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Disciples 2, Supreme Commander & the Witcher Enhanced

Joined
Oct 19, 2010
Messages
3,524
So I thought I would get some impressions on the Codex on a recent purchase I made, and open up the experience to any suggestions, tips or comments from the Codex on the above mentioned games.

Long story short, I found an old gift card lying around ready to expire so I headed down to the store to see what I could get for $50. Basically from the limited selection available (of the 7 or so full aisles there, 6 were non-PC, the back of the very last aisle had PC games, half of which was all the Sims and Wow games anyway) and with a $50 card I was able to pick up The Witcher Enhanced Edition, Supreme Commander and Disciples 2 Gold (and with a buy 2 get 1 free deal it totalled at only $40, a rather good deal I thought)

So far the only one I have started playing is The Witcher (for very few minutes) and am still in the ruined keep area.

Quick Impressions: Visuals look nice but occasionally glitchy and inconsistent, fought 10-15 enemies and combat seems like it will be repetitive and boring but holding my opinion 'til later (do set the record straight if you have played), not a fan of all the Epic Action Cut Scenes, especially since I don't give a shit about any of the characters yet, also seems to have a slight vibe similar to Dragon Age although can't say for sure yet.


I am sure the Witcher has been discussed to death already on here (feel free to mention anything about it on the side though), but I was wondering particularly about the wider Codex opinion on the other two games, Disciples 2 Gold and Supreme Commander - both of which I bought pretty much on intuition. Supreme Commander I understand to be a modern RTS and Disciples 2 (which I am kinda most excited about) is a traditional TBS game right?

So what are the various opinions on these games? How many of you have played them? Are they good games? Replayable at all?

Are there any tips or suggestions that you could give me to help get into them or that would be good to know right from the start? Any major issues or game stopping bugs or necessary patches etc that I should be aware of?


:M



tl;dr For those here just for the faggotry n lulz:

I am sure many of you have heard how overpriced games are here in Aus but here are a couple of examples: (keeping in mind the AUD is just slightly above the USD these days)
* Dragon Age priced at $70 AUD
* Call of Duty Black Ops priced at $90 AUD, which is pretty much typical for a new release here
* Alpha Protocol priced at... wait for it.. $95 AUD. FFS. Most expensive game on the shelf. (Dragon Age 2 was there for preorder but had no price) I thought Alpha Protocol didn’t even sell well, how the hell do they expect to be able to get rid of it at this price?

Oh and I noticed there were these little fluorescent post-it notes scattered all over the shelves where the store attendants (I assume) have gone and tried to “review” the games possibly in an attempt to sell them easier (it made it worse actually). They would have like 20 words written in barely legible handwriting for example for WoW they had:

Wow has more players worldwide than any other making it the most popular online game ever.
Reviewed by *retard’s name here*

Then I noticed the “review” for Sims 3 (which had more copies on the shelf than any other game there), and this is what it said exactly as it was written on the card:

Personalise you caracter to the minor detait from the Roots of the hair to there eating habbits.

Reviewed by: Bettie

:? :retarded: What the fuck I don't even









I think Bettie may have been a Muslim though. I dunno, it was just the vibe that I got from the card.
 

chzr

Scholar
Joined
Jun 26, 2010
Messages
1,238
i'd say switch the shop. tpb comes to mind, best prices even in australia.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
Supreme Commander is a sequel (in spirit) to the excellent Total Annihilation and its quite good. SC2 is shit, but first one allows for massive armies of massive and different units and nice battles.

Disciples 2 is way better than 3 (see the pattern here?) and seems to be a simplified HoMM with more grimdark setting and graphics. But its enjoyable if rather hard.

TW:EE is better than most modern RPGs but not a masterpiece. Combat gets boring quick but alchemy is rather nice.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
chzr said:
i'd say switch the shop. tpb comes to mind, best prices even in australia.

While this is true there is no reason to waste a perfectly good coupon.
 

MetalCraze

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2007
Messages
21,104
Location
Urkanistan
TW is mostly killed by the boring "simon-says" QTE combat and a lot of backtracking (if you can call constant neverending trips between the city and the swamp like that).

