Tannhauser42 wrote: Playing Dredge now, after it came out yesterday. It scares me.
Yeah me too. It’s a neat little game. Though I’m surprised there’s no daily cost. Like fishing is only to buy upgrades. You don’t need to fish to actually live. It is scary though.
The pale beyond. Had some time to play during Easter so I finished it. It’s kind of a hard recommend. Good game about a 1900s ship crew surviving on the ice. It has a little bit of an identity crisis though where the real game only opens at the very very end. If you like the theme then go for it. I’d give it a 6/10 I think.
Also tried remnant: from the ashes with some friends. Pretty fun co-op shooting.
Just belted through the Stranger Things mission on Far Cry 6.
Was quite good fun, and an interesting challenge, as you end up stripped of your weapons and gear, having to make do with what you can find during the missions.
more dredge and hunt: showdown. Dredge really ramps up the lovecraftiness at the third zone, the tropical one. No spoilers but it got me very excited for what the game has in store. Hunt: showdown is running a quest line with the final reward being a gator like skin. I don’t think I’ll make it but I’ll give it a try. The game also added a new tutorial so it’s a recommend to start now for people who‘s been curious about it but havn’t started yet.
Was playing Xcom 2 Long War of the Chosen mod. Basically got to the 2nd last mission and beat it. I'm only waiting to play the last mission and finish the game whether through losing or winning. Sadly 2 of the Chosen are still alive but i should hopefully win this. I've never had to deal with 2 chosen alive on the last mission though and i generally don't win Long War mod on 2nd hardest difficulty on Ironman.
Wartales. I’m about 3 hours in. At the very start I didn’t like it much. It felt like a less interesting battle brothers with tacked on mini games. But after an hour or so I really started to enjoy it. The world and combat both work well. There are a bunch of mini games that feel tacked on but I’ll let that slide. Overall the feel of the game is great. Looking forward to what it has to offer. There’s one very interesting thing I’d like to talk about that almost deserves it’s own thread: region locked difficulty and dynamic difficulty.
So when you start the game it asked how you want your difficulty to scale. You get two options. One is region locked where each region has a set difficulty of higher or lower. This means you can be under leveled or over leveled for a region. The starting region will always be somewhat safe. The other choice is dynamic difficulty. Where encounters will always be made to be a challenge for your party. Basically this means the stats for enemies between regions will change to how strong or weak you are.
Personally I find it amazing that the game asks this. I prefer region locked difficulty. Making me feel like I conquer a region and I’m ready for a bigger challenge. To me that makes progression matter. But anyone who wants fair challenges at all time would be right to go dynamic. I’ve never come across a game that has this as an option before and it’s really fundamental to how the game progresses.
Portrait of Ruin for the Nintendo DS. Basically you get two characters to control, Johnathan and Charlotte, who can do double attacks and talk to each other during boss fights.
The series began to go down hill after this one, although Dawn of Sorrow and Order of Eccelisa are also worth playing.
Nerak wrote: Wartales. I’m about 3 hours in. At the very start I didn’t like it much. It felt like a less interesting battle brothers with tacked on mini games. But after an hour or so I really started to enjoy it. The world and combat both work well. There are a bunch of mini games that feel tacked on but I’ll let that slide. Overall the feel of the game is great. Looking forward to what it has to offer. There’s one very interesting thing I’d like to talk about that almost deserves it’s own thread: region locked difficulty and dynamic difficulty.
So when you start the game it asked how you want your difficulty to scale. You get two options. One is region locked where each region has a set difficulty of higher or lower. This means you can be under leveled or over leveled for a region. The starting region will always be somewhat safe. The other choice is dynamic difficulty. Where encounters will always be made to be a challenge for your party. Basically this means the stats for enemies between regions will change to how strong or weak you are.
Personally I find it amazing that the game asks this. I prefer region locked difficulty. Making me feel like I conquer a region and I’m ready for a bigger challenge. To me that makes progression matter. But anyone who wants fair challenges at all time would be right to go dynamic. I’ve never come across a game that has this as an option before and it’s really fundamental to how the game progresses.
Ooo. That probably is worth a thread. What immediately came to mind is Skyrim and the modern Fallouts, because they do dynamic-only, and its done terribly. Because if you don't level up 'correctly' your damage and ability to take hits falls way behind enemy scaling. (and in skyrim, damaging magic becomes worthless, voiding entire playstyles). Its also relevant because its probably one of my biggest concerns for Starfield (apart from a sheer mass of dull, lifeless worlds that do nothing but provide time-sinks).
Conversely, Wrath of the Righteous mostly does region (with some other issues with how badly they handled assigning numbers that didn't match tabletop values), and that can be frustrating in play when you go to the wrong place first and enemies are 10 levels higher than you because reasons, and you don't know until a random plagued smilodon charges out of the fog of war and deals 200+ points of damage to your front line fighters (who are level 10 and have maybe 100 HP, because you actually wanted to use the game's companions with levels in their default classes). With enough system mastery you can work through it anyway, but it can make for very frustrating experiences.
Wartale does it well, imo. I accidentally went to the fifth region instead of the fourth, and while I was struggling, especially since I was just on the cusp of getting the next tier of items, it wasn't nearly as bad as Wrath of the Righteous.
The one I usse I see is missing XP for the sixth (and final) zone, thankfully, the fourth region, which I went to midway through, has an item that helps with earning XP for it, but with about half of both zones left before I gotta get to the one with the big scary red letters, it's not looking too great.
Kind of hot-swapping between games that I'm not really focusing on because I care more about Age of Wonders 4 releasing next week.
Just had my shortest dwarf fortress run yet. Went with a small dwarven civilization (4 holds and 160 people) and picked an untamed wilds area to settle in.
The small civilization bore fruit: one of my dwarves (a lumberjack) became king by mid-spring of the first year. We didn't even have basic furniture in the fortress yet, but he was king.
Mid-summer, the agitated yaks came (no, not yak-men, or were-yaks, just... yaks). I had put up walls and we were down a tunnel, but they came. We weren't sealed off, as we were still moving supplies, but I had installed bridges and was just about to build the control levels. First they killed the sheep. Then the dogs. Then the dwarves. The geese and the cats, they ignored (they are still mortal and have limits). We killed three of the things before the end. There were still more.
I forgot if i told you guys i beat Long War of the Chosen mod for xcom 2: wotc a while back. It was on 2nd hardest difficulty on ironman but having beaten many legend ironman runs i'd say it's tougher than that.
I actually started another run of lwotc because my game in dawn of war soulstorm as dark eldar ended when the game crashed to desktop after i beat the main ork hq in the story campaign and i lost all my progress.
We finished Resident Evil 4 Remake on Hardcore mode (because it said "if you played RE4 before". They didn't say how balls hard it would be ). Between this, all the past remakes and a RE8 marathon session the past weekend, I'm rather burnt ouf on these games.
To be honest for the most time I was pretty fed up with RE4 for most of the times we played it. They tried to make it more spooky (for some silly reason. RE isn't spooky. It's a shooter.) and thus removed any feel of flow or 'getting better'. I'm not used to aiming using a controller, which probably isa problem on my part. And I'm rather sure that action video games moved on since RE4 (dodge rolls!!1). It was also stressful weeks and so on, so I may have gone into it with a wrong mindset and all. And I hate to be bothered with "stories" in videogames anyway (most of all "character backstories"). All the more I was annoyed with the bosses in this game constantly talking during the fights. It's just another annoyance on top of all the other annoyances. Like the loading screens telling you what to do as you sit there after you died to the same crap boss for the fifth time. Situation-dependant loading screens are patronizing and annoying. In a world where everybody seems to think that video was THE best medium for everything it's surprising how annoyingly many words there are in this video game.
Anyway, here's good stuff: First and foremost I learned that the original voice person who did Ashley also voiced Sandy in Sponge Bob. That made me happy. Other than that: Luis was good, I liked Ashley in the end, Capcom's face animation stuff doesn't stop being very impressive. The baddies are all boring as heck, there was decidedly less suplexing in this one than in the original. At least you didn't have to fight the thing monster in the hanging cages. There is a LOT in this game. Somehow Capcom manage to make these remakes feel like they're worth the absurd price. RE games always seem to go on for a bit too long, but nobody can claim that they're short on things during that time. Compared to RE4 they did away with 90% of the quick-time event stuff, which is good. There also are no infinitely respawning enemies too. I was under the impression there were, but after about 200 hours I realized that there weren't. Which helps a lot.
If I wasn't as crap I may have enjoyed it more? Dunno. Either way, it's really, really well made for what it is.
edit: Also watched the demo of Street Fighter 6. Seems like they actually tried again this time. This might be rather fun.
I'm knees deep into Mordhiem city ofthe dambed right now after two weeks of learning how to play. Some friends want to organize a tournament for out group. I figured heck why not. The frist week all I did was get my warband wrecked this second week I am seeing huge improvements on my game play. I'm still learning how the game works but I am winning games and bringing in the Wyrdstone now. Sadly the game does have some glitches and one where an opposing model was trying to charge one of my own but when she made contact, instead of stopping and starting to fight she just kept trying to make the move action. 3 reboots later she was still making that attempt so I had to quit the match. Just a bit sad about that because I was pulling a win from the jaws of defeat. Oh well.
For 20 dollars on steam I think it's been worth the money.
Excellent so far, but haven't had as much time with it as I'd like (looking forward to a weekend binge)
I bounced pretty hard off earlier incarnations of this series (especially #1, which was a poor Master of Magic knockoff), but this one is great for customization and magic effects.
Playing the new Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened that came out recently. Enjoying it so far, like I have all of the recent Sherlock Holmes games from Frogwares (never played the earliest ones). Still only about an hour or so into the game, though.
Just platinumed Horizon: Forbidden West. I don't think the game is bad, and the combat system is a lot more polished IMO than the first game, but the story definitely felt half-baked near the end and it had a lot less impact compared to the first game's ending. Felt a lot more like sequel bait with the way they set up the final fight (which was also way too easy and short). Curious to see how they'll wrap up the trilogy but kinda hoping Guerrila Games goes back to remaking the First Killzone game or working on other IP, since it feels Horizon is about reach it's natural conclusion soon.
Grimskul wrote: Just platinumed Horizon: Forbidden West. I don't think the game is bad, and the combat system is a lot more polished IMO than the first game, but the story definitely felt half-baked near the end and it had a lot less impact compared to the first game's ending. Felt a lot more like sequel bait with the way they set up the final fight (which was also way too easy and short). Curious to see how they'll wrap up the trilogy but kinda hoping Guerrila Games goes back to remaking the First Killzone game or working on other IP, since it feels Horizon is about reach it's natural conclusion soon.
Have you played the new DLC? I loved it, but I'm not exactly impartial as the Horizon series is easily my favorite brand of open world RPG. I've got hundreds of hours in and no sign of getting sick of it. Even grinding out the upgrades for legendary weapons on Ultra Hard has been fun because I just love the combat that much.
I've never played any of the Killzone games, but Guerilla Games have impressed me so much with Horizon I would definitely try whatever Killzone thing they release in the future.
Grimskul wrote: Just platinumed Horizon: Forbidden West. I don't think the game is bad, and the combat system is a lot more polished IMO than the first game, but the story definitely felt half-baked near the end and it had a lot less impact compared to the first game's ending. Felt a lot more like sequel bait with the way they set up the final fight (which was also way too easy and short). Curious to see how they'll wrap up the trilogy but kinda hoping Guerrila Games goes back to remaking the First Killzone game or working on other IP, since it feels Horizon is about reach it's natural conclusion soon.
Have you played the new DLC? I loved it, but I'm not exactly impartial as the Horizon series is easily my favorite brand of open world RPG. I've got hundreds of hours in and no sign of getting sick of it. Even grinding out the upgrades for legendary weapons on Ultra Hard has been fun because I just love the combat that much.
I've never played any of the Killzone games, but Guerilla Games have impressed me so much with Horizon I would definitely try whatever Killzone thing they release in the future.
Just finished the game so I haven't gotten around to buying the DLC yet, would you say it's worth it? All I've heard about it is the love interest option online so far (seems like it's been overblown by the internet as usual and AFAIK completely optional) and that it's been overshadowed by Tears of the Kingdom releasing next to it (seriously, Guerilla must be cursed to keep releasing their stuff near things like Elden Ring and Zelda games lol).
It's funny you mention the grind for weapons because I basically abandoned the main story for like 15-20 hours to max out my gear so I totally agree with you there, just disappointed since the worldbuilding in the first one was done so well. I'm glad they touched on a few things like Ted Faro's fate at least (really liked the Akira esque ending they did with him).
I've played Killzone 2, 3, Shadowfall, as well as their fantastic PS Vita game Killzone Mercenary (arguably one of the best handheld shooters of the time) so I'm biased in the sense that I think they did space nazis pretty well without just copying WW2 in space, unfortunately Killzone Shadowfall was made by their B team and not their main team which is why I think it didn't take off as much as I thought they would for next gen at the time, since as a release game it became more like a glorified tech demo shooter. The first Killzone game was back in the PS2 era and was pretty ancient and squad based, so I think this would be a great opportunity for them to revisit it and apply a lot of their expertise that they've developed into being a real unique shooter given that it was originally made to compete against the Halo franchise. Just even graphics wise it would be sick to see what they could pull off with a Killzone remake.
Just finished the game so I haven't gotten around to buying the DLC yet, would you say it's worth it? All I've heard about it is the love interest option online so far (seems like it's been overblown by the internet as usual and AFAIK completely optional) and that it's been overshadowed by Tears of the Kingdom releasing next to it (seriously, Guerilla must be cursed to keep releasing their stuff near things like Elden Ring and Zelda games lol).
It's funny you mention the grind for weapons because I basically abandoned the main story for like 15-20 hours to max out my gear so I totally agree with you there, just disappointed since the worldbuilding in the first one was done so well. I'm glad they touched on a few things like Ted Faro's fate at least (really liked the Akira esque ending they did with him).
I've played Killzone 2, 3, Shadowfall, as well as their fantastic PS Vita game Killzone Mercenary (arguably one of the best handheld shooters of the time) so I'm biased in the sense that I think they did space nazis pretty well without just copying WW2 in space, unfortunately Killzone Shadowfall was made by their B team and not their main team which is why I think it didn't take off as much as I thought they would for next gen at the time, since as a release game it became more like a glorified tech demo shooter. The first Killzone game was back in the PS2 era and was pretty ancient and squad based, so I think this would be a great opportunity for them to revisit it and apply a lot of their expertise that they've developed into being a real unique shooter given that it was originally made to compete against the Halo franchise. Just even graphics wise it would be sick to see what they could pull off with a Killzone remake.
Yeah, I think the DLC is excellent value for the money. If you do all the quests, the new cauldron, vantage points and all that, you've got quite a few additional hours of content for an extremely reasonable price. I also really liked the new weapons, coils, and especially the skills. As someone who loves melee in that game, Berserk Blast has been such a game changer for handling crowds. The controversy about Aloy's sexual orientation is just the internet being the internet, I thought it was very gracefully done. Maybe a little rushed, but I didn't have any qualms about it.
The timing of Guerilla's releases is definitely something they need to work on. Forbidden West deserved more recognition and Elden Ring just kinda sucked all the air out of the room.
For world building and story, I agree the first game did it better but there is something to say for novelty. I'm not sure there's anything they could have done in the sequel to replicate the tantalizing mystery of not only what happened to the world to make it this way but also Aloy's origins. Like that's an incredibly tall order. I think FW is a worthy successor, even if the story isn't quite as tight.
Killzone with today's technology, especially with Guerilla's knack for visual fidelity, would look amazing I'm sure. I think they're actually working on one, unless the rumored shooter they're doing is something unrelated to Killzone. Whatever it is I'll definitely check it out when it drops.
Picked up Inside on the cheap a few weeks back as I kind of liked Limbo in the way back
It's essentially more of the same platform puzzle hiijinx as Limbo, not sire if was quite as tricky as some of the later bits of Limbo but very stylish and well done even if it shares the whole recon by death thing as the prior game, and still no idea what the sonic boom bit was about
Warrales. Pretty far in, on my fourth region. Very much enjoying it. Building your team of mercy and taking animals is fun. The system isn’t great for bigger battles of 40+ dudes. It works but the battles can end up taking a long time. That said the game really is very enjoyable.
I've been having a big binge on Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord after watching a YT video about how much it's improved over 2022, but I just installed Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and having a good time with it! Too bad it's making me a bit motion sick, though. I like to rush into close combat with my chainsword, which isn't very Sternguard veterany, but it's fun lol
More Xcom 2: Long war of the Chosen. I think this campaign is going well but the last one seemed to be going well before it went to crap. To be fair there was a glitch in part of the playthrough ruining it and i probably should've gone in with a slightly larger squad with a different squad composition in the psi gate recovery but hopefully this run works better.
Despite the poor art and mediocre writing, I decided to pick this up again with the last DLC and bouncing off Wrath of the Righteous once again.
Found myself surprisingly invested in it, as the encounter pacing fits the system (5e D&D) far better than most RPG->cRPG conversions. Its also mechanically on point, and doesn't require a descent through layers and layers of system mastery to deal with artificial inflation of numbers by devs compensating for something. (And yes, that's definitely directed at Wrath and Owlcat)
Could definitely use some polish (and their own custom monsters are a little wonky), but its a much more fun RPG dungeon-crawler than most of what is out there these days.
Street Fighter 6 is just so remarkably good. I put more time into the demo than I did all of 5 and it's just incredibly compelling now that its launched for real. Matchmaking is great and lets you play single player content while you wait for an opponent. New characters are easily some of the best we've seen in ages. I'm not particularly good, but I'm definitely interested in getting there this time around.
Finally moved on from playing Grom in Immortal Empires for 150+ turns, where I technically already won the long campaign victory already way back around turn 130 having sacked/razed the necessary settlements, but had stubbornly continued playing trying to wipe out all the Skaven factions that came from the turn 120 crisis event (Vermintide woo!). Clan Pestilens was what drove me nuts because they were on the opposite side of the map and it took me forever to get a proper foothold in Lustria where I pissed off all the Lizardmen from trespassing my way into Skaven territory. The Lizardmen did such a god awful job fighting that with me controlling 1/3 of the world, with 20 stacks of different Lords, each turn was taking me like 20 min to complete, so I finally called it a day with Grom.
