What are you playing right now?

[LibraryOgre]

...I have to go looking. I have no idea where these sliders are.

[Triaxx]

Planet management screen, economy tab.

[Jama7301]

Legend of Zelda - Link Between Worlds (3DS)
Pinball FX3 (Switch)
Lost of team customizing in Super Mega Baseball 2 for a dumb custom league thing.
Dusted off Mario Maker again because there are some great levels out there.

[warty goblin]

At this literal minute? Waiting for Battlefield 1 to load. I like the game, but dear me does it take forever to load.

[Friv]

Finished Nier, and am on to Disgaea 5.

This appears to be the Disgaea game set in an area of the Netherworlds in which shirts were outlawed centuries ago.

[warty goblin]

Played some more Field of Glory II this morning. It's ability to randomly generate a super-compelling random battle is crazy, and extremely enjoyable. A clash between Gauls and Hannibal's Carthaginians (who are substantially Gauls)? Yes please. Also rather funny, because Gauls aren't so good at that whole 'discipline' thing, so there's heavy infantry charging off at random and cavalry charging them and the whole thing was a glorious mess.

My best battle so far though was Carthaginians vs. Romans, where I started rather outmatched, and had to hold out for reinforcements - again, just randomly generated. This was really intense, because Roman legionaries in this game are just flat-out terrifying; like they will disorder and force back a perfectly intact infantry unit in one charge. Fortunately I had superior cavalry, which did mean things to assorted Roman light elements and their absolutely dreadful horse-boys and kept the heavy infantry from concentrating on my much inferior line of battle. Even then it was a close run thing, with my first line basically disintegrating about the time the reinforcements arrived. It's quite likely they were only saved by one of my original infantry companies rallying, and charging right up a Hastatii company's right flank.

If you're interested in some historically accurate turn based stabbing, I can't recommend this highly enough.

[GloatingSwine]

Finished Nier, and am on to Disgaea 5.

This appears to be the Disgaea game set in an area of the Netherworlds in which shirts were outlawed centuries ago.

It's warm down in the Netherworld. Shirts are simply unnecessary.

Been that way since the first game.

[tonberrian]

Breaking News: Breath of the Wild is god**** ENORMOUS. It's also really fun paragliding.

I'm at 105/120 of the regular shrines, 1 Divine Beast down. Haven't really done any of the DLC content or picked up the items aside from certain ones that were in my way - Majora's Mask and the Switch shirt were just randomly found, and I only picked up the portagate because it was in the basement of the labyrinth I just beat and there were other things down there to get.

[Cespenar]

Played some more Field of Glory II this morning. It's ability to randomly generate a super-compelling random battle is crazy, and extremely enjoyable. A clash between Gauls and Hannibal's Carthaginians (who are substantially Gauls)? Yes please. Also rather funny, because Gauls aren't so good at that whole 'discipline' thing, so there's heavy infantry charging off at random and cavalry charging them and the whole thing was a glorious mess.

My best battle so far though was Carthaginians vs. Romans, where I started rather outmatched, and had to hold out for reinforcements - again, just randomly generated. This was really intense, because Roman legionaries in this game are just flat-out terrifying; like they will disorder and force back a perfectly intact infantry unit in one charge. Fortunately I had superior cavalry, which did mean things to assorted Roman light elements and their absolutely dreadful horse-boys and kept the heavy infantry from concentrating on my much inferior line of battle. Even then it was a close run thing, with my first line basically disintegrating about the time the reinforcements arrived. It's quite likely they were only saved by one of my original infantry companies rallying, and charging right up a Hastatii company's right flank.

If you're interested in some historically accurate turn based stabbing, I can't recommend this highly enough.

It's pretty tactically deep and fun, but a lack of game modes tires me out very quickly. In something like Rome: Total War, you had these high-intensity tactical battles, and then you rested during the strategic gameplay, building your armies and whatnot. It's just good pacing.

Here, I found the tactics to be too intense, if that's possible. If they could have coupled this with a good strategic gameplay, it could easily be the indie turn based game of the year.

[warty goblin]

It's pretty tactically deep and fun, but a lack of game modes tires me out very quickly. In something like Rome: Total War, you had these high-intensity tactical battles, and then you rested during the strategic gameplay, building your armies and whatnot. It's just good pacing.

Here, I found the tactics to be too intense, if that's possible. If they could have coupled this with a good strategic gameplay, it could easily be the indie turn based game of the year.

I can see that; it's certainly not something I play five battles in back to back.

On the flipside though, I've never gotten on well with the Total War games. If I'm in the mood for largescale strategy, Total War makes me fight all these tactical battles, which just break up the flow of my strategizing. If I'm in the mood for tactical battles, I have to shuffle dudes around the map and build crap, which isn't what I'm there for.

I have this problem with a lot of duel layer strategic/tactical games like that. Off the top of my head, the only ones that I think really pull off the design smoothly are the Age of Wonders games, mostly by keeping both layers quite breezy. XCOM/XCOM 2 do ok at it, but the strategy layers in those games are mostly just strategic waiting screens.

[factotum]

On the flipside though, I've never gotten on well with the Total War games. If I'm in the mood for largescale strategy, Total War makes me fight all these tactical battles, which just break up the flow of my strategizing. If I'm in the mood for tactical battles, I have to shuffle dudes around the map and build crap, which isn't what I'm there for.


To be fair, you *can* just do one or the other in a Total War game--you can jump in and play a skirmish battle anytime you like (albeit not as part of the main game campaign), and if you're in the grand strategy mood you can auto-resolve all the tactical battles so you don't have to worry about them.

[Friv]

It's warm down in the Netherworld. Shirts are simply unnecessary.

Been that way since the first game.

Without being too goofy - in Disgaea 2, Adel has a shirt. As do his mother and sister, Axel's producer, and I think at least a couple of the people you recruit along the way.

In Disgaea 3, Mao had a school shirt, as did Salvatore, and Almaz had a shirt under his jacket. Big Star may have also had a shirt; his jacket was buttoned up pretty tight.

In Disgaea 4, Valvatorez and Fuka had shirts, and Emizel looks like he has one under his hoodie.

In Disgaea 5, as of the end of Act 3, nobody has a shirt. Not one character. Christo has a robe, which makes him the only character thus far without an exposed chest, which is hilarious.

[Wookieetank]

Finished playing Beyond Two Souls yesterday. All I gotta say is, the people at Quantic Dream seem to be in dire need of hugs all around. Good game though.

[NeoVid]

Steam is having free weekends for ten games to distract people from the Overwatch free weekend, so I've been using it as a chance to try a bunch of games I've been kinda interested in. Thought I'd spend the weekend playing Tyranny, but it looks like I've become addicted to Dead By Daylight.

[warty goblin]

To be fair, you *can* just do one or the other in a Total War game--you can jump in and play a skirmish battle anytime you like (albeit not as part of the main game campaign), and if you're in the grand strategy mood you can auto-resolve all the tactical battles so you don't have to worry about them.

Indeed this is possible. I've just never been enamored enough of the games' systems to really bother. To be fair the last Total War game I really tried was Medieval 2. To be unfair, the strategic layer in that game was an absolute micro nightmare, and the AI turns took way too long.

Still a game I'm more likely to give another whirl than Civ VI though.

[GloatingSwine]

Broke down and bought Hyrule Warriors Definitive on the Switch.

It's just the right mix of series fanservice and mad chopping. And so much content.

[Starbuck_II]

Just beat the Southpark Fractured But Whole, but still trying to beat Morgan Freeman, I can get him down to 500 hp, but then I get beat.
Still missing a cat for Big Gay Al too. Not sure where I missed it.

[Cespenar]

I can see that; it's certainly not something I play five battles in back to back.

On the flipside though, I've never gotten on well with the Total War games. If I'm in the mood for largescale strategy, Total War makes me fight all these tactical battles, which just break up the flow of my strategizing. If I'm in the mood for tactical battles, I have to shuffle dudes around the map and build crap, which isn't what I'm there for.

I have this problem with a lot of duel layer strategic/tactical games like that. Off the top of my head, the only ones that I think really pull off the design smoothly are the Age of Wonders games, mostly by keeping both layers quite breezy. XCOM/XCOM 2 do ok at it, but the strategy layers in those games are mostly just strategic waiting screens.

Total War's system works perfect for me because of the pace change, though I understand if it works different for other people. If I could for example only stomach 1 hour of pure tactical battles or strategic tomfoolery, Total War's back and forth makes it sustainable for a total of, say, 3 hours.

Though as factotum said above, it's possible to play Total Wars purely on one side as well.

[lex109]

I just purchased Assassin's Creed (1-7). Never played them before, but I'm enjoying it so far. I really like that there is no true to form character sheet, stats, or skills. Either you utilize the appropriate skills at the appropriate times and hide/kill people, or you don't and you die.

I'm also going into Ark and Stranded Deep now and again, and I just finished my first full play through of Dragon Age Origins.

[Eldan]

FAR: Lone sails.

Took notice on it when I saw it at a small local convention. I knew there were Swiss games, but this is the first one I've seen that I actually liked after playing it for a few minutes, so I got it.


Anyway.

It's... hm. Okay. You play as a kid who drives (and later sails, to save fuel) a giant steam contraption through a desolate post-apocalyptic landscape, while occasionally picking up fuel, solving simple jumping puzzles and upgrading your vehicle. It's very relaxing and atmospheric, overall, with some gorgeous backgrounds and very nice music. Very readily brings up comparisons to Limbo and Journey. Main criticism that's around on steam is that the gameplay is pretty minimal and the game quite short for what they charge for it. I can see it, but I still like it a lot.

[Zombimode]

I finally gave in my temptation and bought Warhammer Total War 2.

It is my first Total War after Medieval 2 (which I'm still actively playing). So far the experience has been quite enjoyable. I like the "Story" focused Vortex campaign. I wouldn't want all my TotalWar games be like this, but it is a nice Change of pace and it fits the seting. And there is always the Mortal Empires Campaign for the more classic Total War experience.

But I don't know, the battles seem like a step back compared to Medieval 2. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy then and the Fantasy Elements (spells, Monsters, flying Units etc.) keep the experience fresh.
But all in all the battle mode of Med2 feels much more sophisticated and "meaty", Warhammer 2 in comparison has a more plastic and cheap feel.

The reasons are probably a combination of many Details and I can't put my finger on all of them. But there are aspects that are noticably worse then in Medieval 2:

Sound design:
- hit sounds: Med2 metal armor comes with a satisfying "chink", while WHTW2 is more a cheap "clack"
- individual soldier sounds and voices: in Med2 individual soldiers scream and taunt the enemy, in WHTW2 you sometimes get a single disconnected shout
- arrow sounds: in Med2 arrows are like: *fitz* *fitz* *few* *few* *fitz*. In WHTW2 there are like: *silence*
the list goes on...

Visual Design:
- arrows (again): you don't NEED overexegareted projectile trails in Med2, the Overall visual design makes them clear enough
- model Variation: while there are some slight model variations in WHTW2 it's nothing compared to the Variation seen in Med2
- animations: to me the soldier animations seem more lively in Med2 while in WHTW2 there are some cases of really stiff animations (the plastic soldier comparison rears it's head)
- particle effects: dust! sand! Med2 is full of this. In WHTW2 I've yet to see that cavalry creates a cloud of dust.


Again: I do enjoy Warhammer 2 but it is somewhat sad to see a 12 year old game seems so much more advanced in many areas.

[DigoDragon]

Spent time renovating my sister's house on our shared Minecraft world. I got windows knocked out, holes in the walls, etc. and then a thunderstorm starts up outside. One of the villagers came inside out of the rain, so I walked over to do some trading with him. Annnnd then an Enderman teleported inside to get out of rain.

Villager jumps out the open window and runs.

I jump out the open window and run. XD


I need to find a video editing program.I could record these amusing moments on OBS.

[Spacewolf]

I finally gave in my temptation and bought Warhammer Total War 2.

It is my first Total War after Medieval 2 (which I'm still actively playing). So far the experience has been quite enjoyable. I like the "Story" focused Vortex campaign. I wouldn't want all my TotalWar games be like this, but it is a nice Change of pace and it fits the seting. And there is always the Mortal Empires Campaign for the more classic Total War experience.

But I don't know, the battles seem like a step back compared to Medieval 2. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy then and the Fantasy Elements (spells, Monsters, flying Units etc.) keep the experience fresh.
But all in all the battle mode of Med2 feels much more sophisticated and "meaty", Warhammer 2 in comparison has a more plastic and cheap feel.

The reasons are probably a combination of many Details and I can't put my finger on all of them. But there are aspects that are noticably worse then in Medieval 2:

Sound design:
- hit sounds: Med2 metal armor comes with a satisfying "chink", while WHTW2 is more a cheap "clack"
- individual soldier sounds and voices: in Med2 individual soldiers scream and taunt the enemy, in WHTW2 you sometimes get a single disconnected shout
- arrow sounds: in Med2 arrows are like: *fitz* *fitz* *few* *few* *fitz*. In WHTW2 there are like: *silence*
the list goes on...

Visual Design:
- arrows (again): you don't NEED overexegareted projectile trails in Med2, the Overall visual design makes them clear enough
- model Variation: while there are some slight model variations in WHTW2 it's nothing compared to the Variation seen in Med2
- animations: to me the soldier animations seem more lively in Med2 while in WHTW2 there are some cases of really stiff animations (the plastic soldier comparison rears it's head)
- particle effects: dust! sand! Med2 is full of this. In WHTW2 I've yet to see that cavalry creates a cloud of dust.


Again: I do enjoy Warhammer 2 but it is somewhat sad to see a 12 year old game seems so much more advanced in many areas.

I am inclined to agree there has always been something abit off about the W:TW engine that leaves it lacking for me. As a small note you can turn off Arrow trails I believe.
There is a new patch coming out tomorrow which should include Norsica as a Mortal Empires faction which will probably have me playing again though. I do still want an all monstrous faction though as there are so few games that actually let you do that and I think it would be great fun. (I know W:TW does have orcs and all that but in the end they just don't feel that much different to the other factions and the true monster units you get are top tier units, there's no faction which uses them as it's backbone which is what I want.)

Other than that I'm looking into downloading the Last Days of the Third age mod for Mount and Blade warband which looks interesting even though I've seen reports of it corrupting saves pretty regularly.

[Triaxx]

@Digo: VSDC free video editor, does exactly what it says.

[The Glyphstone]

I am inclined to agree there has always been something abit off about the W:TW engine that leaves it lacking for me. As a small note you can turn off Arrow trails I believe.
There is a new patch coming out tomorrow which should include Norsica as a Mortal Empires faction which will probably have me playing again though. I do still want an all monstrous faction though as there are so few games that actually let you do that and I think it would be great fun. (I know W:TW does have orcs and all that but in the end they just don't feel that much different to the other factions and the true monster units you get are top tier units, there's no faction which uses them as it's backbone which is what I want.)

Other than that I'm looking into downloading the Last Days of the Third age mod for Mount and Blade warband which looks interesting even though I've seen reports of it corrupting saves pretty regularly.

There's a lot of speculation about Ogre Kingdoms being playable in TW: WH3, or possibly as DLC for 2, so you'll likely have to wait till then.

[Jama7301]

I started playing Just Cause 2 again this weekend, after putting hte game down years ago. Man, this game sure is fun to move around in. The map is so big though! It also made me realize that flying, while efficient, is probably the most boring way to travel in open world games.

[Triaxx]

With the exception of helicopters, because I love the challenge of gently touching them down so I can reuse them. I'm to the point where all I have are story missions, and I'm busily collecting skulls, and caches, and black boxes.

[factotum]

Yeah, flying is boring, if you're the sort who actually sits in the cockpit. What you really should be doing in Just Cause 2 is riding on top of the plane and jumping off at the last minute before it flies into a mountain or building. :smallsmile:

Thing I always remember from Just Cause 2, for some reason, is the car race that starts on one side of the main island and ends at the other side. It takes about 30 minutes of real time to run it, and if you manage to finish it in the same vehicle that you started in, you're a better man than I! :smallbiggrin:

[Jama7301]

I should take a second gander at the Just Cause 2 Multiplayer Mod, and see if it allows multiplayer campaign shenanigans. Might be a fun way to spend a weekend with some friends.

[Doorhandle]

Yeah, flying is boring, if you're the sort who actually sits in the cockpit. What you really should be doing in Just Cause 2 is riding on top of the plane and jumping off at the last minute before it flies into a mountain or building. :smallsmile:

Thing I always remember from Just Cause 2, for some reason, is the car race that starts on one side of the main island and ends at the other side. It takes about 30 minutes of real time to run it, and if you manage to finish it in the same vehicle that you started in, you're a better man than I! :smallbiggrin:

Just Cause 2 and 3 are at their best when you're focusing on the coolest ways to destroy things, rather than the most practical.
It's a joy from my school years i've near-lost though: I find i'm very mission-based in open world games these days.
Though I have spend some time in assassin's creed 4 making the town guard look like Wile e. Coyote.

As for what i've been playing...Age of wonders 3. I tend to have a bad habit of restarting when stymied and the endgame drags a bit, but overall it's everything good about Warlock: Master of the arcane with most of what's good from the Total War series. Could use a little more unit variety maybe, but that would styme the whole mixing and matching of races and classes it has.

Plus,I have no idea how i'm supposed to win a game with good alignment. Do I just trespass everywhere until they declare war on me and then conquer them in "self-defence?"

Also a bit of Dungeons Of Dredmor...Just enough to remind me of why I don't like it anymore.
In particular, leveling is too slow to make it's skill system fun, you either have barely any active abilities or don't have enough room on the action bar for everything, 4-way movement feels restricting, no auto-explore (which is so damn nice in other roguelikes,) and the crafting system would be great if you could actually fit all that random junk in your inventory.

[Sian]

But I don't know, the battles seem like a step back compared to Medieval 2.

Can't help but think that some of it might come from the fact that they've deliberately leaned up against Tabletop Warhammer

[Cespenar]

Also a bit of Dungeons Of Dredmor...Just enough to remind me of why I don't like it anymore.
In particular, leveling is too slow to make it's skill system fun, you either have barely any active abilities or don't have enough room on the action bar for everything, 4-way movement feels restricting, no auto-explore (which is so damn nice in other roguelikes,) and the crafting system would be great if you could actually fit all that random junk in your inventory.

I agree... on general. It's still a better roguelike than most, but I'd suggest ToME if you haven't tried it already.