Supreme Commander is way too boring. I found it to be all about having more zerg than the enemy. I'd rather play Total War if I wanted zerg

Disciples 2 is the best one you got there but I think HoMM3 is superior.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
The Bitcher, yeah, been discussed to death. Should give you some entertainment, be sure to check if it's patched to the most recent version. (I remember never finishing it because of horrible, horrible framerate at one point, heard it was fixed with patches).

Supreme Commander - have to agree with skyway, boring. Total Annihilation was pretty much superior.

Disciples - I had some fun with it, although not sure if it was vanilla or some expansion.
it feels like a bastard child of Homm3 and jrpg. Didn't play Sengoku Rance, but from what I saw the combat may be similar to it. As long as you don't expect awsome strategy, you should do fine.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2010
Messages
3,524
Okay so I shall update my impressions on my (rather short) but mostly informative play time so far.

First, have not played any of Supreme Commander yet.

Second I have played some of The Witcher, maybe only a couple of hours though. I am still in the first village area, and I would have to say the game has not grabbed me so far.

* Combat is so far as expected when I began.
- It is almost a guarantee to get the combo attacks every time so what is the point?
- I see no point to different combat styles either other than to make combat more irritating and time consuming
* Quests are very fetch-heavy, with lots of stupid item gathering and running around so far. Hate this stuff, in the village area at least
* Absolutely hating the linearity of the map, with fences everywhere and an illusion of an open landscape when it is all a few straight and boring lines. Worse than Neverwinter

* Environments seem visually nice
* Character visuals/diversity seems nice too
* Art design seems polished, although still rather typical/bland
* Music is quite nice, I am listening to it now


I would be curious to know how long it took for the people who actually enjoyed it to really get into the game and story? So far it is not happening.

* Can only bear to play in 1 hour intervals before feeling the strain

Some things I wondered about:

* Is there any point to other weapons in this game? (I picked up an axe and it didn't work in combat)
* Is character customisation about diversifying a character or do all characters end up much the same? (So far everything seems to be heading in a simple all-round warrior direction)
* What does "alchemy is required" mean exactly, for hard difficulty? (as opposed to not required on lower levels)


Disciples 2

I have begun only the first level of Disciples 2 (which I suppose as a turn based game is sizeable)

Started a hard game with demon team, had no idea what I was doing so restarted a normal game for undead. Eventually learning it

* This game is really hard to distinguish visually. Everything blurs into the background into quite a big mess
* Art, sound seems quite good
* Quite a big fan of the music in this one, nice dark quality
* Game seems like it will be difficult, but mostly because I have to learn by trial and error
*Has a slight indie feel to it (slight sense of things being unfinished?), although I am enjoying this game most so far


Things I wanted to know about this so far:

* How do I get larger parties? (Only 3 units per fight seems too low)
* Am I meant to grind heroes and units on wild creatures to get their levels up? (Experience gain is slow)
* Are there more units later in the game, or only when you upgrade the initial ones? (Seems like very few)
 
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
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Location
Bureaukratistan
MetalCraze said:
TW is mostly killed by the boring "simon-says" QTE combat and a lot of backtracking (if you can call constant neverending trips between the city and the swamp like that).

True, also the "fight million-zillion enemies" approach, where you aren't allowed to pick up stuff when there are weakling enemies nearby because YOU'RE IN COMBAT HOW EXCITING IT IS. You also get a pendant that repels Drowners, doesn't really do anything since you're still considered to be in combat. Basically a nice story and atmosphere, shit game with too much boring running around and fighting chump enemies. Needs fast travel - no really it needs fast travel, the constant loading screens and going back and forth, back and forth made me constantly quit it for long periods of time and it took half an year to complete it because I couldn't stomach the boredom.

MetalCraze said:
Supreme Commander is way too boring. I found it to be all about having more zerg than the enemy. I'd rather play Total War if I wanted zerg

Sadly, this is also true. While I appreciate it's functionality and the ability to zoom to like orbital view seamlessly, I find the gameplay is too slow for an RTS game, too much waiting for something to happen. Trading armies, trading armies again, and - fuck - I'm getting sick of this shit, it's getting nowhere since the other player isn't an idiot either. Also the singleplayer is worthless.

MetalCraze said:
Disciples 2 is the best one you got there but I think HoMM3 is superior.

Disciples 2 is a very fun game so at least you got something, there shouldn't be a boring moment with that one.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Excommunicator said:
@ The Bitcher
I would be curious to know how long it took for the people who actually enjoyed it to really get into the game and story? So far it is not happening.
Filthy pollacks will most likely say it's due to shitty translation.
Honestly, if you won't get into it after the first act, it's unlikely to get better.

