The "What are you playing?" topic.

[caravel]

I'm playing Le Chuck's Revenge: Monkey Island II running on the ScummVM engine under Ubuntu Linux. It's amazing how much you remember of old games...

[CountArach]

HPS Simulations' Campaign Waterloo.

A Hex-based game that is incredibly realistic and has a real board game feel to it. I'm really loving this game.

[naut]

I'm playing Le Chuck's Revenge: Monkey Island II running on the ScummVM engine under Ubuntu Linux. It's amazing how much you remember of old games...

Hehe, tell me about it. Loaded up Fallout 1 he other day, ah the memories...

[frogbeastegg]

I'm done with Banjo Kazooie. I have all but 4 jiggies, and all but 17 musical notes. Everything else is collected and completed. I got 100% back in ye day and don't feel the need to spoil my day by doing the bad bits again.

My memory wasn't being a whiny young frog when it claimed Click Clock Wood is dire. Last level of the game, and the difficulty curve goes vertical. Not only that but it starts making you repeat large sections each time you make a mistake. Climb to top of very tall tree via awkward jumps which make the camera have a fit. Miss one jump right at the end due to camera having a fit, fall right back to the bottom and lose half your health. Spend five minutes climbing back up, fall back down and die. Start entire level over again. Better and better - you have to climb that accursed tree over and over, and with conditions becoming more sweary each time. By the time they added enemies onto the tiny platforms near the top I lost the will to press on; it's iconic of everything which used to be bad about games a decade ago. You can't kill the enemy until you land on the platform. The enemy takes up the entire platform. Ranged attacks won't hit it; you have to use a close up attack. If you get hit then you are thrown off the ledge all the way to the bottom and have to spend ages climbing back up, assuming you survived, which you probably didn't. It's difficulty for the sake of making you die, not for the sake of challenging you.

I could kill the final boss. I don't want to. I remember how much froggy pain went into beating it 10 years ago. Rare had a reputation for truly evil boss fights. IMO they more than earned it.

That leaves me with Fallout 3. I don't know how many more times I will be able to persuade myself to start that game up; it's a joyless drag.

[Kekvit Irae]

Settlers of Catan for the 360 (absolutely LOVED the board game, so this was a no brainer), and Left 4 Dead on the PC.

[naut]

FM2008, as PSV. Despite a small amount of money available for transfers I picked up some major bargains. So my team owns!

[Tiberius of the Drake]

Crusader Kings-1081-normal-above normal speed-Kingdom of Naples (originally Duchy of Apulia)

Im debating whether to continue to to try to conquer Italy, and face the HRE or to try to conquer Croatia.
any suggestions?

[Veho Nex]

Mud N Blood 2, since it's the only thing I can play because my Video card took a dump.

[Martok]

Crusader Kings-1081-normal-above normal speed-Kingdom of Naples (originally Duchy of Apulia)

Im debating whether to continue to to try to conquer Italy, and face the HRE or to try to conquer Croatia.
any suggestions?

I'd go with whichever one will carry less flak/greater favor with the Pope. Given His Holiness' seemingly near-constant problems with his Imperial neighbor to the north, perhaps he'd overlook your desire to unite Italy first?

[Crazed Rabbit]

Playing GRID right now, with a keyboard :/

Also, The Witcher: EE is getting some playing time.

CR

[frogbeastegg]

I have finally finished Fallout 3 (1 month later! 54 hours! Gah!), and started the new Prince of Persia.

[Martok]

Am back playing MTW again. I'd been fooling around with Redux as the English, but at the moment I'm testing the latest version of the Pocket Mod with a Fatimid campaign. So far, so good.

[Veho Nex]

Starcraft on the school computers, and when I get caught for installing all my games onto my account I'll let you guys know.

[Kekvit Irae]

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir.
NWN2 goes back to the days of the old Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games with customizable parties. Playing a merchant company owner has never been so fun, despite the obvious flaws with the game.

[Decker]

Just started up Combat Missions Beyond Overlord or simply known as CMBO. It's the first of the Combat Mission series that came out in 2000 (can't remember lol).

[Sigurd]

I will admit that I am not gaming too much.

But I have a PS3 and I just got the Heavy weight champion of the world belt in Fight Night Round 3 with my character.

I also recently reinstalled Rome:TW and am playing the Julii campaign again. Never finished it first time.
I am down to one faction outside the combined forces of the allied Roman factions. Egypt is fighting us and have lost Africa and the Middle East up to Damascus.

[Bob the Insane]

Recently i have been keeping my twitch reflexes happy with CoD5 MP... A lot...

FF on... the only way to play...