[NRSASD]

@Spacewolf: I highly, highly recommend Last Days of the Third Age. I've played it a ton and really enjoy it. It's really stable now too, so it's a safe pick up at this point (especially since it's free). Something to be aware of though: some factions are just outright superior to other factions. There's nothing wrong with that gameplay wise, but just be aware that playing certain factions (*coughDunlandcough*) is going to be much harder than others.

I'm currently trying Alexis Kennedy's new game Cultist Simulator. It's weird. I don't know what I'm doing 80% of the time. But it's weirdly fun and engaging. It's feels like trying to assemble a mosaic by storing all the pieces in a snow globe and shaking vigorously, trying to make sense of the random patterns that appear before you.

[Spacewolf]

@Spacewolf: I highly, highly recommend Last Days of the Third Age. I've played it a ton and really enjoy it. It's really stable now too, so it's a safe pick up at this point (especially since it's free). Something to be aware of though: some factions are just outright superior to other factions. There's nothing wrong with that gameplay wise, but just be aware that playing certain factions (*coughDunlandcough*) is going to be much harder than others.

I'm currently trying Alexis Kennedy's new game Cultist Simulator. It's weird. I don't know what I'm doing 80% of the time. But it's weirdly fun and engaging. It's feels like trying to assemble a mosaic by storing all the pieces in a snow globe and shaking vigorously, trying to make sense of the random patterns that appear before you.

Yea I've tried afew mods now and just started my first Third age game last night with Isenguard so have to see how it goes.

[Psyren]

I finally finished Divinity OS2 the other day, so now I've started on Pillars of Eternity. I plan to take my main from that into the next one. Any RPG with a queer romance has my attention at the very least.

[warty goblin]

As for what i've been playing...Age of wonders 3. I tend to have a bad habit of restarting when stymied and the endgame drags a bit, but overall it's everything good about Warlock: Master of the arcane with most of what's good from the Total War series. Could use a little more unit variety maybe, but that would styme the whole mixing and matching of races and classes it has.

Plus,I have no idea how i'm supposed to win a game with good alignment. Do I just trespass everywhere until they declare war on me and then conquer them in "self-defence?"


Turn on the Seals victory condition. As soon as you finish up the expansion phase of the game, and have some decently powerful stacks, clear a Seal or two of defenders. You can be friends with everybody, doesn't matter, you'll have declarations of war coming from every which side in a real hurry. The Good alignment AI may be fine with you existing, but it sure as hell isn't going to let you win. Just be ready to fight like a right bastard for the rest of the game, because going for the Seals turns things into a no holds barred free-for-all murderfest

[Friv]

Without being too goofy - in Disgaea 2, Adel has a shirt. As do his mother and sister, Axel's producer, and I think at least a couple of the people you recruit along the way.

In Disgaea 3, Mao had a school shirt, as did Salvatore, and Almaz had a shirt under his jacket. Big Star may have also had a shirt; his jacket was buttoned up pretty tight.

In Disgaea 4, Valvatorez and Fuka had shirts, and Emizel looks like he has one under his hoodie.

In Disgaea 5, as of the end of Act 3, nobody has a shirt. Not one character. Christo has a robe, which makes him the only character thus far without an exposed chest, which is hilarious.

Update: I have played far enough to see Void Dark and some of his generals, and he has a shirt, as do some (but not all) of them. I must now assume that shirts are The Enemy in Disgaea 5. ;)

[Ixtellor]

I'm desperate for a new game, so any recommendations are welcome.

Criteria:
1) Must be multiplayer or bare minimum co-op.
2) Must involve being able to fight other RL players.
3) Would prefer some survival or building aspect.
4) Prefer a persistant world but not mandatory.

Conan Exiles -- I thought it would be good but lots of negative reviews/bugs.

Currently playing some Total War Arena, but it gets old after a while.

I dont' really want to start playing WoW or SWTOR again, but they were good games.

I love RTS games, but a lil burned out on StarCraft. Ancients Legacy seems like it might be ok, but not sure it will have longevity.
I would love a modern version of Crusader Kings

Thanks in advance. (I'm a teacher so off for the summer and need something I can get many hours out of)

[NeoVid]

I'm desperate for a new game, so any recommendations are welcome.

Criteria:
1) Must be multiplayer or bare minimum co-op.
2) Must involve being able to fight other RL players.
3) Would prefer some survival or building aspect.
4) Prefer a persistant world but not mandatory.

Well then, have you heard of Crowfall? (https://crowfall.com/en/) Most interested I've been in an MMO in a long time, and this is from someone who normally dislikes PvP-heavy design.

If you're put off by Crowfall being early access, maybe you'd be interested in Absolver, (https://store.steampowered.com/app/473690/Absolver/) the multiplayer martial arts movie, where you can learn new moves by fighting against people who have attacks you don't know.

[Zombimode]

I'm desperate for a new game, so any recommendations are welcome.

Criteria:
1) Must be multiplayer or bare minimum co-op.
2) Must involve being able to fight other RL players.
3) Would prefer some survival or building aspect.
4) Prefer a persistant world but not mandatory.

Conan Exiles -- I thought it would be good but lots of negative reviews/bugs.

Currently playing some Total War Arena, but it gets old after a while.

I dont' really want to start playing WoW or SWTOR again, but they were good games.

I love RTS games, but a lil burned out on StarCraft. Ancients Legacy seems like it might be ok, but not sure it will have longevity.
I would love a modern version of Crusader Kings

Thanks in advance. (I'm a teacher so off for the summer and need something I can get many hours out of)


Well, you CAN play the campaign of Warhammer Total War 2 in multiplayer. All your requirements are (at least formally) fullfilled.
Don't know if it's actually your cup of tea.

[Spacewolf]

@Spacewolf: I highly, highly recommend Last Days of the Third Age. I've played it a ton and really enjoy it. It's really stable now too, so it's a safe pick up at this point (especially since it's free). Something to be aware of though: some factions are just outright superior to other factions. There's nothing wrong with that gameplay wise, but just be aware that playing certain factions (*coughDunlandcough*) is going to be much harder than others.

I'm currently trying Alexis Kennedy's new game Cultist Simulator. It's weird. I don't know what I'm doing 80% of the time. But it's weirdly fun and engaging. It's feels like trying to assemble a mosaic by storing all the pieces in a snow globe and shaking vigorously, trying to make sense of the random patterns that appear before you.

Have you got any other recommendations for mods? I've got Perisno and Pendor installed, which are pretty good even if Pendor is abit to hard for me. I was wondering if there are any others that are good? I'd quite like if they used the original map as well although it's not that important.

[Zevox]

I just finished up Tales of Berseria - which makes it the first Tales game I've finished in quite a while, since Xillia 2 sucked and Zestiria just didn't grab me for some reason.

All in all, the game was pretty great - easily my favorite Tales game since Vesperia. Velvet made for a more compelling protagonist than the series has had since at least Yuri, and the whole theme of it being just as easy to see the main cast of protagonists as the villains as it is to see them as the heroes was a very fun change from the norm for these kinds of games. I mean, come on, how many games can have their main hero seriously give an inspirational speech that includes the phrase "We go to bathe the world in the flames of chaos"? Or have the regular people of the world nickname that character "The Lord of Calamity" out of genuine fear of her? And yet she still manages to be a character you can empathize with and want to see succeed.

Unfortunately, the combat is sort of lacking. I did find myself deliberately avoiding a lot of enemies near the end of the game just to get to the rest of the story, since repeatedly fighting battles that boil down to "spam whichever moves the enemy is weak to" in an action game got dull. It's been a while, but I vaguely recall being much happier with combat in Xillia and especially Graces, which I recall thinking had a great combat system to offset its meh story and characters, so I'm not sure why the series is getting worse in that regard. Heck, even the older games felt more engaging as far as combat goes without the whole weak points system, I think.

But so be it. I had enough fun with the combat that it didn't drag the game down too much for me, and really liked seeing the characters develop and the story play out. Great game.

[Kato]

I've been dumping way too much time recently into Game Dev Tycoon which is exactly what it says on the tin (starting around 1985 though) and about 5 years old. It's pretty simple but at least to me weirdly addictive. It's also not too hard once you grasp the essentials and don't try to experiment with weird games for the sake of it.

I'm still kind of looking for something to spend the summer on.. Maybe I'll get the BotW DLC and do another run of that.

[warty goblin]

Picked up Vampyr last night to celebrate finishing the dissertation/getting a job offer. By the time I got it downloaded and then dealt with nVidia's annoying front-end to update my graphics drivers, I didn't have a lot of time left to actually play it.

But holy cow, the first ten minutes of this are something else. The phrase 'genuinely nightmarish' comes to mind; it seems like basically as close to a Tanith Lee novel (I'm thinking Vivia (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22875515&postcount=256)) as one is likely to get in a videogame. Probably a bit more violence, but way less depraved sex stuff, and I suspect that it will end up at a very different sort of place overall. Same general attitude of hideous, inexplicable horror though.

[LibraryOgre]

Icewind Dale 2. I'm trying a highly unoptimized party, starting with

Strongheart Halfing Rogue/Ranger
Rock Gnome Lorekeeper of Oghma/Bard/Illusionist (only 12 wisdom; he'll stop at 4/5/X)

Just before the final battle at the Pallisade, I'm going to add a Gold Dwarf Fighter, who will go Paladin after level 4.
After we crash with Oswald, I'm going to add a Druid

[Lord Raziere]

I've been trying out and starting new games for me anyways:

Tales of Berseria:
tried this out, and well....hm...
A few minutes into interacting with Laphicet and I totally called him dying and/or being a cursed child that would cause me all sorts of trouble. other than that, I like the direction this is going, Tales Of games usually doesn't start out this dark in my view, and a female protag is pretty neat. I'm gonna guess a few things, don't tell me the twists or anything I want to figure out this game's story myself:

Therions and Exorcists? they are the same thing. I'm betting you anything they're the same thing, because Artorious hides an arm, and I bet you anything its the same kind of demonic arm as the one Velvet got, and it keeps things consistent and why exorcists are rare. and that Velvet and Arthur are going to have a demonic arm-off.

also I like how we get to see Velvet as a farm girl who legit cares turn into this edgy badass, but every time she spares someone you know that she hasn't changed, she just is hiding her sympathy under her anger and REVENGE!!! at Artorious while jumping through pragmatist and revenge hoops to justify it as Not Being Sympathetic. I mean, it shows just in how she spares Malak number 2, who looks so similar to Laphicet. I bet there is some crazy twist where people who die in some weird way become malakim and live some second life without their memories but those memories can be brought back, I bet you pirate malakim Aifreed is exactly that: a malakim who somehow got back his memories of being
a pirate and just went back to being that.

I don't know how to feel about Magilou. At first I loved her because she is this weird magician-clown-thespian-actor person who seems completely out of place in the dark world full of demons she is in, but then she spilled her guts about what she knew about Velvet immediately and I'm like "hm. I don't think I like traitors". But then Velvet and Rokorou when they hear about Magilou going to be executed.....just run off to find Dyle and say "rest in peace Magilou" without even caring and I'm just completely sold on her, because thats exactly what I'd expect other characters to do with such a seemingly annoying and out of place person who is only holding them back, especially when they're pragmatists like Velvet and Rokorou, so now I just totally expect her to be treated as if no one cares about her, because so far she IS useless. I can't wait for her to become a real party member and start doing crazy magic powers while everyone around her exclaims "Why didn't do that before!?" while she gives some stupid melodrama filled explanation back.


Fallout New Vegas:
I went with high smarts, low luck and low charisma build to be a MAD SCIENTIST, killed some powder gangers for Ringo....then took the Cherchez La Femme perk when I leveled up. didn't know the game supported that. Derp. guess I'm leveling my charisma back up. Now I see my characters true quest: to learn how to become social so she can totally be a lesbian seductress mad scientist cowgirl, also something about this weird package involving a platinum casino chip, don't worry that guy will get whats coming to him. the only trait I took was wild wasteland, all the others didn't seem worth it, even if I thought hoarder was probably good since I end up carrying too much anyways, but I didn't bother. so far, it doesn't seem too different from Fallout 4, so I'm curious to see why people think its so much better...

[Rynjin]

The explanation for why Magilou can't do stuff at the time is pretty solid, actually. I'm not all that much farther into the game than you, but it makes sense given the magic system the series uses.

[Zevox]

I've been trying out and starting new games for me anyways:

Tales of Berseria:
tried this out, and well....hm...
A few minutes into interacting with Laphicet and I totally called him dying and/or being a cursed child that would cause me all sorts of trouble. other than that, I like the direction this is going, Tales Of games usually doesn't start out this dark in my view, and a female protag is pretty neat. I'm gonna guess a few things, don't tell me the twists or anything I want to figure out this game's story myself:

Therions and Exorcists? they are the same thing. I'm betting you anything they're the same thing, because Artorious hides an arm, and I bet you anything its the same kind of demonic arm as the one Velvet got, and it keeps things consistent and why exorcists are rare. and that Velvet and Arthur are going to have a demonic arm-off.

also I like how we get to see Velvet as a farm girl who legit cares turn into this edgy badass, but every time she spares someone you know that she hasn't changed, she just is hiding her sympathy under her anger and REVENGE!!! at Artorious while jumping through pragmatist and revenge hoops to justify it as Not Being Sympathetic. I mean, it shows just in how she spares Malak number 2, who looks so similar to Laphicet. I bet there is some crazy twist where people who die in some weird way become malakim and live some second life without their memories but those memories can be brought back, I bet you pirate malakim Aifreed is exactly that: a malakim who somehow got back his memories of being
a pirate and just went back to being that.

I don't know how to feel about Magilou. At first I loved her because she is this weird magician-clown-thespian-actor person who seems completely out of place in the dark world full of demons she is in, but then she spilled her guts about what she knew about Velvet immediately and I'm like "hm. I don't think I like traitors". But then Velvet and Rokorou when they hear about Magilou going to be executed.....just run off to find Dyle and say "rest in peace Magilou" without even caring and I'm just completely sold on her, because thats exactly what I'd expect other characters to do with such a seemingly annoying and out of place person who is only holding them back, especially when they're pragmatists like Velvet and Rokorou, so now I just totally expect her to be treated as if no one cares about her, because so far she IS useless. I can't wait for her to become a real party member and start doing crazy magic powers while everyone around her exclaims "Why didn't do that before!?" while she gives some stupid melodrama filled explanation back.

Well, I'll say this much for your guesses...
You're mostly right about one of them, not so much about the rest.
Some people who die do become Malakhim, but it's a reincarnation situation. They don't have memories of their previous lives, and are functionally completely different people from them.

Other than that, nope, all wrong.
And yeah, the group continues to treat Magilou quite appropriately for the kind of antics she pulls throughout the game. And I'll second what Rynjin said about the explanation for Magilou not contributing to the party before she does making a lot of sense, you'll understand when you get there.

Myself, I'm switching between playing the new God of War and the recently-released BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.

For BB Tag I was kind of disappointed with the story mode, which is easily the weakest one ArcSys has ever done. There's not much to it beyond the characters wandering around getting into random fights for little reason until the villain's plan is complete and you finally get to the final fight, and even the alternate endings for the BlazBlue path leading up the true ending don't add much. It's not even that great of an excuse to see the characters interact, either, since the weird circumstances make for weird interactions, and each story focusing almost exclusively on the main character of each franchise limits what you see of the rest. Especially the few DLC characters that pop up - the Persona story especially has to contort itself to keep Naoto and Kanji out of fights despite them being in the story, and Blake and Yang wander off on their own for most of the RWBY story, so you hardly see them at all, and even Weiss doesn't do much for some reason.

Playing online though is a lot of fun. So far I'm trying to learn to use Platinum and Es as a team, but I'm going to have to switch around at times, as there's just too many characters I want to play. And there will only be more as time goes on - a week and a half from now half of the DLC will be out, and I'll be adding Jubei, Naoto, and Yang to my to-play list that already includes Platinum, Es, Yu, Chie, Ruby, Weiss, and possibly Blake and Yukiko. And then when August hits and the rest of the DLC drops I can add Izayoi, Nine, Mai, Labrys, and possibly Mitsuru assuming she's no longer a charge character. It's actually kind of crazy, I haven't had this many characters I want to play in one fighting game since Smash Brothers 4.

As far as God of War goes, it's quite good, seems to deserve the praise I've been seeing it get. Solid combat, and the out-of-combat stuff is generally a lot better than in the original trilogy games, and completely unlike those the story seems to be more than an excuse for the combat. It is kind of hard to see this Kratos as the same person as the homocidal maniac driven only by a desire for revenge that starred in that original trilogy though, and the only particularly good boss fight so far was one right near the start - but to be fair, I'm not far in, either.

[Triaxx]

It's exactly that that starts to make NV better than Fallout 4. That ability to take a perk and suddenly change the focus and direction of your character. The same can be done with so many of the quests, completely changing the courses of events. I won't spoil them, but you'll probably see some of them yourself.

[Cespenar]

So, not really a new game, but I've bought Aviary Attorney recently, and man it's fun.

It's basically a better, classier, funnier Phoenix Wright.

[NRSASD]

Have you got any other recommendations for mods? I've got Perisno and Pendor installed, which are pretty good even if Pendor is abit to hard for me. I was wondering if there are any others that are good? I'd quite like if they used the original map as well although it's not that important.

Hmmmm... I'm pretty picky when it comes to mods, so there's only ever been four Warband mods that I can recommend.

Pendor: You already found it, but man is it good. There's even quite a bit of lore in there, which is hilarious cause lore in Mount and Blade is definitely unexpected. I really like how well the game scales into the higher levels. There's always a bigger threat, but plausibly so.

Gekokujo: Very solid Japanese civil war era mod. Relatively bug free, good fun. I really enjoyed it because the lack of shields forced me to become competent at 2handed weapons.

Brytenwalda: I have a love/hate relationship with this mod. Some aspects are incredible, others not so much. Set in 6th century A.D. British Isles. Worth a look at least.


I'm going to play Prey Mooncrash soon as I can find a spare moment. A Prey roguelike is something I never knew I needed but am baffled it hadn't existed before.

[Resileaf]

Currently playing Just Cause 3. Just freed the second big region, flew to the last one, so I think I'm between halfway and 2/3rds done with the game.

[Lector87]

Have been playing Monster Hunter: World since it came out, and it's been a hilariously good time. But now I've hit the point where I've fought every monster, and all the new missions are just tougher versions of monsters I've already fought, or team-ups of said monsters, or team-ups of tougher versions. So I'm taking a break, because I've never been fond of the end-game grind.

Tried out Darkest Dungeon. Really really enjoyed it - but then I spoiled myself on the ending, and was so disgusted that I gave up my playthrough. I actually might post a thread on that, to see what other people have thought. Let's just say, I didn't think the juice was worth the squeeze.

