still die too easily -- and in the event of their unfortunate demise, it takes too long for new Intel agents to appear -- however, that issue is supposedly going to be addressed in the next update. In addition, it would be nice if characters were to have individual portraits for each (rather than the same race picture wearing different clothing, as it is currently), but that's largely a cosmetic change.

Kekvit Irae

01-16-2012, 00:45

Monk

01-16-2012, 01:12

I've also resumed my AAR campaign in Birth of the Federation (BOP mod), playing as the Romulans. I've still not met any major races yet (I'm playing on the "super-sized" maps), but have run into a number of minors who could prove...useful to me.

I've seen you mention BotF before, and doing a bit of research its a 4x star trek game.. (what! :O ) Can you gimme some more info about it? How it plays compared to other 4x games like, say, Sins of a Solar Empire? Any crazy events like from the series?

drone

01-16-2012, 05:16

I've seen you mention BotF before, and doing a bit of research its a 4x star trek game.. (what! :O ) Can you gimme some more info about it? How it plays compared to other 4x games like, say, Sins of a Solar Empire? Any crazy events like from the series?
The Borg showing up can ruin your day.

The vanilla game had some issues, but it was still pretty fun. It's a lot like MoO, but Trek. Turn based strategy map, with turn based combat. Diplomacy (major and minor races), spying/sabotage, research, planetary development. Leveled-up K'Vort class heavy cruisers made a mess of things, by far my favorite ship. ~D It's been ages since I played, I should probably try a mod, I've heard they have fixed a lot of the issues. Not sure if they ever fixed that memory leak that made you restart late games every ~3 turns to prevent CTDs...

Martok

01-16-2012, 10:15

I've seen you mention BotF before, and doing a bit of research its a 4x star trek game.. (what! :O ) Can you gimme some more info about it? How it plays compared to other 4x games like, say, Sins of a Solar Empire? Any crazy events like from the series?
drone's description of the game is pretty spot-on. :yes: "Master of Orion meets Star Trek" is a very apt way of putting it: Many of the team members that developed BOTF had also worked on MOO2 previously, and the similarities between the two titles are readily apparent to anyone who's played both.

That being said, BOTF isn't MOO2 with a Trek skin slapped over the top; there are noticeable differences between the two games. Fro instance, it lacks ship design, and it has a streamlined technology "ladder" rather than a true tech tree; on the flip side, it does have random events, canonical ships (of course!), and minor races. Random events (which can be disabled if you choose) can include things like comet strikes & earthquakes, the Crystalline Entity, Gomtuu (the "Tin Man"), and everyone's warp drives being disabled for a number of turns, to name just a few. Certainly, though, the most notable random event is the dreaded Borg showing up -- as drone indicated, they tend to make life...interesting. ~;)

It's not a masterpiece, by any means: There's a couple notable bugs that modders haven't been able to fix yet (most notably/notoriously, the memory leak which causes long turn-processing times), there are only 5 playable factions (in the vanilla version, these would be the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, & Ferengi), diplomacy is simplistic (particularly in regards to the minor races), it gets to be micromanagement-heavy later on, the AI is weak (especially in the later game stages), and of course, the game's visuals are definitely showing their age (bear in mind it was released back in 1999). There's no denying that BOTF could use a *lot* of improvement!

So why have I been playing this game for twelve years now? Because the overall gameplay is solid, and there's an active modding community (who in addition to creating mods, are also finding fixes to various bugs and/or poor WAD features) that keep the game fresh.

Most of all, though, the atmosphere & immersion factor is superb, especially if you're a Star Trek fan -- this fact alone allows BOTF players to forgive of its many shortcomings. I've played a number of Star Trek games over the years, and for me, none of them captures the Trek "feel" as well as BOTF does. For those who like Star Trek and grand strategy titles, then you owe it to yourselves to at least give this old girl a try. (If you do, though, make sure you play with one of the mods, as they're measurably better than the original "vanilla" version!)

It's been ages since I played, I should probably try a mod, I've heard they have fixed a lot of the issues. Not sure if they ever fixed that memory leak that made you restart late games every ~3 turns to prevent CTDs...
Yep, definitely try out one of the mods, as most of them improve the gameplay quite a bit. (The "Balance of Power" mod is my personal favorite, but there's a good half-dozen or so other mods out there that are quite popular as well.) Even better, a method has been discovered that allows players to install as many mods as they want, but without having to reinstall the main game repeatedly -- something that most folks seem to appreciate!

