I downloaded it overnight a few days ago.
Running the game on default average settings, and my gtx970 seems to be doing just fine with it. I'm not one for counting fps rates, as long as the game runs "smooth enough". I'm definitely pulling at least 30fps, by just comparing to how it looked when I tried the option to lock it at 30.
Am really enjoying the Mummy Demasted on the Switch and just about coming to the end of it now - great Metroid-esque game, absolutely nothing at all like the usual dubious movie tie-ins!
Compel wrote: I finished that Civ 6 game. Turns out I was on Warlord difficulty.
I've got to say, overall, yeah, it was kinda boring. I mean, I played hours and hours of it over the week, but still yeah, kinda boring.
I've come to the same conclusion. I've gone back to playing Civ 4 with the 'epic next war' mod actually, and immediately found it more engaging.
I didn't realise how much I missed having little workers gradually going around and fixing stuff, one of the areas the new one missed out on as far as I'm concerned
With the recent upsurge of modders for BL2, I’ve been coaxed back into the game with the objective of “mod the gak out of it until I don’t need to save edit, abuse read-only, or farm for hours to get through the endgame.” The mods themselves break down to about 25% modded snipers, 25% custom weapons designed to be as overpowered as possible, 25% misc. weapon/gear mods, and 25% actual content changes, so a lot of it will be messing around with different weapons until I find a mix that fixes the main game’s inadequacies.
Operation Chimera has been released for R6 Siege and I've been playing it a few times a day now. Good fun, I've come to enjoy playing it as Ash, racking up a nice kill ratio every time I play. I just need to remember chucking flashbangs more often..
So far, aside from one game, every session had one player picking Kapkan. From personal experiences, if you play with a Kapkan and the Lord himself, you're in for a good time when you need to dig in. Toss in Finka and you've got yourself a Russian dreamteam, complete with doping.
I've also discovered that while people play Doc a lot, they're almost all pretty stingy with their health shots, preferring to go in shotgun blazing and not sharing any heals with downed players.
BrookM wrote: Operation Chimera has been released for R6 Siege and I've been playing it a few times a day now. Good fun, I've come to enjoy playing it as Ash, racking up a nice kill ratio every time I play. I just need to remember chucking flashbangs more often..
So far, aside from one game, every session had one player picking Kapkan. From personal experiences, if you play with a Kapkan and the Lord himself, you're in for a good time when you need to dig in. Toss in Finka and you've got yourself a Russian dreamteam, complete with doping.
I've also discovered that while people play Doc a lot, they're almost all pretty stingy with their health shots, preferring to go in shotgun blazing and not sharing any heals with downed players.
I've primarily been playing Lion with his Vector-MG. I pop my Drone, light 'em up, then fire a few shots into the air to get their attention and my friend and I hunker down. I go prone to shoot the legs out from under the infected, he follows on as Finka with shotguns to mop up.
Our random third just generally tends to do whatever.
Split my time between Vermintide 2, which is, aside from one or two "That's bs, go feth yourself!" moments, super enjoyable, and R6 Siege, deciding to play Terrorist Hunt with randoms as the payout is better there. For the most part, good. Just one defense scenario where the Tachanka player had it out for me as Frost, despite putting my traps not anywhere near the mincing fething witch.
But at least I finally unlocked that paint job I've wanted for a while now, so I can stop with bothering with that tumor.
I have been playing a lot of TW Rome 2 as the Nabatean faction as of late, witch is rather amusing. I have by the use of allies and satraps conquerd all of the near east and greece alongside North Africa, but somehow the Romans and a metric ton of angry Germans have been hurling themselvs at my pike formations, so I Guess my plans for a peaceful Conquest of Europa is dead. But then again, a bit of genocide can also be fun
Trondheim wrote: I have been playing a lot of TW Rome 2 as the Nabatean faction as of late, witch is rather amusing. I have by the use of allies and satraps conquerd all of the near east and greece alongside North Africa, but somehow the Romans and a metric ton of angry Germans have been hurling themselvs at my pike formations, so I Guess my plans for a peaceful Conquest of Europa is dead. But then again, a bit of genocide can also be fun
Ha! In my Roman campaign, the Nabatean's have conquered the entirety of the Arab peninsula, Egypt, south of Egypt and all the way up north to Antioch and to the west, south of Carthage. About to do the opposite to what you are planning.
Trondheim wrote: I have been playing a lot of TW Rome 2 as the Nabatean faction as of late, witch is rather amusing. I have by the use of allies and satraps conquerd all of the near east and greece alongside North Africa, but somehow the Romans and a metric ton of angry Germans have been hurling themselvs at my pike formations, so I Guess my plans for a peaceful Conquest of Europa is dead. But then again, a bit of genocide can also be fun
Ha! In my Roman campaign, the Nabatean's have conquered the entirety of the Arab peninsula, Egypt, south of Egypt and all the way up north to Antioch and to the west, south of Carthage. About to do the opposite to what you are planning.
Been playing a lot of Into the Breach and Subnautica lately.
Into the breach really shows it's FTL roots but is a radically different game. I really love/hate how it makes you think about every move and there's almost no RNG shenanigans. When you screw up or succeed, it's on you and no one else.
Subnautica is just an awesome game. It's what I always wanted Minecraft and all the other survival games to be, a game with an awesome world, true exploration, and a really immersive experience. I'm just sad that it's not going to be very replayable, but that said the story lasts a good 20-30 hours depending on how you play so you definitely get your money's worth. The sound design is incredible with headphones on, I'll never forget the sound of the ghost Leviathan, that thing is what nightmares are made of.
Other than that I got an SNES classic that my brother modified for me for Christmas. Been replaying all kinds of classic SNES titles and even a few that never came to the USA like Super Famicom Wars. Some crazy person translated it so it's been a good fix for my Advance Wars itch since it seems like intelligent systems wont release a new game without waifus hamfisted into it. Actually has some really cool mechanics compared to newer Advance wars titles and I'm amazed at how smart the AI is. Some of the map designs are weird but it's clear this game is meant to be an uphill battle and not a tightly mirror matched system. If it had a map editor it would be just about perfect.
Slay the spire. I’m very busy with studies but I find it to be a good hour or so unwind game in the evenings. Not much for card games so I chose to view it as an rpg where the cards are your skills and abilities. Reminds me of Baten Kaitos for the GameCube.
Jumped into Vermintide II. Super fun. So far, I've just been going with... Hektor? The Landschnekt Empire soldier. Think I'm going to try Sienna, the Bright Wizard, next.
My son recently got into the Guitar Hero thing. He bought 3 games for ps2 for a few bucks. We've been rocking the frack out on the surround sound in my livingroom. Forgot how fun these games were. Hes WAAAAY better then I was/am so Im the dedicated bass player
I'm killing "Settra" and other "Tomb Kings" in Assassins' Creed: Origins. They just released the Curse of the Pharaoh DLC in which mummies are attacking Thebes (hence my personal head canon that Nagash is to blame, and so far, the quest hasn't proved me wrong, yet)
Anvildude wrote: Hey, Bass is an artform, man. You gotta have groove to play Bass.
Not to mention playing the bass in Run to the Hills is death to your hand.
So, yeah, have fun with that
One of my housemates had the guitar hero and rock band games on his PS3 at university, complete with drums and mic, so we often had house jams. Good times
Still playing lots of Fortnite Save the World (not battle royale). I like the holiday events and characters they've been doing.
Also been getting back into Overwatch. They've added lots of new characters since I played last, but I still always go back to Mercy. Funny because I always hated being a healer in RPGs like WOW, but I don't mind it in Overwatch at all.
I'm looking forwards to Brigitte myself. There's so many times where the team's missing both a Tank and a Healer, and I'm like, I'm cool with either of those positions, but I wanna fill both!
Necros wrote: Still playing lots of Fortnite Save the World (not battle royale). I like the holiday events and characters they've been doing.
Also been getting back into Overwatch. They've added lots of new characters since I played last, but I still always go back to Mercy. Funny because I always hated being a healer in RPGs like WOW, but I don't mind it in Overwatch at all.
Been getting back in to Overwatch a bit more recently. Playing a lot of Moira and loving her.
Also about to finish FFXV just in time to dive in to some booty in Sea of Thieves tonight. Which is probably going to be taking up a lot of my time soon.
I was all into Sea of Thieves, but after playing the open beta I decided against it. It can be fun if you have a good group and everyone chatting and working together, but most of the time I was sailing with a silent crew that did nothing and I found it to be really boring most of the time. I think it's the kinda game where you need a good core group of friends to play with.
I'll probably pick it up eventually but right now I'm still focused on Fortnite, Save the World has been hella-addictive for us.
Anvildude wrote: Jumped into Vermintide II. Super fun. So far, I've just been going with... Hektor? The Landschnekt Empire soldier. Think I'm going to try Sienna, the Bright Wizard, next.
How is Vermintide? I’ve heard good things about it and was considering picking it up. Is it taxing on your system?
Anvildude wrote: Jumped into Vermintide II. Super fun. So far, I've just been going with... Hektor? The Landschnekt Empire soldier. Think I'm going to try Sienna, the Bright Wizard, next.
How is Vermintide? I’ve heard good things about it and was considering picking it up. Is it taxing on your system?
My system... is not taxable. I've got a powerhouse computer for doing 3D animation, so video games don't ever have issues on it.
On the 'fun' aspect- it's fantastic. Pretty much everyone enjoyed Left for Dead, and Vermintide takes that idea- 4 people fighting hordes of enemies, and polishes it really well. Vermintide 2 has Nurgle Chaos in it as well, and that starts adding a LOT more tactical acumen to the gameplay- the Warriors with their heavy armour are immune to most attacks except heavy or AP weapons, the Skaven specials like Rat Ogres, Stormfiends, Ratling Gunners and Plaguewind Globadiers are all different challenges. It's great.
There's no sprint, which is about the only negative on it, but it makes sense for the game.
Necros wrote: I was all into Sea of Thieves, but after playing the open beta I decided against it. It can be fun if you have a good group and everyone chatting and working together, but most of the time I was sailing with a silent crew that did nothing and I found it to be really boring most of the time. I think it's the kinda game where you need a good core group of friends to play with.
I'll probably pick it up eventually but right now I'm still focused on Fortnite, Save the World has been hella-addictive for us.
That is fair. I have a pretty big core of friends getting it for high sea shenanigans so it is perfect for us. Playing solo would probably be eh, though the Sloop is really easy to run with 1 person. Which beta did you play in? This latest open beta had a lot more of the options unlocked in it, even though it was the same client as the stress test they did a couple weeks earlier. A little more content, maybe even some solo stuff.
Trying to play Sea of Thieves for the PC but the download keeps running. Game size is 19.6G but when it gets to that point my download speed tanks and it just idles there downloading forever. I let it run to over 21 gigs downloaded and the progress bar never moved.
TWM-players have created a community in Discord for regular online gaming in the Titanium Wars Mod for Dawn of War Soulstorm:
https://discord.gg/uKxVdsR JOIN IT NOW!!!
Played Deep Rock Galactic with my brother for a couple of hours, it plays best in coop and we managed to survive a couple of ops, him a gunner, me a driller. We've not been hit by greed yet, only mining the required amounts and pulling out again before it becomes too risky, but sooner or later it's bound to happen.
Rather, it really depends on the company doing the project as GW's scattergun approach has shown, for every pile of poorly done games, there's at least one decent one, or in this case, a damned good one, YMMV.
It's also very competitively priced right now (€27,99), though this is probably due to upcoming DLC expansions, which isn't a bad thing per say (YMMV and IMHO), as with Payday 2, which also sold at a lower price upon initial release, more content, both paid and free, was released over time at a steady pace.
I'm seriously thinking of upgrading my game to the deluxe edition, not because of the bonus content, which is mainly ingame cosmetics, but because the devs have done a great job and deserve it.
Deathklaat wrote: Trying to play Sea of Thieves for the PC but the download keeps running. Game size is 19.6G but when it gets to that point my download speed tanks and it just idles there downloading forever. I let it run to over 21 gigs downloaded and the progress bar never moved.
I'm curious/looking forwards to the cosmetic stuff. Is there anything to that system in the current game, aside from illusions? (Which I just can't wrap my head around- like, can you make an axe look like a hammer, or something?)
Dabbling in a bit of Hitman since the Sapienza level is free at the moment... I think it's going to go into the same category as Prey and Dishonored, a fantastically built stealth game I enjoy immensely but am also terrible at...
Ok, I've only played for a couple of hours so there's probably a lot I'm missing, but I see the 'Suit Only+Silent Assassin' challenge on some levels and it just can't comprehend how you'd even do that (without, say, a silent Sniper Rifle I don't have access to at this point).
I know it can be done, but at the moment my main strategy is to find an empty room, take a few silenced pistol shots at the target and cheese it out of there hoping everyone's too distracted by the body to notice... hardly the most professional method!
Anvildude wrote: I'm curious/looking forwards to the cosmetic stuff. Is there anything to that system in the current game, aside from illusions? (Which I just can't wrap my head around- like, can you make an axe look like a hammer, or something?)
I got an alternate helmet for mercenary Markus and have my orange halberd illusioned to be more ornate from a sergeants halberd I found, and have an illusion i can use on my handrifle as well if/when i get an orange.
Edit: but i dont think you can make a sword an axe, or anything, just glowy and more ornate versions of the same weapon.
Finally finished Shadow of Mordor last night, what a great game though I do feel that the final boss fight was a bit of a let down the one mid way through the game was a lot better. Still not sure what game I'm gonna start up next, so many games sitting there so little time!
Started a new game of Pillars of Eternity and decided to make a magic heavy character. And it has been challenging to say the least, I think I have sunk too many hours into playing as a Warrior or Paladin like class over the years in various RPGs
Deathklaat wrote: Trying to play Sea of Thieves for the PC but the download keeps running. Game size is 19.6G but when it gets to that point my download speed tanks and it just idles there downloading forever. I let it run to over 21 gigs downloaded and the progress bar never moved.
Sounds like you weren't the only person having issues
Watched people 'playing' it. It... has water physics? Mostly an absolute void of content, though.
Trondheim wrote: Started a new game of Pillars of Eternity and decided to make a magic heavy character. And it has been challenging to say the least, I think I have sunk too many hours into playing as a Warrior or Paladin like class over the years in various RPGs
Hmm. I was trying to finish a playthrough so I had the story i wanted for when the sequel came out, but the delay of the release rather killed my interest in wrapping it up. But after about level 5 or so, magic heavy characters have it much easier than melee folks. Hit groups with status effects (preferably paralyze) and just dump AoEs on them.
