What game are you wasting time on?

[Tavernking]

NOTHING! I am fucking free

NO GAMES OVER HERE

NO GAMES ANYWHERE

MY life is getting the real restart it's always desired. I'm going to have a car! I'm going to have a house! I'm going to have a wife!

Things are looking up up up

YOU ARE DOWN

but no

I need help

The the undying passion of my soul beats me off

 

[Dux]

With the end of Police Quest 4 I'm now done with the series. I'm turning in my badge.

I played the VGA remake of the first PQ, then its VGA sibling PQ3, then the EGA PQ2 - all of which neatly ties up the story of the main star Sonny Bonds and his career as a police officer with the Lytton PD. All of these games are quite good but also quite unforgiving if you don't know what you're getting into. They don't fuck around when it comes to correct police procedure. It's partly a somewhat simplified simulation of being a cop: from a regular beat cop to narcotics. There's paperwork, questioning, collecting evidence, booking evidence, booking people under the correct codes, gunfights and awkward driving mechanics (at least for PQ1 and 3). It's quite an interesting and unique trilogy, well worth the time if you feel you're up to it.

Then there's Police Quest 4, which is totally unrelated to the others. Now you're playing as a cop from the LAPD trying to solve a string of murders. You do this by slowly going back and forth from various locations on a map, questioning a lot of people in an awkward semi-realistic setting. Instead of the charming VGA graphics of PQ3 we now have cut-outs of real actors walking around, complete with jarring animation and voice-acting. I didn't really like this game. It was plodding as all hell and extremely muddled. Whereas the other games follows a distinct pattern and structure, now you basically have to exhaust every option at various locations in order to progress to the next day. Almost like Gabriel Knight but not as nuanced.

Spoiler

Then there's the whole last third of the game where the cop you're portraying as breaks police protocol when closing in on the murderer. A woman dies as a result, even though you could very easily have prevented it. Nothing about the ending segment makes any sense and it would fit better in a fucking Phantasmagoria game than this. You have a gun, you have more than enough evidence to bring a certain person in for questioning - but you don't do it. Instead you waddle around indecisively. You get drugged when drinking some complimentary tea in a film theatre, for one thing, and then when you wake up you're ushered out of there by the man who drugged you. No questions. No follow-up. Then you return to the theatre and see a woman knocked out - like you were previously. She's clearly DRUGGED because you can't wake her up. By this point you pretty much know that the theatre and its owner is somehow linked with the murders. What do you do? Draw your sidearm and call for backup? Paramedics?

Nope! Instead you to go a park so you can throw a rope on a dog. Later on you get knocked out AGAIN by the murderer in the same goddamn theatre and lose your sidearm, badge and everything in the process. The woman from earlier that was knocked out? Dead. You actually see her being carried off by the murderer when you walk into the theatre for the final time and instead of shouting freeze you go into a completely separate door, for some reason. Anything to appease this complete clusterfuck of a game. You eventually kill the murderer with a makeshift weapon and get saluted as a hero by the mayor and the city. Yeah, it's not like IA would be completely up your ass over your extreme lapses of judgement resulting in needless deaths... hell, you'd probably lose your badge for being indirectly responsible for the murder of a woman.

Fuck this game.

PQ 1-3: good. PQ4: ass.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm almost done with disc 3 of Final Fantasy VIII. I've broken the game and am ready to 100% it. Still think the junction and draw systems are poorly thought out. Squall has been a dick for most of the game, but his companions are probably worse. As soon as he shows some feelings, they're all like: That's so not Squall!

My Tale of Wuxia: The Pre-Sequel play through is proceeding nicely. Characters are becoming stronger and learning some cool arts. I can finally beat some encounters that beat my ass so hard that they created a black hole.

I finished Steins;Gate. Tutturu! Probably the best visual novel that I have tried. It gets totally crazy, but in a "I need to see/read what happens next" kind of way. I've reached 3/4 endings. I'll come back to this at a later point and go for the true ending, but for now, it will rest. El Psy Kongroo.

Started Persona 5. I was going to get a feel for the game. 2 hours and 45 minutes later, my verdict is that it's good for now. It's over the top stylized. Good music and art, but the character models in-game leave a lot to be desired. Might have to do with the PS3 version holding back, I don't know. I feel like I've gotten more control of my character here than in the beginning of Persona 4. Still, it feel like I'm not even close to ending tutorials.

 

[Swigen]

I guess Path of Exile. Gawd, what a waste of time. Lord’s Labyrinth 8 switch puzzle... suck my baaaaawwllls!!

 

[RK47]

Sunday passed and I didn't manage to find anything new to play.
I played VTMB and ATOM RPG again.
Switching between the two to kill the samey boredom.

ATOM RPG keeps surprising me with little discoverable content.

Both the dev and community kept posting new stuff even after I ran through the game 20+ times.
I highly recommend that game. The devs priced it so low I wonder how they made money.
After refusing to post donation links they finally added a supportive edition for sale in Steam.
While new minor bugs pop up they patched it quickly. Very admirable first work.