drone

01-16-2012, 20:47

Yep, definitely try out one of the mods, as most of them improve the gameplay quite a bit. (The "Balance of Power" mod is my personal favorite, but there's a good half-dozen or so other mods out there that are quite popular as well.) Even better, a method has been discovered that allows players to install as many mods as they want, but without having to reinstall the main game repeatedly -- something that most folks seem to appreciate!
My biggest beefs with the vanilla game were:
Random events were not balanced. The Borg could show up 10 turns into an early tech game, and everyone was hosed.
Upgrading buildings, I think there was a flaw when upgrading manufacturing buildings, they took forever to complete.
The automatic ship upgrade on research completion. The scrap value exploit for some ships was inexcusable.
Maybe I just never figured out the trick, but planetary assaults as the Klingons were impossible. Any orbital defense would crush the attacking fleet.
The Ferengi diplomat's voice, annoying, grating and obnoxious. No, wait, this was exactly how it should be...

Martok

01-16-2012, 22:04

My biggest beefs with the vanilla game were:
Your beefs are/were common laments among many BOTF players, including myself. Happily, virtually all the mods have introduced fixes/improvements for most of these things!

Random events were not balanced. The Borg could show up 10 turns into an early tech game, and everyone was hosed.
Partially fixed. It depends on the particular type of random event in question:

In most mods, the Borg cube's stats have been adjusted so that it's not so insanely powerful (although still a reasonably tough nut to crack). Likewise with other spaceship/monster random events (Tin Man, Chodiak Dreadnought, the Crystalline Entity, etc.) -- their stats have generally been adjusted to be more "realistic" and less overpowered. Similarly, the Echo Papa Drone and the Edo God have been toned down in most mods.

With the planetary events (comet strikes, climate shifts, etc.), there's still work to be done on reducing the frequency of these. Progress has been made, but nothing conclusive yet. Supernovas can be eliminated by getting rid of all red giant stars (something I make sure to do if I intend to play with random events), and this can be very easily done with a program developed specifically for BOTF called Ultimate Editor. (It's so simple even I use it on a fairly regular basis! :yes: )

Upgrading buildings, I think there was a flaw when upgrading manufacturing buildings, they took forever to complete.
Fixed. (The aforementioned BOP mod actually goes one better by eliminating most building upgrades entirely, and reducing factory upgrades to just four levels. It helps a lot in cutting down on the micromanagement!)

The automatic ship upgrade on research completion. The scrap value exploit for some ships was inexcusable.
Fixed.

While the automatic ship upgrade has remained in most mods (although a couple have done away with it), the scrap value has been greatly reduced in most mods as well, so it's actually not an exploit anymore. (I particularly like the BOP mod because ships don't even increase in cost with upgraded versions, meaning there's even *less* reason to scrap them as they advance!)

Maybe I just never figured out the trick, but planetary assaults as the Klingons were impossible. Any orbital defense would crush the attacking fleet.
Fixed.

In pretty much every mod available for BOTF, ships and OB'S have been re-balanced so that attacking fleets suffer a more reasonable amount of damage (instead of being decimated)...and that includes the Klingons. ~:)

The Ferengi diplomat's voice, annoying, grating and obnoxious. No, wait, this was exactly how it should be...

:laugh4:

Interestingly, a couple mods -- most notably "Ultimate Dominion Mod III" and the "Galaxies Mod" -- have actually done some work on replacing the Ferengi voice-work. This is because the Ferengi have been replaced by the Dominion and Borg (respectively) as playable empires (although the Ferengi are still a minor race in UDM3).

Beskar

01-18-2012, 03:07

I think it was Startrek Armada 2 which was the one I played. I liked that.

Kekvit Irae

01-18-2012, 10:17

In between rounds of Katawa Shoujo, I'm finding myself playing another MMORPG... SWTOR.

Fragony

01-18-2012, 11:44

Rayman Origins, without a shadow of doubt the best-looking game ever made, just beautiful. Incredible artwork, WOW

And it's a blast to play 10/10 so far

Monk

01-18-2012, 12:25

For some reason this game's catching a lot of flak from the people that rushed to level 50, but as I type this they are implementing the first post-end-game content patch. Bioware's fingerprints are all over this game, and it plays a lot like WoW-meets-Mass Effect with a Star Wars plot. I like it.

Ehh.. the game's got a lot of issues once you hit cap, the biggest being that there's just not a lot of content for you to play at 50. There's only around six level 50 equivalent instances to run and once you've ran them into the ground for three weeks, they tend to get very old. Its a shame too, because there's tons more instances already IN the game that could be added to the heroic/hard mode (a level 50 equivalent of a lower level instance) list but Bioware doesn't seem interested in that - they'd rather make a new one. There's three tiers of gear in the game and after three weeks of running hard modes with my friends, i already have 4/5 pieces of the tier 2 set. I've maxed my dailies and raiding doesn't much interest me, so I'm kinda out of luck when it comes to logging in and doing something new.