I'm now starting the Realm of Chaos TW3 campaign with Zhao Ming for Cathay for the very first time and I definitely like the change of pace where it feels like diplomacy actually matters in the beginning and I find the Yin/Yang mechanic interesting.
Will probably play Orks again soon in the new Battlesector update for playable Orks.
More Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord Began building my trading empire with a couple of businesses in my ownership and a trading caravan. Right now I'm struggling to keep paying my soldiers now and escorting a trade caravan now. It's the best way to get money not just being paid a lot but also selling the loot from the ambushing bandits and ransoming the prisoners even if the quest is pretty dull. I was searching from town to town for the quest for quite a while, that's how good of a way it is to gain a profit.
Not Online!!! wrote: Did another Valkia campaign in TW 3 and went back to HOIV and am theorycrafting an Austria-Hungary SPA run.
Something new apparently will be announced tomorrow, based on the June 7th Morse code picture they posted last week.
Well, the new things look quite nice. I do hope that equipment will get more interesting.
Also, SPA Austria-Hungary works... devastatingly effective. then again 15% cheaper SPA and Mobile warfare left left 6 mot inf and 3 spa bats is horrifying.
Mr Morden wrote:Yeah I found that difficult but medipacks got me throuh it and Argenta's boltgun
I'll have to give it another go when I feel like it, I thought there might've been a gimmick with the cultists, but that wasn't the case either. Chipping away at the beast it is then.
Flinty wrote:There is a boltgun in Animal Crossing??!?!!?
Its not captive is it, for when they get really ill?
Believe me, the moment that tanuki piece of gak presented me the bill for a stay on his island, I wish I had access to a weapon.
LunarSol wrote: Street Fighter 6 is just so remarkably good. I put more time into the demo than I did all of 5 and it's just incredibly compelling now that its launched for real. Matchmaking is great and lets you play single player content while you wait for an opponent. New characters are easily some of the best we've seen in ages. I'm not particularly good, but I'm definitely interested in getting there this time around.
I've been playing with the new Avatar World Tour. It's good, silly fun, as one would expect of a Street Fighter game.
I've been wildly impressed with how much fun the online is. I am absolutely not someone who generally plays games online competitively, but it's all so smoothly integrated I find myself happily turning on the LFG flag and going round after round with random challengers.
Roadwarden. You play as a hired mercenary of sorts. Your job is to keep the roads safe and and do odd jobs for the various villages around the wilderness. All of the villages are quite unique with their own culture, relationships and problems. The wilds have monsters and challenges that always have several ways of dealing with them. I quite like the game but there’s a ton of reading. It blurs the line of an rpg and a chose your own adventure novel. I’d recommend it strongly but only if you enjoy reading or doing roleplay. It’s quite captivating.
The game starts with offering 3 classes. Fighter, wizard and scholar. I picked scholar because of how odd it seemed to me. Later I would be very happy that I did. The scholar often gets extra options on how to deal with issues and conversations due to it’s education and also lets you gather herbs. If you’re hesitant to go scholar then I can confidently say it’s not weaker then the other two classes. I might do another run to try out the wizard.
A few tips: do not do mundane jobs unless you’re extremely desperate for cash. Quests will pay way better and make the locals trust you. Also get the shield if you find it. I was amazed at how often it came in handy. You can use items in your inventory, like eating foods and drinking potions. I was embarrassingly far into the game before I realized this. All the monastery answers can be found in other ways in game. They’re more like a shortcut. I say this because it’s easy to think you’ve screwed yourself at the monastery. Finally: quick save often!
I just beat my first TW (2) campaign! It was with Grom. I really liked how his victory conditions weren't conquer the world because when the game starts to bog down and each turn takes like an hour or two I tend to give up on the campaign. I really wish Skarsnik had victory conditions like that because he is without a doubt my favorite legendary lord.
Also downloaded the tabletop unit cap mod on the suggestion of a friend and it makes the late game a lot more interesting with no more real obsolete units or the AI just spamming doomstacks.
I'm thinking about getting the Oxyotl expansion on the steam sale? I think lizardmen are great and the chameleons are super cute.
I've playing a lot of Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord. Joined the Battanians mostly for something different as I joined the Vlandians in my last play through, and a bit our of guilt as I wiped them out in said play through and made my own kingdom. Which wasn't fun because the Aserai were too powerful by then and too OP as when I was with the Vlandians when waging was against the Aserai we'd outnumber them 3 or 4 to 1 and even then it'd be horribly pyrric victory. But now they seem to be nerfed as in my new play through with the Aserai can be beaten much easier.
This play through I made damned sure to lay a strong foundation for making income before joining a faction. It also helped I made the King Caladog like me by rescuing him from prison. Fun times.
I got SF6 and ran World Tour to the final boss, but I'm stuck there until I level up/get more healing items.
I started doing combo trials and JFC, I learned swiftly why I've never played a fighting game before (I'm excluding DBZ: Zenoverse 1/2). World Tour isn't harder than Sekiro, Elden Ring, or Nioh 2, but that's only because of modern controls. Doing basic combo trials is freaking insane. I can't believe that there is actual 1 frame inputs in a game that runs at 60 FPS...
Went back to Fallout 4 and started properly doing the Nuka World DLC. I've had to stop at the point where I start setting up outposts in the Commonwealth because all of my settlements are really nice and I don't want to ruin any of them.
Nuka World as a location is really cool and it has so many cool details but its a bit difficult to go from being a Minutemen/Railroad main game to suddenly being a bad guy. I might have to start again and side with the Brotherhood of Steel to do the DLC properly but then that's another 4 days worth of gameplay time to get back to where I am now.
Gert wrote: Went back to Fallout 4 and started properly doing the Nuka World DLC. I've had to stop at the point where I start setting up outposts in the Commonwealth because all of my settlements are really nice and I don't want to ruin any of them.
Nuka World as a location is really cool and it has so many cool details but its a bit difficult to go from being a Minutemen/Railroad main game to suddenly being a bad guy. I might have to start again and side with the Brotherhood of Steel to do the DLC properly but then that's another 4 days worth of gameplay time to get back to where I am now.
the problem kinda is, that without you first establishing settlements the whole raider minigame is lackluster.
which reminds me i still have a survival run going with explosives.
Doctadeth wrote: Whilst transferring files over, Runescape, HOI4, and back to minecraft again....For some reason...I still love it.
Also been getting into runescape lately. Finished all the free to play quests so went member this month. It's pretty enjoyable to play in transit as long as you don't mind the grinds. Although more then that I've been playing:
Darkest dungeon 2. I've put about 20 hours into it. Unfortunately I can't recommend it. The themes, presentations and (surprisingly) animation are superior to the old game, making it excellent in all these categories. The narrator is back doing an amazing job. However this is all a beautiful coating to subpar gameplay. The game has a good "core" of ideas but they're executed so poorly that I'm amazed this is the result of coming out of early access. The first boss and run up to it's is pretty alright. Starting with the second route you'll see the cracks.
You have 11 characters in the game. 10 are from the old game and 1 is new. The removed characters from the first game is crusader, houndmaster, archeologist, arbalest(/musketeer), abomination and shieldbreaker. Not a complain but I'm surprised they removed the crusader since he was one of your starting characters from the first game. A minor complain is that I'd have liked to see more new characters. Preferably a whole new setup of characters but that's just my opinion. These characters all come with 5 skills. 5 more can be unlocked for a total of 10 skills per character. Now here is where problems start. Your characters can get roles which makes some skills stronger and other weaker. For instance you can make a highwayman into a gunfighter or swordfighter, making him stronger at range skills or melee skills respectively. Then you pick the skills that he's strong with and you're got to go... Kind off. See to unlock the skills you need to enter shrines with your character. On a good run in a region you might encounter 2-3 shrines. A bad one might mean no shrines. Going through a region takes roughly 30 minutes, depending on fights. Iv'e had a region take an hour. That means unlocking all skills for all characters would take a minimum of about 27 hours. Add more because you will get unlucky and boss fights will take a long time. So let's say 40 hours. And then you will not be taking the paths that might optimize you actually winning the game. You have to do this in order to get a strong party. Even if you go for just a few characters you specialize in you're still looking at maybe 20 hours of gameplay before you get a strong party going. That's not quite how it works either though. See your characters have relationships. If they get negative relationships a skill will get locked with a debuff. This can be a skill you where not using, and you can not unlock it or swap it. Meaning a character can get 1-3 skills they don't want to use and those skills get weaker. The game also apparently randomly picks skills to fill the others when this happens. So your team can have completly different skills from what you set out with and what you specialized in. Yes there are ways to work around this, like focusing on positive relationships with certain items. But the number one negative relationship provider is stress. Sometimes you will get unlucky, especially when you start out the game and you don't know it very well. Then you will have stressed out characters make relationships plumit. Then you won't get to pick your skills and that means two things. Either you give up and start over or you avoid combat as much as you can. Except you can't avoid combat because the game forces you to fight and you don't always scout what you're facing.This is not unfair RNG, it's just bad design.
The game is exceptionally time consuming. The first boss takes two regions to go through. A region takes roughly 30 minutes to get through if you fight alot (which you have to because of a mechanic called loathing). So that's about an hour. Fair enough. The second boss takes 4 regions. That's about 2 hours. Plus a mandatory boss fight on the way and the final boss fight itself. Adding maybe an extra hour. So that's 3 hours for a succesfull run. Now let's say after 2 hours of gameplay you have a run of bad luck but manage somehow. Your bad skills that you've not specialized in might get locked and you've suddenly lost any chance of winning. Go back and repeat the grind.
Each run through a region adds a currency you use at your base. This currency is used to make your characters linearly stronger, unlock new trinkets you find in the world, unlock new characters, unlock various upgrades or add cosmetics. So you having a tough time? Then get grinding. You need those candles.
Each character has a backstory. It gets told to you when you find the shrines to unlock new skills. Except that the characters change between each run. It's not the same dude you started out with that you learned the backstory of 4 runs ago. I find this very perplexing. The game gives you a new charater that looks the same but has a different name, quirk and goal. So why am I told a backstory? Are we pretending it's the same person? It's really weird.
Oh and there's no way to save up on characters or items. They are scraped with each run. Oh and there's no multiple characters, only one of each. If you win a run and defeat what's at the mountain then the same character takes up that characters slot. It remains there until you use it again. So let's say you have a few chars with good quirks and you send them on a run and win. You can't really save them in a box for a grind run to because every run is win or lose all chars. I find this odd since the chars have a bunch of mechanics tide to winning. They lose all relationship points they'd built up but their quirks are locked and they get to chose a memory buff. Making them overall stronger. One more thing about characters, I was going to pick a team but noticed every char had very weak perks. So I started the run and immediately abandoned it. Turns out that did not re-roll a new set of characters to chose from. You have to go to the first inn to abandon the expedition and re-roll your characters. This takes maybe 10 minutes. It feels like such a waste.
TLDR: The game seems mostly designed to make you grind and waste your time. The overall design feels not thought out. As if the various systems are clashing and the game can't quite decide what it wants to be. If you like the theme then play the original darkest dungeon. If you liked the first game and is curious about this one then don't bother. It's quite sad because I did beat the first game and really liked it.
Lost the last several days to FF16. Despite being far more of an action game than prior entries (though one clearly built on the systems that have evolved since the move to MMO gameplay in 11) I have to say this is probably the most any game in the franchise has FELT like a Final Fantasy since 10.
It's not even the return to a more medieval, crystal based setting so much as the structure of the narrative itself. The way the game kicks things off with a big opening only to slow things down and give you some time getting to know the eventual cast in a more relaxed setting before throwing you out into the world to join a resistance group has that same flow that made 4 and 6 so great. The plot, this time taking a little influence from Game of Thrones and way more from Attack on Titan is one of the strongest full stop, at least from what I've seen out of the 2/3rds I appear to be into it.
The combat itself is good. I suppose every other genre has stolen RPG elements, so it makes some sense to take some gameplay back. There's a lot of ways to mix it up and adds and they let you full respec whenever you want so its well worth spending time trying out a bunch of different skills to see what clicks.
I have some nitpicks, but overall I feel like this is a game I've been waiting 20 years for. Easily in the top half of the franchise and really just a question of where it sits once the credits roll.
LunarSol wrote: Lost the last several days to FF16. Despite being far more of an action game than prior entries (though one clearly built on the systems that have evolved since the move to MMO gameplay in 11) I have to say this is probably the most any game in the franchise has FELT like a Final Fantasy since 10.
Yoshi P's influence, no doubt. FFXIV, the game that has made him indispensable to SE, is a massive love letter to long-time Final Fantasy fans. You can tell that giving players the right vibes when they play is important to him. It's also almost certainly the reason why the higher-ups trusted him with XVI after the beatings in reputation that the single-player franchise games have taken over the last several years.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of 14. Probably my second favorite MMO of all time after City of Heroes and easily the best experience out of the franchise since 10, IMO. It does a really great job of feeling like more than an MMO with a Final Fantasy reskin, though some elements of that are unavoidable where 16 is able to fully capture the pacing and storytelling vibe that gave the series a legacy that has endured without a truly great game in quite a long while.
Still addicted as frig on Mount and Blade 2. Now with my help, the Battanians have expanded hugely. We've reduced the Vlandians to a single town (I've tried to wipe them out a couple of times, but before I can manage it, the Battanians make peace with them), and we've expanded so much that the other factions are declaring a new war on us every five minutes or so. We just had a brief war with the Aserai, where I beat them back and defeated a few of their armies. Then we had another brief war with the Southern Empire, where I managed to take a couple of their cities—now I'm besieging a town rebelling against us.
Diablo 4 is still doing it for me. Highly entertaining rocking up with my sorceress and nuking large groups of mobs. I am currently at the stage of using internet maps to find all the shrines. I do not have sufficient Time in my life to find them all myself!
My best man and brother-in-law put together a gaming PC as a joint wedding gift. Since then I've discovered the absolute fething beauty that is Cursed Halo.
So far it's only on H1 but the sheer amount of fuckery this guy's added is mind-blowing, such as new weapons like the Blunderbuss (recoil literally shoots you across the map), the Detexturising Rifle (removes the texture of what it hits), and Minecraft Jackals. My favourite has to be the D20 grenades, which could do anything from just play an ABBA song, to spawn half a dozen Flood armed with the Blunderbuss, to spawning an orbital strike.
Got a big system upgrade sorted out, so naturally I finished up a full(ish) Baldur's Gate 1, 2 and Throne of Bhaal run. No better use for an up-to-date system than a 20+ year old game.
Throne I finally finished for the first time. Still hating it for being linear junk with no choices and overtuned enemies. It just isn't fun. Still love the original and like the sequel, but the final DLC is hot garbage. Finishing it was more an obligation to do so before BG3's early release than fun.
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But, as part of the system update, I got Diablo4 as a bonus (which was a surprise to me). Finally dipping my toes into it and its... ok.
Its fairly relentless about not explaining anything about its systems or piles of different currency types, and has a grand indifference to the actual campaign or leveling experience (Endgame, endgame endgame! Blizzard's desperate mating call at this point). But there might be a game hiding somewhere behind the collections and unlocks. It definitely wants you to work before letting you see it, however.
Adrassil wrote:I've playing a lot of Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord.
Is this all single player or is there mp campaign? I need to try it still.
Flinty wrote:Diablo 4 is still doing it for me. Highly entertaining rocking up with my sorceress and nuking large groups of mobs. I am currently at the stage of using internet maps to find all the shrines. I do not have sufficient Time in my life to find them all myself!
Nice to hear.
Voss wrote:
But, as part of the system update, I got Diablo4 as a bonus (which was a surprise to me). Finally dipping my toes into it and its... ok.
Its fairly relentless about not explaining anything about its systems or piles of different currency types, and has a grand indifference to the actual campaign or leveling experience (Endgame, endgame endgame! Blizzard's desperate mating call at this point). But there might be a game hiding somewhere behind the collections and unlocks. It definitely wants you to work before letting you see it, however.
Too bad, can it be modded? Not sure how much of things the devs lock down of it these days. I'd love me a 40k ARPG.
Have you tried Inquisitor:Martyr? I found it to be pretty much the 40k Diablo experience.
Finished the D4 story now and into the endgame. Made it to Nightmare mode and trying to bump my kit up a bit now. Lots of different grinds are now available
Might be about time to roll up a different class and give that a go.
Finished the D4 story now and into the endgame. Made it to Nightmare mode and trying to bump my kit up a bit now. Lots of different grinds are now available
Might be about time to roll up a different class and give that a go.
Well, the new 'season' kicks off next week, so that's a pretty good place to start over.
I'll probably focus on the campaign this weekend, but not sure I'll hit all the shrines, all the zone unlocks and visit all the subzones on the world map before the season starts.
Its definitely going on the shelf August 3 to make way for the BG3 release.
Larian has gone to crazy town on the depth of that game. The only big complaint (at this point) is their marketing spoils way too much, and I'm not totally sold on the big villains or metaplot.
But the ground-level interactivity is unbelievable and jaw-dropping, and they're very happy to let you fail at things, even companions.
Got DS3, only played like 30-45 minutes (at High Wall of Lothric).
Elden Ring is literally the same fething game. Yes, I know not "literally", but it's so similar on multiple levels that I again question all the praise for ER.
What are the actual new features? You could crouch in Sekiro, so that's not new. I think it's jumping, mounts, and Ashes of War. That's it. Sekiro uses the same underlying systems, but somehow it feels dramatically different from the Souls/ER line.
I don't know. It's just weird to me that Fromsoftware gets so much praise for releasing what amount to pallet swaps with one or two new features. It's not even that the games are bad, but why aren't they trying more creative things like Sekiro and Bloodborne?
Picked up some games during the last sale, mostly horror.