Necromancer on Diablo 3. The Pestilence Corpse Lance set kills pretty good... for about 15s a minute, where the rest of the time you are running around screaming with nothing to do and dying if you run into a closed door.
@ Voss : Yea I sorta figured that out, I did reach lvl 7 this morning after a few rather violent and unexpeced encounters With cultist and various monsters, witch somehow my group killed. Also I found a fair few items that helps.
Deathklaat wrote: Trying to play Sea of Thieves for the PC but the download keeps running. Game size is 19.6G but when it gets to that point my download speed tanks and it just idles there downloading forever. I let it run to over 21 gigs downloaded and the progress bar never moved.
Sounds like you weren't the only person having issues
Watched people 'playing' it. It... has water physics? Mostly an absolute void of content, though.
Trondheim wrote: Started a new game of Pillars of Eternity and decided to make a magic heavy character. And it has been challenging to say the least, I think I have sunk too many hours into playing as a Warrior or Paladin like class over the years in various RPGs
Hmm. I was trying to finish a playthrough so I had the story i wanted for when the sequel came out, but the delay of the release rather killed my interest in wrapping it up. But after about level 5 or so, magic heavy characters have it much easier than melee folks. Hit groups with status effects (preferably paralyze) and just dump AoEs on them.
Easily the best thing about Sea of Thieves is the ship combat. The water physics are really good though and the content/content diversity is pretty gak though. However, if you are in to super intense hour long battles with multiple ships and risking your entire stash of booty, this game is absolutely amazing.
I love it. It definitely has its faults, but I am hoping that they toss out some content updates to really flesh it out.
Ship combat just seemed like endless respawns and no point or purpose. Just killing the same small group over and over again until one side gets bored and wanders off. Given the strict limits on players per server (24), just running into other people seems a matter of luck.
On the way up, was assured by the radioman who saved me that I wouldn't have to do it again. Yay!
Definitely think there will be a psychedelic/dream sequence though, as I found some canisters leaking a gas of some sort that caused blurred vision. Boo!
There is waaaaaay too much going on in this game. Saw a bull running around in an apple farm and went to investigate. The bull killed 4 cultists before it was run over by a cult supply tuck which promptly drove off. Looting the bodies and bull carcass, I then rescued a hostage at a small compound across from this weird engagement. Then a cult patrol drove up, get ready for a gunfight, baby! Then it was attacked by a wolverine or some such before I fired a single shot in anger. Once they took care of themselves, another car drove up(civilians this time) and slammed into the cult patrol. Then, from the other direction, a cult supply truck started shooting at me and I destroyed and looted it. This is all within the space of 2 minutes, max, and 30-45 minutes into the game proper, right off the tutorial island.
Ran into the woods and saved the game, as it was late when it went live. Hopefully I was just in a high traffic area and this isn't indicative of what I can expect going forward. If it is, the random encounters like these will quickly lose importance and my motivation to complete them will wither, and they'll become a burden rather than a feature.
The game is a bit busy, but for me it was nowhere near as crazy as that.
I did have the misfortune of rescuing someone, only for her to be killed by a wolverine before I could untie her. I've also died an insane amount of times already, despite playing it on easy. I need to get back into the mindset of the game again.
Liking it so far, though the whole "DOOMSDAY PREPPERS ARE RIGHT" angle is a bit.. worrying.
BrookM wrote: I've also died an insane amount of times already, despite playing it on easy. I need to get back into the mindset of the game again.
I put it on hard right out of the gate. I died about 10 times in the house with the DEA agent, and double that in the car chase right after. Once I got good at head shots, it was a breeze though. I tend to enjoy this franchise more when it punishes you for mistakes or carelessness.
Looking forward to digging into it some more tonight!
This game is a bit frenetic with the random events alright. Rescued a prisoner, only to have him mauled to death by a turkey.
Also driving around in a heavy pickup and saw a bear running towards me, so I naturally gunned it and decided to run the bear over. I killed the bear (and got roadkill meat from the carcass) but also more or less totaled the truck.
New Homefront and Doom: did anyone play these? I'm noticing them on sale for cheeeeeeap as part of the Xbox Spring Sale and was looking for insight since both say they have coop.
New Doom is fantastic. My favourite shooter in years. Oldschool run and gun with some more modern design elements as well. The Glory Kill system creates a momentum that you don't get in shooters these days - essentially enemies become your health and ammo packs when you melee kill them after staggering them with ranged fire, so you're always moving and always killing.
BrookM wrote: This game is a bit frenetic with the random events alright. Rescued a prisoner, only to have him mauled to death by a turkey.
Also driving around in a heavy pickup and saw a bear running towards me, so I naturally gunned it and decided to run the bear over. I killed the bear (and got roadkill meat from the carcass) but also more or less totaled the truck.
Sounds about right. Hitting a bear will total your truck.
Kanluwen wrote: New Homefront and Doom: did anyone play these? I'm noticing them on sale for cheeeeeeap as part of the Xbox Spring Sale and was looking for insight since both say they have coop.
It's DOOM, not Doom, thank you very much. And the coop is a bit misleading as the main story is singleplayer only, the snap-map feature, which allows you to create and download challenge maps, is cooperative instead.
But as is, DOOM is a damned good shooter and a homage to the franchise and genre as a whole.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
-Loki- wrote: New Doom is fantastic. My favourite shooter in years. Oldschool run and gun with some more modern design elements as well. The Glory Kill system creates a momentum that you don't get in shooters these days - essentially enemies become your health and ammo packs when you melee kill them after staggering them with ranged fire, so you're always moving and always killing.
What makes it even better, the bestest, is that the daemons know they're fethed, they're scared shitless of you and well.. you are their worst nightmare.
Trondheim wrote: DOOM is amazing, both for the gameplay and the soundtrack
Indeed. The way they got the music to perfectly fit with what you're doing without it ever seeming jarring is really impressive.
Though Doom and Doom 2 both had awesome soundtracks. They're both a case of recognise the metal song from people like Pantera, Megadeth, Pantera again, Alice in Chains etc.
I think there's a demo for Doom on the online store it might be worth a look it gave me a good insight into the game and how it plays, I really wasn't a fan of Doom myself but just about everyone else I've ever spoken too about it have loved it.
nels1031 wrote: Climbed the first radio tower in Farcry 5...
On the way up, was assured by the radioman who saved me that I wouldn't have to do it again. Yay!
Definitely think there will be a psychedelic/dream sequence though, as I found some canisters leaking a gas of some sort that caused blurred vision. Boo!
There is waaaaaay too much going on in this game. Saw a bull running around in an apple farm and went to investigate. The bull killed 4 cultists before it was run over by a cult supply tuck which promptly drove off. Looting the bodies and bull carcass, I then rescued a hostage at a small compound across from this weird engagement. Then a cult patrol drove up, get ready for a gunfight, baby! Then it was attacked by a wolverine or some such before I fired a single shot in anger. Once they took care of themselves, another car drove up(civilians this time) and slammed into the cult patrol. Then, from the other direction, a cult supply truck started shooting at me and I destroyed and looted it. This is all within the space of 2 minutes, max, and 30-45 minutes into the game proper, right off the tutorial island.
Ran into the woods and saved the game, as it was late when it went live. Hopefully I was just in a high traffic area and this isn't indicative of what I can expect going forward. If it is, the random encounters like these will quickly lose importance and my motivation to complete them will wither, and they'll become a burden rather than a feature.
From what I've seen, that was fairly low key. Random encounters on the road quickly turn into 10+ car pileups with bears and cougars randomly attacking from the woods. Leaving and circling back to an outpost you've just taken can lead to an immediate cult attack.
Frankly, you'll kill more people in the first couple hours than actually live in 'remote Montana counties'. There are scores of hunters\stores just wandering around the hills just waiting to sell you things and get mauled to death by the thousands of members of (apparently rabid) endangered species that have overrun Montana.
Don't forget that every person out there is a prepper who has a bunker under their house stocked with canned food, guns, ammo and bibles, because the world is going to end soon.
I met a character from the 3rd and 4th game, though it was more a cameo than anything else. I've also decided to go about things solo for the most part, as the AI pathfinding is quite annoying, not to mention, THEY NEVER SHUT UP.
BrookM wrote: I met a character from the 3rd and 4th game, though it was more a cameo than anything else. I've also decided to go about things solo for the most part, as the AI pathfinding is quite annoying, not to mention, THEY NEVER SHUT UP.
Yep, I made the decision to solo it within 2 minutes of rescuing whoever the first dude was. Would randomly charge up a mountain to attack an unseen patrol or was constantly mouthing off about the incoming unseen patrol.
I had somewhat high hopes for the companions in this game too, as the previous Ubi game I got, Ghost Recon: Wildlands, I found the companions to be chatty but useful. Maybe I haven't gotten deep enough to put the companions to good use, but so far I've not been impressed.
Spec Ops: The Line. Amazing game with one of the best stories, deconstructing the typical violence in games (through violence :S). Would definitely recommend
CommissarCain15 wrote: Spec Ops: The Line. Amazing game with one of the best stories, deconstructing the typical violence in games (through violence :S). Would definitely recommend
It was a great game but by the end I think you must kill like 1,000 Americans which kind of defeated the point of what it was trying to do.
CommissarCain15 wrote: Spec Ops: The Line. Amazing game with one of the best stories, deconstructing the typical violence in games (through violence :S). Would definitely recommend
It was a great game but by the end I think you must kill like 1,000 Americans which kind of defeated the point of what it was trying to do.
It was more the choices you had to make and the way it always felt bad killing those soldiers (compared to CoD where you just shoot Russians and people from the Middle East). Plus ****SPOILER**** after the middle section where you are forced to use the gas, it clearly becomes clear that Walker is not a hero, and his actions, whilst you can see his justification behind them, were clearly wrong
I'm SO confused about the beam staff. In all the high-level gameplay I've seen of her, people do this odd 'pulse' with it against enemies, instead of focusing, and I'm not entirely sure how they do it.
There's this mechanic they have in the game, called 'Weapon Special' that, as far as I can tell, has ONE use- Victor Saltszpire's rapier has an ammo free pistol shot you can use with it (it's a keybinding) but as far as I can tell, no other weapon has a 'special'- perhaps that's the beam staff's thing?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, Unchained is the BOMB.
Recently finished Tales from the Borderlands. Fantastic story game, lots of laughs and even some feels. Highly recommend.
Working through Dishonoured 3 (Death of the Outsider). More of the same sneaky whale-oil powered goodness we know and love. Really enjoying Billie as the protagonist, and the new powers are fun.
CommissarCain15 wrote: Spec Ops: The Line. Amazing game with one of the best stories, deconstructing the typical violence in games (through violence :S). Would definitely recommend
It was a great game but by the end I think you must kill like 1,000 Americans which kind of defeated the point of what it was trying to do.
It was more the choices you had to make and the way it always felt bad killing those soldiers (compared to CoD where you just shoot Russians and people from the Middle East). Plus ****SPOILER**** after the middle section where you are forced to use the gas, it clearly becomes clear that Walker is not a hero, and his actions, whilst you can see his justification behind them, were clearly wrong
That was definitely a crazy part but I think it would have been more impactful if you didn't then kill like a 1,000 guys who look exactly the same but that will always be the weakness of a video game or at least shooters.
Total War: Warhammer and Dark Souls 3. Have been playing DS3 for a while but got stuck on the Lord of Cinder. I've done all the other bosses including the Nameless King (No DLC) but for some reason he's been a bit of an ass.
I've taken a break from DS3 to give TW:W a go. I bought it when it first came out but had never played a TW game before so struggled with it and gave up. Decided to sit down proper now and am enjoying it. Still not doing so well but will continue until I have conquered the Old World. My first run where I just went nuts seems to have been my best go so far and subsequent tries have been harder
Liking it so far, though the whole "DOOMSDAY PREPPERS ARE RIGHT" angle is a bit.. worrying.
For me there's a duality/dichotomy going on with that. . . There are preppers who were on the side of The Father who we are rightly worried about, then there's the ones you rescue who aren't/weren't that type of religious. The thing that worries me more, is the (very) minor grumblings from a certain sector of America where people are saying that they are being wrongly "targeted" by the VG industry due to the nature of the main antagonist of the game. . . There is a large middle section on the Venn diagram of "targeted person" complaining about this game, and people who said the same thing about Wolfenstein 2.
I am glad that they've made driving/piloting vehicles a bit easier. I think it was 4 that I played where auto-pilot vehicles went slower than I could run, but if I drove my self, I was "making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs" fast.
Still plugging away at wild lands after picking it up for the PS4 the other week.
Have run in to the predator and well that sucked after being blown to bits for the forth time, but have seen the trailer for good old Sam Fischer making the trip to Bolivia last night.
It’s a shame we’ve still not had a full splinter cell yet.
I gave up on the Predator, they made it too much of a bullet sponge and its attacks can easily wipe you out in a matter of minutes, forcing you to start the fight over again.
The predator is very tough. As you get very short openings to hit him, I recommend using a high powered sniper rifle with a low magnification scope over an assault rifle. Laying down a load of mines and C-4 can also get you some nice damage, just have to wait until its in the blast radius before you set them off.
I found circling around the rock near the ammo box was the best bet. It allowed me to get cover from every angle to avoid his shots and also to save time on reloading by just restocking at the ammo box (which takes less time than reloading some of the sniper rifles.
Also, make sure you get your AI team mates up quickly after they go down, as they're completely incapable of dodging the preds attacks but you'll need them to save you if you get hit.
Cheers for the tips bud, have only tried the fight 3 or 4 times. Usually take a sniper and lmg. Plus call in some rebels before I go in to the circle.
Will try laying down some mines like you said, I did find a sweet spot that was between some rocks and trees which was going well until I got caught on the edge of the blast from his shoulder cannon. Argh.
Yes, call in rebel support and send them to that location before entering the zone yourself, they make for good distraction cannon fodder at the very least.
And hiding between the rocks also helps, just be sure to book it when the Predator does actually manage to draw a bead on you.
I'm interested to see what the Splinter Cell content will be about. And yes for having Michael Ironside involved!
Yeah I’m pretty hyped for the splinter content, even if we get just a couple missions at most. Also nice to see that you can edit your team members load out too.
It's interesting that they're doing so much new content now all of the sudden.
Ubisoft is trying to get the most out of their Tom Clancy teams as they can. Look at R6, for example...Outbreak was a really cool departure from the norm for them but man was the usage of the Outbreak Packs disappointing!