PVP seems like a complete waste of time for anyone who isn't 100% dedicated to it, especially with the stim/adrenal stacking thats going on. It was a bad idea to give players consumables that increase their expertise* by huge percents. I've seem level 50s with over 16k hp getting one shot by Operatives. Its dumb and needs a serious fix, and the bracketing change in 1.1 won't fix it, unfortunately.

It's not that I dislike the game, far from it. I thought leveling in swtor was pretty darn fun and way more so than I ever thought an MMO could be. But.. the main problem is that's pretty much all the game offers right now. Bugs are annoying but in almost every case you can find ways to get around them, unfortunately you cannot get around a lack of content. 1.1 is a step in the right direction but I'm unsure if Bioware realizes just how little there is to do in their game once you've been 50 for two weeks.

*expertise is the pvp stat in swtor and essentially makes your heals work better and your skills hit harder in pvp situations.

Monk

01-18-2012, 12:48

I think they just underestimated the speed with which people would rush to the end-game. I've got a lot of faith in Bioware, but it looks like they were so bent on creating THEIR MMO the way they wanted that they didn't learn from some of the other big MMO launches in history.

That said, they seem way more commited than most MMO developers, and they've got the money to do whatever they want with this game really. I'm a very slow leveller--I just hit 20 with my Sith Juggernaut the other day. I played WoW for about a year, and it took me months to get to level 60, so I'm not someone that needs reems of end-game content to be satisfied.

Yes i get that vibe as well. There's a lot of features that I'd taken for granted as being fundamental mmo features that, when I discovered swtor lacked them, I was really puzzled. I like how vocal and receptive they've been thus far to the community's needs/complaints but its more of a time will tell situation than anything.

That said, once I did get to max level in WoW, I really enjoyed the end-game raids. I am looking forward to that in SWTOR too, and Bioware seems like they're dedicated. We'll see how this one plays out, but it looks to me like a blue-chipper, even if it doesn't become the next WoW (which, honestly, wouldn't be a good thing--there are some serious downsides to having 10 Million+ players).

I really like what they did with the flashpoints (instances) in the game. Most of them are pretty memorable and the boss fights have (for the most part*) fun and entertaining mechanics. I was also surprised by how hard the hard modes were. My friends and I expected to walk through them and instead were forced to spend a great deal of time learning those instances all over again. When we started there was a LOT of misinformation and contradictory strategies floating around the internet. Most people simply didn't know what they were talking about, and still don't! So we had to pull up our big boy pants and do it ourselves. I suppose that is one reason why I'm feeling so meh about things at the moment. After three weeks of that we've got every hard mode to the point where we can do it in our sleep - we're itching for more of a challenge and one new instance just isnt enough for us. :grin2:

*with the exception of the final boss in False Emperor on Hard and the final boss of The Foundry - those guys are ' :daisy: you' mechanics 101.

johnhughthom

01-18-2012, 15:56

Just bought The Old Republic, and it seems the site is down to release the 1.1 patch. So not only do I have to wait, but it'll probably take longer than usual to dl, with everybody else dling the patch. From what I've read the patch will address some of your issues Monk, as you mentioned, though I'm far from an MMO expert.

LeftEyeNine

01-18-2012, 17:02

Cities in Motion Collection lately.

What do you think of the franchise ?

Husar

01-18-2012, 23:52

I've been playing a lot of Katawa Shoujo lately. It's about a student who, after a heart attack and getting diagnosed with arrhythmia, transfers to a school for the disabled. It's a dating game, so expect a lot of interaction with girls of various disabilities, such as deaf, blind, missing limbs, etc. Yeah, there are the typical Japanese sex scenes, but you can disable them from the main menu. I'm far more interested in the story, regardless. The game is extremely tasteful on the subject material of dealing with the disabled, which is surprising. My deaf roommate plays it as well and loves it.

And best of all? The entire game is free.

I tried it, mostly because the topic of disability and especially a game dealing with it piqued my interest. Partly because I forgot you also mentioned "dating game". :laugh4:

I hate it. On one hand because I already spent 3.5 hours "playing" it, on the other because it's more like an interactive book than a game so far and some of the scenes aren't that interesting to read and/or the guy I'm "playing" seems to dislike things I wouldn't mind at all.

