What game are you wasting time on?

[overly excitable young man]

Tried to play Mask of the Betrayer a little bit.
I can't play an hour without having to throw up.
Gameplay is so retarded. I just can't.

 

[Luckmann]

What game are you wasting time on?

Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children, and I cannot recommend it enough. Underneath a layer of weeb and bad translation lies a diamond in the rough that's left me sleepless.

 

[RK47]

hm 3 hours into Curse of Kubel.
It's a weird way to introduce a hentai game.
'here player, let me show you 6 flashbacks of childhood romance between the heroine and beta male supporting cast who will get poisoned after the tutorial.'

1 hour of blueballing later the heroine becomes powerless and have to fuck a man she despised to get back her mana..

i came 5 times.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Been playing Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Surprisingly good. Ruleset is basically their own homebrew variant of 3.5e, many quests are direct adaptations of pnp modules. Original game was based in Eberron which is cool, but it also goes to other D&D universes. Sometimes this is just for a dungeon or two, but I think there's actually entire cities/campaigns for Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk. My favorite so far has been hands down the Ravenloft content.

The DMs are probably the one thing that set it apart from other D&D RPGs though. Each quest has a DM guide you through it, sometimes they're barely there other times the DM is commenting on things all the time with great voice acting. The latter is more common with newer content and generally, really fucking good. You'll even get DM narrations when you do things like pass a listen check when approaching a door or a spot check to notice a lever behind a waterfall.
An example of the kind of content you hear from the DM while progressing through a quest:

Also, there's some dungeons DM'd by Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Ravenloft content is some of the best D&D-based content I've played in any cRPG, all of it is a direct nearly 1:1 adaptation of the pnp material including the dungeon layouts/maps themselves. I spent like two hours being lost in Strahd's castle which is only a tiny part of the whole Barovia implemented in the game. Even minor characters from the module show up in the game.

Some quests are murderhobo stuff but a lot of quests have different ways to solve them based on how you build your character. Level layouts are pretty darn good and tend to have a lot of stat/skill checks for optional content or shortcuts like jump skill to reach otherwise inaccessible areas, swimming skill for e.g., swimming against a current or needing to hold your breath for a long time, strength checks to open a barred door, etc.,
Expect to get blown up by traps unless you play a rogue or artificer. They're lethal on higher difficulties.

If you decide to check it out, enter the code DDOFREEQUESTS ingame to unlock basically all the quest content for free, valid until august 31st something or other.

[edit]
Forgot to add that it has very limited resting when on quests, it has rest shrines similar to kotc campfires. On lower difficulties they're timed, on higher difficulties you can only use them once.

 

[azimovhaas8 (Moth)]

Recently finished Icewind Dale 1: Enhanced Edition with 4 characters party; played game for first time. My main guy is Fighter (wizard slayer with two long swords and darts as ranged option), second guy is Fighter / Thief (katana with shield and sling), third one is Fighter / Cleric (war hammer / shield and sling) and last dude is Mage with Conjurer specialization (dagger for "emergency" situations with darts as main option). Played on Hard difficulty thru whole game.
I had some problems with final boss (party been slightly underleveled and DLC been untauched), other then this moment (battle still been enjoyable, just been taking longer then i expected) game is great and will definetly replay it later on, probably on Insane difficulty and solo / with two characters.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

I'm currently going through a much-anticipated playthrough of a forgotten gem - Populous: The Beginning. Turns out that to have it run properly, smoothly, and in high resolutions, one must NOT listen to any of the widely available guides. Funny that.

Anyway, I would heartily recommend this quirky real-time-strategy for its brilliant soundtrack, excellent gameplay, as well as being the only game to date set in a stonepunk setting.

 

[Nostaljaded]

Picked up Lords of Xulima as it was recommended recently in another thread, and restarted for the 2nd time after about 15% completion.
1st restart was after getting familiar with game mechanics.

Modded slightly to have better gameplay flow by referencing public mods, in particular 'Knowledge of Herbs' setting to 1 skill level only.
My previous game was littered with notes on herb locations for later pickup only when skill is maxed.