The Outbreak packs were a blatant cash grab, though thankfully without any duplicates. Ditto on Wildlands, all of the sudden we've got boxes with cosmetics in them, though again no duplicates, but it feels rather.. pointless, as you are better off buying the relevant cosmetics packs and not gamble for them instead.
Damn the hell spawns that are loot boxes, hopefully those things will die a quick death in the games industry. Don’t mind a reasonably priced dlc.
Really don’t like the boxes and the matter dlc coming out pretty soon after a games release.
xKillGorex wrote: Damn the hell spawns that are loot boxes, hopefully those things will die a quick death in the games industry. Don’t mind a reasonably priced dlc. Really don’t like the boxes and the matter dlc coming out pretty soon after a games release.
Yeah...I don't mind loot boxes when done properly(see EA's handling; despite the whines from people their system is actually one of the better ones since playing the dang games will reward you with loot boxes and/or reasonably priced with in-game currency costs). What I do mind is like what BrookM says: when they're a blatant cash grab. Playing the Outbreak game mode rewarded you 0 loot boxes. You couldn't get them using the in-game currency, you couldn't get them from Achievements or Challenges tied to the event, etc.
Zero incentive to play the event. It's quite saddening since it was a fun event and there were some okay items in there.
The Outbreak event was fun, but beyond replaying the same three missions ad nauseum for charms, there was no real progress or incentive to keep on playing. Some say Ubisoft mainly used to even to gather data and to see to proceed from there.
And to also tread the waters with the Outbreak packs. Though I feel that discussion regarding the packs, loot boxes and the like would be best continued in a dedicated thread to the topic.
So, the Rainbow 6 Siege bug bit me just before the easter week. Starting out with next to no knowledge about the operators, mechanics and maps, it was really tough, but it helped immensely that 3 of my best friends play that game as well.
After playing nearly every day for 2 weeks (easter holidays for the win!), I got to say it is a great game, BUT, in my eyes, loses a lot of novelty when not played in a party of at least 3. But if you have a full party of 5 and jump into Teamspeak or Discord, it is just absolutely glorious. Trying out wierd tactics (and often trying way too hard to make some of them work, like a Dokkaebi/IQ-combo), callouts and just fun all around.
Single player-wise, I am getting ready to finally tackle Skyrim Special Edition. Most of the mods I feel are essential for Skyrim have been ported and the script extender is at least in an alpha (or is it a beta yet? Ah, no idea).
Warframe brought back Operation Plague Star, so I’ve been playing a lot of that for the exclusive rewards. I’m a bit pissed because the devs increased the difficulty massively and removed some of the exploits for farming quickly from the last time it was around but didn’t increase the rewards to compensate or add any variance to keep it interesting.
Playing WoW as usual, picked up Warframe again with my friends.
Friends make games so much better. I don't play much in the way of single player games anymore. Even with TWH2 I've played 99% versus campaigns and online.
It depends on the game. Vermintide is much better with buddies, and it's always nice to have someone to talk to and show off builds to in Minecraft, but a well-made singleplayer game like Morrowind or other Elder Scrolls games still stand on their own.
Late to the party, Total War Warhammer 1. As dwarfs I annihilated the greenskins, took every hold on the east side of the map and the outlying ones near the empire.
Then Archaon came by and tried his hand at fething with me. Grudgebearer and his 5 armies showed up and kicked that annoying bastard square in the nads.
Empire playthrough? Getting attacked from all sides, Altdorf is burning and I'm down to Franz and a single army. The age of man is over, but when we go it's going to be surrounded by the bodies of our enemies.
Frankenberry wrote: Late to the party, Total War Warhammer 1. As dwarfs I annihilated the greenskins, took every hold on the east side of the map and the outlying ones near the empire.
Then Archaon came by and tried his hand at fething with me. Grudgebearer and his 5 armies showed up and kicked that annoying bastard square in the nads.
Empire playthrough? Getting attacked from all sides, Altdorf is burning and I'm down to Franz and a single army. The age of man is over, but when we go it's going to be surrounded by the bodies of our enemies.
Yeah, Dwarves is by far the easiest of the races to play, in part because you're right up against the edge of the map and don't have to worry about being attacked from that direction.
On the other hand, that will change if Creative Assembly ever opens up the far side of that mountain range.
Beat Farcry 5, so now back into MLB the show, and holy crap is it pissing me off. . .
For those sports games fans who do the RPG mode of their games. . . ya know how you create a starter and begin racking incredible, video game type numbers?? Well, I've got a dude doing exactly this with his career, as a starting pitcher, and yet. . . mysteriously, despite putting up literally the best numbers on the damn team. . . he's sitting out, rotting in the bullpen as a fething relief pitcher.
So, I've been DMing a DnD 5e game for almost a year straight now, with other games DMed here and there. I have such a craving for more DnD lately it's crazy.
Needless to say when I found out that Neverwinter Nights was Enhanced and Remastered, I hopped on that immediately.
Tried out the New content for Ghost Reckon Wildlands last nigth, and well its decent and it got Sam Fischer but beside that I do not see myself playing it any further. I am hoping for this somehow tying in With a New Splinter Cell game
Lara Croft GO, which I got with a previous Humble Bundle. Wasn't expecting much, but it's a fun little puzzler that's more about thinking than twitching thankfully.
Played the Pheonix Point backer build last night. For a pre alpha build it’s surprisingly polished. It’s also very hard. Limited ammo took me by surprise. But I’ll forever be wishing for the free-aim mode in Xcom now.
A few years into Thrones of Brittania, playing as West Saexe(Wessex).
After a few aborted campaigns of false starts, misfires and lack of understanding new mechanics, I think I’ve got the hang of it. Promptly started with killing Alfreds sister and sister-in-law. Then I got my governors and generals some good quality wives. Built up 2 armies and focused on food production with one wary eye set on Alfreds nemesis Guthrum in East Angle and the other eye on Alfreds nephews, the offspring of the two ladies I assassinated right out of the gate. Once they are old enough I’ll kill them before they can rebel and potentially mess up my economy.
Once those two are dead, I’m marching to war against East Angle, which seems to be beefing with Mierce, as well as having at least one rebellion ongoing. Should be easy pickings!
This game has a different and distinct feel that I think that I like. I definitely don’t hate it. Some of the mechanics introduced add an extra layer of complexity and I like how the research tech tree works. It needs some modding love ASAP though. Playing on very hard is way too easy and battles just seem to barely last.
doing a test of my latest terraform in minecraft on SP whilst I figure out how to not annoy the server in general. plodding along in war thunder, and getting creamed in tank mode, whereas I do brilliantly in Aviation. I hate the MM, I always get uptiered to tier 4 rather than top 3, and that means lots of gakky deaths from higher firepower and lots of glances from lower pen. I hit six glances from solid hits on green locations.
Also doing some space station 13, but still chilling with that as the rebase goes through, which is annoying in some ways but in others is good.
I am thinking about getting desolate, just for weirdness and also getting the new mech commander game, just because I love mechs.
I've been playing a fair bit of Hearthstone- not their multiplayer, but their single player adventure mode. They started with Kobold and Catacombs, and it really makes for a very interesting game!
Fallout 1.5: Resurrection - a total conversion mod for Fallout 2.
Whilst searching the topic of total conversions I came across this charmer. A Czech mod translated into English which brings a whole new story to Fallout. Set in New Mexico between the first two games (before the Legion comes in and takes over years later), you play a wastelander who's lost their memory (did I mention you wake up in a cave full of mole rats? ...For reference, in the original Fallouts mole rats were the size of bears).
Its of a similar size to the original games, with plenty of quests. Now I would say that despite this I would have liked another couple of towns or more custom assets, but meh, mods (it did take them 10 years to make). Reviews had said that the English was bad, though I think that it must have had an update as I had no problem with it. I definitely prefer its tone compared to the newer games, where the default setting for every situation is "things have gone to hell", and its up to you to either improve things, or exploit them (most situations push you towards the later). Compared to 3 and 4's constant need to make you a goodie two shoes.
I would criticise the difficulty. Its not bad over time, though there's some situations which are too much. I can't see how you're supposed to complete the last location aggressively (rather than sneaking in). Enemies can crit you for 150 damage, or the sheer number of them doing 15-40 damage each would be enough to take out anyone. For reference I wound up cheating to give my character the best stats and armour to see how far you could make it, and they still died. Besides that, for anyone without the best equipment, Ghouls (one of the weakest enemies in the older games) are fairly tough. Two shots with an anti-material rifle with big guns maxed tough. ¬¬
Modders do love just making content hard, instead of carrying over the vanilla difficulty. Once you have a group of allies (hiring yourself out as a caravan guard is an essential way of making money) makes these encounters not as awful however.
Another issue was finding the higher tier weapons. Checking the game files there was a load of guns that I never found in the game (vendor loot respawns every day). The best weapons typically could be found in quests, though guns which would give you the edge before then in the harder content seemed lacking (I had an Assault rifle by the time I'd made it to the second major town. That was the highest tier small gun that I ever had drop - so I had to swap to big guns to remain viable in the end game).
Caps were a problem too. There was occasionally situations where vendors would offer an item through dialogue rather than their trading menu - meaning you had to give them the bare caps, instead of bartering. The problem being that you could have 10K worth of gear that you could trade, but the vendor only had 100 caps, so you couldn't purchase that 1K item they were offering (eventually I just gave myself 100K caps).
If you enjoyed the early games in the series I'd recommend this mod. It fits in with them game play wise quite well, with most large locations having a half dozen quests for each of the joinable factions in the area (typically 2-4). The tone's darker than the newer games, with many more opportunities for negative karma choices. "Wanna go abduct some tribals and harvest their organs? Hey, trade in that companion of your's and we'll give you a discount on your next transplant!"
PoE 2 and my mind is currently reeling from the sheer mindboggeling amount of detail and dept to this game. I am definilty enjoying the game and its atmosphere, even if someone seem to be cutting onions at certain times, making me shed water
Weirdly enough, Skyrim, again. My last runthrough was a wood elf sneaky archer (I know, I know) with illusion magic and two weapon fighting. I threw in some mods:
- Campfire and Frostfall - I just love the emergent gameplay and storylines caused by having to take shelter in dungeons from blizzards. Saw so much more of the game due to this.
- Immersive Patrols - to make it look like Skyrim actually had a war going on. These became prime werewolf fodder later
- Dragon Combat Overhaul - making the dragons much tougher and more dramatic to fight. Seems to also cause multiple dragons to spawn regularly though, slightly less sure how I feel about that.
- basic human needs - less annoying than the more popular INeed, makes me use the inns and care about food loot in dungeons. I enjoy that it makes me pay more attention to the game world.
- Cloaks - I think this is a requirement if you are running Frostfall.
I had loads of fun, but eventually I wanted to try an evil necromancer, so I installed 2 for a new play through along with the Bruma mod expansion.
Live Another Life: Alternate start - let me start as a shipwreck survivor washed up off the coast. Pretty hairy with Frostfall running. Could have gone for a Necromancer in a lab in Blackreach but I liked the idea of being in such a dramatic position from the start.
Path of Sorcery - a magic mod that keeps to the vanilla in most respects, but beefs up spellcasting as you level in a similar way to weapons. It also lets you make an army of skeletons by harvesting bones from corpses and soul gems. It's a struggle to keep them going because once they're dead they're dead, but it's awesome to run around with 4 archer/melee skeletons and 4 troll skeletons along with a summoned Fire Atronach and zap everyone with lightning.
Really fun so far. It's amazing how much mileage you can get out of this game with a few mods. I know it's fashionable to say Skyrim is crap these days and so on, but it's a really unique experience when played with the right mods and I've really rekindled my interest with them. No news to most of you, I know!
I'm back on a Fallout 4 kick at the moment. Getting back into a Survival Mode run that I left off earlier in the year did mean I took a while to get back into the swing of things (you have to play Survival cleverly, especially earlier in the game where resources can be limited) but it's clicked again now and I'm re-realising how much the new rules of Survival really make the game so much more engaging, tense and enjoyable.
Still got no idea if I'll have the patience to finish the run (it takes a lot longer in Survival as you have to really prepare for certain areas/events- even the simplest path to the end requires 2 trips into/out of the Glowing Sea, which is not fun!) but for the moment, I'm remembering why I love this game and this mode so much.
Modders do love just making content hard, instead of carrying over the vanilla difficulty.
Yea I've noticed this with mods myself, I love the theme and effort but modders love making things so difficult it just drives me away!
When playing open world games like Skyrim there's loads of mods for increasing the spawn rates or making enemies do more damage. Personally I wonder why there's no mods that I can remember which *decrease* the spawn rates. I feel like those worlds are too full of enemies, where its difficult to go a few minutes without the game throwing something at you as though you have no attention. Though Bethesda's games are the standard for open worlds which many company's follow, and their lead Todd Howard's design philosophy is that he wants to play the dumb warrior in a D&D campaign who acts like a movie action hero.
The same thing with weapons and armour I suppose. Quit adding the super powerful stuff and give me junk. Not everyone should be walking about looking like a Final Fantasy boss. Though I doubt that there's many modders who're into that end of things. People want the flashy stuff. Oh for overhauls that filled the levelled lists with crappy gear - if I wanted death rays I'd check out any other mod.
My own mod, in fact. See, I know enough about the game and modding that my big issue isn't finding other people's mods to add, but rather that there's too much which I want to add to it.
So far, my most 'fleshed out' is a 'Crafting Overhaul' I've been putting together that fixes the corundum issue, adds in more options for Draugr weapons (primarily by making them Bronze instead of steel- with the change in quality that entails) and fiddling with a couple other things. But I've also used it to add in simple clubs (super-low damage, but you only need a single firewood to craft) and the like. I gotta get back into it, I think- add in a variety of other wooden weapons- maybe a 'shiv' for a dagger, a mallet, a maul, that sort of stuff. Still need to design and add a bronze warhammer for the Drauger, though...
About 3/4th through a complete Pillars of Eternity playthrough.
I’d forgotten so much about the lore and my choices that when I got into PoE2 and it started quizzing me about my previous actions, or allowed a save game import for a Character I don’t even remember playing, I felt compelled to replay it so that its still fresh in my memory.
Story Mode for the win! Still get jacked up by the Adra Dragon...
My own mod, in fact. See, I know enough about the game and modding that my big issue isn't finding other people's mods to add, but rather that there's too much which I want to add to it.
