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mega_bassist wrote: I completely forget I started playing Republic Commando.
Holy feth, that game can be difficult some times.
I gave up on it. I lost at least 24 times trying to get through the bit where you have to fight your way through a bajillion elite troops to shut something down. In 5 minutes. Or you die. And you get no Bacta except at the very beginning. Feth that noise
Still trying to finish Torchlight 2. At only 2 hours a week this will still take a bit
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/06/05 18:15:09
mega_bassist wrote: I completely forget I started playing Republic Commando.
Holy feth, that game can be difficult some times.
I gave up on it. I lost at least 24 times trying to get through the bit where you have to fight your way through a bajillion elite troops to shut something down. In 5 minutes. Or you die. And you get no Bacta except at the very beginning. Feth that noise
Still trying to finish Torchlight 2. At only 2 hours a week this will still take a bit
I took about a year to do that mission, or more. What's worse, the hack takes one minute to run and I auto-saved with 1:20 left of the countdown and no save for ages back before that. So every time, I had 20 seconds of actual movement time, to get in, start the hack and get out.
It's certainly difficult, but in the end I just made a beeline straight for the panel, put the squad on defensive and hacked it myself. I think I made the escape with 1.5 seconds remaining. No word of a lie, it was that close, and the feeling of finally getting through it was awesome.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So holy sh*t more 'dark souls'. After beating the first demon I managed to get past the dragon (but not kill it) and then get to the top of the cathedral (after blacksmith and fire and then I killed the two gargoyles and rang the bell. It took me quite a few hours to do so but I'm getting the hang of it. Still gotta say those huge black knight guys are pretty scary esp. when you don't have fire bombs handy or something. They say lightning is good against him but I dunno yet. I don't exactly have it in vast quantities.
I'm so glad bosses don't return or the mini-bosses for that matter. That would make this game super hard.
Yesterday I managed to reach a similar point, I think. I was able to sneak past the Dragon and his guys (largely thanks to discovering the ladder down to the Campfire and back up) but keep getting killed by either a Black Knight at the top of the tower or a giant Boar thing in the passageway. I'm thinking stealth might be the way around it, it's a shame I picked the Knight (heavy armour is loud!)
And I agree about being glad the bosses don't respawn, that would make things a heck of a lot harder.
The boar's weakness is its tail. If you can run all the way up to the corpse on the archway with the skeleton archers you can get some 'skulls of attraction' (or whatever it was called) which lure the boar to an area. This will allow you to stab the boar in its *ss pretty easily. I still haven't killed the black knight at the top of that tower.
Btw when you make it to the cathedral sneak around the other way through the path to the right. It leads to another building and if you go downstairs you'll find a campfire and a black smith. I think that'll help you a ton esp. since you'll be able to improve your weapons and armor finally and make them all bad *ss. I can kill skeleton knights in one hit now with a scimitar I have.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So holy sh*t more 'dark souls'. After beating the first demon I managed to get past the dragon (but not kill it) and then get to the top of the cathedral (after blacksmith and fire and then I killed the two gargoyles and rang the bell. It took me quite a few hours to do so but I'm getting the hang of it. Still gotta say those huge black knight guys are pretty scary esp. when you don't have fire bombs handy or something. They say lightning is good against him but I dunno yet. I don't exactly have it in vast quantities.
I'm so glad bosses don't return or the mini-bosses for that matter. That would make this game super hard.
Yesterday I managed to reach a similar point, I think. I was able to sneak past the Dragon and his guys (largely thanks to discovering the ladder down to the Campfire and back up) but keep getting killed by either a Black Knight at the top of the tower or a giant Boar thing in the passageway. I'm thinking stealth might be the way around it, it's a shame I picked the Knight (heavy armour is loud!)
And I agree about being glad the bosses don't respawn, that would make things a heck of a lot harder.
The knight in the tower is easier than the first one in the Burg, mainly because the spiral stairs limit his swings and give you an easy way to stay lower than his attacks - a trick that helps with another boss later on. His strikes are also telegraphed fairly well for easier dodging/parrying.
