What are you playing at the moment?

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Originally Posted by Nalano

Rule of Fun

I don't see it "trying too hard." I see it working diligently to keep up the premise of the environment, and for that I'm quite happy. Games like this, you don't want too much dead time; it kills the mood like dead air kills a radio program.

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Argh, did you just TVTropes me?!

I feel like you may have missed the emphasis of my post if you're picking me up only on the plot. I think that was endemic of other issues the game had, namely that like its plot, the rest of the game tries too hard to be something and that itself gets in the way of Rule of Fun. That was what I was talking about with BL1; they put you in a world and tell you to have fun and along the way you meet some interesting personalities. I felt it was the opposite with 2; they put you in a world where you interact with characters and along the way you can have fun, providing you are lucky enough to get a weapon that actually is fun. It was great to get a Jackob's pistol in 2 that you could hammer at, but it also felt weak and fell prey to "Why would I use that when I can use a semi-auto sniper rifle or a not-meaningfully-less-powerful SMG or AR?" I didn't even feel like ARs were too good in BL2 either.

I have to completely disagree on the dead air vibe. I thought BL1 worked because of it, not in spite of. I'm fully acknowledging that this is a preferential thing and that some people want more tied in narrative, but I tried to enjoy 2's and it just didn't gel for me.

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Originally Posted by The JG Man

Argh, did you just TVTropes me?!

I feel like you may have missed the emphasis of my post if you're picking me up only on the plot. I think that was endemic of other issues the game had, namely that like its plot, the rest of the game tries too hard to be something and that itself gets in the way of Rule of Fun. That was what I was talking about with BL1; they put you in a world and tell you to have fun and along the way you meet some interesting personalities. I felt it was the opposite with 2; they put you in a world where you interact with characters and along the way you can have fun, providing you are lucky enough to get a weapon that actually is fun. It was great to get a Jackob's pistol in 2 that you could hammer at, but it also felt weak and fell prey to "Why would I use that when I can use a semi-auto sniper rifle or a not-meaningfully-less-powerful SMG or AR?" I didn't even feel like ARs were too good in BL2 either.

I have to completely disagree on the dead air vibe. I thought BL1 worked because of it, not in spite of. I'm fully acknowledging that this is a preferential thing and that some people want more tied in narrative, but I tried to enjoy 2's and it just didn't gel for me.

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For me, more story and more characters is better. Saints Row 1 was crap. Saints Row 2 was rough around the edges but memorable, Saints Row 3 was balls-to-the wall for 20 straight hours, despite having less to explore and do than Saints Row 2. What made No One Lives Forever better in my eyes than Thief was because of the characterization. To me, literally everything else is secondary if I like the NPC conversations and supporting cast (because how often can you say you like the supporting cast?)

Why are so many people complaining about the gun drops? Once I figured out how to exploit headshot multipliers, damage stopped being an issue. (Maya is great in that regard: "Here, hold still long enough for me to pop your head like a water balloon") I suppose certain other playstyles might be a little less forgiving, but I don't at all feel underpowered.

I wouldn't necessarily say it's a case of feeling underpowered as high enough on most skill trees will make you feel unstoppable and powerful guns are powerful guns, but it's what they actually do. Most of them just fire bullets, some elementally, some semi-auto. That's really about it. Unless of course you include almost all the variations which were thrown on the ARs and were pretty crap (grenade launcher excluded, although I never really felt that was too powerful either). Having not played Diablo 3, I can only say this anecdotally, but I believe one of the problems with that was that loot was merely an upgrade, it didn't really do anything interesting. Regardless of that's validity, I felt that with BL2. Other than the uniques, there were barely any weapons that weren't anything other than doing more damage. There was never really too much choice. It wasn't like in 1 where you'd be using a shotgun-revolver and pick-up a much higher level one that did more damage and had to decide if you wanted the accuracy and skill-of-use of the latter or the fire-and-forget punch of the former.

I can see what you're saying about the cast and story and generally speaking, I agree, unless of course I feel it gets in the way of the game or just takes up too much time or is annoying. I thought BL2 fell foul of all of these at different points. Mileage obviously varying.

For the first time i played Conviction,because DA is giving me serious problems and what to say,i would felt robbed if i actually paid for Conviction,this is not Splinter Cell. I cleared three levels of bad guys on realistic and they couldn't do shit to me..Try doing that in CT on expert,pff. I just can't believe that Montreal who gave us CT,and first SC,made Conviction. EPICFAIL from them.

Dustforce is delightful, oozes coolness and confidence. Unfortunately it looks entirely like one of those games I suck totally at. After playing for what felt a couple hours, I was dumbfounded to find it was really just 1.

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Originally Posted by DaftPunk

For the first time i played Conviction,because DA is giving me serious problems and what to say,i would felt robbed if i actually paid for Conviction,this is not Splinter Cell. I cleared three levels of bad guys on realistic and they couldn't do shit to me..Try doing that in CT on expert,pff. I just can't believe that Montreal who gave us CT,and first SC,made Conviction. EPICFAIL from them.

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DENIABLE OPS THOUGH Seriously, unlock infiltration mode with stupid uplay points (or collectors edition thingum) and play through a deniable ops mission. Its a violently better game than the main campaign. Try out the defend the emp gamemode things too, its a stealthish horde mode, pretty interesting really.

Still doesnt change the fact that SC went to shit since Chaos Theory.

Woah, SC went to shit since Double Agent came along with the dead daughter affair. I just kinda like Conviction as an action game with elaborate pipe-climbing levels and hide-and-seek-and-kill, rather than straight up stealth. The Deniable Ops, like Helio said, is way better than singleplayer. So, it's best to act Fisher didn't go through all that shit and just focus on multiplayer.