[frogbeastegg]

When I'm not playing 'Christmas in retail: ultimate death slog' I'm playing one of the following:
Prince of Perisa
Naruto: rise of a ninja
Dragon quest IV on the DS
Valkyria chronicles
Civ 4

Christmas in retail: ultimate death slog is such a demanding title I find that it's impossible to play another game if I'm not in the mood for it, hence the wide seleciton of types. If I'm not playing one of them then I'm usually to be found with a book fallen over my face, sound asleep.

Heh. Naruto is surprisingly good. I don't know a thing about the manga and anime; I picked it up because since release I have seen good report after good report about how the game plays, and it was crazy cheap. It's an adventure RPG beat-um-up platforming action game with graphics which rank amongst the best on the 360. :cough: It's also an Ubisoft title, and IMO a far sight better than their new Prince of Persia :cough: A license game which isn't rubbish? Believe it! (Though I do kind of wish Naruto would stop exclaiming that every second cutscene.)

[Boyar Son]

CoD5: WaW

Far Cry 2

[Kekvit Irae]

Still on NWN2: SoZ
Also playing CoD4 on the PS3

[Martok]

Not really playing much at the moment. Been too busy with the new job this past week. Am currently waiting for the next beta of the Pocket Mod, although at this point I probably won't get to actually try it out til after Christmas anyway.

Still on NWN2: SoZ

I thought you found Neverwinter 2 barf-arific. Or was that someone else?

[Kekvit Irae]

I thought you found Neverwinter 2 barf-arific. Or was that someone else?

Ages ago, before patches and player-made AI mods. Now with both, along with some help with some other mods, I am thoroughly enjoying NWN2.

[Magraev]

I'm playing MTW2 Kingdoms, modded with Stainless Steel 6.1 atm. Still maybe the greatest game ever.

Playing a bit of Fallout3 also and contemplating buying NWN2:SoZ. Heroes 3 only when the wife wants to play a bit (on the computer that is...).

[Marius Dynamite]

I've been playing Gears of War 2 and CoD:WaW recently..

Gears: Decent game but the lag is really bad online. Why did they set it to 5v5 when it barely worked 4v4 in the original?! Of course when you ask Cliff Bleszinski he says the extra 2 guys are irrelevent as "people will be dying and stuff" how does that reduce lag man?!?

Its not too bad if the host is from Britain, so why not give me the matchmaking option to only search for British or European hosts and do likewise for Americans?

CoD: Not a big fan of CoD5 and never really liked CoD4. The whole "I saw you first so I kill you!!" style of play is not for me. Not to mention the insta-explode grenades because of cooking and people just sitting in a corner and killing everything that runs past.

Well its almost Christmas anyway. I'm expecting Fifa09, Fallout 3 and Fable 2 which should keep me occupied for a while at least.

On a side not I recently went into the local LAN centre to try some games on their PCs. WOW games are so awesome on those PCs. Graphics full, no lag.. excellent. I had a massive game of Medieval 2 and a few online games of Company of Heroes.. awesome. I'll have to go in and try Crysis at some point and organise a big 4v4 of Company of Heroes. I already played a 2v2 tourny of Gears2 on its release date. Got to the Semi-finals then lost hard

[Shieldmaiden]

I am playing:

Far Cry Woohoo! I'd forgotten how much I enjoy FPS. Its challenging me and its cool, only gotten to the Aircraft Carrier though It reminds me why I upgraded my PC!

I might buy Prey too and continue shooting stuff into the New Year.

Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots A favourite, I like the AoE and Civ series and its similiar IMHO.

Spore Well... shallow. Its fun creating stuff to meet. I wish I'd waited for it to drop in price...

Thinking of buying Prey, Sid Meier's Pirates! and Heroes of Might and Magic III & IV Double Pack for £10 (lots of 3-for-£10 offers in the UK). Plus Medieval 2 and Kingdoms next year.

[Martok]

Ages ago, before patches and player-made AI mods. Now with both, along with some help with some other mods, I am thoroughly enjoying NWN2.

Would you recommend it then? I've been kind itching for a decent single-player RPG for a while now, but the original NWN is now obviously long in the tooth, and most other recent offerings (Oblivion, The Witcher, etc.) just haven't appealed to me very much.

[Kekvit Irae]

Would you recommend it then? I've been kind itching for a decent single-player RPG for a while now, but the original NWN is now obviously long in the tooth, and most other recent offerings (Oblivion, The Witcher, etc.) just haven't appealed to me very much.

So long as you install Tony_K's Companion & Creature AI mod, then the answer is a resounding YES.

