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Surviving Mars isn't an Epic exclusive. So no need to feel guilty about grabbing it if it's free.

Eumerin wrote:
Surviving Mars isn't an Epic exclusive. So no need to feel guilty about grabbing it if it's free.

Though it does mean giving Epic information which they can then sell for profit.

Nothing is free when it comes to the Internet any more.

Except the free trial of WinRAR.


For what I've been playing recently:

Some Skyrim, doing some Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, vampirey goodness.

Some WWE 2K19 universe mode. My heel stable of spooky ladies called The Disciples are currently accumulating belts through brutality and cheating. Their next target is the tag titles currently held by my babyface tag team High Voltage composed of ladder-diving high-flyer Lightning Lex and suplex-machine technician Thunder Frye.

Also playing through Call of Juarez Bound in Blood as I just picked it up on GOG.

That's not guilt, though.

:p

And if you already play one of their online games such as Fortnite or Dauntless (which I mentioned several posts back), then they already have that information.

Yeah I personally was a backer for Pheonix Point. So when they first went epic exclusive (I think they were the first epic controversy?) I set up my account before I heard all the bad stuff. Since I already have it installed and everything, I've been taking the free games (when I remember).

Surviving Mars is pretty fun so far. But it's way more complex than what I usually play. I'm used to the more ant colony simulators like Banished or Aven Colony where it's more about building placement than resource management.

balmong7 wrote:

Surviving Mars is pretty fun so far. But it's way more complex than what I usually play. I'm used to the more ant colony simulators like Banished or Aven Colony where it's more about building placement than resource management.

IIRC, Surviving Mars was developed by the same people who do the Tropico games. As a result, there's a much stronger element of managing resources and matching people to the most suitable jobs than is typically the case for city-management games. Building placement is important, as well. Nothing is more frustrating than realizing that you placed the now-settled colony dome in such a way that an important mine is just outside of its range. But there's a much stronger focus on people.

Eumerin wrote:

balmong7 wrote:

Surviving Mars is pretty fun so far. But it's way more complex than what I usually play. I'm used to the more ant colony simulators like Banished or Aven Colony where it's more about building placement than resource management.

IIRC, Surviving Mars was developed by the same people who do the Tropico games. As a result, there's a much stronger element of managing resources and matching people to the most suitable jobs than is typically the case for city-management games. Building placement is important, as well. Nothing is more frustrating than realizing that you placed the now-settled colony dome in such a way that an important mine is just outside of its range. But there's a much stronger focus on people.

I'm loving it so far as a change of pace, but I'm for sure restricted to easy mode until I learn the ropes.

I’ve been playing Space Hulk Tactics, on XBox One. Went on sale for less than $15 CAD. (My “I want it, but not chomping at the bit” price point.)

Wow. I haven’t binged a game like that in a long time, and there’s a lot of content so far in the BA campaign. I believe I’m close to the end of it now. Tons of 40k flavour, Imperial factions at odds with each other (sort of). Orks and Aeldari are included in the flavour, as parts of the hulk are crashed Ork and Aeldari ships. Hints of warp dabbling in an arc related to the Librarian.

The controls are kind of clunky, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve accidentally ended a turn and lost the mission because of that. I don’t know why, but I keep wanting the “turn over” button to bring up squad data. I think it’s because most skirmish games I’ve played have that. Not to mention, most have a “are you sure you’re done your turn?” Confirmation, not just, “Ok, you just started your turn and did absolutely nothing so far but you clicked *turn over* so the Genestealers are gonna gut you now. Hope you saved!”

Which is user error, but really the only thing that I’d *demand* be changed if given the opportunity.

If you have a chance to pick it up on the cheap, it’s an incredible value if you like squad based skirmish with a focus on board control.

Kind of want to get the physical board game now...

Eumerin wrote:
Surviving Mars isn't an Epic exclusive. So no need to feel guilty about grabbing it if it's free.

I try not to feel too guilty. That said even I feel a bit guilty for wanting to play Phoenix Point. There's a couple interesting things about it but i'll wait till December when the game fully launches to maybe buy it.

While I don't like companies getting my info sometimes it's hard to thing my interests and what I do is of any relevance to a multi-national company. I mean maybe for buying stuff but it's weird to me a company would care so much. It's like an oppressive system meets a crazy stalker.

------

As for games i'm playing it's still just Long War. Last game went farther than it ever has at that difficulty but it still failed. I think this game will fail too but i'm just not sure what i'm doing wrong. I think my gameplay choices are legit but the strategic/global map choices need work. That said everything in Long War is infinitely more complicated than vanilla xcom 2 or even WotC for that matter.

Mostly MHW, with a dribble of Minecraft or Diablo II in there.

I keep trying Torchlight II, but something in it is just missing that Diablo II charm, despite it having basically identical music.


Also, something keeps causing my gaming PC to freeze up. I thought it was fixed a week or two ago when I took it in to be checked on (the guy just re-seated the RAM and suddenly it's working again). I suspect Vermintide, 'cause I reinstalled it and suddenly it starts freezing again. It's annoying, though. I wanna smash guys in the face with a Flagellant Zealot!