So far, my most 'fleshed out' is a 'Crafting Overhaul' I've been putting together that fixes the corundum issue, adds in more options for Draugr weapons (primarily by making them Bronze instead of steel- with the change in quality that entails) and fiddling with a couple other things. But I've also used it to add in simple clubs (super-low damage, but you only need a single firewood to craft) and the like. I gotta get back into it, I think- add in a variety of other wooden weapons- maybe a 'shiv' for a dagger, a mallet, a maul, that sort of stuff. Still need to design and add a bronze warhammer for the Drauger, though...
Oh, to be honest when playing a game like Skyrim I wind up downloading a load of modder's resources/ overhaul mods and stripping out all the models. Then I build my own levelled lists from there. Porting Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and merging it with some of the other otherhauls into the Shivering Isles was a time sink (someone released their a patch for OOO years later, but as with many modders, I didn't release mine). Checking conflicts for hours is no fun at all. What do you mean I'm running too many scripts? Fine let's Google search how to convert an .esp into a .esm/ . bsa. :(
Still hacking away at Kingdom Hearts in preparation for the third one. I have beaten 1.5, Re:Chain of Memories, 2.5, and am on the last of the 3 stories for Birth by Sleep. Of course I also watched all of 358/2 Days cinematics before playing 2.5. Afterwards, on to 2.8!
Also playing Baldur's Gate on my phone while at work, and when on my PC I got back into Skyrim and finally beat the main storyline 7 years after starting my one and only save file. Thinking of starting fresh on Legendary difficulty. IF not, I'll be playing through KH2.5 on Critical Mode Level 1 to see how far I can get.
Started playing The Talos Principle. It's a fun puzzle game in a beautiful setting, and it raises some interesting philosophical questions as part of the narrative.
Wyrmalla I agree on the modding front, we need more mods to add bog standard equipment rather than world ending hyper swords!
Sounds like others in this thread are quite ambitious with modding, my only experience is using a .pak file editor to remove realm divide from Shogun 2:TW. I've never played an Elder Scrolls game though so maybe it is easier than I think :-p
I do love how many games are embracing modding now, Field of Glory II has a client within the game where I can just go an click the mod I want, and everything works without me needing to be a computer boffin!
Well, my 2 year long self imposed embargo of Pillars of Eternity 2 news+rumors to avoid spoilers seems to have backfired spectacularly.
So I spent roughly a week and a half replaying Pillars of Eternity 1 and xpacs to squeeze all the content I could, completed all quests/bounties, always chose benevolent speech options and such. I had expected the game to import my choices, abilities/spells and such(ala its spiritual liege, Baldurs Gate 1+2). Didn’t think the items or money would make the trip over to the new game, so wasn’t worried about that.
Turns out your character starts over anyway. feth me. I could’ve been knee deep in the new game by now, instead I was elated last night to finally finish (literally right before making the jump, you know which one if you played PoE)Grieving Mother and Durances annoying pep talk quests that took forever to unlock.
I mean, I love PoE and kind of needed the lore refresher and I know I’ll love PoE2, but damn what a waste of time.
The reason you see so many Elder Scrolls and Fallout mods is that Bethsday basically released the programs they used to make the games,and said "Have fun".
it is a shame that Creative Assembly have moved away from being MoD friendly. You used to be able to rely on there being at least one LOTR mod for every total war game!
Mods are viewed in two ways by companies. Something to draw in new players to increase the longevity of a game's shelf life, or a thing which detracts from the sale of DLC. Its not uncommon for games to be release without modding tools, but a tonne of microtransactions. Why spend money on a microtransaction to give you loads of in game money when you could mod it in, etc?
With the last generation's fixation on this type of monetization modding became a bit more restrictive. Though at the same time we saw games including in game map editors, etc. However in those cases they weren't that robust, and microtransactions tended to still be present - thus not cutting into the company's revenue. The companies caring more about short term revenue of this monetization, than the long term sales of the game through a modding community. Why support the longevity of a game when that could mean reducing the sales of its sequel (we already have Farcry III, why do we need Farcry IV?).
Dedicated modding tools are great though. Games die without them. Of course with a dedicated enough following fans have made their own tools, but that's rare. With them there's all sorts of creativity, with modders having the potential to make whole new games (the Dark Mod for Quake comes to mind. Which turns it into a Thief style game). Bethesda's aware of this, and support their community by releasing their own tools (which begs the question that if they're just porting the tools, why don't other companies do this). At the same time they try and sell microtransactions. However, their series have had long term mod support. ...And their paid mods aren't very good.
DLC offer a quality of content generally above regular mods, so they're still viable. Mods which add say just a suit of armour, one which is already available for free and with more content, not so much. They had attempted to monetize modding, but did it very poorly. Modders generally produce their work as fans, without wanting money, though some income is still appreciated. That's what Bethesda tried to do, however what they sold as quality mods turned out to be just retextures and other junk unfortunately. Meanwhile we continue to see loads of quality free mods coming out on other platforms.
Its difficult to play certain titles without them. Bethesda games in particular. Though I suppose I view them like, well, roleplaying "modules". Download a quest mod, play it, then uninstall it once you've completed it and the like. Its difficult to play Skyrim for example without the Museum mod bringing back content one would expect from the series. Though even the good Elder Scrolls games like Morrowind would be shallow without hundreds of mods running (which on the subject of mod tools. The engine for that was seen as limiting for the larger mods, so they ported it to Unity. Now you can run all the new lands mods at once, or have multiplayer, etc). Playing games which don't support them feels a bit weird, as you sit there feeling annoyed at something, with the inability to change it, or wanting to keep playing the game outside of its main story.
I mean, Skyrim HAS had 3 successful DLCs, as well as re-releases of various kinds. And make note of what those mods were- Dawnguard, which added in entirely new mechanics and large, intricate questlines around those mechanics- new factions, new skill systems, new spell effects. New, mechanically unique weapons and enchantments in the form of the crossbows and the rune-slam enchantments.
Hearthfire, which added in not only new homes, but an entire new home CRAFTING system, as well as adoption and marriage options that weren't present before.
And Dragonborn, which added new Shouts, Solthsheim (an entire new island!) new characters, MORE new spells, etc. etc.
These are things that modders can make, with the tools available, but which are DIFFICULT to make WELL without access to the original development team.
Same with things like the VR port- that's something that can't really be easily modded in, but can be done with access to the original code systems and documentation a LOT easier.
That's what DLC ought to be, in comparison to Mods. Any and all games should allow for the creation of new items and the recombination of existing game mechanics, if only to allow for bug fixing or rebalancing. But DLC should straight up add to the game as a whole.
I just completed my second playthrough of Alien Isolation (on Hard, as before). Grabbed the ID tags I was missing and also managed to get through without dying or killing any humans.
Only achievement I'm missing now is getting killed by the Alien 100 times
nels1031 wrote: Well, my 2 year long self imposed embargo of Pillars of Eternity 2 news+rumors to avoid spoilers seems to have backfired spectacularly.
So I spent roughly a week and a half replaying Pillars of Eternity 1 and xpacs to squeeze all the content I could, completed all quests/bounties, always chose benevolent speech options and such. I had expected the game to import my choices, abilities/spells and such(ala its spiritual liege, Baldurs Gate 1+2). Didn’t think the items or money would make the trip over to the new game, so wasn’t worried about that.
Turns out your character starts over anyway. feth me. I could’ve been knee deep in the new game by now, instead I was elated last night to finally finish (literally right before making the jump, you know which one if you played PoE)Grieving Mother and Durances annoying pep talk quests that took forever to unlock.
I mean, I love PoE and kind of needed the lore refresher and I know I’ll love PoE2, but damn what a waste of time.
if it makes you feel better, Deadfire in its current state is also a waste of time. There are a lot of mechanics and companion interaction problems (and save import problems). You're better off waiting for the DLC and the numerous tinkering patches and seeing if the game is actually in a good start then. Currently I'd say its in a worse state than poe1 was on release.
Bugsidian strikes again, though many people are missing the problems because they aren't software related, so 'don't count'. Story and companion problems are worse than graphics glitches, I say.
Fair point Anvildude, Skyrim has somehow managed to make room for mods and DLC.
I finished Darksiders 2 yesterday, the last act and the ending felt very rushed sadly but overall I really enjoyed the game and feel set up for the release of Darksiders 3 now!
I'm debating whether to go back and play the first one, maybe if I see it on sale I will.
On a whim, I decided to install KotOR 2 on my Xbox One to see how the Original Xbox Backwards Compatibility Thing worked... I am about 15 hours into it now, and struck by several things:
1) The backwards compatibility is (mostly) great. The games get a proper HD treatment, running at a really smooth frame rate and crisper than they've ever been (in other words, I can actually read the text now without squinting! ). Battlefront 2 fares even better here, that game is now so sharp and so slick, and the draw distance seems greatly increased as well, cross-map sniping is doable even on the biggest maps, which wasn't really the case on the original Xbox. I've had a few bugs, mostly reloading save files, but I'm not sure if that's unique to the BC version.
2) Damn, this game is good. I last played it when I was about 11, and I'm appreciating it so much more this time round. The graphics may not have aged well but the writing certainly does, this is Star Wars at its best and doing everything I love about The Last Jedi's take on The Force and the Jedi/Sith dichotomy way earlier. The combat and general mechanics are surprisingly nice too, especially since I'm now able to appreciate it's clear DnD-inspired roots (I think you could convert a lot of the game back to a PnP RPG with relative ease, I may well give it a shot at some point).
3) I have no idea how 11-year-old me ever completed this... I think it really must have been brute force and ignorance, because even a decade later I'm still finding some of the quests a little confusing to work through, and that's after actually understanding the mechanics... I did finish it the first time round, but I am more and more convinced that was sheer perseverance and luck.
I am genuinely surprised at how much I've got into this; there are far more recent games (of a similar type) that I find have aged far worse, and I'm enjoying this as much as any RPG I've played of the current generation. I'm sure the Star Wars name and a healthy dose of nostalgia helps, but still, when I booted it up I expected to immediately bounce off after an hour or so.
I shall also have to finally go back to KotOR 1 now, I never actually played that. While I know 'the twist', I know nothing else about the story/characters ect whereas with 2 I have at least hazy memories of how it all goes and can definitely recall the ending. It does all remind me that I'd pay a silly amount of money for a current-genSW game in this style, but if that remains absent, it seems the shiny redux of the classic KotORs will more than suffice.
Wyrmalla wrote: Fallout 1.5: Resurrection - a total conversion mod for Fallout 2.
Whilst searching the topic of total conversions I came across this charmer. A Czech mod translated into English which brings a whole new story to Fallout. Set in New Mexico between the first two games (before the Legion comes in and takes over years later), you play a wastelander who's lost their memory (did I mention you wake up in a cave full of mole rats? ...For reference, in the original Fallouts mole rats were the size of bears).
Its of a similar size to the original games, with plenty of quests. Now I would say that despite this I would have liked another couple of towns or more custom assets, but meh, mods (it did take them 10 years to make). Reviews had said that the English was bad, though I think that it must have had an update as I had no problem with it. I definitely prefer its tone compared to the newer games, where the default setting for every situation is "things have gone to hell", and its up to you to either improve things, or exploit them (most situations push you towards the later). Compared to 3 and 4's constant need to make you a goodie two shoes.
I would criticise the difficulty. Its not bad over time, though there's some situations which are too much. I can't see how you're supposed to complete the last location aggressively (rather than sneaking in). Enemies can crit you for 150 damage, or the sheer number of them doing 15-40 damage each would be enough to take out anyone. For reference I wound up cheating to give my character the best stats and armour to see how far you could make it, and they still died. Besides that, for anyone without the best equipment, Ghouls (one of the weakest enemies in the older games) are fairly tough. Two shots with an anti-material rifle with big guns maxed tough. ¬¬
Modders do love just making content hard, instead of carrying over the vanilla difficulty. Once you have a group of allies (hiring yourself out as a caravan guard is an essential way of making money) makes these encounters not as awful however.
Another issue was finding the higher tier weapons. Checking the game files there was a load of guns that I never found in the game (vendor loot respawns every day). The best weapons typically could be found in quests, though guns which would give you the edge before then in the harder content seemed lacking (I had an Assault rifle by the time I'd made it to the second major town. That was the highest tier small gun that I ever had drop - so I had to swap to big guns to remain viable in the end game).
Caps were a problem too. There was occasionally situations where vendors would offer an item through dialogue rather than their trading menu - meaning you had to give them the bare caps, instead of bartering. The problem being that you could have 10K worth of gear that you could trade, but the vendor only had 100 caps, so you couldn't purchase that 1K item they were offering (eventually I just gave myself 100K caps).
If you enjoyed the early games in the series I'd recommend this mod. It fits in with them game play wise quite well, with most large locations having a half dozen quests for each of the joinable factions in the area (typically 2-4). The tone's darker than the newer games, with many more opportunities for negative karma choices. "Wanna go abduct some tribals and harvest their organs? Hey, trade in that companion of your's and we'll give you a discount on your next transplant!"
Sounds interesting. I should go back and play those games.
Yeah, I played Kotor2 first as well, and haven't gotten to playing KotorI.
Problem is, Kotor II wasn't 'finished'. The final boss and level weren't fully realized, and the story wasn't completed- they just sort of sewed together the bits they had. But what they had was brilliant.
I tried doing a Sith playthrough of KotorII once- wasn't able to do it. I just... I couldn't be evil enough.
Anvildude wrote: Yeah, I played Kotor2 first as well, and haven't gotten to playing KotorI.
Problem is, Kotor II wasn't 'finished'. The final boss and level weren't fully realized, and the story wasn't completed- they just sort of sewed together the bits they had. But what they had was brilliant.
hy wou
I tried doing a Sith playthrough of KotorII once- wasn't able to do it. I just... I couldn't be evil enough.
Yeah, I do recall the ending being somewhat... abrupt. Abrupt to the extent of making the original ending to Mass Effect 3 look polished and fulfilling! However, with games I tend to find the value much more in the journey than the resolution, and the game more than delivers there.
The trouble I have with playing an evil character in these kinds games is that they all rely on people coming together and following you, and I guess I don't see how that really works with an overtly evil (rather than grey antihero) protagonist. Why would Garrus follow a renegade Shepard? Why would Leliana in Dragon Age follow an evil Warden or Inquisitor? Same goes for KotOR, redeeming several cast members via the path of the Jedi is far more believable and interesting to me than corrupting them towards the Sith.
That said, the meta trouble is that I want my RPG protagonists to be likeable for the 30-odd hours I'll spend with them. I don't want to play a game that long where my character is hateable after the first hour, so I default to good guys most of the time.