Mod Settings

- All classes receive a +3 constitution boost at game start
- Learning skill cap set to 10 levels (61 points > 78% add. XP reduced to 41 points > 41% add. XP); all classes require 4 skill points per level, except Mage at 3
- Knowledge of Herbs set to 1 skill level
- Mages now learn Energy Absorption at level 23
- Dagger bleed stats based on Saber/Claymore, base price raised to Long Sword parity
- Nengorth_Road_Guardian reduced by 1 Soldier & 1 Ranger

Might as well mod in custom portraits.

And of course Rance has to come up with a pseudonym (with his conversations auto-bass, auto-translated & auto-censored to the foreign language aided by a Zeth magic gadget) to blend in with the locals.
In his own words: 'I've set sail for the uncharted seas in search for more gals, buahahaha!'

 

[mk0]

More Arx Fatalis.

I ended up having to resort to using a game guide to keep the ball rolling. I crawled through a large chunk of the game before I found out that you were supposed to talk to that guy in the castle dungeon cell to find the temple, completely forgot about him during that massive lore dump. Am Shaegar is terrible at keeping his notes too, so that didn't help either. Yup, this is an old game alright.

 

[Puukko]

Played a bit of Dark Forces 2 with an all-in-one grafix mod that was released recently and I am pretty damn impressed. The difficulty is a couple notches above 1 which I played for a few missions until my first death and wasn't terribly impressed. I can't go in guns blazing, at least not yet without any jedi powers. I love the campy B-movie tier acting, you can tell the actors had fun with their roles. The model quality and level complexity is likewise impressive for 1997 - I initially guessed the game was from 2000.

 

[markec]

Got the urge to replay Battlespire and I just finished it. As I mentioned in another thread I consider Battlespire one of them most underrated RPGs ever made. Its considered by many as a bastard child of TES series as it was a pure linear dungeon crawler without open world to explore, it is also a very buggy game and they will often test your patience. Its also quite challenging and easily most difficult TES game, you will need to plan your builds and use of limited resources you find during the game. Despite its faults I find it to be a very good but flawed game with with great atmosphere and a great unique feature of being able to to talk and influence pretty much every enemy in the game. The ability to communicate with enemies is surprisingly well done as you can turn enemies to your side, scare them away, trick them into not attacking you or get them to give your informations and items. Also one of the things I also like about the game is Lore, through the game you can find notes writing about the world, Daedras, their rituals and way of life which all make a interesting read.

Im also playing Spellforce Soul Harvest and while Im still in a early game, its feels like a decent expansion.

 

[CruduxCruo]

What other 2.5D first-person action-adventure games with mouselook are there? I can't really think of any other than System Shock, Ultima Underworld I & II and Lands of Lore II & III.

 

[panzertoter]

Geneforge 1. Great game. I expected it to be much more clunky and annoying. But the UI is fine once you accept the puke green.
Exploration is really fun and i like the story of the shapers and the setting.
Maybe there's even a little bit of c&c with the factions? We'll see.

Combat is retarded but i'm a sucker for bad iso tb combat it seems.
It feels kinda cool when your critters are doing the work just like Diablo 2 necromancer.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/geneforge-1-graphics-enhancement

 

[RK47]

OK finished the Curse of Kubel, I got 2nd best ending. Heroine broke the curse but couldn't resist the D.
Went to get full gallery unlock save game and checked out the 'Best' ending... which is ...

Man they have a weird way of writing 'Best Ending' for HRPG...

Spoiler

Best ending for Magetano (Magneto?) is her escaping the corruption and living happily ever after with her beta boyfriend except she gives birth to her rapist's brown baby sometime in the future.

Edit: sorry for the spoilers. Imma spoil it now. In case you wanted to read this torment-length scenes.

 

[Aemar]

Been playing Zorbus over the week-end, a traditional roguelike specifically based on D&D settings and lore. One of those rare games in which 'immersion' is not an empty word. Creatures react to sounds, light, fight other dungeon denizens, call their allies for help, flee if needed in order to escape death or heal, pick up available items, etc. Fought some epic battles even on the first couple of levels.