Insurgency.
God i start getting twitchy again.

finally completed FTL on hard with the Stealth C. hurrah for rng, might pop to the fancy dress shop tomorrow and buy myself a shiny crown (or pilfer one from Burger King)

I salute you!

As much as I love FTL, the RNG is just sometimes too unfair.

 BrookM wrote:
I salute you!

As much as I love FTL, the RNG is just sometimes too unfair.

cheers, the unfairness of it is part of the appeal to me but a ship that starts with no shields or cloak was an uphill fight against the 'random'. (oh another enemy ship with beam weapons how lucky)

 BrookM wrote:
I salute you!

As much as I love FTL, the RNG is just sometimes too unfair.

As an xcom player you sometimes have to roll with the RNG. Yes it sucks but that's why you should have a back-up plan in case things go south during your current round. That or you prevent yourself from making massive bad mistakes with a small reward by trying to correct a minor one. One example is trying to kill one dude by flanking them only to discover another pod which then move around you and decrease your mission success rate and that specific soldier's survival rate by a lot.

Just about wrapped up Breakpoint at this stage, put in just over 80 hrs and played through all main story missions thus far. There's probably still side missions out there, not to mention the raids, but like hell am I going to do that with randos.

Next up.. going to give Destiny 2 a proper try.

The raid hasn't unlocked yet for Breakpoint, BrookM.

Supposedly it's going to be doable as a solo thing, just easier as a group, like the Behemoth Defense Areas. And the AI teammates(Fury, Vassily, and Fixit) are still a "WIP" that are being worked on to let you do these Elite side missions and the raid.


I'm splitting my time between Breakpoint and Smite at the moment.

Got Dishonored 2 off Xbox Gamepass, enjoying it a lot so far. I think I played the first one on my PS3, seems like it was a while ago.

I'm trying to do a playthrough where I don't kill anybody. Successful so far except 1 chapter where I tried to hide a body near a balcony and he fell over the edge, and I didn't realize he died. And then anther time where someone blew up a thing of whale oil and killed himself and 2 other guards. And one of the boss types I killed before I found out there was a way to save her. So I'm in chapter 5 and I think there's been about 7 deaths total.

Disco Elysium.

Never has a game made me think "What the feth am I playing" and made me want more.

I woke up naked after some weird internal dialogue and tried to get dressed. My character had a heart attack trying to retrieve his tie that is hanging from a ceiling fan, discovered that I apparently threw one of my shoes out of the window in the wild bender that precedes the game starting, tried to bang my next door neighbor, stole a dudes wallet, and discovered that I was in fact a cop. And I lost my badge in the aforementioned bender.

All in the first 3 minutes. I think this will be a wild ride.

Going to go deep into it tonight.

Back onto FFXIV and had the rotten luck of immediately doing a big dungeon with two other groups where one of the groups did not do what they had to do to beat the boss (you either kill ads, get shrunk, get eaten and defeat the boss from within or chain the boss up). Massive waste of time that was.

 BrookM wrote:
Back onto FFXIV and had the rotten luck of immediately doing a big dungeon with two other groups where one of the groups did not do what they had to do to beat the boss (you either kill ads, get shrunk, get eaten and defeat the boss from within or chain the boss up). Massive waste of time that was.

The Cerberus fight?

That's a rough instance. People get stupidly overconfident because it's very old content. But the bosses in there are (as you're well aware, I'm sure) very mechanic-intensive.

Eumerin wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Back onto FFXIV and had the rotten luck of immediately doing a big dungeon with two other groups where one of the groups did not do what they had to do to beat the boss (you either kill ads, get shrunk, get eaten and defeat the boss from within or chain the boss up). Massive waste of time that was.

The Cerberus fight?

That's a rough instance. People get stupidly overconfident because it's very old content. But the bosses in there are (as you're well aware, I'm sure) very mechanic-intensive.

That's the one. Group B was not doing its job, despite nobody being a new player* and after two attempts we called it quits on that one, even after we split our group up to help out with B.


* Well, I was the newest player present but thankfully part of a five stack, so got shouted at about what to do and when to die (I'm a Dragoon).

As you play further into the game, you'll continue to see raid bosses that have punishing mechanics, and that wipe raids that just try and out-dps the mechanics instead of playing by the rules. But my recollection is that none of the 24-man raids have as many bosses like that in a single raid instance as the World of Darkness raid. There's a reason why I groan a bit whenever it comes up during a raid roulette. ^^;;

And, of course, speaking of 24-man raids, the first one for the new expansion is scheduled to arrive next week. The raid is a cross-over with Nier: Automata, and I'm curious to see what they'll do with it.

Monster Hunter World, baybee! Slapping around a Jyuratoadus with a bug horn. Yeah!

Playing The Outer Worlds now, and loving it.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Playing The Outer Worlds now, and loving it.