Picked up Arcanum, which I've never played. Interested in playing a high Charisma, high Intelligence character, lots of persuasion and magic ability.

Then I remembered that I never finished Throne of Bhaal, so I'm going back to take care of that first. Posting playthrough updates on my Cavalier's solo run in ToB to the forum.

My Grouvee account: https://www.grouvee.com/user/Hand_of_Tyr/

[Cespenar]

Have been playing Monster Hunter: World since it came out, and it's been a hilariously good time. But now I've hit the point where I've fought every monster, and all the new missions are just tougher versions of monsters I've already fought, or team-ups of said monsters, or team-ups of tougher versions. So I'm taking a break, because I've never been fond of the end-game grind.

Tried out Darkest Dungeon. Really really enjoyed it - but then I spoiled myself on the ending, and was so disgusted that I gave up my playthrough. I actually might post a thread on that, to see what other people have thought. Let's just say, I didn't think the juice was worth the squeeze.

Picked up Arcanum, which I've never played. Interested in playing a high Charisma, high Intelligence character, lots of persuasion and magic ability.

Then I remembered that I never finished Throne of Bhaal, so I'm going back to take care of that first. Posting playthrough updates on my Cavalier's solo run in ToB to the forum.

My Grouvee account: https://www.grouvee.com/user/Hand_of_Tyr/

I personally couldn't return to Arcanum for a second playthrough much later, mostly because of resolution and UI issues, but much power to you if you can.

Also, what do you mean about Darkest Dungeon? Do you mean actually physically disgusted by the ending levels? Which, I think, could have been the point of the designers. :smalltongue:

[factotum]

Also, what do you mean about Darkest Dungeon? Do you mean actually physically disgusted by the ending levels? Which, I think, could have been the point of the designers. :smalltongue:

I assume he means that he looked at online spoilers for how the game ends and decided he didn't like the way the storyline goes?

[Lector87]

I assume he means that he looked at online spoilers for how the game ends and decided he didn't like the way the storyline goes?

That's right. I've put up with plenty of gross crap in games like Diablo, Path of Exile, Bloodborne, etc. - but what happens to the heroes and the player character at the end of DD just goes too far for me, even for a game that's supposed to be grimdark. I've actually got a discussion thread going for the DD ending, since I don't want to derail this one.

[roybigley]

Hearthstone takes my time, GTA V took my heart

[LibraryOgre]

That's right. I've put up with plenty of gross crap in games like Diablo, Path of Exile, Bloodborne, etc. - but what happens to the heroes and the player character at the end of DD just goes too far for me, even for a game that's supposed to be grimdark. I've actually got a discussion thread going for the DD ending, since I don't want to derail this one.

Well, dammit, now I have to look up spoilers for my own curiousity.

[enderlord99]

I'm seeing "Tales Of ____" games being mentioned a lot. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NySkhp7cNZc)

[Cristo Meyers]

I picked up Forgotton Anne about a week ago, and just got through the whole thing.

The trailers led me to believe that there was a strong platforming element, so I picked it up on PS4. I needn't have bothered. It's slow-paced enough and the controls weren't much improved by having a controller in hand.

I enjoyed the game quite a bit all told, but unfortunately not enough to want to go through it again like they obviously intended. Voice-acting was a bit hit-or-miss, but the story was interesting and so was the concept. The puzzles were just challenging enough, though mostly this was a narrative game. It's all about the story and, for me, the story was good. Just not good enough to fill the designer's purpose of multiple playthroughs.

There's only one really large issue for me: Anne clearly has her own personality throughout the game, and she acts based on that constantly. On its own, that's not a problem. In a different style game it'd even be a plus. But the game tries to have it both ways: you are in control of a variety of dialogue choices including, at one point, deciding what she feels in reaction to a revelation. So you've got a game toying with Anne just being an avatar for the player, except when they need her to do something that the player likely wouldn't so the story can continue. Sure, I understood why she was doing X but that didn't make it any less frustrating.

I nabbed Xenonauts for free from GOG a while ago, I'm toying with trying that next. Though I'm leery that I'm up for something so unforgiving these days.

[warty goblin]

I nabbed Xenonauts for free from GOG a while ago, I'm toying with trying that next. Though I'm leery that I'm up for something so unforgiving these days.

Xenonauts isn't too bad in that regard, thanks in no small part to the blissful innovation of not needing to fight every single crashed saucer. So if your team is just too beat up, you can bomb the crash site, which gets you a smaller reward but at zero risk. This also goes a very long way towards reducing the number of tactical battles to something actually bearable.

Really, my only complaint with the game was to do with invisible LOS barriers for across-multiple-screen shots. You'd think you had a line on some alien bastard, then your tank's plasma round would clip a doorframe or something, and liquefy your best sniper. Figuring LOS from elevation was also somewhat fraught, but this is true of basically all such games.


Got some more time in with Vampyr. It's an odd duck of a game. Literally every non-enemy NPC is a fleshed out character. They have relationships, secrets, and so on. And you get massive XP for killing them, particularly if you know all their details. So basically the game incentivises playing a serial killer/stalker, although apparently the more people you turn into human protein shakes, the more dangerous the environment becomes. What's doubly interesting to me is that not killing people doesn't actually have an explicit reward; you don't kill people because, well, not killing people is the right thing to do, instead of getting the +3 Sword of Helpfulness or something.

The game really sells its absolutely miserable premise and setting to the hilt. You never see daylight, being a vampire, everything is always misty, dark and unpleasant. The NPCs are often unpleasant - and the actually decent human beings are naturally worth even more XP than the terrible ones. I sort of love this about it, it really doesn't chicken out.

The combat is a thing that exists. It's fun enough so far, but that's about all I can say for it. The writing works about 85% of the time, about 10% of the time it doesn't quite hold together as dialog in the way that choose-your-question dialog systems fail, and about 5% of the time it's just flat out loopy. Overall it's one of those flawed but really interesting games that don't get made nearly enough anymore.

[Zevox]

I'm quite a bit further into the new God of War, and damn, it just keeps getting more impressive. Easily better than its predecessors in the series for sure, and I already liked those. I was worried before that the combat would be too easy, but even though general I think most fights are fairly simple, they've managed to set it up such that you can get in trouble against sufficient numbers of enemies or certain combinations of foes that are difficult to handle simultaneously - or even with the terrain limiting your ability to dodge. And I seem to semi-regularly run into powerful enemies balanced more for players with stronger gear than I have, which is actually great for me since, this being an action game, you can overcome them by learning the fight and just playing very well - even if they're so much stronger than you that they'll one-shot you with any attack and they're taking little from your blows. I've often done that in fact - there's only a few fights I've run into that I've decided to back away from and return to later - and it's always very satisfying to win one of those.

One specific one that I should call out, which I guess is vaguely spoiler-y even though I don't think it ties into the plot:
I ran into my first Valkyrie in Muspelheim, and damn, that is a good boss fight. I was getting shades of Dante vs Vergil in Devil May Cry 3, which is IMO one of the best boss fights in any game ever, which means this is automatically the best boss fight God of War has ever had. I really tried to just power through that and beat it by learning it, but after so many tries all ended with me using my resurrection stone at around 1/3 of the Valkyrie's health gone and then losing at around 1/2, I eventually had to conclude that I should come back later. Not too much later though, I do not want this to get too easy to be a satisfying win.

Also, I found an enchantment stone that basically gives me Bayonetta's Witch Time, which is absolutely awesome. Though it's not nearly as good in this game as in hers - they seem to have made the timing for it extremely strict, and I'm pretty sure you don't have invincibility frames on dodges in this game, so that makes it crazy risky to go for it deliberately, especially compared to the much easier and lower-risk but still rewarding parry mechanic. Still, I've had that enchantment equipped ever since I found it, just because it's too awesome not to use. Always puts a smile on my face when it does trigger.

Plus, very much unlike the original games, the writing here is good. I actually look forward to the "down time" moments where I'm traversing the lake in a boat or traveling through the fast-travel doorways using the World Tree, because it prompts the characters to just talk to each other to fill the time. That is certainly not a thing I thought I'd ever be saying about God of War of all franchises.

[Ostara]

I've been playing the new Battletech and honestly just replaying Left 4 Dead 2 for funsies when I have free time, because it's relaxing to shoot zombies.

[danzibr]

Finishing up Disgaea 5, and finally playing Hyper Light Drifter. Wow it’s good.

[Bohandas]

Warlock: Master of the Arcane, which is sort of like a hex-based version of Master of Magic that doesn't allow troop stacking

Also Sushi Cat

[warty goblin]

Warlock: Master of the Arcane, which is sort of like a hex-based version of Master of Magic that doesn't allow troop stacking

Also Sushi Cat

I like to think of Warlock as the game Civ V or VI wishes it it was as smart as.


Grabbed Surviving Mars off the GoG sale over the weekend as a bit of a birthday celebration. So far it seems pretty cool; a nicely logistics-oriented sort of city builder. It does a really nice job of bringing your settlement to life, with robot scampering about and dome cities and everything.

[Jama7301]

Whoops, got my girlfriend addicted to Slime Rancher. i need the PS4 version to come out sooner than announced so I don't lose my computer.

[Knaight]

I like to think of Warlock as the game Civ V or VI wishes it it was as smart as.

See also: Age of Wonders III, Master of Orion (the remake).

The latter of which I've been playing a fair bit of recently. It really is a masterpiece, with a lot of viable goals and counter play for all of them.

[Doorhandle]

I like to think of Warlock as the game Civ V or VI wishes it it was as smart as.



I was under the opposite impression, but I still like Warlock I and II way more than Civ. I can't speak for multiplayer, but will Warlock my gameplay always devolved into "stomp every single monster base into the ground in order to level my lords to the point they can destroy civilizations single-handedly." Which, while cool, can be a little grindy. The campaigns are a nice spin on the whole thing as well, adding a little flavor to random maps.

On a similar veins there is "Eador: masters of the broken world," which seems like a compelling option...at as the same time from the RPS review it's going to like stellaris and require a good 100 hours before you can actually enjoy the game properly.

Also, I can't seem to get into age of wonders 3 as much as I hoped. I'm not grabbed by the campaign or scenarios, and I have no idea how to play archmages or druids properly. Though I may just be frustrated that early battles are tedious but autobattleing is very weak even with an absurd technical advantage.

Haven't done much gaming recently...which is unfortunate as my backlog is as deep and wide as the ocean. The only real exception is Slay the Spire, which is well worth buying for anyone who's a hearthstone dungeon nut, like myself.

May go to God of War next. I haven't played a third-person action game since dark souls 3.

[factotum]

Been playing Tyranny for several days and I'm still not sure if I like it. I think the main problem is that the game doesn't seem to give you options where you're not an a-hole to at least *one* person present...it's not really possible to play it as a good person who genuinely believes Kyros is the best thing for the world at large, for instance.

[Anteros]

Been playing Tyranny for several days and I'm still not sure if I like it. I think the main problem is that the game doesn't seem to give you options where you're not an a-hole to at least *one* person present...it's not really possible to play it as a good person who genuinely believes Kyros is the best thing for the world at large, for instance.

Well, that's because Kyros is an evil monster with almost no depth. You can be a pretty decent person if you choose to betray Kyros, but it's easy to miss that path.

[warty goblin]

See also: Age of Wonders III, Master of Orion (the remake).

The latter of which I've been playing a fair bit of recently. It really is a masterpiece, with a lot of viable goals and counter play for all of them.
I really should give the MoO some more time; I recall really liking a lot of the systems. The star system setup in particular is probably the favorite version of that I've seen.


I was under the opposite impression, but I still like Warlock I and II way more than Civ. I can't speak for multiplayer, but will Warlock my gameplay always devolved into "stom every single monster base into the ground in order to level my lords to the point they can destroy civilizations single-handedly." Which, while cool, can be a little grindy. The campaigns are a nice spin on the whole thing as well, adding a little flavor to random maps.

I seem to be one of about eight people in the universe who really did not like Civ VI; I just found the game ridiculously cluttered. I recall for instance playing as Egypt, and realizing that there were about four different ways to build a religion-generator, depending whether I wanted to build a district, inside a district, inside the city, or on its own tile on the map, which was rather ironic since Egyptian polytheism doesn't even count as a religion under the game's systems. And the trade routes for roads system is just a micromanagement nightmare.

Late game warfare in Warlock gets weird. Things like building land bridges becomes very popular, as does dealing with the post-apocalyptic hellscape that rampant spell abuse turns the map into. And if you play with the Dwemer invasion turned on, the game is just brutally hard.


On a similar veins there is "Eador: masters of the broken world," which seems like a compelling option...at as the same time from the RPS review it's going to like stellaris and require a good 100 hours before you can actually enjoy the game properly.

Also, I can't seem to get into age of wonders 3 as much as I hoped. I'm not grabbed by the campaign or scenarios, and I have no idea how to play archmages or druids properly. Though I may just be frustrated that early battles are tedious but autobattleing is very weak even with an absurd technical advantage.

Haven't done much gaming recently...which is unfortunate as my backlog is as deep and wide as the ocean. The only real exception is Slay the Spire, which is well worth buying for anyone who's a hearthstone dungeon nut, like myself.

May go to God of War next. I haven't played a third-person action game since dark souls 3.
The thing to remember about Age of Wonders is that the strategy layer is basically only there to give context to tactical battles, which become really excellent once you start unlocking second tier units.

Archmages are one of the more straightforwards classes. You don't get any particularly good units you can build, so you basically want to rush the Abomination or whatever the astral squid is called. The huge advantage of the squid is that, as a summon, you can drop them into whatever army needs reinforcement. This makes it easier to get to get a stack with a couple of them, which is handy for absolutely wrecking some enemy towns. Because you can also get lots of casting points, you can basically substitute magic for unit flexibility.

[factotum]

Well, that's because Kyros is an evil monster with almost no depth. You can be a pretty decent person if you choose to betray Kyros, but it's easy to miss that path.

Problem with that then becomes, if Kyros is so obviously evil, why would a basically good person be working for her in the first place?

I'm thinking I might restart and go with the Disfavored rather than Scarlet Chorus--I chose to go with the latter due to mechanical reasons during the pre-game choices (they seemed the more sneaky types), but what happens with Amelia and the Unbroken leader if you side with them is...not pleasant. At least Gravin Ashe doesn't seem to be an out-and-out psychopath.

[Knaight]

I really should give the MoO some more time; I recall really liking a lot of the systems. The star system setup in particular is probably the favorite version of that I've seen.
You really should. The star system setup is really solid, the tech tree is excellent, there's a decent amount of depth to ship design and tactical combat without getting lost in the weeds there, and as I mentioned the victory conditions are extremely well thought through. The way planetary resources work (with population assigned to slots that get progressively less valuable except for science, and with techs that both add to the baseline and enhance slots) also stands out as excellent.

Plus the different species play very differently, which can't really be said about Civ. The national units and buildings are just so minor, where changes to baseline resource production, population growth, planet preferences, etc. all actually have an impact.


I seem to be one of about eight people in the universe who really did not like Civ VI; I just found the game ridiculously cluttered.
You can bump that up to about nine - I wanted to like it, and I did buy it (once it was steeply discounted), but I ended up bouncing right off. There were a lot of decisions to make, and not that many of them were interesting.


Archmages are one of the more straightforwards classes. You don't get any particularly good units you can build, so you basically want to rush the Abomination or whatever the astral squid is called. The huge advantage of the squid is that, as a summon, you can drop them into whatever army needs reinforcement. This makes it easier to get to get a stack with a couple of them, which is handy for absolutely wrecking some enemy towns. Because you can also get lots of casting points, you can basically substitute magic for unit flexibility.
The lower level summons are pretty solid too - phantasmal warriors are excellent against anything that does physical damage, and even wisps can do okay in a fight (back when their shock aura had a two round stun instead of one I routinely used them as baby kraken hunters). There's an unusually high level of fight picking going on with independant cities, and some unassuming units will wreck the wizard summons*, but they're pretty nice.

That said, Archdruid remains my favorite class, so I'll handle that part. The hunters are basically just archers but better in most cases, while also being really useful at dealing with lairs and getting loot. Then there's the joy of every summon with the evolve** trait, with the spiders in particular being excellent units even before they evolve, with the reed serpent being a decent early tank post-evolution. They used to be borderline broken and by far my favorite Druid trick, but sadly the T3 interim evolution** and the changes to Paragon block some of the more fun shenanigans. On the other hand, in the campaign in particular the Archdruid hero abilities and piles of web/entangle available lend themselves so well to building terrifying animal armies in the early game via mind control. There's a core snowball strategy around early evolved units, captured units, and lair loot that isn't quite there in multiplayer but can still be brought in partially.

*Goblin Swarm Darters in particular, which is one of many reasons they're my favorite archer unit in the entire game.
**The name of that trait never ceases to annoy me. I blame Pokemon.

[Cristo Meyers]

You can bump that up to about nine - I wanted to like it, and I did buy it (once it was steeply discounted), but I ended up bouncing right off. There were a lot of decisions to make, and not that many of them were interesting.

Ten. My story is pretty much the same, though I got it with a 50% off coupon and a gamestop gift card.

The more I played, the less I found myself getting into it. I understand that they wanted to go with something different, but I think they just went too far out there. Very little worked the way I was used to and the game itself wasn't interesting enough to get me to want to learn it further.

[GloatingSwine]

Been playing Tyranny for several days and I'm still not sure if I like it. I think the main problem is that the game doesn't seem to give you options where you're not an a-hole to at least *one* person present...it's not really possible to play it as a good person who genuinely believes Kyros is the best thing for the world at large, for instance.

That's kinda the point though.

The clue is in the name. (Also Tyranny is usually not chirpy cheeky Dungeon Keeper evil, it's "give the prisoner the chance to live if they bash their friend's head in with a rock" evil.)

[Drasius]

Been playing Tyranny for several days and I'm still not sure if I like it. I think the main problem is that the game doesn't seem to give you options where you're not an a-hole to at least *one* person present...it's not really possible to play it as a good person who genuinely believes Kyros is the best thing for the world at large, for instance.

Dependant on your version of "good", it's actually not that hard. You won't be able to resolve every questline, but for the most part, taking the sane, rational option that leaves the Tiers intact and under Kyras' control rather than the mustache twirling villian option that results in them being a burnt husk where there used to be a thriving village is perfectly do-able. Granted, it's more the true neutral route rather than the secretly-liberate-the-tiers-from-Kyros that the campaign seems to push as the "good" option, but if you're trying to be a level-headed minion of the big-bad, the neutral side of things is probably what you're shooting for in the first place.

