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What game are you wasting time on?

Self-Ejected

Drog Black Tooth

Self-Ejected
Joined
Feb 20, 2008
Messages
2,636
Still playing the Source engine games.

Finished Half-Life 2 + episodes, Portal 1 + Portal 2. Now trying out all the best fan made expansion packs.

I first started with this one:



It's actually a stand-alone game, but you still need to own Portal 2 on Steam to download it.

You could say it's a rehash of Portal 2 and... you'd be right. But it's a good rehash. Gameplay wise it's much more stimulating than Portal 2, sure, the puzzle design is not up to Valve's standards (I'm pretty sure I broke quite a few test chambers by solving puzzles... unconventionally), but it's fun to get stuck for a couple of minutes until the solution dawns on you. No crouch flinging or other trick moves like in Portal: Prelude! This mod also includes its own story (set between Portal 1 and 2) with voice acting and animated cutscenes. They even composed their own soundtrack which is rather catchy. It has 5 chapters and will take you around 6-8 hours to complete.

Short story, if you want more Portal, get this. It's probably the most polished Portal map pack out there.
 
Self-Ejected

Drog Black Tooth

Self-Ejected
Joined
Feb 20, 2008
Messages
2,636
Another mod I've tried:



This one is hailed as the best Half-Life 2 mod ever, the modder even got a job at Valve as the result.

And... am I crazy or this is pretty bad? It's pretty much nothing but fighting hoards of combine soldiers non-stop. And they have more health than in the original game, while your shitty MP5 really struggles with taking them down. I died like 10 times and then gave up.

If you thought that fighting gas masks was the highlight of Half-Life 2, then yeah, go ahead and try this.
 

A horse of course

Guest
Another mod I've tried:



This one is hailed as the best Half-Life 2 mod ever, the modder even got a job at Valve as the result.

And... am I crazy or this is pretty bad? It's pretty much nothing but fighting hoards of combine soldiers non-stop. And they have more health than in the original game, while your shitty MP5 really struggles with taking them down. I died like 10 times and then gave up.

If you thought that fighting gas masks was the highlight of Half-Life 2, then yeah, go ahead and try this.


It's pretty crap, yeah.
 

spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,278
^
6csCxfx.png
zLYSzs8.gif
 

Krraloth

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Nov 20, 2009
Messages
1,220
Location
Boringland
Wasteland 2
Finished my first dungeon crawler: Shining in the Darkness. A JRPG dungeon crawler with a preset party of three and a bog standard high fantasy setting where you must save the kidnapped princess and kill the big bad. It doesn't sound too compelling but if you're an absolute beginner in dungeon crawlers, you can't go wrong with this game. The game's got great visuals and sounds. Level design is pretty good and the game has a very comfortable difficulty curve (Read: Ok lah...Quite easy lah).

If you're a beginner like me, please go in blind with this game and do not look for help online and stuff like that. Pull out some sheets of paper and start drawing maps, if you can't memorize them. Save your game and try out new magic spells and items beforehand to see what they are.

All in all, time well wasted.

Now it's time for you to emulate sega Saturn's Shining the Holy Ark.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,085
Location
デゼニランド
Decided to beat the Tetsujin series for 3DO. These are Japanese Wolfenstein 3D clones by Synergy (the company behind Alice/L-Zone and Gadget). The second game came out on PC, but sadly it's Japanese-only, while both games are available in English on 3DO, so...

Several thoughts:
1. The music is pretty good industrial/techno/ambient stuff.
2. 3D enemies are impressive for 1994.

However, that's about all I can say so far. The level design is your typical Wolf3D fare, but the only reason why I think Wolf3D was enjoyable is because it ran fast. This game? It feels like 20 fps when there are no enemies on screen and 10 fps whenever the enemy or some usable object appears. As a final nail in the coffin for the first game, 4DO chokes on it in the double resolution, and after overclocking the internal CPU to 200% of the original performance the game is finally playable, but sound turns into a mess. Therefore, I'm only turning on the high resolution to take screenshots.

