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Kem0sabe

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Outriders and narita boy, both on gamepass and good fun. Gamepass has been the best thing to happen to gaming in recent memory, bunch of people are playing games that they would have never bought otherwise.
 

Catacombs

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I've been on a 4X kick and have been jumping between CKIII and Master of Orion II.

I went on a three day Dwarf Fortress splurge. Fun game.

Very fun game indeed. I'm still waiting eagerly for the Steam release that includes the new tileset.
:negative:
 

pakoito

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I'm playing Enderal: Forgotten Stories. A total conversion mod on the Skyrim engine with a decent story, much better dungeon design, and no level scaling.

It's the continuation to Nehrim, which is Oblivion's counterpart.

I have very fond memories of Nehrim's dungeons and ambiance, which I'm not fulfilling in Enderal yet. I'm still in the early game and the quests are entertaining enough, so we'll see.
 

Jvegi

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Glory to Ukraine
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Nov 16, 2012
Messages
5,065
Disco Elysium. What a treat. After dredging through all those fun, but far from perfect D&D fighting sims, like KotC and A Broken Mess: Shitmaker, it feels nice to play a storyf*g game that aims just as high as those games. And seems to have fewer flaws.

I know all of you have an opinion, but reaching the end of my first day I feel all those claims about it being the second coming of PST are justified. It feels special. We'll see.

Is it an rpg? I guess. It wouldn't diminish its worth if it wasn't.
 

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
I started playing Faery - Legends of Avalon. It's a strange mix of RPG styles: combat it basic turn-based JRPG (except that you get multiple actions per turns) and no random encounters (all enemies are visible), very easy so far, you only control the equipment and leveling of the main character, the maps are small hubs, but you can fly freely (the second map is set around a giant tree and you can fly all around): the fly around freely is really enjoyable and it really cuts down the tedium of moving around.
The setting is kinda European tales and myths (but bowdlerized, a bit like the faeries you'd find in tourists shop in Britany/Western France), for the main quests there’s sometime two different ways of getting to your goal (usually dickishly/violently or with some diplomacy/light exploration), but the general tone is not too serious so far; the game also copies the Mass Effect dialog wheel and the red/blue dialogue choices, but here it’s not to fill colored bars, rather it'd change how well you get along with the party members, but it doesn't seem to change anything other than some generic dialogue lines.
Still I’d say the mix has been enjoyable so far.
There's some jank, but nothing too severe (like the journal which gets info you haven't found yet)

Finished it, after a few break playing other games, it's rather short, I finished in just less than 10 hours, including checking the different ways to solve the main quests: most have two ways to be solved, usually around being a dick and violent or exploring and talking to people (for example beat down rioters or solve their issues; kills all the wasps including the queen or work with a few other people to smoke them). I think they more or less copied the morality system of Mass Effect, down to the red vs blue colors used when talking to your party members.
Talking about party members, you can improve/degrade your relationship with them via dialog choices when talking to them, but that doesn't seem to be doing anything (I heard there's romance, but I was too much of a dick to get one).
I haven't seen any consequences to my choices, except once in the first area where being a dick to the fisherman close up a possible quest solution in the next part of the main quest. There's some dialogue changes, like with the rioters after being beaten down.
I really appreciated a lot to be able to fly around, it cuts down the tedium of moving around, especially around vertically-oriented maps, like the last one, which is a giant scarab, with part of the map being a shanty town slung beneath the scarab.
When unlocking new skills, it transforms the character, like tattoos, but also antennas, colored aura, tail (like I never got any of those skills because I really don't want for my character to have a tail): for each slot, you have a skill choice, like between dodge physical or dodge magical and each choice would give a different transformation, like cat or scorpion tail.
The combats could also use some speed up.
The game ends up with a very important choice (support the Faery king or not), which was supposed to be continued in a sequel (or two, to continue with the Mass Effect inspiration), but the devs never did any sequel.
Also one of the party members just looks like the project director, who's still at Spiders (worked recently on Greedfall)

I played also the Space Marine game. It's got a certain number of flaws, without the license I don't think it'd work as well. And even with the license, it still has some faults. But in the end it's a short and fun action romp, without much of the bullshit that's present in modern games. I did try some of the coop multiplayer, but the grind-based unlock system is annoying and the difficulty ramps up way too quickly
 
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Sukhāvatī

a.k.a. Mañjuśṛī
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འ༔ ཨ༔ ཧ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔
Man, used to be able to one shot Raiden without using a continue.

