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What game are you wasting time on?

Joined
Jan 7, 2012
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14,149
Agree with your assessment of the game. The early levels are quite linear and cinematic, but the game does open up after 6 or so levels and some of the level design is pretty neat (and the handholding abets a bit). I enjoyed the game for it was, the atmosphere is excellent, and while the story isn't very original and takes its bits and pieces from better narratives, it manages to pull itself together satisfyingly. I felt the game is at its best in the middle part; it gets a bit repetitive towards the end, and Ryan is a much more interesting antagonist than Fontaine. You were right about it initially being more like SS2, a lot of the things Levine talked about initially just did not end up in the game, and it doesn't compare very well to SS2 as a result, but if you take it on its own it fares better I think.

Many people praise BS2 for being the better game but I don't agree. It's a slight improvement mechanically, but then mechanics were not the game's strong suit anyway, and it loses a lot in all of the "non-game" areas like atmosphere and design, and Lamb is much more boring than Ryan. Some of it may also be because the art deco design isn't as striking the second time around. Normally I'd agree the gameplay should matter the most, but BS2's isn't that compelling even with the improvements, and with the atmosphere being a downgrade I just didn't feel the sequel was worth it.

The end part of BS1 could just be cut out. There's basically nothing new introduced and unlike SS2 its not like its a particularly grueling gauntlet of pain through a radically different environment (aside from the little sister escort which is just tedious and annoying). Fontaine feels more like a villain from Borderlands than Bioshock. The middle stretch before Ryan is definitely the best.

I do like what changes I've seen so far of BS2, namely hacking taking real-world time, weapons being entirely different, and the melee having a seeming cap on how much you can use it as full power in drill fuel. But... yeah, lamb is lame.
 

502

Learned
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Mar 28, 2020
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Ankara
Played DUSK and WRATH a bit more.

Gave Dishonored and Transistor another attempt and uninstalled both again. To this day I haven't finished either of them even once. Hades, also by Supergiant, seems promising though.
 

Decado

Old time handsome face wrecker
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San Diego
Codex 2014
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:
Gpy0poA.png

GZKGlGr.png

Oz9cn44.png

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.

So I've been on the fence about this game and your post convinced me to download and give it a try.

But, the technical aspects of the game itself are fucking impossible. I've been downloading 28,000 (!!) DAT files over the last few days, off and on, through their terrible shitpile of a launcher. Seriously, they should be absolutely ashamed for producing such a garbage piece of technology. What the fuck is wrong with these idiots? Don't they realize they're turning players away with a launcher from circa 2003?

So if this fucking game ever installs, maybe it will be fun to play? Who knows. Turbine are idiots.
 
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Dux

Arcane
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
635
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Sweden
i1f4sf0g_o.png


With the defeat of the so-called Dark God at the heart of Myth Drannor, I'm finally done with the Eye of the Beholder series. I went through all games with the same party, ignoring the filthy hirelings:

Glacia, the fighter.
Freelik, the criminally underutilised thief.
Pardue, a generic holy man.
Nimble, the knife-hurling mage.

I don't really know what to say about this series. I had recently finished Lands of Lore so I was warmed up, but these games never managed to convince me that this particular format was a good fit for D&D. The real-time combat was a ball ache throughout, from gruelling to utterly trivial. There was rarely a middle ground.

The first game was fairly enjoyable and managed to keep my interest with some clever dungeon design. The second game, however, was unfortunately the worst gaming experience I've had in over a decade or so. The game isn't especially bad or anything but so many things went wrong in that playthrough. The dungeon design pushed me perilously close to the brink of insanity. Going through endless labyrinthine hallways, fighting infinitely spawning enemies (the worst feature of these games), only to realise that I had missed a small detail somewhere which prevented progression. The polished shields, the Spheres of Fire, etc. The backtracking was absolutely soul-crushing at times and it really blemished my experience of the game.

Then there's the non-Westwood third and final entry in the series. Not much to say about it other than it improved on certain things, like striking from the second row with polearms, the all-attack button and the toned down enemy spawning. But it was quite obvious that there was something missing.

The final bosses of the first two games were intimidating and memorable: Xanathar is a beholder, which is an extremely deadly opponent at any level, and Draggore is a party-wiping dragon. The Dark God on the other hand is a bloke in a robe who is killed in like six or seven hits. Probably the easiest final boss I've ever encountered. Utterly pathetic.