VTMB with Unofficial Patch run: I noticed something when I ran through as Malkavian. The power lines would fly around like strong winds are affecting them. When I switched to a Tremere save game, they don't. Curious.

Also - I discovered I could actually direct Gimble with Persuasion, the prosthetics doctor to the Blood Bank, completely bypassing his boss fight and solving the replacement blood source quest after rescuing the thinblood girl. That's new

One unwelcome addition, however, is the split-second display of the Hotel Ax Murderer.
I mean seriously, why would you show him like this?

I settled in for the night when drawers start to appear, replacing the palm trees at the Hollywood Horror Mansion.

Sleep tight, people. And remember to shower.

 

[Gregz]

VTMB with Unofficial Patch run

Yeah, I experienced similar glitches in my recent UP replay too, shame. Wesp5

 

[SecondAmendment]

I've been playing through the campaign of Tropico 6. It has a great sense of humor, and pokes a lot of fun at current controversies. The management sim aspects are pretty good, but poorly documented. I can't tell if my citizens are in the best housing for their economic class, the map won't change zoom during building placement, and I did have one crash. The humor and the presentation make up for the flaws, however. Managing supply chains, factions with competing demands, and silly things like stealing the White House keep me busy.

If you w as it a year or two you will be able to buy it ar with all the inevitable DLC and patches for $10, but I paid $30 to get a Russian key and it feels worth it. Lots of fun and actually pretty deep if a bit opaque under the hood.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Dragon's Dogma (for the third time)
Doom PWADs

 

[laclongquan]

Baldur's Gate 2: Shadow of Amn. Sword Coast Stratagem 31.

Play normally, It kick my arse so hard. The joys of fighting spectral trolls right outta chapter 2. Or the massive pain of fighting mages with plenty of buffs. Every mage fight is a dice roll: do any fucker know Summon Dark Planetar? If so how can we kill it without it call for that sucker down? Because when he's down we are going to run like rabbit~

Although this time I remember and didnt pay for the magic license. Fighting those enforcers are a pain in the ass because they dont have that much loot. Barely worth the bother.

The limitation of no license mean a few gameplay change. We simply cant cast arcane spells at all. Refreshing.

 

[HansDampf]

VTMB with Unofficial Patch run: I noticed something when I ran through as Malkavian. The power lines would fly around like strong winds are affecting them. When I switched to a Tremere save game, they don't. Curious.

It's not the wind. It's supposed to be Malkavian Madness™.

Also - I discovered I could actually direct Gimble with Persuasion, the prosthetics doctor to the Blood Bank, completely bypassing his boss fight and solving the replacement blood source quest after rescuing the thinblood girl. That's new

I remember a 20 page long debate with Wesp about how nonsensical this change is, and that Gimble wouldn't just leave you there.

I settled in for the night when drawers start to appear, replacing the palm trees at the Hollywood Horror Mansion.

This is an infamous bug that most often occurs in the Skyline Apartment building, after you've been running the game for a few hours. It can't be fixed, according to Wesp. Saving and rebooting the game should turn everything back to normal.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I can't stop playing Severance Blade of Darkness. Such a wonderful game. Most fun I've had with a game in a long time.

 

[oldbonebrown]

Been playing the Dark Souls mod Daughters of Ash. The mod is not all that exciting so far but it changes things around enough so that it gives me a good enough reason to play more Dark Souls 1 - which is all that I really wanted.
I think the first Dark Souls must be my favourite game for just mindless gameplay. I almost bought the remaster recently just so that I could get all the achievements again, but this mod saved me from that by giving me another reason to play more.

 

[A_boring_GOG_bot]

Installed Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019 . Let's see how is it run on my potato PC .

 

[Krivol]

After some Codex discussion about Single Player RTS I decided to install Armies of Exigo.

It's really fine game, I found it a bit more interesting for SP than Warcraft 3. Still I haven't finished first campaign yet.

 

[Endemic]

Checking out v0.9.9 of Endless Sky. https://github.com/endless-sky/endless-sky/releases

 

[Jinn]

Checking out v0.9.9 of Endless Sky. https://github.com/endless-sky/endless-sky/releases

How is it? Worth putting the time into it? I'm assuming by the version number it's finally getting close to "finalized" release.

 

[Tytus]

I was playing Battletech with the Flashpoint expansion. The add-on made the much better in many aspects. And I enjoyed it more than just the base game. But still couldn't address some issues like finally forcing the player to move. Because turtling up is still the best strategy. So when I hear the next expansion thries to "fix" this issue by throwing never ending waves of enemies against the player.... Harebrained schemes went full retard and I don't even feel like buying Urban Combat.

 

[Endemic]

How is it? Worth putting the time into it? I'm assuming by the version number it's finally getting close to "finalized" release.

Lots of minor improvements that add up to make the whole game more enjoyable. The main thing left to finish is the storyline missions for the factions you can work with (Free Worlds, Republic etc).

 

[Jinn]

The main thing left to finish is the storyline missions for the factions you can work with (Free Worlds, Republic etc).