On the positive side, the sequel runs and looks somewhat better with more textures and stuff, but the enemies are displayed as sprites. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is up to you.

QG3jful.png
5pwKFgP.png
 

gaussgunner

Arcane
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
6,151
Location
ХУДШИЕ США
VTM Bloodlines. Wow. So many familiar faces here :cool:

$8 on gog this week. Only caught my eye because I'm making an rpg with some vampires in it. Storyfag FPS ARPGs ain't really my thing but god damn it's cool for what it is.

Runs in WINE if I use my internal soundcard with PulseAudio off. Beats screwing around with Windows.
 

Shackleton

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
1,301
Location
Knackers Yard
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Decided to beat the Tetsujin series for 3DO. These are Japanese Wolfenstein 3D clones by Synergy (the company behind Alice/L-Zone and Gadget). The second game came out on PC, but sadly it's Japanese-only, while both games are available in English on 3DO, so...

Several thoughts:
1. The music is pretty good industrial/techno/ambient stuff.
2. 3D enemies are impressive for 1994.

However, that's about all I can say so far. The level design is your typical Wolf3D fare, but the only reason why I think Wolf3D was enjoyable is because it ran fast. This game? It feels like 20 fps when there are no enemies on screen and 10 fps whenever the enemy or some usable object appears. As a final nail in the coffin for the first game, 4DO chokes on it in the double resolution, and after overclocking the internal CPU to 200% of the original performance the game is finally playable, but sound turns into a mess. Therefore, I'm only turning on the high resolution to take screenshots.

On the positive side, the sequel runs and looks somewhat better with more textures and stuff, but the enemies are displayed as sprites. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is up to you.

<pics snipped>

I'm genuinely curious- why would you do this thing? I mean, I know it's not like there's a never ending stream of awesome games to play, but why would you decide to play through a series of obscure games that from the sounds of it, aren't very good? :M

I can't imagine there's enough free time in all the world to play the games from the last 20 years that are actually good, why on earth would you choose to play something from 23 years ago that isn't? Apart from KKK of course. :salute:
 

Durandal

Arcane
Joined
May 13, 2015
Messages
2,117
Location
New Eden
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Took me half an hour just to delete everything in the quote.

Anyway, Rubicon is a lot of fun if you play it on normal. Anything harder is begging for murder by maser-bob. While Phoenix has the smoothest gameplay, Rubicon boasts the greatest levels in Marathon. Some of the Chimera levels, a lot of the Pfhor plank and just about all the content added for the Tycho plank. Especially like "No place like up". Plus, the texture sets evoke a lot of menace. The bright water set tiles predominant in Phoenix give a neutral (almost friendly) feel.

Every now and again, I'm tempted to make a redux of Red. It has so much going for it. Fortunately, I always relapse into common sense before immersing myself in such a large and dubious enterprise.

I got the feeling Rubicon wasn't playtested for Total Carnage at all, but my masochism prevented me from taking it easier. There are some really good levels in Rubicon, but there are a lot of levels which were bad ideas from the start which not even its architecture and great textures could save, whereas Phoenix is largely more consistent in terms of pacing and quality even though it uses the standard M2/Infinity texture sets. Always liked the look of Pfhor Prime, too.

I also happened to stumble upon the bio page of the Marathon RED mod author which made me understand the thought process behind the scenario a little, but at the same time made me feel oddly nostalgic too. I'm surprised the guy hasn't taken it down out of embarassment, not even after 16 years.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,085
Location
デゼニランド
I'm genuinely curious- why would you do this thing? I mean, I know it's not like there's a never ending stream of awesome games to play, but why would you decide to play through a series of obscure games that from the sounds of it, aren't very good? :M

I can't imagine there's enough free time in all the world to play the games from the last 20 years that are actually good, why on earth would you choose to play something from 23 years ago that isn't? Apart from KKK of course. :salute:
I tend to look for obscure/less known cyberpunk/futuristic games because I tend to get fed up with your typical fantasy/post-apoc fare that we see today and its fun to rant about them whenever some faggot starts whining that there are too few cyberpunk/futuristic games out there.