Carrion! Still playing through it in bursts, but a fun game where you play as a fleshy abomination trying to escape a facility, eating everything along the way.
FAR: Lone Sails! The only non-horror game, about someone traversing a wasteland in a massive "okomotive", which is a steam and wind powered contraption, whilst solving small puzzles. Played through it a few times, enjoyed it a lot, great atmosphere and visuals.
No one lives under the lighthouse! A slow burn horror game about.. something that may or may not be living under the lighthouse. Played through it twice, bit tedious at times, but still a lot of fun.
Paratopic! A short game, played through it three times, as this is a trippy one that's hard to really define. A fever dream as dictated by David Lynch maybe? Be seeing you friendo.
Scavenger SV-4! You operate a salvage drone from high orbit, controlling it through a grainy visual feed, while keeping an eye on radiation levels and bringing in enough cargo to make the trip a worthwhile one. Just make sure you don't bring back any of the less than friendly locals.
Subnautica. This is horror for me, I've got thalassophobia. 😅 Slowly playing through this as the game isn't really holding any hands and holding any punches either.
Adrassil wrote:I've playing a lot of Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord.
Is this all single player or is there mp campaign? I need to try it still.
Not a multi-player campaign (that could be frigging awesome, though. Your character has siblings so one of them could be another PC) but a multiplayer mode which I've heard is good, but I've never played as I started with Mount & Blade which was purely single player and I'm...not much of a multiplayer gamer anymore. I don't think it's due to excessive misanthropy. Or at least, I hope, lol.
The reason to get the Cyclops is to go to where even nastier enemies are located.
The lack of real weapons in that game is good in some respects, but annoying in others. On the one hand, it means that the developers didn't include any required boss battles with the various leviathans.
On the other, it also made it really annoying when a juvenile ghost leviathan decided to camp an important exit point. I had to kill it, but was only able to do so by taking advantage of some terrain oddness that the leviathan's AI couldn't cope with, and poking it with the PRAWN suit drill. It took forever.
Oh yes, the Cyclops has not been the boost in confidence I hoped it to be. Crying shame they did not implement coop for this one, the Cyclops is just screaming for a larger crew to operate it properly.
I have the PRAWN suit as well now and I want to love it, but damn is it an everloving bother to operate and recover. At least it has air for as long as the power cell lasts. Which is the next project, I am not a fan of base building, but I need a place to recharge my batteries and power cells for my vehicles and tools.
Fear of the deep aside, my main annoyance is how much of the game is just you needing to figure things out yourself, I spent way too much time on the wiki figuring things out.
Nothing in either subnautica scares me more than the Reaper! The spiky head and the god awful scream make for an truly disturbing combo in a beastie that can basically appear out of nowhere
Automatically Appended Next Post: In Diablo news, I have bumped the altars in 4 of the 5 zones. Takes about 1.5 hours to go through them all, including taking out the fortress thingies. Well on track to get them all done for the new season.’thinking of taking the necromancer this time as Druid seems to get a bad rep online.
I'm baffled by Blizzard's continued devotion to replace story with mystery boxes, where they do beautifully rendered scenes of villains talking around their motivations and goals in the most obtuse way possible.
I guess its so you can fit in whatever allegory you want without feeling dated or out of touch?
But at least they stuck to their 'a worse threat is coming' formula. As WoW players can tell you, that's always a winner.
Spoiler:
And what was up with the 'choosing tyranny' bit at the end? This demon has been corrupting people, promoting, murder, anarchy and inexplicably empowering cannibals. How is ending this threat siding with tyranny in any fething way? There's no meaningful power structure left standing
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Anyway. Weirdest aspect of the ending was speed running multiple named Lesser Evils with no fanfare or build-up. Even the talky ones from previous games are just grunting thugs, put down with little commentary or interest.
I think the tyranny bit is to do with the idea that rejecting Lilith is by definition siding with the status quo, and therefor an unprepared population will fall either to the incoming demons or angels.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, just finished all the altars of Lilith! As a byproduct, also got all the zone bonuses for 3 of the 5 zones. Should get all the 5 realms completed before the season drops for additional benefits.
I think the tyranny bit is to do with the idea that rejecting Lilith is by definition siding with the status quo, and therefor an unprepared population will fall either to the incoming demons or angels.
.
That will probably happen, yeah. But that isn't
Spoiler:
'tyranny' in any sense of the word. And of course, new girl has a new plan for how to deal with things, and we don't even know what that is or how it will work out. It'll almost certainly fail because its the Diablo series, but that isn't siding with the 'status quo' either.
Though, one of the big failings of the series is it doesn't, afaik, really deal with why either side gives a single bean about Sanctuary. You'd think all these temporary losses of the Prime Evils (and Lesser Evils) would give theHeavens an advantage in the Eternal Conflict. The angels generally don't lose their soldiers and generals in the same kind of numbers (the Death Guy last time and the Bloody Idiot this time being exceptions, and it seems clear that they wrote off Inarius ages ago.
Though, one of the big failings of the series is it doesn't, afaik, really deal with why either side gives a single bean about Sanctuary. You'd think all these temporary losses of the Prime Evils (and Lesser Evils) would give theHeavens an advantage in the Eternal Conflict. The angels generally don't lose their soldiers and generals in the same kind of numbers (the Death Guy last time and the Bloody Idiot this time being exceptions, and it seems clear that they wrote off Inarius ages ago.
The Prime Evils were effectively lost for a long time before the first game, though. In each of the games, you're tasked with *stopping* one or more Prime Evils from resuming their previous position, essentially returning things to the status quo.
Also, the last (pre-expansion) act of the third game is basically you racing to catch up to Diablo as he (she?) marches unstoppably through the heavens. If Diablo can do that on the angels' home turf, it suggests that the angels are no longer all that when compared with the demons.
No idea what 4 has to say on the matter, as I haven't played it (and am not likely to anytime soon).
No idea what 4 has to say on the matter, as I haven't played it (and am not likely to anytime soon).
I certainly don't recommend it. The campaign is skimpy, the grind to unlock everything tedious, and the end game that you unlock everything for is non-existent.
Its very blizzard in the worst possible way.
Edit: and cool. Most of the renown unlocks don't carry over to the season. Just the first two. That's... hours and hours of pure grinding. Re-grinding in fact, on top of the new grind.
Nope.
More DS3 commentary.
I'm past Deacons of the Deep, which isn't all that far into the game (5 bosses? 4 required, 1 optional I think).
Bonfires feel scarce compared to Sekiro and Elden Ring, but you can still run past mobs easily for the most part.
No boss has taken more than 3 attempts so far. The first 3 took two. Crystal Sage and Deacon took 3. Crystal Sage should've been 2, but I got overzealous and died to stupid.
I don't really feel like I'm missing anything compared to ER, largely because the mobs are the same difficulty or easier and the bosses are absolutely easier so far, but I know the ones I've killed are amongst the easiest.
Visually, DS3 actually looks better than ER, but that's because ER's CPU demands are dramatically higher...
In terms of difficulty, I feel like as a whole DS3 is harder than both Sekiro and ER because in Sekiro you have infinite stamina and deflections are easy (once you learn them). ER has summoning cheese and as an open world game you can get broken very quickly if you no where to go. Even when I first played Sekiro I was stalled by bosses, not mobs. Despite knowing the gameplay loop, the mobs in DS3 are are easily the most annoying so far.
As far as the lore goes, I know the high level lore of Dark Souls, but not the details, and I don't care. GRRM genuinely elevated the world building from Dark Souls to Elden Ring. The macro story in ER is fairly bland, but the details are superb.
My biggest gripe is that I don't understand the hype of ER (mind you, I like DS3 and ER, I have 100+ hours in ER). I have zero interest in Starfield despite being a long time Bethesda fan. From a strictly gameplay perspective ER is just an open world Dark Souls game. That's not a bad thing, not by any stretch, but it doesn't explain why ER was hyped up so much.
I think the things you mentioned:
- Summoning Cheese
- The ability to go elsewhere and find ways to progress
- Elevated worldbuilding with superb details
These things took the superb experience of the Dark Souls games and added elements that made the process of approaching and overcoming its challenges more rewarding for a wider audience. In truth, it's an evolution of what FromSoft has been doing for years, but to many, its the revolution they've been missing out on, fully experienced for the first time.
just finished a run through of Suikoden 4, the only one from the main series i didn't beat way back when
makes me miss the series, even if 4 is clearly the worst of the 5, what with the overly aggressive random encounter math
the very empty world map that makes taking your what should be cool cannon loaded ship/base around just a drag
and the fact its just damn short compared to the rest of the games (pretty sure i could make it through the game in
under 30 hours if i didn't waste time goofing around raising up the lvls and gear on characters i didn't end up really needing).
kinda find myself wanting to do a replay of some other games of that era now that i remember fondly, like breathe of fire 3 and 4
LunarSol wrote: I think the things you mentioned:
- Summoning Cheese
- The ability to go elsewhere and find ways to progress
- Elevated worldbuilding with superb details
These things took the superb experience of the Dark Souls games and added elements that made the process of approaching and overcoming its challenges more rewarding for a wider audience. In truth, it's an evolution of what FromSoft has been doing for years, but to many, its the revolution they've been missing out on, fully experienced for the first time.
The worldbuilding and details are good. I think both Sekiro and DS3 benefit greatly from not being so expansive. There are alternate routes, to a degree, and you can always farm if needed.
I think Spirit Ashes were the worst thing Fromsoftware could have introduced. You can't convince me that ER isn't balanced around summons. If it isn't, Fromsoft intentionally designed bosses with minimal openings AND nerfed parry on top of that. They're absolutely doable without Spirit Ashes, but it feels like the fights take dramatically longer and you're forced to be more passive.
Abyss Watchers felt like a fair fight. Pontiff did as well, but he was too susceptible to parry. I'd say the rest have been too easy, but I have the benefit of playing other FS games beforehand. Yhorm is the only one that was awful. Terrible, terrible fight specific gimmick.
Edit: Managed Aldrich fairly quickly (5 attempts I think), but I was one hit from death. Dancer was a joke, I healed after Aldrich and leveled up twice and then one shot her. She's the opposite of an ER boss, I swear she just stood there half the fight and did 3-string combos that were easy enough to dodge. I think I'm far enough in to say that Sekiro is a much harder game. Both benefit from knowing movesets, Sekiro moreso imo, but you can brute force a lot in DS3. I understood why they upped the ante in ER, but I think they went a bit too far.
greenskin lynn wrote: just finished a run through of Suikoden 4, the only one from the main series i didn't beat way back when
makes me miss the series, even if 4 is clearly the worst of the 5, what with the overly aggressive random encounter math
the very empty world map that makes taking your what should be cool cannon loaded ship/base around just a drag
and the fact its just damn short compared to the rest of the games (pretty sure i could make it through the game in
under 30 hours if i didn't waste time goofing around raising up the lvls and gear on characters i didn't end up really needing).
kinda find myself wanting to do a replay of some other games of that era now that i remember fondly, like breathe of fire 3 and 4
Tried out the new D4 season, and got bored immediately
Maybe I just burned out a bit getting all the Lilith statues, or maybe it’s now just all the same grind…
So I tried out the Roguetech mod pack for Battletech, and instantly concluded that this level of challenge is not what I’m after. I am firmly in the “wanting to drown things” level of challenge If the enemies could actually be trapped in a barrel to make it easier for me to shoot them, so much the better!
Saw that Sea of Thieves was doing a Monkey Island cross-over, so I reinstalled the game. After fumbling around a bit, I finally made my way to the area where you're supposed to start the Monkey Island content...
And promptly found myself fifty feet underwater with no ship. Making my way up to the surface, I found the nearby merman, and got teleported back to my ship... which was at a port. I fumbled around for a bit, wandering around the map aimlessly for a couple of hours, and eventually realized that in order to pass through the "archway" again (i.e. the content starting point), I needed to abandon and restart the mission. I did that, headed on through the archway, and finally found myself on Melee Island.
I won't say too much to avoid spoiling it for anyone who's interested in playing it. It appears to be set immediately after the third game, which ends with Guybrush and Elaine leaving on their honeymoon. The Pirate Lord in Sea of Thieves invited the two to come to the Sea of Thieves for part of their honeymoon, but they never arrived. So he's asked you to investigate.
If you've played the games, there are a number of familiar faces and easter eggs (including one old sailer who tells you about a great new upcoming game... called "Loom" ). It's quite short, and can be played through quite quickly. But it's an interesting thing to look at if you're a fan of Monkey Island. Buying Sea of Thieves just for the Monkey Island content would be a bad idea. But if you already own the game, the Monkey Island content is free. It's basically like playing an adventure game - but in first person 3d instead of a 2d point and click. My main complaint is that getting all of the achievements in it appears to require you to locate every last coin (pieces of eight; your regular currency is useless in this tie-in) on the island, no matter where they're hidden. And even if you don't find all of them, you still need to find a ridiculous amount just to progress through the basic plot. It's annoying, and seems horribly out of place in something inspired by a LucasArts adventure game.
It's part one, with subsequent parts coming in the future.
greenskin lynn wrote: just finished a run through of Suikoden 4, the only one from the main series i didn't beat way back when
makes me miss the series, even if 4 is clearly the worst of the 5, what with the overly aggressive random encounter math
the very empty world map that makes taking your what should be cool cannon loaded ship/base around just a drag
and the fact its just damn short compared to the rest of the games (pretty sure i could make it through the game in
under 30 hours if i didn't waste time goofing around raising up the lvls and gear on characters i didn't end up really needing).
kinda find myself wanting to do a replay of some other games of that era now that i remember fondly, like breathe of fire 3 and 4
Breath of Fire 4 is such a good game.
I think I prefer 3, but 4 is definitely no slouch. I think I prefer them to most of the Final Fantasy's of the PS1 era.
Flinty wrote: Tried out the new D4 season, and got bored immediately
Maybe I just burned out a bit getting all the Lilith statues, or maybe it’s now just all the same grind…
Same. The patch nonsense followed by the team doing a public 'fireside' talk to justify themselves and then collectively waffling about how they're going to handle things in the future was pretty much the last nail.
So I went back to Dwarf Fortress.
We were still working on the outer defenses when a Forest Titan attacked (a giant tarantula, thankfully without webs). Couldn't get everyone back inside in time (I think I lost 5-6* dwarves), but they put up a surprising fight, breaking numerous legs. Finally one of my lumberjacks put it down.
*one survived wounded, but wouldn't move away from the interior drawbridge. In retrospect, I could have dug around it and let her in, but smashed her instead. Whoops.
In fairness, I would have had to dig around two bridges, and I was in a hurry to save the wounded titan slayer and butcher the titan for meat and bones, so... I didn't think of it.
Hopped back into Darktide for a bit, playing as something completely different, a zealot. The game is fun again with randos, not because of the class, zealot is not really my jam so far, but because I am stuck with other lower levelled players who don't speedrun every map.
Highlight so far was playing a map with a slab and two other zealots, who just like me had flamers. The Ogryn, despite being a new player, really picked up the slack when it came to ranged support hehe, while three idiots with flamers just set everything on fire that came too close to him.
Got back into Red Dead Redemption 2 because I had been watching clips from Youtube. Just collecting as many gold bars and upgrades as I can in the early 2 chapters. This game is a masterpiece no doubt, but for some reason it just didn't grab me when it launched.
Also bought and played a bit of Jagged Alliance 3. Still kind of on the fence about it, but first few missions were enjoyable. After the ultra-serious Aliens : Dark Decent, its a bit jarring how tongue in cheek this game is.
Also Also, going to be playing some Remnant 2 with a Steam buddy this week.
I've got 3 bosses left in DS3 basegame (killing all the optionals ofc) and at this point I can safely say it's 100% a better game than ER.
If you liked ER and haven't played Dark Souls, I absolutely recommend getting this game. It is easily the most fun I have outside of Sekiro and Nioh 2 in the last 5 years.
Strangely, I think the difficulty is wildly exaggerated. Sekiro is hard, it might be the hardest because it requires a specific playstyle, but it's not that hard. For comparison, back in WoW Legion I went for the Arms Warrior Mage Tower skin. I had an outdated PC and mediocre internet. I have no doubt I took at least 30 attempts to beat that boss 1v1. I recently bought Jedi Academy, a game I played years and years ago, because of a sale. Even on the default difficulty, you can be killed in 1-2 seconds in certain scenarios. Fromsoftware games punish you by not allowing save scumming and requiring focus even for normal enemies, but that's it. Old games like Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy are likely harder on max difficulty than any FS game on NG.
Ixion. I beat it when it came out and decided to give it a go on the new challenge difficulty. I feel like the game is much more enjoyable for me this second time around. Mostly that’s because now I have a much better idea of how to make my sectors layout and planning ahead. I actually feel a lot of satisfaction from my station running smoothly. I remember that I was very bothered by some things in Ixion. Like the lack of resolutions to request, the lackluster (and almost absent) political system and the fact that you did very little actual interaction with your population other then building your base and setting your policies. Now that I don’t have the expectations of law and politics in space I feel like I can appreciate the game more for what it actually is. The increased difficulty doesn’t really change much. Just build one more EVA airlock to repair then you normally would and you’re good to go.
What a delightful puzzler of a game. Nothing too strenuous, but without losing a rewarding feeling when you figure something out.
If you have Smols, you can’t go anymore wrong with this charmer than can with a Katamari game. And even if don’t have Smols, this really is a pleasing puzzle game with a side of (simplistic) combat.
Did my first drop with a Vindicare Assassin in Chaos Gate: Daemon Hunters.
The "bonus reward" for this mission was to only use a 3 man squad, so it was my Vindy, a dual sword wielding Grey Knight Interceptor and a Justicar with halberd.
The assassin was level 1, so doesn't have his full suite of abilities yet, but he impressed. Fired 5 times, killed maybe 10 of the enemy due to using explosive items in the environment. My two grey knight did the up close and personal work.
I also got caught unawares by reinforcements after achieving the main objective and discovered that the assassin is super soft. Almost got him killed because I was too aggressive.
Looking forward to unlocking more assassins! Going to get an Eversor into the mix asap.
