Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I just played through Prey(2006) and unless you are an fps aficionado I suggest you skip it. The game is pretty short (it maybe took me 4-5 hours to complete on normal (the only difficulty).

Reason why the game isn't very good is due to the gimmick spam (portals, antigravity, flying, random puzzles...) and nothing being fleshed out. Gunplay lacks impact. Enemies don't really react to being shot until they ragdoll on death. Firefights usually devolve into you shooting at enemies and trading shots until somebody dies. Your movement is really slow so evading shots is more luck than skill. You also aren't punished dying because in Prey dying means you get spirited away to shoot flying ghost fish with your ghost bow and after while you respawn where you died.

Visually the game looks pretty good despite the 2006 texture quality. Sometimes the detailing is too intrusive. Game also run pretty well on my 5 year old rig on maxed out details at 5760x1080.

If you want to try the game out then too bad because they don't sell it anywhere. Good thing my swedish friends could lend me a copy.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Xcom 2 on console.
Im having fun, even if im a save scumming Overwatch spamming commander.
Some fun things I learned, if your landing zone is destroyed, it will respawn closer. I once overdrived my Spark, Hit it with a rocket, then it spawend two feet away. Everyone Dashed and said goodbye to the Sectoid, Gatkeeper and like two Mecs.
But I did loose the spark recently sadly, Second one, Had to destory the Tower, so I sent him on a suicide mission.
Still, I almost failed this playthrough. Got one point away, then I hit two blacksites, and a story missions, got it down to nearly zero, and I can assault any blacksite now that pops up.

Mimic beacons are good. Use them when you start getting tier 2 gear. Generally after the first two retaliations you should have enough faceless corpses to make at least one since that's what you need to research. Sadly i don't have the Spark DLC. I do Hardest difficulty on ironman and as long as everything works out this will be my 3rd successful run of the game.

My suggestions for now are try to do missions with terminals where possible as they net you some sweet rewards usually on the global map. Advent train terminal missions are some of the hardest early on but not so much later. Early on protect the device is also easy but late game just skip it. Generally the enemy will murder that thing in 5 turns or less so i'm guessing extra mimic beacons might be the way to go.

Far as i can tell flaming ammo is mostly garbage (except vs chrysallids, stun lancers and maybe vipers and some things). It's not particularly bad but poisoned rounds have far more use (restricts movement and aim) whereas fire just prevents some enemies from doing certain things (stun lancers and chrysallids can't melee when on fire but archons can).

Skip labs and workshops. For a time i thought labs were nice but they're really not. On the global map if it's near the end of the month and nobody's really hurt and no gifts from the resistance look particularly thrilling go to the resistance base and speed up construction. You can excavate and construct buildings much faster and if you have a lot of buildings under construction it is a god send esp. on Legend difficulty where excavating first level is 10 days and 2nd level and beyond is 30 days per area and that gets halved with the construction bonus.

If you ever have to worry about missions where you gotta run to the evac use some mimic beacons once again. It'll distract the enemy for a good turn or so and allow you to move freely to the evac. Overwatching enemies can also be handled by a couple things. Flashbang grenades can help and so can a specialist using their boosted defense ability (aid protocol i think) and then running the boosted defense person around to take the overwatch shots. Helps if it's at least a tier 2 gremlin boosting defense though.

 illuknisaa wrote:
I just played through Prey(2006) and unless you are an fps aficionado I suggest you skip it. The game is pretty short (it maybe took me 4-5 hours to complete on normal (the only difficulty).

Reason why the game isn't very good is due to the gimmick spam (portals, antigravity, flying, random puzzles...) and nothing being fleshed out. Gunplay lacks impact. Enemies don't really react to being shot until they ragdoll on death. Firefights usually devolve into you shooting at enemies and trading shots until somebody dies. Your movement is really slow so evading shots is more luck than skill. You also aren't punished dying because in Prey dying means you get spirited away to shoot flying ghost fish with your ghost bow and after while you respawn where you died.

Visually the game looks pretty good despite the 2006 texture quality. Sometimes the detailing is too intrusive. Game also run pretty well on my 5 year old rig on maxed out details at 5760x1080.

If you want to try the game out then too bad because they don't sell it anywhere. Good thing my swedish friends could lend me a copy.

The game seems more sad than anything. There's a point in the game where you think everybody on that ship and basically everybody you met in the game dies. At the end some live but most died. Was kinda bummed Prey 2 is going to be so far removed from the main character of Prey and the story of it (or at least that's what it seems).