There's also access to level 7-9 spells in the final game but I couldn't see any situation or encounter that would warrant such power. There was a missed opportunity here to include some really memorable fights but most encounters are quite pedestrian and straightforward.

The EotB series is good enough for a dungeon crawl but it will surely burn you out along the way if you're not careful.
 

Decado

Old time handsome face wrecker
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Codex 2014
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:
Gpy0poA.png

GZKGlGr.png

Oz9cn44.png

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.

So I've been on the fence about this game and your post convinced me to download and give it a try.

But, the technical aspects of the game itself are fucking impossible. I've been downloading 28,000 (!!) DAT files over the last few days, off and on, through their terrible shitpile of a launcher. Seriously, they should be absolutely ashamed for producing such a garbage piece of technology. What the fuck is wrong with these idiots? Don't they realize they're turning players away with a launcher from circa 2003?

So if this fucking game ever installs, maybe it will be fun to play? Who knows. Turbine are idiots.

So it's not bad. I still don't quite "get" how class advancement is structured and what paths are, and I guess the game isn't open-world? Which strikes me as odd for an MMO. But we'll see where this goes. I didn't play a lot of 3.5 so the rules are newish to me.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
So it's not bad. I still don't quite "get" how class advancement is structured and what paths are, and I guess the game isn't open-world? Which strikes me as odd for an MMO. But we'll see where this goes. I didn't play a lot of 3.5 so the rules are newish to me.
join us in the thread bro
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...ine-fair-codexia-dead-ddo-news-thread.110800/

The preplanned paths are for people new to D&D, choose the customize option instead. Like I said, it's basically a homebrewed 3.5e. A good chunk is still faithful to the original rules but there's a fair amount of additions also. If you have questions ask us in the thread.
And yeah, it's not open world. Forget everything you know about MMOs like WoW. Essentially all content is in the form of 'quests' that are very similar to content you'd expect in a singleplayer RPG.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy

The only part of your opinion I raise objection at is you considering the "All Attack" a positive. (Yes, I even agree with you on EotB2. It is not the best game in the trilogy.)

EotB3 has tons of issues, from level design to character creation to spell implementation to... screwing up the UI. The EotB-trilogy was designed so that you would have to use the UI, right-clicking on weapons and moving the cursor about to get things done. (Ever tried doing it in keyboard mode?) The "All Attack"-button removes that, an integral part of the gameplay, and the supposed added difficulty of fighting high-level D&D-monsters. Instead there's the "AWESOME-buttanz!", push it for instant gratification. I admit it's nice to use it and see your party unload all its attacks at once, but it does so at the cost of a founding part of the game's design.

(Fun fact: The EotB3-manual states that "certain powerful enemies" are immune to Time Stop, hinting that the two bosses at least would be unaffected by it. They aren't.)

I can understand your position on "not knowing what to think of this series", but you have to take into consideration that you went into it backwards. First there was Dungeon Master, then there was Eye of the Beholder, then there was Lands of Lore 1, then there was Stonekeep/Anvil of Dawn, then there was Legend of Grimrock. (Obviously there were many other games alike these at the time, but the aforementioned were the big stepping stones in the genre.) Because you're coming at it from the wrong angle, you're not seeing the progression and improvements properly that came to real-time dungeon crawlers.
 

Dux

Arcane
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May 26, 2016
Messages
635
Location
Sweden
Honestly, I understand where you're coming from with the All Attack button; however handy, it was a mark of decline. The most fun I had with the combat was probably in the first game where I had to frenetically click on each of my characters, utilising every weapon and trick under my sleeve. "One"-hitting Death Knights because you can unload at once did take the shine out of the encounters, for sure. I would've probably been able to cut down the giants easily in the second game with such a function - and that robs the "fun" of being clobbered repeatedly and desperatedly backing away in narrow corridors as they crawl closer.

As for the order of things, yeah, I have a tendency of doing things backwards for some reason. I actually played LoL, then Anvil of Dawn before even proceeding to EotB.
 

baud

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Septentrion
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
Halo 3. Not much too say, except that the gravity hammer is really funny to use, in the right conditions. Though the number of carried grenades has gone down and Flood seems to drop less of them, I can't spam grenades like before, which is fucking decline compared to 1 & 2.
For the vehicles segments, I appreciate how the area are usually big enough to maneuver around, though the tank controls (directions are relative to the mouse direction) are still retarded. Speaking of controls, the Master Chief collection has separate controls for each games and since I don't have an american KB and 343 Industries is too stupid to detect it, so I have to reconfigure all the controls for each game.
At last the dev added a flamethrower for the campaign (it was in Halp 1 MP, but not in solo, which was a shame).
The new deployable equipment is interesting, mostly by offering more options in combat. And enemies are using not too stupidly.