I've gone back to Civilization: Beyond Earth for a little while now. Never actually played a whole game before; I always got distracted by something else at some point and when I decided to play again I started over because I forgot what I was working towards.
Paradigm wrote: . Why would Garrus follow a renegade Shepard?
Because renegade Shepard does what needs to be done and doesn't let red tape get in the way.
Garrus has a very strong personal view of what is right and wrong. He absolutely hates it when rules get in the way of what is, in his opinion, justice, especially when the rules don't actually help anyone (such as what happened with Saleon in the first game).
My first playthrough of the series was renegade all the way through ME1 and 2 and then paragade in ME3. None of the actions I took ever seemed like ones Garrus would, or indeed did, object to.
Paradigm wrote: . Why would Garrus follow a renegade Shepard?
Because renegade Shepard does what needs to be done and doesn't let red tape get in the way.
Garrus has a very strong personal view of what is right and wrong. He absolutely hates it when rules get in the way of what is, in his opinion, justice, especially when the rules don't actually help anyone (such as what happened with Saleon in the first game).
My first playthrough of the series was renegade all the way through ME1 and 2 and then paragade in ME3. None of the actions I took ever seemed like ones Garrus would, or indeed did, object to.
But then there's the stuff in ME3 like shooting Mordin to maintain the Genophage or siding with Legion and prompting Tali to commit suicide on Rannoch... ME2 Renegade is a no-nonsense badass, but ME3 Renegade is a monster that I can't see most of the crew willingly following, no matter their history prior to that. Doubly so for the likes of Tali who is consistently good and pure of heart throughout the series.
Maybe this is somewhat coloured by the fact that I always play Shep as the biggest of Big Damn Heroes, and the Renegade style is more nuanced than I give it credit for, but there are certain actions that I just can't rationalise certain characters going along with.
I only ever hit renegade prompts - shooting the krogan, pushing the black sun guy out the window punching through the guy from the books sword. Any badass moments i hit, pretty much.
Paradigm wrote: . Why would Garrus follow a renegade Shepard?
Because renegade Shepard does what needs to be done and doesn't let red tape get in the way.
Garrus has a very strong personal view of what is right and wrong. He absolutely hates it when rules get in the way of what is, in his opinion, justice, especially when the rules don't actually help anyone (such as what happened with Saleon in the first game).
My first playthrough of the series was renegade all the way through ME1 and 2 and then paragade in ME3. None of the actions I took ever seemed like ones Garrus would, or indeed did, object to.
But then there's the stuff in ME3 like shooting Mordin to maintain the Genophage or siding with Legion and prompting Tali to commit suicide on Rannoch... ME2 Renegade is a no-nonsense badass, but ME3 Renegade is a monster that I can't see most of the crew willingly following, no matter their history prior to that. Doubly so for the likes of Tali who is consistently good and pure of heart throughout the series.
Maybe this is somewhat coloured by the fact that I always play Shep as the biggest of Big Damn Heroes, and the Renegade style is more nuanced than I give it credit for, but there are certain actions that I just can't rationalise certain characters going along with.
Eh. Considering the turian relationship with the krogan, I doubt Garrus would object to maintaining the Genophage. Tali's suicide was essentially random and you can talk her out of it with the right build, though it was motivated by her deep seated racism and not at all by a pure heart or whatever that is supposed to mean. She doesn't want to.live in a galaxy where the geth are accepted as people.
Paradigm wrote: . Why would Garrus follow a renegade Shepard?
Because renegade Shepard does what needs to be done and doesn't let red tape get in the way.
Garrus has a very strong personal view of what is right and wrong. He absolutely hates it when rules get in the way of what is, in his opinion, justice, especially when the rules don't actually help anyone (such as what happened with Saleon in the first game).
My first playthrough of the series was renegade all the way through ME1 and 2 and then paragade in ME3. None of the actions I took ever seemed like ones Garrus would, or indeed did, object to.
But then there's the stuff in ME3 like shooting Mordin to maintain the Genophage or siding with Legion and prompting Tali to commit suicide on Rannoch... ME2 Renegade is a no-nonsense badass, but ME3 Renegade is a monster that I can't see most of the crew willingly following, no matter their history prior to that. Doubly so for the likes of Tali who is consistently good and pure of heart throughout the series.
Maybe this is somewhat coloured by the fact that I always play Shep as the biggest of Big Damn Heroes, and the Renegade style is more nuanced than I give it credit for, but there are certain actions that I just can't rationalise certain characters going along with.
Eh. Considering the turian relationship with the krogan, I doubt Garrus would object to maintaining the Genophage. Tali's suicide was essentially random and you can talk her out of it with the right build, though it was motivated by her deep seated racism and not at all by a pure heart or whatever that is supposed to mean. She doesn't want to.live in a galaxy where the geth are accepted as people.
Indeed. And it is possible to come out of Rannoch with both the Geth and Quarians if you shout at them hard enough.
And then consider that those choices are made in ME3, when the entire galaxy is burning and the cold calculus of war dominates every decision. Garrus doesn't mind if you save the Krogan (at least if Wrex and Eve are alive), but he would also understand perfectly if you don't, as the Salarians are potentially the more reliable and immediately useful allies (krogan have no warships, for example).
Kinda wish the paragon/renegade system was hidden, so decisions could be evaluated without the pressure of going for the high paragon/renegade ending and the dubiously consistent moral tag attached to everything.
I'm playing through Fallout New Vegas again, and I'm beginning to think that it is a legitimately better game than Fallout 4.
There are things I miss, most definitely - settlement building, being able to lob grenades without un-equipping my weapon, and being able to sprint.
But the skills and perks feel so much more flexible, and I really like the non-voiced protagonist, because it means that my character's voice and inflection are whatever I imagine my character would deliver, rather than a choice of saying "Where's my son" in varying shades of apathy, which sounds the same whether I'm trying to RP a well-educated science dude, a slick ladies-man or a murdering sociopath.
And the sheer open-ended nature of the quests in NV - I skipped the Goodsprings Gunfight, and went to do the Powder Gangers quests, then betrayed them to the NCR. I could very well go and join the legion as soon as I start. None of this "Oh, sure your social-darwinist scientist (who sounds like every other playthrough) can join the institute, but only after completing all these other faction quests! Oh, and you are a pre-war army veteran looking for your son, no exceptions."
In NV, I might have been shot in the head, but once that happens, I'm free to have whatever I like as my PC's motivations. And I do not miss radiant quests. Unlimited "Get the crappy weapon/kill the thing in X boring location you've depopulated already" is not worth a great deal, to my way of thinking.
A lot of what, I guess, is my big beef with FO4 is that your character is not a blank slate that you can build into whoever you can imagine, but a pre-set character who you can make choices for.
A lot like Mass Effect, in that regard. I liked Mass Effect, but it still grates when I was expecting (and still want) a PC who is open to self-interpretation.
But anyway, moving on from my rant, because I could go on for hours about why FO4 was disappointing - I had forgotten how much fun NV was, even with the somewhat less excellent graphics and occasional bugs.
I really like the main conflicts, the broad themes, but also the fine detail and depth (Sorry to bring it up again, but that's another thing I feel FO4 was lacking).
The setting is an insane mish-mash - post apoc cowboy robot scavenger 50's gangster atom punk? But it works! It feels like a distinct environment! FO4 felt like it could be any universe - FNV could only be Fallout. It didn't try as hard to be realistic, I feel, and that was a strength - because the Fallout universe is not Hard Sci-Fi realism, it's not a gritty FPS where the RP bit of the RPG is almost absent. Or at least, I don't think it should be, YMMV.
There's real humour in NV, both black comedy and outright daftness, but it feels fitting. Old World Blues is a really awesome demonstration of how to mix really dark themes - the abuses of science, the concentration camp, the Y-17 trauma harnesses - with lighthearted silliness like The Think Tank personalities, the Toaster (oh man, the toaster!) and yet still feel like a single setting.
The DLCs themselves are really cool, I think - the way they add new themes and aspects to the base survival-ish RPG, with retro sci-fi in OWB, the examination of religion, pacificism and "White mans burden" of Honest Hearts. But I think the most iconic DLC are Lonesome road and Dead Money.
I hate DM, because it's hard, and unpleasant and unflinchingly dark, and full of horrible ways to die. But that's how living in the Fallout universe would be. It may actually be the best DLC, even though I dread playing it - that strong a response is quite unusual for me in games. I have never forgotten the first encounter with a ghost person, still feel a sense of unease when I hear the ringing bell sound effect from the bell tower...
DM also has a strong theme that has struck with me personally (know when to let go and begin again) and it actually has some very strong characters. It's horrible to play, but it's so, so memorable - it's the DLC I love to hate.
Lonesome Road is interesting, in that it's a lot more linear, and again, pretty dark - but I think it's interesting in that it goes into the idea of your character's actions having unforeseen repercussions. And somehow, it makes a person become vastly emotionally invested in a floating speaker who communicates in beeps. Ulysses is a bit of a divisive character (pardon the pun) but I think he's cool, if a bit long-winded - he's an interesting sort of mysterious rival / dark mirror character, and getting into his headspace is actually really interesting, seeing this weird world from his strange point of view.
I suddenly realise that I seem to have written an essay by accident here... Sorry about that!
TLR, Fallout New Vegas > Fallout 4. And I'll fight the man who comes between me and my fictional robot buddy!
With Harris is worth keeping in mind that he is essentially a "Renegade" Turian.
Hell as Archangel he's basically the Turian equivalent of the Punisher. I wouldn't disagree too much if someone said he suited Renegade Shep more than paragon
I did a pretty thorough playthrough, to the point where I probably won’t pick it up again until all the DLC drops. It was a great game, like if Baldurs Gate and Sid Meier’s Pirates! had a glorious baby, but I’m Pillared out. Its definitely got some annoying bugs, but it was a solid RPG experience for my money.
The downers for me: The ship battles got boring/repetitive quickly and the choose your own adventure dialogue scenes also seemed repetitive. Combat AI seemed wonky too, although I never wrapped my head around the AI script UI. Also, Its way too easy to amass a fortune in this game, and thats with me keeping all the “gold” quality named items and just sold blue and regular items as I got them. There were really no hard financial or resource decisions, as once your enemies start dropping mid to high quality gear, you’ll be rolling in coins. My crew never had to face hardship because I could afford to keep them easily fed. I also skipped over two levels of ships(eventually buying them for the achievement) because I was ludicrously rich. I think that has to be turned down abit for a better, more intense play experience. Particularly with the Beraths Blessings that can get you $55K right out of the gate on a fresh playthrough.
Also, I never experienced the Kraken attack on my ship thats on every load screen. Aside from a quest where one if unleashed in a temple, depending on a choice, the game was Kraken-less. I guess that’ll be DLC.
I played as a continuation of my PoE 1 character, a benevolent Paladin and Captain of the unbeatable Junk class ship Sexual Chocolate. I felt I made all the right decisions regarding quests and such, and was happy with the ending that I got, for the most part. Wasn’t too impressed with any of the new NPC party members, except Xoti, the priestess who was a mainstay in my party from start to finish. Eder was my Tank, Aloth my Mage DPS and Maia my ranged DPS for all but a few companion quests that required a different party loadout.
A few minor bugs and balance issues aside, this was a great game! With the Beraths Blessings, in game achievements that unlock starting gameplay perks, I’ll probably replay this game many times in the future. But only until new content is released.
New Vegas was amazing, the gun mechanics going back from F4 to NV tend to suck. While F4 gun mechanics aren't amazing, it would be so much better if they were also in NV.
I did a pretty thorough playthrough, to the point where I probably won’t pick it up again until all the DLC drops. It was a great game, like if Baldurs Gate and Sid Meier’s Pirates! had a glorious baby, but I’m Pillared out. Its definitely got some annoying bugs, but it was a solid RPG experience for my money.
The downers for me: The ship battles got boring/repetitive quickly and the choose your own adventure dialogue scenes also seemed repetitive. Combat AI seemed wonky too, although I never wrapped my head around the AI script UI. Also, Its way too easy to amass a fortune in this game, and thats with me keeping all the “gold” quality named items and just sold blue and regular items as I got them. There were really no hard financial or resource decisions, as once your enemies start dropping mid to high quality gear, you’ll be rolling in coins. My crew never had to face hardship because I could afford to keep them easily fed. I also skipped over two levels of ships(eventually buying them for the achievement) because I was ludicrously rich. I think that has to be turned down abit for a better, more intense play experience. Particularly with the Beraths Blessings that can get you $55K right out of the gate on a fresh playthrough.
Also, I never experienced the Kraken attack on my ship thats on every load screen. Aside from a quest where one if unleashed in a temple, depending on a choice, the game was Kraken-less. I guess that’ll be DLC.
I played as a continuation of my PoE 1 character, a benevolent Paladin and Captain of the unbeatable Junk class ship Sexual Chocolate. I felt I made all the right decisions regarding quests and such, and was happy with the ending that I got, for the most part. Wasn’t too impressed with any of the new NPC party members, except Xoti, the priestess who was a mainstay in my party from start to finish. Eder was my Tank, Aloth my Mage DPS and Maia my ranged DPS for all but a few companion quests that required a different party loadout.
A few minor bugs and balance issues aside, this was a great game! With the Beraths Blessings, in game achievements that unlock starting gameplay perks, I’ll probably replay this game many times in the future. But only until new content is released.
Agreed on all acounts, the only hardship you ever will encounter I think when it comes to the realm of finaces are the lengthy recovery times for Your ship crew, but even that can be solved by docking Your ship and simply buying more medicin. That and the fact With the New addition of the drunken Monk you need to keep a steady supply of booze. And that ship name I myself named my Galleon The ship of fools, more due to my somewhat lacking seamen skills. I played as a priest of Berath with a stern yet sympatetic streak, I ditched Maia and Pelagria since I did not feel like having those two along for the ride, and took Aloth, Xoti, Eder and a self made Paladin. And for my two playtroughs I have ended up with Xoti as my romance option. It seems she is far more sane than any of the other ones, I still have nigthmares about the Watershaper dude whom wanted to show me his angler fish lure hidden under his robes
I hop on every so often to get my superhero game/mmo fix (while waiting for City of Titans)- but since I'm playing a Healer-type I have trouble solo-ing some things. We got any Champions here?
Just beat the last of the Kingdom Hearts games and watched all cinematics. I am 100% ready for number 3. The question now is, what to do until then? Should I go thorugh and play some of my favorites on the hardest difficulty? Or finish Skyrim on Legendary or Neverwinter Nights?