I've got 3 total bosses left for DS3 across the base game and DLCs. I've used NPC summons on Old Demon King, Frieda, and Demon Prince (I can't pass up summoning Slave Knight Gael).
Nameless King has been by far the worst and I would absolutely recommend cheating this fight if you can. Phase 1 is you vs the camera and a handful of one-two shot abilities. In phase 2 he can stagger lock you to death if you miss a roll. Easily does more damage than any other boss I've encountered. Frieda has an annoying invisibility move, but you can parry her. I used summons because I hate 2v1 boss fights and phase 2 is really annoying without a distraction for one of your enemies. Demon Prince isn't as hard as Frieda or Nameless King, I just didn't want to spend more time than I had to on it because it's a very bland fight to me and I don't like the gank fights. The second boss of the first DLC (Gravetender and Greatwolf I think?) is a joke. You can easily parry him with Caestus and massive enemies hit hard but are slow and easy to dodge.
TF 2, Summer update has been all things considered great.
I am starting to get into the deeper movement mechanics, even if i still suck at them, looking at you cannon jumping and det jumping.
Other than that, positively hyped for the AOE3 DE update that should come this evening 20:00.
Finally Beat XCom Chimera Squad. I'll give them credit for trying something new but somehow it ends up being less than the sum of its parts. Doesn't have that additive quality where I want to play another game right away. Only replay value is to perhaps try out some of the other characters.
At some point in the night, my download of Baldur's Gate 3 completed.
Messed around with the character/class creation for a time this morning and completed up til you find Asterion. Going in hard on this game this weekend.
Keeping the number of companions low so I can really go in depth with the ones I have. One joined me unexpectedly, which became interesting enough to keep them around.
Still going through 'early access' areas at ~20 hours in, with a Cleric 1 (Knowledge)/ Enchanter wizard. Its a brief hiccup in progression, but the extra skills (and expertise) and armor proficiencies are worth it. I'm in it for the secrets and lore- I'll let persuasion attempts pass, but I'll do everything I can to find things out. Accidentally left Tiamat clicked when I was browsing through gods for the cleric level, then decided, no, selfishness and greed (for knowledge) was entirely in keeping for this character.
I'm going slow on purpose to check as much as possible, and probably overusing certain... abilities.
My favorite thing so far is Speak with Dead. The animation is just top notch, and there is a lot of information and perspectives that slip by without it. .
Started playing a bit of BG3 myself. Playing my first DnD character, a Dwarf Paladin named Wulfbreth. Not really got far, just to the fight at the druid settlement. Looking forward to getting into the game itself and getting out of this start bit. Played it too much during Early Access so this is a bit of drudgery.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Finally Beat XCom Chimera Squad. I'll give them credit for trying something new but somehow it ends up being less than the sum of its parts. Doesn't have that additive quality where I want to play another game right away. Only replay value is to perhaps try out some of the other characters.
The game feels as if they wanted to play around with a bunch of mechanics, and see which ones worked.
Baldur's Gate 3 (again). They really went to almost ridiculous lengths to do the 'little stuff' that a lot of companies don't have time for.
Example: I'm down in the underdark, and I have the animated corpse of a hook horror as a servant (basically imagine a scything talons tyranid warrior with only one pair of arms, a long neck, and no head crest). It has a lot of idle animations, but in exploring, i came across a rope ladder.
This fairly random monster has appropriate climbing animations for ladders! Up and down (amusingly, it goes down head first).
Starting to venture past Early Access stuff I'm familiar with, and closing in on level 6. Worried that I'm going to close off available paths without exploring everything, however. (And there are choices that definitely lock you out of paths or companions)
Just saw a video about character customization in BG3 that made me say, "Huh!?" Maybe someone who has the game can confirm?
Long and short of it, four preset body types, preset faces for each body type (seven or eight, depending on the body type). Customization of physical features (i.e. not things like freckles or hair styles/colors) is non-existent. Which means that you can't make your character taller/shorter or broader/thinner than what's in the preset body types. And eight choices for what your character's genitals looks like (three innies, and five outies).
Um... What?
Is this for real? Because if it is, it sounds like someone's got their priorities out of whack. I know that I tend to care a lot more about how tall or broad my character is than I do about the specific shape (aside from whether it's a hole or a staff) of what's under my character's pants.
There aren't height or muscle sliders. Its not really the kind of game where subtle changes to overall body shape are going to show. Its mostly 3/4 isometric gameplay, after all (or zoomed out tactical). If you fight enough with the camera you can get a group shot of your party, but zooming past that really isn't an option most of the time.
Body sizes (normal and buff) are limited to humans, elves, half-elves and tieflings. Shorty races, dragonborn and githyanki don't have a size option. (Which is interesting. They went pretty far in making the githyanki alien, up to including their reproduction (egg-laying) and weird socialization- hidden training camps in the world so they can reach maturity, because no one ages in the Astral Plane)
There are a lot of facial feature options because you'll see those a lot in dialogue cutscenes, and there are unapologetically a lot of those.
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The nudity options are... not a big deal, though some people are very loud and excited about them in way or another. Its mostly a novelty.
The lead animator talked about how they put a lot of work into the bodies (especially the dragonborn), and all clothing and armor is a mesh overlay and they just decided... not to have it default to a mesh.
I also suspect it got approved because Larian is a European studio and they know that while the game is piled high with corpses and murder, and yet somehow what people are really going to freak out about is a bit of optional nudity.
You can literally select your genitals but as far as I can tell there are ZERO face sliders. You're stuck with one of a handful of presets.
For an isometric game it is a fething resource hog. I played through Act 1 on EA and have zero interest in finishing the game.
I think it'll get a lot of attention (obviously) and end up being a cult hit. It is a very, very deep game, but it's a strategy game, not an action one. I think the bevy of options in dialogue and combat is beyond anything I've ever seen, but it's just not for me. The character creator is also lacking IMO. It also doesn't seem optimized at all.
The fact that they put more effort into giving you penis appearance options than body appearance options makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking, and where their priorities were. You spend pretty much the entire game staring at your body - clothed or unclothed. I assume you don't spend much time looking at your penis (assuming you have one; there are also multiple - though not as many - options for those who want a vulva instead). I'm guessing that the game's secondary title isn't "Debbie Does Baldur's Gate".
My befuddlement at the developer's choice isn't "freak out over a penis". I've played games like Conan: Exiles that had the option, and I barely found it worth noting. Cyberpunk 2077 allows it, and I didn't say anything about it there. either. But both of those games offer extensive physical body customization. So giving yourself a bigger schlong is just another option from the many already available. And before you start talking about "isometric gameplay" and "cameras zoomed out", remember that both of the games I mentioned are largely played in first person, which means that you don't even see your character most of the time. But body customization was still considered a good feature to have for both of those games. For that matter, most games these days let you pick your character's eye color (my FFXIV character has a ring around her iris that's a different color than her iris; it's a cool effect), even though it's not as if anyone can actually see that outside of a zoomed-in screenshot. So giving you customization options for stuff that you barely see is pretty standard these days. Further, the argument about "barely see" doesn't really hold water in this instance. After all, Larian has put the priority on giving you more customization options for something that's even more difficult to see in 3/4 isometric gameplay (even if you're running around without any clothes on).
It's also worth noting that while you have the ability to pick a face, that isn't really customizable, either. It's one of several pre-set options, only. If someone's going to claim that it's "only for portraits", then I think I would prefer to stick with the method used by the original BG games, where you had the option to either use one of the provided still portraits, or load one of your own.
Rationalize the genital focus all you want, and blame criticism on "people freaking out over sex!!1!", since that's no doubt what the defenders will choose to claim. But the simple fact is that there is no good argument for giving the player more penis customization options than general body customization options. If having choices for your penis is important, then so is having choices for the rest of your body. You would rightly mock them if the customization focus were on toes instead of genitals.
Eumerin wrote: ...Rationalize the genital focus all you want, and blame criticism on "people freaking out over sex!!1!", since that's no doubt what the defenders will choose to claim. But the simple fact is that there is no good argument for giving the player more penis customization options than general body customization options. If having choices for your penis is important, then so is having choices for the rest of your body. You would rightly mock them if the customization focus were on toes instead of genitals...
I mean, I'm not an animator so don't quote me on this, but I *suspect* it's more work setting up a wider range of body types/body sliders that you're going to see frequently and have to interact with animations/equipment than it is to add extra genitals that don't spend much of the game on display.
(Also, for the curious all boinking I've seen thus far is a relatively short opener and then fades to black, despite the genital customization options it's less intrusive/embarrassing than, e.g., DAO's long cutscenes of characters writhing around wearing goofy beige underwear they're clearly not wearing under their actual clothes, Morrigan.)
Eumerin wrote: ...Rationalize the genital focus all you want, and blame criticism on "people freaking out over sex!!1!", since that's no doubt what the defenders will choose to claim. But the simple fact is that there is no good argument for giving the player more penis customization options than general body customization options. If having choices for your penis is important, then so is having choices for the rest of your body. You would rightly mock them if the customization focus were on toes instead of genitals...
I mean, I'm not an animator so don't quote me on this, but I *suspect* it's more work setting up a wider range of body types/body sliders that you're going to see frequently and have to interact with animations/equipment than it is to add extra genitals that don't spend much of the game on display.
(Also, for the curious all boinking I've seen thus far is a relatively short opener and then fades to black, despite the genital customization options it's less intrusive/embarrassing than, e.g., DAO's long cutscenes of characters writhing around wearing goofy beige underwear they're clearly not wearing under their actual clothes, Morrigan.)
So far as body types go it depends on how they bind armor/clothes to the player model. If they're doing it manually it does take effort, but I don't think that's necessary.
Skyrim has mods that let you customize your body extensively and batch build your modded clothes to that build. It doesn't require specific modification as long as the weights are established.
Eumerin wrote: ]It's also worth noting that while you have the ability to pick a face, that isn't really customizable, either. It's one of several pre-set options, only. If someone's going to claim that it's "only for portraits", then I think I would prefer to stick with the method used by the original BG games, where you had the option to either use one of the provided still portraits, or load one of your own.
No idea where the portrait thing is coming from at all (they change portrait styles for the final game but that has squat to do with customization) or who claimed it, but faces are very customizable. Yes, there are 'only' 6-8 or so for each race, but there are loads of changes you can make to facial markings hair, eyes, tatoos, piercings, make-up and etc, including age and freckle sliders.
Rationalize the genital focus all you want, and blame criticism on "people freaking out over sex!!1!", since that's no doubt what the defenders will choose to claim. But the simple fact is that there is no good argument for giving the player more penis customization options than general body customization options. If having choices for your penis is important, then so is having choices for the rest of your body. You would rightly mock them if the customization focus were on toes instead of genitals.
Ok, this is a bit too passive-aggressive. The genitals haven't been a focus and it doesn't need 'rationalization.' Its a handful of not-particularly-high-res bits that are basically stuck on the crotch, with several variations just being hairy and no hair. The body sliders you're demanding would be a LOT more work.
Of course, the other potential reason for it is their EA fanbase turned out to be unreasonably horny, and really made sure they knew. So Larian simply leaned into that.
I've gotten back on Runescape in a big way, as they just dropped a new combat skill for the game (Necromancy). The first new combat style since the game's release over 20 years ago, in fact.
Body sliders aren't hard. Even SF6 has body sliders and some games have been doing them for ages. There's even a mod tool for WH2/3 that includes body sliders.
Maybe there's an engine issue, but I think it's more likely that they just didn't value them and wanted to put their focus elsewhere. I do think it's weird that an RPG with so many options in dialogue and combat has poor character customization.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Finally Beat XCom Chimera Squad. I'll give them credit for trying something new but somehow it ends up being less than the sum of its parts. Doesn't have that additive quality where I want to play another game right away. Only replay value is to perhaps try out some of the other characters.
The game feels as if they wanted to play around with a bunch of mechanics, and see which ones worked.
Yes. Ironically by making the characters more in depth and less disposal it actually decreases the tension. You just know you're not going to lose any of them. With normal XCom you know you can lose anybody at anytime. Their personalities aren't as obviously developed as Chimera Squad but I think I actually got more attached to my randomly generated guys. Having your people permanently die is part of the XCom experience.
ZergSmasher wrote: I've gotten back on Runescape in a big way, as they just dropped a new combat skill for the game (Necromancy). The first new combat style since the game's release over 20 years ago, in fact.
Cool! I’m chilling with old school RuneScape. It’s quite a bit of fun to play at wo… in transit. :-)
Remnant: from the ashes. Given that the second one is out I decided to finally play through the first one. Really like it! I feel like a spacefaring cowboy. Though I wish the choice of secondary weapons was less limited. I’m at my second world and I only have 3 variants of rapid fire weapons as secondary. I want a big revolver or something to really feel like a space cowboy.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Finally Beat XCom Chimera Squad. I'll give them credit for trying something new but somehow it ends up being less than the sum of its parts. Doesn't have that additive quality where I want to play another game right away. Only replay value is to perhaps try out some of the other characters.
The game feels as if they wanted to play around with a bunch of mechanics, and see which ones worked.
Yes. Ironically by making the characters more in depth and less disposal it actually decreases the tension. You just know you're not going to lose any of them. With normal XCom you know you can lose anybody at anytime. Their personalities aren't as obviously developed as Chimera Squad but I think I actually got more attached to my randomly generated guys. Having your people permanently die is part of the XCom experience.
Honestly i only went halfway through Chimera Squad and was so uninterested by it i left and played Gears Tactics when the games first came out. Something about chimera squad feels like a worse experience than xcom 2. The alternating turns, grenades don't blow up right away or remove cover and the inability to blow up levels of terrain, the characters are mostly pretty bad and they somehow made the not-ADVENT teammates uncool unlike skirmishers in War of the Chosen, the mission is divided into parts, etc.
The only things i enjoyed in that game were mostly the relic items you could buy on the Black/Gray Market and the different entry points and breaches in each mission seeming like a cool feature if only implemented right and being a more fluid part of the game rather than starting each sub-section this way.
Also in the completion of the Muton sub-section of the campaign they made Xcom sound as bad as the Aliens. They can eff right off with that noise. Xcom 2 on hardest difficulty on Ironman is a game fairly hard fought and while i'll admit they aren't saints they are nowhere near as bad as the Aliens. The fact Humanity was even thinking of developing a Mixed Species city 4 years after the basic genocide and near mass genocide of Humanity after 20 years under Alien and Advent boot-heel is telling about Xcom's and Humanity's patience and near-Naivete with the Aliens that fought under the Elders. I'm not saying we should have wiped out all the Aliens but Mixed Species Mega City after 4 years should cause at least some wariness and human/advent/alien bigotry which is sad but realistic and is to be expected.
I also didn't like some game breaking issue with Chimera Squad where i had evaced some of my squad while the rest were bleeding out but all the objectives were completed and i magically won the mission no problem without anybody dying even though in xcom 2 they would have died.
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Also i've been playing Terra Invicta again. It's one of the Slowest of Burns making Hearts of Iron's 1936 campaign of build-up to War period seem sorta faster by comparison. Just a warning that when i say this is slow it's Really Slow. The first year of the game or so you get every councilor of a limit of 4-6 (you start with 2) and you set them up on missions every week. After the first year you send them on new missions every half a month (15-16 days) so about 26 or so turns per year for every year after the first for 10-12 years building up everything till you have enough ships for a good space battle. Not to mention you really want to be able to make buildings that provide more research or other resources on top of space resources. Like Hearts of Iron 4 there's a million tool tips in the game and the amount of Research options is so absurd and un-specific that even vets of 4X will find this a bit much.
It's fun but you have to wait like 10-12 years of in-game time (getting good countries taken over, getting space income and space pop cap before heading into space to get good mining spots to make space structures fast and then finally making ships) before you finally have a decent amount of ships to play with to fight the aliens and believe me you're gonna need a lot and you're gonna want to wait until your engines and weapons are pretty good so you don't lose too badly or spend too much Water resource and believe me you're gonna need a lot of Water (probably to deal with how salty the game makes you too). It can be fun but also very frustrating.
On that note nuclear weapon use, orbital bombardment, forming country unions like the EU and turning them into mega nations, using armies to conquer territories (usually only the usa can project army power with navies whereas most have to start out with border wars) and all of that can be super fun. The nuclear option is usually the last one since it really hurts GDP of nations and messes up the world badly which causes population decreases and probably discontent.
I really want to stress Terra Invicta can be fun but extremely Slow is the best way to put that game.
Just finished Styx: Master of Shadows. It was a game I got from PS plus a while back and I never got around to playing it. I had finished Yakuza 6 and wanted a bit of a palette cleanser before jumping into Like a Dragon, so it was a neat little stealth game, one of the few times where the greenskin is the protag and not the endless tide of mooks you kill, so it was surprisingly fun despite the relative simplicity of the game, even though I usually don't play stealth games. They did a decent amount of world building as well.
I'm going strong into Like a Dragon right now and I'm definitely taking some time getting used to the turn based combat versus the traditional button mash combat of the previous Yakuza games. Story is decent so far, though it definitely has that reboot feel with how Ichiban has a pretty similar backstory to Kiryu as far as prison origins go.
trexmeyer wrote: Body sliders aren't hard. Even SF6 has body sliders and some games have been doing them for ages. There's even a mod tool for WH2/3 that includes body sliders.
Maybe there's an engine issue, but I think it's more likely that they just didn't value them and wanted to put their focus elsewhere. I do think it's weird that an RPG with so many options in dialogue and combat has poor character customization.
Yes, I would like more faces and a boob slider.
Oh, and more player voices. Its sounds really weird for my grotesque half orc assassin speaking like a proper Englishman.
Aside from those trivial complaints, I have nothing bad to say. BG3 is probably the best RPG I've played in 20 years.
trexmeyer wrote: Body sliders aren't hard. Even SF6 has body sliders and some games have been doing them for ages. There's even a mod tool for WH2/3 that includes body sliders.
Maybe there's an engine issue, but I think it's more likely that they just didn't value them and wanted to put their focus elsewhere. I do think it's weird that an RPG with so many options in dialogue and combat has poor character customization.