[factotum]

That's kinda the point though.

It's kind of sad that it doesn't seem to be possible to produce a CRPG these days where you can genuinely choose to be either good or evil and still play through in a way that makes sense to either viewpoint, though. It was certainly possible 20 years ago--just look at Planescape: Torment!

[GloatingSwine]

It's kind of sad that it doesn't seem to be possible to produce a CRPG these days where you can genuinely choose to be either good or evil and still play through in a way that makes sense to either viewpoint, though. It was certainly possible 20 years ago--just look at Planescape: Torment!

Using Tyranny, a game where the whole premise is "Evil won, decide your place in its new world order", as an argument for that is super weak though.

Tyranny is a game where the whole point from the design meeting on day one was "but what kind of evil are you?".

In bascally all the other modern CRPGs you're free to choose good or evil as you please.

[Psyren]

It's kind of sad that it doesn't seem to be possible to produce a CRPG these days where you can genuinely choose to be either good or evil and still play through in a way that makes sense to either viewpoint, though. It was certainly possible 20 years ago--just look at Planescape: Torment!

Have you played Divinity OS2? You can definitely be evil in that, both by becoming a despot in your own right, or by siding with the Big Bad (or the other Big Bad.)

[NeoVid]

The Free Stuff thread on here got me playing both Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and Quake Champions, and I can't stop.

[Triaxx]

Finally finished downloading Just Cause 3 and it's a lot of fun.

[Zevox]

So, God of War optional bonus late-game boss:
So, when I fought my first Valkyrie earlier I said I was feeling shades of Dante vs Vergil or Bayonetta vs Baldur from it? Well, the Valkyrie Queen is where that pays off. Goddamn but Sigrun is one of the greats among boss fights, definitely up there with those two. After an hour of near-wins it was so satisfying to finally finish her.

If only I'd thought to make a separate save after the fight so I could go back and re-play that if/when I want to...

[factotum]

Finally finished downloading Just Cause 3 and it's a lot of fun.

You ever played Just Cause 2? If not, you should try that as well--I reckon it's even slightly more fun than the sequel, although the explosions are obviously not as cool looking and you don't get rocket explosives to stick on random cars or people.

[Triaxx]

I've played a ton of Just Cause 2, but on the XboX because it was a free game with gold and I'm waiting for the Steam Summer Sale to rebuy it for PC.

[warty goblin]

You really should. The star system setup is really solid, the tech tree is excellent, there's a decent amount of depth to ship design and tactical combat without getting lost in the weeds there, and as I mentioned the victory conditions are extremely well thought through. The way planetary resources work (with population assigned to slots that get progressively less valuable except for science, and with techs that both add to the baseline and enhance slots) also stands out as excellent.

Plus the different species play very differently, which can't really be said about Civ. The national units and buildings are just so minor, where changes to baseline resource production, population growth, planet preferences, etc. all actually have an impact.

I also recall quite liking the pollution system, which served as a nice obstacle to slow down those all factory worlds so many space 4X games end up with.

(Oddly, one of my complaints about Civ V and VI is that the civs come with too many distinct bonuses. Aside from the weird semi-primordialist philosophy baked into the mechanics*, I don't usually like strategy games where I choose how I'm gonna play before I start playing. Seems basically counter to the point of being a strategy game. This bothers me less in a sci-fi game because different species of aliens being radically different doesn't really have the same philosophical baggage that positing there's a fundamental 'American' identity traceable from 3000 BC does, and because it usually comes with more interesting sorts of alterations to the base gameplay. Playing a bunch of robot-people who don't need food is less choosing what victory condition you'll be chasing, and more taking on a different set of mechanics.)


*Which, as part of it's commitment to incoherence at every possible level, Civ VI then walks back with stuff like the Eureka system. Personally I'd rather a game where Civs were very close to identical at the beginning (possibly with starting techs assigned based on starting location) and pretty much all bonuses were picked up as a result of gameplay.



You can bump that up to about nine - I wanted to like it, and I did buy it (once it was steeply discounted), but I ended up bouncing right off. There were a lot of decisions to make, and not that many of them were interesting.
Yeah, the amount of stuff it threw at the screen every turn was tedious. I'd pay for an expansion that removed about a third of its mechanics.



That said, Archdruid remains my favorite class, so I'll handle that part. The hunters are basically just archers but better in most cases, while also being really useful at dealing with lairs and getting loot. Then there's the joy of every summon with the evolve** trait, with the spiders in particular being excellent units even before they evolve, with the reed serpent being a decent early tank post-evolution. They used to be borderline broken and by far my favorite Druid trick, but sadly the T3 interim evolution** and the changes to Paragon block some of the more fun shenanigans. On the other hand, in the campaign in particular the Archdruid hero abilities and piles of web/entangle available lend themselves so well to building terrifying animal armies in the early game via mind control. There's a core snowball strategy around early evolved units, captured units, and lair loot that isn't quite there in multiplayer but can still be brought in partially.

Now I want to play an Archdruid.

[Silfir]

Ocarina of Time: Randomizer edition. Rearranges all of the items in chests and given by NPCs to show up in potentially any location, but ensures there's a way to collect them and beat the game.

The one complete run I did was in the "Closed Forest" variant, which ensures Kokiri Sword and Fairy Slingshot prior to Deku Tree, and led to beating Dodongo's Cavern as adult, then Fire Temple thanks to an early Megaton Hammer, and then getting stuck, until I realized I could reach the rooftop chest in Gerudo Fortress with the Hover Boots, which held the Boomerang, which allowed me to collect 50 skulltulas, which finally gave me the Hookshot and blew the rest of the game wide open.

If you're like me and you've played the game more than once and were desperately looking for an excuse to get to play it again, this is almost definitely the way to go.

In my current playthrough I've basically done everything you can even do as a child - sans the part of the Spirit Temple you're supposed to do - and never even found the Kokiri Sword. You can go pretty far on Deku Sticks. The first other weapon I found? Magic Meter upgrade (from a chest in Kokiri Forest, because this is Randomizer after all) and Din's Fire. Say Hello to Link the Pyromancer!

[Knaight]

I also recall quite liking the pollution system, which served as a nice obstacle to slow down those all factory worlds so many space 4X games end up with.
I'm with you there. The pollution mechanics are also interesting because of some of the decisions made in the tech tree, where if you don't have Creative (which is straight up broken) there's a case where a top pollution handling tech and a top factory tech are in direct opposition, and a bunch of cases where the decisions of where in the tree pollution and industry techs are placed can lead to interesting decisions.



(Oddly, one of my complaints about Civ V and VI is that the civs come with too many distinct bonuses. Aside from the weird semi-primordialist philosophy baked into the mechanics*, I don't usually like strategy games where I choose how I'm gonna play before I start playing. Seems basically counter to the point of being a strategy game. This bothers me less in a sci-fi game because different species of aliens being radically different doesn't really have the same philosophical baggage that positing there's a fundamental 'American' identity traceable from 3000 BC does, and because it usually comes with more interesting sorts of alterations to the base gameplay. Playing a bunch of robot-people who don't need food is less choosing what victory condition you'll be chasing, and more taking on a different set of mechanics.)
A lot of small mechanics that individually do basically nothing is pretty much the Civ V and VI way, and the civilization bonuses are one of the best examples of this. I could see walking it back helping, but only if there was a little more in the way of permanent decisions later.


Now I want to play an Archdruid.
You should. They're an incredibly fun class, and if you replay the Halfling campaign you'll get to play a decent amount of them. Plus, the Halfling campaign involves nagas, which are either the most fun or second most fun independant city depending on how you feel about faeries.

[LibraryOgre]

Trying another Mass Effect run... Sentinel-turned-pseudo-vanguard in ME1, to go actual Vanguard in ME2&3 (I like having Shepherd have Electronics and Decryption in ME1)

[Starbuck_II]

Replaying FO 4 because never beat it (now playing it on PC so can get mods and still get achievements/there is mod to still get them).

One mod got me a scattered laser blaster in a maintenance vault, 52 is pretty good for a weapon at level 5. Trouble is all those lasers man easy top hit npcs in a big fight. Now I got to avoid Covenant for 3 days( or rest 3 days) to reset them to friendly when I fought a murelurk and they decided to help.

Zombie walkers makes ghoul frequent attackers. And if you ever die, you respawn somewhere (with all your stuff on a ghoul version of you)
Trying a charismatic character not hugely physical at start.
Deciding if I should find Boston or not: drawback-Preston gives recurring quests to help settlers.

[David_Bautis]

Now I'm playing Devil May Cry 3 and Resident Evil 4 game. Both are really awesome game.

[Anteros]

On Age of Wonders classes, I've always enjoyed the Theocrat. I like their spells and the flavor of their abilities. Unfortunately they're probably one of the weaker overall heroes with their capstone ability (resurgence for the entire army) not applying to their Tier 3 and Tier 4 units. You have to rely on chance or summons to get powerful units that synergize with your main hero. It's usually possible to do, but it's not guaranteed.

[Cespenar]

On Age of Wonders classes, I've always enjoyed the Theocrat. I like their spells and the flavor of their abilities. Unfortunately they're probably one of the weaker overall heroes with their capstone ability (resurgence for the entire army) not applying to their Tier 3 and Tier 4 units. You have to rely on chance or summons to get powerful units that synergize with your main hero. It's usually possible to do, but it's not guaranteed.

Was Theocrat the one with charms and brainwashes? If so I agree, it had a nice flavor and fun gameplay.

[DigoDragon]

I really should give the MoO some more time;

One of those little appreciative details of the game is that they have occasionally been updating the news ticker that scrolls across the bottom of GNN reports with satire based on current events and trends.

[Brookshw]

Have you played Divinity OS2? You can definitely be evil in that, both by becoming a despot in your own right, or by siding with the Big Bad (or the other Big Bad.)

Did they fix the writing/dialogue or is it the same hammy nonsense as the first one?

[Resileaf]

Got an urge to play me some Advance Wars. Sadly no functioning Game Boy Advance in here. I may have to rely on emulators for the first two games.

I want a new Advance Wars. D:

[Triaxx]

Try into the breach for a similar style of game.

[Anteros]

Did they fix the writing/dialogue or is it the same hammy nonsense as the first one?

It's a bit more mature in tone than the first one. I wouldn't say it's particularly well written or particularly poorly written. It's typical CRPG fare. Most of the characters have very interesting backstories, but their actual in-game dialogue is a bit weak.

I'm trying to get into the Witcher 3 since everyone keeps on about it as if it's the greatest game ever made. I just can't seem to get into it though.

[factotum]

It's a bit more mature in tone than the first one. I wouldn't say it's particularly well written or particularly poorly written. It's typical CRPG fare. Most of the characters have very interesting backstories, but their actual in-game dialogue is a bit weak.

I'm trying to get into the Witcher 3 since everyone keeps on about it as if it's the greatest game ever made. I just can't seem to get into it though.

It's worth noting that there's an enhanced edition of D:OS2 on the way where they've done a lot of cleaning up and rewriting of dialogue, so maybe that one will be better?

As for the Witcher 3, what is it that you're struggling with? The game does limit combat to mainly swords, with magic and crossbow being explicitly support, which IMHO is a count against it, but the story and quests are second to none.

[Anteros]

It's worth noting that there's an enhanced edition of D:OS2 on the way where they've done a lot of cleaning up and rewriting of dialogue, so maybe that one will be better?

As for the Witcher 3, what is it that you're struggling with? The game does limit combat to mainly swords, with magic and crossbow being explicitly support, which IMHO is a count against it, but the story and quests are second to none.

I like the characters a lot so far, but the controls are...not great. Combat feels much better with a controller, but movement feels much better with the keyboard and mouse. The game just feels so huge, and it's a daunting task to think about navigating it with these controls.

Also the way my work schedule goes lately, I'm typically on the clock for literal days at a time, and I very rarely have more than an hour or two to string together for gaming. It doesn't really seem like the type of game that lends itself well to my schedule. The joys of the medical field :smallsigh:

In regards to DOS 2: Isn't that game brand new? Bug fixes should be released as ya'know...bug fixes. They're basically saying "Hey, our game was a buggy mess before, but if you wanna give us ANOTHER 70 dollars, you can play the version we should have released in the first place." They did this same thing with the Enhanced Edition of the first game. It left a bad taste in my mouth then, and now it's proving to be a habit. I like their games, but not enough to pay full price twice every time they release something.

At least now that they've established that they're going to do this every time I'll know not to buy their titles on release any more.

[factotum]

In regards to DOS 2: Isn't that game brand new? Bug fixes should be released as ya'know...bug fixes. They're basically saying "Hey, our game was a buggy mess before, but if you wanna give us ANOTHER 70 dollars, you can play the version we should have released in the first place." They did this same thing with the Enhanced Edition of the first game.

With D:OS2 (and I'm pretty sure this was also the case with the first game--it certainly was with Kickstarter backers) the enhanced edition is free to anyone who already owned the game? So they're hardly asking you to buy it again.

As for Witcher 3, I don't remember having a big problem with the controls. I played it entirely with mouse and keyboard, never tried a controller.

[Rynjin]

Can confirm, I have Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced and I didn't play the original game all the way through. I certainly didn't buy it twice.

[Doorhandle]

I seem to be one of about eight people in the universe who really did not like Civ VI; I just found the game ridiculously cluttered. I recall for instance playing as Egypt, and realizing that there were about four different ways to build a religion-generator, depending whether I wanted to build a district, inside a district, inside the city, or on its own tile on the map, which was rather ironic since Egyptian polytheism doesn't even count as a religion under the game's systems. And the trade routes for roads system is just a micromanagement nightmare.

Late game warfare in Warlock gets weird. Things like building land bridges becomes very popular, as does dealing with the post-apocalyptic hellscape that rampant spell abuse turns the map into. And if you play with the Dwemer invasion turned on, the game is just brutally hard.
The thing to remember about Age of Wonders is that the strategy layer is basically only there to give context to tactical battles, which become really excellent once you start unlocking second tier units.

Archmages are one of the more straightforwards classes. You don't get any particularly good units you can build, so you basically want to rush the Abomination or whatever the astral squid is called. The huge advantage of the squid is that, as a summon, you can drop them into whatever army needs reinforcement. This makes it easier to get to get a stack with a couple of them, which is handy for absolutely wrecking some enemy towns. Because you can also get lots of casting points, you can basically substitute magic for unit flexibility.

TBH, Civ didn't wow me either, I just reckon there a lot more depth to it's gamplay. A cluttered UI doesn't help, granted.

Warlock endgame is pretty wacky, I agree.
And the Dremer are bastards: so satisfying to see their homeworld destroyed by Warlock 2.
The final world of the Warlock 2 campaign is pretty hard too, but at least your units can heal. The Naga's constant oceaning is a pain in the ass, but their final world is nowhere near as hard so it balances out.

I'll keep that in mind for archmages: hunker down and tech up.

I didn't end up making it to GOW yet: Damn you steam sale!

Streets of Rouge was pretty hilarious, but didn't have anywhere near as much longevity as I hoped: hopefully will be improved by full release. Though to be fair, it's more fun played like Grand Theft auto than actually fulfilling the missions properly.

Planetary annihilation is every bit the absurdity I thought it was...but it even extends to the AI! Normal is too wimpy to fear at all, while the next jump, "hard," would have peeled my eyes through my nose if I hadn't managed to sneak a metal planet while everyone else was busy. Even then I could have lost, if I didn't eventually take the time to figure out how to fire the lazer more than once. Very nearly got buried under approximately a hundred attack satellites.
In general, the first person to sneak offworld seems to have a massive unfair advantage, what with being able to expand free of reproach.
...honestly, the game as a whole could be better if it was just a superweapon tennis match, with 5 players in a 15-planet system all flinging titans, planets, and nukes at eachother.
All in all it's probably good for a few more laughs before I start working on the rest of my backlog.


On Age of Wonders classes, I've always enjoyed the Theocrat. I like their spells and the flavor of their abilities. Unfortunately they're probably one of the weaker overall heroes with their capstone ability (resurgence for the entire army) not applying to their Tier 3 and Tier 4 units. You have to rely on chance or summons to get powerful units that synergize with your main hero. It's usually possible to do, but it's not guaranteed.

Can confirm, Orc theocrat is easily one of the more fun classes...though there's an art to maxing their effectiveness. Look at the steam guide for them. It's slightly (only slightly) more complex than "tech up your final units and then steamroll(literally with the dreadnaught) the map."
Also, theocrats as minor heroes are fantastic because 50% of their abilities screw over undead and undead are everywhere on the main map.
...By the way, how are you supposed to win the game playing as a good guy? I usually just invade my way to victory.

[Anteros]

If the DoS remaster is free to people who bought the game then I take back what I said. I haven't seen that reported anywhere though.

I certainly seem to remember paying for the original and also the EE version, but maybe I'm wrong. It has been quite a while.


T
Can confirm, Orc theocrat is easily one of the more fun classes...though there's an art to maxing their effectiveness. Look at the steam guide for them. It's slightly (only slightly) more complex than "tech up your final units and then steamroll(literally with the dreadnaught) the map."
Also, theocrats as minor heroes are fantastic because 50% of their abilities screw over undead and undead are everywhere on the main map.
...By the way, how are you supposed to win the game playing as a good guy? I usually just invade my way to victory.

You basically can't win as pure good because there's always one or two enemies who won't ally with you, but also won't declare war on you. You end up just staring at each other forever once everyone else is eliminated. Sometimes you can get them to ally with you if you have very good relations and then bribe them with like 3,000 gold. The AI is waaaay too reluctant to ally for some reason, even when you're a billion times more powerful than them. I usually just consider the game won when it gets to this point and quit though. Either that, or I accept that I'll have to commit a few evil actions and start a conflict.

Typically the challenge is gone by the time you hit this late in the game though and you'd just be auto-calculating your way to victory. Unless you just enjoy steamrolling the weak computer AI over and over. The game needs a patch or mod to change the AI aggression and competency desperately.

I suppose I could play online, but I'm quite certain that anyone playing online at this point would steamroll a casual player like me easily.

[warty goblin]

I'm with you there. The pollution mechanics are also interesting because of some of the decisions made in the tech tree, where if you don't have Creative (which is straight up broken) there's a case where a top pollution handling tech and a top factory tech are in direct opposition, and a bunch of cases where the decisions of where in the tree pollution and industry techs are placed can lead to interesting decisions.