And I like it, because it does take a very sensible approach to the topic, although maybe overdone/inaccurate in some regards(the leg amputee girl seems to wear the running prosthetics all day, which is not what they're made for, for example...and just after I write that the next screen says she doesn't have them on, so I stand corrected... *makes sure mind-reading device is not connected to computer anymore* :sweatdrop:), like how quickly all the girls jump onto the new guy, and I really want to know how the story progresses for some reason. Which is why I already spent 3.5 hours "playing" it. Despite some disagreements with the main character's thoughts, there are some things in his thoughts I can relate to or that inspire me a bit, some funny scenes etc. And the music seems calming and soothing. :P

Guess it will continue to take away some time spent in World of Tanks and Skyrim.

Cities in Motion Collection lately.

What do you think of the franchise ?

I liked the beta/demo but I think I'll wait until they're done releasing expensive DLC and buy it on a sale.
Might be more enthusiastic if it covered more means of transportation like actual trains and let you "manage"(build it, enhance it, lay down certain rules that affect passenger throughput and profits etc.) an airport or so. Not so much the airport.
But that reminds me I also don't like how games still don't allow any kind of scheduling etc. so you often end up with all your 6 buses on a route driving one behind the other instead of spaced out to cover the route more effectively without passengers waiting too long.
And that's not just a criticism for this game but it still applies here unfortunately.

econ21

01-19-2012, 00:48

It would be good to move the SWTOR discussion off to the dedicated thread - I'm not sure if it's too much hassle for a mod to do?

I just reached level 50 and can see where Monk is coming from. SWTOR is shamelessly following the WoW model, but does not have the amount of end-game content that one expects from WoW. I skipped almost all the flashpoints while levelling due to the lack of a "looking for dungeon" kind of tool. (Ditto the Heroic Quests - I wish they had followed Warhammer's "public" quests and made one able to participated without forming a formal group.) I was a little sad to find out that only a few (5?) have been re-balanced to be available for level 50.

I had been looking forward to trying the PvP, given the assurances that tanking would be viable in PvP, but I'm a little disheartened to find that tanking stats are often bypassed in PvP (many classes do tech/force attacks that bypass defence and shields, while internal/elemental attacks ignore armor). And the Illium world PvP does not sound great, to this beleagured Republican anyway.

But above all, my guild in WoW is undergoing something of raiding revival and there's no way I can raid on two MMOs at the same time. In a choice between a game where I have grinded the required gear and have a bunch of friends who raid, and one where those things are not true, there's no contest - however much I might prefer the setting and aesthetics of SWTOR.

However, levelling in SWTOR is a lot of fun. And GC, I think you will find the Sith Warrior sufficiently challenging to play - at least, I was surprised how much better balanced the difficulty was for my Jedi Knight than levelling currently is in WoW. A lot may depend on your companion tho. I went with a dps. Now she has max affection for me (only took until level 50!), I've switched to a healer and it's rather dull, going from ending each fight on low health to ending it on full health. Each fight except this Sith Admiral champion I saw on Corellia tonight. I saw he had only 19k HP, so I jumped him. When his health refused to dip, I realised I had misread his health bar and it was 190k HP. It did not end well.

LeftEyeNine

01-19-2012, 01:04

@Husar

I bought it from Gamersgate for 14$ yesterday. It includes 5-6 DLCs as far as I remember.

Fragony

01-20-2012, 12:32

Been playing a lot of Battlefield the last days, got me a new tv, again an analogue but with much better screen, I can actually read weapon descriptions PROGRESS. With a much sharper image long distance shooting is much better and I now usually am #1, as it should be. Me so l33T

Hooahguy

01-20-2012, 12:37

Logged over 11 hours of Brickbreaker in the past 2 weeks on my phone since its the only video game I have been able to play here.

Also Frag, you playing BF3? And if so, what are your thoughts? Im probably gonna guy BF3 when I come home in late March.

Fragony

01-20-2012, 13:52

Great multiplayer, best out there, have yet to encounter even a hint of latency-issues. Maps are good, and weapons feel much better than they did in previous games, dunno why that is (YAY for a shotgun that has some range thx to a tight spread, VERY fun to use). Single player is weak though, it tries to be COD instead of Battlefield, and the COD guys are just better at that sort of thing. If you aren't interested in the campaign you can't go wrong with it, it's awesome.

Hooahguy

01-20-2012, 14:11

What about jets? I hear that practicing with them is impossible.

Fragony

01-20-2012, 14:33

What about jets? I hear that practicing with them is impossible.

Haven't tried, I don't like vehicles. As for question you can't practise any of them. I like the reduced use of vehicles personally, game is better without them

Kekvit Irae

01-21-2012, 04:44

I picked up a game on steam for $10 called Space Pirates and Zombies, or S.P.A.Z.