Also Rimworld with the Codex succession game and Starcrawler (I enjoy the crawling, but I'm finding the equipment progression needlessly complex)
 
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Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,269
Location
Massachusettes
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.

I took a look at this because I'm a fan of D&D cRPG stuff.. It looks intriguing but the UI and fonts are too small for my old eyes and there only seems to be one resolution. I play on a 43" TV screen from about 6 feet away. Otherwise it looks great. Love the way all the character and monster tiles bob to give "life" to otherwise static tiles. More roguelikes should do this.

Edit: Nevermind. Found the settings to adjust font and tile size. Much more playable for me now. Looks like a keeper.
 
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Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Honestly, I understand where you're coming from with the All Attack button; however handy, it was a mark of decline. The most fun I had with the combat was probably in the first game where I had to frenetically click on each of my characters, utilising every weapon and trick under my sleeve. "One"-hitting Death Knights because you can unload at once did take the shine out of the encounters, for sure.

The reason you could one-shot the Death Knights (whom are Tough Cookies by any standards in (A)D&D) is because you had that +5 Dhauzimmer-sword equipped; it would autokill every Undead it could land a blow against. Most EotB3-players don't even pick up on that fact. EotB3 was supposed to bring about the same tension as EotB1 did (just take a look at the bestiary for that game) but they failed. They had Banshees in EotB3 with their "Save vs Death = Die"-attacks based on whether you could hear them... but they weren't implemented. They were just another obstacle to deal with the old-fashioned way. Compare that to the one Banshee in the first Ravenloft-CRPG game, and see how much damage and extranormal activity is required to deal with her.

As for the order of things, yeah, I have a tendency of doing things backwards for some reason. I actually played LoL, then Anvil of Dawn before even proceeding to EotB.

My heart bleeds for you, because I can't imagine how the rest of your life plays out positively in a beneficial manner for you. Legend of Grimrock had to deal with similar crap, but I'm
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Interesting. I had to work late last night and kept that tab open, but while I do remember that I did not hit "reply" on that post (precisely because I wasn't finished with it)... I can't remember what I was going to say beyond that point.
mystery.png
 

Dayyālu

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Jul 1, 2012
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Shaper Crypt
What you do when you're tired and you don't have brainpower for anything complex, but you want to check something nice. Something creative.

You check for Doom mods.

Ashes 2063: Dead Man Walking: I played Ashes 2063 years ago, and I had fond memories of crawling in the dark shooting mutants and raiders with a revolver. Checking again I found a guy made a map pack called Dead Man Walking, it's essentially a mini-expansion using no new assets. Competently done, good level design (particularly liked the hotel encounter) and it's more of a good thing. And it made me reinstall and replay baseline Ashes 2063 with all the fixes they threw out and a goddamn FAL addon, because we like Cold War battle rifles. It's still a magnificent total conversion, with great level design, non-asinine secrets and great ambience.

D1z6Auz.jpg


Look at the goddamn wood forniture, look at it

Blade of Agony Chapter 2: Shadows of the Reich: after having checked DMW, I went on another classical total conversion. Blade of Agony is, like, an entire Return to Castle Wolfestein game built on a Wolfendoom skeleton. It's massive, as playing a single chapter requires the same time as your stock AAA shooter (Chapter 2 needed me roughly 8 hours hunting for all secrets and the two secret missions). Chapter 2 improves somewhat on the rickety structure of Chapter 1, meaning the game is still impressive from a technical standpoint and there's so much shit going on you can't complain. Stealth mission? We have 'em. Infiltration mission? We have 'em. Vehicle section? We have 'em. Time-traveling in the future to fight in a cyberpunk Nazi city on the Moon? We got that too.