There are some impressive/interesting ideas too, e.g. Immercenary was one of the first open world games, The Creed is a strange mix of GTA+Resident Evil gameplay with a very dark cyberpunk atmosphere, Cybermage is basically Shadowrun: The FPS but less boring than the latest Shadowrun games in terms of gameplay (and precedes Half-Life in terms of storytelling without cutscenes), Project Eden is a fun adventure game that relies on the specific abilities of your squad members, Father World is a Korean clone of Flashback and so on. Heck, did you know that Hired Guns had a cancelled sequel/remake that was leaked on the web a long time ago?

Small things like those are interesting to find between playing the good games, but since I don't have much time lately, I'd rather try to play something I've never seen/heard of before and share my impressions.
 

Villagkouras

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2014
Messages
1,022
Location
Greece
I just finished Binary Domain. I know I'm late to the party.

But what the fuck? The game was fine. Seriously, what's wrong with reviewers? How can they rate other games higher than this? If they hate BD, fine, but they have to hate the others too.

Popamole done right, IMO.
 
Unwanted

Kalin

Unwanted
Dumbfuck Zionist Agent
Joined
Sep 29, 2010
Messages
1,868,264
Location
Al Scandiya
RFBdfeU.jpg




Took a whole lotta tryin' just to get up dat hill, now I'm up in da big leagues! My sneaky 10 INT thought control PSI dude crushed everything in his way, but Fort Apogee put up one hell of a fight, not so much because of the standard metal bros but mainly due to those damn 1000 HP and super-res dreadnoughts. Nothing I had in my arsenal could harm those fricking golems, I almost gave up on my dream of purging the Protectorate before taking on the Institute and moving down to the Deep Caverns.

Almost! But then I remembered about Psychostatic Electricity, and I figured, hey now, maybe that will crack those niggas. So I roamed the land looking for more precious oddities, purged all the Ironheads, snatched the human skin thingy from the Rathound King's labyrinth, and finally took out JKK to get to level 22. Sure enough, the feat, together with trance and a focus stim, finally helped me down those metal monsters and purge the entire Fort! Had to cheese a bit with toxic grenades, and I left the area twice to recharge muh energies, but still, a win is a win no matter how dirty!

Now it's onwards to crush Eidein and purge the Institute. Might cull Coretech and Praetorian Security first though, they've got some snazzy oddities after all.

(Also not sure why there's a fookin Ironhead in the corpse pile, but good riddance all the same!)
 

Erebus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
4,763
I just needed a dozen more turns to reach a scientific victory in Civ 6 (Immortal), but then Japan screwed me like a fisherman's wife with a cultural victory. I could see they were drawing in a lot of tourists, but failed to realize how quickly their numbers were increasing until it was too late.

The last Civilization game I played was Civ 2, so I still have a hard time adapting to victories that are neither military nor scientific. And the civilopedia is pretty unhelpful as far as mechanics are concerned.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
27,089
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
I just needed a dozen more turns to reach a scientific victory in Civ 6 (Immortal), but then Japan screwed me like a fisherman's wife with a cultural victory. I could see they were drawing in a lot of tourists, but failed to realize how quickly their numbers were increasing until it was too late.

The last Civilization game I played was Civ 2, so I still have a hard time adapting to victories that are neither military nor scientific. And the civilopedia is pretty unhelpful as far as mechanics are concerned.

I had the same problem with Civ 4 (haven't touched Civ 5+ yet). An odd suggestion, but maybe you should try playing Civ 4 to compare? You get Leonard Nimoy as the narrator.
 

Freddie

Savant
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
717
Location
Mansion
I just finished Binary Domain. I know I'm late to the party.

But what the fuck? The game was fine. Seriously, what's wrong with reviewers? How can they rate other games higher than this? If they hate BD, fine, but they have to hate the others too.