I have no idea how to describe it. It's a top-down arcady shooter with some real challenge, mixed with a randomly generated universe and a super addictive loot/upgrade system. It reminds me of Diablo II, although that's probably not the first thing that will spring to mind when you fire it up. Basically you and your rag-tag band of pirates set out from the ruins of earth into a galaxy that's falling apart and becoming isolated from star system to star system as the established order collapses. You set off to reach the center of the galaxy, and aside from the fact that it plays like a top-down arcade shooter you could really call this an RPG. There's randomly generated procedural quests, factions, consequential choices that you have to make, untold builds and methods of creating your fleet, ect. This is a good game.

I don't even know how to classify this one, really. Its awesome though. There's even an epic plot with twists and turns. If you like indy games (or if you just like good games period) and you have ten dollars to spare, this is worth picking up.

And it's narrated by TotalBiscuit. Granted, it's not his best work, but dude... Total Freakin' Biscuit.

Prussian to the Iron

01-21-2012, 06:34

What about jets? I hear that practicing with them is impossible.

Here's the thing about Jets (and helicopters really). There's no offline mode in which you can practice, which is extremely irritating. But hopping into a Caspian Border Conquest match, you can probably get some practice in with it. I had to change the jet and helo controls; they felt really unnatural on the default setting.

Another thing is that until you get flares, you will go down. Frequently and easily. You will rage. You will want to throw yourself into the fires of Mount Doom. But if you keep going til you get flares and heatseekers, you can pretty much match any other average pilot on the game.

frogbeastegg

01-21-2012, 11:54

I picked up a game on steam for $10 called Space Pirates and Zombies, or S.P.A.Z.
I've been playing it off and on since the beta days. If the game clicks with you it's the sort of thing you can keep returning to for years. When the zombies appear they are a complete gamechanger. Heh heh heh ...

Do try out the Christmas and Halloween mod themes at some point. You missed the timed events but the game allows you to toggle them on and off so you can experience the oddity whenever you like. They're worth an hour or two of bemused spacing. Feed Santa cookies!

Kekvit Irae

01-21-2012, 15:22

I've been playing it off and on since the beta days. If the game clicks with you it's the sort of thing you can keep returning to for years. When the zombies appear they are a complete gamechanger. Heh heh heh ...

Do try out the Christmas and Halloween mod themes at some point. You missed the timed events but the game allows you to toggle them on and off so you can experience the oddity whenever you like. They're worth an hour or two of bemused spacing. Feed Santa cookies!

The Christmas mod is also good for grinding out the lower levels. Santa comes in quite often, bringing gifts of data and rez. By the time you hit Large or Huge hangers, it's no longer worth the hassle.

CountArach

02-01-2012, 14:30

I restarted Mass Effect 1 to refresh myself before 3 comes out. I'm playing as Female Shephard, paragon and soldier class. All the complete opposite of my previous play-through.

Monk

02-04-2012, 16:40

Xenonaughts and Katawa Shoujo, two games so completely unalike and yet I am enthralled by both for radically different reasons.

With the announcement of the Firaxis remake of X-COM i had to come to terms with a terrible truth. I've never played an X-COM game. Ever. Not even once. Realizing what I've missed out on with Xenonaughts, however, which is an incredible game of the same genre. Absolutely amazing in every sense.. but the crashes are a tad annoying. I guess thats what I get for buying a self-admitted alpha. The devs seem quite ontop of bug fixing so I guess I can't complain too much. ~D

KS is a bit of an oddity for me, i looked into it out of morbid curiosity and am surprised by how much I enjoy the story. Some of the dialogue is an absolute chore, but the characters are nice and a few are just downright charming.

I restarted Mass Effect 1 to refresh myself before 3 comes out. I'm playing as Female Shephard, paragon and soldier class. All the complete opposite of my previous play-through.

Gah! I would like to do that. I need to decide on a "final" ME2 save-state to carry into 3. Alas, who has the time!

marianengle

02-07-2012, 13:29

I am currently playing Black Ops and Fallout 3 these days. Black Ops is randomly so interesting game too play.

Kekvit Irae

02-28-2012, 12:13

Went back to playing Dungeons of Dredmor (SO addictive!). After logging in 86.1 hours, I finally beat Dredmor, in the most amusing way possible: by being dead.
And to top it off, Gas Lamp Games are going make a new achievement in my honor because of it :D

Graphic

03-06-2012, 04:04

I got into the Ghost Recon Online closed beta, Ubisofts foray into F2P. I'm pleasantly surprised. It appears to follow the good F2P system (you can grind to anything, money just lets you speed things up and buy weapons outright) which is great.

Can't totally enjoy it at the moment because of awful performance, but it said that bad AMD performance is expected and should be fixed in a coming patch. Since I actually exceed the recommended specs I'm pretty hopeful.

