What are you playing at the moment?

[Bobtree]

Decided to play Driver San Francisco for a few hours. I can't get a feel for the cars, it doesn't help that I'm only ever in them for 5 seconds. The no shifting challenges are actually a pleasant change of pace.

Who put driving in my car based puzzle game? I like it!

I enjoyed D:SF but didn't particularly like the car handling and physics. It may have something to do with the 360 and PS3 pads having analog shoulder triggers for gas/brakes, and my using a PS2 pad + usb adaptor + x360ce. Console ports often don't emulate analog controls well with binary button/key inputs. Red Faction: Guerrilla had terribly twitchy steering on a keyboard for example. The D:SF port is sub-par, but you can remove ESRB_warning.bik and ubisoft.bik to skip the intros, and there's an ENB mod to replace the post-processing lighting pass that the PC edition is missing (the prerendered cutscenes are a giveaway, the mod will make them overbright but improve the in-game lighting, and you can disable the bloom that it adds in the ini).

[Kodeen]

For the people playing/who played Risen: How viable is a straight up melee character? I had a lot of fun a while back building up to a mage, but lost momentum. Largely because there was a huge period where I Was basically grossly incompetent since I had to save up my skill points and what nots to learn magic, but was still expected to win staff fights against highly trained fighters...

But I also noticed that combat became a lot easier once I had the ability to shoot magic.

Melee is quite doable, that's how I played it and was able to get through to the end without any real issues. I didn't play a mage, however, so I can't compare. The standard gist with PB games is that melee has more of an advantage early on in the game, but mages can become pretty OP towards the end. Risen is likely the same.

[gundato]

Hmm, just tried A Valley Without Wind 2: Not feeling it. The class system seems like a nice solution to the whole "What spells should I take when all the ones worth using are either a whip or a spammable shot" issue, but I absolutely HATE the controls. Apparently my right hand doesn't have the muscles to use the arrow keys...

I'll probably give it another shot eventually and fiddle with the controls. See if the mouse controls can be set up to be like the original.

[DaftPunk]

I'm playing meele and its quite hard so far,but fuck it i always used to play gothci games with archer lol,so its something new to me.

[vinraith]

Hmm, just tried A Valley Without Wind 2: Not feeling it. The class system seems like a nice solution to the whole "What spells should I take when all the ones worth using are either a whip or a spammable shot" issue, but I absolutely HATE the controls. Apparently my right hand doesn't have the muscles to use the arrow keys...

I'll probably give it another shot eventually and fiddle with the controls. See if the mouse controls can be set up to be like the original.

My understanding (and mind you, I've not played it, just read some of the development journals) is that it's really intended to be played with a controller. There's definitely no mouse aim, unfortunately.

[SirKicksalot]

For the people playing/who played Risen: How viable is a straight up melee character? I had a lot of fun a while back building up to a mage, but lost momentum. Largely because there was a huge period where I Was basically grossly incompetent since I had to save up my skill points and what nots to learn magic, but was still expected to win staff fights against highly trained fighters...

But I also noticed that combat became a lot easier once I had the ability to shoot magic.

Melee is good and viable. It's the only PB game where it's actually fun. They somehow fucked it up in the sequel (well, they fucked up everything else too).

[Casimir Effect]

Improved crits - which I do have, since mine is a weaponmaster build - don't mean much when the lion's share of enemies are undead, spirits and golems. Not that it matters, because nine attacks per round.

The main companions get along with with one another, but there's always the "-15 WTF hero?" moments that you have to watch out for, because you can't bank more than 100.

I did the old dual wielding rapier Weaponmaster, and was also peeved by all the things immune to my criticals. Still, it's not like you're massively underpowered because of it, I was still doing around 500 damage in a single round.

The massive influence drops are usually easy to spot, and the nice thing about MotB is there are so many chances to make up lost points, unlike NWN2 where you could often be fucked by a single conversation. But if you have One-Of-Many in your party then it's impossible to have everyone liking you. Kaelyn especially thinks you're a bit of a prick unless you have very high Bluff skill.

[Giaddon]

My understanding (and mind you, I've not played it, just read some of the development journals) is that it's really intended to be played with a controller. There's definitely no mouse aim, unfortunately.

There is mouse aim.

You may find this post by Chris Park relevant to your interests.

Give VWW2 a shot. It's an intriguing game, much more of a strategy game than the first, with the platforming bits as a kind of "end-turn" button.

[gundato]

There is mouse aim.

You may find this post by Chris Park relevant to your interests.

Give VWW2 a shot. It's an intriguing game, much more of a strategy game than the first, with the platforming bits as a kind of "end-turn" button.

Ah, I have vague recollections of reading that and thinking him a whiner.