Anyway, my favourite neighbour from Animal Crossing is moving away from my town tomorrow. I'll just sit in the nearest corner and wail hoplessly now...

All manner of foul mutants are punishing me for my late-night greed in the Zone.

I don't get them,they had neat concept back then in 2009 and suddenly they decided to go back to drawing board and gave us something really medicore. Now my only hope is that Thief 4 will be real stealth game,and MGS..Other then that i am screwed.

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Originally Posted by Heliocentric

DENIABLE OPS THOUGH Seriously, unlock infiltration mode with stupid uplay points (or collectors edition thingum) and play through a deniable ops mission. Its a violently better game than the main campaign. Try out the defend the emp gamemode things too, its a stealthish horde mode, pretty interesting really.

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I've never really played any Splinter Cell so I have no attachment to earlier games and was able to enjoy it, I still need to try that Deniable Ops.

I played Jamestown with a friend of mine and his girlfriend (and later another friend, who woke up and decided shooting stuff is better than sleeping, which is 100% correct. Also I had to use a Japanese keyboard) yesterday. Got through the whole game, but we couldn't manage the final boss. In our very last try, after which we decided to go to bed, we managed to get the boss to half of his last health bar. I have no idea how I managed to survive that long, but I died anyway. Then I proceeded to throw my controller against the sofa. It was completely amazing, and today we are going to finish it. The music is fantastic as well.

After 94 hours I think I've gotten all the content out of Skyrim that I am likely to. The Companions are happy with me as their pack leader, Alduin is dead, the Wizards and Thieves are following me, and the Nightingales have given me some nifty armor. About the only thing I didn't do is join the Dark Brotherhood, but I think that was foiled when I caught a quest NPC in a flame blast and my companion feathered him before he could escape. I'd also be very surprised if there were more than five or so locations I have yet to discover.

Time for some Unity of Command I think.

Well what do ya know. Amazon has a deal now for $10 that has Metro 2033 in it. we were just talking about this yesterday. i'll have to see if i have the money to get it though.

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Originally Posted by Nalano

For me, more story and more characters is better. Saints Row 1 was crap. Saints Row 2 was rough around the edges but memorable, Saints Row 3 was balls-to-the wall for 20 straight hours, despite having less to explore and do than Saints Row 2. What made No One Lives Forever better in my eyes than Thief was because of the characterization. To me, literally everything else is secondary if I like the NPC conversations and supporting cast (because how often can you say you like the supporting cast?)

Why are so many people complaining about the gun drops? Once I figured out how to exploit headshot multipliers, damage stopped being an issue. (Maya is great in that regard: "Here, hold still long enough for me to pop your head like a water balloon") I suppose certain other playstyles might be a little less forgiving, but I don't at all feel underpowered.

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Maya is completely broken in terms of damage output and crowd control purely because of phaselock. Below are the two builds I use on her.

For crowd control: http://imageshack.us/a/img217/4625/crowdcontrol.jpg - keep in mind that this particular spread I use with singularity grenades. If you want to go without them, then put even more points into Motion tree and less in Cataclysm. So a standard combo would be phaselock, when all sucked in, chuck in a singularity grenade and they stay there. Mop up with weapon of choice. I prefer shotties/assaults.

For boss slaying: http://imageshack.us/a/img585/7970/bossfarming.jpg -

Augment with relevant relic and class mods for even more absurd damage output.

Just about to finish by first NG+ runthrough of Torchlight 2, which is actually the first time I've ever played through an RPG's NG+ mode ever (Edit: Wait, I did the same thing in Borderlands if that counts). I'm not exactly sure what it is about this game, but it holds up to extended play better (for me) than Diablo 2, Titan Quest (though there I think it's a lack of dynamic world that did me in, as the base game is outstanding), and most other stuff of this sort I've played (including the original Torchlight). The co-op is a big part of it, of course, but still, I'm pleasantly surprised by the longevity this has had for me.

The plan in MP is go try some Warlock next, we'll see how that goes.

As for SP, on the rare occasion I've indulged lately, it's been to microscopically advance my New Vegas game towards the end. I really need to polish that off, as I think there's no chance of me replaying it or coming back to it should I abandon this playthrough. Enjoyable as it is, it's simply too plot/quest heavy to have any replay value IMO, unlike every other Bethesda RPG.

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Originally Posted by vinraith

As for SP, on the rare occasion I've indulged lately, it's been to microscopically advance my New Vegas game towards the end. I really need to polish that off, as I think there's no chance of me replaying it or coming back to it should I abandon this playthrough. Enjoyable as it is, it's simply too plot/quest heavy to have any replay value IMO, unlike every other Bethesda RPG.

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If you want to see the fate of any faction, make sure you finish the faction's quest. It's not like Fallout 2 when something happens after a set amount of time, instead New Vegas rips out faction endings like they never existed.

I actually found it much harder to headshot enemies in Phaselock because they tend to weirdly bend backwards, protecting their head, and all these shaders get in the way of aiming.

I curse a million dicks upon every single fucking scythed chariot those Pontic bastards have!

Got the Blitzkrieg anthology from the GoG promotion and have been playing a few missions of the Allied campaign so far. It holds up quite well. No free cam despite the 3D objects, but I can't say I miss it much either; the game is made to be played from a single view point. Pathfinding is a little wonky, but that's hardly a rarity in newer games either.
It supports my laptop's resolution which surprised me a bit.

Also one of the few games where you can repair destroyed buildings. I rather like that.