It seems like a shooter version of World of Tanks frankly. You play automatched games, earn XP and credits to unlock and buy armor, guns, gun upgrades, etc. So yeah, first impressions are good.

I'm really amazed at how far F2P games have come, not just in quality but in fairness to people who don't have tons of money to burn. The first good one was World of Tanks, then there was Star Trek Online and now this. Before WoT my experience with the F2P model were terribly designed games with equally terrible monetization systems, APB being the worst example, with its $50 guns (yes, you read that correctly) and only the ability to rent guns with earned currency, and locking out at least 50% of the content from non-subscribers.

phonicsmonkey

03-06-2012, 05:51

I love this forum because it tells me what I'm going to be playing in a year's time or so! I'm so behind with games...

Just started The Witcher 2 and really loving it so far.

Also playing GTA3 on the iPad on my way to and from work having devoured Infinity Blade.

tibilicus

03-16-2012, 03:02

BF3, the game that keeps on giving. Easily the best FPS out right now. I say this as someone who plays the 360 version, apparently PC is even better.

Fragony

03-16-2012, 10:10

tibilicus

03-18-2012, 16:49

Easily the best but not easy to get into. It also baffles me that there are no tutorials for the vehicles, or a shooting range to test your weapon setup. You are just thrown in without much explanation

True, i guess that has always been the battlefield way though. I'm also really happy at this point with DICE's community support. Three more expansion packs and reliable servers are all great. It staggers me how COD is so popular, BF3 has so many layers COD doesn't even come close to touching. Some of my best gaming moments have come from BF3, nothing quite beats winning a match with only 5 tickets left and the enemy has 60 before you somehow cap all three flags and end up winning by a ticket rate of 1-0, simply epic.

Fragony

03-19-2012, 08:08

True, i guess that has always been the battlefield way though. I'm also really happy at this point with DICE's community support. Three more expansion packs and reliable servers are all great. It staggers me how COD is so popular, BF3 has so many layers COD doesn't even come close to touching. Some of my best gaming moments have come from BF3, nothing quite beats winning a match with only 5 tickets left and the enemy has 60 before you somehow cap all three flags and end up winning by a ticket rate of 1-0, simply epic.

COD is just easier to get into to, becomming good at Battlefield is a long proces, no matter how skilled you are death comes from everywhere. Pretty frustrating. I am pretty skilled at FPS but I really suck at Battlefield

Prussian to the Iron

03-20-2012, 03:13

COD is just easier to get into to, becomming good at Battlefield is a long proces, no matter how skilled you are death comes from everywhere. Pretty frustrating. I am pretty skilled at FPS but I really suck at Battlefield

I find that most of the time when I die in Battlefield, it's my fault. Not adequately taking (or staying in) cover, not spacing my shots correctly, bringing the wrong gun to a situation, using a non-engineer on a tank or IFV. Sometimes it's uncontrollable, but a lot of the time it just requires a bit of thinking before acting to stay alive.

Fragony

03-20-2012, 10:27

I find that most of the time when I die in Battlefield, it's my fault. Not adequately taking (or staying in) cover, not spacing my shots correctly, bringing the wrong gun to a situation, using a non-engineer on a tank or IFV. Sometimes it's uncontrollable, but a lot of the time it just requires a bit of thinking before acting to stay alive.

Yeah I know. I am the run&gun type of player and Battlefield is for the patient, I play it as if it is Rainbow Six where breaching is everything. I kill many and I die a lot. Really like the game even if it isn't really my sort of thing. Never use vehicles for example.

Kekvit Irae

04-16-2012, 01:43

Dwarf Fortress and Legend of Grimrock.
My social life is officially dead now.

Hooahguy

04-16-2012, 03:34

Alright, my list of games Im currently playing:

TF2, its more of a "Im bored lets play" game.

Crysis 2- Truly amazing, though the MP is hard to get into since I suck and everyone else is so good. But the campaign is gripping.

ETW with Darthmod. Bought NTW, installed DM, but didnt like it. Reinstalled ETW and DM, loving it, crushing as Prussia.

And for my flight sim Im playing Combat Wings: Battle of Briton. Pretty arcade-ish but with a joystick and the "advanced" control setup its quite enjoyable.

Fragony

04-16-2012, 10:40

Crysis 2 is one of the best shooters ever made, the campaign is sooooooooo sweet. It also has one of the best soundtracks ever. Haven't played the multiplayer for a while, having trouble finding a game.

Hooahguy

04-16-2012, 13:39

Agreed on the soundtrack. And the campaign, of course. Though Im missing the old nanosuit.

