What are you playing at the moment? [Archive] - Page 8

corbain

26-10-2011, 01:10 PM

Just finished Metro 2033

Have to say I really enjoyed it, the atmosphere was brilliantly realised and faithful to the book (although, not plot-wise).

only problems I had were that on the outdoor sections I had to turn the graphics down, despite packing an OCed 5850. Also, some of the stealth was a bit half-hearted, in that once you were seen, the guards were on perma-alert.

Still, very rewarding game, first PC game i've actually completed in a long while.

GothicEmperor

26-10-2011, 01:15 PM

The 'be extremely quiet and wait for Battlefield 3 to be delivered' game.

Berzee

26-10-2011, 02:11 PM

Playing Runespell:Overture at present and strangely enough, I'm enjoying the writing in it at least as much as the game-playing! It's got a style that is entirely...what's the word? Unassuming? Unpretentious? Curiously Normal for such a setting? I like it =)

GothicEmperor

26-10-2011, 02:49 PM

The 'be extremely quiet and wait for Battlefield 3 to be delivered' game.
Well, I'm quitting for today. It was fun, studying for exams and watching crime documentaries on one of those Discovery Channel theme channels (name's not very useful), but I didn't get my 'Receive Battlefield 3' achievement yet. Will try again tomorrow.

Spakkenkhrist

26-10-2011, 03:52 PM

Dead Space 2.

2 and a half hours in. I enjoyed the first one a lot more by this point, but I hear DS2 gets better later. So far the locations are underwhelming, compared to the fantastic spaceship of the first.
I have the feeling that the first one was a more hard sci-fi business while this one aims to be some sort of space epic, and I feel like I already visited this place.

The characters suck, especially compared to Black Dude From 300 And Spartacus. The first game's story was really interesting IMO. Nothing close to it so far, but there was a promising twist recently...

As for the gameplay, well, it's more of the same except that they throw more enemies at you. They'd better step it up and have a lot of zero gravity and void areas later, and more of those big brute monsters from the first. Less shitty QTEs, please.

I wasted half my night on the final boss yesterday after reloading from a previous save to make sure I had adequate ammo; still couldn't do it and I'm considering jacking it in altogether, shame as I had enjoyed the game up until that point.

Smashbox

26-10-2011, 05:45 PM

Battlefield multiplayer... So far the community is cruel, vindictive and vulgar. Game's great though.

Herzog

27-10-2011, 02:54 PM

The Binding of Isaac

Have been playing for 10 hours now and today first reached at Moms Heart. Died though because I only had one half heart left :(
Will try it again soon though!

Red Orchestra 2
Slowly getting some kills from time to time. First "realistic" shooter I am playing, coming from QW / Q3 and CoD. Very fun and tomorrow going to a LAN where we will play it with 20 people. Cant wait!

Doodier

27-10-2011, 04:16 PM

ZamFear

27-10-2011, 04:31 PM

I don't like the combat very much. Especially swordfighting.

You can't expect good sword fights from a game that doesn't have any swords in it.

Doodier

27-10-2011, 05:17 PM

I was talking about this (http://steamcommunity.com/id/doodier/screenshot/631855309485340157/?).

SMiD

27-10-2011, 08:21 PM

So, I've installed and started Zeno Clash full of anticipation and so far it just seems meh to me :/ I don't like the combat very much. Especially swordfighting. I hope I'll finish it though.
Also I've been playing some Atom Zombie Smasher lately and I kinda like it. I just have a question - Is it normal to loose every map to zombies or am I doing something wrong? ^_^ Also, the troops you can use are different every round, amirite? Can you somehow pick which one do you want to use or is it chosen by the game?

The game randomly assigns you your mercenaries for the round it seems. Although I'm not sure if it's totally random, or if it's based off of something that can be predicted. Someone with more experience with the title can help out, I'm sure.

As far as losing every map to zombies, you are most definitely going to need to purge territories completely in order to win the campaigns (6K or 20K). Some of the threads on the Steam forums for the game offer good tips. I'd advocate trying a match or 2 on casual to find out the best way to utilize your mercs.

TailSwallower

28-10-2011, 12:10 AM

Well, I tried the Armageddon Empires and Solium Infernum demos to see if I'd like either of them enough to buy while they're on sale (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?21-PC-Bargains&p=50400&viewfull=1#post50400).

Armageddon Empires didn't really do much for me - I think the whole thing was a bit too drawn out, especially combat.

Solium Infernum, on the other hand, grabbed me right away and I bought it. Still trying to figure out the subtleties of the game with Single Player, but I'll definitely get involved in any RPS games that start up soon.
A couple of questions for people with more experience:
1. How do you get more Orders per turn? There's up to 6, but I have only had 2 with the couple of different Avatars I've tried.
2. How does one capture Cantons when in feud? I marched one legion over a few tiles and he didn't capture any of them, I marched another legion onto a tile and he did, so I'm confused as to how it works.

Tried looking in the manual, but couldn't find the answers.

moth bones

28-10-2011, 01:39 AM

Cantons - the legion will capture the one it ends its turn on, but not ones it marches over.

There are two ways to get more orders. The main one is increasing your attributes - Martial to 5, Deceit, Intellect and Wickedness to 4 each. There are also a couple of relics that grant you an additional order - watch for them to turn up in the Bazaar. You will need to transfer such a relic to your ritual chamber or attach it to a Place of Power (the relic description will tell you).

SI really shines in multiplayer, but some people reckon the recent mini-expansion has improved the AI for single player too.

Register and start posting on the Cryptic Comet forums, they are the best place to find games. The community is very friendly, no snobby nonsense there.

sabrage

28-10-2011, 06:56 AM

Played a bit more Call of Cthulhu... I really like the way your character has a line for almost everything you examine in the game (at least so far.) Makes me feel like an real ass detective. I'm sure I'll run into some repetition, but it's still a nice touch. I also (finally) started on Penumbra: Overture, which scares me for all the same reasons Amnesia did. So we'll see how far I make it in!

I've been flip-flopping between Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 when the sun is too in the sky for CoC. I enjoy how similar the mechanics are, because it makes the transition exceedingly easy, and furthermore really magnifies how wildly different the two games are. There's just a completely different atmosphere that Relic has created, something I think they really excel at.

Oh, and I'm anxiously awaiting that Halloween update for The Binding of Isaac. It's my go-to game when I can't decide what to play, but I can't bring myself to boot it up when such a large update is so near to explore.

Oh! And I got Battlefield 3 today, but I stupidly neglected to check if it runs on XP.... I'll be ordering some new ram tomorrow so my computer can actually run W7 and I'll probably be playing it in about a week.

Drake Sigar

28-10-2011, 07:55 AM

I've just received my devilishly expensive new computer and have been playing The Witcher 2 for the first time. It makes Dragon Age 2 look like utter shite. I can't stress enough how important it is to populate a city, rather than have a ghost town and rely heavily on my suspension of disbelief.

Played a bit more Call of Cthulhu... I really like the way your character has a line for almost everything you examine in the game (at least so far.) Makes me feel like an real ass detective. I'm sure I'll run into some repetition, but it's still a nice touch. I also (finally) started on Penumbra: Overture, which scares me for all the same reasons Amnesia did. So we'll see how far I make it in!
Great choices.

Ian

28-10-2011, 08:45 AM

Had a game of Atom Zombie Smasher last night and did a fair bit better than my previous attempts, at least competing until I got to the defeat at the end.

Question: When the zombies start taking more and more zones early in the game, am I better being happy to simply defeat a level 2 zone or fully taking a level 1 zone?

It makes Dragon Age 2 look like utter shite. I can't stress enough how important it is to populate a city, rather than have a ghost town and rely heavily on my suspension of disbelief.

This is what actually bothered me about DA2's setting. It didn't bother me that you never went anyway, but if you're going to have one main city you need to make it a good one.

This is what I liked about Mafia 2 when I played it recently. As long as you didn't watch an individual NPC too closely, as long as you sit back and look at the whole thing it would look like the city's happily getting by without you.

Heliocentric

28-10-2011, 10:13 AM

@Ian early on try and own places cos its points every turn from then on. But when level 4's start spreading if you can generate a quarantine wall with claimed areas that's ideal. But keep an eye on what teams the game has given you, barricades, mines and zombie bait can bring you victory in a level 1 infection, even level 2,but not 3.

cpugeek13

28-10-2011, 02:49 PM

Take On Helicopters. Oh yeah.

Giaddon

28-10-2011, 02:56 PM

Battlefield 3, a bit too obsessively. Need to tone it down, G.

A few races in GRID. I spin out too much, though. Need to work on that.

Still stealthily killing Nazis (and, interestingly, infiltrating some allies) in Moment of Truth.

desvergeh

28-10-2011, 03:37 PM

The game randomly assigns you your mercenaries for the round it seems. Although I'm not sure if it's totally random, or if it's based off of something that can be predicted. Someone with more experience with the title can help out, I'm sure.

As far as losing every map to zombies, you are most definitely going to need to purge territories completely in order to win the campaigns (6K or 20K). Some of the threads on the Steam forums for the game offer good tips. I'd advocate trying a match or 2 on casual to find out the best way to utilize your mercs.

There is a setting that you can select which allows you to choose the mercs to take on a mission. Makes it a lot easier really, as certain teams are guaranteed success or failure. Presence of the mortar pretty much guarantees you a win on a lot of zones.

desvergeh

28-10-2011, 03:38 PM

SI really shines in multiplayer, but some people reckon the recent mini-expansion has improved the AI for single player too.

Is the mini-expansion actually available? Looked on the SI site the other day but saw no mention of it.

Giaddon

28-10-2011, 03:40 PM

Technically it's in beta but is quite playable, find it here (http://www.crypticcomet.com/blog/?p=709).

vinraith

28-10-2011, 04:06 PM

SI really shines in multiplayer, but some people reckon the recent mini-expansion has improved the AI for single player too.

It's a game about diplomacy and deception, to my knowledge there's never been an AI that could play a game like that.

Lukasz

28-10-2011, 10:40 PM

tomb raider 1

that game aged a lot :)

sabrage

29-10-2011, 01:37 AM

I finally got Serious Sam: The Random Encounter working! If anyone is having a problem with the sound on an Asus soundcard, make sure the "GX" mode is disabled. I also installed 7 so I can play myself some BF3, but I think TRE deserves my attention first.

And wow, this game is fucking hard.

Sūduruncis

29-10-2011, 03:48 PM

I am currently playing Spacechem and I like a lot. Could be the best indie game of this year.

SirKicksalot

30-10-2011, 01:51 AM

I abandoned Dead Space 2. I tried almost five hours to like it. It was a waste of time and money.

Instead, I'm enjoying the hell out of The First Templar. I'm really glad I bought it. I love the atmosphere. The dialogue and characters are amusing. It has that special brand of low-budget Eastern European charm. The combat is entertaining and I like how the game showers me with XP, rewards and bonuses. I really have a great time with it.

sabrage

30-10-2011, 03:24 AM

I picked up V:TMB a few months ago in a Steam sale, but I'm just getting around to actually playing it (with the community patch, naturally.) Settled on Tremere, but having seen only the beginning I'm already itching to try out Nosferatu and Malkavian. I ended up stalking every room in the hospital, and I always like finding things like passwords written on the wall when I've already hacked the computer in question. My only complaint is the inconsistency of the graphics: sometimes they look really nice, and sometimes they look like straight up ass. At least in Deus Ex it always looks like ass.

I almost always bounce off of RPGs, so I'm glad that this one has grabbed my attention. The writing really is well-done, and I'll probably be making it my "main squeeze" for a while.

In bite-sized chunks, I've been working my way through Nimbus. Some of the levels are really intricately designed. As I mentioned before, it scratches the same itch that Super Meat Boy did for me, and it's kind of sad that it doesn't receive the same amount of attention. I've found it controls a lot better with a keyboard than my Xbox controller, which was somewhat of a surprise. I really hate that there's no way to see a level in its entirety though; it can be a little difficult to discern where I'm supposed to be headed and I feel like proper planning is key in this game. I dislike trial and error.

Gave up on The Random Encounter for now; I got up to the fourth boss and I have no idea how to even hurt it or avoid its attacks.

Lukasz

30-10-2011, 07:29 AM

Serenegoose

30-10-2011, 07:35 AM

I am playing Titan Quest, as a haruspex.

vinraith

30-10-2011, 05:57 PM

Still playing Recettear. I failed on the first loop (I gather most folks do) so I'm back at the beginning but with a bit more stock, a lot more knowledge, and a respectably leveled hero. I'd think it'd be fairly straightforward from here, but we'll see. Really clever and charming little game, and that's from a guy that hates cutesy anime.

I' also just picked up Bronze from Sharpnel, a brilliant tile-laying board game set in the bronze age. It's a bit like a historically themed, modestly more complex Othello, with different buildings that allow you to capture territory and such. It's a great strategy design, the AI is brilliant, and it's hugely diverse due to the way different cultures play, the non-linear campaign, and the survival mode. I've been really impressed with it, anyone who enjoys this kind of thing would be well served to give the demo a spin.

airtekh

30-10-2011, 09:17 PM

Just finished Splinter Cell: Conviction's co-op story mode. Quite enjoyable, if a little tough in places. Didn't like the ending at all though, it felt like a massive anticlimax.

I'm dabbling with a few games I got from the Indie Royale bundle but Gemini Rue is the one I bought it for, so I'm about to get stuck into that.

I was going to start Alpha Protocol too but the Halloween steam sale turned up Penumbra: Black Plague and its sequel, so they're going to get played first.

Giaddon

30-10-2011, 11:03 PM

Just to be clear: did you play Penumbra: Overture first?

TillEulenspiegel

30-10-2011, 11:46 PM

Still playing Recettear. I failed on the first loop (I gather most folks do)
I thought it was simple enough if you don't overdo the adventuring, and focus mostly on running the shop. The payments go way up towards the end, but they're achievable. The key is to try to make people happy by selling everything at a modest markup, rather than haggling and getting more money for each item. And to keep a supply of just about every category of item, so you can fulfill requests.