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Xcom 2 on console.
Im having fun, even if im a save scumming Overwatch spamming commander.
Some fun things I learned, if your landing zone is destroyed, it will respawn closer. I once overdrived my Spark, Hit it with a rocket, then it spawend two feet away. Everyone Dashed and said goodbye to the Sectoid, Gatkeeper and like two Mecs.
But I did loose the spark recently sadly, Second one, Had to destory the Tower, so I sent him on a suicide mission.
Still, I almost failed this playthrough. Got one point away, then I hit two blacksites, and a story missions, got it down to nearly zero, and I can assault any blacksite now that pops up.

Mimic beacons are good. Use them when you start getting tier 2 gear. Generally after the first two retaliations you should have enough faceless corpses to make at least one since that's what you need to research. Sadly i don't have the Spark DLC. I do Hardest difficulty on ironman and as long as everything works out this will be my 3rd successful run of the game.

My suggestions for now are try to do missions with terminals where possible as they net you some sweet rewards usually on the global map. Advent train terminal missions are some of the hardest early on but not so much later. Early on protect the device is also easy but late game just skip it. Generally the enemy will murder that thing in 5 turns or less so i'm guessing extra mimic beacons might be the way to go.

Far as i can tell flaming ammo is mostly garbage (except vs chrysallids, stun lancers and maybe vipers and some things). It's not particularly bad but poisoned rounds have far more use (restricts movement and aim) whereas fire just prevents some enemies from doing certain things (stun lancers and chrysallids can't melee when on fire but archons can).

Skip labs and workshops. For a time i thought labs were nice but they're really not. On the global map if it's near the end of the month and nobody's really hurt and no gifts from the resistance look particularly thrilling go to the resistance base and speed up construction. You can excavate and construct buildings much faster and if you have a lot of buildings under construction it is a god send esp. on Legend difficulty where excavating first level is 10 days and 2nd level and beyond is 30 days per area and that gets halved with the construction bonus.

If you ever have to worry about missions where you gotta run to the evac use some mimic beacons once again. It'll distract the enemy for a good turn or so and allow you to move freely to the evac. Overwatching enemies can also be handled by a couple things. Flashbang grenades can help and so can a specialist using their boosted defense ability (aid protocol i think) and then running the boosted defense person around to take the overwatch shots. Helps if it's at least a tier 2 gremlin boosting defense though.

Im to the point I have no research left. But here is the thing that bugs me after reading an XCOM2 reddit post. I have never seen a GateKeeper or Sectopod actually attack, Because outside of timed missions(of which honestly there are very few, my thing is overwatch, scoot overwatch and wait for the aliens to reveal themselves, so typically the Sectopod will come out, get overwatched to death, or survive, than sniper them.
Im more scared of Codexes TBH. I always have to just hit them with a frostbomb, than just hit them over and over. I remember one time I got a pod of 3 codexes, hit them with a frost bomb, than boom, I just hammered them. Shadow Chamber makes it really easy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 illuknisaa wrote:
I just played through Prey(2006) and unless you are an fps aficionado I suggest you skip it. The game is pretty short (it maybe took me 4-5 hours to complete on normal (the only difficulty).

Reason why the game isn't very good is due to the gimmick spam (portals, antigravity, flying, random puzzles...) and nothing being fleshed out. Gunplay lacks impact. Enemies don't really react to being shot until they ragdoll on death. Firefights usually devolve into you shooting at enemies and trading shots until somebody dies. Your movement is really slow so evading shots is more luck than skill. You also aren't punished dying because in Prey dying means you get spirited away to shoot flying ghost fish with your ghost bow and after while you respawn where you died.

Visually the game looks pretty good despite the 2006 texture quality. Sometimes the detailing is too intrusive. Game also run pretty well on my 5 year old rig on maxed out details at 5760x1080.

If you want to try the game out then too bad because they don't sell it anywhere. Good thing my swedish friends could lend me a copy.

That is because it was meant to actually Be Duke Nukem Forever.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Xcom 2 on console.
Im having fun, even if im a save scumming Overwatch spamming commander.
Some fun things I learned, if your landing zone is destroyed, it will respawn closer. I once overdrived my Spark, Hit it with a rocket, then it spawend two feet away. Everyone Dashed and said goodbye to the Sectoid, Gatkeeper and like two Mecs.
But I did loose the spark recently sadly, Second one, Had to destory the Tower, so I sent him on a suicide mission.
Still, I almost failed this playthrough. Got one point away, then I hit two blacksites, and a story missions, got it down to nearly zero, and I can assault any blacksite now that pops up.