Crandaeolon

04-16-2012, 15:47

CountArach

04-16-2012, 16:20

Finally playing through Limbo at the moment. Really tough and moody.

rajpoot

04-16-2012, 20:50

Finally playing through Limbo at the moment. Really tough and moody.

Limbo is tough? Hehe and I thought I was bad at puzzle-platformers.

But it is a really good game. Found the puzzles fun and the art style was interesting.

Kekvit Irae

04-17-2012, 02:45

Playing Grimrock. In hard / oldschool mode it's quite a bit harder than Dungeon Master, but easier than Chaos Strikes Back. Some ambushes have been tricky, but so far no party wipes when beginning level 7. (Survived one ambush by accident, though.) It might rival CSB if more mapping-dependent puzzles come along, so far seen only one and that was obvious. Of course, there's no Supermarket abuse in this game due to the different way leveling works.

That one ambush at the beginning of level 6 was pure BS. I was down to one (missile) rogue left, and I couldn't go back. I had to inch my way forward a little bit at a time just to get the key needed for the life crystal.

All in all, the best DM/CSB clone to date. Very nice.

Still cant hold a candle to Eye of the Beholder II. But as for a modern clone? It's perfect.

----

Off topic, brb getting rid of my HoF2011 award.

CountArach

04-17-2012, 08:10

Limbo is tough? Hehe and I thought I was bad at puzzle-platformers.
Okay... tougher than I had thought. No super meat boy. Maybe it is just that I can't see a lot of the switches very well.

Crandaeolon

04-17-2012, 09:50

That one ambush at the beginning of level 6 was pure BS. I was down to one (missile) rogue left, and I couldn't go back. I had to inch my way forward a little bit at a time just to get the key needed for the life crystal.

I lucked out; the Ogre was not nearby, and I had only the spiders to deal with. I had the first almost-wipe in one Fire Elemental ambush. I had already taken some damage (not a good idea to move around with half health...) and got caught pants down. I lost one instantly, put Fire Shield up but thought it a lost cause and stopped playing. After a while I noticed my mage was still alive and wasn't taking any damage from fireballs - turns out I had given her, a Daemon Ancestor fire mage, a +50 fire resistance amulet without thinking, so she was completely immune. Then I just mixed some energy potions mid-battle, kept renewing the shield and plinked them to death with the little bit of air magic I had.

In retrospect, the Fighter Challenge would've been very difficult without preparation, but fortunately those words kinda gave it away. :p

Still cant hold a candle to Eye of the Beholder II. But as for a modern clone? It's perfect.

Personally, I can't rank them like that. Darkmoon was a solid game, but it had a different focus. DM/CSB had more intuitive mechanics and puzzles where EoB2 had more flesh over its bones.

Kekvit Irae

04-17-2012, 11:29

Personally, I can't rank them like that. Darkmoon was a solid game, but it had a different focus. DM/CSB had more intuitive mechanics and puzzles where EoB2 had more flesh over its bones.

I'm not really a puzzle person. I'm more of a "pull switch, door opens" person when it comes to puzzles. I guess it's the reason why Dungeon Hack was one of my favorite dungeon crawlers of all time.

Mouzafphaerre

04-21-2012, 07:19

Addicted to LOTRO! :computer:

Kekvit Irae

04-22-2012, 03:48

rajpoot

04-22-2012, 10:36

Just finished Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and now started AC: Revelations. It's everything that Brotherhood should have been. One thing that bugs me though... when the hell did the series turn into Plants vs Zombies?

Plants vs Zombies was a lot more fun. :whip: :clown:
I ended up using a 'fix' that gave an enormous amount of resource so that I could spam those gun barricades.

My only gripe with AC:R was that is was a lot shorter. The games have been getting shorter with each new installment, starting with AC:2

Fragony

04-25-2012, 11:48

Best noir line is in the first

Max payne, I envy your name, I'm Jimmy Niaguara(sp?)

Why, do you cry a lot

Monk

05-14-2012, 23:05

Pretty indifferent to the release of diablo 3. Not because i dislike blizzard or their game, even though i have a few reasons to not like blizzard, I just haven't felt a click-fest rpg grab me in years. I'm back to patrolling the Mojave in New Vegas and looking to do a complete run of all the DLC.

Though I may not finish it soon, finals coming up and all, I'm quite eager to play Lonesome Road and Old World Blues.

rickinator9

05-15-2012, 00:16

Though I may not finish it soon, finals coming up and all, I'm quite eager to play Lonesome Road and Old World Blues.

OWB and LR are simply the best. Dead Money is too dark for me and the tribal thingy didn't look so nice, so I didn't buy it. I can't really decide what fallout game I like best. There's fallout 3 with it's urban environments and then there's Fallout: New Vegas with iron sights and humor.