Now I'm using a continue per stage.
What happened to my 15yo reflexes
590s86.gif


 

Poseidon00

Arcane
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
2,039
VR Dungeon Knight. Has all the mechanics of a good dungeon crawling RPG with none of the RPG. Still fun. Many such cases of that however.
 

Joggerino

Arcane
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I wasted my time on mr prepper, game is shit. Now I'm gonna try some ultimate general civil war.
 

Vlajdermen

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Nov 19, 2017
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Catholic Serbia
I beat Jak 3 a while back, it's a step down from Jak 2. Because of the shorter development time they had to make less dedicated action-platforming stages and set a lot of the missions in the open world, and even the ones that are there don't feel as thought out as before. It tries to compensate by adding more weapons and powers, but the only ones I used were the Concussor, the Reflector, the grenade launcher and the lightning rod, while the rest wound up as deadweight. Light and Dark Jak powers are used like Zelda items, i.e. only for the one level where you acquire them, and thrown in the bin afterwards.

The one thing that makes Jak 3 still good and more than just an inferior Jak 2 is that the open world is vastly improved. It added a lot more racing and timed orb-hunting challenges, and they benefit from a more thought out world design, better car handling, and precursor orbs being actually relevant within gameplay. The desert is outright great. Atmospheric, well-tailored to the vehicular combat gameplay, and the slippery driving physics make for a lot of janky, organic fun. One of the highlights of the game was chasing down a group of bandits while their partners try to slow you down.

Overall my ranking for the games is Jak 2>Jak 1>Jak 3, but I recommend all three.
 

Caim

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Aug 1, 2013
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Dutchland
Jak 3's desert felt way too big for what was actually in there, which is partially because of all the mountains cutting the place up into smaller chunks.
 

Joggerino

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Ok, I just did the alt+f4 -> delete game folder for ultimate general civil war. Absolute dogshit game. Slow, clunky, nothing makes sense. You charge with 3x1000 inf brigades one 1000 enemy inf brigade on plain ground and get destroyed. Or you unleash a volley from a 1500 inf brigade from close range and kill 3 enemy troops. Infantry can move and shoot at the same time, they lose all stamina in 1 minute and remain exhausted for the rest of the battle. Artillery sucks, cavalry sucks, skirmishers are OP. Just dogshit.
 

Sceptic

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Divinity: Original Sin
Star Trek: The Rebel Universe (1987)

As I mentioned last time I've been in a Star Trek gaming vibe. This is one that I had never played (or even remembered). I expected it to be similar to the 3 text adventures I played earlier, but this one is in fact a completely different beast. It gives the impression of being an exploration/simulator hybrid. You get to explore an entire sector, with access to each planet in every system. Most planets can't be landed on but many have bases that can replenish fuel, weapons, hull, energy - things that slowly get consumed as you explore (not so slowly when you run into enemies!). There are 8 distinct way to win the game, some very different from each others and each requiring a different sequence of events of varying complexity. Other items are scattered throughout the planets (sometimes in multiple copies) and will help with the missions (eg, jamming devices will reduce chance of random encounters with enemy ships).

Unfortunately (as with Kobayashi Alternative) the actual gameplay is a lot more dull than the concept. The landing party segments are a linear sequence of events, each with a very binary outcome (success if you have the required item/crew, failure otherwise). There's no one to talk to, no real puzzles to solve, and no exploration on the planet surface. Space exploration is made more annoying by 3 different "zoom" levels - you only ever see a small number of systems at all times, and "regional" ones only become visible when you're close to one of the global systems - and again, "locals" are only visible from specific "regionals", but there's enough overlap that keeping track of which system is where because a convoluted mess - and you WILL need to keep track because you will frequently run into an obstacle before you have the item needed to get past it, requiring quite a bit of backtracking. Worse, there's a time limit in place; you're expected to run into quite a few game overs before you have mapped enough of the zones to know what's where (location of everything is fixed). Exploring the entire zone and mapping everything could've been fun, if the gameplay itself wasn't so limited and repetitive. I explored enough to find what I needed for one of the endings (seemingly one of the simplest) but didn't really feel like going through all the repetitive motions to get the others.

I played the Atari ST version (in emulator), as it looks and sounds much nicer, and the versions are identical gameplay wise.