Mimic beacons are good. Use them when you start getting tier 2 gear. Generally after the first two retaliations you should have enough faceless corpses to make at least one since that's what you need to research. Sadly i don't have the Spark DLC. I do Hardest difficulty on ironman and as long as everything works out this will be my 3rd successful run of the game.

My suggestions for now are try to do missions with terminals where possible as they net you some sweet rewards usually on the global map. Advent train terminal missions are some of the hardest early on but not so much later. Early on protect the device is also easy but late game just skip it. Generally the enemy will murder that thing in 5 turns or less so i'm guessing extra mimic beacons might be the way to go.

Far as i can tell flaming ammo is mostly garbage (except vs chrysallids, stun lancers and maybe vipers and some things). It's not particularly bad but poisoned rounds have far more use (restricts movement and aim) whereas fire just prevents some enemies from doing certain things (stun lancers and chrysallids can't melee when on fire but archons can).

Skip labs and workshops. For a time i thought labs were nice but they're really not. On the global map if it's near the end of the month and nobody's really hurt and no gifts from the resistance look particularly thrilling go to the resistance base and speed up construction. You can excavate and construct buildings much faster and if you have a lot of buildings under construction it is a god send esp. on Legend difficulty where excavating first level is 10 days and 2nd level and beyond is 30 days per area and that gets halved with the construction bonus.

If you ever have to worry about missions where you gotta run to the evac use some mimic beacons once again. It'll distract the enemy for a good turn or so and allow you to move freely to the evac. Overwatching enemies can also be handled by a couple things. Flashbang grenades can help and so can a specialist using their boosted defense ability (aid protocol i think) and then running the boosted defense person around to take the overwatch shots. Helps if it's at least a tier 2 gremlin boosting defense though.

Im to the point I have no research left. But here is the thing that bugs me after reading an XCOM2 reddit post. I have never seen a GateKeeper or Sectopod actually attack, Because outside of timed missions(of which honestly there are very few, my thing is overwatch, scoot overwatch and wait for the aliens to reveal themselves, so typically the Sectopod will come out, get overwatched to death, or survive, than sniper them.
Im more scared of Codexes TBH. I always have to just hit them with a frostbomb, than just hit them over and over. I remember one time I got a pod of 3 codexes, hit them with a frost bomb, than boom, I just hammered them. Shadow Chamber makes it really easy.

What do you mean there are few timed missions? Every mission is timed except retaliations, protect the device missions, supply raids, story progression missions and facility destruction missions. I realize that sounds like most but most guerilla ops and all council missions are timed and protect the device and retaliation missions are timed to an extent (but through different means). Perhaps the biggest difference is game difficulty? I play on Legend Ironman so you only get one save that constantly updates and hardest difficulty can be rough. It can also be tough if you try for the no squad upgrades for 2nd hardest difficulty (commander?) and i've never tried that again since i went for Legend Ironman runs.

Keep in mind i play the PC version so this isn't on the console and i also don't have the Spark DLC.

IDK, it just feels like im getting less and less missions with timed turns now. But maybe that is just me.
I mean, I know im not playing Xcom "Right" with save scumming. But I love the game still because it just feels different.
But it might also not help that somehow my snipers can see though walls with sqadsight, im not sure how,but they they can.

Still plugging away on AC black flag and loving it. The ship combat and boarding actions are so incredibly juicy

Finished dark brotherhood on skyrim I feel that character has run his course. Rolled up a khajjt dragonpuncher and may play that for a bit. I dunno though I may have to bust out another game soon.

Finished Rise Of The Tombraider and find myself regretting buying the game, it looks very nice and the combat is okay. But I really, really feel like they dumbed it down and tried to make it far to similar to Uncharted. So Il be giving it away to someone whom wants it

 GrimDork wrote:
Finished dark brotherhood on skyrim I feel that character has run his course. Rolled up a khajjt dragonpuncher and may play that for a bit. I dunno though I may have to bust out another game soon.

That may just be the most awesome description I've ever seen, of a Skyrim character.

I'm currently mostly playing Overwatch, some Mirror's Edge 2 (open sandbox can get stale), and am looking forward to Titanfall 2.

Tried the 1.3 patch for Stellaris, and... meh. I've not got to any of the late game changes because the late early-mid game is still tedious as all hell, and the changes that appear throughout--combat etc.--really feel no different at all. Combat was apparently overhauled, but they could've fooled me; ship design has been refined but it hasn't really done much except let me shove crystalline hull plating on ships without taking up a utility slot.