The main problem is that BoA is unchanged: it's massive but it's not always fun. Secret hunting is a chore. Some levels are there because the designer needed to put a stealth level (the first one where you escape from a Polish Death Camp is an exercise in bad design and I'm honestly convinced it must have filtered a shitton of perspective players). Performance also is dogshit as a billion 3d models are put into the levels because they look cool. It steadily improves however, and from a rocky start the last levels are almost fun. Still better than NuWolf.

aZQ0V4D.jpg

Why the fuck we don't get the FG42 and the STG is beyond my understanding

Shrine: Shrine is a total conversion that got a second chapter, like, a week ago. Having never played the first, I wanted to properly experience the thing. It's on Steam. And ehrm.... Hedon it ain't, and I'm not referring to a penchant for muscle girls of uncertain sexuality (the Hedon dev is weird). I'd describe Shrine as a valiant attempt that lives and dies from its art style. Do you dig Cronenberg/Euro comics inspired art-style? Map design is overly simplicistic but often the levels have nice (if simple) set-pieces. Enemies are palette-swaps of Doom foes with somewhat interesting designs and reworked stats (the Barons, called the Matriarchs here, are insanely lethal and resilient). It's short and somewhat sweet, and makes me curious to check Shrine II that apparently works a tad more on gameplay. Reminded me of lesser known attemps at Doom TC like Nocturne in Yellow.

Also, dev, please don't put your second to last boss with two reskinned Cyberdemons and forget that Doom is based on enemy infighting. Amusing to watch tho.

JttzScM.jpg

That's apparently a rocket launcher. Whatever it shoots, it bounces
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
Finished up Bioshock 2:
+ Almost everything about the gameplay mechanics much improved and better balanced
+ New enemies are generally good
+ More intense moments that can exhaust you of ammo and health.
- Level design got weaker and less interesting
- Most NPCs are bland at best, shit at worst
- Retcons a lot of BS1 to replace it with a worse plot

Guns are way more useful now, NPC health doesn't seem to skyrocket midgame. In fact I found the simple Rivet Gun (basically the pistol but a much cooler replacement) to be the best general use weapon for most of the game. With the headshot tonic and damage upgrades it kills almost every basic enemy in 1 or 2 headshots and bigger enemies in 3-4 headshots, or 1-2 headshots with the heavy ammo. And its highest upgrade burns enemies which imparts a stun most of the time, so it's just an excellent weapon. Generally better mouse controls along with me discovering that you can press T to aim down ironsights (which makes pistol perfectly accurate) mean headshots are quite comfortable to perform. The SMG and Shotgun (upgrades to 6 shells and electrical damage) are both good backups. The Drill was my early game way to take down big daddies and big sisters, a bit lame but you can just stand there drilling away and eating a few med kits. Funny enough I didn't really use the higher tier weapons much. The spear gun was just kind of slow to reload and seemingly lower DPS than the faster rivet gun, while the rocket launcher I just didn't use much since strong stuff likes to get in your face even though it was fairly powerful. Making a ranged hack weapon and making hacking take real world time was a great change that I suggested for BS1, and it makes security something to at least be slightly feared. However, I discovered that even when detected you can simply hack the thing that detected you to instantly cancel the alarm. Due to this there wasn't much risk in hacking, even if things went bad you could just back off and fire the auto-hack. The camera change to dealing different types of damage after photoing something is kind of a meh change, but its a lot less grindy so that's good.

Plasmids I had a lot more fun experimenting with since you get a lot more ADAM this time around, enough to max out a good amount of plasmids. Aside from the BS1 plasmids I used (lightning, bees, fire, decoy, freeze), I quite enjoyed the ability to spawn defensive robot flier things. They tank a lot of damage and with the right tonics you can heal them fairly cheaply with Eve. Lightning combos well to stun enemies while reloading, bees for seeking out random enemies around you while defending little sisters, and freeze for stopping the boss enemies and just continually drilling them to death. Summoning Eleanor for the final level was neat. I think I was way too good for what the game expected at the hacking minigame so I never needed to invest in any of the hacking tonics, which gave me a lot more plasmids to play around with.

Being able to use plasmids and weapons at the same time is great. It feels almost like a mech simulator what with being in a giant big daddy suit and with the amount of stuff you can do at once (swapping between up to 8 plasmids, swapping between 7 weapons, swapping between up to 3 ammo types per weapon). And zooming in for ironsights and higher accuracy temporarily stops you from using plasmids, so there's a choice to be made there as well. It's really kind of overwhelming, I think the game could actually benefit a bit from being a bit slower and more wide open, with more time to switch tactics. All of the hard enemies are gigantic HP tanks that rush you in melee, which basically just leads to a panicked switch to shotgun or drill and blasting away while firing away with whatever plasmid you have (because managing to switch your plasmid and weapon and ammo at the same time is kinda hard in 0.5s, and every plasmid sort of works as a disabler anyway). I do have to complain about the hotkeys, there's no good way to rebind them. Even if you rebind your useless weapons (the ranged hack and the camera) away from #3 and #5 and bind your useful weapons to 1-6, your weapon bar at the top of the screen still says the default numbers which gets confusing. Re-ordering plasmids is weird, you can't actually place them in order and instead have to re-order them all from 1-6 every time you want to change the order. Additionally plasmids overlap with the weapon bar so that you can't see your plasmids at the same time or shortly after switching your weapons, so remembering your plasmid order on the fly is tricky and something you have to re-learn every time your change your plasmid loadout.