The boar is a breeze if you exploit the staircase and fire to your right as you reach that area. He can't fit through the gaps in the pillars, and the fire damages him quite a bit. Run towards the stairs to begin with - and clear the mobs around where it leads - then walk out from the columns to aggro the boar, and dash back as he's charging. If you do it as close to the fire as you can then he'll charge into it, but will be unable to get you through the columns. Repeat until he cooks himself.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/06/06 04:40:19
Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation
flamingkillamajig wrote: So holy sh*t more 'dark souls'. After beating the first demon I managed to get past the dragon (but not kill it) and then get to the top of the cathedral (after blacksmith and fire and then I killed the two gargoyles and rang the bell. It took me quite a few hours to do so but I'm getting the hang of it. Still gotta say those huge black knight guys are pretty scary esp. when you don't have fire bombs handy or something. They say lightning is good against him but I dunno yet. I don't exactly have it in vast quantities.
I'm so glad bosses don't return or the mini-bosses for that matter. That would make this game super hard.
Yesterday I managed to reach a similar point, I think. I was able to sneak past the Dragon and his guys (largely thanks to discovering the ladder down to the Campfire and back up) but keep getting killed by either a Black Knight at the top of the tower or a giant Boar thing in the passageway. I'm thinking stealth might be the way around it, it's a shame I picked the Knight (heavy armour is loud!)
And I agree about being glad the bosses don't respawn, that would make things a heck of a lot harder.
The boar's weakness is its tail. If you can run all the way up to the corpse on the archway with the skeleton archers you can get some 'skulls of attraction' (or whatever it was called) which lure the boar to an area. This will allow you to stab the boar in its *ss pretty easily. I still haven't killed the black knight at the top of that tower.
Btw when you make it to the cathedral sneak around the other way through the path to the right. It leads to another building and if you go downstairs you'll find a campfire and a black smith. I think that'll help you a ton esp. since you'll be able to improve your weapons and armor finally and make them all bad *ss. I can kill skeleton knights in one hit now with a scimitar I have.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So holy sh*t more 'dark souls'. After beating the first demon I managed to get past the dragon (but not kill it) and then get to the top of the cathedral (after blacksmith and fire and then I killed the two gargoyles and rang the bell. It took me quite a few hours to do so but I'm getting the hang of it. Still gotta say those huge black knight guys are pretty scary esp. when you don't have fire bombs handy or something. They say lightning is good against him but I dunno yet. I don't exactly have it in vast quantities.
I'm so glad bosses don't return or the mini-bosses for that matter. That would make this game super hard.
Yesterday I managed to reach a similar point, I think. I was able to sneak past the Dragon and his guys (largely thanks to discovering the ladder down to the Campfire and back up) but keep getting killed by either a Black Knight at the top of the tower or a giant Boar thing in the passageway. I'm thinking stealth might be the way around it, it's a shame I picked the Knight (heavy armour is loud!)
And I agree about being glad the bosses don't respawn, that would make things a heck of a lot harder.
The knight in the tower is easier than the first one in the Burg, mainly because the spiral stairs limit his swings and give you an easy way to stay lower than his attacks - a trick that helps with another boss later on. His strikes are also telegraphed fairly well for easier dodging/parrying.
The boar is a breeze if you exploit the staircase and fire to your right as you reach that area. He can't fit through the gaps in the pillars, and the fire damages him quite a bit. Run towards the stairs to begin with - and clear the mobs around where it leads - then walk out from the columns to aggro the boar, and dash back as he's charging. If you do it as close to the fire as you can then he'll charge into it, but will be unable to get you through the columns. Repeat until he cooks himself.
Cheers guys, I managed to get past the boar a couple of times using the staircase and fire but lost a lot of health fighting through the skellies and zombies. I'll keep an eye out for the campfire and blacksmith, it should make things a little easier.
Civilization 5:
I would argue one of the best games I have played.
"Tell the Colonel... We've been thrown to the Wolves." -Templeton.