Thank you! This was actually something else I meant to ask about. So I could possibly start doing a faction storyline now and finish it in an upcoming update?

 

[Beggar]

Warhammer 2 and Rocksmith 2014

Does Rocksmith still require that dongle/cable that they released with it, or is there another way to connect your guitar?

I bought the required cable. But I read that you can plug it directly to your PC and use the real tone cable crack

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Witcher 3. New game. Trying some different approaches. Going hard business - Nilfgaard/slightly lawful evil. Went to Fyke Isle to do the dead ghost lady quest. This time Keira wouldn't give up Alexander's papers, so we got into it and I had to kill her on the steps of the tower. So in the timeline of about 12 hours I rescued a pesta so she could revenge herself by killing her lover, fucked Keira after a fine meal, napped on the shore, woke up and swam back to the island, and killed the chick I just fucked 'cause she wouldn't give up her disease research homework. Then I traveled back to Velen proper and got into a horse race, as if nothing had happened.

That's the kinda stuff that makes you love that game.

 

[Martyr]

Gorasul - Legacy of the Dragon (2001)

an indie Infinity Engine clone. the character is pre-defined, like the nameless one. you can choose not only the difficulty, but also the focus of the game. there's a story-mode (hi, Beamdog!), a combat mode and the normal mode.
you are a human, raised by dragons and over time you've learned some of their abilities (those will trigger automatically during combat). you've been defeated and now you awaken after 10 years (iirc) in your tower (which is highly reminiscent of the morgue in Planescape Torment). although the tower is magically sealed, so that only you can enter and exit it, it is overtaken by hostile creatures. as you exit your tower you soon learn that the whole land of Gorasul (in which there is also an eternal war of gods vs devils going on) is being overrun by the hordes of evil.

it is obvious from the first second that Planescape and Baldur's Gate were the big inspirations for Gorasul. the soundtrack varies in quality from very good to strange. unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a sound for weather effects like lightning. the visual quality is pretty nice but sadly the characters remind me of the early Settlers games. but that's just nitpicking, I'm enjoying the game so far.

 

[newtmonkey]

Spent much of tonight getting some older Win games running on Win 10:

Warlords III: Darklords Rising
You can replace the installshield thingy with a 32 bit version and install the game normally from CD (or an image of the CD).
Unfortunately, it's very unstable, and due to the fact that the Windows 10 task manager barely functions when you need it to, a crash means you have to switch users/log out to actually fucking end the thing.

However, there's a premade DXwnd profile you can easily find and download; just gotta change the directory to wherever you actually installed the game. Combine that with an integer scaling application, and you get Warlords 3: DLR running in a borderless fullscreen window with a perfect integer scale looking beautiful. No music though; for that I guess you need the real game disc.

MechCommander Gold
This seems to actually work just fine in Windows 10, you just need to replace the installer with a 32bit version (see above). You can even ALT+ENTER to run it in a window and then use an integer scaler to get a pixel perfect image if you want (no DXwnd required).

Cyberstorm: Missionforce
I could not get this to run at all, as the unofficial Win10 patch is detected as a virus and won't run. I was too drunk to fool around with it, so gave up. If anyone has any hints, please let me know, as I'd love to play this game again.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Spent much of tonight getting some older Win games running on Win 10:

Warlords III: Darklords Rising
You can replace the installshield thingy with a 32 bit version and install the game normally from CD (or an image of the CD).
Unfortunately, it's very unstable, and due to the fact that the Windows 10 task manager barely functions when you need it to, a crash means you have to switch users/log out to actually fucking end the thing.

However, there's a premade DXwnd profile you can easily find and download; just gotta change the directory to wherever you actually installed the game. Combine that with an integer scaling application, and you get Warlords 3: DLR running in a borderless fullscreen window with a perfect integer scale looking beautiful. No music though; for that I guess you need the real game disc.

MechCommander Gold
This seems to actually work just fine in Windows 10, you just need to replace the installer with a 32bit version (see above). You can even ALT+ENTER to run it in a window and then use an integer scaler to get a pixel perfect image if you want (no DXwnd required).

Cyberstorm: Missionforce
I could not get this to run at all, as the unofficial Win10 patch is detected as a virus and won't run. I was too drunk to fool around with it, so gave up. If anyone has any hints, please let me know, as I'd love to play this game again.

If you want to give more detailed information on how to get these games running on modern systems, feel free to post in the "Unofficial patches" thread, which always hungers for such information.

And yes... you need the original CD for the audio in Warlords 3.

 

[Endemic]

Thank you! This was actually something else I meant to ask about. So I could possibly start doing a faction storyline now and finish it in an upcoming update?

I haven't delved into the faction missions too much, because I expect they'll be adjusted a fair bit before the game reaches v1.0 (Micheal said he wanted at least the 3 human factions' storylines finished before that). Right now you can "break" the campaigns by rejecting/failing certain missions or doing something that the game isn't scripted to react to. Quite a few alternate paths haven't been integrated yet.