On your suggestion I reinstalled the new Master of Orion, and just wrapped up a game. I ended up winning a diplomatic victory as the meklar, since destroying Anteres was going to be very difficult and I was about three bribes away from diplomatic victory. Overall I quite liked it, the pieces felt quite sensible, and the game's general aversion to percentage bonuses meant things were seldom super-swingy. No building something or losing something and suddenly your entire economy tailspins, which annoys me no end.





You should. They're an incredibly fun class, and if you replay the Halfling campaign you'll get to play a decent amount of them. Plus, the Halfling campaign involves nagas, which are either the most fun or second most fun independant city depending on how you feel about faeries.
Fairies are just the best. They're like adorable little commandos.



You basically can't win as pure good because there's always one or two enemies who won't ally with you, but also won't declare war on you. You end up just staring at each other forever once everyone else is eliminated. Sometimes you can get them to ally with you if you have very good relations and then bribe them with like 3,000 gold. The AI is waaaay too reluctant to ally for some reason, even when you're a billion times more powerful than them. I usually just consider the game won when it gets to this point and quit though. Either that, or I accept that I'll have to commit a few evil actions and start a conflict.

Typically the challenge is gone by the time you hit this late in the game though and you'd just be auto-calculating your way to victory. Unless you just enjoy steamrolling the weak computer AI over and over. The game needs a patch or mod to change the AI aggression and competency desperately.

I suppose I could play online, but I'm quite certain that anyone playing online at this point would steamroll a casual player like me easily.

I've never had that problem, at least with the seals victory turned on. As soon as I cap a couple seals, everybody and their uncle will declare war on me, alliance or not. Generally I like to do that before I've gotten super far ahead, so that the AI can actually hit back effectively, which leads to some pretty good fights.

Really, I find the AI in Age of Wonders III to be pretty much right where I'd want it. It can play the game credibly and I can usually figure out why it does a thing - declare war so I don't get a seals win, etc. This means I can engineer the sort of game I want to play without a lot of bother, and without playing in a really absurd way.

[Zevox]

I've just finished the new God of War. Damn, but it's a really good game. Easily better than its predecessors in every meaningful way. And of course, there's some obvious sequel setup near the end, and that makes me eagerly await that sequel. I didn't get this one when it launched because I was skeptical of the new direction they were taking it for a few reasons, but after playing this, it's pretty much guaranteed I'll grab the sequel immediately.

I really hope that can make the inevitable Thor fight as fantastic as the Sigrun one from this game. And possibly the likely fight with Freya, especially since it's set up that she was the original Queen of the Valkyries, and those were by far the best boss fights in this game (or any of the God of War games).

Meanwhile, also been playing a lot of BlazBlue Cross Tag this week, with roughly half of its announced DLC now out. I knew it was coming, but dang, I cannot settle on a character in this game. I spent the days after launch playing Platinum/Es, moved back to my beta team of Ruby/Weiss, then tried Ruby/Blake. Then the DLC hit and I've been playing variations of teams with Yang, pairing her with Ruby, then Blake, then Naoto. Really want to try Jubei out as well, and do some more Persona-centric teams like Yu/Chie, Chie/Yukiko, or mix some of them with Ruby or Yang. And when the rest of the DLC hits in August, this will only get worse.

There hasn't been a fighting game with this many characters I really want to play outside of Smash Brothers. The difference is that in Smash the game's simple enough that I can just play a bunch of characters with relatively little problem, but BlazBlue is more complicated and I need to learn a lot more to play these characters effectively. Love it to pieces, but dang, it's almost too much of a good thing.

[Ebon_Drake]

Currently playing Life is Strange. Just finished Episode 2. The mechanics are kind of awkward in a way that I'll probably never be fully happy with and it's a little more pixel-hunt adventure gamey than I expected. Hopefully the "find 5 bottles" section of Ep 2 is as far as it goes in that direction, but I'm not holding my breath. I also wish it gave more leeway to explore previous areas since I missed half the photos in Ep 1. However, the story's good and engaging and as it's a narrative-heavy game that's the main thing. Never have I been so terrified of the phrase "This action will have consequences", especially when all I did was water a plant or open a cupboard!

I've been trying to play more from a consistent characterisation perspective than trying to make the optimal choice each time - not least since it's a blind first play and picking what seems like the best choice in the moment can lead to worse things happening further down the line. I also feel there probably aren't optimal choices a lot of the time anyway, just different kinds of bad. I'm looking forward to seeing just how badly I end up accidentally screwing everything up.

I came within a step of saving Kate, but botched it at the last hurdle. I actually thought I'd succeeded for a moment since she said she was stepping down, but then it threw up the last question where I had to pick the right Bible passage. I'd seen them in her book and knew which of them I'd need to pick, but the options just gave them as Proverbs 21:12 and Matthew 18:10 (or whatever) so I couldn't remember which one was which. I don't have a Bible and didn't have another means of looking it up to hand, so had to do a blind pick and ended up going for the wrong one. FAIL.

[Anteros]

I've never had that problem, at least with the seals victory turned on. As soon as I cap a couple seals, everybody and their uncle will declare war on me, alliance or not. Generally I like to do that before I've gotten super far ahead, so that the AI can actually hit back effectively, which leads to some pretty good fights.

Really, I find the AI in Age of Wonders III to be pretty much right where I'd want it. It can play the game credibly and I can usually figure out why it does a thing - declare war so I don't get a seals win, etc. This means I can engineer the sort of game I want to play without a lot of bother, and without playing in a really absurd way.

I disagree about the AI. It's way too passive for my tastes. Then again, I've never liked the style of gameplay and the arbitrary time restriction on the game that the seals create. Maybe I need to give them a few more tries.

[LibraryOgre]

On the computer, I've gone for another run at Mass Effect, this time with a Sentinel-turned-pseudo-Vanguard, who will become full Vanguard in ME2 and 3... I like to have electronics and Decryption on my ME1 character, and there's not a huge difference between a Vanguard and a Sentinel in ME1, except for the presence of shotguns.

On my phone, I've been playing Empires & Puzzles. It is basically Bejeweled with a bare veneer of story-game elements... sure, I'm going after this evil overlord, but I only hear from him when I clear an area.

[warty goblin]

I disagree about the AI. It's way too passive for my tastes. Then again, I've never liked the style of gameplay and the arbitrary time restriction on the game that the seals create. Maybe I need to give them a few more tries.

It could be a bit more active yeah, but I'd far rather have it than something like the utterly spastic AI of modern Civ games.

The thing about the seals victory is that yes, it's gamey as hell. But it's a great way to focus conflict for the last section of a game. I've had some really good multi-stack throwdowns over seals, or to knock out an AI city nearby, and it's a much more pleasant endgame than chasing down every last AI city on the map. And because you need to hold multiple seals, the AI is proactive about attacking them, and they respawn powerful stacks on their own, it can actually push my limits in terms of keeping multiple effective armies in the field. Mind, this could also be because I'm not very good at the game; I'm actively terrible at most games so this wouldn't surprise me at all.

[Cespenar]

Currently playing Life is Strange. Just finished Episode 2. The mechanics are kind of awkward in a way that I'll probably never be fully happy with and it's a little more pixel-hunt adventure gamey than I expected. Hopefully the "find 5 bottles" section of Ep 2 is as far as it goes in that direction, but I'm not holding my breath. I also wish it gave more leeway to explore previous areas since I missed half the photos in Ep 1. However, the story's good and engaging and as it's a narrative-heavy game that's the main thing. Never have I been so terrified of the phrase "This action will have consequences", especially when all I did was water a plant or open a cupboard!

I've been trying to play more from a consistent characterisation perspective than trying to make the optimal choice each time - not least since it's a blind first play and picking what seems like the best choice in the moment can lead to worse things happening further down the line. I also feel there probably aren't optimal choices a lot of the time anyway, just different kinds of bad. I'm looking forward to seeing just how badly I end up accidentally screwing everything up.

I came within a step of saving Kate, but botched it at the last hurdle. I actually thought I'd succeeded for a moment since she said she was stepping down, but then it threw up the last question where I had to pick the right Bible passage. I'd seen them in her book and knew which of them I'd need to pick, but the options just gave them as Proverbs 21:12 and Matthew 18:10 (or whatever) so I couldn't remember which one was which. I don't have a Bible and didn't have another means of looking it up to hand, so had to do a blind pick and ended up going for the wrong one. FAIL.

Your perspective towards the choice system is pretty reasonable and I found that that makes the game much more enjoyable than one with a constant search for optimal choices.

Also, not to spoil anything, but the consequences really don't create a "really bad" state that could be avoided by meticulous attention to details or whatnot, so at least you can get a bit comfortable in that regard. The Kate thing is probably the biggest impact you can have with your choices on the game, other than the ending decision.

[Zombimode]

Your perspective towards the choice system is pretty reasonable and I found that that makes the game much more enjoyable than one with a constant search for optimal choices.

Also, not to spoil anything, but the consequences really don't create a "really bad" state that could be avoided by meticulous attention to details or whatnot, so at least you can get a bit comfortable in that regard. The Kate thing is probably the biggest impact you can have with your choices on the game, other than the ending decision.

Hunting for "optimal choices" in Life Is Strange 2 is kinda missing the point. You're not some highly competent specialist, you're just some stupid teenage girl. It IS a coming of age story and making decisions, learning to live with the consequences of those decisions and understanding that matters can be more complicated than your teenage mind originally thought are all part of it. And I think the game is excellent in delivering that experience.

[Anteros]

It could be a bit more active yeah, but I'd far rather have it than something like the utterly spastic AI of modern Civ games.

The thing about the seals victory is that yes, it's gamey as hell. But it's a great way to focus conflict for the last section of a game. I've had some really good multi-stack throwdowns over seals, or to knock out an AI city nearby, and it's a much more pleasant endgame than chasing down every last AI city on the map. And because you need to hold multiple seals, the AI is proactive about attacking them, and they respawn powerful stacks on their own, it can actually push my limits in terms of keeping multiple effective armies in the field. Mind, this could also be because I'm not very good at the game; I'm actively terrible at most games so this wouldn't surprise me at all.

I tried a seals game today and the AI does seem a bit more aggressive. I didn't have time to get past the early game though, so it's hard to say for sure.

I wonder if this aggression carries over into the Beacon mode. Something to test later.

[Lector87]

After finishing my BG2 solo Cavalier run, I took a look at all the amazing games that have come out in the last couple years, went into a seizure of choice paralysis, and naturally opted for a game from 1996.

I'm playing the original Diablo, Belzebub mod, as a Rogue. Hot diddly DANG does that game hold up. Few things are more satisfying than the distilled essence of dungeon-crawler.

On a whim, I decided to screenshot-blog the playthrough (http://angharads-adventures.tumblr.com/), and messing about in Tumblr led to some basic but gratifying lessons in how CSS works.

[warty goblin]

I tried a seals game today and the AI does seem a bit more aggressive. I didn't have time to get past the early game though, so it's hard to say for sure.

I wonder if this aggression carries over into the Beacon mode. Something to test later.

The AI mostly gets going when somebody knocks the neutrals off of a seal for the first time. Then a very chummy sort of situation turns into a hot war real fast.

[Ebon_Drake]

Hunting for "optimal choices" in Life Is Strange 2 is kinda missing the point. You're not some highly competent specialist, you're just some stupid teenage girl. It IS a coming of age story and making decisions, learning to live with the consequences of those decisions and understanding that matters can be more complicated than your teenage mind originally thought are all part of it. And I think the game is excellent in delivering that experience.

Yeah, my approach is "I'm shy, awkward and somewhat afraid of confrontation, but also kindhearted and try to be nice to people" and am trying to go for options that feel true to that. I'm also going for being way more friendly with Chloe than is probably healthy. I'd be interested to do some more runs through to try out some different options and see how much it changes the game, but then I also said that about Witcher 2 and never actually did it.

I also have Before The Storm lined up for afterwards, where I plan to be a total ass.

[rooster707]

Finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown, finally, after around five runs that just kind of trailed off partway through. Now I’m starting Subnautica, the first game in my Summer Sale haul. I’m about three hours in and liking it so far, but I feel lost pretty much all the time. I don’t really know where I am, what I should be doing, or where to find the resources I need. I’m not sure if it’s the game’s fault or mine, but it would be nice to have a map at the very least.

[JNAProductions]

Tales of Maj'Eyal

As in, like, right now.

As in I'm streaming it.

Find it here (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_V8zM8w2vrINQ79Jj_NZXg/live).

Edit: No longer live.

[Knaight]

Tales of Maj'Eyal

As in, like, right now.

As in I'm streaming it.

Find it here (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_V8zM8w2vrINQ79Jj_NZXg/live).

Apart from the streaming, that makes two of us (though I'm close to calling it a night). It's an excellent game, and the new content has been fun so far.

[Silverraptor]

Finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown, finally, after around five runs that just kind of trailed off partway through. Now I’m starting Subnautica, the first game in my Summer Sale haul. I’m about three hours in and liking it so far, but I feel lost pretty much all the time. I don’t really know where I am, what I should be doing, or where to find the resources I need. I’m not sure if it’s the game’s fault or mine, but it would be nice to have a map at the very least.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/subnautica/images/7/7e/595137118_preview_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161126033628

Here's a good map for resources and creatures in the different regions.

[Cespenar]

Apart from the streaming, that makes two of us (though I'm close to calling it a night). It's an excellent game, and the new content has been fun so far.

Is there some new new content? I last saw the Possessor, which was fun.

[Knaight]

Is there some new new content? I last saw the Possessor, which was fun.

The Forbidden Cults expansion came out a few days ago. It's closer to Ashes than Embers, mostly adding new classes, a new race (or more than one, I didn't count), new dungeons, new lore, etc.

These new classes include one that's basically a weird hybrid of the Reaper, Alchemist, and Oozemancer, and that's the one available from the beginning. I've been having a lot of fun with it. The other I don't really know, but what little I've seen indicates that you get to deliberately kill yourself under certain conditions to damage opponents instead of dying, so I already approve.

[Cespenar]

The Forbidden Cults expansion came out a few days ago. It's closer to Ashes than Embers, mostly adding new classes, a new race (or more than one, I didn't count), new dungeons, new lore, etc.

These new classes include one that's basically a weird hybrid of the Reaper, Alchemist, and Oozemancer, and that's the one available from the beginning. I've been having a lot of fun with it. The other I don't really know, but what little I've seen indicates that you get to deliberately kill yourself under certain conditions to damage opponents instead of dying, so I already approve.

Cool. I guess hoping for something like a new campaign is too much at this point, but eh. I had enjoyed the orc campaign pretty much.

[rooster707]

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/subnautica/images/7/7e/595137118_preview_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161126033628

Here's a good map for resources and creatures in the different regions.

Thanks! Right now I’m still trying to figure things out for myself, but once my self-control inevitably fails this’ll be very useful.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Shadowrun Returns (thanks, free games thread!) & Harvest Moon Stardew Valley. Weird combo, I know, but when I get home, sometimes I feel the need to forget about the world by growing some turnips, and sometimes I need to have my robot minions mow down everything with automatic fire.

Still contemplating what to buy for the summer sale. Seriously considering the oter two shadowruns & maybe the nuMoO, but I'd appreciate some recommendations along those lines.

GW

[Anteros]

The other two Shadowrun games are much better than Returns in my opinion. I'd definitely recommend them highly if you're enjoying returns.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The other two Shadowrun games are much better than Returns in my opinion. I'd definitely recommend them highly if you're enjoying returns.

Huh. I think i saw them both heavily discounted, so I'll take that into consideration, thanks. What makes them better, though? I am enjoying the fast progression - fights are satisfying but short enough I can get through a few in a session, whereas in XCOM, I usually struggle to complete even one battle.

(Also, I found the naming of the series quite confusing - took me a while to establish that "X Returns" is actually NOT the second game in the X series. Now, I understand that they aren't true sequels, but which one came after returns?)

GW

[Cristo Meyers]

Huh. I think i saw them both heavily discounted, so I'll take that into consideration, thanks. What makes them better, though? I am enjoying the fast progression - fights are satisfying but short enough I can get through a few in a session, whereas in XCOM, I usually struggle to complete even one battle.

(Also, I found the naming of the series quite confusing - took me a while to establish that "X Returns" is actually NOT the second game in the X series. Now, I understand that they aren't true sequels, but which one came after returns?)

GW

Dragonfall is the second game.

Dragonfall and Hong Kong are just more fleshed out story-wise and mission-wise than Returns was. Everything's just a bit more robust, making Returns feel kinda like a test run.

[Anteros]

Huh. I think i saw them both heavily discounted, so I'll take that into consideration, thanks. What makes them better, though? I am enjoying the fast progression - fights are satisfying but short enough I can get through a few in a session, whereas in XCOM, I usually struggle to complete even one battle.

(Also, I found the naming of the series quite confusing - took me a while to establish that "X Returns" is actually NOT the second game in the X series. Now, I understand that they aren't true sequels, but which one came after returns?)

GW

Better characters, better storytelling, more streamlined experience, more options in character building and more options in ways you can approach missions. Just my personal opinions of course. Hong Kong starts a little slow if you're like me and want to talk to every single NPC, but it picks up and is the strongest game overall in my opinion.

Returns is a perfectly fine game in its own right, but it's hard to go back to it after playing the other two.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Returns is a perfectly fine game in its own right, but it's hard to go back to it after playing the other two.

That's OK, I figure I won't ever replay it anyway since it's too plot-driven for me to go through it again. I had to restart it a couple of times once I understood the classes a bit better, but I don't see myself playing it through fully a second time.

GW

[Jama7301]

I've fallen into a sports-and-third-person-shooter hole lately.

Super Mega Baseball 2, because I haven't finished my custom league yet, and beating up on teams named after my friends is fun.

Mario Golf Toadstool Tour is a relaxing way to kill time.

Splatoon 2 is still a delight and treat in single player, and is still one of my favorite multiplayer games.

Fortnite, because playing it on switch is pretty enjoyable and I can lounge about anywhere in my apartment playing it.

[Sajiri]

I've been enjoying playing Conan Exiles co op with the husband the last week or so. I keep accidentally hitting him with my daggers and bow though then bleeding or poisoning him. Oops :smalleek:

My holidays have started now so Im going to try to get back into and finish a few games I've started and never got around to completing, namely Persona 5, Breath of the Wild, Dragons Dogma and Bloodborne.

[Zombimode]

Huh. I think i saw them both heavily discounted, so I'll take that into consideration, thanks. What makes them better, though?

Dragonfall has stellar writing, especially concerning the 4 companion NPCs. The game's structure and pacing of the narrative are also very well done.

I would even go as far as saying that Dragonfall could be used as a textbook example on how to construct a narrative in a story-based video game.