1W OL 1D
I love writing fiction based upon my experiences of playing; check 'em out!
http://www.wattpad.com/user/baxter123
So I've grabbed myself the Enemy Within expansion for the "new" XCOM, seeing as it was on sale last week. However, instead of playing it vanilla, I also got my hands on the mod "Long War" which I've (by accident) heard a lot about recently. It's pretty awesome - apart from just, well, making the war longer (duh), which is achieved via greatly expanded tech-trees and a slower propagation of panic / alien incursions, it also adds a ton of new items and other features. For example:
- Post-mission fatigue and increased recovery times force you to keep multiple teams ready for action, and reassemble them when necessary. I've developed a habit of sending 1-2 newbies (which in Long War are ironically wearing red armour by default ) with the veterans, just so that I have a steady supply of experienced replacements for casualties and those "special cases" that seem to need several weeks of vacation (grr).
- An actual officer commissioning system: no longer will you have a squad full of colonels! All soldiers start as enlisted and become NCOs automatically, but to get an officer you actually have to pick and promote someone with sufficient expertise. You also need to establish a proper command hierarchy; e.g. to get a captain you need at least three lieutenants, then one of these can be promoted. This system replaces the medals from Enemy Within. Officers confer various squad-wide bonuses such as reduced fatigue or improved defence, sometimes with unlimited range, sometimes as a passive AoE buff.
- The 4 original soldier classes have been expanded into 8: Assault, Engineer, Gunner, Infantry, Medic, Rocketeer, Scout, Sniper. All with their own advancement trees and various new perks to choose from.
- XCOM interceptor pilots now have unique names and gain experience with each UFO they took down. My current ace is Maj. "Panda" Dawkins with 6 confirmed kills (they start out as FOs but become LTs with their first kill, almost like a rite of passage ). A UFOs altitude may now give hints to its mission, and several new classes of UFOs have been added. UFO-specific research projects have your pilots learn weak points, and the Stingray missile system of Microprose's original XCOM game has made a comeback as an armour-piercing warhead that does less damage than the Avalanche, but is capable of penetrating fighter and battleship hulls. Furthermore, at least attempting to intercept a UFO now acts in favour to keeping panic at bay, and all interceptors stationed on a continent conduct automatic reconnaissance missions that provide a stacking 4% buff to your satellite detection (or provide a minimum of detection capability for countries not yet covered by a satellite).
- You can now take up to 8 soldiers on a mission. Up to 12 during special events such as a base assault (including noncoms).
- Those soldiers also start with two slots for equipment, and I believe you can gain more with special armour. You also need those because ...
- There's a metric ton of new toys, ranging from half a dozen different scopes to bipods to special ammunition. There's even Anti-Personnel (large AoE but enemies in cover are unharmed) and High Explosive (good against cover, but destroy more artefacts) grenades now, and my shotgun-toting Assaults have been using these to great effect when clearing rooms SWAT-style.
Whilst this may sound like it makes the game easier ... trust me when I say that it really doesn't, it just helps you keep up with aliens that act a lot more aggressive now, and after a while boost their spawn sizes and hitpoints to outrageous levels. The bastards even start to ambush you, deliberately landing one of their UFOs fully expecting you to come have a look, and then swarm you with densely-packed clusters of elite troops, forcing you into a potentially costly retreat. Between soldiers being unavailable due to fatigue or recovery and you getting swamped by alien incursions and Council missions, you can expect to be kept on your toes. Plus, all those toys need a lot of research to be developed first; your squaddies actually start out carrying G36Cs, whilst the design you know from the original game is an upgrade!
On the upside, countries taken over by aliens can now be liberated with an assault on the alien base. Nigeria left the XCOM project in the 2nd month of my current game, so I know where I'm going to take a closer look. In general, the aliens are acting a lot more organised now and less like a scripted opponent who needs to cheat to keep the game challenging. The aliens need a base of operations (so some country leaving early for no apparent reason is working as intended), and a new subroutine has them dispatch their UFOs not just for you to shoot down, but to actually conduct their own missions in order to advance their own research into stronger troops.
