What are you playing at the moment?

[Creeping Death]

Playing Tomb Raider Anniversary at the minute. Someone on here suggested the idea of playing the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games in release order, along the lines of Indiana Jones with the prequel in the middle, and the idea appealed to me so I've been working through them.

Finished up Alice: Madness Returns this morning. Overall enjoyed the game, though it was shorter than I expected from some of the reviews, and the last Chapter was my least favourite. Besides that I've got NFS: Hot Pursuit for when I desire a short gaming session and I intend to grab Cthulhu Saves the World later because it seems too silly to resist.

[The JG Man]

Playing some Super Meat World levels and it's just consistent flaw after flaw in basic level design. Most of the levels I've played so far haven't even been 'hard', they've just been ridiculous. Give me a challenge in Meat Boy, please, but they're not sensible. Levels either completely lack direction, which you should be able to establish immediately and/or have a rhythm to your movement. It's disappointing to have a wealth of these levels available to you and to find they're just flawed. Occasionally I'll come across a decent one, but it'll be really easy to do.

The beauty of Super Meat Boy, beneath the music, design and everything else periphery was that the core game mechanics were perfect. So very rarely did you ever feel like it was the game's fault you died because you knew what you did wrong. Yes, the game would be punishing in difficulty at the higher end, but knowing you'd got that far and pulling off the tricks you had meant you knew you could do it, so the anger was at yourself, not the game. With these random levels, I'm simply loading them up, giving them a go or two and then moving onto the next because they're so badly designed I don't feel like challenging the level when it's a game that's supposed to make you challenge yourself.

[Spacewalk]

Spied on Indieblog, I instantly fell in love with Dig-N-Rig and lost an hour so far. It's pretty cool and incredibly beautiful to look at, you are a digging robot and you dig to the centre of the earth and it's been a little over an hour already? There goes my evening.

[Similar]

Playing King's Bounty. I got The Legend, Armored Princess and Crossworlds at the Christmas Steam sale (unless it was the Thanksgiving one) and hadn't tried them until now. I started out with The Legend, but sort of painted myself into a corner, so after five hours I decided to try Princess to see if I had more luck there and I seem to, but I did even play the tutorial this time too.
Nice games. They seem to be very long and I do wonder if they'll keep my interest long enough to finish them, but so far I'm enjoying them and all the little details they've put everywhere.

[Anthile]

Trying to play Still Life right now. I like the story but the actual game is full with frustrating, arbitrary puzzles. The two hardest puzzles are about baking cookies and picking a lock - the game is about a murder mystery. Both of these puzzles took me more than an hour to figure out and the lockpicking one had me resort to a walkthrough in the end. It's a goddamn lock, just kick it in or something! Jeez. It just reminds me why I can't be bothered to play adventure games these days.

[Ian]

As is always the risk when approaching an old game for the first time, Jagged Alliance 2 feels a little clunky. I'm putting it off for now as that's causing me to not get it played often enough. I have made a start on "Bob Came in Pieces" and it's pretty good fun thus far. That it's pretty easy to make a ship that's not only completely unsuitable for the task at hand but also can't even get back to a workshop point is balanced out by how well the checkpointing is done.

A few moments of frustration thus far but from 5 levels (which according to the screen is about a third of the adventure mode) that's not too shabby. Can probably get it polished off this weekend depending on how involves the "VR missions" are.

[EnterTheStory]

Mentally playing The Picture of Dorian Gray. I'm designing it, and going over the game in my head, to see if it would work. If it doesn't work I change it. now THAT is interactivity :)

[Heliocentric]

Despite advice to the contrary I finished assassins creed. But it didn't drag on as suggested even after the funeral level because of one thing, the hidden blade.

Fighting with the sword and knife was spamy and resulted in guards only rarely getting scared and fleeing.

But pure hidden blade was
"see a taunt: bam one hit kill
see a cower: bam one hit kill
they do a quick swing: bam one hit kill counter
see a power attack:'step' counter, bam one hit kill

I could clear put 10 guys in one minute that way. It's a great game but only one hour in I can see assassins creed 2 is a drastically better than the first. Even the climbing. is more interesting.

[mR.Waffles]

Helio, I've been playing the second one and so far it is fantastic. They basically refined and fixed everything wrong with the first one, and most importantly, at least to me, they fixed the terrible writing.