Popamole done right, IMO.
One of the gems I discovered while lurking here. Wondered the same thing, didn't publisher pay for favourable reviews or what? Game was good what comes to popamoles.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
After finishing Witcher 3, played Hearts of Stone or more like "Just follow the quest compass until the next cutscene trigger. Engage brain? LOL, this is 21th century, brain is optional." DLC . Not that it is much different or worse compared with the rest of the Witcher 3 if the story wasn't "Dude makes a deal with the devil and regret it.", not exactly shinning on the originality territory here.

Finished the DLC with a feeling of meh, not the worst content of the game, that shining achievement goes to the Novigrad main quest section but I tought they concentrating on a shorter story would allow them to implement some real C&C and concentrate more on a tight story but the DLC has alot of fake choices and go on random places instead of concentrating on some tight narrative.

You do all sorts of stuff that are on themselves interesting but are only connected by a barely developed plot that doesn't try to go beyond cliche. Olgierd, Shani, Iris Von Olgiers, Vlodmir Von Olgiers and Gauther Odim are interesting characters but each have so little screen time that they disappear before something interesting happens and you end with a meh feeling of wondering what the fuck happened? The DLC had a ton of fake choices too what is annoying and eliminate all your agency on a story that is already kinda cliche and predictable.

Some codexers said it was as good as the Blood Baron quest, I disagree, the Blood Baron quest was much better designed with stuff actually happening to the characters and reaching a climax on the end. On Hearts of Stone, each character does its little piece, then it is gone.

Man, handholding really kills Witcher 3 too, acomplishing three impossible wishes is a really nice premise for some really good RPG quests but the characters explain much on the cutscenes and do all the work for you that on the end you just end moving from cutscene trigger to cutscene trigger without having to place any tought or effort on it.
 
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Krivol

Magister
Joined
Apr 21, 2012
Messages
1,951
Location
Potatoland aka Prussia
After finishing nuXCOM and grabbing UFO Defence on Humble Bundle I decided to try OpenXcom and compare those two games.

I really liked nuXCOM but... It's so dumbed down in my opinion - scale on new one is so much smaller (well, it feels so - you have only one base, maximum 6-people teams, and you eran whopping amount of 1000 dollars per month... yay! - I know it's, well, metaphoric 1000 dollars, but still feels poor), 2 AP system feels artificial and cover system is sometimes incredibly stupid (trash can stopping plasma shoot for example, or being covered by insignificant stuff gives allien full defence - stuff like this).

I can't say it's a matter of nostalgia - in the past I played UFO Defense (X-Com Ennemy Unknown in my country IIRC) only few times and rage-quitted every time aliens gangbanged my team (so, pretty fast as you can imagine). Also I allways hated graphics in UFO Defense - it's clear and easy to see what it shows, but it's style doesn't work for me (TFtD has much worse graphic TBH, well it's colours are just bad). But playing this game is addictive, every mission with small looses gives so much satisfaction, action is so brutal - just leave one space uncovered and you can loose entire team, I remember Chrizoid (or whatever it's called) killing my tank and 2 soliders because I was sure he can't be behind of me. It was like from Alien movie! Great action!

Or psi controll - everything worked fine, I killed 8 or 9 aliens in terror mission, was already relaxe, then, suddenly, they taken control of one of my fodder soliders. He had an alien granade... I lost 4 fine crew members. Almost rage-quitted (well, I didn't because I had plenty of money from manufacturing goods).

Is it really hard to make game like this today (said codexer on Codex where people are complaining they haven't seen good game since 1998)? I know Xenonauts (well, I heard abuot this game, but never played) - but I can't imagine such a great game, made by AAA deceloper, not selling well. I just want better graphics (nuXCOM is fine) and a bit better UI (just smaller with more key-shortcuts) and probably would play it to death.
 

Jarmaro

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Messages
1,466
Location
Lair of Despair
Playing Fallout 2, F1 was very enjoyable as for 20 year old game. But F2 is literally killing me. Random encounters are much diffrent, now each of them means I have to reload beceause no way I can win when I fight 6 bandits or 8 wolfes. I explore locations, but I don't find anything interesting. Boredom is everywhere, I really think about unistalling it and going forward to Fallout 3.
 

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