PD Getting its own slot feels silly, as all it does is prevent PD-spam and just favour making PD ships as cheap and disposable as possible like before; Torps getting their own slots stops Torp-spam in the beginning, but you just shove missiles on beside them to keep them long-ranged.

All in all, I'm still getting incredibly bored before any of the big changes are even close to being seen.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Tried the 1.3 patch for Stellaris, and... meh. I've not got to any of the late game changes because the late early-mid game is still tedious as all hell, and the changes that appear throughout--combat etc.--really feel no different at all. Combat was apparently overhauled, but they could've fooled me; ship design has been refined but it hasn't really done much except let me shove crystalline hull plating on ships without taking up a utility slot.

PD Getting its own slot feels silly, as all it does is prevent PD-spam and just favour making PD ships as cheap and disposable as possible like before; Torps getting their own slots stops Torp-spam in the beginning, but you just shove missiles on beside them to keep them long-ranged.

All in all, I'm still getting incredibly bored before any of the big changes are even close to being seen.

Have you checked out the DLC? I still have to download it, but it's supposed to greatly improve that mid-late game.

Dragonpunching is relatively amusing. I like the finishing move animations: there's a hip throw that reminds me of star trek or Hercules, some kind of pick them up and duml them on the ground, grabbing on and pummeling their face several times, and I think the sneak finisher may be a freaking suplex.

Gotta work on smithing and enchanting, the toughest gloves and enchanting for the +unarmed is the only way to hit harder.

 Trondheim wrote:
Sounds like the adventure of a real man that dose! Caed Nua is a good area to level your gear and party members. And its also an amazing location me thinks.
I tend to run a plain figther or a Paladin with varied specilizations from time to time. And well the Grieving mother is good if you want to have a colorful and varied NPC parrty, but if I aim for a more blunt and direct party I custom make my members as then you can really go to town so to speak, since a few of the classes are stupidly overpowerd when used by a custom characther

Nooooooooooooooooo! I just got my first npc permadeath. I've been so carefull but Aloth finally bit the dust in an immensly unneccisary way. Had a fight in the endless patos when he got low. Figured "Oh well, I'll just have durance withdraw him". So I did but the withdrawal ended just before the fight and the enemy got one last hit at him. I didn't even realise it happening untill a moment later and there I was with my first npc death. I play trial of Iron so no going back. I'm so sad now.

Thanks for the compliment btw. Currently on act 3. The difficulty just ramped up significally. Wanted to finish with everyone alive but Oh well.... Might do a replay with the dlc later on but I kinda like games like this the most when you don't know what's comming.

I hope they make a Pillars of eternity 2, or more games like it, I really enjoy this genre.

 Nerak wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:
Sounds like the adventure of a real man that dose! Caed Nua is a good area to level your gear and party members. And its also an amazing location me thinks.
I tend to run a plain figther or a Paladin with varied specilizations from time to time. And well the Grieving mother is good if you want to have a colorful and varied NPC parrty, but if I aim for a more blunt and direct party I custom make my members as then you can really go to town so to speak, since a few of the classes are stupidly overpowerd when used by a custom characther

Nooooooooooooooooo! I just got my first npc permadeath. I've been so carefull but Aloth finally bit the dust in an immensly unneccisary way. Had a fight in the endless patos when he got low. Figured "Oh well, I'll just have durance withdraw him". So I did but the withdrawal ended just before the fight and the enemy got one last hit at him. I didn't even realise it happening untill a moment later and there I was with my first npc death. I play trial of Iron so no going back. I'm so sad now.

Thanks for the compliment btw. Currently on act 3. The difficulty just ramped up significally. Wanted to finish with everyone alive but Oh well.... Might do a replay with the dlc later on but I kinda like games like this the most when you don't know what's comming.

I hope they make a Pillars of eternity 2, or more games like it, I really enjoy this genre.

They're making a game called "Tyranny" on the same engine.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
Tried the 1.3 patch for Stellaris, and... meh. I've not got to any of the late game changes because the late early-mid game is still tedious as all hell, and the changes that appear throughout--combat etc.--really feel no different at all. Combat was apparently overhauled, but they could've fooled me; ship design has been refined but it hasn't really done much except let me shove crystalline hull plating on ships without taking up a utility slot.

PD Getting its own slot feels silly, as all it does is prevent PD-spam and just favour making PD ships as cheap and disposable as possible like before; Torps getting their own slots stops Torp-spam in the beginning, but you just shove missiles on beside them to keep them long-ranged.

All in all, I'm still getting incredibly bored before any of the big changes are even close to being seen.