Really clever and charming little game, and that's from a guy that hates cutesy anime.
Same. The writing is irresistibly adorable, and for whatever reason it doesn't trigger my "god I hate anime" reflex.

vinraith

30-10-2011, 11:58 PM

I thought it was simple enough if you don't overdo the adventuring, and focus mostly on running the shop. The payments go way up towards the end, but they're achievable. The key is to try to make people happy by selling everything at a modest markup, rather than haggling and getting more money for each item. And to keep a supply of just about every category of item, so you can fulfill requests.

I bit it at the 80k payment, I only had 72k. My problem was that I basically never had enough stock, and kept having to adventure to refill, which ate up a ton of time. It took me awhile to figure out fusion, though, which might have saved me otherwise. Being able to do that from the beginning, it should be easy enough from here.

airtekh

31-10-2011, 12:37 AM

Just to be clear: did you play Penumbra: Overture first?

Yes, I got it as part of one of the Humble Indie Bundles a while back.

It's not too bad, but I thought the combat dragged it down and dampened the atmosphere somewhat. I'm told that these sequels have less combat and are more in the same vein as Amnesia.

Ian

31-10-2011, 09:05 AM

So I've made a start on Red Faction Guerilla. Crikey. That hammer's a lot of fun isn't it?

Vexing Vision

31-10-2011, 09:10 AM

Same. The writing is irresistibly adorable, and for whatever reason it doesn't trigger my "god I hate anime" reflex.

Capitalism ho! still cracks me up. The writing is amazing, and one of the very best localizations I have ever seen.

Giaddon

31-10-2011, 01:09 PM

I'm back to sing more praises of Death to Spies: Moment of Truth. It's the best stealth game I've played in a long time (since Conviction, I guess, if you count that (I know that invalidates my opinion for many of you)). It is precise in a way I really appreciate. You can have a little mini-map that clearly displays how enemies will react to you (red = lethally, yellow, they'll be suspicious, green = BFFs), and when you approach different zones there's always some guard to say hey, only SS in here, or whatever. Wandering around the maps reveals locations of outfits, hidden entryways, and helpful items. Unlike Blood Money, there aren't those helpful corpse crates lying around that you can hide bodies in to be certain they'll never be found, so often (because I'm a comically inept saboteur), I'll leave a body lying somewhere I know someone will find it and have to act fast to finish my objectives before that happens.

The downside is that a few levels are a bit too puzzley. One in particular seems to hinge on finding the one guy who wanders off to a secluded spot so you can stun him and take his outfit. But most maps allow multiple solutions, including the ever-elegant "crouch in a Nazi bathroom and shoot the target when he comes in to do his thing."

There's also a difficulty level in which you can't change clothes (imagine Hitman if you couldn't change clothes, but everyone wanted to kill you in your normal outfit), and I can't imagine how that works at all. I'm eager to try.

I'll be sure to let everyone know when this goes on sale.

moth bones

31-10-2011, 04:53 PM

Back on the Dwarf Fortress train, and finding the military interface even more impenetrable than the previous version, even with the hints from the wiki...

squirrelfanatic

31-10-2011, 09:52 PM

Bioshock, for the first time. I haven't yet decided what to think of the game although I am in about 2 or 3 hours. The setting seems pretty cool, I like the underwater city. But the place is crammed! Demented dudes everywhere! And everything (meaning enemy encounters, order and/or pleas from NPCs and the introduction of new tonics) happens so fast that I sometimes miss what people are telling me on the radio or in logs. Somehow I've got the feeling that I am missing something.

Heliocentric

31-10-2011, 10:17 PM

Bioshock.
I wished so hard that bioshock was like stalker where a fraction of the splicers didn't give a crab about you unless you hurt them... sadly only big daddies fulfilled that.

CrazyEthan

01-11-2011, 02:52 AM

I am now playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and The Witcher 2
283

agentorange

01-11-2011, 05:10 AM

Received Six Gun Saga from a friend, so have been playing that. Just won my first game, using El Indio as my boss; only used one posse lead by The Man With No Name. My strategy was to not buy any deeds, but to just wait for my opponents to and then raid their story cards.

squirrelfanatic

01-11-2011, 06:56 AM

I wished so hard that bioshock was like stalker where a fraction of the splicers didn't give a crab about you unless you hurt them... sadly only big daddies fulfilled that.Yes, I was a bit surprised about how old the game feels mechanic-wise (I know, it actually is rather old but still). I always imagined the world of Rapture to be a) better looking (many textures look rather horrible close up) and b) more reactive to you as a player. As far as my observations go, Splicers don't even get into fights with Big Daddies or with each other unless scripted.

Althea

01-11-2011, 07:38 AM

As far as my observations go, Splicers don't even get into fights with Big Daddies or with each other unless scripted.
Splicers aren't completely stupid. If you remember the "tutorial" sections of BioShock, you see some splicers run from a Big Daddy and another one attacks a Little Sister and is promptly gutted for said idiocy. If there's a big enough gang of them then, theoretically, they will take down a Big Daddy if he has a Little Sister with him.

As for not fighting each other, I think that's more so that the player isn't screwed over. Dollars can sometimes end up being in short supply, but EVE especially. I think it's just to give the player something to kill.

squirrelfanatic

01-11-2011, 08:30 AM

Splicers aren't completely stupid. If you remember the "tutorial" sections of BioShock, you see some splicers run from a Big Daddy and another one attacks a Little Sister and is promptly gutted for said idiocy. If there's a big enough gang of them then, theoretically, they will take down a Big Daddy if he has a Little Sister with him.

As for not fighting each other, I think that's more so that the player isn't screwed over. Dollars can sometimes end up being in short supply, but EVE especially. I think it's just to give the player something to kill.You are right about the Splicers and the Big Daddies, these things would empty a level full of "mundane" enemies before the player could get into a fight in the first place. But I know that I saw some scripted events where groups of Splicers took on or killed a Big Daddy, so it isn't totally unrealistic for such a situation to occur spontaneously.

It just feels a bit odd that everyone is rushing at you, guns blazing, as soon as you enter the room but won't get into a quarrel with each other from time to time. By the way, does anybody know if enemies respawn after a certain time? Or is that scripted?

sabrage

01-11-2011, 08:51 AM

Man, as much as I love The Binding of Isaac and all its new content, I really can't abide a flash game with more slowdown than BF3 anymore. I was hoping that McMillen would fix it with this new patch, but even on the lowest graphics setting (to say nothing of the highest...) I still get horrible stuttering when a room has too many enemies.

Oh, and for some reason the last game I was playing spawned 10 or so "speed up" pills over the course of my campaign... Really annoying that they were just going to waste.

lunarplasma

01-11-2011, 02:27 PM

Conquering Pendoooooooor!

Smashbox

01-11-2011, 03:26 PM

Makes me feel like an real ass detective.

Might want to hyphenate that.

Althea

01-11-2011, 03:41 PM

Spent half of this afternoon on DoW II: Retribution's single player. I started the campaign as the Imperial Guard, and... Wow! I've flown through a number of missions, and I've noticed meme references and all sorts of other things, plus the characters are great fun. The voice acting is utterly superb, bar the annoying-as-hell Space Marines ("We are the Blaahd Rhayvens" says Mr Campaign Intro Man), and the missions don't waste your time by easing you into it. It quickly becomes full-on.

There's a lot of changes too. Each "hero" has a 3x4 grid of skills rather than the sprawling bars of annoyance from DoW II, you have four heroes that you upgrade (Like the commanders/squad leaders from DoW II), and you're still encouraged to level them up and equip them as some benefits apply even if you don't take that hero. You can take all four, but I'm doing fine with just two. Aside from the "main" hero, the other heroes can be replaced with honour guards and other benefits, so it does make you think about your squad layout and how you'll adapt it to the game. Got a lot of vehicular enemies next mission? Well, use the hero with an anti-vehicle focus instead of his infantry-killing tank honour guard.

Oh, and you don't have to worry about your flipping rating this time, either. I hated that in DoW II, because it made me feel as if I should rush through the game because taking my time = punishment.

vinraith

01-11-2011, 03:51 PM

Althea

01-11-2011, 03:56 PM

The pathing issues are annoying, yeah. I had a tank and those Ogryn guards, and the Ogryn basically got in the way constantly and held everything back. Very annoying :(

I also don't use Merrick much. Once I get the skill to cut his set-up times I will, though. He's useful.

Serenegoose

01-11-2011, 04:16 PM

It's funny, everything Unrav likes about Retribution I kind of hate. The skill trees feel shallow and insubstantial in comparison to those in the previous DoW2 titles. The characters are cartoonish and uninteresting. The lack of a rating means the missions have no replay value, and any (easily won) victory is as good as the next. The missions feel thrown together, with lots of noticable pathing issues. Any hint of non-linearity is basically gone. In making a bunch of campaigns, quality seems to have suffered severely. I love that I can play any race I want, but in practice I find I don't want to play any of them because none of the campaigns are actually fun IMO.

I paid $7.50 for it and was disappointed, and I say that as a modest fan of the first two.

I actually felt the skill trees felt more in depth and significant - the DoW 2 trees felt like meaningless blips along a path and my investments meant little if anything - every time a character levelled in retribution felt like I was making some sort of choice or getting something of value. I never cared for ratings because I rarely if ever replay games to begin with. The characters are cartoonish sure - but I played as the eldar - I felt that the cartoonishness played a little into their favour. Their dialogue felt so archaic and obsolete that they really felt at odds with the setting and I enjoyed that. It seemed appropriate. Non-linearity isn't something I look for in a game, so that never really occurred to me as an issue, I guess. My biggest problem actually was that I finished it as the eldar, and went quickly into a tyranid campaign - only to find the same levels. That really irked me.

Oh, and I'm not saying this in some sort of 'your opinions are wrong' kinda way - that'd be dumb - just that your personal complaints made me think about what I got from the game and the whole weirdness subjectivity deal throws up from time to time.

vinraith

01-11-2011, 04:16 PM

vinraith

01-11-2011, 04:18 PM

Oh, and I'm not saying this in some sort of 'your opinions are wrong' kinda way - that'd be dumb - just that your personal complaints made me think about what I got from the game and the whole weirdness subjectivity deal throws up from time to time.

Yup, and mine weren't meant to imply that Unrav was wrong, I think different reactions to the same design decisions make for interesting discussion. There's an air of "cheap and thrown together" about Retribution for me, I think it's interesting (and in many ways very good) that you and Unrav don't get that so much.

JayTee

01-11-2011, 07:46 PM

I preferred Chaos Rising's campaign, and I do keep meaning to go back and replay it as a full-on Chaos convert, but I really enjoyed playing the IG in the campaign. I found the Ogryn utterly, utterly useless and the Inquistor was pretty crapass too, I generally played with those 2 Honour Guard-ed and Merrick, who once equipped with a melta gun and melta bombs destroyed any vehicles in seconds.

BF3 however is largely sucking up my time, and I'd just gotten into Last Stand mode on Retribution. Gah.

SirKicksalot

02-11-2011, 01:19 AM

BF3. The campaign is one of the most miserable experiences I've ever had. BC2 gave me cancer, but this one is even worse. I'd rather play Homefront's campaign over and over again than BF3's. Anybody that says "but COD or MOH are just like it!!!" is an idiot, and that's a fact.

I enjoy the multiplayer, however I do have some issues with it. The biggest one, and it happened in the campaign too, is that sound keeps cutting off. Everybody seems to be running with the flashlights on - however, it's not as bad as in the campaign where every fight has at least three stadium lights aimed at my eyes. I'm glad that there are less lens flares and dirt on the camera lol. The spawn menu map is bollocks - I only spawn on top of my mates because I can't understand anything from it.

Also the dialogue in BC2 MP was better.

Cable

02-11-2011, 03:33 AM

I'm playing shadowgrounds from one of the humble packs a while back and i'm really enjoying it, I expected it to be pretty average which it is sort of but it's a competent and interesting sort of average. ( I do tend to be overly generous to games though)

It's a top down alien shooter thing with interesting upgradeable guns and so on but what i really like is the shadows in the game. There's a lot of darkness and your flashlight runs out quite quickly so it's terrific being scared of the dark and waving your light around seeing fake monsters appear from the weird shadows that creates. Most interesting use of shadows i've seen in a game so that's something.

Jams O'Donnell

02-11-2011, 12:35 PM

Not entirely sure why, though it might be news of GTAV, but I've been getting back into GTA4. I got pretty far on the 360 version, but now I'm playing on PC and really wish I could get onto the other islands a bit sooner. Oh well, combat is about 500x easier on PC thanks to having a mouse, at least.

coldvvvave

02-11-2011, 02:13 PM

It's funny, everything Unrav likes about Retribution I kind of hate.

I paid $7.50 for it and was disappointed, and I say that as a modest fan of the first two.

Well, to be fair it's a standalone multiplayer pack with some pretty shallow campaigns thrown together for people who don't play MP( strangely, they are the majority). Only thing I enjoyed in SP was voice acting. I mean, it's ridiculous, but WH 40k is supposed to be that way. MP is great though, I bought it for 40$ and never regretted( though I'm in top 50 ladder so I'm biased a bit).

Tikey

02-11-2011, 02:17 PM

I've been trying to play sots 2, I've failed with hilarious results.
Also I've been playing a bit of GhostBusters: The videogame (akka: Nostalgia: The videogame)
I'm thinking about starting my first playthrough of Vampire: Bloodlines. I've already instaled the fan patch, so It should be ready to go.

Heliocentric

02-11-2011, 02:34 PM

Oh well, combat is about 500x easier on PC thanks to having a mouse, at least.Really? I used a controller even on foot because lock on made combat so much more pleasant.

Althea

02-11-2011, 02:40 PM

Really? I used a controller even on foot because lock on made combat so much more pleasant.
If you have aim-assist off, though, the controller is terrible to use. It's so... slow. You just can't beat the speed and accuracy of the mouse.

Heliocentric

02-11-2011, 03:18 PM

Althea

02-11-2011, 03:25 PM

Why would you not use auto aim?
Because I can pull off shots that just aren't possible with the controller and/or auto-aim.