Yes, I would like more faces and a boob slider.
Oh, and more player voices. Its sounds really weird for my grotesque half orc assassin speaking like a proper Englishman.
Aside from those trivial complaints, I have nothing bad to say. BG3 is probably the best RPG I've played in 20 years.
What do you mean! Can't greenskins be sophisticated?
The sophisticated orc will forever remind me of that encounter in Arcanum, where you meet an orc who plays the dumb brute act, but is actually a highly educated lad, not to mention very opinionated when it comes to his tea.
Been playing a bit of the remastered Quake 2, really enjoying it, have never played it back in the day because our PC's could never run it, but this one has aged really well, wonky jump control aside.
Wheeeee, my Kickstarter Xbox version of Everspace 2 just landed. Sure is shooty and Looty! very pretty game, but it has weird lag spikes quite a lot. I’m sure they will get ironed out.
Wildly underrated game. Had a ton of flaws toward the end of it, but I have a lot of fond memories with it.
Sometimes get the urge to replay it, but I think the rose colored glasses would come off quick.
I've tried picking it up a few times, but it never clicked for me like Fallout did. I've instead watched a few review-playthroughs over the years to get an idea of what the game is all about and I can see why it's such an underrated gem.
Has anyone played the "Expanse: A Telltale Series". Based around the TV show Expanse adaptation Camina Drummer character(don't think she was in the books or is a composite of multiple characters from the book). First episode dropped a few weeks ago, with more to follow.
Wondering if its decent from folks who've had hands on.
Played the first season of their Walking Dead series and loved it/hated it because of the story choices and writing.
Book of hours released this weekend. I really really like this one. Lovecraftian librarian simulator. Very similar to cultist simulator, made by the same team. It’s a weird game, just like it’s supposed to be. It seems to be more difficult to lose then previous titles. You mostly identify books, interact with a local quaint little city, study esoteric novels and explore a vast mansion of books and oddities. If you like the previous titles, such as cultist simulator or sunless sea, then this will be right up your alley.
nels1031 wrote: Has anyone played the "Expanse: A Telltale Series". Based around the TV show Expanse adaptation Camina Drummer character(don't think she was in the books or is a composite of multiple characters from the book). First episode dropped a few weeks ago, with more to follow.
Wondering if its decent from folks who've had hands on.
Played the first season of their Walking Dead series and loved it/hated it because of the story choices and writing.
I'm going to get it for sure. Big fan of The Expanse and that character but I'm going to wait until it's complete. It's hard to remember what's going on with some telltale games when it's 2-4 months in between episodes.
Also, there's Star Trek game out in this style but its not from Telltale which will hopefully be good.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Finally Beat XCom Chimera Squad. I'll give them credit for trying something new but somehow it ends up being less than the sum of its parts. Doesn't have that additive quality where I want to play another game right away. Only replay value is to perhaps try out some of the other characters.
The game feels as if they wanted to play around with a bunch of mechanics, and see which ones worked.
Yes. Ironically by making the characters more in depth and less disposal it actually decreases the tension. You just know you're not going to lose any of them. With normal XCom you know you can lose anybody at anytime. Their personalities aren't as obviously developed as Chimera Squad but I think I actually got more attached to my randomly generated guys. Having your people permanently die is part of the XCom experience.
Honestly i only went halfway through Chimera Squad and was so uninterested by it i left and played Gears Tactics when the games first came out. Something about chimera squad feels like a worse experience than xcom 2. The alternating turns, grenades don't blow up right away or remove cover and the inability to blow up levels of terrain, the characters are mostly pretty bad and they somehow made the not-ADVENT teammates uncool unlike skirmishers in War of the Chosen, the mission is divided into parts, etc.
The only things i enjoyed in that game were mostly the relic items you could buy on the Black/Gray Market and the different entry points and breaches in each mission seeming like a cool feature if only implemented right and being a more fluid part of the game rather than starting each sub-section this way.
Also in the completion of the Muton sub-section of the campaign they made Xcom sound as bad as the Aliens. They can eff right off with that noise. Xcom 2 on hardest difficulty on Ironman is a game fairly hard fought and while i'll admit they aren't saints they are nowhere near as bad as the Aliens. The fact Humanity was even thinking of developing a Mixed Species city 4 years after the basic genocide and near mass genocide of Humanity after 20 years under Alien and Advent boot-heel is telling about Xcom's and Humanity's patience and near-Naivete with the Aliens that fought under the Elders. I'm not saying we should have wiped out all the Aliens but Mixed Species Mega City after 4 years should cause at least some wariness and human/advent/alien bigotry which is sad but realistic and is to be expected.
I also didn't like some game breaking issue with Chimera Squad where i had evaced some of my squad while the rest were bleeding out but all the objectives were completed and i magically won the mission no problem without anybody dying even though in xcom 2 they would have died.
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I've seen you make that complaint before but I've no objection to the concept of the Chimera Squad itself. You have to remember flamingkillamajig, these people only fought the war once. Not hundreds of thousands of times like yourself. So they have more room for forgiveness. Most of the aliens are also victims of The Etherals themselves though various combinations of mind control, genetic manipulation, conscription and anything else you can think off. Also, City 31 itself was built on the premise of being a mixed species city. So the vast majority of people living there self selected to live there based on that premise. On the flip side there is clearly a criminal/terrorist element that's targeting it because of those very ideas of integration.
There are some exceptions though. The Chryssalid's are closer to being a bioweapon than a intelligent lifeform in my opinion and they should just be fully exterminated. I think even in C31 they are seen that way and they're closer to being some sort of contraband weapon than refugees.
I'm going to get it for sure. Big fan of The Expanse and that character but I'm going to wait until it's complete. It's hard to remember what's going on with some telltale games when it's 2-4 months in between episodes.
Doing the same.
Baldur's Gate 3. I've reached Baldur's Gate in my newest playthrough. In a much better spot as far as gear, spells, skill selection, and party relationships. This is my second time getting this far and I had flubbed some major game/plot points as I progressed the first time. Really excited to jump into the city proper with much clearer objectives this go around.
@KamikazeCanuck: I mean i get it. I really do. The aliens were victims themselves and probably thought the humans chances were so laughable they mostly didn't help them (or firaxis wanted to make it more humanity's fight or something). They even talked about aliens turning on their former masters during the final fight in the ethereal hq in xcom 2.
I'm just saying it takes time to go from Advent and the aliens are genociding us and Central and some others fighting a guerilla war for like 20 years into let's be bestest buddies with the aliens or living with them. It just all takes time and likely more than 4 years. Maybe at least 20 if we have a big alien civil rights movement. Humanity has been through a lot in that game though. People tend to have issues when what's normal switches so quickly. I imagine Central and some of the original Xcom members must be hit the hardest overall.
I do recall someone saying Viper strip clubs were made canon in Chimera Squad which to me is funny so i want to believe it.
On another note i'm a bit sad you missed the part where i talked about Terra Invicta which is admittedly a different alien invasion which i've been playing as well as TWW2 as double skaven co-op buddies (ikit=me and a friend=queek).
I've also been hoping for Falling Frontier (i think that's the name) to come out. I heard it's like The Expanse in game form. You pick a portion of Humanity and fight off other parts using ships, fighting battles and you have to actually transport your resources to your factories to get them building crap.
Cleared the first chapter in Armored Core 6 over the weekend. It's definitely more in the style of the classic games with simple mission structures and objectives. Control is maybe a little too smooth but doesn't feel as floaty as 4 did to me. Tutorial boss is a meat grinder that may keep people out. First chapter boss is much harder, but the AI can't really handle a tank build.
In any case, its not the next Elden Ring or anything like that, but its something I've craved for SOOOOOO long. I'd love to see something like this as a minis game.
flamingkillamajig wrote: @KamikazeCanuck: I mean i get it. I really do. The aliens were victims themselves and probably thought the humans chances were so laughable they mostly didn't help them (or firaxis wanted to make it more humanity's fight or something). They even talked about aliens turning on their former masters during the final fight in the ethereal hq in xcom 2.
I'm just saying it takes time to go from Advent and the aliens are genociding us and Central and some others fighting a guerilla war for like 20 years into let's be bestest buddies with the aliens or living with them. It just all takes time and likely more than 4 years. Maybe at least 20 if we have a big alien civil rights movement. Humanity has been through a lot in that game though. People tend to have issues when what's normal switches so quickly. I imagine Central and some of the original Xcom members must be hit the hardest overall.
I do recall someone saying Viper strip clubs were made canon in Chimera Squad which to me is funny so i want to believe it.
On another note i'm a bit sad you missed the part where i talked about Terra Invicta which is admittedly a different alien invasion which i've been playing as well as TWW2 as double skaven co-op buddies (ikit=me and a friend=queek).
Ya but truth is stranger than fiction too. Look at Japan and Germany. They became some of America's closest allies less than 4 years after WWII. Even Vietnam seems to have totally forgot about that whole Vietnam War thing. Of course, those are on national, geo-political levels. Each individual person has their own journey. However, that is also addressed in the game. One of the bad-guy factions is a group that can't let the Long War go and will always hate XCom.
Personally, I see most of Etheral's client races as species who lost their war and have been enslaved and warped by them. So, I have some sympathy for them. It's what would have happened to Humanity in XCom 1 had they lost and basically is what happened in XCom 2. Many of the "Aliens" are actually partly human from genetic experimentation.
Anyway, just looked at Terra Invicta now. That does seem interesting. Added to my list of the 10 million games I need to play.
I'm just saying it takes time to go from Advent and the aliens are genociding us and Central and some others fighting a guerilla war for like 20 years into let's be bestest buddies with the aliens or living with them.
But they're not, really.
The game takes place in the single city on the entire planet that's fully integrated. Nowhere else on the planet is as integrated as the game's setting city. Everywhere else there's apparently still some distance between the different races. And even in this city, there still isn't full integration. Everyone acknowledges that the Andromedans are just too weird for even the other aliens to understand, so they live off in their own little enclave.
And, well, as noted above, Chrysalids should be shot on sight just on general principle (iirc, it's even acknowledged in the first game that they're largely feral anyway).
I see the city in Chimaera Squad as being the promise by humanity that, "If you guys act peacefully and try to get along with humanity, we'll eventually take the boot off your neck." It also works as a laboratory where humanity - and whatever leadership still exists among the aliens - can figure out what will work and what won't as the residents of Earth try to figure out what needs to be done in order to pull off peaceful co-existence between humanity and the alien races.
@KamikazeCanuck: I'm gonna get off the chimera squad rant for now. I think this is kicking a dead horse at this point.
Anyway Terra Invicta is a mixed gaming experience. It's slow but when you get to do exciting things like ship fleets doing combat vs aliens or fighting aliens in the ground war or orbital bombardment and similar it can be fun.
As i said it can be very complicated esp. the amount of different research trees. My game and computer actually slows down just to load the entire research tech tree.
In my current playthrough it's like 2055 or so and i have colonized all of Europa which is significantly irradiated like Mercury and requires you to use extra basic metal resource just to build things on it. Mars, the Moon and the surrounding Earth and asteroids seem to be pretty empty of radiation and therefore building a massive base in those spots is easier and preferable.
Oddly i only colonized few asteroids but i have most of Mars, most of Venus, some areas around the Earth and all of Europa. I'm trying to build a massive fleet of ships to take out the closest alien shipyard but it likely won't work out.the first time. My ships are fairly late tier though.
Sadly i need far more anti-matter to build actual ships with it and after my main anti-matter super-colliders were destroyed by an alien fleet so i use it to sell back to Earth for cash and use all the other resources for ships now.
Mostly book of hours. It’s quite captivating. There’s just something about the atmosphere of the game that’s very enjoyable. Mostly it’s an incredibly chill librarian/house restoration simulator in a lovecraftian world. Some books are cursed, dangerous and powerfull. Most are not. Reading books, sorting them, learning the horrors behind how reality is governed by indifferent powerfull beings, brew tea, pet cat, get visited by the secret police, restore a room and take a nice relaxing evening in bed. To me there’s nothing quite like this game. I think it comes down to how the fantastical and the mundane mix in it.
Spent some of my day working on Honkai star rail upgrades. Finishing up all the side storey stuff, and event stuff.
Really enjoying it at the moment both for relaxing and the story is fun.
Some great moments.
Dipping a toe into Starfield. At the moment, its a pack-rat/larceny simulator. I keep wasting time checking all the stuff you can potentially pick up, just in case its valuable. Need to get away from that mindset
Flinty wrote: Dipping a toe into Starfield. At the moment, its a pack-rat/larceny simulator. I keep wasting time checking all the stuff you can potentially pick up, just in case its valuable. Need to get away from that mindset
Just don't accidentally sell your digipicks (lockpicks)! They're buried in the Misc category of the inventory, which is otherwise pure vendor trash.
Flinty wrote: Dipping a toe into Starfield. At the moment, its a pack-rat/larceny simulator. I keep wasting time checking all the stuff you can potentially pick up, just in case its valuable. Need to get away from that mindset
Just don't accidentally sell your digipicks (lockpicks)! They're buried in the Misc category of the inventory, which is otherwise pure vendor trash.
Thanks for the warning, but I had noticed them in that location
On a random note, it always amuses me to note how many people own a game and haven't gotten past the tutorial level. Just a bit ago I was skimming through the Steam achievements for Aliens: Dark Descent, and noticed that less than 90% of players have the "Complete the Prologue" achievement. While I understand that there are always going to be a few people who got it for free without being interested, picked it up on sale (which it's on right now) with the intention of coming back to it later, played it off-line and haven't registered the achievement on the servers yet, or something similar, I suspect that those numbers don't add up to over 10% of the player base.
Was playing enlisted for as long as buddies where on vacation but now when I play an hour or two I try to git gud at Gladius, past difficult, the IA's got so strongs benefits it's a bitch.
I've won 1 battle as necrons vs Space Marines though that lasted for like 4-5h hours.
Eumerin wrote: On a random note, it always amuses me to note how many people own a game and haven't gotten past the tutorial level. Just a bit ago I was skimming through the Steam achievements for Aliens: Dark Descent, and noticed that less than 90% of players have the "Complete the Prologue" achievement. While I understand that there are always going to be a few people who got it for free without being interested, picked it up on sale (which it's on right now) with the intention of coming back to it later, played it off-line and haven't registered the achievement on the servers yet, or something similar, I suspect that those numbers don't add up to over 10% of the player base.
^^;;
In my defense, real life got in the way hard an hour into the game, and I couldn't play much of anything until very recently. And recently, Starfield was released. What can you do?
Playing a game called Through The Darkest of Times that’s about running a German resistance cell during the 30s and 40s. Very difficult and dark. More of an interactive story than a game in a lot of ways. It’s really does put you in that grim time though.
Also, finally going to take the plunge into Civilization 6. I’m sure that consume another 500 hours of my life like the previous games.
Added a lot of Callisto (another moon of Jupiter) to my mining spam in Terra Invicta. My anti-matter farming also has gotten a lot more solid and my anti-matter power plants for ships are getting much better. The cruising speed of ships (basically travel speed) is slower with anti matter than my best gas reactor nuclear cores power plants in ships but otherwise it's significantly more efficient.
I'm also hoping to get a good amount of ships to bombard an alien mining base on callisto but i might have to rely on mining bases first and foremost.
Interestingly enough metals (but mostly noble metals) are my biggest problem of having enough of. I have a solid amount of water however. Perhaps i shouldn't have made a massive fleet that i let get wiped out in a massive space battle against an alien space station without doing much damage to the space station. I did kill all the alien ships in that fight without issue however.
Well more resources, more habs, more space pop cap (mission control) and more of everything else so i can build ships more quickly. Anti-matter normally sells for pretty good too but i can mostly only get that with super colliders.
Been playing a bit of Sea of Thieves recently. It's one of my favourite games but it's a difficult one to sit and put time into when you have none spare! Fun little session today though, pootling about doing Merchant quests.
Replaying HROT, only did the first episode back then, might as well go through the entire game now. Or at least until 17:00 today when Payday 3 is made available for me.
Just finished six ages 2: lights going out. It’s the third installment in the king of dragon pass, six ages: ride like the wind Viking clan simulator series. You do your best to lead your clan through all manner of dispute and issues. Balancing food and wealth against goodwill and health. A good game though this one is way more railroady then the other titles. You get a few very specific nobles who you are probably going to use regardless of how many times you play. It does import your save file from six ages: ride like the wind so you can continue playing the same clan, albeit a few hundred years later. It’s a very bleak game. Very 40k in a way. Chaos is everywhere. It corrupts and destroys. You’re not really trying to win just trying to hold on before your inevitable demise. Friends and enemies randomly gets destroyed sometimes and entire areas can be removed from the map. Urox, the great bull god, is your best friend. All in all I enjoyed it but didn’t like how much it forces you to play with a particular set of characters instead of having a diverse ring of leaders. Also it seems way harder to keep your people fed this time around.
The Messenger. Finished it last night, then I got the last green coin. I love this game. Right from the beginning, the movement is just such fun. Excellently made game, highly recommended.
Got it as part of a “of Mana” bundle, and at 50% off.
Bloody love this game. It’s a classic for a reason. Interesting mix between Zelda’s slash away lads combat, and FF’s turn based fisticuffs.
Reckon I should be able to blitz it by the end of the week, then it’ll be on to the others in the series bundle.
While this is one of my absolute favorite games, I so wished they had updated the translation. It's borderline incomprehensible outside the broad strokes and I'd have loved to have seen them fix it in the collection. It's particularly noticeable with Trials having a modern translation in the same package.
Put a pause on Starfield... and went back to BG3, mostly just to intensely mess around with class combinations. Hesitating now, because patch 3 comes out tomorrow, and I'm not sure what all will change, or if my minimal mods will break.
Currently watching the 25 GB patch for Cyberpunk download. Not sure if I'm going pick up the expansion, or get back into it.
Olthannon wrote: Been playing a bit of Sea of Thieves recently. It's one of my favourite games but it's a difficult one to sit and put time into when you have none spare! Fun little session today though, pootling about doing Merchant quests.