[The JG Man]

I'm really beginning to lose my patience with Dead Space 2. Yet another game that falls into the trap of making you die when it's just so obviously not your fault. I don't mind taking a health hit if I do something stupid, or once in a while, but in an area where a fight is telegraphed, and not just telegraphed but you know what enemies you'll be facing, I'm not at all impressed. Those raptor-type things are just awful design. Confined space where you have very little time to shoot them, but they excel in movement, and you can't even dodge sideways because they somehow manage to run round corners at full speed unless you manage to get just the right angle. This would be lessened if the kinesis pick-up-and-throw move would actually work for me, where I feel like a coin toss happens behind the scenes to see if the canister or spikey thing wants to hit on the target I'm so obviously hitting.

The atmosphere is dull or uninspiring, and you tend to just go round in a circle when you could go round the other way and get there instantly, if it weren't for a pile of apparently unmovable crates or some nonsense. It's not a bad game, it's just massively disappointing. I was reading around when it came out that it was some sort of marvellous game and I just don't bloody see that. It's a 3/5 game in that it's average. I'm waiting for something to turn me around and to like it, but I'm a bit into Chapter 9 and just not finding much.

[ZamFear]

Flitting between things I picked up during the Steam sale. Auidiosurf, Sanctum, Alien Breed 2, Wolfenstien 3D + Spear of Destiny, Commander Keen, Heretic, Hexen...

[Serenegoose]

I'm really beginning to lose my patience with Dead Space 2. Yet another game that falls into the trap of making you die when it's just so obviously not your fault. I don't mind taking a health hit if I do something stupid, or once in a while, but in an area where a fight is telegraphed, and not just telegraphed but you know what enemies you'll be facing, I'm not at all impressed. Those raptor-type things are just awful design. Confined space where you have very little time to shoot them, but they excel in movement, and you can't even dodge sideways because they somehow manage to run round corners at full speed unless you manage to get just the right angle. This would be lessened if the kinesis pick-up-and-throw move would actually work for me, where I feel like a coin toss happens behind the scenes to see if the canister or spikey thing wants to hit on the target I'm so obviously hitting.

Use your stasis and the line gun or javelin gun. They do straight line charges, a javelin plus alt fire on impact kills it, or a single line gun round will take both its feet out.

[The JG Man]

I don't really think the gun makes any difference. I've upgraded the rifle and it'll take them down in about 20 bullets which is obviously quicker relatively than using the Line Gun. Stasis is great, but that too seems to want to be extremely questionable on whether or not it actually wants to hit the target. Enemy placement in this game is so totally whacked, to the extent that it really dampens some areas. There's one room and I think it was either just after or before the location I was referring to in my previous post where you have two of the upgraded (read: more black) Necromorphs and a few other weaker ones all attacking you in a really small room. I'm not asking the game to be fair in a "Please don't give me enemies" kind of way, but I would like it to be less frustrating.

As it goes, my enjoyment for the game has taken a turn for the up as of chapter 9. Some very clever plays on the player's knowledge and some satisfying set-pieces. Bit disappointing it's taken this long, but yeah, pacing not the strongest point in this game.

[sabrage]

Would you say Jagged Alliance 2 is worth the frustration? I saw it at the flea market the other day (didn't check the price, but I'm sure it's still there) and I was gonna go back for Total Annihilation anyways

[Oak]

Of course. It's aged pretty well, all things considered. It's just murderously difficult.

[Ian]

It's difficult and coming at it with new eyes I find it a touch clunky but I will be going back to it.

[Olero]

Would you say Jagged Alliance 2 is worth the frustration? I saw it at the flea market the other day (didn't check the price, but I'm sure it's still there) and I was gonna go back for Total Annihilation anyways

It is! And be sure to pick up the great 1.13 "patch" on the bear pit forums (click), which really improves gameplay and reduces a whole lot of bugs. Can't play JA2 without it. Total Annihilation also has great additions (especially units) and still is a great great game

[Ciber]

I've been playing Brink and it's OK, but also sort of dull. I'm determined to get to level 20 though and see how fun it is with the top rank 5 items. Probably better k/d without being much more fun. Also I want to see these free DLC maps.

[coldvvvave]

Wizardry 8.

I can't beat mudcrabs, looks like I have to start from scratch with a new party( go go Gamefaqs.com).

[Serenegoose]

Still mainly playing retribution: Just the singleplayer, I have no interest in the multi. So far the eldar campaign has lasted at least 10 hours, and I've not even touched any of the other campaigns yet, nor have I finished it. I was worried they'd be a paltry couple of missions each when in actuality it's been really rather fleshed out feeling. Going to try the nids next, just to see how they manage a campaign based around them.