Likewise, having an absolutely brilliant time with it. The fact it feels both refreshingly original and instantly familiar is wonderful for being able to just dive headlong into it rather than having to struggle with new mechanics and controls (though, admittedly, I may have jammed then inhaler into my face a few times while trying to go into slo-mo because I'm so used to VATS being on the left bumper! ) The game looks stunning at times, the gunplay is solid and the writing superb.

Did hit one major bug that I think has locked me out of picking up the last companion character, but oh well, an excuse to do another playthrough at some point to see their content! Other than that, so far it's been very stable, which is nice.

Finally picked up Battletech and oh-my what I have been missing.Initially put off by the difficulty spike I hit not too far into the campaign but after getting my rear kicked a few times, rethought things on a couple missions, went back with new mech builds and tactics and pulled out great victories. Extremely satisfying that was - some of the best gaming I have had in ages.

Anyone play Pathfinder Kingmaker Enhanced? Just curious if it is worth diving into now a year plus on from release. The reviews and things I heard back at release really put me off but hoping maybe the game has been brought up to a good place now?

petrov27 wrote:
Finally picked up Battletech and oh-my what I have been missing.Initially put off by the difficulty spike I hit not too far into the campaign but after getting my rear kicked a few times, rethought things on a couple missions, went back with new mech builds and tactics and pulled out great victories. Extremely satisfying that was - some of the best gaming I have had in ages.

Anyone play Pathfinder Kingmaker Enhanced? Just curious if it is worth diving into now a year plus on from release. The reviews and things I heard back at release really put me off but hoping maybe the game has been brought up to a good place now?

I have. Bug-wise, its in a good place.

Game-wise, it depends what you're looking for. It is a _long_ game. Mostly because it egregiously wastes your time with the kingdom management stuff. Story and interactions (which you'd think would be center stage in an RPG) are secondary small concerns- you don't interact with companions much, and largely only when their story arcs trigger (which happen over the course of several years of game time, most of which you'll just be passing so the next event will trigger)

Rules-wise, its very faithful to the pathfinder rules*, so much so that if you're not familiar with the system mastery involved, it is a struggle. The only major deviation from the ruleset is that the developers buffed the monsters and made the difficulty settings very opaque (the closest to the pathfinder-by-the-book monsters is normal difficulty and 'somewhat easier,' and even then any named monsters or templated monsters (of which there are a lot) are buffed a lot).

*well, except its real time, and they made sneak attack much easier to do


So if you're looking for a rules heavy long game of rpg combat and 'kingdom management (by which I mean you have a bunch of problem cards that are resolved by rolling d20+ a stat bonus + kindom bonus, and losing quite a few of those checks brings you to a 'failed' end game state), then yeah, it can be fun. But the main campaign is 100+ hours, and very much on rails, and the end sequence is probably one of the worst experiences I've ever had in an RPG.

Saint Dragon, ZX Spectrum. Cyborg tigers ahoy!

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Playing The Outer Worlds now, and loving it.

I enjoyed it. Had no bugs at all, which shocked me, given obsidian (especially how lousy with bugs PoE2 was- that game actually broke down for me, with defeated enemies becoming untouchable rather than dying).

Good gunplay, liked the skill system overall (though the combat and companion skills felt a little useless compared to social, lockpick, hacking and the science/medical/engineering skills)
Perks were a little weak, and the flaws seemed untenable to trade a real weakness for a weak perk.

Graphics were... mixed. The style was fine, but the colors and layout got to me at times.

The journal system definitely needed work. It saved logs of journals and notes, but they weren't organized in a useful way or searchable, and there were lots of callbacks to information you found earlier.

Overall liked the story, though thought it could use a little more nuance than 'evil bastions of evil evilness' and 'people are stupid, haha, laugh'
But the major plot touched on a real problem of colonization that's often overlooked by sci-fi. Though oddly, it didn't look at real solutions to that problem, or address that the problems would also occur in the It also felt a little odd, since a lot of the science was fantastical/ old-timey views of the future (like fallout), so a realistic science problem felt a little out of sync with the setting.

Companions were... interestingly. I liked the ones I took, but skipped two because they seemed like self-interested jerks. I would've liked more interaction with ones I did have.
The 'last' companion seemed unfinished, like it was supposed to be a reference to past characters in other games, but was just a minor sidequest. Or maybe that was the joke?


---
Still, overall a good solid little RPG.
We'll have to see if it becomes a franchise. They left plot hooks, but early talk was it was a stand-alone before they fully transitioned to becoming a Microsoft brand studio.

I'm playing the Outer Worlds too, really enjoying it. I'm taking my time and exploring a lot, doing all the side quests I can find. Right now I'm up to the point where you have to go to Byzantium and I did all of the planet side quests along the way so I'm in no rush.

For the first time I'm feeling like I need to crank up the difficulty. Combat overall just seems way easy to me, I just have it on the normal setting. Got myself a modded hunting rifle and I mostly just sneak, hit the time button, boom headshot, turn off time button. Rinse Repeat. Unless it's a big encounter my companions rarely get to fight at all.