Have you checked out the DLC? I still have to download it, but it's supposed to greatly improve that mid-late game.

Already using it. I encountered one of those independent stations, but it doesn't add anything to the game that I can see, really. It had two options--one of which I couldn't do without doing the first--that looked very much like they would quickly lose all novelty.

Aside from that, I'm still thoroughly unmotivated to continue that game now it's reached the slog of mid-game.

There's a pillars of eternity like game that was Kate released the other day, actually that's had a lot of the cast from Pillars called Masquerada Songs and Shadows. My complete is still worked but it's on my list for after Pillars of Eternity

I'm currently playing "Just one more turn oh crap is it morning already? 6".

Also known as Civilization 6.

So far it looks like an improvement over 5. The biggest change probably has to be how your civ advances. You can get "Eureka" moments for each technology that take half the development time off of the technology. A Eureka moment might be something like 'Build three harbors', or something similar. The idea is that technologies that are related to the things you're focusing on for your civilization will come more easily to you. And there is also what is essentially a *second* technology tree. In 6, you have a Civics tree that is essentially identical to the Technology tree (complete with Eureka moments), but it's researched using Culture. Researching new civics unlocks new Civics cards. Each Civics card provides a unique bonus. And your government type determines how many and what kind of Civics cards you can select for your civilization.

Also, the classic Colony Ship to Alpha Centauri win condition has been replaced with a Colony Ship to Mars win condition.

Picked up Dark Souls 2 again yesterday, played through some parts with my brother, killed one of the big four and picked up Santier's Spear, seeing as my Fire Sword +10 isn't cutting it any more.

Does take some getting used to though, this spear thing.

Not sure why but decided to start a new game of Xcom 2... put it on Rookie this time... still having a heck of a time... maybe I shouldn't try to progress the story so quick? would it matter? it feels like I'm forced into it.

Finally got to see a Ranger's melee attack in action... wicked awesome... also got to see the Codex alien... what a pain in the butt.

I might start a new playthrough tomorrow and see if I can delay the story stuff as much as possible.

Also playing Final Fantasy Record Keeper... really loving it more than Marvel Future Fight.

Also started up again on Clash of Clans.

Still on ACBF. Chapter 9 now. Boy when Blackbeard falls, the music and the feels

Finished Mafia 3 up.... If you can put up with the racist dialogue/actions for long enough... The endings are worth it (particularly the end credits scene)

Traded that in, and got FIFA 17, started playing career mode and sadly, am out on loan to some silly French 2nd division club

Got on a strange tear to play Unreal Tournament 2004. Don't think I've actually played it in ten years.

Titanfall 2 has replaced Overwatch for the time being for me. The campaign has some very cool missions, such as the time jump one (where you have to jump forward and back agin mid action).

Multiplayer seems a lot better than the first, and I enjoy the not totally random cosmetics better than Overwatch's system (there are achievment unlocks and random unlocks in the paint/marking schema).

Still balls deep in The Witcher GotY ed. Level 42. Defeated the Wild Hunt, now playing through the Blood and Wine quests. It's a beautiful, colourful break from the bleak grimdark of Velen/Novigrad/Skellige.

 toasteroven wrote:
Got on a strange tear to play Unreal Tournament 2004. Don't think I've actually played it in ten years.

Such a good game. I really wish there were more multiplayer shooters with that level of speed.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun still. The only games that I can think of that could be as frantic is the Timesplitters series.

Beat Xcom 2......kinda disappointed at the end TBh. it became a cake walk, even the final room was "Trololololol try to hit the Archons I Mind Controlled, you cant LOL" and "Oh, you teleport anytime you get hit *Frost bomb and Void rift"
Oh, hello Mist Gatekeeper, oh, you have a high def? Well say hello to my Gunslinger with Bluescreen rounds oh your dead? im sorry.
And if I ever ended a turn without someone dead, Mimic Beacon.
It got silly easy near the end.
Playing Valkyria Chronicles, got the Remastered version on PS4 enjoying it. but my god cutscenes are LONG. But the game seems like it is really short, with like, 1 mission per chapter and like 18 chapters. JRPG are not supposed to be short.

Finished AC Black Flag. 44 hours play for 20 quid isnt bad at all.
Very enjoyable overall if a touch repetitive in places. But a genuinely high quality game, from voice acting to gfx to the engine.

I'm starting to get back into trying to learn Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. I started playing it, but then I kind of left it behind for other games. Now I'm kind of starting over. It's a pretty cool game, but very complex for an RTS. Lots of things happening at once, so keeping track of it all is tough.