Heliocentric

02-11-2011, 03:31 PM

Because I can pull off shots that just aren't possible with the controller and/or auto-aim.

Oh, I suppose, but you realise you can tune your aim, like aiming a grenade by the side of a locked target in cover to post the grenade, or for a headshot.

vinraith

02-11-2011, 04:45 PM

That's a bizarre argument, it's like saying a mouse is terribubble if you only turn right. Why would you not use auto aim? Do I need to hand back my pc gamer badge?

The game was designed with auto aim and controllers in mind. The last mission makes that disgustingly obvious for one.

Personally I find the slowness of controller aiming, even with auto-aim, absolutely infuriating. It's purely a matter of personal taste, but crisp, precise, fast aiming control feels so much better to me, and the results are wildly better as well. The ideal example is Alpha Protocol to my mind. I played the "shooting" tutorial mission perhaps half a dozen times with the controller and never got close to the necessary score to get the extra assignment. I got it the first time with M&KB.

Heliocentric

02-11-2011, 06:48 PM

Oh I totally agree with most auto aim solutions but gta4 is bloody snappy, it's like an aimbot. I have lots of games where I need to click on heads, I don't at all mind that gta is not one of them.

Nalano

02-11-2011, 07:31 PM

GTA4 is, more or less, an aimbot.

But the game makers know that gamepad < m&kb when it comes to FPSs and TPSs, which is why they actually have separate difficulty levels between the consoles and PCs (MW on console, to provide an example, throws fewer enemies at you and they have worse aim), and console and PC multiplayer are rarely mixed (with predictable results (http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22946) when they were).

Casimir Effect

02-11-2011, 09:14 PM

MW on console, to provide an example, throws fewer enemies at you and they have worse aim

I fucking knew it. Someone owes me a beer. Any corroborating articles for this or is it just a thing you've noticed/examined (and I've noticed similar too)?

TailSwallower

03-11-2011, 12:07 AM

Played Binding of Isaac yesterday until my first death. Was tempted to restart, but I knew it would be a dangerous timesink. My only issue with it so far is that I have no idea what the items do - any way in game to find out apart from looking at your stats and trying to figure out which one is higher than before?

Also played Blocks That Matter, and I'm not entirely convinced. The puzzles seem a little too trial-and-error, and in most cases it would be negated if I just had a butt-drill. Instead I have to restart the stage and try not to stuff up again. Still as a HIB bonus it's not like I spent a significant amount of money on it.

Voxatron, as EVERYBODY has pointed out, would be a lot better with an improved control scheme. It's alpha, so we'll see how it develops.

Also, a friend gifted me Super Meat Boy. It's super frustrating, but also super rewarding when you get a really clean run, or just figure out puzzles on the fly. I also like watching the replay when you've died a hundred times on one level and seeing the little meat men flinging themselves into sawblades left, right and center.

Nalano

03-11-2011, 12:08 AM

I fucking knew it. Someone owes me a beer. Any corroborating articles for this or is it just a thing you've noticed/examined (and I've noticed similar too)?

Trying to find an article on it I found back when I'd just gotten finished playing the CoD4 campaign on a friend's Xbox. This was a while ago, tho.

Fumarole

03-11-2011, 12:42 AM

Heliocentric

03-11-2011, 10:16 AM

Also played Blocks That Matter, and I'm not entirely convinced. The puzzles seem a little too trial-and-error, and in most cases it would be negated if I just had a butt-drill. Instead I have to restart the stage and try not to stuff up again. Still as a HIB bonus it's not like I spent a significant amount of money on it.

Blocks that matter desperately needs a rewind feature like toki tori.

TailSwallower

03-11-2011, 11:04 AM

Blocks that matter desperately needs a rewind feature like toki tori.

Indeed! See also: Braid.
That would make a big difference.

Skalpadda

03-11-2011, 02:22 PM

My curiosity got the better of me, so I played through the Trine 2 "beta" today (it's more of a demo for preorders, letting you play the intro/tutorial and the first level). It's gorgeous, even more so than the first, and the new physics puzzle mechanics are nice and fun to play around with. Combat seems about the same and will probably be the weakest link in this one as well, but the enemies so far have been more fun and there wasn't a lot of them in the first level at least.

I really enjoyed it and I can't wait for the full thing to be released.

eRa

03-11-2011, 07:10 PM

The new DLC for Panzer Corps, Grand Campaign '39. Crawling through polish forests with Panzer Is and some infantry, good stuff!

vinraith

03-11-2011, 10:15 PM

The new DLC for Panzer Corps, Grand Campaign '39. Crawling through polish forests with Panzer Is and some infantry, good stuff!

How is Panzer Corps? I've been meaning to take a good look at that one, it'll probably go on the Xmas list.

airtekh

03-11-2011, 10:51 PM

eRa

03-11-2011, 11:43 PM

How is Panzer Corps? I've been meaning to take a good look at that one, it'll probably go on the Xmas list.

If you like challenging turn-based strategy I can only recommend it. There is pretty much every unit from the era present, around 400 all in all.

And there is a lot more DLC coming, the devs plan to stretch the campaign to some 100 scenarios.

Skalpadda

04-11-2011, 12:39 AM

I don't normally pre-order games, but I'm strongly tempted to do so for Trine 2. I absolutely loved the first game.

I don't usually pre-order stuff either, but Trine 2 is only 13€ which is surprising considering the first one still goes for 20€ on Steam. So far it seems like it'll be more of the same, but a bit more polished and beautified, some new mechanics and of course online co-op. Not much of a gamble.

Frozenbyte's YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/FrozenbyteGames) is pretty cool btw. They've got a bunch of trailers and making-of videos up there that are well worth a look.

vinraith

04-11-2011, 12:41 AM

If you like challenging turn-based strategy I can only recommend it. There is pretty much every unit from the era present, around 400 all in all.

And there is a lot more DLC coming, the devs plan to stretch the campaign to some 100 scenarios.

Yup, definitely going to pick that up. The campaign has some kind of forking non-linear structure, right?

eRa

04-11-2011, 01:17 AM

Yup, definitely going to pick that up. The campaign has some kind of forking non-linear structure, right?

Yep, depending on the outcome of the current scenario (loss or minor/decisive victory) the following scenarios can vary. Finishing France fast enough allows you to invade England for example. Also, a core force of units travels with you throughout the campaign, gathering experience and medals.

vinraith

04-11-2011, 01:27 AM

Heliocentric

04-11-2011, 09:00 AM

Me and my fiancée played the path, the boss battle really stood out but over all it was a seamless experience, except the one time you need to sit by the fire and wait, I walked around for 3000 metres looking for what I was meant to do to get deaded before giving up and going to youtube.

But otherwise it was haunting and we discussed it long after we finished it, now its just a mater of what to play next.

Ian

04-11-2011, 09:10 AM

I actually WON a round of Atom Zombie Smasher! I am truly the King of Games.

Heliocentric

04-11-2011, 09:13 AM

I actually WON a round of Atom Zombie Smasher! I am truly the King of Games.

Bravo, now try mods.

Fumarole

04-11-2011, 01:23 PM

Yep, depending on the outcome of the current scenario (loss or minor/decisive victory) the following scenarios can vary. Finishing France fast enough allows you to invade England for example. Also, a core force of units travels with you throughout the campaign, gathering experience and medals.I was able to initiate Operation Sealion in Steel Panthers back in 1995 or so. I came to within one turn of crushing England under my victorious jackboot. Definitely one of my favorite gaming memories. If Panzer Corps can do something similar I may have to look it up.

edit - I should also mention that Steel Panthers has all of the following as well:

Continuity, strategic context, and letting the player lose. That's definitely my kind of game!

Dugular

04-11-2011, 04:24 PM

Two different extremes for me.

Halfway through Uncharted 3. It's beautiful, exciting and what I wanted, though feels even harder aiming with a gamepad than the previous ones. Story is poop, but character interactions are the best I've seen in our medium.

On the other hand, I'm also playing through Elder Scrolls: Arena. It's basically a dungeon crawler, despite the Elder Scrolls name. It is free-form, yes, but everything bar the main quest is randomly generated, so you get pretty bored quickly and mainly stick to plot. Sorry, did I say plot? I meant to say that quest where you have to explore 16 dungeons to find 8 pieces of staff. Still strangely compelling despite my negative comments.

CrinnyCow

04-11-2011, 06:07 PM

Wizardry

04-11-2011, 07:11 PM

What should the next game on my "finish list" be? Right now my backlog is: Dead Space 2, Supreme Commander, DoWII expansions, and Baldur's Gate II. Or I could just keep switching between Battlefield 3, GTA and SC2...
Baldur's Gate II because it's the best game on that list.

Wooly Wugga Wugga

05-11-2011, 04:01 AM

What should the next game on my "finish list" be? Right now my backlog is: Dead Space 2, Supreme Commander, DoWII expansions, and Baldur's Gate II. Or I could just keep switching between Battlefield 3, GTA and SC2...

They're all good games so you're going to have to ask yourself - FPS, RTS or RPG? If I were you I'd probably fire up the DoW II expansions. DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!

Nalano

05-11-2011, 04:20 AM

They're all good games so you're going to have to ask yourself - FPS, RTS or RPG? If I were you I'd probably fire up the DoW II expansions. DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!

DoW2 and BF3. At least, that's what I've been playing from those. I think I'm going deaf from all the explosions, tho.

icemann

05-11-2011, 04:34 AM

Currently playing through The Witcher for the 1st time round, after completing Lufia 2 - Rise of the Sinistrels (SNES) last week. Lufia 2 had been on my todo list to complete for a VERY long time.

347

47 hours and 21 minutes well spent :).

Aseries

05-11-2011, 03:34 PM

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 downloaded from STEAM. I will be starting the "CIA: Don't speak Russian" section. Interesting, Soap McTavish has been promoted to captain during the 4 years since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

SephKing

05-11-2011, 05:16 PM

Been replaying GTA 4 ...with some mods ;-)

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r108/sephis85/GTAIV2011-11-0516-24-45-36.jpg

I know it's hugely unlikely but I really hope GTA 5 on PC launches within a month of the console version and has the video editor.

cosmicolor

06-11-2011, 01:06 PM

I've been playing through The Witcher 2 and feeling depressed as my PC manfully struggles through the game at 20-30 fps with almost everything turned off or on minimal :(

Also been messing around with inMomentum and the evergreen TF2.

agentorange

06-11-2011, 01:52 PM

Finished my second playthrough of Silent Hill 2 (got the Rebirth ending), and have started on King's Bounty: The Legend. Enjoying it in an addictive compulsive capacity, it reminds me of Disciples, only the work that went into the art of that game has been put into the side quests and open world in this games case. It's also surprisingly hard...though I've died only once, and had to run once, I take heavy casualties fairly often.

Fumarole

06-11-2011, 01:57 PM

agentorange

06-11-2011, 02:04 PM

I found Necromancers to be a great asset for reviving troops during the battle to mitigate losses.

I don't think I have access to those troops yet; as a mage I do plan to go down the chaos/necromancy route though, I assume I can get resurrection spells that way?

Creeping Death

06-11-2011, 02:10 PM

It's beautiful, exciting and what I wanted, though feels even harder aiming with a gamepad than the previous ones.
.

Once you realise blind fire from cover has auto aim it becomes a lot easier :/

I've just finished up Bastion (twice... in the space of 3 days). Easily my game of the year and I now have the soundtrack on repeat constantly :P My next game is a toss up between trying to stick with Kings Bounty again, Penumbra Black Plague or trying King Arthur the Rpwg again.

hamster

06-11-2011, 03:47 PM

I don't think I have access to those troops yet; as a mage I do plan to go down the chaos/necromancy route though, I assume I can get resurrection spells that way?

Um necromancy doesn't let you revive troops at all, at least not permanently. It's the resurrection spell you're looking for, which is "blue" magic (sorry forgot the name). You can get inquisitors which have a resurrection spell - the more of them you have, the more they resurrect. You can generally grab them at the graveyard area.

The chaos spell that allows you to replenish your troops is called "sacrifice" btw. You damage one set of troops to heal (and resurrect, if you restore enough hp) other troops. Excellent spell to replenish powerful, low quantity units with infinite fodder you can recruit from your castle.

Kodeen

06-11-2011, 08:08 PM

Just now getting around to playing Beyond Good and Evil, which I won from RPS when the new forums came up. Having fun so far, though I spent at least a half hour trying to find a way to get rid of the letterboxing. What an odd decision on Ancel's part.

Also got in a bit of The Binding of Isaac. Very addictive, the only natural response to dying is to fire it right back up.

Edawan

06-11-2011, 08:58 PM

I played a bit of Escape from Butcher Bay, which I'd heard good things about, but I'm finding the stealth to be a bit tedious. Getting noticed means almost instant death, and there's a few places where you can't possibly know that there's a guard around the corner / behind the door, so it's often frustrating.

Then this afternoon I wanted to play Dawn of War 2, but FIRST I spent 15 minutes getting GFWL to work again. ò_ó

squirrelfanatic

06-11-2011, 08:59 PM

Still Bioshock-ing. My opinion is that it is not the brilliant game it could have been (if it had been made more alike to System Shock/SS2) but it kept me entertained up until now (Olympus Heights). Spoilers ahead. The characters seem to be pretty bland and the story fails to provide a good motivation for the protagonist at the beginning. The plot twist could be seen as an explanation for this (I still don't fully get some plot relevant situations, even by hindsight) but this seems like a very thin cover-up for said lack of player motivation. Sander Cohen and his bunny business made an impression on me, the rest of the levels seem a bit exchangeable. Cohen gets some bonus points in my book because you can actually decide not to kill him. :)

cosmicolor

07-11-2011, 12:32 AM

I don't think I have access to those troops yet; as a mage I do plan to go down the chaos/necromancy route though, I assume I can get resurrection spells that way?

If you chose the Paladin class you could get a permanent rez spell I think. There are probably scrolls of it you could find, though.