Pulled out Hearts of Iron IV, started up another game as Romania, was once again unable to trigger the "Split Czechoslovakia" national focus (getting 500K men in the military is easy enough; getting a military that's 150% the strength of Czechoslovakia's is another matter entirely). Finally declared war on Yugoslavia, only to have them immediately join the Axis, and pull Germany into the war.
/sigh
Another game start down the drain.
Detroit: Become Human came out last week. Has anyone played the actual game? I tried out the demo, but still not sure whether or not the game might be worth it.
Bought State of Decay 2 on a whim. Mainly because I had nothing to do between finishing Pillars of Eternity and waiting on all my favorite Warhammer 2 mods to get updated.
So far it hasn’t introduced all that much new content to the series, other than gas being required to keep my vehicles running. I’m not head over the heels in love with it, but I enjoy going out on scavenging missions, destroying plague hearts (new addition, basically a giant tumor in buildings that spreads blood plague) and doing various missions. Its a game that I can enjoy in 30-45 minute bursts.
nels1031 wrote: Bought State of Decay 2 on a whim. Mainly because I had nothing to do between finishing Pillars of Eternity and waiting on all my favorite Warhammer 2 mods to get updated.
So far it hasn’t introduced all that much new content to the series, other than gas being required to keep my vehicles running. I’m not head over the heels in love with it, but I enjoy going out on scavenging missions, destroying plague hearts (new addition, basically a giant tumor in buildings that spreads blood plague) and doing various missions. Its a game that I can enjoy in 30-45 minute bursts.
Wait for a sale, my recommendation.
I liked the first one but it had its issues. Do people in your camp still bug you every 2 minutes for something because they got in trouble?
Depends on community morale. I had one community start to fall apart and it was a constant stream of issues, until I started over when my main dude succumbed to the blood plague. The most crying comes from neighboring enclaves who need help though, which you can ignore, unless its a story mission.
Now that I've beaten the campaign for Battletech, I'm only playing it a little now and then. Mostly I'm playing Frostpunk now, which is quite hard but also very neat.
I'm pretty excited because I just bought a new computer with a bit of a fancier graphics card and processor, so I will finally be able to play all the games from recent years like Dark Souls 3, the Witcher 3, Warhammer Total War and Fallout 4.
Starting with Fallout 4. I saw it got panned online, but I play bethesda games mostly for the immersive experience, not the storyline, so so far I am thoroughly enjoying myself. I modded it slightly (Silent Protagonist, altered the dialogue so it shows what my response will actually be, True Storms and Survival mode edited to get rid of some of the poorer choices) and I am really looking forward to losing myself in the Wasteland again (Fallout 3 blind playthrough was one of my all time best gaming experiences).
Looking forward to trying the others - think I will give Warhammer a try next, and then Dark Souls and keep witcher til last to leave a gap between the two open world games.
Ouze wrote: Fallout 4 was terrific. I really enjoyed it.
I think it was Bethesda's best attempt at adding a story to one of their games (as opposed to Skyrim's completely static 'civil war' of non-action), but the heavy-handed nature of it kicked replayability a bit.
Kingdom Hearts 1.5FM is annoying on Proud mode. Grinded out quite a few levels early on and still died to Clayton like, 5 times. But then again, he was the only one I've died two yet besides once against the Wonderland boss.
Shadow of Mordor has been eating up all of my time. The combat in this thing is everything I’ve ever hoped for. The villains and stories that can come from the nemesis system are also very nice.
On a side note, I’m working on a simulated “radio” to practice coding on Python. Has anyone ever managed to rip the audio files off games with radio functions (ex. GTA, Saint’s Row)?
The Grumpy Eldar wrote: Inquisitor: Martyr. It's actually a really fun game. Even though people complain.
I'm currently trying to decide about it.
The negative reviews on Steam aren't putting me off, because they're profoundly stupid. I've seen people claim loot doesn't drop during missions (it does), that you can't play co-op (you can, just not in the main story missions), and all sorts of other things that I've seen with my own eyes on various (current) videos and streams.
Mostly I'm putting it off because I've only got an hour or so of spare time this week. The current build seems to be pretty low on enemy variety, but apparently that will expand over time. The only other major problem I've seen is some weapon builds/combinations are universally better than others.
That just lets you pull off "Look how well I did with a stupid build" runs.
It's meant to be an update to the Diablo II-style of loot-drop isometric clicker, only with a stronger story and discreet mission/maps instead of a rando-gen openworld.
I think they updated it pretty well. From what I've seen, it's solid (except for bugs and such, but I consider gameplay more important, myself, than reliability.)
I got in on the early access for Inquisitor Martyr. It was fun even in the early stages. Haven't had a chance to check out the final version since ESO and Fortnite are eating up all my spare time, but I'll get around to it
Finished my KotOR odyssey, polishing off the original game today... On balance, I think I definitely prefer the second game for its less archetypal characters, expanded progression and overall approach to the Star Wars universe. The first one feels kind of like a Greatest Hits reel which is all well and good, but I do enjoy the subversion of the common tropes and themes in the second one. It was certainly cool to explore the same locations in both games and see how they reused assets in various places (such as the Korriban Sith temple) while keeping them very different. It's clear how KotOR2 especially suffered from a constricted development cycle, but as a complete package they both hold up surprisingly well. What I wouldn't give for a more modern take though...
As a big Mass Effect fan the first KotOR one is fascinating, existing as a kind of 'test run' for Mass Effect with its approach to character interactions, loyalty missions, romance plots ect. I might actually go on to a ME trilogy run now, it'd be neat to follow that formula's progression through from its earliest form.
I actually started playing Stardew Valley again, starting over with a new character. Talk about an addictive game! It's easy to lose track of time and next thing you know it's 2am and you have to be at work at 7 (yes, that has happened to me before).
Still Fallout 4, obviously! Just creeping around in survival mode, had my first encounter with Ghouls, good lord. They are FAST. It seems like anything that makes it to melee with me just kills me in seconds, so I am playing very cautious, but honestly I prefer Fallout to be a terrifying world full of horror so this is right up my alley. Frustrating when I make a small mistake and get murdered, but so satisfying when I make it through. It also makes me really value stuff like robots I can program to fight for me. Had my first "true storms" storm while my ghoul encounter happened with "darker nights". Brilliantly atmospheric. The modding community really makes these games.
Inqusition Martyr has been my posion as of late, its a decent game and With a very lengthy campaign. But it sufferes from a few bugs that the Developers seems to have brougth over from their other games( Looking at you Van helsing games).
But beside those Points I find the game enjoyebal, but the grind is insane thougt
Messing about with the WoW: Battle For Azeroth beta. Its... interesting. It's tricky to get particularly absorbed in it since it's beta and therefor meaningless for any sense of progression, but it has some attractive qualities.
The zones are pretty impressive, especially the two main city hubs on the horde and alliance islands. Like Suramar in Legion (except not actively hostile), they feel more like real cities, with a lot more atmosphere, people and shops and things. The only downside is most players will stick to the hub area and there isn't much function or point to the rest of these giant cities beyond a touch of questing.
The big downside is the expansion feels small. Each faction gets three zones and then some rotating world quests to go bother the opposition... and that's it. (until the big patch, which will probably involve teaming up again against the naga or the old gods or whatever).
Also a lot of the content feels recycled. Sure you get to fight snake men instead of naga to rescue fox people rather than goblins (the fox people use the same skeletal frame, but happily don't have terrible New Jersey voices), but the Horde get to beat up on Zandalari (yet again, for the fourth time) and dinosaurs and whatever the big bad race from pandaland was. And there is a sense of 'oh not these guys again.'
Alliance quests involve a lot more new stuff, but with the looming specter of the World Quests taking you to troll land to do... whatever pointless thing in the pointless faction war.
The intro scenarios are pretty interesting (though they really need some context), but marred by really atrocious animation/dialogue syncing and really bad dialogue in general. A giant Horde tank shows up at one point, and the werewolf king's line is 'What in the world is that!' as it... fights Alliance tanks. Truly, it is an unknown technology. Jaina later gives the most dull and bored reading of 'No, they mustn't get away' I have ever heard.
But once out in the world, it smartens up. The quest chains are usually coherent mini-stories, and the new zones look better. The Zandalar zone around their capital (and the capital itself, which is a giant pyramid) suffers from the Legion design principles with lots of hills and mountains that block travel and make you really want flying, but the desert area and the capital zone for the alliance feel a bit more open (and frankly flow better for quest order)
Skills have been reworked to level from 1-300, then 1-150 for each expansion (starting with cataclysm). Except archaeology, which is still 1 to the new cap of 950, and first aid, which has been set on fire and merged into tailoring. Not quite sure why this change happened, except maybe an quiet acknowledgement that only the current skill progression matters in any way.
Despite the flaws (and placeholders, and beta problems), it looks good, but at this point it's more WoW. You probably already know if you like it or not.
Just about finished Inqusitor Martyr and I am left With a sour taste in my mouth, done two seperat caracthers to see if I perhaps had choosen the wrong one but alas. Besides a few glaring bugs towards the last few missions of the game, and some rather odd Choices when it comes to map designe I most of all am left With a sense of disapointment, and lament for what has the potential to become a great game if the Developers can get around to adressing Things like weapon stats, how skill Choices affects the game and a more meaningful moral system than what is currently on offer.
I'm... confused what you were expecting. It seems like a fairly competent loot-em-up. Those generally don't really have moral systems, and I think the skill system is, while unique, not bad, per se.
... man, could you imagine Diablo II if you were allowed to just join the Primevils?
Fallout 4. Corvega assembly plant is ... really surprisingly difficult. I cleared it. I really like the feeling that it was under siege by feral ghouls though, and how the ghouls start breaking into the bottom of the plant at a certain point.
Walking out of there fatigued to crap from lack of sleep, alcoholic from using it to boost my strength to counteract the fatigue and on low health and then getting a dust storm during which a ghoul mob attacked...intense.
Loving this game so far, but not too interested in the main plot.
Da Boss wrote: Fallout 4. Corvega assembly plant is ... really surprisingly difficult. I cleared it. I really like the feeling that it was under siege by feral ghouls though, and how the ghouls start breaking into the bottom of the plant at a certain point.
Walking out of there fatigued to crap from lack of sleep, alcoholic from using it to boost my strength to counteract the fatigue and on low health and then getting a dust storm during which a ghoul mob attacked...intense.
Loving this game so far, but not too interested in the main plot.
You're playing on hardcore then? Best way to do it; it effectively stretches the game out into hundreds of hours in length, as well as actually making it a challenge.
Is hardcore mode the survival thing? Yeah, I am doing that as my first playthrough, though I modded it so I can save whenever I want to because I don't think a "bonfire" style save system gels well with bethesda's open and freeform games.
I am really enjoying myself so far. It is quite hard and combat is pretty scary, but that immerses me in the world much more than playing it like a shooter. I want a survival game in an unforgiving wasteland from Fallout.
I am really looking forward to building a network of settlements, as that is basically what I wanted to be able to do in Fallout 3. Not that interested in the man plot because I feel like it ties me too much to following a linear path when I want to play a more free game where my decisions are entirely my own.
Having done it twice, you tend to find that it stays difficult up to about level 20, challenging up to 40, okay up to 60, and then ridiculously easy for the most part past that. Annoyingly, that's about as long as it takes to get through 2/3 of the content of the base game, so the difficulty curve really levels off in the later stages. Other than the odd super boss fight or getting jumped by two deathclaws, you have all the food and drink you need, bases everywhere, and kill most stuff by inhaling buffs.
Anvildude wrote: I'm... confused what you were expecting. It seems like a fairly competent loot-em-up. Those generally don't really have moral systems, and I think the skill system is, while unique, not bad, per se.
... man, could you imagine Diablo II if you were allowed to just join the Primevils?
If you mean a game that has you being hasseled With sub par Equipment as rewards, a dull and uninspierd slogg towards the end and yes. That would have been a intresting take on Things, and well seing how the two paths avalibal should be very different and thus affecting how you play Inqusitor Martyr, but I do realize opinions will vary on this matter
Darkest Dungeon! They just did a massive update, gave everybody a free hero DLC (Musketeer) and put out a 5 dollar DLC The Color of Madness using an old farmhouse and comet fragments. Very, very cool stuff, and almost everyone got rebalanced.
I'm working through the mainline before picking up the DLC to get myself back in shape.
Hoping to give online UT2004 a shot. Feeling a bit intimidated however, since I'm more used to playing more coop-oriented games. Is the community for the most part okay?
Da Boss wrote: Is hardcore mode the survival thing? Yeah, I am doing that as my first playthrough, though I modded it so I can save whenever I want to because I don't think a "bonfire" style save system gels well with bethesda's open and freeform games.
I am really enjoying myself so far. It is quite hard and combat is pretty scary, but that immerses me in the world much more than playing it like a shooter. I want a survival game in an unforgiving wasteland from Fallout.
I am really looking forward to building a network of settlements, as that is basically what I wanted to be able to do in Fallout 3. Not that interested in the man plot because I feel like it ties me too much to following a linear path when I want to play a more free game where my decisions are entirely my own.
Maybe I should just give up and do that. I love survival mode but hate the save system. I don't mind having to fight the a battle over again but doing the mundane stuff like searching the same garbage can again and having the same conversations again and again is just brutal.
Da Boss wrote: Is hardcore mode the survival thing? Yeah, I am doing that as my first playthrough, though I modded it so I can save whenever I want to because I don't think a "bonfire" style save system gels well with bethesda's open and freeform games.
I am really enjoying myself so far. It is quite hard and combat is pretty scary, but that immerses me in the world much more than playing it like a shooter. I want a survival game in an unforgiving wasteland from Fallout.
I am really looking forward to building a network of settlements, as that is basically what I wanted to be able to do in Fallout 3. Not that interested in the man plot because I feel like it ties me too much to following a linear path when I want to play a more free game where my decisions are entirely my own.
Maybe I should just give up and do that. I love survival mode but hate the save system. I don't mind having to fight the a battle over again but doing the mundane stuff like searching the same garbage can again and having the same conversations again and again is just brutal.
Mmmm, seems it might be better with an autosave function which is the only save you can have. So each time it autosaves, it overwrites the previous save for that game, manual or auto. Just set it up so it doesn't autosave whilst you have ongoing damage effects active (poison, radiation etc.) or are in combat so you don't end up with a save which is stuck in a death loop. Or maybe it cycles between two saves, so you always have a further back save but if you reload that earlier one it deletes the other one.