It seems like fun but also seems like you need a crew.
Got it as part of a “of Mana” bundle, and at 50% off.
Bloody love this game. It’s a classic for a reason. Interesting mix between Zelda’s slash away lads combat, and FF’s turn based fisticuffs.
Reckon I should be able to blitz it by the end of the week, then it’ll be on to the others in the series bundle.
While this is one of my absolute favorite games, I so wished they had updated the translation. It's borderline incomprehensible outside the broad strokes and I'd have loved to have seen them fix it in the collection. It's particularly noticeable with Trials having a modern translation in the same package.
One of my favs too. Didn't know there was a rerelease. Interesting.
There's two actually. There's the Collection of Mana bundle that has Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 3, available officially in english for the first time and one of the single best games not originally released in the US full stop).
There's also 3D remakes of Secret of Mana (which I've been told is very bad) and Trials of Mana (which I've been told is very good).
With the new 2.0 update, I'm back playing Cyberpunk 2077 and began a new game, this time as a Nomad. Trying to grind and get a few levels. It took me ages to download the update due to having copper internet, and, of course, when I booted it up, it crashed. I tried to fix it by fixing the files, restarting, etc. But then I read that you should remove any mods before playing 2.0, and I forgot I had several mods I downloaded ages ago, so, ironically, I downloaded a mod to remove mods. Used it, and boom, now I can play it. Now, waiting for Phantom Liberty.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Also on sale is Chrono Cross but missed that one back in the day. Anyone play it? Recommend it?
i remember playing it when it first came out, and not terribly enjoying it
the pile of characters to recruit was neat, but i think you had to newgame+ several times to get everyone or something, and i didn't care for the stat growth mechanic
now granted, this was 20 plus years ago, so it could be i'd like it more now.
if its on sale for a reasonable price, its probably worth a try
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Also on sale is Chrono Cross but missed that one back in the day. Anyone play it? Recommend it?
Chrono Cross remains to this day one of my favourite games ever made. I never played Chrono Trigger so I didn't go in with any baggage from that first game, as I understand it most CT fans don't like Cross much for that very reason. It's got a great story, a killer soundtrack, and some pretty memorable characters IMO. I would definitely recommend it.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Also on sale is Chrono Cross but missed that one back in the day. Anyone play it? Recommend it?
Chrono Cross remains to this day one of my favourite games ever made. I never played Chrono Trigger so I didn't go in with any baggage from that first game, as I understand it most CT fans don't like Cross much for that very reason. It's got a great story, a killer soundtrack, and some pretty memorable characters IMO. I would definitely recommend it.
The worst of it is that by and large, the elements that tie it to Chrono Trigger are almost non-existent. There's a crayon drawing of Luca in a cut-scene, hints that Robo is the AI that ran a certain ruined facility, and maybe one or two other things like that. And aside from a moment just before the climax of the game where phantoms of the original characters show up and give the player a hint about what's going on, that's basically it. It's a sequel in that the game plot is set in motion by the main characters from the original attempting to save <spoiler>, but that's it. You never interact with them, and their appearances within the game (aside from the aforementioned phantoms) are all "blink and you'll miss it" moments. With some very minor modifications, the game could be made completely independent of Chrono Trigger, and you would never realize that anything was missing. Even the lands that you travel through don't appear to have anything to do with the original game.
My main complaint about the game (as someone who didn't play CT until later), though, was that I liked
I've been playing Total War: Warhammer 2 as Khazrak with Beastmen on hard/hard. I'm not sure how other beastmen sub-factions play differently if at all (a few skaven factions play differently) but it's been pretty fun.
I won a pyrrhic victory ambush vs leon leoncour of bretonnia and practically wiped his force. It said i would decisively lose i think so i felt good about winning that one. I basically pinned down all his horses and archers during the ambush and destroyed them pretty hard.
It's also pretty silly that if you boost buildings far enough in encampments that you can make like 5 siege towers for every siege tower you build during a siege up from the normal 2. Also since i could build 2 of those per turn i ended up with 10 siege towers after a turn of waiting if i was sieging someone in the blood grounds which is honestly quite hilarious. I mean for a faction trying to bring down civilization they certainly know how to build fast.
Moar Cyberpunk 2.0 going through the motions a bit now. Almost about to talk to Meredith Stout before confronting the Maelstromers to get the bot thingy. Overall, I think it's a pretty cool quest that, while it isn't as complex as the demo version seems to be what CDPR wanted Cyberpunk 2077 to really be.
Spent the very rainy weekend with BG3, pushing a Dark Urge run, just to get it done. As a tribute to the size of the game, I just got out of the act 1 (bar the monastery)/early access areas last night. Which still feels fairly insane.
Still finding new stuff as well, some of it Dark Urge linked and some not. Not sure I needed the flashback fantasy about how many meals a baby would make when divided and cooked properly, but here we are. (One of the legs is apparently a good choice for a peppery winter stew).
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Also on sale is Chrono Cross but missed that one back in the day. Anyone play it? Recommend it?
Posted this a few pages back in response to a similar question:
Chrono Cross is a really really great game, its just a terrible sequel to Chrono Trigger. It has almost nothing to do with the original except it IS a sequel unlike the Final Fantasy standalone stories. It takes place in a completely separate part of the world, it doesn't have any returning characters, the art style and battle system is completely different and the only times it ever even references the original is to tell you that after the game all the characters of the first were murdered horribly. Technically the whole thing is just a missing side quest from the original too, but that's a reductive complaint that simplifies the legitimately great story that Cross has to tell.
To me that's the worst part. Cross is great. It's not the pinnacle of its generation (that would be IX followed closely by Xenogears) nor does it surpass the original, but its a game that stands out even among the heyday of its genre as one of the best. It just really didn't need to have any ties to Trigger at all. They add nothing and just come across as mean spirited, leaving you with a feeling that the game knows its inferior and decides to be petty about it. It sucks, because it taints every conversation about the game because its best experienced as its own thing rather than a sequel to Trigger, but its hard to just say that to people asking about it while riding the high that is Trigger.
Personally, I like Xenogears more than FFIX. But I admit that the Disc Two issue hurts Xenogears quite a lot.
^^;;
Regardless, it's a game that I'd love to see rereleased for modern consoles (asking for a remaster would be... risky...). Also, I need to play the new Theateryrhm again. I think the Xenogears add-on tracks are available now.
Flinty wrote: KUPI KUPOPO! I played it a lot with my brother when I was a kid. Happy memories. Gotta get the big numbers going though
I did the same. But we only had it because my brother swapped my birthday copy of Super Metroid for it, without asking, on my birthday.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Still haven’t finished this run. I’m in the Mana Fortress bit where it’s clearly a subway system, and I’m now finding the game caught up to my levels, as I’m struggling a bit.
But, Square being Square? Just got to chicken run the same section a few times to start levelling up beyond the game, and it’s back to being fairly easy.
Was running around in Cyberpunk, doing the odd gig and killing gang members to level up as much as possible for the gig that introduces Keanu. Probably do that mission and put the game on ice until Phantom Liberty drops in a little while.
Messed with graphics settings for a bit and got it running beautifully and smooth.
I really need to plan out my skill selections, as it seems much more strict on what kind of character you can build(which I like, in principle). It'd been a long while since I played, so I could be wrong, but I get the impression that it wants to make you specialize now, rather then be good at nearly everything. I'm still obviously very early in the game, so I'm probably just not seeing the path clearly yet.
I really need to plan out my skill selections, as it seems much more strict on what kind of character you can build(which I like, in principle). It'd been a long while since I played, so I could be wrong, but I get the impression that it wants to make you specialize now, rather then be good at nearly everything. I'm still obviously very early in the game, so I'm probably just not seeing the path clearly yet.
From the way it sounds, the skill system is completely overhauled. What was/wasn't true was simply jettisoned. Plus a new system on top called Relic points, which means waiting to do the DLC missions is probably a bad choice.
From what I understand tech governs how much cyberware you can jam in, so that seems like a contender. For example, armor is from cyberware, and actual clothing/armor sounds almost entirely cosmetic now.
I don't normally go heavy into wiki pages for information, but once I do get back around to this one, I'm going to have to do some hard crunching, because the rpg mechanics are completely foreign and new again.
The Xenogears tracks for Theatrythm: The Final Cut were released this month, so I started SE's music game back up to take a look at what had been delivered. There are three tracks from Xenogears - Awakening, Soaring, and Blazing Knights. The enemies during the sequences are the standard game enemies (i.e. all Final Fantasy monsters), but the backgrounds are unique to Xenogears. The Zohar looms over the stage in Awakening, and - appropriately enough - Seibzehn puts in a background appearance at the start of Soaring.
Then I realized that there were a ridiculous number of songs that had been released that I hadn't downloaded (I purchased the package that includes everything, including all three season passes), so I took care of that. One interesting little tid-bit - there are ten songs from Chrono Trigger (iirc, the most from any single non-FF game), but only two from Chrono Cross. More on those two later.
I went back into the main portion of the game to make some progress on clearing the core FF songs in the base game (over 400 of them, iirc). And once that was done...
As I mentioned, there are two songs from Chrono Cross. One is the opening song, while the other is the vocal piece that plays during the closing credits after you beat the game. I'd paused to listen to the attract music for the Chrono Cross opening theme, and remembered what a fun and catchy tune it is (it's quite possibly the most catchy tune that's ever been released for a Square game, imo). So I went back and played through it. And then I played through the other song, which I also enjoyed back in the day. Both are a lot of fun to listen to.
I might have to get Chrono Cross and play through it again...
Some other items that amused me...
When I was clearing the Final Fantasy songs, I started with songs from FF3 (the real FF3, not the original American release of FF6). I was playing the second to last song on the list, thought that it sounded familiar, and realized that it's the same basic tune that's used for the Cloud of Darkness fight in FFXIV (i.e. the final boss fight of the third Crystal Tower raid). And then I got to the final song - titled, appropriately enough, "This is the Last Fight" ( ) - and found that the boss of that song sequence was the Cloud of Darkness.
Two more DLC music packs left. The one in October will have music from Bravely Default. And, surprising absolutely no one ( ), the November pack was recently revealed to be packed full of songs from FFXVI (which doesn't have any music in the base game, since it was released later).
Cross is great. It's not the pinnacle of its generation (that would be IX followed closely by Xenogears) nor does it surpass the original, but its a game that stands out even among the heyday of its genre as one of the best.
Cross has a rather neat layered storyline. The top layer is the one that involves the protagonist, and it's fairly straightforward (aside from what's going on with Schalla; and if you're playing CC without playing CT first, that name will mean *nothing* to you, so don't worry about spoiling things). The other layer is the *HUGE SPOILER*
Spoiler:
messing around with the timelines by the dragons in an attempt to undo the destruction caused by Lavos in CT.
My recollection is that it took me a couple of playthroughs to realize what was going on with all of that (though I didn't know the CT connection since I didn't play CT until later).
As I mentioned, there are two songs from Chrono Cross. One is the opening song, while the other is the vocal piece that plays during the closing credits after you beat the game. I'd paused to listen to the attract music for the Chrono Cross opening theme, and remembered what a fun and catchy tune it is (it's quite possibly the most catchy tune that's ever been released for a Square game, imo). So I went back and played through it. And then I played through the other song, which I also enjoyed back in the day. Both are a lot of fun to listen to.
Radical Dreamers is one of my favorites tracks ever. My copy of the game came with the soundtrack and that was a mainstay on my playlists for years.
When I was clearing the Final Fantasy songs, I started with songs from FF3 (the real FF3, not the original American release of FF6). I was playing the second to last song on the list, thought that it sounded familiar, and realized that it's the same basic tune that's used for the Cloud of Darkness fight in FFXIV (i.e. the final boss fight of the third Crystal Tower raid). And then I got to the final song - titled, appropriately enough, "This is the Last Fight" ( ) - and found that the boss of that song sequence was the Cloud of Darkness.
I missed the FFXIV connection so when you mentioned The Cloud of Darkness I just assumed you meant the final boss of 3 and got very confused
Cross is great. It's not the pinnacle of its generation (that would be IX followed closely by Xenogears) nor does it surpass the original, but its a game that stands out even among the heyday of its genre as one of the best.
Cross has a rather neat layered storyline. The top layer is the one that involves the protagonist, and it's fairly straightforward (aside from what's going on with Schalla; and if you're playing CC without playing CT first, that name will mean *nothing* to you, so don't worry about spoiling things). The other layer is the *HUGE SPOILER*
Spoiler:
messing around with the timelines by the dragons in an attempt to undo the destruction caused by Lavos in CT.
My recollection is that it took me a couple of playthroughs to realize what was going on with all of that (though I didn't know the CT connection since I didn't play CT until later).
The dragons are such a weird bit of the game. They're so important to the world but are completely alien to Trigger. They're definitely part of the reason it just feels like a completely separate game. I get the timey whimey connections to Trigger, but I think a big part of the problem is just how much Cross tells these connections rather than shows them. One of Triggers best elements is its tendency to show you the results of major events and then have you stumble your way into them. Cross on the other hand just lore dumps through heavy exposition rather than letting you experience things first hand. I feel like if the dimension hopping had expanded out to really let you encounter the Reptites and Dinopolis directly it would have had a bigger impact for Trigger fans.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: Also on sale is Chrono Cross but missed that one back in the day. Anyone play it? Recommend it?
Posted this a few pages back in response to a similar question:
Chrono Cross is a really really great game, its just a terrible sequel to Chrono Trigger. It has almost nothing to do with the original except it IS a sequel unlike the Final Fantasy standalone stories. It takes place in a completely separate part of the world, it doesn't have any returning characters, the art style and battle system is completely different and the only times it ever even references the original is to tell you that after the game all the characters of the first were murdered horribly. Technically the whole thing is just a missing side quest from the original too, but that's a reductive complaint that simplifies the legitimately great story that Cross has to tell.
To me that's the worst part. Cross is great. It's not the pinnacle of its generation (that would be IX followed closely by Xenogears) nor does it surpass the original, but its a game that stands out even among the heyday of its genre as one of the best. It just really didn't need to have any ties to Trigger at all. They add nothing and just come across as mean spirited, leaving you with a feeling that the game knows its inferior and decides to be petty about it. It sucks, because it taints every conversation about the game because its best experienced as its own thing rather than a sequel to Trigger, but its hard to just say that to people asking about it while riding the high that is Trigger.
Thanks everyone. I've decided to pass on it for now. Not forever, I'm sure I'll play it some day. I did get the Collection of Mana though.
I've been messing around a bit with Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. But I set all of the options to "Classic" mode, which meant I had no mini-map. And since wandering around giant mazes with no map is just a little bit suicidal, I didn't do more than pop in and out of the dungeon until I'd purchased a pad of graph paper.
This proved to be a wise decision.
My initial trips into the dungeon were largely in and out hops while I leveled up my characters. I had a couple of combats that went quite poorly, and at one point was down two characters while I waited to earn enough money to raise them. Fortunately, there's a group of pre-generated characters just hanging out in the inn, so I had temporary replacements until I earned the money that I needed. But it was still annoying. And expensive. And then, after getting both characters raised, and getting everyone a few levels, I finally felt confident enough to start seriously exploring the first level of the Proving Grounds.
It helped that the intelligent enemies now tend to flee on sight when they encounter me...
Graph paper in hand, I started seriously exploring. And mapping. As it turns out, I found the stairs to the second level very quickly. But I don't feel confident enough to head down there yet, so I'm still exploring the top floor of the dungeon. Most recently, I found a secret door at the end of a corridor, found another long corridor behind that secret door, went down to the T intersection at the end of that long corridor... and suddenly found myself teleported to an unfamiliar room with a *lot* of doors.
Uh oh...
Amusingly, when I opened the door directly across from me, I was immediately teleported back to my arrival point in the room. With that in mind, I picked another door to open. I quickly found myself in a magically dark corridor (which, unfortunately, the Light spell doesn't dispel; apparently the only thing that it does is reveal secret doors). I blundered around in that for a while, finally found my way out into the light and a familiar looking area, and breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing you want when you're exploring a dungeon is to not know how to get back to the exit.
I would like to be working on my minis, but my body is too achy from just digging a big hole. So, I have been playing a lot of Cyberpunk 2077, mostly doing sidequests, grinding and somewhat doing the main quest, only because I found out that I have to keep doing it to get to the Phantom Liberty DLC, which is making me lick my lips and rub my hands like that dude behind the tree in that meme which I have no idea the origin of and can't be bothered researching right now.
I briefly started up Cyberpunk 2077 before I went to bed last night. Checked my character screen, went to the Perks page, and tried to start selecting the perks for a Netrunnet build in 2.0.
They were all locked.
Uh...
It was late, and I hadn't intended to do anything of substance anyway, so I shut it down.
Eumerin wrote: I briefly started up Cyberpunk 2077 before I went to bed last night. Checked my character screen, went to the Perks page, and tried to start selecting the perks for a Netrunnet build in 2.0.
They were all locked.
Uh...
It was late, and I hadn't intended to do anything of substance anyway, so I shut it down.
Were your attributes (body, cool, etc) also reset? If so, you need to raise those first. Perks are locked behind different attribute levels (4, 9, 15, 20)
Eumerin wrote: I briefly started up Cyberpunk 2077 before I went to bed last night. Checked my character screen, went to the Perks page, and tried to start selecting the perks for a Netrunnet build in 2.0.
They were all locked.
Uh...
It was late, and I hadn't intended to do anything of substance anyway, so I shut it down.
Were your attributes (body, cool, etc) also reset? If so, you need to raise those first. Perks are locked behind different attribute levels (4, 9, 15, 20)
No, they weren't. Skills and attributes were how I had left them. The only thing reset was my perks.
Love this game! Harpoon is fun, Ed;epically once you’ve upgraded it a bit,
Oh that's crazy! I just started it too! It's surprisingly good. Had it since it came out but just got around to it now. Also, seems like the only sequel to Fury Road were ever going to get....