TailSwallower

07-11-2011, 12:45 AM

Played a bunch of Dawn of War II over the weekend. I'm taking time to do the optional missions before wrapping the game up (I think - The Last Stand is available and from the banter post-mission it seems like there should only be one or two after that).

But, now I'm wondering if the Optional Missions just keep on coming? They certainly seem to be replaced with new ones whenever I finish them. And as much fun as the gameplay is, it would have been better if the campaign was more varied like SC2's.

Also, MP game of Solium Infernum started up on the weekend, so that should be grand.
And I've been sucking at the Frozen Synapse tournament. I think 1 win, 4 losses and one game still going? I really should have got some practice in before starting... Especially when the first game I played was against a Level 76er and I was a lowly Level 9.

Ian

07-11-2011, 08:16 AM

Made a start on Bastion. It's pretty good thus far. Awesome narrator. :)

Drake Sigar

07-11-2011, 10:27 AM

ArmA II is pissing me off. 9 missions in and the game has suddenly turned into a makeshift real time strategy, without bothering to brief me on the controls. Boot Camp only seems to go through the basics, I don't know what buildings do what, or how to form teams from newly purchased units. (I select a few and say form red team or some drivel, but they still remain on my squad. I'm trying to get them to be their own separate entity.)

jryan

07-11-2011, 04:06 PM

I have renewed my love of Blood Bowl LE. I am having much more fun on my third attempt now that I have the hang of turnover mitigation. Reading the RPS reports of the BB league still requires a dictionary, though.

TailSwallower

08-11-2011, 04:01 AM

Had a bit of a go at the Geneforge 1 demo last night. And whilst the game is a little clunky and obtuse, there's definitely something there. The writing is great, and straight off the bat it establishes a really strong atmosphere.
I'll grab this sometime in the future when my backlog is more like a backtwig. If it's on sale again around Christmas I might get it then, but I'm not really concerned about the price 'cause even at full-price it's only $20 for 5 games.

Would love to see Vogel work on something that isn't fantasy though. Even though Geneforge is non-Tolkien, non-generic fantasy, it'd still be great to see him focus on a modern or sci-fi setting.

NecroKnight

08-11-2011, 12:09 PM

Stealth Bastard: Tactical Espionage Arsehole

oceanclub

08-11-2011, 12:36 PM

Finished my third playthrough of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, which I bought again, this time in the Steam sale. Still holds up brilliantly; I'd expected to play it for a bit and then return to another game but had to complete it to the end. Played a high Ranged Toreador character this time around, which made a change from my previous melee characters. At the start it's more difficult, but once you have high Ranged, decent weaponry and celerity (that is, "bullet time") you can make mincemeat of bosses. The combat _really_ isn't as bad as people say; it's just that the combat scenarios at the end are overlong and of course the game doesn't offer as much as choice as previously.

squirrelfanatic

08-11-2011, 05:41 PM

Finished my first playthrough of Bioshock. Spoilers might be around. Really enjoyed it although I certainly feel like the game could have been even a better one. Medium difficulty proved to be challenging only in parts but when it did the atmosphere was thrilling. Its a bit of a shame that some of the plasmids make the game nearly too easy, especially Camouflage takes a lot of tension out of most scenes. The end boss was too easy for my tastes, I was able to beat him using only trap bolts and one or two electric shocks from the plasmid.

Now I'll hop right into the second game.

TailSwallower

09-11-2011, 12:00 AM

Gave up on the optional missions in DoW2 because it became apparent that they really were never ending, and were being repeated (and not just the 'Defend the Spire/Array/Foundry' missions, but the 'Hunt down Xeno X' missions too). Which is sort of annoying. I was travelling around the sector stomping any and all Xenos and I still can't get the satisfaction of having a clean sector before moving on to the final mission. I guess it makes sense though, 'cause it would seem silly if everyone's being all dramatic about this Tyranid invasion that has been neatly nipped in the bud everywhere else but this one mission area.

I decided to go straight onto Chaos Rising - just to have a look at the first mission and see how things have changed. Seems good so far, but the first mission was a lot longer than I was used to from vanilla DoW2 and it kept me up a fair bit later than I should have let it... Which is a comment on both the quality of the game and the pain-in-the-arse lack of mid-mission saves.

SirKicksalot

09-11-2011, 02:32 AM

MW3. I only played around 75 minutes of the campaign and two FFA matches. So far the SP is easily the best in the series - it's faster, more fluid, steals more movie scenes, actually makes sense, has no blinding blood jelly, sounds and looks better. It feels more down to earth compared to MW2 and BLOPS.
As for the MP... Well, it doesn't feel as instantly broken as MW2 did. I got a strong COD4 vibe in the short time I played. Not happy that they removed the heavy customisation introduced by BLOPS.

Tikey

09-11-2011, 01:41 PM

Ghostbusters: The videogame.
It's fun. I'd like to say that it's doing for Ghostbusters what Arkham Asylum did for Batman but it's not as tight as the caped crusader game.
It is a solid game, not very innovative, very gamey on some aspects. It's fun but not remarkable. BUT they really captured the setting. If it wasn't a ghostbusters game it would be a regular game. But it is a ghostbusters game, and it's great at that (a little too much fanservice, but nothing serious). Characters are great Akroyd is amazing as Stanz but Bill Murray's performance is so uninspired you could almost touch the disinterest.
I'm near the end and I've enjoyed it very much.
protip: Play in casual difficulty. It's not a hard game on normal, but it's annoyingly grindy.
game developer protip: Just increasing the enemies damage output while reducing the player's isn't a good way to make a game more difficult.

Shar_ds

09-11-2011, 01:53 PM

http://www.simutrans.com/

Linked from The Wager comments.. it's TTD but different... and I can build canal boats that are pulled by horse teams!!! Amazing

Wooly Wugga Wugga

09-11-2011, 04:34 PM

http://www.simutrans.com/

Linked from The Wager comments.. it's TTD but different... and I can build canal boats that are pulled by horse teams!!! Amazing

What is the AI like in Simutrans? I tried to get into OpenTTD but I just could never find a completed AI that made use of all the transport options.

acidtestportfolio

09-11-2011, 08:08 PM

bastion, the binding of isaac, and sometimes blocks that matter and battlefield 3.

icemann

10-11-2011, 04:28 AM

I decided to go straight onto Chaos Rising - just to have a look at the first mission and see how things have changed. Seems good so far, but the first mission was a lot longer than I was used to from vanilla DoW2 and it kept me up a fair bit later than I should have let it... Which is a comment on both the quality of the game and the pain-in-the-arse lack of mid-mission saves.

I found Chaos Rising to be pretty awesome all together. It does away with some of what made vanilla DoW2 annoying (the defence missions) and the stories quite good overall. I've not even tried the 3rd expansion Retribution since they apparently scaled back the rpg elements and made the story alot more generic. Otherwise I'd have definitely purchased that one too.

Shar_ds

10-11-2011, 01:27 PM

What is the AI like in Simutrans? I tried to get into OpenTTD but I just could never find a completed AI that made use of all the transport options.

I can't say I've got that far! Still fiddling around with the edges to see how the economies work in this. And, tbh, I'm not the best judge anyway, I always used to just set out to bankrupt all the AI's in TTD just so I could have my own sandbox. Quite why I didn't just turn them off, I don't know!

airtekh

10-11-2011, 02:47 PM

Just replayed Batman: Arkham Asylum in anticipation of Arkham City, and I managed to find all the Riddler's secrets. I like how he starts off by mocking the player, and proceeds to get really pissed off when you solve them all, even accusing you of looking them up on the internet!

I'm also reaquainting myself with SWAT 4. Having to shout compliance before you're allowed to fire is a terrifying experience; it's like you're giving the advantage to the enemy. The perp is equally likely to give up, run off, or turn and shoot you. I certainly don't envy real SWAT officers after playing it. As much as I like Bioshock, I wish Irrational would get their asses in gear and make another one of these; it's bloody brilliant.

I just finished Black Plague (which I liked better than Overture) and now I'm onto Penumbra: Requiem.

Heliocentric

10-11-2011, 02:56 PM

I know, when everyone was proclaiming bioshock game of the decade I just wanted swat 5. Imagine bf3's tech with 16 players locking down an entire suburb or apartment complex. The helicopters most effective weapon would be its beam of light, voip shouting over the tanoy "stand still so I can flash bang you" and the AI reacting to the volume and tone of your voice, sniper support being an actual player who can move for better sight lines.

Casimir Effect

10-11-2011, 04:15 PM

Yeah well I want them to make a sequel to the single player of Tribes: Vengeance. To hell with this 'Shock rubbish.

squirrelfanatic

10-11-2011, 07:02 PM

Rock of Ages. What a frustrating game. Apparently ACE like to make partly infuriating pieces?

Edit: I remember Zeno Clash being lots of fun though. This one not so much which is a shame as the art style is superb.

Oak

10-11-2011, 09:35 PM

Remember: it's a race. Once you get slowing your opponent's ball down, er, down, the game becomes almost disappointingly easy. Fun, but easy.

There's definitely something about the actual playing-the-game bit of both Rock and Zeno Clash that lacks heft; it's as though they hammer out a proof of concept and then spend the remainder of their time and money on the aesthetic stuff. It's a testament to their skill that the aesthetic stuff is strong enough to support both games to the end.

cosmicolor

10-11-2011, 10:31 PM

I've been playing a lot of Sonic Generations since buying it the other day, it's actually pretty good overall, been in the mood for a platformer as of late and it's fit the bill nicely.

SirKicksalot

11-11-2011, 02:25 AM

I finished MW3 today. It lasted a bit over 4 hours.

It's easily the best campaign in the series. The levels are the widest in the series since Call of Duty 2. The pacing is much improved and all the scripted events fit better. It's like a first-person Uncharted, always throwing you in the middle of some awesome events and always coming up with new scenarios. I was never bothered by the game taking over compared to, for example, Crysis 2.

As a side note, it's hilarious how all Call of Duty clones make you wait until the AI lines up or opens the door, while in MW3 (and 2) you open most doors and nobody's bothered if you get ahead of the dude with *FOLLOW above his head.

Yes, there is a really stupid and badly done interactive cutscene, but it's not worth any attention. Later in the game it portrays some horrific events much better. I suppose nobody's getting worked out over scenes stolen from Children of Men...

It wraps up the story nicely, especially after the mess that was MW2.

As for the multiplayer - p2p is a bit rubbish, which means it's incredibly better than the totally broken system they had in MW2. There are dedicated servers but they're unranked and I actually enjoy leveling up, so I'll stick to p2p. The weapon levels are cute, but they don't hold a candle to what BLOPS brought to the series. The pointstreaks are a good idea - rewards are no longer tied only to the number of kills, you can achieve them by going for the objectives too. The maps have way less verticality, which is a very good thing. The flying killmachines are toned down compared to MW2. The weapons deal slightly more damage.

The community, as always, blows. Campers and people insulting everybody. Not many noobtubers though - so far. I wonder why the MW series attracts such retards... I swear BLOPS was a cleaner game.
I suppose I'll prestige once and then abandon it. My favourite game mode is FFA, which always loses players after the first weeks.
This weekend will be dedicated to MW3 and BF3 multiplayer.

sabrage

11-11-2011, 02:36 AM

Picked up 2008's iteration of Prince of Persia again in anticipation of re-playing Sands of Time. I really don't mind the combat, the fact that you never die, the simplicity or the easiness of it all... But the dialogue is absolutely horrendous and the fact that I can't turn off the tutorial messages is absolutely infuriating. The gameplay itself is all well and good, but I think I'm going to end up playing Mirror's Edge again instead of going back to Sands of Time. I think the level design is actually really great, but Mirror's Edge just seems so much better in comparison. Luckily, the game is gorgeous, and I like the semi-non-linear structure, so I'll probably stick with it to the end. Really, though, I feel like the game is a step in the wrong direction (having only played SoT and this in the series) because the time manipulation mechanic felt so amazing the first time I played it. The "flow" of the game isn't disrupted by the changes they made, but the feeling really is.

Hotly anticipating Skyrim, which is downloading at the moment. Shame Steam keeps freezing on me for no apparent reason.

SirKicksalot

11-11-2011, 02:49 AM

Are you playing it with the keyboard or with a controller? I tried the keyboard and it was fine until one of the bosses (an immortal one I think) which I just couldn't defeat. Now I have a controller and if it's manageable I might reinstall it...

sabrage

11-11-2011, 03:34 AM

I'm playing with my 360 controller. Using a mouse+keyboard for platformers just feels... Wrong. That applies for most any third person action game, though I'm sure a mouse would be better for any Gearsalike (and was surprisingly painless for Arkham Asylum.) The gamepad was recognized without any fiddling, and it feels great.

Hensler

11-11-2011, 05:21 AM

Skyrim, of course. I just had to pull myself out of the lands of the Nords because my eyes are aching.

amusingthebrood

11-11-2011, 06:54 AM

Althea

11-11-2011, 07:31 AM

What game time I have is currently being spent on Grid. I am possibly the worst driving game player in the history of ever, and possibly the most easily frustrated as well, but I'm loving Grid. With all the driver aids on and the AI drivers set to easy I am actually competitive and largely capable of keeping my car on the track. I even feel like I am improving. For a risky punt given previous bad experiences it is turning out to be a great investment for very few pennies.
Got to agree. I generally stay away from racing games as I find them either samey or just irritating, but GRID is amazing. Visually, it's absolutely stunning even though it's a few years old now. The cars are great, the tracks are great (although some can really be annoying, like that one with a small bridge), and it plays really well.

amusingthebrood

11-11-2011, 07:54 AM

... but GRID is amazing. Visually, it's absolutely stunning even though it's a few years old now.

I thought that as well, it does look lovely. Given its age I did put it partly down to me not having many recent pretty games to compare it to, but apparently not.