A game that has successfully managed to capture that old-school D&D tabletop feel. Highly recommended.

 

[Abu Antar]

More Football Manager 2020.

Advanced from Vanarama National League to English League 2. I ended up in third place and had to participate in the promotion play offs. That shit wrecked my nerves. I managed to win the first game, and in the final deciding fixture, I managed to win during extra time. My team managed to score in the 108th minute. The club has now turned professional and I have an actual transfer budget. First year, my budget was £20K, second year it was £65K and this year, it will be £1.5m. With the players that I currently have at my disposal, I have absolutely no chance to get promoted for a third season in a row. I've been scouring the transfer market for about 5 hours and found potential new signings, but we'll see if they want to come to my Boston United. To be honest, I shouldn't even have been promoted this year. What made it possible were the players that came in on loan. 5 guys that were absolutist vital for the results. 2 defenders that started almost every game. 2 wingers that made a crapton of goals and assists, and a central midfielder that was more of a backup than anything else. The upcoming season will be really interesting. I will probably have to lower my expectations. I'm happy to avoid relegation and build up the team before even thinking about promotion.

-Other than this, I've joined Coretech in Underrail.
-I've gotten my first Creation in Geneforge 3.
-And in Ho Tu Lo Shu: Books of Dragon, I am running through the game in English. A nice change of pace after having beaten the game in Chinese.

 

[baud]

I started playing Half-life blue shift and the differences from the Halo-style FPS is really stark. I mean with HF, you can really move around, carry loads of weapons and ammo and save anywhere, but you don't have any regenerating health and I'm missing being able to melee with any weapons. Also (so far), I've found that enemy groups in Half Life don't have a lot of variety, it's often the same enemy copied a few times, whereas in Halo there'd be a mix of enemies attacking at various ranges.
Though the not-cutscenes in Half Life are a fucking waste of time, at least in Halo you can skip them.

 

[DalekFlay]

Took a break from Divinity: Original Sin after 60 hours. Might be hard to go back, I find the story pretty bland and the dialog pretty tedious.

Played through Halo 1's remaster now that it's on PC. Plays pretty darn well with a mouse at 140fps, feels great. Halo was more about stick-aim on consoles than auto-aim, which makes it play a lot faster and more mobile with a mouse and no assistance than something like CoD. First half of the game is damn good, don't care what anyone says. Second half is pretty bleh IMO. Only played Halo 2 once in its original crappy PC port which I hated, and never played 3, so we'll see what's up with those soon enough.

Playing through Assassin's Creed Origins now. Really surprised how different it is, and find it much more enjoyable than the first couple games which I played back in the day. It's basically Witcher 3 without dialog options. I know people call these games repetitive busywork sims, and they are, but I don't play them the genre that often so it's not as bad when I occasionally do. I like the stealth a good bit, creeping around camps to knife people in the back or taking them out from a distance with a bow headshot. Whenever I am forced into real combat the enjoyment plummets. Game is undeniably gorgeous most of the time, even with TAA blur. Not sure I'll finish it, it's sure to get tedious eventually, but enjoying it for now.

Just loaded up Tomb Raider Legend for a nostalgia trip. I recently finished the second reboot game, so wanted a bit of a throwback. It controls like a shit 360 port, like most games did back then, but it's mildly enjoyable otherwise. The puzzles are way too simple and the lock on combat is pointless, but it has some personality and panache. A minor diversion, at least. Reboots are way better, apologies to people who insist everything newer is garbage.

 

[Dayyālu]

I started playing Half-life blue shift and the differences from the Halo-style FPS is really stark.

For what reason you start with the unarguably lesser entry in the HL1 franchise?

Legit question, because Blue Shift barely feels like a mod and adds nothing (one can argue it cuts away instead) to the baseline formula. I'd keep Blue Shift merely as last map pack if you truly need to finish everything, Half Life 1 and Opposing Force are kind of superior. If you want real good level design on the Half Life platform, there's Echoes, fan made but by the Gods if it doesn't leave Blue Shift in the dirt.