Hooahguy

05-15-2012, 00:31

Tried getting into Magicka, but I hate the combat too much to get into it.
"Oh, sure, why dont we have you fight off two dozen orc-like guys plus annoying cannonball guys right off the bat in chapter 2! Thats a sure way to not frustrate brand new players!"

Seriously, half a dozen times I was about to beat them when a random explosion kills me.
Ugh.

Kekvit Irae

05-15-2012, 00:40

Chaotix

05-15-2012, 20:14

I spent all week trying to win a Prussian World Domination in Empire: Total War, only to have it crash every single time at the end of the turn on 1796, just a few turns away from finally completing the campaign. This ticks me off so badly.

Thinking of just scrapping that and doing Maratha.

Bummer. Maratha is a lot of fun, though - especially when you unite India and get to colonize Europe with stacks of whirling dervishes.

Kekvit Irae

05-16-2012, 05:16

Bummer. Maratha is a lot of fun, though - especially when you unite India and get to colonize Europe with stacks of whirling dervishes.

Had to go back to a previous save game from 1780 since I figured the crashes were related to the size of the pirate faction (I completely dominated Britain, France, and Spain, but didn't touch the Americas except for a few islands). After restarting 16 years before, I wiped out France and made sure my colonial forces wiped out any remaining traces of pirates. Seemed to clear up the problem, and now sitting pretty on my second Prussian World Conquest win.

Personally, I like Maratha as much as the Prussians, since they have a wide mix of units (especially early swordsmen), unlike the entirety of Europeans and their "mix" of Line-Up-And-Die Infantry, Cannons That Cant Hit The Side Of A Barn, and My Little Ponies. I like Prussia simply because of the hard starting position, as it makes every move a strategic decision.

Fragony

05-17-2012, 07:21

Playing real racing 2. First iPad game where the controls don't feel wrong, feels very natural. It's a proper 'big' game

Finding a multiplayer match is a matter of seconds

Husar

05-17-2012, 14:00

Yeah, I got Real Racing and 2 on the iPhone and they're great quality games, I'm sure I've mentioned them before.

Still playing World of Tanks a lot at the moment, some Skyrim and Wargame as well.

Kekvit Irae

05-17-2012, 21:49

Started back in Shogun 2 as the Triforce clan (Hojo). Made the mistake of accepting a quest by the Shogunate to capture a castle of a major faction, and now I'm at war with 5 clans and my income is in the low triple digits. Welcome to Total War.

rickinator9

05-19-2012, 19:57

I have begun playing skyrim again. I never finished the main quest, because I wanted to explore. I was a sniper-archer and by lvl 25 nothing could beat me so I got bored and stopped playing. One thing I don't like about skyrim is that all the guild questlines seem rushed somehow.

Monk

05-20-2012, 03:05

Completed Dead Money for New Vegas. I'm of two minds about it to be perfectly honest. On one hand it's nice that Obsidian was trying to make me play the game a different way, but the methods in which they attempted to do so were stupid beyond all belief. Instant kill death zones are NOT FUN. Neither are invincible guards who cannot be killed, but the later is far less annoying than the former. You can deal with the guard patrols and sneak by, even with low stealth. Instant kill zones? Yeah. Good luck with that one. :no:

The best part of the entire module was the Dog/God character. Why is it that Super Mutants always end up as the most interesting characters in the fallout universe? :grin2: Loved the voice work and the mental torment he was going through as well as the optional path to soothe his mind and heal him for good, even though it required high speech. Christine and Domino were much less interesting by comparison to Dog/God.

Though Christine wasn't bad in of herself, she was typical 'consumed by vengeance' boring. The character went though some pretty intense trauma but comes out the other side completely sane and collected. She talked about her deep scars but I never once got the feeling that the character was organic and alive, she was just there. Compare her to Dog/God who likely had been through just as bad trauma. The main difference between the two is that Dog/God's mind was destroyed by it and he goes through an arc to heal, provided you help him. Christine didn't get that really.

Domino had the second best voice actor of the bunch behind Dog/God so it's unfortunate he was the least interesting character. Not much to say really.

Oh yeah, and hauling back to the Mojave with 100lbs of gold strapped to my back was hilarious. I made some serious caps out of that trip and bought some great items at the Gun Runners. Gonna do some quests back in the wasteland and then finish the main story. After that? Probably Honest Hearts, then OWB, then Lonesome Road.

I'll say last thing. The foreshadowing for LR has already started in DM and it was fantastic. I'm so hyped for that already, and i hope the foreshadowing continues through the other modules.