NecroKnight

11-11-2011, 08:09 AM

Battlefield 3

sabrage

11-11-2011, 08:41 AM

*sigh* I guess Skyrim isn't gonna finish downloading anytime soon, so I caved and bought that new Indie Royale. Really pleasantly surprised by Scoregasm. I used to be absolutely addicted to Geometry Wars on my 360, but Geometry Wars 2 didn't really do anything for me. Scoregasm takes the more structured approach that GeoWars 2 does and brings back the particle effects hell that was the first one. And just when I was thinking that the game was too easy, I tried a couple of the challenges... I'm convinced that most of those little bastards are impossible.

Sunk another hour or so into Call of Cthulhu. The atmosphere is fucking fantastic, and I'm really impressed by how interactive a few of the characters feel. The story is just picking up, and I'd be enjoying it as we speak if the bloody thing didn't keep crashing on me. There's one particular part that crashed my game twice as I entered the room, but I was able to get around it by hopping through the doorway. That's my only real complaint about the game; the forced save points wouldn't bother me if every crash didn't necessitate a few minutes of retreading. I've yet to touch a gun, or any weapon for that matter. So far it's just a stellar first person adventure game.

Oh, and I played about 10 minutes of Voxatron. It's charming as hell, but I hate that firing "locks" the character model in the direction you're shooting and how arcadey it feels. I think I'll stick with The Binding of Isaac.

agentorange

11-11-2011, 11:16 AM

Sunk another hour or so into Call of Cthulhu. The atmosphere is fucking fantastic, and I'm really impressed by how interactive a few of the characters feel. The story is just picking up, and I'd be enjoying it as we speak if the bloody thing didn't keep crashing on me. There's one particular part that crashed my game twice as I entered the room, but I was able to get around it by hopping through the doorway. That's my only real complaint about the game; the forced save points wouldn't bother me if every crash didn't necessitate a few minutes of retreading. I've yet to touch a gun, or any weapon for that matter. So far it's just a stellar first person adventure game.

Count yourself lucky if your game permanently crashes just before you pick up that first gun.

Kadayi

11-11-2011, 12:58 PM

A lot of BF3 multi-player. Skyrim & LA Noire are happily sitting on my Steam account now to be explored over the weekend, however I've a feeling invariably I'm going to find myself capturing & recapturing Hilltop & forest on Caspian as well as rampaging around Grand bazaar & Seine for a large part of it.

Dugular

11-11-2011, 03:50 PM

Oak

11-11-2011, 04:03 PM

Let me know what you think of LA Noire. My first reaction was love. My last was contempt.

You just described my relationship with my ex-wife.

http://i.imgur.com/NAVOK.jpg

Try the veal, folks.

Hensler

11-11-2011, 07:36 PM

Let me know what you think of LA Noire. My first reaction was love. My last was contempt.

Are you referring to the actual horrible ending of the storyline or just a dislike of the game after you played more of it? For me, it was both.

Kaira-

12-11-2011, 08:40 PM

Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder. And I'm enjoying myself, though some of the puzzles so far have been quite... exotic, to say. After this, I'll probably play Darkness Within 2, since I got the Collector's Edition for cheap cheap price of 10€ from... Gamestop.

SirKicksalot

12-11-2011, 09:26 PM

Renegade Ops. I'd love it if it had unlimited lives. I guess I'll use a trainer because the Normal difficulty is a bit retarded and Casual doesn't give access to most toys.

Herzog

12-11-2011, 10:55 PM

I finished BIT.TRIP Runner today. Damn the last stages were difficult! Also got my second mom kill at Binding of Isaac. On the fps-side I am still struggling at getting better in Red Orchestra 2, but there is some progress! But this game really needs more patches! Also been playing some rounds of QuakeWorld FFA...

Next up: Deus Ex (left off some monthes ago half-way through, coming to HK I think) and Amnesia:The Dark Descent

sabrage

13-11-2011, 03:35 AM

Spent most of my day playing Far Cry. Finally got past that goddamn jeep part, after which the game gets a hell of a lot better. I'm usually content hole myself up in one spot, sniping guards and mowing down anyone that gets too close with my P90. God damn though, trigens are fucking annoying. If you're going to give your enemies a leaping ability, please don't make their attacks one hit kills. Gotten a few CTDs so I'm done with it for tonight, I think.

I wish I'd been recording while I was playing. I had a particularly sublime run where I cleared an entire base without getting shot once, culminating in driving a jeep straight into the last man standing. Why can I get into this, but not STALKER, Deus Ex, or Crysis? I guess it helps that every weapon in Far Cry feels great, not to mention useful.

Also, Blocks That Matter gets hard.

The JG Man

13-11-2011, 03:44 AM

I would like to be finishing off the last hour or so of Amnesia, but I believe the latest ATI driver update has made that unpossible, along with Minecraft and likely a few other games, although I haven't checked to see. Otherwise, Battlefield 3 has been taking slight chunks. I'm disappointed in the maps, but the gameplay is fine I suppose. Also got done with Renegade Ops, which was a fun blast.

More importantly, started on The Binding of Isaac earlier and played it for about 90 minutes. Good stuff. Shame there is no official controller support, but it plays well enough. I don't like how some rooms feel incredibly hard, in the balance scheme of things, but such is the like. Got as far as the penultimate level in one attempt, but I traded all but my final heart for a new character and an item. All things considered, not an entirely smart move! Still, a fun game I'll likely spend a lot of time with. Helps the music is great, but then again I'm not entirely surprised.

agentorange

13-11-2011, 03:56 AM

Finished Old World Blues after playing it for about 21 hours straight; Obsidian sure know how to do this DLC stuff. The story of Dead Money resonated with me more, and I think the characters in that one were more fleshed out, but it was also quite linear, Old World Blue's story was a pretty light but the humor and the sheer amount of content it adds more than made up for it.

Now I guess I'll try to get back into King's Bounty.

sabrage

13-11-2011, 04:10 AM

Shame there is no official controller support, but it plays well enough.

I made an Xpadder profile for TBOI, and quickly went back to keyboard. It's annoying there's no way to exit the pause menu without using the mouse, but the keyboard just feels far more precise than my 360 controller did. Maybe if there was 8-directional aiming it would make sense, but it really wasn't worth the effort to set it up. Just my $0.02

Scumbag

13-11-2011, 11:25 AM

Casimir Effect

13-11-2011, 12:43 PM

Aside from the Red Orchestra 2 addiction (I dont care if its buggy, I prefer the mechanics to other games of its type) with all the Skyrim hype I remembered I had Oblivion on Steam and had played it a whole half hour. Thought it would be a good time to dust it off and give the game a shot.
6 hours in and I'm enjoying it, though the engine really is showing its age in places.
If you feel like making thing massively complicated and possibly making the game unstable then you can play around with the visual overhaul mods - http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/obliviontextureoverhaul.html - which can make the game look incredible. Just be warned it will take several years off your life.

Hensler

13-11-2011, 01:56 PM

6 hours in and I'm enjoying it, though the engine really is showing its age in places.

Playing with any mods?

Scumbag

13-11-2011, 02:06 PM

If you feel like making thing massively complicated and possibly making the game unstable then you can play around with the visual overhaul mods - http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/obliviontextureoverhaul.html - which can make the game look incredible. Just be warned it will take several years off your life.

Yeah I thought about that and have been advised about it plus remember modding the original Half-Life (and modding its mods) and Stalker to hell and back, the later was certianly improved.
The problem with Oblivion mods is they seem to be a huge wrestling match of lunacy. I was speaking with a couple of people about them and one posted me a youtube vid that seemed to depict a Dark Elf as a... ballon breasted thing (which I wont link as, despite being not really a "Non-worksafe" item, it would raise eyebrows. Plus I would guess most Oblivion modders would have seen them now) with so much attention to detail in its movement that it confused me. He then told me how it works and I really did not see why he went to so much effort. Yes if you like it kudos it looked great for what it was, but to get there required more then I am willing to do. May try a more simple thing such as making the pudding faces more tolarable.

I also now understand the "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!" meme.

The JG Man

13-11-2011, 02:31 PM

I made an Xpadder profile for TBOI, and quickly went back to keyboard.

Fair enough. I did get used to it and it's not bad on keyboard...actually, using the d-pad on the 360 for firing is probably a bad idea anyhow.

Casimir Effect

13-11-2011, 05:15 PM

Yeah I thought about that and have been advised about it plus remember modding the original Half-Life (and modding its mods) and Stalker to hell and back, the later was certianly improved.
The problem with Oblivion mods is they seem to be a huge wrestling match of lunacy. I was speaking with a couple of people about them and one posted me a youtube vid that seemed to depict a Dark Elf as a... ballon breasted thing (which I wont link as, despite being not really a "Non-worksafe" item, it would raise eyebrows. Plus I would guess most Oblivion modders would have seen them now) with so much attention to detail in its movement that it confused me. He then told me how it works and I really did not see why he went to so much effort. Yes if you like it kudos it looked great for what it was, but to get there required more then I am willing to do. May try a more simple thing such as making the pudding faces more tolarable.

I also now understand the "STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM!" meme.

There are... things that exist on sites like the The Elder Scrolls Nexus and other TES mod sites which should never have seen the light of day. Some people are weirder than there are words for. And then there's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fxVeAVl2I8&feature=youtu.be.

The main problem I always had with the mods is the load order. You start off with a mod manager and then dowonload all the seperate mods. These then often need to be installed in a certain order because they concern the same files. They then often need to be dragged around inside the manager to change the load order. And if you have various of the DLCs these will always complain of conflict with the installed mods, although there shouldn't be an effect. All in all you end up with a game which is wonderfully enhanced but shaky as all hell. And by seeing it in it's enhanced glory it becomes harder to go back to vanilla. Especially if you've used one of the UI improving mods.

Still, have fun - even in vanilla form it's still great.

squirrelfanatic

13-11-2011, 10:08 PM

After some initial difficulties (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?1863-What-are-you-NOT-playing-at-the-moment&p=56743&viewfull=1#post56743) with the game I gave Stalker:CoP (with Complete Mod) a second chance. Most of the criticism I had was caused by a lack of knowledge of the contents and mechanisms of the game and after spending some hours with figuring out what actually is going on in the 'Zone' I can say that I am enjoying most of its parts.

Enemy spawns seem a bit random from time to time and it is not too uncommon to see a pack of rabid dogs chasing around pairs of mutated... ah... meat loafs...? There are some really atmospheric moments in the game. For instance, I took on a job that required me to hunt a pack of Bloodsuckers (kind of mutated mothers-in-law) in a swamp. Those things can turn invisible and attack by ambushing you from the sides and from behind (again, mothers-in-law). You can't see them but they still make sounds (for example when they're passing through bushes) and cause ripples in water, so I backpaddled to the next puddle of swampy water and took them out one by one with the trusty ol' shotgun. Really neat stuff.

After some time you get accustomed to the environmental sounds and occasional beasties though and the game world is becoming less and less scary. Or so I thought until I cheerily turned around a corner inside a warehouse of some sorts in search for loot and ran into this... thing (spoilers coming up: http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/396053-s-t-a-l-k-e-r-call-of-pripyat-windows-screenshot-one-of-the.jpg) and nearly suffered a heart attack. And now I have to go to bed and turn off the lights. :(

sabrage

13-11-2011, 10:34 PM

Well, I WAS enjoying Far Cry... It was the first single-player FPS I've gotten into in a looong time and I was looking forward to beating it, but the game started crashing every time I entered a certain room. Based on the other places I can go, I'm pretty sure that this room has the keycard I need to keep playing, so I can't get any further in the game. As if the Trigens weren't bad enough. So I tried defragmenting and verifying the games files (via Steam) and now the game won't launch at all. Pretty fucking annoyed by the whole thing, so hopefully a clean install will fix it.

The state of ennui I suffer when I look at my Steam library tells me I'll probably be sticking with League of Legends until I figure this bullshit out. I tried Ben There, Dan That (from the recent Indie Royale bundle) and got some weird performance issues with that too (first the sound wouldn't work, then the in-game dialogue started scrolling too fast to read) so I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Maybe I'll finally get around to playing STALKER Complete, now that my computer can run it properly.

Oh, and Rayman Forever and Max Payne both ran like shit/crashed too. I wouldn't regret buying any of them if they just fucking worked.

The JG Man

13-11-2011, 11:06 PM

So that's Amnesia completed! Not 100%, done the additional expansiony stuff, but I'll leave those for another time. I have had my fill in the 7 or so hours it took to go from start to finish. Nothing new to really add to previous impressions; the atmosphere is done excellently and it's suitably scary, but it never really amounted to anything more than "Well there's obviously going to be something bad here" and the occasional frustrating encounter. The puzzles were simple, but executed well enough. I probably will play the expansiony stuff at some point, the game world is an interesting one, but it is nowhere near a priority. I'll throw in my opinion to the "I recommend this" category.

vinraith

13-11-2011, 11:27 PM

I've been trying to push forward on Recettear, dabbling with Bronze, and I just tried starting a game of Minecraft but I keep crashing after a few minutes with an out of memory error. Anyone know what's up with that?

airtekh

13-11-2011, 11:50 PM

Or so I thought until I cheerily turned around a corner inside a warehouse of some sorts in search for loot and ran into this... thing

That's one of the reasons I love Stalker. You slowly become accustomed to the game and you think you have it sussed, and then it suddenly throws a curveball that scares the shit out of you!

Keep playing, there's another merry surprise or two further along in the game >:)

---

I've just started Metro 2033, and for the first few hours of it I've not been very impressed, at all.

First off, before I even started the game proper, I had to google a fix for the FOV, because the default is absolutely awful. I also had to find a fix that would cause my 360 controller to not be recognised by the game; because if the game detects a controller it doesn't give you the option to disable it.

Secondly, there's a stupid problem with the mouse, in that the vertical sensitivity is always slower than the horizontal one. The game was quite clearly designed around a controller (more horizontal movement than vertical) and mice were an afterthought. I couldn't find a fix for this, and it's frequently annoying.

I'm having a major problem with the combat too. It's difficult to tell if my shots are registering hitting the enemies since they don't react. More than once I've found myself firing at a corpse, believing it to be still alive.

Don't even get me started on the lack of quicksave and the annoyingly sparse checkpoints.

