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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

Just beat Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire !

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.

 nels1031 wrote:
Just beat Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire !

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

So does anybody here play Champions Online?

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.

Wait for a sale, my recommendation.

 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.

Saint’s Row IV. Quite ridiculous and fun.

Decided to replay Orcs Must Die! 2 on a whim.

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.

Fallout 4 was terrific. I really enjoyed it.

 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.

 Ouze wrote:
Fallout 4 was terrific. I really enjoyed it.

The amount of hours I spent building my settlements was pretty ridiculous

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)?

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Saint’s Row IV. Quite ridiculous and fun.

It’s a pretty good stress reliever. Spent a good 40 hours rampaging across Steelport.

Inquisitor: Martyr. It's actually a really fun game. Even though people complain.

 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

For you guys playing Inquisitor: Martyr, I got two "Seeds of Corruption" DLC codes in my latest GW order.

Hit me up in PM's if you want. I'm at work at the moment, so don't expect the codes until later in the day.

edit: first come, first serve applies.

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