[LibraryOgre]

Dragonfall has stellar writing, especially concerning the 4 companion NPCs. The game's structure and pacing of the narrative are also very well done.

I would even go as far as saying that Dragonfall could be used as a textbook example on how to construct a narrative in a story-based video game.

The entire series was pretty great... though I'd kind of like to see Returns redone with the UI improvements of DF/HK.

[Anteros]

Yeah, the Shadowrun series really was excellent. It's hard to believe that the same company made the recent Battletech game. Not that it's a bad game, but it's not near the quality of the Shadowrun games to me.

[ufo]

I was just lamenting to a friend that Shadowrun: Dragonfall is not held up as one of the greatest cRPGs of our time, which I truly think it is, especially compared to the dull tryhard fantasy drama of Torment: Fantasy Word Salad and Pillars of Redundancy.

[warty goblin]

I was just lamenting to a friend that Shadowrun: Dragonfall is not held up as one of the greatest cRPGs of our time, which I truly think it is, especially compared to the dull tryhard fantasy drama of Torment: Fantasy Word Salad and Pillars of Redundancy.

For reasons I do not pretend to grasp, a lot of people really like Obsidian games. The only title they've developed that I've ever finished was Alpha Protocol, which was at least interesting, if deeply flawed in any number of ways. I found Pillars to be an excellent boredom simulator; the writing was both tedious and voluminous, and although the combat was decent it took a long time and there was a huge amount of it. It felt a lot like one of those fantasy novels where the author is just totally convinced that taking standard fantasy and subverting it a bit will, like, totally blow your mind, dude. Nevermind that some bog-standard subversions are honestly about the least interesting thing to do with conventional fantasy; there's still elves and dwarves and all, only now they probably aren't elves and dwarves I actually particularly enjoy.

[Jama7301]

It feels like sci-fi/cyberpunk/modern/'real-world" RPGs have a ahrder time breaking into the "Greatest RPGs ever" discussion, as if the presence of a gun makes it a new genre entirely. Not a unified theory though, since people put the Fallout games on various charts, but it seems like fantasy has a leg up on the competition for whatever reason.

[Knaight]

It feels like sci-fi/cyberpunk/modern/'real-world" RPGs have a ahrder time breaking into the "Greatest RPGs ever" discussion, as if the presence of a gun makes it a new genre entirely. Not a unified theory though, since people put the Fallout games on various charts, but it seems like fantasy has a leg up on the competition for whatever reason.

Probably volume more than anything - when there's way more fantasy RPGs than any other genre (and I mean at least an order of magnitude, probably over two) it's much more likely that they'll show up in the discussion. Plus there's the small matter of how the entire genre is descended from D&D, and a handful of those D&D game tend to dominate the list. By which I mean Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate.

[warty goblin]

It feels like sci-fi/cyberpunk/modern/'real-world" RPGs have a ahrder time breaking into the "Greatest RPGs ever" discussion, as if the presence of a gun makes it a new genre entirely. Not a unified theory though, since people put the Fallout games on various charts, but it seems like fantasy has a leg up on the competition for whatever reason.

There's also Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect games, which are generally rated very highly.

[Jama7301]

There's also Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect games, which are generally rated very highly.

Or the original Deus Ex.

I think Knaight was on to something when they mentioned volume. I may have been shortsighted and forgot about Mass Effect and Deus Ex, but it feels like there's so many fantasy RPGs that maybe that alone dominates the conversation.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

There's also Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect games, which are generally rated very highly.

Yeah, but KotOR was D&D with a Star Wars coat of paint on top (quite appropriate, since Star Wars is more closely related to High Fantasy than SciFi). And Mass Effect & Deus Ex can be classified as FPS with RPG elements, so I can see how it wouldn't make the same lists as the others.

GW

[Triaxx]

Deus Ex, the original I'd class as an RPG with FPS elements. Shooting skill from the player was less a component than JCDenton's shooting skill was. You's spend the first parts of the game compensating for it unless you went stealth melee. Or pure stealth.

[Wardog12356]

I am playing Assassin's Creed.

[Drascin]

Not gonna lie, I lasted ten minutes into Shadowrun before bailing to play something else. Doesn't help I don't actually know anything about shadowrun the setting or the system and the chargen bit didn't explain anything, so the entire chargen process is basically "here, make a bunch of choices you have zero context for", which kind of doesn't exactly foster a great mood for taking the beginning of the game well.

I have to agree on Pillars, though. Like, it was serviceable, but that's about it. An RPG often lives and dies by its cast and quest design, and the entire cast of Pillars had like two people who weren't thoroughly boring and neither of them actually was allowed to be consequential to the narrative, and the quest design had very little in the way of interesting twists and turns.

I did mostly enjoy Numenera while I was playing it, though holy christ guys way to botch the ending and sour half the thing retroactively.

[Silverraptor]

WoW or other MMOs like EVE Online :)

Hey! I'm in the middle of playing eve online too! How new is your character and do you have a corp you fly with currently?

[Anteros]

Since we were talking about Shadowrun, has anyone played any of the fan made scenarios for Dragonfall or Hong Kong? Some of them have quite high ratings so I was thinking of giving a few a try and I'm looking for suggestions.

[Velaryon]

I've gotten back into Monster Hunter World, and have started fighting tempered monsters. I'm also slowly dipping my toes into other weapons besides the insect glaive and hammer, which is making the game feel fairly fresh again.

I've also recently gotten into this game called Dreadnought, which is a ship-to-ship combat game where you play the bigger, slower ships rather than the small starfighters, making it feel more like naval combat and less like dogfighting. It's definitely interesting, but the game seems to have a really small player base even though it's free to play. Some modes take several minutes to find a match, while others seem to never have anyone playing at all. Thankfully there's an option to search first available match of any mode, but not being able to play certain modes does hamper progress and makes the trophy hunting basically impossible.

[Lector87]

I've gotten back into Monster Hunter World, and have started fighting tempered monsters. I'm also slowly dipping my toes into other weapons besides the insect glaive and hammer, which is making the game feel fairly fresh again.

I really loved my first 100 hours of MHW, but after I fought all the monsters, and the only thing left to do was fight tougher versions of the same monsters while grinding for optimum equipment...well...I'd rather just move on. Had a blast, though.

[Anteros]

I really loved my first 100 hours of MHW, but after I fought all the monsters, and the only thing left to do was fight tougher versions of the same monsters while grinding for optimum equipment...well...I'd rather just move on. Had a blast, though.

Yeah, I felt the same. I'm not sure it's really a knock on the game that there's "only" 100 hours or so of amazing content before it gets repetitive, but it would have been really nice if there were a few more areas to explore.

[Zevox]

So, a month after release, I'm still playing BlazBlue Cross Tag pretty regularly. My difficulties picking characters have been partially solved, sort of, in that I can't bring myself to not have Yang on my teams anymore. And not for any of the usual reasons I wind up with a main in a fighting game either, but just because she's too damn awesome not to play.
Every time I get a Semblance comeback, or do a pushblock into Bionic Arm Burning Gold punish, or land Burning Gold on someone throwing around too many projectiles predictably (which is surprisingly quite a few characters that are pretty popular in this game), or manage to armor through something with her 5B to get a counter-hit combo, it feels so good and makes me so happy. Or hell, just having Semblance activate and hear that perfectly-timed "I Burn!" ring out as her music kicks in.

Or multiple at once. Today I managed to armor through Gordeau's full ex-scythe-spin special with her 5B, but had the damage from that reduce my health enough to trigger Semblance, which immediately activated after the 5B hit. To my surprise and delight, I was able to link 5A after that and continue into a full combo, which the Semblance power-up made potent enough to finish my opponent off. I had no idea that could happen and it was absolutely awesome to see.

Anyway, on another subject, I recently got the desire to do something I haven't done in a very long time - re-play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Wound up needing to buy a new copy off GoG since my old CD copy kept crashing, but eh, game's more than worth $10 to me after so long. It's kind of weird going back to it after all this time though. I mean, obviously the visuals are pretty janky compared to what we're used to now, but oddly that doesn't bother me nearly as much as, say, when I briefly played a little of WoW for a cross-promotion it did with Hearthstone (perhaps because, unlike WoW, I played KotOR back when the visuals were more the norm). What does a little is the voice acting. While the main cast is generally fine, some of the NPCs are... not so much. Granted, it's rarely the important ones that sound really off, but still. Also, wow, the pathfinding on your companions sometimes - come on Mission, I told you to disarm that mine, not walk into and set it off. And really guys, why are you half the map away when I'm trying to move into the next area, and why will the game not let me do that if you're not close by?

But yeah, beyond stuff like that, I'm still enjoying it. Classic D&D-esque fun.

[danzibr]

Cosmic. Star. Heroine.

Just wow.

[Cespenar]

Rebooted Renowned Explorers with the DLC, and it's pretty fun. I wish more devs would think about spicing up their battle mechanics like they did with this one.

[Doorhandle]

Welp, I haven't gotten to GOW yet. Blame Games Done Quick!

I got Borderlands: The Pre-sequel, and I have to say I kinda regret not getting it on release, I actually enjoyed it a lot! It helps the game is obscenely australian. Literally in the case of The Boganella. :smalltongue: Though the backtracking and occasional clucky quest mechanics were occasionally an issue...One oft mitigated by the absurdity of the late-game guns and dialogue.

Painkiller has proven to be good...though coming off Borderlands, I've suddenly been made aware that older-style shooters are way more stressful due to resource depletion.

100% orange juice is... Well. It is.

[JNAProductions]

I'm playing Elona (http://elona.wikia.com/wiki/Elona_Wiki) now.

Specifically, Elona+ Custom.

Streaming, again, found here (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_V8zM8w2vrINQ79Jj_NZXg/live). Stream over.

[factotum]

Painkiller has proven to be good...though coming off Borderlands, I've suddenly been made aware that older-style shooters are way more stressful due to resource depletion.


Just took me several attempts to get through part of the original Call of Juarez because Ray was down to 001 health and I kept dying, but I was darned if I was going back to a previous save! :smallsmile:

[oxybe]

Started my on-again/off-again relationship with DBZ Dokkan about a month or so ago.

The game's currently in the middle of it's 3rd year celebration & they have two major banners (Legendary Rare Vegito & Gogeta banners) at discounted pull rates and they've tossed out all the "throw money at our gacha" you can imagine (30 stone for your first three pulls, your fourth pull is free and you get tickets towards a bonus draw). I've spend the whole last 1.29$ on my Google Play store towards this game. Free to play no more am I!

Managed to pull a single copy of the LR Vegito. This thing is basically powercreep given form: high stats like all LRs, Great links, high self atk & def buffs, bonus ki on rainbow sphere AND anytime your HP is less then 50% after 6 rounds of combat, he transforms. The transformation fully heals you, raises the self buffs even high, gets somewhat better links, more bonus ki on rainbow spheres, gain a powerful counter attack AND your special deals more base damage.

Now consider that in addition to the one on your team, you can have a second one borrowed from a friend...

Absolutely disgustingly powerful and I hear the Gogeta is basically the same. I slightly modified my Potara fusion team for some bonus Vegito goodness (I pulled both the LR Vegito & a PHY Super Saiyan Vegito) and now endgame content that caused me to use a couple of items or just give up entirely is being steamrolled.

On the plus side, at least I won't have too much trouble grinding out materials needed to max out my Bardock now.

[Doorhandle]

Just took me several attempts to get through part of the original Call of Juarez because Ray was down to 001 health and I kept dying, but I was darned if I was going back to a previous save! :smallsmile:

Sounds about right :smalltongue:

Though I've since changed my mind about the painkiller remake's difficulty: With the addition of better guns and the absence of those accursed black knights, the game has moved from "Frighteningly hard" to "pleasingly challenging." Also, the Alastor fight is still awesome.

[factotum]

Though I've since changed my mind about the painkiller remake's difficulty: With the addition of better guns

I refuse to believe that the remake could possibly have added a better gun than the one which impales enemies to walls with medium-sized tree trunks... :smallsmile:

[Doorhandle]

I refuse to believe that the remake could possibly have added a better gun than the one which impales enemies to walls with medium-sized tree trunks... :smallsmile:

It doesn't add any guns to my knowlege, but I now have access to that gun, as opposed to the buzzsaw launcher (which could kill anything but those knights) and the almost automatic shotgun (which was also terrible against the knights...see a pattern?)
Though may favorite has to be the shurikens-and-lightning gun of Yahtzee fame.

[mariusz]

Some mobile games like Mayhem Combat and Space Pioneer. On PC only MMORPGs :)

[Velaryon]

I really loved my first 100 hours of MHW, but after I fought all the monsters, and the only thing left to do was fight tougher versions of the same monsters while grinding for optimum equipment...well...I'd rather just move on. Had a blast, though.

I can definitely understand that. At this point, what keeps me playing is less the game itself and more the fact that it's a chance to play co-operatively with friends I now live about 200 miles away from. I keep things somewhat fresh by using different weapons when I can. I limited myself to only the hammer and the insect glaive during my initial playthrough, so that I could prolong my interest by taking on more weapons later on. Now I'm experimenting with the bow, switch axe, and a couple others, which helps make fights a little more exciting.

If I were playing solo though, I definitely would have moved on by now.

[Jama7301]

I've been playing Backtracking: The Game - Palette Swap Edition, formally known as "Digimon World 3".

[Zevox]

Huh. So, re-playing Knights of the Old Republic like I mentioned, and surprisingly came across something that I'm pretty sure I never noticed in it before.

One of the stories that Canderous Ordo, your Mandalorian companion, tells you if you talk with him seems to be a direct reference to the Yuuzhan Vong of the New Jedi Order novels. He tells a story about what seemed to be an asteroid that he shot during a battle, which then came alive and shot thermal blasts at him and his Mandalorian companions - and when they tracked its hyperspace route after it fled, it lead beyond the outer edge of the galaxy. Which sounds exactly like the Vong's biotech ships.

I had to look up when those books were published relative to when the game came released, but sure enough, timing's right - the series was just wrapping up when the game came out. Weird that I don't recall ever noticing this reference in the game before, given I was reading those when they were being released. It also implies that the Vong were at least probing the Star Wars galaxy for a long time before they finally arrived, given KotOR is ancient history relative to when most Star Wars stuff takes place.

Not important in any way I guess, but caught me by complete surprise, so I felt like sharing. Pretty cool that a game this old that I've played so many times can still do that.

[warty goblin]

Been playing a bit of Warhammer 40k: Gladius - Relics of War: Why do; Warhammer games -- have != so many <> stupid parts to their names?

This is being billed as a 4X game. It is not. It is a 3X game, because it skips straight from Exploring and Expanding to Exterminating; Exploiting would represent negotiations of some sort, and that's just not acceptable in the grim darkness of the dark and grim future. That's right ladies, gentlemen and combat funguses, there's absolutely no diplomacy whatsoever. The only question to ask when meeting one of your friends and neighbors is whether you can kill them all now, or will be forced to kill some of them later due to pressing murder-obligations on other fronts.

Overall it reminds me rather pleasantly of the excellent Warlock: Master of the Arcane, in that it's not so much a Civilization-alike as it is a hex based war game with a tabula rasa starting condition and some level of city development. It borrows Warlock's so-clever-it-should-be-standard trick of letting a city build both a building and a unit at the same time, and actually extends it, so if your city has an infantry production building and a tank factory it can build an infantry and a tank unit at the same time. I rather love this feature, and it works just perfectly for a game as utterly combat-focused as this one is.

Right, combat, we should talk about that. It's the same largescale hex based thing as the last to Civs or Warlock or its predecessor games, Elven Legacy and Fantasy Wars. There's a couple of changes, units that don't shoot automatically enter Overwatch and can shoot things that enter into their firing range automatically. This makes a defensive line actually possible, particularly because longer ranged units are pretty low down the tech tree. The model for armor and morale is more complicated as well. It's a pretty good system, and there's plenty of units to throw around, with reasonably distinct roles and abilities to be unlocked in the tech tree. Delightfully, it leaves off those horrible fiddly +30% when fighting in a swamp or next to a mountain or whatever that the Civ games insist on. So you can concentrate on the more interesting stuff; figuring out which fronts to attack on, where to hold the line, and how to maneuver in order to do that.

Overall I'd say this is sort of the definition of a B game. It's good-not-great if you like this sort of thing, and probably utterly tedious in every way if you don't.

[NeoVid]

The big update to Shadow of War (No Microtransactions Version) has me playing it obsessively. Again.

[LibraryOgre]

Mass Effect 2. Femshep Paragon as I can manage Vanguard.

Pull is the best power. Sure, Vanguards talk about the Charge, but... Pull.

[factotum]

The big update to Shadow of War (No Microtransactions Version) has me playing it obsessively. Again.

I was considering getting the game once they got rid of those, but I understand that the "end game" part of it pretty much relied on the ability to be able to buy orcs--have they rebalanced that to account for the removal of microtransactions, or is this a lazy hack job where they've just removed them without otherwise changing the game at all?

[rooster707]

I decided to tear myself away from Into The Breach for a while so I don’t burn out and get sick of it before I unlock everything. (I still haven’t finished FTL because of that happening, even though I love FTL.)

I meant to play something new, but instead I just started another run of Dark Souls. I’m playing as a sorcerer this time, and it’s very different. Harder in some ways, but easier in others. (I killed the Capra Demon on my first try, which was very satisfying.)

[NEO|Phyte]

I was considering getting the game once they got rid of those, but I understand that the "end game" part of it pretty much relied on the ability to be able to buy orcs--have they rebalanced that to account for the removal of microtransactions, or is this a lazy hack job where they've just removed them without otherwise changing the game at all?
They reduced the requirements for progressing the Shadow Wars epilogue stuff, upped the level cap, let you keep gaining skill points after reaching the level cap, added 'prestige' skills (haven't fired up the game to see what these actually are yet), and added the ability to spend mirian to level gear up to your level, as well as perfect gems to reroll secondary traits.

:edit: Now that I've loaded the game and am looking, looks like all those training order things you could get out of the old boxes can now just be straight bought with the miriam stuff you have absolute piles of by virtue of playing the game. Don't know if the 'give a guy some levels' one existed before, but it's there now. As for the prestige skills, looks like they're just a 'give yourself bigger numbers with this thing' for each skill branch, that you can grab multiple times.

[NeoVid]

I was considering getting the game once they got rid of those, but I understand that the "end game" part of it pretty much relied on the ability to be able to buy orcs--

You'll only hear that from people who haven't played the game. Late game orcs are much stronger, meaning a better pool of possible recruits, and orcs you control will be flat out better than AI uruks if you use any of the items that give your guys bonuses to damage and damage resistance. I have four complete playthroughs with $0 spent on microtransactions.