Played some of the Vermintide II beta on Xbox, it strikes me as just a more polished version of the first which I think was something of a rough diamond. V2 appears to be an improvement across the board with the new enemies progression system and expanded character options making sure the formula stays fresh. The shorter missions are a mercy, I found some in the first one a bit of a chore to get through.
I also like how the characters seem more powerful compared to the first one, a Rat Ogre or pack of Stormvermin that were lethal before are now lucky draws when Chaos Spawn or Stormfiends are in the mix.
Not sure there's enough to justify a purchase on release, but certainly one to look out for in a sale and another excellent slice of authentic, brutal Warhammer goodness.
Oh, Vermintide II is amazing. I hardly ever buy games, but I happily picked it up, and haven't been disappointed.
I think one of the big things is that everything is both difficult, and possible, a fine balance that is difficult to maintain. But you never feel like whatever you're up against is impossible, just that you need to be better if you fail.
And the different classes and weapons really, really make it so that there's different playstyles. Including decent Tanks, and variants on Tanks (which is rare to find).
Any idea how many different levels/missions are in the full thing? In the beta, I've got the Elven ruin, the farm/mill and the Sigmarite Temple missions, each of which are now fairly familiar after a few runs of each (though the random enemy spawns are nice for making things unpredictable), but obviously I'd be wanting a lot more variety in the complete game.
One change I do like is how the rewards are tied to which character you open them with, rather than who you earn them with. It's cool to be able to play a few missions as the Elf then open up the crates with the Witch Hunter and get a head start on his progression.
They recently released an 'Okri's Challenges' thing, which, among the challenges, has "Complete all the Helmgart missions..." with all the characters, etc etc... Which to me, says that they're going to add more missions or even entire new storylines.
There's also Deeds, which are specific missions with special challenges, such as "If you go down, you die immediately" or "All hordes are replaced with Stormvermin and Chaos Warriors" and the like.
What about download size? I’ve played a good 40-ish hours of the first Vermintide, but I need 50gb to download it again. Is the current download size for Vermintide 2 anything similar?
Oh yes, there will be DLC, both paid and of the free variant. But with the base game €27,99 (€18,74 on sale right now) I can live with it, as the core game right now is a massive improvement over the first game and it really delivers on the promises made.
I’ve just been playing a slow Dwarf campaign in WH:TW2.
Got kind of bored with it and needed to play a shooter and I remembered PUBG received some new content and went to reinstall after not playing for months. Clicked on the store page just to check out the new content and...
Holy gak did its rating drop! There were always a few dissenting voices(including myself to an extent) when the game was at its peak, but damn did it seem to fall off overnight. I didn’t look into it further, maybe alot of folks still play, but I think Fortnite stole its thunder? I chose not to read content of the negative reviews, I just didn’t bother and declared the game dead to me.
Currently re-installing Hunt: Showdown to sate my pvp shooter urges.
I cant believe FW made that garbage gabriel angelos but didn't make the Ubersreik 5. I would buy them in a heartbeat.
nels1031 wrote: I’ve just been playing a slow Dwarf campaign in WH:TW2.
Got kind of bored with it and needed to play a shooter and I remembered PUBG received some new content and went to reinstall after not playing for months. Clicked on the store page just to check out the new content and...
Holy gak did its rating drop! There were always a few dissenting voices(including myself to an extent) when the game was at its peak, but damn did it seem to fall off overnight. I didn’t look into it further, maybe alot of folks still play, but I think Fortnite stole its thunder? I chose not to read content of the negative reviews, I just didn’t bother and declared the game dead to me.
Currently re-installing Hunt: Showdown to sate my pvp shooter urges.
I need to check out the Prey DLC too.
Didnt it get rating bombed? Stellaris got bombed by the Chinese, for example, since they removed unused files from a localization they never had from the game folders during an update.
Crazyterran wrote: Didnt it get rating bombed? Stellaris got bombed by the Chinese, for example, since they removed unused files from a localization they never had from the game folders during an update.
Ah, that explains it. I should’ve guess it could be something like that. I assumed they put a pay to win micro purchase mechanic in or broke something in an update.
Crazyterran wrote: Didnt it get rating bombed? Stellaris got bombed by the Chinese, for example, since they removed unused files from a localization they never had from the game folders during an update.
Ah, that explains it. I should’ve guess it could be something like that. I assumed they put a pay to win micro purchase mechanic in or broke something in an update.
Well there was meniton of the event passes. I don’t play it myself, but I heard it’s kind of a slap in the face compared to the Fortnite passes. The whole “PUBG battle royale lawsuit,” might have also played a part too.
Sorry, what is this thing about Stellaris? I don’t remember hearing anything about this. Seems a bit odd that anyone would notice unused files, nevermind complain about them.
Crazyterran wrote: Didnt it get rating bombed? Stellaris got bombed by the Chinese, for example, since they removed unused files from a localization they never had from the game folders during an update.
Ah, that explains it. I should’ve guess it could be something like that. I assumed they put a pay to win micro purchase mechanic in or broke something in an update.
Well there was meniton of the event passes. I don’t play it myself, but I heard it’s kind of a slap in the face compared to the Fortnite passes. The whole “PUBG battle royale lawsuit,” might have also played a part too.
Sorry, what is this thing about Stellaris? I don’t remember hearing anything about this. Seems a bit odd that anyone would notice unused files, nevermind complain about them.
Eh? Digging through files to see what's there/what's missing is a pretty normal and active thing among a lot of gamers. Almost any time a game releases a fair number of people go looking for 'DLC' that's already part of the game and just needs to be unlocked.
Back to ArmA3 KOTH for me this weekend. Started playing with sniper/DMR. Got 2 1km kills in one match with the MAR10. Was pretty happy with that. It all started with an 11 kill streak on a no-towers server. It was an awful game (0 kills) up until I decided to try sniping. Was in a really obvious spot on a small water tower but got 11 kills before someone finally snuck up on me and capped me right before the game ended.
Now I really enjoy the cat and mouse of counter sniper play.
I just really really hope for a much better optimized ArmA4. Tired of seeing people and objects float above terrain at long distance.
Playing the odd map of Vermintide 2 to collect chests for when I feel like crafting stuff. Also replaying so I can get a wee bit better at it and show off some proper "skills" for when my brother decides to play with the copy I gave him.
Also decided to make a serious start on Inquisitor - Martyr, it's.. let's just say I'm keeping a notebook besides me in which I jot down the things that bother or jump out at me.
I discovered a free to play game called Endless Sky, which is basically a spiritual successor to the Escape Velocity series from the 90s. It is every bit as addictive as those games were, too, so I'm almost reliving a large part of my teenage years.
Found City Skylines on Steam. I’m loving this game much more than the Sim City games. Budget is easier to control, so no more mafia jobs to keep the city running. New zoning and building placement makes diagonal roads feel more like a viable option. I think I even like the atmosphere too.
ZergSmasher wrote: I discovered a free to play game called Endless Sky, which is basically a spiritual successor to the Escape Velocity series from the 90s. It is every bit as addictive as those games were, too, so I'm almost reliving a large part of my teenage years.
Took a small glance at it. Seems to be something similar to a roguelike 4X game? Might give it a try sometime once hard drive space clears up.
I recently picked up a bundle of games on Steam, such as Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, ES3: Morrowind, ES4: Oblivion, and Elite Dangerous. The first couple I have played, but never owned digitally (I can't find my physical copies so I haven't reinstalled on my new PC).
Now, Elite Dangerous I thought would fill the void of space explorer and piloting game. It does, at the expense of me being super pissed off after 4 hours of playing and only learning to really do Courier missions...
After a couple of weeks on Mass Effect 2/3, I'm now onto Vamypr...
What a glorious game. It's one of those 'AA' titles that knows exactly what it wants to be, like Dishonored or the last Hitman, and delivers on that very specific experience. It doesn't have the technical prowess of a top-shelf releases and I'm sure you could pick quite a few holes in it if you wanted to, but as a complete package of gothic horror+investigation+monster slaying it just ticks all my boxes.
The visual tone, the haunting score, the quality voice work and cast of interesting characters, the tough but interesting combat systems... That's easily enough for me to overlook the odd frame rate drop, texture bug or typo in the subtitles that crops up from time to time.
Not one I can recommend to everyone, as I say it's a very specific and unique experience, but if you've seen the trailers/previews and thought 'hmm, that looks like something I might like an awful lot', I'd say there's a good chance you will enjoy it greatly.
Few MMORPGs like ArcheAge and Albion Online. On these holiday I fall in love into game called blade and soul. This is really awesome game with strong market. Community is loyal and it is why they make stable prices in game. https://www.sellersandfriends.com/blade-and-soul/na/gold I really like all kind of MMORPGs but this one is one of the best I have ever played. All games from this site https://www.sellersandfriends.com are really great. Anybody play in MMORPG? I am always open for check or play in any titles together
Picked up "Valiant Hearts: the Great War" during the sale and while it's fun, it certainly has some very frustrating moments, including one where you need to dig through explosive infested soil, while being bombarded. The controls are also not very precise. Not often that I quit in annoyance.
ESO Summerset has managed to pull me away from Fortnite. New areas seem pretty cool so far. I started out with a brand new character to explore, but decided to switch back to my main (argonian nightblade rogue type) and I'm gonna go through Morrowind with him too.
krodarklorr wrote: I recently picked up a bundle of games on Steam, such as Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins, ES3: Morrowind, ES4: Oblivion, and Elite Dangerous. The first couple I have played, but never owned digitally (I can't find my physical copies so I haven't reinstalled on my new PC).
Now, Elite Dangerous I thought would fill the void of space explorer and piloting game. It does, at the expense of me being super pissed off after 4 hours of playing and only learning to really do Courier missions...
I got into Elite and quite enjoyed it for a while, sort of soothing and relaxing and I liked the hard sci fi elements to it. But I agree, it is insanely hard to break into. What killed it for me was the way the timers for jobs ticked down in real time. I just felt pretty uncomfortable with that and felt pressured into playing it more than I wanted to, so I stopped playing entirely. Shame! I was hoping No Man's Sky would give me a similar experience, but I suppose I am holding out for Starfield now.
Just played Doom 2016 (on a real Bethesda rampage these days). Really enjoyed it, not exactly like original doom (the way you get sealed into areas and fight staggered waves so frequently I think is fun but it isn't original Doom.) Fun arenas, awesome monster designs and exciting gameplay. A really worthy reboot to a classic. It was possibly a bit easy in parts on Hurt Me Plenty, though the bosses generally took me a few goes. The weapons all felt awesome though, especially the super shotgun and plasma rifle with the heat blast mod.
Got Battletech and well…. I am far from amused, having played for about Three hours I will not Return to it any time soon. Although the game looks Nice and the cinematics are very good.
Trondheim wrote: Got Battletech and well…. I am far from amused, having played for about Three hours I will not Return to it any time soon. Although the game looks Nice and the cinematics are very good.
I'm curious what's unamusing? I got bored with it over time, as the missions get fairly repetitive, but its pretty much what it says on the tin, and the issues with the game were right out in the open right after release (and many before in preview coverage)
Splitting my sparse free time between House Flipper and Conan Exiles these days. Or at least until I get tired of them or something else comes out. So far though, they scratch that "I want to build / renovate stuff" itch nicely.
I do Star Trek: Alien Domain pretty much daily. If I get bored waiting on something there, I will shut it off and play Fate: The Traitor's Soul.
On the off chance I can console game (given that the wife and kids usually dominate the TV) I will throw one of my games in the 360. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Space Marine, Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Origins, Skyrim, Divinity 2: Ego Draconis, Transformers: War For Cybertron, Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron, Transformers: Devastation, and Star Trek. Yes, the one from the Abramsverse. I regret nothing.
I'm dividing my time between another run through of Baldur's Gate (Shapeshifter Druid) and Ghost of a Tale.
Baldur's Gate is Baldur's Gate, doubt I need to say anything about it on here. Ghost of a Tale is a great little stealth adventure game. You play as an absolutely adorable mouse minstrel called Tilo and are searching for his wife who has been imprisoned. The animations for the game are phenomenal (with the exception of climbing ladders which seems very mechanical), from Tilo's scurrying run on all fours to the little twitches of his ears and nose. It is really hard to remember that it is the work of only one person whilst you're playing, though that person has serious animation credentials.
Shadow of War is an amazing game. Probably the current pinnacle of the Arkham-style combat system, it looks stunning, the world is varied and full of interesting stuff and the systems have vastly improved over the already strong setup of the first one. While some of the narrative elements towards the finale really put me off (there's bending the lore, then there's snapping it in half and burning the remains) but in terms of the actual gameplay, it's one of the best things to come out in recent years.
As for myself, I'm back in Witcher 3, having just started a New Game Plus. No idea if I'll see it through or just dip in and out until something else comes along, but I am finding the earlier sections of the game much less daunting coming at it with all my abilities unlocked and a hundred-odd hours with the systems and setting. It's cool to experience those bits without a) worrying about getting my head smashed in every 5 minutes and b) wondering what the hell is going on in terms of the story.
That said, I'm getting a PS4 in a couple of weeks, so it'll soon be time to put one Angry Man With a Beard (Geralt) on hold for another Angry Man With A Beard (Kratos)...
I got to level 14 in Fallout 4 survival, and suddenly I am fighting legendary monsters every second fight.
Also had my first encounter with Synths, and am now trying to clear a hospital full of super mutants.
The difficulty jump is pretty sudden. Having to adapt my tactics quite a lot and wondering if I should be modding my weapons and armour more or what, because I seem to die pretty damn fast if I get hit at all, and some of these encounters have four or five guys and not much in the way of cover.
In general, modding your gear to the highest level your current perks will allow is always a good idea on Survival. You need all the hitting power and all the defence you can get. Obviously that necessitates gathering more loot, but the pay-off is worth it as you'll be a lot safer.
Stealth is also your best friend, a decent scoped rifle or silenced pistol can let you tip the odds by picking off a few enemies before the fight proper begins. A decent melee weapon for silent kills is also a nice-to-have (especially if you've taken any ranks of Ninja that puts great bonuses to all sneak damage) but focus on rifles or pistols first.
Also, just keep in mind that the further south/east you go, the more dangerous the map gets. You may be best off sticking to the early game areas for a few more levels or until you've got better gear. If you're where I think you are from your description (Medford hospital, with the Synths across the road at the subway station?) then that might just be a little tough to be exploring at level 14.