There's only three new enemies which is a bit disappointing. The Big bruiser that rushes you is the first normal enemy that can actually catch you in melee if you are backing away from the attack, so dealing with them is kind of tense. The Big Daddy Alpha is a bit of a let down. They are sort of like the ranged big daddies but have way less health and are fairly normal enemies encountered rather often. Trouble is they really need more durability, they come so late that, for me, I had a fully upgraded rivet gun that still took them out in 3 or 4 shots. They aren't really mobile or anything so its pretty easy to take them out. The Big Sisters are like the uber-big daddies, much quicker and more deadly. But the drill still takes care of them just the same and you only encounter them alone (aside from 2 in the penultimate area's boss battle), so it kind of doesn't matter. If Big Daddy Alphas were about half way between where they are now and Big Sisters it'd be much more scary to face them and give those rocket launcher homing rockets a real reason to be used.

In terms of resource starvation and overall difficulty the game is still dreadfully easy. You'll run around most of the game with $800 and almost full ammo/supplies. One good change was dropping the number of hypos/medkits you can have from 10 to 5, but they are also stronger now since they are always a full rejuve so by the end game it's almost the same. There are a lot more high-intensity moment now, since you have to fight big daddies (kind of hard), then take little sisters around to extract ADAM from corpses while waves of enemies attack (can get tricky depending on how exposed the corpse is), then after doing this will all little sisters on a level you fight the Big Sister (get fucked if you don't have drill fuel and 5 medkits ready the first time this happens). This is definitely a lot better, it gives areas a nicer sense of pacing with a crescendo near the end rather than the endless 1-2 enemy encounters you had throughout Bioshock 1 levels. It also gives defensive items like traps and tonics that incapacitate/distract the enemy a lot more usage than in Bioshock 1.

Area design is a lot weaker and almost entirely linear. Basically every level leads you to a hub with 3 or so areas that are entirely separate from another. It looks complex when viewed from the map but once you figure out the hub system it becomes a letdown. Each of these sub areas tends to be fairly linear on their own, or at best a circle that you can walk either direction in. They are also a lot less interesting thematically. I can still remember how Bioshock 1 had a medical level, with a medical theme and a mad doctor boss. I remember the garden/market level. I remember the art level with the mad artist cliche boss. The final areas were the weakest since they were... apartment themed? Boring! Now here comes Bioshock 2 and the first level is... poor apartment themed? Not exactly leading well. Then the next area was... another garden theme but far weaker? Yeah, really not doing it here. The game also seems overall shorter with less areas to cover, which I liked, there's no dreadful final third where you run around a lot just to listen to the backstory of the "twist" like in Bioshock 1. I do have to complain that there is one level right in the middle where you are penalized by finishing the story objective by flooding the rest of the level rendering it unexplorable. Every other area gave a very big "press this button and you finish the area, go back to do everything you want before continuing forward", so the fact that this one level didn't, and I missed out on an upgrade machine I was saving along with a little sister, pissed me off.

As far as NPCs, I really got a large SJW vibe from the game. A lot of Bioshock 1 is retconned to put Sofia Lamb in as a prime driver of events and to paint Andrew Ryan as some kind of despot. Bioshock 1 was pretty clear on this I think (correct me if I'm wrong), and the whole reason Rapture fell was because Ryan was way, way too hands off with everything until it was far too late and everything was already blowing up in his face. Basically what a meme radical ancap would act like. But instead we have our Mary Sue Sofia Lamb who is a strong, independent female communist vegan psychiatrist with semi-magically empath powers who found her calling protesting the US nuking of hiroshima, and you get to listen have debates with Ryan over morality and shit where the crowd ends applauding her. For all intents and purposes she may as well be SJW Jesus, the only thing needed to fully 2020 her would be to make her a tranny lesbian refugee with danger hair. Her hair may actually be danger colored, I think she's only shown in black and white. Her character makes no sense. Ryan allowing her down in rapture in the first place makes no sense, yet they somehow end up in some duel of ideologies ending up with Ryan going full Hitler/Nazi medical experiments on her to try and keep control away from her. WTF. There's also her lackey in the first area, another strong independent female who is also black, who I didn't even realize was supposed to be some kind of antagonist until 10 mins before she calmly answered the door and asked me why I wasn't killing her defenseless in cold blood (she being very brave and just standing there as a resolute, proud communist). Then you go to the next level and the moral choice character to kill or not is white male who did lots of bad things, is trying to cover it up, and is pathetically begging for his life after forcing you to help him cover it up. Christ. Your guiding NPC is Sinclair who is... there? most of the time. There's not much going on until the penultimate level where he has to make a heroic sacrifice and you kill him, which was supposed to make me feel sad or something. I guess he was OK. Eleanor Lamb is herself another semi-mary sue created to be super smart and other stuff, but she's OK because she's your daughter, she's nice and cute, she helps you in a big sister suit, I like the parent/child relationship in games in general. Its a shame that the first 2/3rds of the game is all about Sofia and Eleanor only really becomes important near the end.