And any advantage micros may have been able to give is gone anyway, since now you can recruit orcs from online play. If you go up against someone who filled an entire fort with uber Legendaries, you can get copies of them for your army if you want.

[factotum]

And any advantage micros may have been able to give is gone anyway, since now you can recruit orcs from online play.

I don't do online play, so that's not any advantage as far as I'm concerned. I ended up buying the game anyway because it was on sale at GamersGate, but haven't yet got around to installing and playing it.

[Ebon_Drake]

So, I've finished Life Is Strange now. Really enjoyed it overall, but I felt the last episode kind of dropped the ball and left it with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion regardless of what you picked. I will take back my criticism about the collectibles though, since I'd not realised how easy it is to replay sections and hoover them up at the end. I've got all achievements now, but I'm less inclined to do a full replay and will probably leave that for a while.

I've now moved on to the prequel Before The Storm. I've not finished the first episode yet, but so far I think I'm actually enjoying it more than the first game? Not sure if that's a weird opinion. I think it's perhaps because BTS is closer to what I'd expected LIS to be, i.e. teen drama simulator instead of Donnie Darko: The Game. The soundtrack is a little more to my taste (not that I disliked LIS's), Chloe is a funnier protagonist, Backchat is a hilarious mechanic, and I'm generally approaching it with an attitude of "screw consequences, I'm a teenage punk rebel!" which is very enjoyable.

I'm not entirely convinced about Rachel Amber yet though. I felt the first game pushed her too hard as this wonderful person that everyone loves and that's then made it hard to feature her as a proper character. I'm hoping she gets more rounded and humanised as BTS goes on instead of her being perfect St Rachel all the time.

E: I can at least add anger issues and a disregard for fire safety to the list of Rachel's flaws.

[Jama7301]

Square Enix is trying to tempt me back with the free login campaign for people who's Final Fantasy XIV subscription has lapsed. I finally finished up the first part of the base A Realm Reborn storyline (after taking a year and a half to finally finish the last two dungeons. I hate doing dungeons in MMOs), and now I'll be grinding through the quests added with Patches that bridge the gaps between the base game and the expansions, until my free time runs out.

[Wookieetank]

Square Enix is trying to tempt me back with the free login campaign for people who's Final Fantasy XIV subscription has lapsed. I finally finished up the first part of the base A Realm Reborn storyline (after taking a year and a half to finally finish the last two dungeons. I hate doing dungeons in MMOs), and now I'll be grinding through the quests added with Patches that bridge the gaps between the base game and the expansions, until my free time runs out.

On the bright side, the writing quality really picks up post ARR. And now that I know they're doing another free login, looks like I'll be losing another couple of days to Eorzea XD

[Jama7301]

On the bright side, the writing quality really picks up post ARR. And now that I know they're doing another free login, looks like I'll be losing another couple of days to Eorzea XD

One of my friends is legitimately angry that I took so long to finish the main story, and haven't even started on the expansions. He knows I never would have done group dungeons with him, because that's not my scene, but it's still funny to me that he got so exasperated that I would spend time mining, or running Palace of the Dead solo (and dying) and so on instead of leveling up.

[Resileaf]

If it can make you feel better, I've been subscribed to FF14 for over a year (if not more) and I have yet to even fight Titan because I spend too much time leveling every combat class all at the same time (or not playing at all because of WoW) rather than focus on one and complete the story.

[Jama7301]

One thing that I really appreciate from the Final Fantasy MMOs, and that I couldn't get used to not having in WoW is the ability to change my character class. Being able to level different things is fun, and it helps keep things interesting for me. Being locked into a single class at creation is a bit frustrating.

[Resileaf]

I wager it also helps server population not run out of control if no one needs alts to level different classes. Very convenient.

[Norahgami]

Hey guys! New to the forums and happy to be here. Is anyone playing any Octopath Traveler? I love story driven games, and I'm only a little ways in yet, but I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of character interaction going on so far. Immersion really broke for me when the Cleric helped the thief break into a mansion without protest...

As an aside, because I saw someone above mention Final Fantasy class-changing and WoW; have you checked out Project Ascension? It's like Skyrim WoW, you pick whatever spells you want.

[Resileaf]

As an aside, because I saw someone above mention Final Fantasy class-changing and WoW; have you checked out Project Ascension? It's like Skyrim WoW, you pick whatever spells you want.

Never heard of. Is it on Steam or something?

[Spacewolf]

Ended up getting Rome total war 2 since they have reintroduced family trees, something I've been missing since Medieval 2. Although the 1 turn per year thing might stop the recreation of my ten star general lines of people raised from common captains, something I enjoyed doing in the original Rome.

[Norahgami]

It's a private server, and you can download it from their website! I used to play it, but I haven't got the time anymore.

[thracian]

That skirts super close to uncomfortable legal territory.

[Yora]

I am once again installing Morrowind. But last time I remembered to keep the save files so I can now actually continue where I left of instead of doing Balmora and the Dwemer ruins for the sixth or seventh time. I think with my last saves, I have covered about as much of the game as I ever did before.
Which I think might be 10% of the game. Or less.

[LibraryOgre]

Mass Effect 2. If your favorite character isn't the asari matriarch bartender on Illium, I don't know how to help you. You're simply wrong.

[warty goblin]

So since they patched No Man's Sky again, I'm trying that again.

First off, the visual overhaul is astonishing. Full-blown sequels often don't improve the visual quality this much. The game is now officially my favorite generator of 'holy cow, look at that vista!' moments.

After an hour or so from the beginning, it appears that the game itself has been changed a lot in terms of the item economy, but remains very much a craft'n'survive thing. They seem to be pushing the building things angle a bit more heavily this time, which is unfortunate because building stuff is something I have no interest in in a game like this. Lesse, I can be an interstellar nomad, compelled by whatever demons drive me onwards to catalogue the weirdness of the universe, or I can build a greenhouse. Nothing against building greenhouses, but this is about the farthest thing possible from the genuinely unique aesthetic of tranquil observation and exploration in the uncharted infinite that No Man's Sky creates.

(I'm reminded of an old George RR Martin story about a man who finds some sort of artifact below an alien planet that lets him spend eternity walking the universe oblivious to the fall of civilizations around him. No Man's Sky is about the only game I can think of that sort of captures that particular aesthetic.)


On the other hand, just because the game emphasizes building stuff more doesn't mean I have to actually build stuff more. So I'm looking forwards to getting back to that this evening.

[Wookieetank]

So since they patched No Man's Sky again, I'm trying that again.

First off, the visual overhaul is astonishing. Full-blown sequels often don't improve the visual quality this much. The game is now officially my favorite generator of 'holy cow, look at that vista!' moments.

After an hour or so from the beginning, it appears that the game itself has been changed a lot in terms of the item economy, but remains very much a craft'n'survive thing. They seem to be pushing the building things angle a bit more heavily this time, which is unfortunate because building stuff is something I have no interest in in a game like this. Lesse, I can be an interstellar nomad, compelled by whatever demons drive me onwards to catalogue the weirdness of the universe, or I can build a greenhouse. Nothing against building greenhouses, but this is about the farthest thing possible from the genuinely unique aesthetic of tranquil observation and exploration in the uncharted infinite that No Man's Sky creates.

(I'm reminded of an old George RR Martin story about a man who finds some sort of artifact below an alien planet that lets him spend eternity walking the universe oblivious to the fall of civilizations around him. No Man's Sky is about the only game I can think of that sort of captures that particular aesthetic.)


On the other hand, just because the game emphasizes building stuff more doesn't mean I have to actually build stuff more. So I'm looking forwards to getting back to that this evening.

Also been poking around at this a bit myself. Haven't gotten to test it yet, but supposedly you're now able to build on freighters so that you can have your base and take it with you.

I do appreciate a lot of the new changes though, being able to buy modules for your suit/ship/multi-tool in addtion to being able to make them is nice to save on resource gathering time. Adding missiles for space combat was much needed as well. Being able to add slots to your backpack just for upgrades, and super storage (500 stack instead of 250) was long over due. Not sure how I feel about the bolt caster needing ammo now when everything else is just a recharge thing.

[Psyren]

Mass Effect 2. If your favorite character isn't the asari matriarch bartender on Illium, I don't know how to help you. You're simply wrong.

Have you gotten through the Lair DLC and ME3? There's some interesting revelations about her.

[Jama7301]

Also been poking around at this a bit myself. Haven't gotten to test it yet, but supposedly you're now able to build on freighters so that you can have your base and take it with you.

I do appreciate a lot of the new changes though, being able to buy modules for your suit/ship/multi-tool in addtion to being able to make them is nice to save on resource gathering time. Adding missiles for space combat was much needed as well. Being able to add slots to your backpack just for upgrades, and super storage (500 stack instead of 250) was long over due. Not sure how I feel about the bolt caster needing ammo now when everything else is just a recharge thing.

I got No Man Sky after the Atlas update, because the game had been on my radar since launch, but I never got around to it. Really dug how zen and chill the game was, and this kinda looks like more of the same. I'm kinda stoked to get back into it.

[Wookieetank]

I got No Man Sky after the Atlas update, because the game had been on my radar since launch, but I never got around to it. Really dug how zen and chill the game was, and this kinda looks like more of the same. I'm kinda stoked to get back into it.

The amount of work put into the colors and sounds of the game really help with that. Fighting off space pirates, being chased by hungry giant critters and facing certain death as my lifesupport and environment protections fail has never been so relaxing.

[Rynjin]

It's just too bad it took them nearly two years after they expected people to pay full price for an unfinished game to add a whopping half of the content they initially promised.

I personally don't really care how good the game is now, it doesn't do to reward blatant lies and the "it sucks but we'll fix it post release culture.

[Wookieetank]

It's just too bad it took them nearly two years after they expected people to pay full price for an unfinished game to add a whopping half of the content they initially promised.

I personally don't really care how good the game is now, it doesn't do to reward blatant lies and the "it sucks but we'll fix it post release culture.

Yeah this bit is frustrating. I still had my copy, so it thankfully cost me nothing to load the game back up. Still not sure I'd recommending picking up the game due to its horrifically troubled production, but if you've already got a copy, might as well take a peek at what they've done.

[Jama7301]

It's just too bad it took them nearly two years after they expected people to pay full price for an unfinished game to add a whopping half of the content they initially promised.

I personally don't really care how good the game is now, it doesn't do to reward blatant lies and the "it sucks but we'll fix it post release culture.

I expected the game to be a space exploration game. That's what I wanted, and it's what I got. Never bought into the hype, so I felt fine with it at every step.

[Drascin]

I expected the game to be a space exploration game. That's what I wanted, and it's what I got. Never bought into the hype, so I felt fine with it at every step.

I legitimately never saw where people were getting all that weird hype from mealy mouthed "maybe" statements. I expected Starbound in 3d, what we got was largely Starbound in 3d.

Though given how much they keep adding for free, I am getting a definite feeling that the game's scope ran away from them and they were forced to release the game straight up unfinished.

[warty goblin]

I was definitely not thrilled by No Man's Sky on release, but no more than I'm not thrilled by a lot of games. Didn't feel ripped off or lied too, just that this wasn't really my thing. Rather like I felt about Skyrim.

Now though it's a genuinely good game, one with a rather unique aesthetic and experience of play. I mean the actual crunchy systems aren't super-great - it's a survival crafter in part, and they always have mediocre systems as far as I can tell - but the combination of the music, visuals, and moment to moment traversal of the planets adds up to a very odd sort of flow state. There's stuff you have to do to not die, but on the planets I've visited so far it's pretty relaxed, there are objectives, but the game doesn't really nag about them. The lack of an obvious level-up mechanic and rarity of things that try to eat my face means that I'm not under any sort of real pressure to make the numbers bigger or kill the monsters or anything. I can just be, and the minimalist plot is delightfully coy about what that means, so I have plenty of space to decide the what and the why for myself. Am I the only human in the galaxy? Maybe. Do I really care who I was before I woke up? Up to me. I've decided I mostly want to wander the infinite universe, observing and cataloging the weirdness that I discover.

Overall it's one of the most unique games I've ever played.

[NeoVid]

Convincing everyone I know to try out the Shadow of War demo and Overwatch free weekend so I can play with more people on my friendlist.

[Marillion]

Been playing Horizon Zero Dawn. Hunting robot dinosaurs is some of the best ridiculous fun I've had since air-lifting screaming goats in MGS5, and the game is just beautiful too. I'm a compulsive collector and sidequester, though, so I worry if I've overleveled for the main quest at this point, even playing on very hard. I'm level 40, and the recommended level for the main quest is 15:smalltongue:

Also, the ropecaster is easily the best weapon in the game. It doesn't quite trivialize fights against the Thunderjaws and Stormbirds, but it sure makes things easier.

[Stuebi]

I've been coop playing Dark Souls 2 SotfS with a friend, since he's one of those people that HAS to play all parts of a series, in order. Even after I repeatedtly insisted DS2 was mostly awful and could easily be skipped for the vastly superior DS3.

And guess who was right.

We finally made it into the DLC areas, I actually went into it as early as possible, leaving two of the later game areas of vanilla out. But now that we're halfway into the DLC, I remembered that we actually need an item from the last vanilla area to clear all the bosses. I swear, it feels like DS2 holds it's DLC hostage, even tough it's probably the only decent part of the game. And I'm actually not sure wether I have the energy to continue playing it with my friend.

[Rynjin]

DS2 is the best game in the series though, at least as far as viable build variety and PVP. It also has the best DLC of the three.

[rooster707]

DS2 is the best game in the series though, at least as far as viable build variety and PVP. It also has the best DLC of the three.

Yeah, hating 2 seems to be the “cool” thing to do in the Dark Souls fandom, which I don’t really understand, since I friggin’ loved it. Can’t say whether it’s the best, since I haven’t played 3 yet, but I definitely liked it more than 1.

[LibraryOgre]

Have you gotten through the Lair DLC and ME3? There's some interesting revelations about her.

I finished ME2, but I'm putting off going further into ME3 until I can justify dropping $40 on Citadel, Omega, and Leviathan.

[Silverraptor]

I finished ME2, but I'm putting off going further into ME3 until I can justify dropping $40 on Citadel, Omega, and Leviathan.

Put it on wishlist to see if the prices drop? It might go down in a Christmas sale or something.

[LibraryOgre]

I finished ME2, but I'm putting off going further into ME3 until I can justify dropping $40 on Citadel, Omega, and Leviathan.


Put it on wishlist to see if the prices drop? It might go down in a Christmas sale or something.

I put basically the same thing as my quote on my FB and my younger brother (who doesn't have kids) bought them for me.

[Ebon_Drake]

Citadel is a great DLC and well worth the cost. It's to ME3 what Shadow Broker is to ME2.

This is still my main impression of No Man's Sky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAwB7ogkik&t=0s&list=LL67cR6K54yaLfu2awntn9hg&index=11) and it still makes me laugh like a drain. I'm kind of intrigued to hear it might actually be good now though?

I played through Episode 2 of Life is Strange: Before the Storm this week and plan to finish Ep3 and "Farewell" over the weekend. Ep2 was an odd one in that I got past the halfway mark and felt like nothing much had really happened since the opening sequence, but just as I thought that it went completely off the chart intense and awesome. The Tempest in particular was nuts; I laughed, I cried, it owned.

[Cespenar]

I played through Episode 2 of Life is Strange: Before the Storm this week and plan to finish Ep3 and "Farewell" over the weekend. Ep2 was an odd one in that I got past the halfway mark and felt like nothing much had really happened since the opening sequence, but just as I thought that it went completely off the chart intense and awesome. The Tempest in particular was nuts; I laughed, I cried, it owned.

I can't start playing that game because it feels like it'll be too much of an investment. :smalltongue:

[NRSASD]

Pyre! It's one heck of an odd duck, being a visual novel/basketball simulator, but surprisingly really enjoyable. The story is really good though and forces you to lose the characters you love most (because the kindest thing you can do is remove them outright from the game). It feels like a darker miyazaki film, where you have multiple sources of information, some friendly, some hostile, but all of them are probably lying. I just don't know why or about what yet.

[factotum]

I'm replaying Banner Saga at the moment, with the intention of moving on to the second and third games in sequence when I finish it. Want to get the whole story in one go.

[Cespenar]

Pyre! It's one heck of an odd duck, being a visual novel/basketball simulator, but surprisingly really enjoyable. The story is really good though and forces you to lose the characters you love most (because the kindest thing you can do is remove them outright from the game). It feels like a darker miyazaki film, where you have multiple sources of information, some friendly, some hostile, but all of them are probably lying. I just don't know why or about what yet.

Oh, man, Pyre. Extremely stylish, and the "sport" part works surprisingly well too. That company just keeps hitting it out of the park.

[NRSASD]

Oh, man, Pyre. Extremely stylish, and the "sport" part works surprisingly well too. That company just keeps hitting it out of the park.

Yeah! Color me surprised because I think Pyre just made the short list of my favorite games. And I didn't even like the sports part hahaha. It definitely worked, but I feel it could have been replaced with basically anything (so long as the replacement required a bit of skill but was still subject to chance) and Pyre would still be incredible.

It was the characters that sold me so thoroughly on the game though. They were staggeringly complex given that there were about 16 or so of them in a 15 hour game.

I loved that Volfred and Bertrude have a serious case of unrequited love, but deal with it healthily. They're still good friends and make progress towards the Plan, even though Bertrude is in it solely for something Volfred can never give her. They both know it, and they're fine with it. I don't think I've ever seen a character arc like that before.

I really loved Pamitha's whole arc, but I especially loved that even if everything comes up aces for her it still doesn't end happily. Satisfyingly, sure, but not happily.

What broke my heart was Tizo's and Oralech's interaction at the final Rite. How the little banner on one of Tizo's horns is actually a bandage, and how he's worn it long after the injury healed as a reminder of Oralech. How Oralech forces Tizo to choose between his old friends and his new ones, and it's the one time Oralech shows any emotion besides contempt. Arrrrg!

I don't how Supergiant keeps doing it, but damn are they good.

[Cespenar]

Yeah! Color me surprised because I think Pyre just made the short list of my favorite games. And I didn't even like the sports part hahaha. It definitely worked, but I feel it could have been replaced with basically anything (so long as the replacement required a bit of skill but was still subject to chance) and Pyre would still be incredible.

It was the characters that sold me so thoroughly on the game though. They were staggeringly complex given that there were about 16 or so of them in a 15 hour game.