But yeah, I'll try with the gamepad. Stuff like the spell that moves with you seem like they might not make sense with mouse-aim.

[vinraith]

There is mouse aim.

You may find this post by Chris Park relevant to your interests.

Give VWW2 a shot. It's an intriguing game, much more of a strategy game than the first, with the platforming bits as a kind of "end-turn" button.

Interesting, usually on the rare occasion that Chris puts his foot down it stays down, that must have been some serious fan outcry.

I was planning to give it a shot either way, and I'll probably play it the way it's meant to be played regardless of this change.

[sonson]

I once did a completely pacifist run of New Vegas, avoiding combat and killing no one. You do get less experience and money in the long run, but it's not really a problem. Money is mostly used for buying weapons and armour, which you obviously don't need. And skillpoints are very easy to come by, even more so since you can always use magazines if you need to pass a particularly difficult check. The lack of perks doesn't hurt either, since most perks are combat oriented anyway and those that aren't (Comprehension, Animal Friend) are available from an early level.

I definitely recommend trying it out for yourself. It's very different from just playing the game normally and coming up with alternative solutions to violent encounters is a lot of fun. More RPGs should let you be Ghandi.

Good to know it can be done, sounds very interesting, thanks!

The only issue I would have with playing it that way is that it's one of the few games where I found combat to be genuinely satisfying and I would hate to miss out on that. I absolutely love the gunfights in New Vegas. VATS is a brilliant system but played with a manual reload mod and Project Nevada you can't rely on it either, so you have a very satisfying blend of tactical and frantic combat with makes for some really epic shoot outs. You switch from being a bad ass on the quick draw to suddenly very vulnerable if you miss, there's a never a dull moment.

[Scumbag]

I managed to fuck myself over pretty badly in Dark Souls. I'm stuck at the second bonfire in Ash Lake, cursed, without the skill or equipment to farm clams for Purging Stones. After dying about 20 times, I decided that I'm probably better off starting a new character than trying to claw my way back through four zones with half my health. I put way too many points into STR on this character anyways.

Lesson I learnt the first I did it: Dont go to Ash Lake without the Lordvessel. Those big shrooms are rather nasty.

[DaftPunk]

Just started Tomb Raider,first impression: Their great inspiration were Uncharted series,sure i don't mind that those games were not bad at all. Other then that runs maxed out 1680x1050 with my low eng computer (E6550,2GB ram and 4850 512mb). Only thing i hate is those fucking QTE which i can't get right on keyboard,sure left/right pressing is easy enough but when you need to press something else then that there is this exclamation mark for which i don't have idea what to press,then i switch to gamepad and there is "Press Y".

[Jesus_Phish]

It's a shame to hear it does that. It's probably E, but when games just show you a bloody icon instead of the actual key it wrecks my head.

[jyden]

I'm pretty sure the "exclamation mark"-icon is always F. If it's instead a hand-symbol, it's E.
Also playing Tomb Raider at the moment. Runs pretty fine, haven't had any crashes or bugs so far (been a while since I've had a game run this well at launch). TresFX works decently'ish most the time, but it's a bit too bouncy and have some clipping issues, and it seems they've chosen only to use it with LC.

[DaftPunk]

Damn i beat the crap out of the guy who can teach you pickpocketing in bandit camp,he tough me sneaking then i decided to get some money by selling weed to some guys and came back and realized i fucked up,because my plan was to learn pickpocketing,then pickpocket all guys around the camp,buy better sword,challenge brogar..But now my plan is doomed! What to do :( Don't wanny go back with saves because i did allot in the mean time..

[Tres]

Only thing i hate is those fucking QTE which i can't get right on keyboard,sure left/right pressing is easy enough but when you need to press something else then that there is this exclamation mark for which i don't have idea what to press,then i switch to gamepad and there is "Press Y".

You mean this new Tomb Raper went full Dark Souls on optimizing for M+K?

[DaftPunk]

Nah don't worry its not that bad,they just don't explain which button to press while doing QTE,which is F,then use button is E,and thats it. Works perfetly fine with K/M.

[Tres]

Also, I was about to ask why would TR have QTE in the first place, then I remembered that it's nextgen popamole.

[DaftPunk]

Their inspiration was Uncharted,but before in development they were aiming for something like "The Tomb Raider Reboot Was Going To Be A LotMore Like Shadow of the Colossus". I'll google link out,give me a sec!

Here it is,there are also pics,with Lara riding horse and running away from giant troll thing in forrest lol


http://kotaku.com/5988503/the-tomb-r...f-the-colossus






Otherwise question about Risen 1,is that Worker Uniform worth 500 golden coins ? Or should i wait for something better,i'm still in same clothes since beginning btw.