Eumerin wrote: I briefly started up Cyberpunk 2077 before I went to bed last night. Checked my character screen, went to the Perks page, and tried to start selecting the perks for a Netrunnet build in 2.0.
They were all locked.
Uh...
It was late, and I hadn't intended to do anything of substance anyway, so I shut it down.
I figured it out.
I'm an idiot. I'm used to perk/talent trees that start at the top, and have you work your way downward. But these ones start at the bottom, and have you work your way up.
Oops!
^^;;
One of the Netrunner perks is called "Shadowrunner".
Love this game! Harpoon is fun, Ed;epically once you’ve upgraded it a bit,
Oh that's crazy! I just started it too! It's surprisingly good. Had it since it came out but just got around to it now. Also, seems like the only sequel to Fury Road were ever going to get....
Prequel 🙂
And we’re getting a Furiosa movie in the coming months!
The game itself is a competent one. And for me? An absolute ton of fun.
fired up warhammer total war 2 for the first time in forever and played a campaign as brettonians
early game sucked with keeping the peasant balance, but once i had enough territory to have an army of flyers it was ok for the most part
might have a go at a goblin swarm and just burn huge chunks of the map to the ground
Restarted Cyberpunk 2077 at the start of this week, trying to figure out the new system and whatnot, spent more then 13 hours playing through the prologue, doing every side job, frying every ganger I came across to level things up as much as possible. Will probably go with a pistol / hacker build again, hacking is once again quite OP, even if they try to trace you. Once I got the contagion hack things got hilariously fun.
Also more Payday 3, we're playing it in bursts for now, just doing challenging heists in stealth more for the thrill and the bragging rights than the actual rewards the game hands out. Playing an entire stealth heist without having to mask up once, using the right perks and skills, is an amazing feeling.
BrookM wrote: Restarted Cyberpunk 2077 at the start of this week, trying to figure out the new system and whatnot, spent more then 13 hours playing through the prologue, doing every side job, frying every ganger I came across to level things up as much as possible. Will probably go with a pistol / hacker build again, hacking is once again quite OP, even if they try to trace you. Once I got the contagion hack things got hilariously fun.
One of the new Intelligence perks is particularly OP, imo, if situational. If you're getting hacked by an enemy hacker, and you successfully deploy a quickhack against it, the quickhack also affects all of the enemies within a certain distance of the hacker. Given that Short Circuit is usually enough to one-shot most enemies (at least for me), having an enemy try and hack me tends to make my life much easier, as it means that I can take out a bunch of enemies with just one quickhack.
BrookM wrote: Restarted Cyberpunk 2077 at the start of this week, trying to figure out the new system and whatnot, spent more then 13 hours playing through the prologue, doing every side job, frying every ganger I came across to level things up as much as possible. Will probably go with a pistol / hacker build again, hacking is once again quite OP, even if they try to trace you. Once I got the contagion hack things got hilariously fun.
One of the new Intelligence perks is particularly OP, imo, if situational. If you're getting hacked by an enemy hacker, and you successfully deploy a quickhack against it, the quickhack also affects all of the enemies within a certain distance of the hacker. Given that Short Circuit is usually enough to one-shot most enemies (at least for me), having an enemy try and hack me tends to make my life much easier, as it means that I can take out a bunch of enemies with just one quickhack.
Something I miss from my old playthrough, can't even remember if it was a high-tier hack or a high-tier deck bonus, but on a successful quick hack it had high chance of applying contagion-like effects to said quick hack, spreading like wildfire through enemies when it hit. I always use either overheat or short circuit and it was broken as hell.
I began Phantom Liberty a couple of days back, and it's awesome. But I watched a video that said it was a good idea to complete the love interest quest, so I began the questline to capture the Dr dude to meet Panam. I've also been running around completing NCPD scanner hustles and stealing cars for El'Capitan, as well as sidequests and gigs. Fun times!
BrookM wrote: Something I miss from my old playthrough, can't even remember if it was a high-tier hack or a high-tier deck bonus, but on a successful quick hack it had high chance of applying contagion-like effects to said quick hack, spreading like wildfire through enemies when it hit. I always use either overheat or short circuit and it was broken as hell.
I think it was a perk. I think if you one-shotted a target with certain perks (not Suicide), it would spread it to nearby enemies. And yes, I've been missing it, as well.
Another annoying thing is a handful of times where quick hacks just haven't worked. One of them was mostly a style thing on my part. I had a gig to kill a particular individual, and felt that using the Suicide quick hack would be appropriate. Unfortunately, I couldn't hack her. It wasn't a problem to just shoot her with a handgun (she was just a normal civilian, and therefore quite weak), but I wanted to use the suicide quick hack! The others have been "give the boss a free action before the actual fight starts so that you can't get in a quick shot while he's exposed and in the open" sorts of situations. Very annoying.
One of the more amusing things I ran into, and one that requires a little bit of Cyberpunk lore knowledge...
I can't remember the context, but someone dismisses a topic as a conspiracy theory, and throws out a couple of examples of obviously fake conspiracy theories that somehow keep resurfacing. The second one is that legendary hacker Rache Bartmoss is hibernating somewhere inside of a refrigerator.
As it turns out (as revealed in one of the sourcebooks over a decade ago), Rache Bartmoss really was hibernating inside of a refrigerator. Unfortunately for him, Bartmoss's body was in stasis, and the fridge was slowly losing power due to a near-fatal run-in with black ICE. That means that Bartmoss would die unless someone opened the fridge, got him out, and got him medical care. And due to Bartmoss's paranoia, no one - including Bartmoss - knew where the fridge was.
^^;;
Given that the game is in 2077, he's almost certainly dead by now. But he really was hibernating in a fridge when he died.
Welp... Phantom Liberty is effectively done. The DLC has some ending-changing decision points, and I've played through them. Barring a really out of left field surprise, the only thing I've got left is an epilogue - which, as is usual for this DLC, I have to wait around for.
Bleh.
Time to knock off a few more unfinished gigs, I guess.
Kanluwen wrote: Darktide. Been swapping between Ogryn and Veteran.
Haven't even touched my Ogryn yet. Having too much fun with my Psyker, putting up protective walls and throwing psychic darts that are OP as feth. Feel like that whistling dude with the mohawk in Guardians of the Galaxy.
I always liked taking out wheels on convoy cars with the sniper rifle, while perched in a nice safe spot.. Made for much easier pickings on the war rigs.
Finally got through the majority of Panam's and the Aldecaldos' storyline. It was funny, I spoke to her face-to-face about rescuing the NUSA president (which is pretty cool that CD Projekt Red added that dialog) her voice was all echoey like I was speaking to her during a call like they must've assumed the player would only talk to Panam about over the phone lol. Just gotta get that tank and stuff. I like the fight against the Spider Tank in Phantom Liberty which was a huge shout out to Ghost in the Shell while the storyline so far seems to be a big reference to Escape from New York.
nels1031 wrote: I always liked taking out wheels on convoy cars with the sniper rifle, while perched in a nice safe spot.. Made for much easier pickings on the war rigs.
Mad Max was a solid game.
Oh, that's a good idea. I'm going to try that next time.
I’m definitely at the stage where, barring human error, my Max is pretty much untouchable. Barely half way through the plot, and I’m nearly levelled out.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m definitely at the stage where, barring human error, my Max is pretty much untouchable. Barely half way through the plot, and I’m nearly levelled out.
I remember having to downgrade my car(s) for certain races, because I’d max out the mods and it was too much for certain track/vehicle combos. Or I suck at race games.
I’m yet to bother any of the races in this playthrough, but you may be right.
Certainly before your assault on The Jaws, Chum demands the car be set to a specific Archangel configuration.
Except….it removed armour and shredding rims and that, which meant whilst I was arsing around reducing Jeet’s threat level to Zero? I kept getting my arse kicked and never knew why.
I’m also finding the game oddly glitchy, like my vehicle weapons won’t activate until I’ve cycled through each one. And foot combat, it has trouble letting me face the front.
Got those Thunderspoons. Definitely makes things easier.
My one criticism of the game is that when ever things get really bad on the road out there...you can just get out of the car. Chum will fix it and no one will mess with it. Then the bad guys can't really do anything to you when you're on foot so they just get frustrated and then eventually get out of their car and then you just punch them in the face... It's almost like an exploit. Your car is just way too safe left on its own.
Re-installed Elden Ring and beat Margit, the Fell Omen at RL8 +0 weapon with the thief base gear (buckler+great knife).
Parry and Bleed are really strong, so it was by no means the hardest way to do it, but it did get me to really appreciate that fight for the first time.
Then I went and tried him at RL1 with a +0 and got him down to 25% once and that made me dislike the fight more. It would be more reasonable with an upgraded weapon, but he doesn't give any freaking attack windows consistently for more than r1 unless you bait his delayed overhead swing and counter it with charged r2+jump attack+jump attack+poise break critical+charged r2.
The difference is parry forces the enemy to give you attack windows and Margit follows up the first successful parry with an easy to parry attack almost every time.
Then I went and did Margit and Godrick on an NG+ save and they weren't remotely challenging. I want to set up a character for the DLC and I'm not sure what to do. Leaning towards strength since I think I know where to get Greatsword and Claymore quickly.
I'm considerably farther in my no summons, parry focused run of Elden Ring and all I have to say is that Spirit Ashes ruin the fething game.
With the exception of the double Tree Sentinels every boss has been extremely fair in terms of moveset, the only issue is damage output and that is a combination of me being underleveled or undergeared. I also think FS probably upped boss damage and HP by at least 10-20% due to Spirit Ashes.
Hell hasn't frozen over yet. But there's a rumor that a red guy carrying a pitchfork was recently spotted looking for heaters.
Chris Roberts just declared that Squadron 42 is feature complete. It's not ready for release yet. Polishing still needs to be done. And Roberts is *not* announcing a release date at this time (and suggested that he might not until it's gold). But for those of us who pledged oh so many years ago, it's an indication that we might finally see the game that we paid for.
My most hated bosses used to be the Bell-Bearing Hunters. I never killed the Caelid and Leyndell ones.
I only did the named variant in Shaded Castle thanks to Spirit Ashes.
Took me 15~ minutes, but I no hit the Shaded Castle variant on my last go.
Caelid variant took about 30-45 minutes, but I killed him at RL60.
He's my favorite fight now.
Ixion again. Beat it when it came out and giving it another spin. They’ve added some new features. Like difficulty levels and a revamped final chapter. I put the game at the highest difficulty and had a few frustrating restarts. Now it seems to be going very well. Still in the early stages but I think my big mistake has been 1. Tech path and 2. Expanding too quickly. It’s peaceful enough once you get the hang of it. The challenge seems to be planning ahead and setting up so enough space is available.
I'm really enjoying Inquisitor: Martyr. Being a battle sister is pretty sweet, and I love that you get both long and short range flamer options. Heretics must be burned.
Spidey 2 and Mario came out on the same day. Luckily I had to travel and got to play quite a bit of Wonder which is just the usual Nintendo masterclass in level design. The amount of "that's clever" moments throughout are a total joy.
Spidey 2 is great. There's a dedicated thread for that.
Also finally started Sea of Stars. Not too far in, but the battle system has a lot of nice touches and the story feels classic while clearly coming from the same voice that wrote The Messager. Sadly its probably back on the backburner for now, but I got enough of a taste to ensure I see it to the end.
I've been playing xenonauts 2 on 2nd hardest difficulty and treating it like ironman. The first campaign i had ended after a base defense where there was 2 cyber-drones and a bunch of sebillians.
If you don't wish to read a wall of text then read till the dashes. I'll just say i enjoy xenonauts 2 and most of the enemies on the ground aren't too tough (except for like the final cleaner base in the final room) but the aircraft/ufo battles can be brutal if you're not prepared which is often.
The game is also not finished in its current form so after about 6 months of game time in my 2nd run (which i had trouble hanging on by the skin of my teeth in ufo combat) it just stopped progressing towards new enemies and the campaign allowed me to end or continue as is.
--------
Cyber-drones hit really hard and it takes an autopsy to realize their weaknesses. The amount of health and armor they have in the front is insane though. Other than that the only frustrating enemies are Wraiths (they also have optical camo that makes them harder to hit until the first time they're hit in a player round which makes them a little frustrating (although the teleportation ones from from xenonauts 1 were possibly more frustrating in some ways). They also throw grenades if you don't suppress them (which they love to do if you deploy smoke between you and them). Enemies that can suppress you pretty hard can also be frustrating (turrets and those little healer drones with a light machine gun).
The lizard dudes just suck at long distances esp. with intervening terrain and have poor reflexes so won't often overwatch you. Honestly lizards only suck to fight in a tight space like a ship.
Speaking of short distance enemies the new not-chryssalids feel weaker too. Sure these ones can't be suppressed but they're weak to long distance guns and overwatch. I oddly haven't lost a dude to the not-chryssalids in xenonauts 2 yet even during the terror mission in my 2nd campaign.
The not-sectoids with the psyon variant have an ability that mesmerizes opponents if they shoot and miss them which takes away all remaining time units for the soldier that shot and missed them. I'm pretty sure suppressing them takes that ability away from psyon not-sectoids. The non-psyon non-sectoids are small and supposedly have increased accuracy in greater numbers but in general they're trash and usually are about as threatening as the Grunts in Halo except probably less so as far as i know.
There's also the fast, high accuracy ranged version of chrysallids which doesn't have much melee and is easily suppressed. These can catch you off guard in some cases.
Cleaners are generally pathetically weak once you put on the first upgrade to your armor and maybe get accelerated guns. The first armor upgrade has hardness (yeah ha ha pervy joke i know) which gets rid of armor penetration (sigh yeah i know) of a weapon. This makes Hardness esp. useful vs high tier weapons the aliens usually will have. The first upgraded armor has i think hardness 5 which mitigates the AP of the accelerated weapons and aside from the final cleaner base should make cleaners nearly trash against you. Armor while it deteriorates after getting shot by weapons also lowers damage of an attack by its armor value. High damage will still likely hurt but lower damage weapons (like trash tier cleaner weapons) will mostly bounce off your armor. The aliens however need better armor to sustain multiple hits from....or you could just use smoke, explosives and flashbangs as well as staying out of Line of Sight to ruin your enemy's day.
Just finished up my playthrough of Cyberpunk with the 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty. Enjoyed it all immensely. I originally played it when it launched, and I guess I was one of the lucky ones as I had very few issues playing it on my PC.
Anyway, now I'm waiting for Alan Wake 2. I really liked the original, as I've enjoyed most of Remedy's games. Really looking forward to seeing what kind of connections AW2 will have to Control, as well as what new songs we'll get from Poets of the Fall/Old Gods of Asgard.
Got to the triple secret final stage in Mario Wonder last night. Got pretty far but hit my first Game Over on it. Need to fill up on extra lives and try again soon.
Playing Soul Hackers 2 right now. I'm poking around in an abandoned subway line looking for a guy who - based on his last name - is probably related to Raido Kuzunoha from the Devil Summoner games that bear his name.
LunarSol wrote: Got to the triple secret final stage in Mario Wonder last night. Got pretty far but hit my first Game Over on it. Need to fill up on extra lives and try again soon.
Finished this monstrosity. 8/10ths of it is super fun and just requires practice to master the sequences. 1/10th is this annoying bouncing section that demands a little luck to make up for the slightly sluggish and imprecise nature of it. 1/10th is maybe one of the least fair things I've seen in a Mario game; requiring you to bounce from one moving enemy to another without being able to see Mario. I did it, its done, I'm very happy with the accomplishment, but its definitely not the ideal end for an otherwise flawless game.
been playing battletech on steam a mission or two at a time as the mood strikes me lately. been fun, though i haven't really hit the point that i can properly mess about with mech builds as of yet
I finished Alan Wake 2 yesterday, and it was amazing. There was even more Poets of the Fall than I expected. And it's made me go back and play Control again.
The new robocop is definitely on my list so looking forward to hearing what people's thoughts are on it!
Just started (admittedly very late) on The Outer Worlds. Just a few hours in so far, love the sense of humour with it and not taking itself too seriously, even though it does feel very much like a Fallout (though possibly not as well made?) in space. Like the effort with the extra scripting they have done, and have characters have developed as I've played. I do wonder though was it an MMORPG at some early point in its development? A number of the quests/missions feel like it "take X to Y for reward z".
So my son just hit the point where Fortnite becomes age appropriate. I’ve never played it before, and so will be backing him up in the field . It’s quite fun so far. Let’s see how long it stays fresh
I finally got around to finishing Phantom Liberty and...after siding
Spoiler:
with Song Bird during the infiltration/assassination mission to rescue her. I elected to kill Solomon Reed and allow So Mi to fly to the moon. Which is a decision I think is right despite it turning out she'd been lying to me about a cure for the both of us the whole time. Why? Well, for a few reasons.
1st being I understand her desperation to escape her enslavement from the NUSA.
2nd, she did finally tell the truth, despite knowing she'll be completely at your mercy, which shows to me that she's likely truly remorseful for lying and is prepared to suffer any consequences you'll deal with her for the manipulation. So Mi could've said nothing, and so V would've put her on the ship non-the-wiser.
3rd, I'd developed a deep dislike for President Myers and Reed during the expansion; it began with the unnecessary murders of Jacob and Taylor. Then the murders of the Cassel twins, while more understandable and I saw it coming, left a bad taste in my mouth. I also had a liking for Aurore Cassel; she was quite easy on the eyes.
4th was the massacre of numerous innocent people by the NUSA Black Ops soldiers storming the Spaceport. I couldn't hand over Songbird to them, especially knowing what suffering the NUSA would have in store for her "treason", and I didn't want to give them what they wanted even if it prevented my V his cure. So, yeah, frig the government, lol. As far as I'm concerned, the true villain of Phantom Liberty was President Myers, not Kurt Hansen, so frig her, lol.
All and all, the DLC felt like a long episode of Cowboy Bebop, and I was Spike Spiegel doing the right thing despite it being the least profitable before going back to the status quo again, full of melancholy. If that's how a game expansion makes me feel, CD Projekt Red really knocked it out of the park, as far as I'm concerned.