I'll persist, but I can see myself abandoning this one.

squareking

14-11-2011, 12:29 AM

Currently spending a stupid amount of time with Space Rangers 2: Reboot. Incredibly addictive!

I was planning on sinking that time into Terran Conflict, but the screen tearing (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?1993-V-syncing-Terran-Conflict) I'm getting is kinda immersion-breaking. :(

On the backburner, I have Amnesia, Borderlands and Dragon Age to finish.

destx

14-11-2011, 12:38 AM

I'm playing F.E.A.R. for the first time and not really enjoying it. The weapons and environments are okay, but the bad guys are just ...people. I was expecting it to be at least a little bit scary, but the boring enemies and cliché dream-sequence things are just irritating. Maybe it gets better?

I checked out the Blacklight: Retribution beta in the weekend, quite a fun game, some unique elements and a lot less flaky than the average F2P FPS.

Just finished Mass Effect 2. Kinda trashy but had a great time. Not sure why people say it has a 'darker tone'. I found it pretty cheery compared to the depressing original. Also it made me laugh a lot more than Portal 2 did.

Oak

14-11-2011, 01:08 AM

Just finished Mass Effect 2. Kinda trashy but had a great time. Not sure why people say it has a 'darker tone'. I found it pretty cheery compared to the depressing original. Also it made me laugh a lot more than Portal 2 did.

Adopting a 'darker tone' has become something of a sequel standard (http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2009/01/into-the-dark.html), but I can see where they're coming from. Though the sheer comedy of the final boss lightens the mood a bit.

TailSwallower

14-11-2011, 02:58 AM

Finally got around to playing A.R.E.S. from the first Indie Royale Bundle. Nothing really positive to say about it. My biggest complaint is that the controls just don't feel responsive enough for the sort of game it wants to be. Played on a 360 controller for anyone playing along at home.

Tackled a few more NightSky levels. I really like this game. It's calming or something. Even if it takes you a few goes to nail a puzzle it's never frustrating for some reason.

SirKicksalot

14-11-2011, 03:05 AM

Mohorovicic

14-11-2011, 06:47 AM

squirrelfanatic

14-11-2011, 07:20 AM

Keep playing, there's another merry surprise or two further along in the game >:)Oh, haha. Lucky me. Haha.

c-Row

14-11-2011, 08:14 AM

Couldn't resist picking up Might & Magic: Clash Of Heroes over the weekend after the WTF and playing the demo. It's a great example of "easy to learn, hard to master" since the mechanics are pretty basic but allow for great strategic depth.

luckystriker

14-11-2011, 08:34 AM

Battlefield 3, Battlefield 3 and more Battlefield 3. Bloody hell, I'm really liking the multiplayer. Everyone's mentioned the graphics but personally I'd put the sound design on the same level.

MD!

14-11-2011, 09:57 AM

I've been enjoying Bronze (thanks Vinraith), just finished the last Middle Bronze Age campaign. The Kassites were an interesting race to play -- I was slow to get the hang of them, and managed to stuff up the first map a few times, but after that I found their campaign to be the easiest so far.

I'm enjoying the way each race is significantly different, but not to the point that you have to re-learn the game. Playing against a race and developing a certain opinion of their strengths and weaknesses, then playing as them can be a fun experience.

I sometimes get a slightly hollow feeling when I win because the AI made some obviously non-optimal moves, but I do understand the point of making the campaigns a kind of learnable 'puzzle mode'. Anyway, definitely worth the purchase so far! I half wish there was internet multiplayer, but it's probably a good thing for my fragile ego that there isn't.

Also gave Assassin's Creed 2 a go ($5 from GamersGate). Can't tell how long I'll stick with it, but I've had a bit of fun so far. The movement feels a bit too automated, but I'm hoping it might open up a bit as the game progresses? At the moment it's basically 'hold down 2 buttons and steer', when I'd much prefer to have a go at choosing and timing the various moves by myself.

Scumbag

14-11-2011, 11:09 AM

After some initial difficulties (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?1863-What-are-you-NOT-playing-at-the-moment&p=56743&viewfull=1#post56743) with the game I gave Stalker:CoP (with Complete Mod) a second chance.

As much as I love Stalker to its core, it is a little old school in its mannerisms.
"Ok game, I'm stuck. What do I do?"
"RTFM STALKER, SUCH IS LIFE IN THE ZONE!"
"Ok, but you told me to take cover from the emition. I did and I..."
"STOP COMPLAINING STALKER! PAY MORE ATTENTION TO ALL THE DETAILS!"
Actually, thats kinda why I like it. The game point blank refuses to hold your hand in almost all situations and leaves you to find out the hard way. A little problematic in the age of digital distros where manuals are not things you can read on the bus home.
Just bear in mind if you want to play the previous 2 in the series they have some kind of tutorial things, just both are botched and a mite broken.

That's one of the reasons I love Stalker. You slowly become accustomed to the game and you think you have it sussed, and then it suddenly throws a curveball that scares the shit out of you!

It makes such little song and dance over these things also. Walking through some cave and suddenly something odd happens. Then something odder still happens, then you see something you dont quite understand, shoot it or something simlar, then "OH JESUS WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!" happens. The first bloodsucker or THAT poltergeist bit from the first Stalker scared me far more then any moment in Deadspace did.

vinraith

14-11-2011, 02:49 PM

I've been enjoying Bronze (thanks Vinraith), just finished the last Middle Bronze Age campaign.

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Ironically, it sounds like you've found more time to play it lately than I have.

I sometimes get a slightly hollow feeling when I win because the AI made some obviously non-optimal moves, but I do understand the point of making the campaigns a kind of learnable 'puzzle mode'.Yup. Have you tried a survival or tournament game? When not constrained by scripting the AI is positively lethal.

I half wish there was internet multiplayer, but it's probably a good thing for my fragile ego that there isn't.It's a much-discussed feature, there's a good chance it will be added. In the interim, though, because of the presence of hotseat and the nature of the game, it's possible to play "correspondence Bronze" (in the same sense as correspondence chess) with the notation outlined here. (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=46901)

Hensler

14-11-2011, 03:01 PM

Bronze sounds familiar... is that the one from Hegemony developer?

vinraith

14-11-2011, 03:03 PM

Bronze sounds familiar... is that the one from Hegemony developer?

No, it's made by a development studio called "Dreamspike."

Info and a demo here. (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Dreamspike_Studios/BRZ/BRZ_page.html)

I found out about it via Three Moves Ahead (http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/12/30/three-moves-ahead-episode-97-bronze-with-alex-kutsenok/), maybe you heard about it there?

Hensler

14-11-2011, 03:16 PM

No, it's made by a development studio called "Dreamspike."

Info and a demo here. (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Dreamspike_Studios/BRZ/BRZ_page.html)

I found out about it via Three Moves Ahead (http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/12/30/three-moves-ahead-episode-97-bronze-with-alex-kutsenok/), maybe you heard about it there?

That I did, Professor. Thanks!

Nalano

14-11-2011, 05:23 PM

The first bloodsucker or THAT poltergeist bit from the first Stalker scared me far more then any moment in Deadspace did.

I imagine half of that is because, being a "Horror" FPS, Dead Space evokes genre savvy more than STALKER let on: You expect attacks from odd angles in a Horror FPS, because that's what defines the game.

You don't from a sandbox RPG and as such STALKER is actually in a better position to scare the bejeezus outta you.

Rauten

14-11-2011, 05:42 PM

I imagine half of that is because, being a "Horror" FPS, Dead Space evokes genre savvy more than STALKER let on: You expect attacks from odd angles in a Horror FPS, because that's what defines the game.

You don't from a sandbox RPG and as such STALKER is actually in a better position to scare the bejeezus outta you.

Not really, even with the genre difference, Stalker is much better at scaring you and keeping you tense. I have a rather unhealthy phobia of radiation, so for me Stalker was in a similar position as a proper horror game; I can count with one hand the number of horror games that scared me more than Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl.

sabrage

14-11-2011, 08:53 PM

squirrelfanatic

14-11-2011, 08:55 PM

Another few hours with Stalker:CoP. One random crash cost me about half an hour of progress which a) was shitty and b) taught me to save even more often. The atmosphere shot mile high on route to Pripyat and I think I just met my first Pseudogiant/bullet eating gym guy. Really, a good, nicely done game that I immensely enjoy.

The JG Man

14-11-2011, 09:42 PM

So it's taken about 4 hours (4.9 according to Steam) for my first Mom kill in The Binding of Isaac. I really like the game and the knowledge that I can come back to it for a fresh experience and still do more is great, especially with the opened up chapter. It also sort of relieves the burden from my 'Games to Complete' list, sort of. I can see it being one of those games I play when I can't decide what to play and have some time to kill. I recommend it.

MD!

14-11-2011, 09:56 PM

Have you tried a survival or tournament game? When not constrained by scripting the AI is positively lethal.

Not yet, I'm planning to give it a go after I finish the campaigns. (Assuming I don't get hopelessly stuck -- but if I do, that probably means I'm not up to playing the full AI.)

It's a much-discussed feature, there's a good chance it will be added. In the interim, though, because of the presence of hotseat and the nature of the game, it's possible to play "correspondence Bronze" (in the same sense as correspondence chess) with the notation outlined here. (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=46901)

Ah, interesting! I probably won't have the patience to play by email, but I like the fact that someone has already written out a notation system.

Casimir Effect

14-11-2011, 11:05 PM

I wasn't able to get Far Cry working again (though I will try on my Windows 7 partition soon) so I went ahead and started Far Cry 2. I made it about 10 minutes before closing to find a FOV fix, but right off the bat: Why the hell were the lean and prone features dropped? I get it, it's a completely different game from a completely different developer, but immediately the game just appealed to me less than the original. I spent 90% of every enemy encounter in Far Cry flat on my stomach, so I'm pretty annoyed that I can't do that. The weapon upgrades and massive, gorgeous map might make me stick with it though. I also love that they gave character animations for everything: pulling the map out, opening doors, picking up meds. Really helps with the immersion. So, it's a mixed bag so far.
I know, you should be able to go prone. But it was a game made for console where there is no button which can easily be assigned to Prone. And the same problem for lean. But if you can get past that there is a fantastic game there. Especially on the hardest difficulty level where everything just feels very real, such as how vulnerable you are. It's one of those games where the stealth isn't forced on you, ie. there is no meter telling you how hidden you are, rather you have to look at how well lit the place your character is and where the enemy are looking. It is possible to be very stealthly for the entire game, it just requires some patience and practice. Something many gamers do not have or are unwilling to give these days.

agentorange

15-11-2011, 04:23 AM

With all the Skyrim talk I decided to finally try getting into Morrowind, which I've had lying around for a bajillion years. I attempted to play it when I first got it, but a few things made me put it down, never to pick it up again. This time however I've gotten off to a good start, and can see myself getting invested in it; just following the thieves guild quest line at the moment, and it has lead me to one place, where I picked up another quest that lead me to yet another place, and so on. As a thief character I've avoided all combat encounters however, and now I am stuck on a certain side quest because I can't kill a certain dude who I assume is not supposed to be much trouble (which makes sense really); retreated and picked up a nice poison dagger and some potions, so perhaps now I can take him on.

squirrelfanatic

15-11-2011, 06:32 AM

As a thief character I've avoided all combat encounters however, and now I am stuck on a certain side quest because I can't kill a certain dude who I assume is not supposed to be much trouble (which makes sense really); retreated and picked up a nice poison dagger and some potions, so perhaps now I can take him on.You might want to check the mages guild for some light-weight problem solvers. Scrolls of Elemental Burst are quite powerful tools and available to any class. The 'Paralyzis', 'Burden', 'Disintegrate' and 'Damage/Drain Attribute:Strength' spells also work wonders on heavily armored melee enemies.

sabrage

15-11-2011, 07:39 AM

Could be mild Far Cry spoilers here:

Finally got Far Cry working. I had to change the Lighting setting from "Very High" to "High." Go fucking figure. Unfortunately, I see why people complain about the post-Trigen section of the game. The indoor sections now feel like a bad DOOM clone, with none of the satisfaction of blowing a ghoul's head off. I liked how many enemies the game felt fit to throw at me early on, but come on! I'm so sick of stealthily trying to eliminate the hordes, only to get sighted by some asshole with a rocket launcher and blown up from halfway across the level, just for looking at him funny. Or having that one Trigen I missed sneak up behind me while I'm scoped and fuck me over. The voice acting is comically bad and it's not like the story hasn't been told before... I just want this game to end, but I'm stuck on one checkpoint and I'm tired of killing the same (literally) 40 dudes.

Edit: I'd like to find and personally torture whoever is responsible for the second half of this game. (and what better way than to make him play it himself?) As if rocket launchers and Trigens weren't bad enough... Trigens with rocket launchers. Fucking perfect. And the SWAT dudes? Every time I open a door, there's 3 of these dudes sitting there, waiting to mow me down. Or they walk up behind me from a room I've already cleared. I have a headache from how much this game just annoyed me. It's like halfway through development Crytek decided they wanted to make Half-Life instead, so they grabbed the most annoying enemies from that game and slapped them in an ugly corridor shooter. Also, this game has the worst shotgun of all time. It shouldn't take 10 shots to kill 2 hyperactive Trigens.

Also, Trigen instant kills are bullshit

amusingthebrood

15-11-2011, 08:46 AM

I'm currently back on Soul Bubbles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Bubbles) and Advanced Wars: DS as my PC is seriously ill. Damn you little Gods of overheatingness.

TailSwallower

15-11-2011, 11:51 AM

More bundle delving-into...

Gish... I saw someone around these parts bitching loudly about this game, and after approximately 4 minutes with the game I can understand why it might have gotten that response. A platformer where jumping isn't as simple as just pressing a button? No thanks. I spent about half of those 4 minutes trying to get Gish to jump high enough to clear the first obstacle, then thought "Why Bother?", quit, and uninstalled.