Half Life is also quite the different beast from Halo, they're different "generations" of shooters. I played just Halo CE, and the simplicistic level design (lack of verticality, some of the later levels are a chore) and slow speed are what stuck to me most (even if I agree that Halo shines in semi-open enviroments and the combat deels visceral when you forget you're slow as heck). Different creatures, IMHO.

 

[baud]

I started playing Half-life blue shift and the differences from the Halo-style FPS is really stark.

For what reason you start with the unarguably lesser entry in the HL1 franchise?

Legit question, because Blue Shift barely feels like a mod and adds nothing (one can argue it cuts away instead) to the baseline formula. I'd keep Blue Shift merely as last map pack if you truly need to finish everything, Half Life 1 and Opposing Force are kind of superior. If you want real good level design on the Half Life platform, there's Echoes, fan made but by the Gods if it doesn't leave Blue Shift in the dirt.

Half Life is also quite the different beast from Halo, they're different "generations" of shooters. I played just Halo CE, and the simplicistic level design (lack of verticality, some of the later levels are a chore) and slow speed are what stuck to me most (even if I agree that Halo shines in semi-open enviroments and the combat deels visceral when you forget you're slow as heck). Different creatures, IMHO.

I had already played the other Half Life games one or two years ago, Blue Shift just fell through the cracks at the time (or I played it and remember nothing).

I agree with the rest of your post, thought there are quite a number of places where there's some verticality, usually in the semi-open combat arenas.

also if you found Halo CE slow, Halo 2 is going to be painful as it's even slower

 

[Pentium]

Actually, I've always liked BS better than O4. Dunno why exactly. Perhaps the level design suits me better, along with the marine bitches with their characteristic radio chatter that I've always loved to fight the most in HL. The scene where they're disposing of the bodies throwing them down the drain: "Maaan, these civvies are getting heavy." LOL But objectively speaking O4 is clearly superior and...the original is ultimate, of course.

 

[baud]

If you want real good level design on the Half Life platform, there's Echoes, fan made but by the Gods if it doesn't leave Blue Shift in the dirt.

I gave this mod a try, I'm a quarter (?) in. I'm not completely sold on the horror aspect, but it looks like it's just at the start of the mod, even if some of it is still there. And yeah, it looks really good

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Telengarde and Zorbus.

 

[mk0]

Arx Finale.

Very intriguing setting, fell short on the execution side though. I can hold my nose for lackluster gameplay, but I really wish the characters and story were more fleshed out. Come on Arkane, you can't just make me slog through two dozen hours of dungeon crawling and inventory management just for another generic 'bro, save the world from bad guy, also we have dragons' plot, what a waste of potential.

 

[valky667]

Finally gave in and got ATOM RPG - awesome game and nearly finished.

 

[baud]

If you want real good level design on the Half Life platform, there's Echoes, fan made but by the Gods if it doesn't leave Blue Shift in the dirt.

I gave this mod a try, I'm a quarter (?) in. I'm not completely sold on the horror aspect, but it looks like it's just at the start of the mod, even if some of it is still there. And yeah, it looks really good

Having played one or two hours more, I can see what you meant by real good level design and agree.

Spoiler

Hum there's a grate on the ground

Look up and here's the magnum

I think it's even doing the Half-Life in-game "cinematic" better than Half-Life with that sequence in the elevator where you can see the complex falling apart.

Though I'm not fully convinced of how the mod is using green and red light to show the way. On one hand it's handy to show the way (and the location of ammo/health pack) without relying on UI elements like a quest compass, but there's enough of them that it contrasts from the really well-done levels. Also when the lights aren't here it's slightly disorienting.

Edit (not bumping the thread for that): finished it. Overall, I'd say the mod falter a little once combats against humans appear. Those aren't as fun, but I don't know if that's a weakness of the base engine or of the mod itself.