You might be more right than you know about the true villain.
Spoiler:
AFAIK there's no evidence of it within the game, but the animation that plays during the ending credits depicts So Mi on the chess board of a game between Myers and Hansen. The implication is that Myers was really the one behind everything.
Again, though, AFAIK there's no evidence of this within the actual game.
At CitizenCon, the annual "this is what's going on in Star Citizen and Squadron 42 development, and why both games will be awesome!" event, they showcased a trailer for the game's custom engine, StarEngine.
They've just released a polished version of it. I figured I'd put it up here on the off-chance that people wanted to check this out. Note that there's nothing related to story or lore or anything else about the game. The entire point of this trailer is to show off the capabilities of StarEngine.
It's roughly 25 minutes long, the entire video is in-engine, and the entire thing is one long continuous shot across two star systems. Looks gorgeous. If Star Citizen's issues purely revolved around a need to look pretty and visually impressive, then the game would likely be coming out tomorrow.
Been replaying ye olde Half-Life in bursts and haha, small things aside, it plays just like it did 25 years ago with the same floaty, speedy controls and wonky stuff, just in a wide screen and I love it. Still hate the Lambda Complex and the Xen levels though, but other than that, still lives up to my rose-tinted memories and damn it, I can still breeze through most of the game without a second thought, it really got ingrained into me deeply alright.
BrookM wrote: Been replaying ye olde Half-Life in bursts and haha, small things aside, it plays just like it did 25 years ago with the same floaty, speedy controls and wonky stuff, just in a wide screen and I love it. Still hate the Lambda Complex and the Xen levels though, but other than that, still lives up to my rose-tinted memories and damn it, I can still breeze through most of the game without a second thought, it really got ingrained into me deeply alright.
Man, if there was any way for me to replay that on my Ps5, I'd do it. I played Half Life soooo long ago but still remember quite a bit of it. I'd love to play it again on my huge ass TV.
Skyrim. My life took a strange turn as I suddenly decided to download 1k skyrim mods. There's this collection called "gate to sovngarde". Took me 7 hours of downloading and fixing to get the damn thing working. Had to remove two mods by hand that weren't compatible and had to do some other bothersome stuff. But in the end work it did, though the game takes 20 min to start now haha. I fixed it up this saturday. Since then I've only had time to play it a little but damn is it fun. It's the skyrim I wish I could have played some 10 years ago. So Skyrim is 14 gig ish. This mod collection is over 40. So basically the game is now has 3 times the content of the base game. There's systems for cold/warmth, hunger, tiredness, emotional stress and so on. Studying books now actually takes some time. Everything is real time, which is to say the game doesn't pause when you open your inventory or go to a store. You can still pause it with the start button though. You'd be surprised what a big dfifference not being able to stop combat to chug a potion does. The world also ends after 365 days and apocalypse things start happening closer to that date, Anduin just kind of eats the world. Altough you can tweak that timer or just turn it off.
So I made a wizard dude and started at mage college. It's alot of fun chilling in the college, going on random quests and learning spells. Not sure what I'll do next but hey, it's Skyrim. It's been hell of a good time so far.
Main three games were on a PS Store Bundle for a piffling £7.49.
God this game is fun! Yes it has been bettered (its own sequels, and the Spider-Man games), but this is still a very solid game, even if it’s now bare bones nature leaves me wanting more gadgets and combos. But that of course is entirely an argument from hindsight, and therefore isn’t exactly persuasive.
If you’ve not played the series, and have a PS4 or PS5? Now is very much the time!
Finally got around to booting up wrath of the righteous again after another big update.
Will probably run through the new DLC, but wanted to test something first: If Owlcat has finally finished the Warpriest class- which has been missing multiple blessings (the class equivalent of cleric domains) since Launch. Notably at least War and Glory which seem relevant to a military campaign and belong to the primary goddess of the crusaders.
No. no they have not. Still incomplete access to one of the basic and important class features of a class they put in at launch. New patch, new bug report, same as I've done for launch and every major update.
Beat Mad Max but still got to mop up some stuff. Can see how it goes straight into Fury Road though. Watched all the movies again while playing, have to say the game has the best Mad Max storyline which is often the case.
I was playing Warhammer 40k: gladius (as the new Dark Eldar faction with its DLC) or at least i was until my headphones finally broke. Now i'll need to get some brand new headphones :(. I'm not looking forward to how much it'll cost.
A marked improvement in every way over its predecessor, and a far larger play area.
A bit overwhelming at first, which I don’t recall from previous playthroughs. But soon got into the swing of things.
It's probably the high point of the series. Origin is basically a buggy City (albeit with a new story). And Knight is saddled with the awful Batmobile sequences.
Been playing Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader and it's so great to be back in the Koronus Expanse, it's cool seeing all the awesome fluff from that setting in a video game. I made a former gang leader based on Elim Rawne from Gaunt's Ghosts he's a jerk with a heart of gold type. The game is a ton of fun so far.
Playing as a dogmatic former Commissar myself, it's a fun ride so far, but playing it on easy, so I can focus more on the story and less on the combat.
Also, more Darktide later today hopefully, let's see if I can meet one of the twins. 🤞🏻
Void Crew with my brother, been a while since we played something new that was this much fun in coop. Jumping between stations, juggling power, repairs and whatnot, it hits in the right way alright. All we need now is a dedicated gunner to go with me as the engineer and him as the pilot and we're good to go.
BrookM wrote: Playing as a dogmatic former Commissar myself, it's a fun ride so far, but playing it on easy, so I can focus more on the story and less on the combat.
From what I've seen, a lot of people are playing that character, which is fair enough. It seems fun and pretty much epitomises 40k a lot. I've been very even-handed and caring, and I have suffered some bad consequences for it so far. It'll be interesting to see if my character's kindness will lead to worse consequences down the line, and it should, being a 40k game.
Anyway, back OT, still playing Rogue Trader. It's a damn addictive game. It's a shame, though, that Argenta's quest has seemed to have bugged out on me, and it seems for quite a few other people too and the more I get through the game, the more bugs there are, such as Abelard's granddaughter standing in a purple square like she's missing a texture or something and as well as a few other things.
More void crew, this time with a full roster. Had way too much fun running around as an engineer, especially on a small ship variant (CQB?) which comes with two minigun pods and a point-defence turret, also equipped with a minigun. There was something really satisfying about having three miniguns go off at the same time and spitting brass everywhere in the interior of the ship as I was running around fixing damage and shoving fresh bricks into ammo hoppers. It's not quite there for me as with Deep Rock Galactic, but the game manages to tick off some of those "rule of cool" boxes nicely for me.
For the first time in over two years, I actually not only properly played a video game (Injustice 2), but I lost a good chunk of the day to it, occasionally looking over at a nearby clock and seeing that hours had passed without me noticing.
Quite a lot of Dwarf Fortress. Got stuck trying to pick my way through magma layers in my previous fortress, so started a new one in the same world.
Quite a different set up, as I hit the first cavern layer early, and set up wooden walls around a fairly sizable cavern for safety, which turned into terraces for the fortress proper.
Unicorns have been an ongoing annoyance. They don't attack my dwarves, but they do attack my dogs, so I've been catching and slaughtering them.ww
Now one of the children got possessed and created Rashobir a unicorn-bone crossbow (decorated with unicorn bone and bands of tin.
It feels sufficiently spiteful to make a big deal out of. I may give it to my broker, so he can annoy elven caravans with it.
played most of the way through shin megami tensai 5, got close enough to the end game that i decided good enough and looked up the endings, since i have no desire to ng+ multiple times
And my Dwarf Fortress of Thikthogkulet- the Drenched Abbey- has fallen. Was digging out temple spaces and accidentally breached a wall out into the cavern. I hadn't yet set up a door into the temple, so had no way to block off the area (those assigned to build a new wall kept running from the enemy)
The rodent men came in their dozens and overwhelmed the monster hunters (who wandered out into the caves and drew them to the breach) and then my spear dwarves (who were well armed and armored, all in steel, but alas, never properly trained).
I never got a real count of how many rat men came through, or how many we killed, but they seemed endless.
Finally getting around to Jedi Survivor. Really excellent game that definitely leans more on the Metroidvania elements of the Dark Souls formula than the "you die now" stuff the first was fond of. It's almost too in love with secrets to the point where you can't flow through the levels because every platform might have something behind the camera like so much Donkey Kong Country screen left bananas.
Just adoring it overall though and unlikely to get anything else done until its complete.
Playing Swarm on the Meta Quest 2. Aboslutely brilliant game. Swinging about I. A full 3d environment with basically no motion sickness blasting nasty alien robot death machines out of the sky.
I've been playing and enjoying the Rogue Trader game. I'll admit i've never been massively knowledgeable on the 40k lore but i still think the Sister Argenta character probably would've BLAM'd the psyker by now. I've seen some complain there's no way they'd let an unsanctioned psyker early on deal with a Sister of Battle and i imagine even sanctioned ones would bother them.
I can't see what the complaining is about for why this game is mostly positive rather than very positive other than bugs and around chapter 3 or 4 the game starts being weird. I'm in chapter 1 and i haven't had many bugs so maybe that's why i enjoy it so much.
Unfortunately, City is the highpoint of the series.
Eh, Knight is only a small downgrade and honestly there are bits I prefer:
- The Arkham Knight itself was a total marketing lie, but a really good retelling of the story regardless
- There are WAY WAY too many Riddler quests and they're a huge downgrade from the prior two games and required to see the secret ending
- The game has this weird structure where it spends a ton of time introducing sidequests in what feels like a slog of an early game
- That same slog is loaded with a ton of Batmobile content that is okay at best.
Unfortunately, the problems are all pretty frontloaded in the beginning of the game and take a long time before you start feeling comfortable enough with the way the open Gotham is put together for it to feel good. Once you get past the first Act, I feel like the game really picks up and flexes its strengths. Also just ignore side missions you don't like. There's too many of them and while a few pay off in the end pretty spectacularly, there's also stuff like the Riddler which is just a grind.
Arkham Knight is a fantastic game saddled with far, far, far too much Batmobile combat. If they'd cut out 75% of the tank battles, it'd've been fine (and maybe a few less car races!). The gliding through the city is faster and more responsive than ever.
By the time I'm done with this run I'll have maybe over 200 hours in this game. And this is the first time I've done the DLC side-missions (they came out after I'd stopped playing last time). I've done 3 of them so far. The Croc one was interesting. Cool setting. Still got the Freeze one to go, and I only just did the airship/cloudburst section. About half-way through.
I'm not saying it's better than Arkham City - that game is one of my fav games of all time - just that I don't think it deserves the bad rep that some gave it.
I love Arkham City though. I know that game off by heart. I know ever riddle without needing to look it up. How to get every trophy (other than the ones I thought had bugged, as I experienced some other weird bugs on the PC that weren't present on the PS3 version I played through originally). It's the only open world game where I know the map completely and how to get anywhere from anywhere. Hell, I even grind XP, getting several levels 'banked' to use them when upgrades become available. During the playthrough I just did I had max armour before I had even gone into the Steel Mill. I clear the map of thugs every time the map reloads to get every single XP point I can get. Knight doesn't let you do that, as general rioters aren't worth anything.
Yeah, I really love Knight. I think its strengths far outweigh its negatives. It's just a bit too much.
On that note, finished Jedi Survivor which I have similar feelings about. I adored more or less every minute of it, but its packed with tiny secrets to the point where they stop being exciting and become a chore. Fantastic combat that was a joy to experiment with beginning to end. Would have loved a third stance button just to make it easier to experiment. Loved the story and excited to see where they go with it next. I just hope the next one doesn't focus on even more tiny secrets everywhere.
We've entered a strange era in video games where we're getting too much content in games. There's just too much stuff to do. We're getting too much bang for our buck! I suppose it's great if you can only afford 1 or 2 games a year but it's daunting trying to pick which 50-200 hour experience you're going to pick up next.
I don't think its a 'strange era' as much as a matter of preference or practicality.
Some may find they've got scheduling conflicts with family concerns and those take priority, others may find that disposable, shallow games aren't worth getting into.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: We've entered a strange era in video games where we're getting too much content in games. There's just too much stuff to do. We're getting too much bang for our buck! I suppose it's great if you can only afford 1 or 2 games a year but it's daunting trying to pick which 50-200 hour experience you're going to pick up next.
Even if you have all the time in the world, content for content's sake doesn't make it worthwhile. Eventually you hit a point where its just repetitive busy work and not really engaging or fun. That's not a new problem, but I think now that we've seen the death of so many "forever" games, people are starting to be more aware that grinding this stuff out doesn't ever really pay off. Plus, if you want to grind there's like, a billion mobile games that let you do it on the toilet.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: We've entered a strange era in video games where we're getting too much content in games. There's just too much stuff to do. We're getting too much bang for our buck! I suppose it's great if you can only afford 1 or 2 games a year but it's daunting trying to pick which 50-200 hour experience you're going to pick up next.
I had this thought a while ago playing Life is Strange: True Colours. Fantastic series by the way.
Biggest complaint was 'the game was short'. The original life is strange had maybe 15 hours, plus or minus in it. You'd get through it in a few evenings. True colours had maybe 10, plus or minus.
And that was my first thought - too short. But on immediate second thought, after playing 100+ hour games (typically open world) like skyrim, days gone, witcher 3, horizon zero dawn and forbidden west, ghost of tsushima etc etc, did I need another 100+ hour game? Truth was, no I didn't. Shorter games with less content aren't necessarily 'bad' games.
I always thought one thing is mostly that in story driven games, is that replayability is not that good. So if the game is short, the experience out and restarting the game won't give you nearly as much enjoyment. I put this in contrast to a Day of Defeat, I mean, you can hardly make a game simpler than this, but since it's a "competitive" shooter, it's easier to get your fun technically for as long as the game lasts without sinking absurd efforts in it.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I always thought one thing is mostly that in story driven games, is that replayability is not that good. So if the game is short, the experience out and restarting the game won't give you nearly as much enjoyment. I put this in contrast to a Day of Defeat, I mean, you can hardly make a game simpler than this, but since it's a "competitive" shooter, it's easier to get your fun technically for as long as the game lasts without sinking absurd efforts in it.
It depends. If a story-driven game has branches that significantly change the story, then there's replayability in going back and making different decisions.
On the other hand, real decisions (as opposed to, "Which button do you press at the end?") mean adding significant content that can't be obtained in every playthrough as the branching nature of the story means that certain content is blocked off by the player's decisions.
KamikazeCanuck wrote: We've entered a strange era in video games where we're getting too much content in games. There's just too much stuff to do. We're getting too much bang for our buck! I suppose it's great if you can only afford 1 or 2 games a year but it's daunting trying to pick which 50-200 hour experience you're going to pick up next.
I uhhh don't know what to say with that. If by too much content you mean paid DLC then yeah. I've seen some total up to several hundred dollars in DLC. I'm not sure if this is on sale or not but still that's a lot of money. It's funny i say that i suppose since we're all war-gamers for warhammer which is one of the more expensive of the tabletop gaming spheres and i want to play admech which is considered the most or one of the most expensive 40k armies.
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Back to the topic I played Rogue Trader a bunch. You know for all the tool tips they gave they never told me how to Warp Jump and i had to find the button myself. I really loved this game in the first couple chapters and the prologue but i'm finding injuries and stupid stuff like the speaker intercom things in that one space hulk were far worse enemies esp. the injuries. I hate how even if you have a crew with solid skills in most things if you fail one or two checks and are forced to drag your dudes through some area you will get wounded again and again forcing loads of wounds on you that you'll never had enough med-kits to heal and then you'll need to jump on your void ship to fix all injuries. Some of these have some nasty debuffs that you can't get rid of without being on the void ship too.
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A friend and i also played a co op game of Hearts of Iron 4 with me as the british again and him as the French. Oddly Germany and some other countries went democratic and Italy was in a big union that i decided to declare war on with my faction. Surprisingly the infantry battle in italian east africa went well as a pure infantry force required no supplies or nearly none. If i had to go at it again i'd have probably added cavalry or camel forces in africa for a few spearhead units. The forces in egypt got overwhelmed and i used the France's Syria as a base to retake egypt and i encircled and destroyed a lot of the enemy force after some initial issues. France, Commonwealth forces and Germany were a big help. We eventually ended up winning that war with France pushing through Italy and actually succeeding really well at it. He did wait till longer to do it but still. I think there's still a war going on with the communists that we'll eventually get dragged into but the Italy and its other factions have been carved up quite nicely. I took the islands of italy because i felt it appropriate as an island nation but i probably should've taken more land and i gave ethiopia back to its owners.
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Finally i played a couple sessions of Endless Space 2 with 2 really slow players (it's frustrating but worse when there's multiple people) and one person that was playing an invisible hacker faction that i've never played against before because i never bought that DLC. I haven't played since 2019 so i don't think i'm doing so well at the moment. That said i started right next to the hacker faction which has one invisible planet which i can't find which isn't funny because i have no idea how to find him or to extract Holy Points as Vodyani if he keeps sending various fleets at me to prevent me from harvesting essence from prey worlds. It's insanely frustrating since his faction seems wildly unfair and weird to fight against.
In a non-historical game of HOI4, Germany has an even chance of overthrowing Hitler at the start of the game. If France is computer-controlled, it will always find an excuse to attack Germany, thereby triggering WW2 in Western Europe. This happens even when Hitler is overthrown and Germany goes Democratic, which is what makes it so blatant. But since your friend was controlling France, that didn't happen.
I've been going 50/50 dogmatic and iconoclast in the Rogue Trader game. Something that bugs me is the lack of companion interaction after their initial conversations. I chose the Cassia (navigator lady) romance but i think it'd have been fun to go for the cute rogue girl too. Oh well maybe next playthrough. I do find Cassia to be nice at times but rather highborn and obnoxious in that regard. I don't like her view of the peasants but it is 40k after all and that's just how things are. Maybe i should get into character a bit better.
). Between this, all the past remakes and a RE8 marathon session the past weekend, I'm rather burnt ouf on these games.