* Is there any point to other weapons in this game? (I picked up an axe and it didn't work in combat)
* Is character customisation about diversifying a character or do all characters end up much the same? (So far everything seems to be heading in a simple all-round warrior direction)
* What does "alchemy is required" mean exactly, for hard difficulty? (as opposed to not required on lower levels)

(o) Yeah, other weapons are a bit meh. Swords is where it's at.
(o) Yeah, character customization isn't really customization. There will only be slight variations between playthroughs. Though you may decide if you wish to focus more on signs or fighting styles.
(o) It means you actually have to use various oils and potions to get through fights.
On easy, you may as well ignore it, unless the firght is really hards.
Same goes for signs.

@Disciples 2
Things I wanted to know about this so far:

* How do I get larger parties? (Only 3 units per fight seems too low)
* Am I meant to grind heroes and units on wild creatures to get their levels up? (Experience gain is slow)
* Are there more units later in the game, or only when you upgrade the initial ones? (Seems like very few)

(o) Your hero will gain the Leadership skill during levelups, bringing the total number of trrops to 6 eventually.
(o) Yeah, grinding is good for you, especially in the early game to upgrade the sucky level 1 peasants you start with.
But it's even better to hunt for enemy faction heroes - blockade their towns and kill whatever tries to get out. A bit nicer exp than goblins and stops AI expansion.
(o) The units you start with are the only basic types you'll get, by levelling them up they transform into something new. So yeah, there's very few troop types, but remeber that you only have max 6 slots to work with anyway. Also, the upgrade tree branches a lot (depending on the faction), and branches will differ considerably.
The difference between: a troop which paralyzes all enemy troops at 50% chance vs one troop at 95% chance may not sound like a big deal, but all abilities matter, especially different attack types and immunities vs. certain attack type.

Tips:
>Start with the empire, the units are straightforward
(o)Frontline fighter
(o)Ranged attacker
(o)Ranged mass attacker
(o)Healer
(o)Mass healer
, but you'll get the hang of the game. IF you can't stan the blandness, try the undead.

>Don't underestimate magic, it can be broken at times, especially the spells which replenish movement.

>Always scour the map for artifacts, some are seriosuly overpowered, like the orb which paralyzes all struck enemies (equip with a mage hero for a broken game)
 
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Messages
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Excommunicator said:
I would be curious to know how long it took for the people who actually enjoyed it to really get into the game and story? So far it is not happening.

* Can only bear to play in 1 hour intervals before feeling the strain

Some things I wondered about:

* Is there any point to other weapons in this game? (I picked up an axe and it didn't work in combat)
* Is character customisation about diversifying a character or do all characters end up much the same? (So far everything seems to be heading in a simple all-round warrior direction)
* What does "alchemy is required" mean exactly, for hard difficulty? (as opposed to not required on lower levels)

Well it's a pretty drawn-out game and what you are describing feels familiar. The story picks up at some point but the tedium will do so too. There isn't any point in the daggers and such, perhaps there were some enemies which are best hit by hammers or something, but basically - just use the two swords.
You won't get enough points for everything so I think it's about if you want to invest all points on swordery or maybe some on magic.


Excommunicator said:
* How do I get larger parties? (Only 3 units per fight seems too low)
* Am I meant to grind heroes and units on wild creatures to get their levels up? (Experience gain is slow)
* Are there more units later in the game, or only when you upgrade the initial ones? (Seems like very few)

1, You won't, but you get more parties. EDIT : Heck, it was 6.
2, Maybe, I don't remember, but what I do remember is don't ever lose your experienced units because then you're crippled forever.
 
Joined
Apr 6, 2008
Messages
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Codex 2012 MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera
Excommunicator said:
How do I get larger parties? (Only 3 units per fight seems too low)
Pick the Leadership skill when your hero(es) levels up.
Excommunicator said:
Am I meant to grind heroes and units on wild creatures to get their levels up?
Yes.
Excommunicator said:
Are there more units later in the game, or only when you upgrade the initial ones?
You upgrade your initial units. In some missions you start with upgraded ones.

Remember to abuse spells and use thieves (poison) to weaken enemies if you have trouble with missions, some are very hard.
 

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