Paradigm wrote: In general, modding your gear to the highest level your current perks will allow is always a good idea on Survival. You need all the hitting power and all the defence you can get. Obviously that necessitates gathering more loot, but the pay-off is worth it as you'll be a lot safer.
Stealth is also your best friend, a decent scoped rifle or silenced pistol can let you tip the odds by picking off a few enemies before the fight proper begins. A decent melee weapon for silent kills is also a nice-to-have (especially if you've taken any ranks of Ninja that puts great bonuses to all sneak damage) but focus on rifles or pistols first.
Also, just keep in mind that the further south/east you go, the more dangerous the map gets. You may be best off sticking to the early game areas for a few more levels or until you've got better gear. If you're where I think you are from your description (Medford hospital, with the Synths across the road at the subway station?) then that might just be a little tough to be exploring at level 14.
Hah, you had me right. I have just cleared out the subway and the hospital, and was all chuffed, and then stumbled into the Middle School which is full of heavily armed Gunners?! This town is awful. After a few runs at the Gunners, I am going back to Red Rocket for my Power Armour and am going to show them who is boss.
The level of difficulty is good in a way because it forces me to use grenades and mines, and in the pitched battle at the bottom of the subway I busted out my missile launcher and finally used the ammo up (god dam, 7 kilos per rocket is tough). But I get annoyed getting addicted to chems the whole time when I am fair forced to use them to survive tricky situations. Like I opened the door to the operating theatre and there is 3 Super Mutants, a Super Mutant Brute and two Mutant Hounds immediately closing in on my position/filling it full of holes. And of course I had stood up from my crouch because I had been using a terminal. I may end up getting the perk that reduces chem addiction.
I do like the risk-reward of chems on Survival, not just the high addiction risk but the increased need for food/water that most of them trigger. You have to be far more careful with them (whereas in the base game, you can just fast travel back to a doc and cure addiction for 15 caps) but they can be absolute lifesavers. Jet and its alternate forms are incredibly handy for those life or death moments where every second counts.
I hear you on the ammo weight, I think I've used a missile launcher all of twice in a hundred-odd hours of Survival as it's just so damn heavy. On occasion, I'll give my companion the launcher and a few rounds (make sure they don't equip it, mind!) so I have it to hand if I need it, but often I find their carry capacity better used for junk and/or gear to take back to base. Often though, I don't use them at all though, as Lone Wanderer is a great perk on Survival as it just gives you free damage resistance/carry weight for not having a companion, which is very nice indeed.
Skyrim, we all know what that ones like. Can always lose myself in that one for a couple of hours. Plus with the kids on holiday I can just pop it on when they’ve crashed out for a while.
I was on a Skyrim kick a week or two ago, started up on FO4 on Thursday and already feel like I've mined all the enjoyment out of it. I'm undecided on whether to play Shadow of Mordor, Mad Max, or go back to Skyrim.
On PC i'm still playing a lot of Don't Starve, especially the Shipwrecked DLC. I have to admit, I do prefer to lower the difficulty by mucking around with the world settings. That way, it's challenging enough that I need to pay attention, without that draining, constant "Ohgod I'm gonna die" thing, which can be a bit stressful.
Still, it is fun to occasionally run a non-easy mode game and laugh at how utterly boned I can be within two seasons!
I certainly recommend the game, IIRC it's pretty cheap to get on Steam with the DLCs.
My stay in Malden in Fallout 4 has become pretty extended. First I was just gonna clear a couple of buildings and move on, but I have had some wacky friggin adventures in this little town.
Spoiler:
So I found the Vault under the Middle School, and cleared it out using my Power Armour. Wasn't too tough, though the Gunner Commanders took some killing, especially the one with the plasma pistol in the Overseer's office. Cleared the place out, but the arms on my Power Armour were knackered. So I was poking around and saw another cross on my map. Weird to have two hospitals so close to each other, I thought.
Oh, it's a medical research fac-oh crap, ghouls. Lots of ghouls! Legendary ghouls! Retreating, I tossed a couple of frag mines and kited them into them, then finished the rest off with my modded 10mm. Okay. So I start exploring the building, and there are more ghouls. One, a Roamer, gets in close and messes my armour up even more - broken leg now, torso nearly done in too. Helmet gone. Can't seem to clear the place (must be quest related) so I bail. Right into a band of Raiders led by a legendary fighting super mutants. A hairy fight ensues with me taking on both sides, cars exploding left right and centre. Then a storm rolls in, and I realise it has been 24 hours since I have slept. Think about going back to the vault, but I would really like to repair my armour before I push on to the next area.
So I am poking around Malden and find Slocum Joes, who has a Power Armour station. Nice! In the storm, I fix up some parts of my armour and then sneak out into the shadowed ruins to find scraps of steel and circuitry to use. End up tussling with some raiders in the office, finding a quest in the old police station, and finally, as the storm rages outside my half ruined shelter, I get my armour up to full strength.
This was such a great experience. I love True Storms, it makes these quiet moments super atmospheric. Fallout 4 is good at giving you little tasks that make you interact with the world, explore for more stuff and generally make these little stories.
The next morning I wake up and head toward the farm outside of town, but stumble across a sinkhole. Hey, I have fully repaired power armour? What's the worst that could happen?
Legendary Deathclaw is what. Through Jet, my last Nuka Cola Quantum, Psycho, Mentats and Buffout I managed to down the bastard before he could close in on me. Holy crap.
This town is insane.
So far, I have faced:
- A sentry bot just outside of town.
- A swarm of Stingwings
- A buttload of Super Mutants
- A squad of Synths, and Raiders they were slaughtering
- More raiders and mutants
- Gunners
- Feral Ghouls
- A freaking Deathclaw.
I think I am gonna leave. 0_0 On the plus side I have levelled up 4 times.
Well I caved in and got myself Battletech a few days ago and have been giving it a go, but I dont see myself sinking anymore time into it, between the slow and tedious combat and lackluster mapdesignes that seems to be very numerous. got to campaign mission 6 or 7 seven I think. But I will say that it has some rather Nice cutscenes and story telling tricks.
Found this cool little KRPG called Troubleshooter. It's kind of neat so far. Gameplay is pretty much taken entirely from X-Com, but it feels like it's used more as a foundation to build upon than a lazy rehash.
I’m running a fort with a small... chameleon problem. See, we had this visiting poet that was secretly a were-chameleon. It ran around and bit a few people, who were then placed in hospitals. Military took down the chameleon, so the problem is solved right?
No, now the hospital patients are infected. At least five injured become were-chameleons and start biting more people. Old hospital is barricaded to prevent additional were-chameleon outbreaks, and new one is barricaded after everyone is inside.
A year passes. Looks like all of the were-chameleons have starved. The scratching on the stone walls blocking them off ceased. Naturally, I order the dwarves to break open the wall to get the hospital supplies. All good?
NOPE. One of them was either playing dead, or wasn’t noticed. The rogue were-chameleon bites even more people. Now we’re left with two abandoned hospitals with corpses strewn everywhere (near the residences might I add), and one hospital barricaded with infected and non-infected dorfs.
Good thing this is Dwarf Fortress, or I would consider this an ethical dilemma.
Revisited Wildlands after they released their latest bit of free single player content, this time a crossover with Rainbow 6 Siege. I was a bit apprehensive after the disappointing Splinter Cell tie-in, but this one is a whole lot better. Plus Twitch and Cav are actually useful in a fight, unlike Fisher who just stood there and did nothing.
Also played Conan Exiles for a bit with my brother and a coworker of his. It was fun, but the inability to travel too far from the host to harvest certain resources is annoying.
Finally have a PS4, and am playing God of War. I appreciate I'm very late to the party on this one and everyone and their mum has said their piece about how good it is by now, but still....
It's excellent. But surprisingly, what's struck me the most isn't how marvellously cinematic it is, or the strength of the writing, because while those things are good, I feel games have been increasingly getting a foot in that door for the last few years. Take a look at the cinematic elements of the last few Tomb Raiders, or the story work in The Last of Us, or the script and voice work in Injustice 2.
All that is there in God of War, but I think the far more impressive thing is how all that is layered on top of a genuinely exquisite gaming experience. Every element just works. The combat is stunning, the world design is very pleasing, the presentation is gorgeous, and crucially, it's not afraid to be a video game. The puzzles, the multi-stage boss fights, the 'come back when you have a new ability to unlock this secret', the exploration all just works beautifully, and wouldn't feel out of place in a game from a decade ago (in a good way). It's charmingly old-school (but never dated) in places despite being so forward-thinking, and I think its true achievement is managing to do that as well as telling a great story.
A lot has been made of how GoW's approach to storytelling and cinematography and narrative, but what's keeping me hooked at the moment is how under all of that excellence, there's a genuinely wonderful game to play.
I have been playing a ton of No Man's Sky now that the NEXT update is out. Loads of fun, can't wait for my friends to start playing again so we can have some space adventures together.
Deathklaat wrote: I have been playing a ton of No Man's Sky now that the NEXT update is out. Loads of fun, can't wait for my friends to start playing again so we can have some space adventures together.
Same here. Except, I have no interest in multiplayer. Which is good, I guess, since my copy of the game is from GOG (bought back at launch), and multiplayer isn't available for us GOG-plebs, yet.
Anyway, Stardew Valley just got it's big update this week, so I'm going to dive back into that for a bit. Coincidentally, it's also an update bringing multiplayer into the game (which I have no interest in), but it does bring a lot of other stuff into it.
Tried playing Shadow of Mordor, with the intention of getting Shadow of War eventually. Played it for a grand total of 2 hours. Until this ridiculously dumb nemesis system ends up spawning an enemy that's immune to all damage and auto kills me every 5 minutes.
Shadow of Mordor is one of those games that, I think, oddly, is better and more entertaining to play, the worse you are at playing it. Like, the dynamic difficulty stuff means that if you blaze through the early, easy stuff without any issues at all, it'll go nuts trying to give you a 'challenge', but if you screw up and die to a rando, then it's like, "Oh, okay, you're not that good. I'll take it a little easier on you".
I'm currently in the process of getting my comp replaced as I was stupid enough to get one of those All In One deals where the tower is integrated into the monitor. Anywhich, I've got all the Dawn of War expansions and all the Mark of Chaos editions sitting out waiting to be uploaded. I also have Chaos Gate, Shadow of the Horned Rat, Dark Omen, and Final Liberation ready to load up as well. I'm gonna Warhammer myself silly the SECOND the new comp gets here.
And then I'll finally chase down Total War: Warhammer. It'll be a glorious time at the Lucas household...
I'm currently playing Brutal Doom with various map packs.
I started playing doom again about a year and a half ago. it's been a lot of fun. Hand't played it in years.
My go to before this was CoD Zombies. but it never feels big enough.
I'm a fan of Dawn of War and have several of the expansions but I recall the last expansion crashing a lot. I tried Dawn of War 2 but had problems with it letting me play in Off line mode.
My last purchase was again a few years ago now and another computer ago. Space Hulk! It was a lot of fun except for a single map that took 3 weeks of hard work to beat.
I have not reinstalled Steam on my current computer so I haven't played anything else I probably have but don't remember.
Doom is amazing with all of the free wads and updates that are available.
Only thing that excites me is the new content coming for Rome 2.
I'll probably try out the newest update to They are Billions tonight though, give nightmare mode a solid try and see how the new zombie giant that roams the map works.
Just Tony wrote: I'm currently in the process of getting my comp replaced as I was stupid enough to get one of those All In One deals where the tower is integrated into the monitor.
I have a similar problem, where I upgraded to a nice laptop, rather than buying a new desktop. It's not great for gaming. :(
Also, my 5 year old daughter has been cutting her Xbox teeth on Transformers: Devastation, with me picking up the slack on a couple boss battles or complex maneuvers that she doesn't grasp yet. She loves that game. So I guess I'm playing that fairly regularly now.
Sniper Elite 4 is on sale right now, so after the urging of my brother I decided to pick up the complete package. So far, a lot of cringing as the x-ray cam shows all that detailed internal damage.
amazingturtles wrote: I bought endless legend on a whim despite the fact that i found endless space kind of irritating and non-fun back in the day.
It's very pretty at least so far?
Both games are good. Endless Space 1 is a bit lacking in depth but ES2 and EL flesh it out considerably esp. with quest-lines with choices, more story and ES2 has voices for intros and things. They added a lot more to it like resource packages you can boost (or use for civilization development upgrades), government types and other crazy things. EL also allows you to buy mercenary units at fairly early game and you can use them as unknown privateers and even decide to attack allies with them. Probably useful if you play as the trader faction that can't declare wars but can have market bans placed on opponents.
In Endless Legend the most obnoxious faction has to be the Drakken. They can force diplomacy with people whether you like it or not. They can force wars or peace or anything with the right amount of influence. It's probably the most devastating semi-peaceful faction i've played in any 4X game so far.
In ES2 you can force bounties on enemy players with pirate factions. I don't really use it though.
I think my time with God of War is coming to an end, all I have left at this point is the optional endgame bosses and collectables. I could spend hours grinding for the very best armour to start a New Game Plus with at some point, but I'm happy with what I have to be honest. All in all, I think it's a very strong contender for GotY, even with stuff like AC: Oddessy, Tomb Raider and Spider-man on the horizon, and a genuine modern masterpiece. Looking forward to any info on the inevitable sequels, though I'd not be surprised if we don't see them until the PS5 rolls around in a couple of years.
Also on the PS4 exclusive front I've been very impressed with Horizon: Zero Dawn. Yes, it might well be the pinnacle of the Ubisoft-esque open world, but I think it does it far better than most others in that vein; the quests dotted around the map are rarely dull scavenger hunts or fetches, the setting in marvellously unique and the production values in terms of visuals, script and voice work mean nothing has really seemed like a chore yet, whereas I often lose interest in the mid/late stages of stuff like Assassin's Creed.
The RPG/narrative stuff is a nice mesh with that system and helps make the expanse of map icons and codex entries feel a bit more personal. I think it's something the upcoming Assassin's Creed will benefit from: even in cases where the actual consequences aren't necessarily earth-shattering on a Mass Effect or Witcher level, having dialogue options to tailor your protagonist's attitude and approach to the world fosters empathy with them a bit.
So yeah, thus far the PS4 is the best thing to happen to my gaming habit this year, and with Spidey out next month that looks like it'll continue. Not to mention that I can now finally get around to stuff like The Last of Us and Uncharted. At this point, when the next generation does roll around, I may well go PS rather than Xbox just because their exclusives seem to cater to exactly the kind of game I enjoy the most, whereas the bulk of Xbox exclusives do very little for me.