I loved that Volfred and Bertrude have a serious case of unrequited love, but deal with it healthily. They're still good friends and make progress towards the Plan, even though Bertrude is in it solely for something Volfred can never give her. They both know it, and they're fine with it. I don't think I've ever seen a character arc like that before.

I really loved Pamitha's whole arc, but I especially loved that even if everything comes up aces for her it still doesn't end happily. Satisfyingly, sure, but not happily.

What broke my heart was Tizo's and Oralech's interaction at the final Rite. How the little banner on one of Tizo's horns is actually a bandage, and how he's worn it long after the injury healed as a reminder of Oralech. How Oralech forces Tizo to choose between his old friends and his new ones, and it's the one time Oralech shows any emotion besides contempt. Arrrrg!

I don't how Supergiant keeps doing it, but damn are they good.

One of my favorite parts, apart from the writing and the style, of course, was the simple fact that the game is designed to continue even if you lose your matches. Which is something not done enough in games, in my opinion.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I'm replaying Banner Saga at the moment, with the intention of moving on to the second and third games in sequence when I finish it. Want to get the whole story in one go.

I would love to hear your opinion on it. I am aware reviews exist, but not from anyone I trust. I have been eying the series, and hopefully some kind of package deal discount option will be offered in the coming months.


Speaking of reviews I trust, I do have to thank everyone that encouraged me to get Shadowrun:Dragonfall. I have enjoyed it immensely (even if I am stuck in the final battle. Have attempted it three times with TPKs every time)

Grey Wolf

[factotum]

I would love to hear your opinion on it.

Well, my opinion of the first game is obviously high enough that I backed the other two on Kickstarter sight unseen, and have held off playing part 2 until I could get the entire story in one go. The game is not perfect, by any means--it suffers the typical problem of a turn-based system where a character can be battered into the ground without having a chance to react because all the enemies dogpiled him when it wasn't his turn. I also find the mechanic that a character's ability to damage opponents goes down as they get damaged themselves to be annoying more often than not, although I acknowledge the game would probably be far too easy without it. I believe they did add some tweaks to the combat system in the second game, but since I haven't played it I can't say if they're a distinct improvement or not.

On the up side? Amazing storyline, astonishing artwork, incredible music, atmosphere second to none.

One thing to note: they released a free online multiplayer version of just the combat part of the game before the original game released, called Banner Saga: Factions. I have no idea if it's still available or if anyone is actually playing it, but it might be possible to test out your reaction to the combat system using it.

[Ebon_Drake]

I can't start playing that game because it feels like it'll be too much of an investment. :smalltongue:

The funny thing is that Before the Storm's not actually a particularly sad game in and of itself. There are certainly sad and emotional moments to it, but the game overall doesn't have the same melancholy tone as the original and taken on its own is essentially just a twee lesbian love story (or close female friendship story if you want, but LOL nobody chooses that route). It only becomes bittersweet when you have the context of the original game and know how the story of Rachel and Chloe ends. I'm generally not a fan of prequels, but I feel that BTS does a solid job of complementing LIS's story and adding to it rather than just being pointless fanservice. I'm also surprised by how much I ended up engaging with the story despite much of it by nature being a foregone conclusion. The third episode is a bit weaker than the first two, but all in all it was a very good experience.

Basically, what I'm saying is it suckered me in with promises of graffiti, punk and weed and then it kicked me right in the feels.

The final stinger though is a cheap, cruel gut-punch. It's amazing how much of my goodwill towards the game they managed to lose in the space of a 30 second post-credit scene. I get what the makers were going for with it, but there are so many more tasteful ways the same thing could have been done - say, showing Chloe putting up missing person posters around town. I hate it and will pretend from now on that it doesn't exist.

[shadowxknight]

Got this seemingly random soccer tactics game off Steam sale.

It's strangely addictive and will satisfy the itch until Phantom Doctrine comes out.

[Zombimode]

Speaking of reviews I trust, I do have to thank everyone that encouraged me to get Shadowrun:Dragonfall. I have enjoyed it immensely (even if I am stuck in the final battle. Have attempted it three times with TPKs every time

Glad to hear it :smallsmile:
It's a game that simply does not get enough publicitiy - despite almost being universally loved by the critics.

For the final battle: sadly I can't remember specifics, but I don't recall having praticular problems. But: my main character was a straight foreward assault rifle user, which is by far the most deadly archetype. My character was easily three times as deadly as the companions. If your character's combat performace is "just" on par with the companions, I could see why you experience problems.

[Jama7301]

Been cycling between working on Pokemon Ultra Moon, and the newly acquired Animal Crossing New Leaf on my 3DS, while dipping back into Rocket League on PC.

Might need to find a way to get a second PS4 in my apartment though, since my girlfriend is obsessed with Ark, and I'd like to play more FIFA or No Man Sky.

[Yora]

Made some good progress in Morrowind and been to many places I've never seen before. Think I've now been to a third of the towns and major roads of the game, but I feel losing interest again. Going to store the saves and get them out again next year.

I've also started playing Warcraft III for the 10th time or so. This is a game I feel I've been playing once every year since it came out. While I probably finished the Reign of Chaos campaign ten times by now, I think I followed it up with completing Frozen Throne only four times yet.

[Anteros]

Speaking of reviews I trust, I do have to thank everyone that encouraged me to get Shadowrun:Dragonfall. I have enjoyed it immensely (even if I am stuck in the final battle. Have attempted it three times with TPKs every time)

Grey Wolf

As I recall there are terminals or something that you have to activate that isn't immediately obvious. If you're trying to brute force it, that may be the problem.

[rooster707]

Speaking of reviews I trust, I do have to thank everyone that encouraged me to get Shadowrun:Dragonfall. I have enjoyed it immensely (even if I am stuck in the final battle. Have attempted it three times with TPKs every time)

Grey Wolf

I vaguely remember having similar problems. I think I ended up just save scumming my way through it.

[Cespenar]

I think you just rush the terminals in that fight, like mentioned above.

[Resileaf]

I've finished Just Cause 3 and have moved to a different game on my list: Disgaea PC.
I am going to be crazy and try to beat Baal.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think you just rush the terminals in that fight, like mentioned above.

No, that's how I got TPK'ed - by rushing the terminals and/or the valves.

Instead, what I have done that worked is say "I have ten turns, I can't remember ever having a fight that lasted more than seven, don't worry about it and don't waste units pursuing the things". I did have my decker jack in for a couple of turns (although I'm not entirely clear what it accomplished) and then I concentrated in killing enemies every turn instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

I have now started Hong Kong, but bloody hell this one desperately needs an editor. So much faff. After the concise writing of Dragonfall I'm not sure I have the patience for 20 pages per character per mission. I was warned above and I steeled myself for it. I was hoping that the sheer amount would be reduced after a few missions, but I am not seeing it - I have completed the first three (murder investigation, qi sabotage and museum theft), and I'm still having to waddle through pages and pages of the stuff.

Grey Wolf

[Anteros]

It does get better once you get through the first few hours. I almost gave up on Hong Kong as well, but it ended up being my favorite in the series.

There's just waaaay too much exposition at the start of that one, but if you can trudge through it there's a very good game.

A warning:Hong Kong has multiple endings and the best one requires you to talk to everyone.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

A warning:Hong Kong has multiple endings and the best one requires you to talk to everyone.

Speaking of multiple endings, when I finished dragonfall, the ending scroll text told me of the death of a president in some foreign country due to blood magic... despite me having refused to give away the information when I stole it earlier (and blew up the building where it was stored). I'm still wondering if it was a bug or a subtle message that nothing I did made any difference. The latter does seem to be an underlying theme of the series, although as realistic as that is, I would prefer then if they restricted plots to ones were my activities do make a difference.

Grey Wolf

[ufo]

I enjoyed Shadowrun: Hong Kong but it was waaay more dense and it was hard for me to keep up with the plot towards the end. I think you said it well in that Dragonfall is very concise and I personally find the themes so much more interesting, but obviously that's down to personal taste.

[rooster707]

Speaking of multiple endings, when I finished dragonfall, the ending scroll text told me of the death of a president in some foreign country due to blood magic... despite me having refused to give away the information when I stole it earlier (and blew up the building where it was stored). I'm still wondering if it was a bug or a subtle message that nothing I did made any difference. The latter does seem to be an underlying theme of the series, although as realistic as that is, I would prefer then if they restricted plots to ones were my activities do make a difference.

Grey Wolf

I don't remember anything about blood magic, but I'm fairly sure certain things go to **** no matter what you do.

My main problem with Hong Kong wasn't the massive amounts of text (although that was annoying), it was the DLC that overrides your happy(ish) ending and forces you to pick one of two significantly worse options instead.

[factotum]

I'm onto Banner Saga 2 now. They didn't really add much to combat--there are now sometimes inert barriers in the field that the enemy will attack if they have nothing better to do, but the actual mechanisms are largely the same. Level cap for characters has been raised and the amount of Renown it takes to level up reduced, which is nice. Oh, and the training tent in the camp gives you "combat puzzles" you can do to boost your Renown, which is handy, since there weren't many ways of doing that outside of real fights in the first game.

Overall, I'm hoping these changes make it less likely I'll be having to decide between buying desperately-needed supplies with my renown or levelling up a character to make the fights easier, but it's early days yet!

[Cristo Meyers]

Speaking of multiple endings, when I finished dragonfall, the ending scroll text told me of the death of a president in some foreign country due to blood magic... despite me having refused to give away the information when I stole it earlier (and blew up the building where it was stored). I'm still wondering if it was a bug or a subtle message that nothing I did made any difference. The latter does seem to be an underlying theme of the series, although as realistic as that is, I would prefer then if they restricted plots to ones were my activities do make a difference.

Grey Wolf

That reference is basically little more than fanservice. It's a big event in the tabletop game timeline and is the devs showing off their Shadowrun cred.

It's nice if you get the reference, but if you don't you're basically left going 'and this has to do with me how, exactly?'

Hong Kong, if you can get through both the base and bonus campaign (I had the exact same problem you are, damn they're talkative), is a little better about that. The ending I got focused almost exclusively on my character rather than waxing about the major events going on at the time.

[Zevox]

In the wake of Evo, it's the week of fighting game DLC it seems. Street Fighter 5 added the last two characters of its season 3 DLC today, G and Sagat. In a couple of days Dragon Ball FighterZ will be dropping base form Goku and Vegeta. And also today, BlazBlue Cross Tag dropped all of its remaining nine known DLC characters at once.

Yeah, while I spent a little time with SF5 in some single-player modes to build fight money in case I decide to get G (need to see some footage of what he actually does beyond the paltry trailer), it's that last that really had my attention today. Not playing all of those characters, but five out of nine isn't bad, and while I didn't play online today, I spent a lot of time in training mode. Already picked out Izayoi as probably a good one to play alongside my favorite character, Yang. I will definitely have to play some Nine as well - thinking maybe team her up with Ruby, they seem to go well together, and I haven't actually used Ruby since Yang was added. Still need to figure out who to play with Mitsuru, Labrys, and possibly Mai, but I definitely want to play at least the former two as well.

Ah, the curse of a crossover fighting game with three franchises I like - too many characters to play, even for a team game.

[Cespenar]

Overall, I'm hoping these changes make it less likely I'll be having to decide between buying desperately-needed supplies with my renown or levelling up a character to make the fights easier, but it's early days yet!

I think that's a main design concept, so I wouldn't expect that to change. Pitting the classic desire of "growing in power" against not letting your clansmen starve.

[rooster707]

So I just restarted Dark Souls II, because apparently replaying games is a thing I do now, even though I have like three summer sale games I haven’t tried yet. :smallsigh: Going for a dual wielding build this time, since I never really touched that mechanic on my first playthrough.

[Zombimode]

Just finished Elex. Probably my favorite PB game after Gothic 2.


Now, I'm probably looking at Age of Empires 2 HD.

[GloatingSwine]

Current projects are Battletech, Kingdom Hearts, and Samus Returns. There's an impressive number of new Metroidvanias about, with Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Iconoclasts all lurking around the Switch eshop, so I'm going to clear out some backlog.

[tonberrian]

Got pulled down the EU4 rabbit hole myself, in preparation for the new patch which should be dropping in a few weeks. Also got off my butt and started the process for repairing my broken gaming laptop so i can stop using this toaster, because EU4 barely runs on this.

[Starbuck_II]

Replaying Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. This time using the sol engine to maximize gold, gear, and party xp.

Doing a dragon run, makes combat a breeze, but fills up D-bar so fast.

Up to part where you get attacked by Rangers.

[Zevox]

So, I accumulated enough of Street Fighter 5's in-game currency to pick up the newest DLC fighter, G, and give him a whirl. And I want to like him, but boy, there's a seriously frustration for me. Which is that it feels like I'm fighting the game's controls just to do basic stuff with him.

Essentially, it seems to be caused by G relying a lot on his moves that use the shoryuken motion, and his basic hitconfirm being stand medium into crouch medium, canceled into a special if you hit. Whenever I try to cancel a crouching move into an srk special like that, it either reads it as a quarter circle, giving me the wrong move - or worse, a double quarter circle, giving me his super if my meter is full. I recall this coming up a little bit when I tried playing Juri previously, but it's far worse with G, whose quarter-circle special is not the one you want to be using 99% of the time. (Plus there's also an annoying negative edge thing going on that's causing it to sometimes do a punch special when I try to cancel into a kick special, and I see no option to turn that off...) It wasn't an issue with the other characters I've played in SF5 because they didn't use srk moves (Karin, Rashid, Laura), but trying to use one that makes heavy use of them, oh boy is it a big problem.

So SF5 might just be losing my interest due to that. Pity, I like G's goofy character design and personality, and wanted to put some time into him. But I guess it's probably better to stick to games whose controls actually work right for me.

Edit: And yeah, going back to BB Tag was a nice pallet cleanser. I will never tire of punishing people with Yang's not-Bionic Arm.

[Anteros]

I just finished up Subnautica, which was excellent. Definitely the most immersive game I've played in a long time. I do wish that predators were a bit more dangerous in the game though (and wandered a bit more. It takes a lot of tension out of the game when much of the map is completely safe.) They're something of a joke after you've seen them once and know how they behave. I also wanted a few more upgrade/building options. Hopefully the sequel they're releasing next year is a bit better in these areas, but overall it's just a fantastic game.

[username1]

Sea of Thieves, a very well made game for xbox

[halfeye]

Go, aka Wei-Chi, aka Baduk on KGS:

https://www.gokgs.com/

You need Java and their client, which is free as in beer, and if you want you can subscribe for extra features (I haven't).

A Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)

[Cespenar]

Picked up Dead Cells. On first impression, it looks like a good game that I won't be able to finish because of the roguelite angle, but we'll see.

[rooster707]

Picked up Dead Cells. On first impression, it looks like a good game that I won't be able to finish because of the roguelite angle, but we'll see.

I’ve heard it described as “like Dark Souls.” Is that accurate?

(I’ll probably play it eventually either way, because roguelites and metroidvanias are both things that I like. But the Dark Souls thing would definitely be a bonus.)

[Cespenar]

I’ve heard it described as “like Dark Souls.” Is that accurate?

(I’ll probably play it eventually either way, because roguelites and metroidvanias are both things that I like. But the Dark Souls thing would definitely be a bonus.)

Is anything not described as "like Dark Souls" nowadays?

Something like Hollow Knight or Salt and Sanctuary is much closer to Dark Souls, both in gameplay and theme. This one's theme... somewhat resembles Dark Souls, but the system is more similar to a more combat-based 20XX or Spelunky. You die a lot, and start from the top.

[GloatingSwine]

It's not a lot like Dark Souls at all. We're in a world where anything vaguely difficult will be described as being "like Dark Souls" or "the Dark Souls of...."

It's a 2D action platformer with incredibly satisfying combat and a wide range of items and equipment. It's more like Rogue Legacy than anything else, except much much more satisfying moment to moment.

About the only thing it has in common with Dark Souls is that it has a gloomy but well designed aesthetic.

[Jama7301]

I've been playing Dead Cells too, and the movement feels great. It's got a kind of weight that lends itself well to it's speed. It is very 20XX in that you spend the Cells you find off enemies to unlock permanent upgrades, such as adding every bow you unlock to the potential starting bow you can choose. I ended up rushing that one, because the bow you can choose as part of your early loadout isn't great, but one that shoots two stronger arrows at once is a nice thing to have from the beginning.

So far, I'm really enjoying it.

[Cristo Meyers]

Finished Life is Strange: Before the Storm. My impressions are... mixed at best and negative at worst. I enjoyed Life is Strange quite a bit, but this never quite rose above okay and took a full-on nosedive in episode 3. I quit the farewell episode 10 minutes in because I just didn't care anymore.

Also did The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit because, hey, it's free. That was light, cute, pretty enjoyable two hours. If I didn't know it was a lead-in to Life is Strange 2 I probably wouldn't have even noticed it. I also discovered I have the mind of a 9-year-old boy, apparently:

35-year-old Me, about to use the kid's 'powers' on a log in the fireplace: Burn... Buuurrrrnnn...

The kid, in the exact same tone of voice not a second later: Burn... Buuurrnnn...

Guess some of us never quite grow up. :smalltongue:

I'm kinda looking around for Nintendo DS games at the moment, but it's been so long since I paid Nintendo much attention that I've no idea where to start so all I have is various Pokémon games at the moment. If anyone has any recommendations I'd be glad to hear them.

[Cespenar]

I've been playing Dead Cells too, and the movement feels great. It's got a kind of weight that lends itself well to it's speed. It is very 20XX in that you spend the Cells you find off enemies to unlock permanent upgrades, such as adding every bow you unlock to the potential starting bow you can choose. I ended up rushing that one, because the bow you can choose as part of your early loadout isn't great, but one that shoots two stronger arrows at once is a nice thing to have from the beginning.

So far, I'm really enjoying it.

I pick the shield at the beginning, because those blinky swordsman in the first area can mess you up pretty bad otherwise, if they see you.

Though the trap skill really cheeses them something nice. Along with 90% of the other enemies.

[Yora]

I've been playing Dark Souls Remastered for the last week. It's exactly like Dark Souls with improvements toimage quality. The only difference I found so far is that you now get half your health potions when going into the game of another player instead of none.

[Jama7301]

I pick the shield at the beginning, because those blinky swordsman in the first area can mess you up pretty bad otherwise, if they see you.

Though the trap skill really cheeses them something nice. Along with 90% of the other enemies.

The Wolf Trap + Turret + Ranged Weapon combo is so silly.

[Sian]

Been poking at Blood Bowl 2 again lately ... for all that I'm aware that the AI suck balls and the RNG is hilariously unbalanced, I still like having a match every now and again