But lets talk about the plot twist. I actually wasn't expecting it. The twist was that there really wasn't a twist, except that Sofia Lamb just proves herself to be a complete piece of shit who would kill her own daughter to get back at you. Good idea there. If the game had tried to convince me that Sofia was right and I was the bad guy for stopping her, or some similar such bullshit, I think I would have dropped the game right there. Its a shame that we never kill her and instead just escape with Eleanor. I guess you weren't allowed to cinematically beat a woman to death like you did Ryan even back in 2010. Sadly she gets saved in the "good" ending.

Overall, hard to say if its objectively better than Bioshock 1. It does a better job with core mechanics, I think there's genuinely something good here that you can point to and say "other games should learn from this", which is absolutely not what I would say about Bioshock 1. I like games that give me that unique feeling of something I can point to as innovative in their genre. The overall better pacing and mouse controls are also good. But still... Bioshock 1 had by far the more interesting plot and locations. I'd say Bioshock 1 would be a more interesting game the first time, Bioshock 2 makes for better replays. After playing BS2 I really don't want to go back to BS1 and struggle with the worse controls and simply running around whacking everything with the god-wrench.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
I checked out the trials and Minerva's Den and got absolutely 200% pissed off at how the game decides to rebind all the guns to different keys depending on which order you pick them up, which absolutely kills any ability to use muscle memory to remember whats what. Think I'll do Infinite first and come back. If anyone knows how to re-organize the weapon list or hard-bind a key to a specific weapon (rather than a weapon slot) please tell.
 

mk0

Learned
Joined
Jun 28, 2020
Messages
113
I've been playing through System Shock 2, would be great if it weren't for the respawning enemies, gonna have to settle for the game being merely good instead. :smug:
I'm about 10 hours in and have just activated the elevator to deck 6. Based on what I've read online(damn art terminals), I still have a sizable chunk of the game left to complete.

I'm starting to think that maybe hauling a dozen 20+ hour games from the last steam summer sale wasn't exactly the brightest idea I've had recently. Buying a bunch of good games is easy, actually taking the time to sit down and play them all is not.

Completed: V:TMB, Dark Messiah, Arx Fatalis
In progress: System Shock 2
To do: Thief, Thief 2, F:NV, Gothic 1-3, Deus Ex(replay), V:TMB(replay)

:kingcomrade:
 

Kabas

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Messages
1,258
Brigador: Up-Armored Edition, in the middle of the campaign.
After a certain point the choice of your vehicle becomes something akin to the choice of a difficulty level. You can take the giant mech with big guns that can take on the entire level by himself and have a good time or you can take something shitty or something that just doesn't suit the level and learn the meaning of suffering.
That mission where you need to destroy the statues was a damn pain with a party van, it's only saving grace is a relatively good long range damage, pulse attack and cool music that plays if you press the horn button. I found that the key to victory was using the planetary turrets both as a distraction to attack another flank and as a bait to lure the enemy into your weapon range, also utilising the special pulse attack to destroy a group of enemies that protects the statue on south-eastern part of the map(easy to flank those). And once you destroyed a few waves of enemies take a peek on the centre of the map to see if you can snipe some statues. With this i managed to prevail in the end after not so few tries.
Another rather memorable mission is the one where you start with no ammo and you must reach the other part of the map to refill it while evading the kamikadze enemies. A slow moving antigrav tank is one of the choices for this mission, should be doable in theory from what i tried.
All in all, good game.

I also finished Amid Evil, the first level of the Arcane Expanse was the peak of game in terms of visuals/ost.
 

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