Spoiler:
Various Long War features in action: officer system (one of my two captains, and hopefully-soon-to-be major), expanded classes (see above), new equipment (the sniper is carrying alloy-jacketed rounds, the rocketeer has a 2nd rocket, etc), additional squad slots (note the "scroll" buttons on the left/right) ... I just need to reconstruct my SHIV (another new feature: you can rebuild destroyed SHIVs, essentially giving you a discount for retrieved wrecks) as the Foundry just recently finished three new components I want to equip it with.
The mod and some more information can be found here: http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/? Feel free to check out the videos there; they're pretty fun to watch and give a good impression of what you can expect! All in all I'd say that anyone who liked the new XCOM should give this mod a try - it brings back a few dearly-missed features of the original XCOM and makes it an overall more challenging, more complex, but also more rewarding experience.
Also, just for lulz, this is how In The Zone (which nets you a free action after you've killed an exposed enemy as a Sniper) works for the new Scout class:
Beautiful finish, that last one.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/06/07 06:26:16
So holy crap I'm both addicted to 'dark souls' and annoyed by it. I stayed up super late playing it. So apparently all the previous stuff I've done is kill a hydra, some weird demon creature boss, a moonlight butterfly and a crap ton of stuff longer in.
I'm currently having issues with the whole pit of dragons but I've gone all the way through it. I still need to kill the big dragon though and do some other stuff down there. There's also a couple areas in there I'm having trouble with. I've barely even touched upon the graveyard/crypt area.
Ugh anyway I just had to try to complete this sh*t and it's so frustratingly long and filled with baddies and boss baddies. I need better gear and better stats to hold the gear. So basically I'm gonna go soul farming again near some huge forest knights and hopefully rack up enough exp to get through this crap.
Oh and it'd be nice if I knew wtf most of these stats on the gear meant. I don't think they explained that once in the whole d*mn virtual game guide and it doesn't help I'm playing on a PC and everything is in xbox commands.
I think part of the reason this game is tough is more because the save points are few and far between as well as the fact you can die so easily. Not only that but when you get to a checkpoint you basically regenerate all your enemies as well as your estus flasks which can be a huge pain.
---------
@Lynata: I thought you weren't really into 'Xcom: enemy unknown'. What caused the change in interest? I played the crap out of 'enemy unknown' and a bunch of 'enemy within'. I beat impossible difficulty runs but with no ironman mode. I did do Classic ironman runs. Too bad 'enemy within' made a lot of the best stuff weaker and some of the crap stuff still crappy but better. There's some stuff I missed in 'enemy unknown' but gene mods made up for it. Also EXALT are total chumps .
flamingkillamajig wrote:I thought you weren't really into 'Xcom: enemy unknown'. What caused the change in interest?
It's more of a love/hate relationship. I still dislike that it isn't more like the original game and has been severely dumbed down in order to appeal to a larger audience, as the creators believed stuff like time units was too much to handle for the average gamer nowadays. Just two days ago I had one of those awesome situations where I had to choose between either sending my soldier through a cloud of Thin Man acid or losing the attack action just for plotting a path around the cloud. Crap like that wouldn't have happened with TUs. I'd also love to have multiple bases and Skyrangers, especially seeing as Long War now forces me to keep multiple teams ready for action anyways.
I'm still having insane fun playing it, though, especially with the new features introduced by the Enemy Within expansion (gene mods, MECs, covert ops) and Long War (see above). It's just one of those somewhat frustrating combinations of "this is pretty neat" + "gnnhh it could have been so much better", similar to how I feel about FFG's 40kRPGs or Dragon Age 2. For what it's worth, I dig the soldier customisation, the shooting-around-corners thingie, and the "cinematic camera"; these are features that the original game was missing.
GrimDork wrote:That mod sounds like a pretty neat way to expand your gameplay, the best kind of mod.
Absolutely!
Another feature of this mod is that it adds a "Steady Weapon" action to combat, which gives a +20 to Aim in the following round. It's not quite the investment of individual time units for increased accuracy as in the original game, but it's the next best thing and another feature the game was lacking in vanilla. Needless to say, it's especially useful for Snipers.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/06/07 14:27:13
flamingkillamajig wrote:I thought you weren't really into 'Xcom: enemy unknown'. What caused the change in interest?