Gemini Rue won't run. I've got an Asus laptop which apparently the game has issues with. I changed it to windowed mode, changed my battery settings (as suggested on the dev's forum) and it still won't run. The only other option is to switch Windows or my video card or something over to 16-bit? Sorry, no. Uninstall.

Ben There, Dan That is just as annoying as a point and click adventure game should be, but it's quirky and funny enough. Not sure if I'll bother with it too much more, but it hasn't been uninstalled yet. (Got up to the puzzle with the candles in the church. Was pretty sure I had it figured out, but nothing happened. *Shrugs*)

Fate of the World is quite interesting. I enjoyed playing the first mission (failed once, finished it on second attempt), but at the same time it feels like it's trying very hard to educate and it's getting in the way of the gameplay. Perhaps all the graphs and charts will come in handy later, but at the moment it seems like a matter of simply reading the messages for each particular region and playing cards that deal with those particular issues as well as the general issue of that mission.
Again, not sure how much I'll really end up playing it, but it's not getting uninstalled any time soon.

Seeing as Gemini Rue won't run, and the other games don't do anything for me, the Indie Royale Launch Bundle has turned out to be a waste for me. But the Difficult Second Bundle is a winner with Nightsky, Scoregasm and (to a lesser extent) Fate of the World.

Tikey

15-11-2011, 11:58 AM

I'm finally playing VVVVVVV

Kodeen

15-11-2011, 05:40 PM

So it's taken about 4 hours (4.9 according to Steam) for my first Mom kill in The Binding of Isaac.

I've put in twice that amount of time and I still haven't killed her yet. I am awful at this game.

Just unlocked my second character, however. That's nice.

The JG Man

15-11-2011, 06:31 PM

Meh, I got lucky with the loot. Sheer will of determination is one thing, but if luck isn't with you...

sabrage

15-11-2011, 10:10 PM

Gish... I saw someone around these parts bitching loudly about this game, and after approximately 4 minutes with the game I can understand why it might have gotten that response.

That was likely me. The game has become an in-joke between my friends (who I convinced to buy the Humble Bundle containing it) and me.

Seeing as Gemini Rue won't run, and the other games don't do anything for me, the Indie Royale Launch Bundle has turned out to be a waste for me.

Given that you seemed to be a fan of Super Meat Boy, I'm surprised you didn't get on with Nimbus. To me, it felt like a more ambitious and gratifying version of that game. It took me a few minutes to adjust to the controls, but I think the game is awesome. Some of the levels are very Rube Goldberg-esque in their execution.

TailSwallower

15-11-2011, 11:01 PM

I haven't completely written Nimbus off, but it didn't grab me in the way SMB did. The thing about SMB is that everything about the game is so precise and it works so well at what it does. I didn't get the same feeling of precision, or indeed speed, with Nimbus.
Or another way to put it, Nimbus feels clumsy, but SMB makes me feel clumsy (in a good way).

vinraith

16-11-2011, 12:27 AM

I "finished" Recettear, which is to say I made it through my first game. At this point a wide diversity of options open up, from survival modes to endless modes to enhanced new game modes. Unfortunately, it's something of a "Plants Vs. Zombies" effect. When you place a bunch of bonus material at the end of a long and ultimately somewhat grindy game, I'm usually so tired of the game by the time I get to them that I've no real interest in them. Maybe I'll come back, but for the most part the whole thing has kind of lost its charm, and the new modes look too easy to exploit anyway.

Instead, I'm back to playing Bronze (need to catch up with MD!) and am dabbling a bit with Minecraft for the first time in ages.

sabrage

16-11-2011, 05:55 AM

Getting increasingly annoyed by Far Cry. Now the Trigens are invisible! Now they fucking jump around! Now it takes more than one headshot to kill the mercenaries! Now all the mercenaries all have fucking rocket launchers and always know where you are! Finally came to a head when the game expected me to take on a rocket launcher Trigen with half health in a tiny ass hallway, so I cheated. It's not something I normally do in a game, but there was no way in hell I was going to make it past this part, so I cheated. Nothing gamebreaking - just infinite ammo and all the weapons - but I did feel a little guilty. At least, until the next area, where any strategy besides sniping everyone from across the map would get me killed. I'm really just waiting for this game to end, but it keeps dragging on and on and on far longer than it's really welcome anymore. Even the awesome parts (I can tow a jeep behind my patrol boat?!) are ruined by the poor design choices (oh right, it's impossible to steer and everyone has a fucking rocket launcher)

Even the game seems to know it's dragging on too long. Carver says things like "God, I hope that was the last security panel" and "As soon as I can, I'm getting out of here... I'm not even getting paid for this shit!" I hear you, bro.

squirrelfanatic

16-11-2011, 06:55 AM

...and am dabbling a bit with Minecraft for the first time in ages.This reminds me that I need to check in to the RPS minecraft server again and see how things are going. It has been a while since my last visit and I could do with a silly little construction project.

Nalano

16-11-2011, 07:21 AM

Saints Row 3 is not a GTA replacement.

It is a magnificence simulator.

DaftPunk

16-11-2011, 03:41 PM

I am replaying first Splinter Cell,its still good after nearly 9 years ^^

Heliocentric

16-11-2011, 07:52 PM

I am replaying first Splinter Cell,its still good after nearly 9 years ^^

I honestly cant stand to play it any more after playing it 12 times.

TheRed

16-11-2011, 08:42 PM

Terraria, still. Now had 85 damned hours of it.

SirKicksalot

17-11-2011, 12:12 AM

Tikey

17-11-2011, 12:30 AM

I've "finished" VVVVVV, just three trinkets left. But I've already beat vini vidi vinci, so I feel like the king of the world.

sabrage

17-11-2011, 01:16 AM

I think you should switch weapon cheats with god mode. The bullshit just keeps getting worse lol

I tried that! Couldn't get it to work for whatever reason. I think I'm on the last level now, and you're right. The game reads like a playbook of terrible design decisions. A mounted turret section? (on a moving jeep, no less) Immediately followed by an escort mission, oh and we'll lower the draw distance, so that horde of prescient assholes is that much harder to evade.

Kill me. On top of that, the game crashed my computer (forced a restart) and is now giving me bizarre sound glitches. It's grueling in the extreme, but I'm so close...

Heliocentric

17-11-2011, 08:08 AM

Crytek, all engine, no game.

Flint

17-11-2011, 08:20 AM

All the Skyrim talk has made me reach out for Morrowind again. I go back to it every 1-2 years or so, find myself enchanted for a few weeks and then slowly get more and more annoyed with the massive gameplay flaws it has. This time however I'm armed with a mod that changes the levelling, with the hopes that it doesn't feel like I'm gimping my character with every single thing I do. Got all the standard mods I've used previously as well to fleshen out the world and the ambience, and even mucking about with some custom race stuff this time for the sheer hell of it.

A quick question regarding the game: is there anyone around the starting towns (Seyda Neen, Balmora, etc) who'd purchase illegal goods? The Wilderness mod added some whale blubber which sells for riches, and right now as a poor newcomer my moral compass bends enough to get rid of that thing for some change.

Crytek, all engine, no game.
Crysis disagrees. But Far Cry was terrible though.

hamster

17-11-2011, 09:15 AM

You're terrible. Far Cry was awesome. I still have the box and case right next to my keyboard - the 5 CD edition.

Also in Balmora can't you unload stuff to guys in the Thieves Guild??

sabrage

17-11-2011, 10:12 AM

Oh my god it just won't end... I have to admit, the volcano level was pretty badass, but Far Cry has more false endings than Lord of the Rings. And yeah, I wouldn't call it terrible... It's just a hell of a lot longer than I anticipated. I wish I'd spread this game over several weeks/months, but I'm determined to beat it within the next few days now.

Since my computer decided to play nice with Max Payne, I played an hour or two of that in between marathon Far Cry sessions. It's totally mindless, but I like the overblown narrative style. It's practically the polar opposite of Far Cry: ugly, simple, good voice acting, decent story... And while I might get bored of slow-motion dives, I'll never get bored of watching Max's ridiculous death throes.

Edit: There's two volcano levels, I was referring to the first one with the jeep.

airtekh

17-11-2011, 10:30 AM

Long overdue perhaps, but I bought Outcast a while ago from GoG and I'm just getted started on it.

NecroKnight

17-11-2011, 08:55 PM

Tribes: Ascend Beta

Daiv

17-11-2011, 09:03 PM

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of Saints Row III. Somehow I feel more like an unstoppable demigod in SR3 than I did in Prototype.

squirrelfanatic

17-11-2011, 09:06 PM

Still Stalker:CoP. After some hassle I've arrived in 'da Cit-ey'. A bit lifeless I must say. Even more so after a bunch of missions and encounters with Monolith...er...s. ô_o

I loved how you could walk around with other NPCs on their patrol routes in the earlier areas but I guess that's exactly the idea here: To leave you alone and scared with your shotgun. Oh, beloved shotty, hold me tight!

Also: The missus objects to the way I deal with the neighbourhood's 'dogs'. What was I supposed to do? They weren't content with the sausages. We'll NEVER get pets.

sabrage

17-11-2011, 10:16 PM

Spoilers about the last levels of Far Cry to follow

Actually, I take it back. Far Cry is a terrible game. Between the impossible Krieger battle and that bullshit Goldeneye segment where you need to take out 10 rocket launcher trigens and then immediately afterward take on a swat team with riot shields and 3 rocket launchers... Look, I get it, it's the final battle and Crytek wanted to make it hard. But instead, they created an abomination, an atrocity of game design so profound that I was literally on the verge of uninstalling out of disgust. On the very last level of the game. I would say that I have a fairly high tolerance for difficulty; shit, I beat VVVVVV, Bayonetta, DMC3, I even stuck through Ninja Gaiden 2's "fuck you" exploding boss. And Far Cry is by far the most difficult and frustrating game I've ever played.

On top of the difficulty, I had a hell of a time running the game too. Starting with the last few levels, every time I booted Far Cry it disabled my sound drivers until I restarted my computer. CTDs, random freezes, critical errors... I'm just glad I'm done with this shit and I can uninstall it. I think I'm going to wait a few months before going back for Far Cry 2.

Here's a screenshot of 6 - count them - 6 rockets flying my way on the last level.
http://i.imgur.com/r099r.jpg

Tikey

17-11-2011, 10:43 PM

The final level is stupidly easy if you don't mind exploiting the game.
I just crouched on a corner, I think just were you start, with the heavy machine gun fixed at the height of the enemies head. They just came like puppets directly to it. I didn't move at all.

sabrage

17-11-2011, 10:47 PM

That's eventually what I ended up doing, but some spotty hit detection made one of the machinegun-jumpy Trigens almost impossible to kill with my sniper rifle, and I kept getting mowed down or snuck up on by the rocket guys while trying to do that. And it still doesn't solve the issue of the SWAT team right before you enter the building and kill Doyle.

Scumbag

17-11-2011, 11:01 PM

Tribes: Ascend Beta

How is this? The vids I've seen look intresting.

Casimir Effect

18-11-2011, 08:33 AM

And that's basically why I don't get all the praise FarCry gets. It looks pretty and the pre-trigen levels are fun (as is one laster on set over a few islands where there are no trigens) but everything else is painful to play through. It becomes too hard and becomes too long, especially seeing as all its cool ideas are blown in those early missions.
When I played it I used the God mode after getting sick of going down elevators into rooms where there were 2 rocket launcher wielding trigens drawing beads on the lift door. Still seemed to take forever to run to the end though.

It all probably contributes to why I love FarCry 2 so much: as well as being a great game it has nothing to do with that first one. Crytek did make good with Crysis though, or at least 80% of it until making similar mistakes.

CrinnyCow

18-11-2011, 07:34 PM

After Skyrim, I'm planning on delving back into Baldur's Gate 2... I don't have a particularly high amount of time on my hands though. I'm reading online that the game can take up to 200 hours to complete for a first timer. Is this at all true? I have a fairly solid idea of AD&D rules but it mostly comes from playing other table top games... I understand a lot of this time is spent 'learning'. If this is really true, I might change up my "next game to play".

vinraith

18-11-2011, 07:44 PM

squirrelfanatic

18-11-2011, 08:23 PM

'Finished' Stalker:CoP in the sense of playing through the main quest chain / story. Abrupt ending, many loose strings, some of them probably caused by leaving jobs and sidequests unfinished. The way you learn of the fate of the different factions, NPCs, and The Zone in general reminds me a lot of Fallout. Watching that sequence was a bitter-sweet experience. On the one hand I regretted that I had not finished some requests (and saw some of the associated characters suffer in consequence), on the other hand I felt a bit proud for getting most if not all of my friends out of there alive.

Maybe I'll go back to Prypiat sometime again to finish everything I left undone, just to see how things could have turned out alternatively.

And man, screw Burers. Fat bastards.

Oak

18-11-2011, 09:36 PM

And that's basically why I don't get all the praise FarCry gets. It looks pretty and the pre-trigen levels are fun

The pre-trigen levels are very fun. Isn't that enough?

Flint

18-11-2011, 10:31 PM

I didn't get into the pre-trigen levels either. The action felt really unexciting and never became any more fun, which is pretty much a death knell for a FPS game. I more or less forced myself to push forward with the game in hopes of seeing why people praise it, nothing in the game gave any reason to spend time with it. It just wasn't fun at all to me.

Heliocentric

18-11-2011, 10:32 PM

The pre-trigen levels are very fun. Isn't that enough?
I cant believe they repeated the same mistakes though.
Early crysis was incredible, but I'm ashamed i played end game crysis.

vinraith

18-11-2011, 10:41 PM

I cant believe they repeated the same mistakes though.
Early crysis was incredible, but I'm ashamed i played end game crysis.

I'm amazed anyone made it through that shit. It's so good until the ship, ok inside the ship (just because it's at least got "weird" going for it), and then solid human waste once you're back out. I don't know how long it goes after that because I quit pretty quickly.

sabrage

18-11-2011, 11:12 PM

I think that after a certain point I'd rather finish a game to its awful, awful end than give up on it due to terrible balancing, which is the real reason Far Cry stopped being fun. I gave up on Crysis too so no comment there.