The Original Campaign is more engaging than the OC of NWN1, moreso with the fact that EmoPaladinWithCleavage isn't even mentioned. Mask of the Betrayer adds a very interesting concept to your OC character by requiring him/her to eat souls to survive, and simplifies the party influence system. Storm of Zehir brings the game back to its roots with Icewind Dale-style parties; create 4 characters of your own and have two additional NPCs join in, or just create one super character and fill out the rest of the slots with all the NPCs. SoZ also has an overworld map to travel on, rather than a painted TGA file, and you spend much of your time moving and exploring the world as you would normally (only on a much larger scale).

NWN2 is a definite buy. The NPCs alone make it worthwhile. My personal favorite is Khelgar Ironfist, a dwarven fighter who lives for only one thing: beating the crap out of people with his bare fists. You spend much of the game- should you wish, since it's merely a subplot- helping him be a monk. Grobnar Gnomehands, the gnome bard, is the closest NWN2 has to good ol' Minsc and Boo.

Oh, and if you do pick up NWN2, be sure to download LuteHero.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n0vmCqv5yo

[frogbeastegg]

Naruto -> Finished. The final side quests in each type are annoying, so I'm leaving them. Otherwise it was a good game and I shall play the sequel one day.

At this point I'm afraid the friendly frog stops. The biting, nasty frog takes over.

Prince of Persia -> Abandoned before I snap the disc and/or hurl the controller through the TV. I can't recall another game which has made me want to do that! Normally the worst I do when annoyed by a game is growl quietly. PoP has me screaming abuse at the prince, the controls, Elika, the level design, the development team, and any and all enemies. That's it. I'm done with this series unless they get rid of these 'easy' and 'simple' 'newbie friendly' controls and utterly rubbish combat! This is one of the most disappointing, frustrating, counter-intuitive, poorly thought out, impossible to control, and just GAH! games I have ever had the misfortune to play. And to think it ended up that way because the developers were attempting to make it simple, frustration free and accessable to people who don't play games.

I started Fable II. It's the bestest game evar!!1! It's got 2 play modes. The first is teh aw3some and it totally rocks! I get to watch a microsoft logo in amazing 3d glory! Then there's this never-ending black screen which is, like, deeply meaningful, and the most amazingly deep thing ever to been seen in a game, like, ever! Worth £29.99 for that alone! The second mode is - amazingly! - even better because it's interactive. I press A on 'install to HD'; and then this bar moves up a bit. This part of the game's really hard because I only get to 2% before it pops up a message and says I have to try again! That's hardcore 1337 oldstyle difficulty, man!

In less acidicly 'humorous' words, my launch limited edition copy of Fable II is an expensive coaster because it's one of the many which didn't burn correctly. There aren't any limited editions left for me to swap it with, so I'll have to downgrade and lose the bonus dungeons and content I paid for, or buy another copy. For reasons which defy the combined intellect of humankind, I'm oddly reluctant to do either. I do wonder why.

Despite the fact the game has worked for all of half a microsoft splash screen it's still plastered itself on my gamercard. That's the last nail in the coffin of my half-hearted caring about my gamerscore and achievements.

So much for the spell of nice, relaxing, enjoyable gaming I've been looking forward to throughout the past 6 weeks of crazy overtime and work related stress. :considers ditching gaming in favour of learning calligraphy or something:

[Martok]

Kek: Many thanks for the feedback on NWN2. Will maybe have to try and check it out, methinks (whenever I have time to play games again, that is).

I started Fable II. It's the bestest game evar!!1! It's got 2 play modes. The first is teh aw3some and it totally rocks! I get to watch a microsoft logo in amazing 3d glory! Then there's this never-ending black screen which is, like, deeply meaningful, and the most amazingly deep thing ever to been seen in a game, like, ever! Worth £29.99 for that alone! The second mode is - amazingly! - even better because it's interactive. I press A on 'install to HD'; and then this bar moves up a bit. This part of the game's really hard because I only get to 2% before it pops up a message and says I have to try again! That's hardcore 1337 oldstyle difficulty, man!

Wow. I can't decide if that was really funny, or really scary. I think both....

[Kekvit Irae]

I decided to take a break from NWN2 and start on Fable II.
You know a game is epic when one of the buyable items are CONDOMS and you meet a pedophile during the first two minutes of the game.

I created a male character and started wooing every woman I came across. Once I got engaged to one, I started to slap her. Repeatedly. If she's going to be my wife, she'll need to learn to fear me like I was Rick James.
I don't know what was more amusing... the fact that nobody in town really cared about the blatant physical abuse, or the fact that my fiancee loved it.