It's more of a love/hate relationship. I still dislike that it isn't more like the original game and has been severely dumbed down in order to appeal to a larger audience, as the creators believed stuff like time units was too much to handle for the average gamer nowadays. Just two days ago I had one of those awesome situations where I had to choose between either sending my soldier through a cloud of Thin Man acid or losing the attack action just for plotting a path around the cloud. Crap like that wouldn't have happened with TUs. I'd also love to have multiple bases and Skyrangers, especially seeing as Long War now forces me to keep multiple teams ready for action anyways.
Have you tried Xenonauts?
RegalPhantom wrote: If your fluff doesn't fit, change your fluff until it does
The prefect example of someone missing the point.
Do not underestimate the Squats. They survived for millenia cut off from the Imperium and assailed on all sides. Their determination and resilience is an example to us all.
-Leman Russ, Meditations on Imperial Command book XVI (AKA the RT era White Dwarf Commpendium).
Its just a shame that they couldn't fight off Andy Chambers.
Warzone Plog
I purchased it back when I noticed that the new XCOM had sacrificed a lot of the original's concepts - but truth be told, I'm jaded by the remake's fancy 3D graphics and the cinematic action shots. Visually, the game is absolutely stunning. And I'd kind of miss the IP's own "fluff".
But you know what, I'll patch it and see how it goes. I'm sure I can schedule a bit of testing either in-between my current XCOM sessions (for when I ragequit some extraction mission with ridiculously OP EXALT operatives again) or when I'm done with the Long War.
But you know what, I'll patch it and see how it goes. I'm sure I can schedule a bit of testing either in-between my current XCOM sessions (for when I ragequit some extraction mission with ridiculously OP EXALT operatives again) or when I'm done with the Long War.
I haven't played 'Long War' but from all the games I've played EXALT are almost always chumps even if incredibly fun to fight. The few exceptions I had was my first play-through against EXALT with laser based weapons and the first time I assaulted EXALT headquarters leading to the death of all but one bad *ss soldier which sort of over-watched the last one to death. A bittersweet victory but EXALT had rued the day with their HQ (or one of them) burned to the ground. Honestly I hope for a sequel to 'enemy unknown' with more aliens and even more human factions like EXALT. Some neutral, good and bad parties would be fun to face. Would be cool if other weird organizations sprung up across the globe due to extraterrestrial activity. I mean it's only expected for such a large change to see global power shift dramatically. It'd be cool if we also got to fight terrorists which got their hands on advanced tech or xeno tech. Now that would make the game more interesting. Widespread global panic based around the alien invasion. The game has so much potential to go so many ways with its story. After playing the 'slingshot' content my expectations were low but then they were raised so very high with 'enemy within'. Oh and just in case you're wondering the composer of the music from 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' also did the music for 'xcom: enemy unknown' and 'enemy within'.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/06/08 00:26:10
Got a bit further on Dark Souls, I've now hit the next campfire, found a blacksmith and upgraded a bit. Up next, The Black Knight, and Monty Python references galore!
Paradigm wrote: Got a bit further on Dark Souls, I've now hit the next campfire, found a blacksmith and upgraded a bit. Up next, The Black Knight, and Monty Python references galore!
Bought The Witcher 3. It seems quite good at the moment, but I haven't played much - or even any - of it because it isn't released for aNOTHER 9 MONTHS! >.<
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/06/09 06:55:00
Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation
Ok so in dark souls I am now fighting a demon spider queen b*tch and it's a pain. I traversed all of the rest of blight city as well as the ghost city. Blight city is pretty freaking huge. Was so p*ssed when I lost 12k souls on my way back. Should've spent it all but nope. All this crap got lost for stupid reasons too. Sometimes your guy just loves to jump after doing a sword attack or enemies beat you off a f*cking cliff killing you instantly. It's really annoying.
1W OL 1D
No Mercy! No Pity! No Remorse! 
) with the veterans, just so that I have a steady supply of experienced replacements for casualties and those "special cases" that seem to need several weeks of vacation (grr).
.