Heliocentric

18-11-2011, 11:53 PM

Crysis after the mountain ufo thing has an escort mission, a few terribad boss fights with infinite ammo chaingun, * ANOMALY DETECTED* a rather good defend a house full of soldiers against flying thingy mission, a turret on a jeep section, a defend the area mission, a flee the pointlessly invincible boss mission, a fly around tornadoes and fight stupid enemy fliers mission, then you get to an aircraft carrier, have a nice little story bit, then watch the alien specialist scientist get ignored, nukes feed the enemy, they spill out of the island over running the ship, you shoot at them a bit, then the reactor is over heating, you go down and turn off the reactor by running in the room, holding down use and then running out before the radiation kills you (repeat 8 times), then you go up to the surface of the carrier and fight a boss that could easily sink the carrier but doesn't because its trying to kill you, you have a mini nuke cannon but the game wont let you use it yet, then you shoot the boss with no indication if its hurting and ammo gets scarce, eventually they decide its time to drop the aliens shield, you nuke it a few times, it dies and all the other aliens get bored of attacking.

Don't blame them..... A horrible experience.

SirKicksalot

18-11-2011, 11:57 PM

At least Crysis 2 is consistently awful amirite guys?

Well, not really, but it often manages to go from amazing to awful and back in the space of one minute. It's rarely as shitty as the last part of Crysis, but that's not a compliment...

I'm playing Skyrim.

Casimir Effect

19-11-2011, 12:01 AM

The pre-trigen levels are very fun. Isn't that enough?

Were they though? I'll grant that they were for about 7 months my favourite proper non-WW2 FPS levels (not counting UT games which didn't really have proper SP), but I still had a lot of issue with them. The Sauron-level All Seeing Eye bullshit the AI would pull; the vehicle sections; the helicopter fights; and the few number of these levels there were. Don't get me wrong, that open feel that the levels had was brilliant and really appealed to me, but they were flawed all to fuck at the same time.

Crysis fixed those problems entirely for most of the game, but Mr Weird Name at Crytek has some weird obsessions with mutanty/alieny things and so endeavors to fuck up his games at some point. Is there ANYONE out there who thought fighting trigens was more fun than fighting mercs, or that fighting Aliens was better than fighting North Korean steroetypes?

And Warhead was the worst of all. I remember the previews leading up to that game, lots of talking about Crytek learning the lesson and how Warhead would be entirely without the aliens. And then it turned out to be a big alien love-in. With Jason Statham.

sabrage

19-11-2011, 10:50 AM

squirrelfanatic

19-11-2011, 01:58 PM

So I decided that STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl would be a worthy follow-up to Far Cry. Here's what I've learned so far.
-I suck at this game.
-Even for all the fixes included in STALKER Complete, the game is still not without glitches. I've had a few crashes, seemingly random, and I get quite a few audio errors when I'm just wandering around.
-None of the guns feel very satisfying to shoot. It's almost impossible to tell where my bullets are going, and if I don't land a headshot, it takes waaay too many hits to kill an enemy. I know it's early in the game, but so far everything involving shooting has been shit. I haven't yet played 'Shadow of Chernobyl', only 'Call of Pripyat', but I can say that much: The Stalker games seem to be a bit difficult to get into. I became frustrated right away after the first moments in The Zone and it took some more attempts before I felt comfortable with the game.

I say: Be unyielding (I know this must be tough after your experieces with FarCry)! It does get better after a while.

-This game absolutely nails atmosphere. The weather effects are insaneAgreed, I was absolutely stunned the first time I experienced an emission. And then I ran like hell.

-Don't go out at night.But that's the time you can have the most fun (i.e. heart attacks)!

The JG Man

19-11-2011, 02:02 PM

Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Oh, okay, PC stuff...

Spots of Binding of Isaac every so often, which is more fun than it should be for its price-point. In addition, splatterings of BF3. When it works, man, it's great. Spent almost an entire round in a jet being useful! Imagine that! Jets useful for more than taking out other air vehicles!

squirrelfanatic

19-11-2011, 02:10 PM

Zelda: Skyward Sword.Oh cool! What are your impressions? I read that the story focuses on a love story theme. How's that?

The JG Man

19-11-2011, 03:20 PM

I posted in the Skyward Sword thread about 3 hours of early impressions (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?2026-Skyward-Sword&p=59276&viewfull=1#post59276), but for the most part I'm enjoying it. It's got a few things I'm not overly keen on (why hello there stamina bar) but...it's Zelda, so it's good.

And yeah, it's quite obvious at times. In fact, adults might get a but more out of some of the dialogue then children would. As it goes, there's a short sequence where Zelda is SUCH a massive tease and it's played masterfully I ended up laughing a fair bit.

For the rest though, it's pretty much a Zelda game. The pacing isn't quite as bad as in Twilight Princess, but it's still not great. Ocarina of Time was great because you were thrown into the action immediately without having your hand entirely held. In fact, I still remember A Link to the Past, my first Zelda title, and how not only does it start off with action immediately, but it's done in a very cool way.

I'm nearing the first temple, so when I go back to playing it later tonight, I'll update the SS thread with thoughts and such.

sabrage

19-11-2011, 06:10 PM

This is actually my third or fourth attempt to play STALKER. I've made it further than I ever did before, but something about the combat is still really bugging me. Honestly, I just want a sniper rifle, because real guns don't even have range as shitty as the ones in this game.

Althea

19-11-2011, 06:59 PM

I've been playing Fable III and Batman: Arkham Asylum today.

Fable III - I'm in the last set of quests before the final one, and I've got to raise 8.5M gold to reach my target. I think I have another ~3M to go, which basically means at some point I'll have to leave the game on whilst I do stuff. I really just cannot be bothered with it, though. It's not a bad game, but the content dries up really quickly and I'm fairly sick of running back and forth for things. I've almost completed all of the collectable thingies, but the two or three (Silver keys, golden doors and books) that I need to do can't be finished until after the final quest. After that I've got the post-end game DLC pack to play through which I'm sort of looking forward to. It's honestly the only thing pushing me on to finish the game, I'll tell you that much.

Arkham Asylum - Finished the main story for the second time a short while ago, and I spent this evening just clearing up the last 32 trophies and that final chronicle. Was good for killing an hour or two, but I think I'm finally done with it. 85% Complete according to the main screen, but I just cannot be bothered with the challenges.

TailSwallower

19-11-2011, 11:14 PM

The Mechanical Aggressor

19-11-2011, 11:58 PM

Like everyone else and their cat, I've been playing Skyrim. Yesterday however, I started playing Saint's Row 2. I bought it for pennies from Gamersgate quite a few months ago, but it flat out refused to run on my PC. Since then, my PC has had a hefty upgrade, so I decided to try it out again. I'm glad I did, because it's excellent. I've never really liked any GTA game and my experiences with GTA had given me the impression that I didn't like the guns'n'cars open world genre, but it turns out I just don't like GTA. Everything about Saint's Row 2 is fun. Both the story missions and the side activities are great. At first I didn't like that the game forces you to do side activites before you can do story missions, but there's so much variety in the side activites and they're so enjoyable that it doesn't matter. I'm using the Gentlemen of the Row mod and haven't had any of the technical issues the PC port is (in)famous for.

I was only planning on buying one more game this year (Batman: AC), but I'll definitely be getting Saints Row: The Third in the coming months. And to think, it wasn't even on my radar 48hrs ago!

vinraith

20-11-2011, 04:00 AM

I'm in one of those "dabbling until something grabs me" phases. I've played a bit of Nitronic Rush (good enough to be worth money, IMO), some Bronze, some Minecraft, some EU3, and a bit of the totally brilliant Pride of Nations. I'll settle in on one or two of these in short order, I expect.

In multiplayer I've been having a lot of fun with Supreme Commander 2. I can't say as I miss the economic system from the earlier games, and the experimentals are a lot of fun. It's not a hugely deep game, but it's a consistently entertaining one.

agentorange

20-11-2011, 04:15 AM

Still journeying through Morrowind, making my up the trees of the Thieves guild, Morag Tong, and House Hlaalu. I'm amazed at how many quests there are, I only just made it to the master of the thieves guild, after exhausting the quests from two of the lower quest givers (dabbled in the third, but got stuck on a quest), and now he has two entirely separate quest lines; same deal with House Hlaalu and the Tong, where I'm juggling about two to three quests from each faction. My only issue is that the quests are mostly very repetitive, and devolve into "go somewhere far away and kill/talk to someone". Although Oblivion had far fewer quests, I think it did a good job of having each one be a little more involved and well crafted.

My character is a thief/assassin type (custom class called Interloper), and I've been having a surprising amount of combat success without even relying on sneak criticals. I've dumped a lot of stats into speed (at about 90 now), so as long as I don't miss (and I don't often, with an agility of about 70 and short sword skill of 90), I can continually interrupt and stun my enemies so they never have a chance to attack. Only issue I have is due to my low strength, I can easily become overburdened if a mage uses a strength destroying spell; I can counter most mages by using paralyze spells though.

Althea

20-11-2011, 08:15 AM

but I'll definitely be getting Saints Row: The Third in the coming months. And to think, it wasn't even on my radar 48hrs ago!
Just be wary - it has 40 weeks of planned DLC, all the way until late next year. I would honestly suggest to wait for the GotY/Complete edition, just for the sake of ease.

Nalano

20-11-2011, 08:35 AM

Just be wary - it has 40 weeks of planned DLC, all the way until late next year. I would honestly suggest to wait for the GotY/Complete edition, just for the sake of ease.

Do you often find yourself waiting years after release before buying games?

I'm not criticizing that form of consumer choice, as it is your prerogative, but personally, when a cab ride is 25 bucks, waiting a full year to save a Jackson seems silly.

The Mechanical Aggressor

20-11-2011, 10:35 AM

Just be wary - it has 40 weeks of planned DLC, all the way until late next year. I would honestly suggest to wait for the GotY/Complete edition, just for the sake of ease.

Thanks, I didn't know that. I'll probably wait to see if it's just cosmetic stuff like new outfits. If it is, I'll just ignore the DLC and buy the game anyway. It looks like it has quite a lot of content anyway.

squirrelfanatic

20-11-2011, 10:48 AM

Been playing Magicka. Really enjoying it. A question for anyone who's played a fair bit of it - is it meant to be this hard in singleplayer? Is it because they assume you've got friends, or does it actually ramp up with more people?

Any time I'm in a fight with a fellow magick-user it's a really hard fight. Hell, even some of the fights with just mobs are really hard.
Not complaining though, because a challenge is good. It's refreshing to find a game where the enemies are as powerful as the player-character. The enemy magick users seem to be able to use the same spells as you, and aren't afraid to brutalise you repeatedly. I wasn't prepared for it, but I like it.The game is indeed pretty hard in single player and I think that it was designed to be played in co-op. Multiplayer adds a whole dimension of gameplay and many fights are much easier if you've got someone to power a shield spell, heal you or just kill a few more enemies in a short time (not to speak of how much easier it is to deal with bursts of frustration if you run into the same wall of enemies again and again). Until recently, regular crashes combined with the inability to save progress during a level made even this an unnerving experience, but I read somewhere that an update is coming in that should allow you to save at any checkpoint.

I'd say that you should get someone to play alongside you, this way I had tons of fun with a friend.

Lukasz

20-11-2011, 10:50 AM

Do you often find yourself waiting years after release before buying games?

I know I am. I am just playing first Tomb Raider game.

The biggest challenge of this game are not puzzles or fights but controls. Positioning Lara causes me some troubles and it has to be done careful otherwise I will have to repeat steps from 10min ago. I also find myself walking straight at the wall more often than I am comfortable with.

That being said I find the game quite charming. its ugly as hell but I do enjoy it.

TailSwallower

20-11-2011, 11:23 AM

I'd say that you should get someone to play alongside you, this way I had tons of fun with a friend.

Thanks for the info. I've got a couple of people on my (extremely small) Steam friends list that already own it, so I'll have to hit them up sometime.

Althea

20-11-2011, 12:04 PM

Do you often find yourself waiting years after release before buying games?
No.

The cab ride analogy is complete rubbish, anyway. If I wait a year for a game, what am I missing out on? Paying more for the DLC, release bugs and so forth. If I wait a year or however long, I get more content for the same price (or cheaper!) and the game will hopefully be a less buggy experience.

SephKing

20-11-2011, 01:39 PM

Saints Row: The Third

Defeinitely the most ...consistently fun game i've played this year. It pretty much improves on everything I disliked with the second game.

Scumbag

20-11-2011, 02:35 PM

Do you often find yourself waiting years after release before buying games?

I do that, and quite frequently as well. If a complete / GotY edition exists and it goes on sale 2 years down the line, I know that it will most likely be a finished item with all the bugs ironed out (or ironed out to the Nth degree) plus if the game supports mods I'll more then likely have a vast trove of sillyness to delve into. Plus I may have upgraded my rig sufficiently enough to get the most out of the game in question (though this is becomeing rarer these days, and I'm glad).

In the meantime I have enough of a backlog of crap to sift through.

As Unrav said, a cab comparison aint the best. More like baking a cake. I could buy it fresh out, but with demands to get stuff out on time these days it may be half baked. Also while its good, they seem to want to add layers of icing later. Then again, buying it early means the cake is fresh.
Waiting for it to go onsale means the cake is now a little stale, but if you dont mind that then its fine. All down to personal choice.

SirKicksalot

20-11-2011, 02:58 PM

As Unrav said, a cab comparison aint the best. More like baking a cake. I could buy it fresh out, but with demands to get stuff out on time these days it may be half baked. Also while its good, they seem to want to add layers of icing later. Then again, buying it early means the cake is fresh.
Waiting for it to go onsale means the cake is now a little stale, but if you dont mind that then its fine. All down to personal choice.

SR3 is definitely a delicious and well baked cake. I'm glad I'm eating it now.

I'm pretty sure "40 weeks of DLC" doesn't mean DLC every week, but a bunch of mission packs. They announced three to be released until spring. I'm very excited for the one where the Saints go to space lol