Star Trek 25th Anniversary (1993)
Star Trek: Judgment Rites (1994)

These 2 are are so much better than any Star Trek game before them it's not even funny. As far as average adventure game quality 25th is ok, but JR is really good. But what really pushes them into great territory is the care put into detail, and the voice acting. The latter can be variable in quality; sometimes it becomes obvious that they were each sitting in front of a microphone trying to record an immense amount of text in as little time as possible. McCoy is most prone to this (Kelley was practically retired by then), and Spock comes across best as unemotional delivery is frequently part of the character. That said, sometimes they hit the nail on the head with laser precision; one particular "Spock!" is uttered by McCoy with such perfectly modulated exasperation that I burst out laughing. After some time you really start seeing their faces when they talk, no matter how small and pixelated the sprites are. The supporting Enterprise cast is heard a lot less (though each gets their moment in the spotlight in JR) but are still a pleasure. The amateur casting, by comparison, is pretty bad, though just about what you'd expect. There are some pleasant surprises in there though. Tom Wyner does a great impersonation of the late Roger Carmel (I jumped out of my chair when I first heard him, thinking Carmel had come back from the dead); JR sees the return of Trelane, and William Campbell does a fantastic job reprising him.

The games are infarmous for the space dogfight sequences. 25th's are really quite awful, and although Interplay released a patch to make them optional for the floppy version, for some inexplicable reason they stayed mandatory in the CD version (which came out mere weeks after the patch!). JR makes them optional AND adds a difficulty slider; on easy they're actually not too bad and provide a nice break from the planetside excursions. Otherwise both are traditional adventure games, with the usual object manipulations. 25th is a series of unrelated episodes with average quality puzzles. JR has some standalone stories but also an overarching plot of sorts, and puzzles in are better and can actually be quite good. The JR finale is quite memorable, as it's a very dialogue-heavy puzzle that fits the series quite well in tone. There are a TON of in-game clues throughout both games, which you can get by scanning everything and talking to your landing party. I was quite shocked that each and every crew member has a unique line or short dialogue, for each and every screen in both games. With everything being voiced (and even more lines going to Nimoy, since his tricorder has a TON of info on pretty much everything), I had an immense amount of fun just listening to all the banter and the analyses, even when the solution was obvious. There's a reason I spent so much time talking about the voices, they add a LOT to the game. Both games also have a really good MT-32 soundtrack.

I really enjoyed replaying both. The CD versions are highly recommended if you like P&C adventures, and absolute must-plays if you're a TOS fan.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Dungeon Rats is completed. It was fun and challenging. I played it on the Normal difficulty (Tough bastard), with a party of four. All companions were not recruited. I seem to have recruited 9/11 fighters. After beating one ending, I went back and did the other two.

Other than that, I also beat XIII from GOG. It wasn't particularly good, imo. I guess the visuals they were aiming for were cool, with the whole comic book inspiration, but that was the best thing about the game.
I also beat Concrete Genie via PS+. This game had no challenge at all, to be honest. Only play if you want something to zone out to in short bursts.

Now, I am playing Front Mission 3. I'm still early in the game, so I haven't decided which path I will take in the story. I don't think I have it in me to do both.
 

Ivan

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Jun 22, 2013
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7,474
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California
It Takes Two :4/5:
It Takes Two does a great job of providing a true co-op experience in which the screen is split down the middle and often tasks the players to use complementing abilities to overcome obstacles and puzzles. What's most impressive about this is that it introduces new gameplay mechanics with every new section. Some core staple abilities stay the same, e.g. platforming, but your trigger buttons will take on new verbs as the campaign unfolds. The story has been a fun ride because it takes a childish take on a couple on the precipice of getting a divorce. The adventure is at its strongest when it places you in settings we often take for granted, but take on a new air of discovery thanks to the two characters being shrunk. One particular highlight is when you get to explore the backyard of the house and meet up with some squirrels. I've seen some outlets take issue with the game's tone toward the conflict that kicks the story off, but that doesn't mean the game lacks heart. In sum, I look forward to continuing to see the adventure play out because the game has shown no sign of slowing down in presenting us with new mechanics with which to interact with its world.

Cons:
-I wish the game was more unforgiving in its boss fights
-some character banter during boss fights gives away solutions

 

Kem0sabe

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Mar 7, 2011
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Azores Islands
Finished the outriders campaign, so I'm looking for the next thing to try on gamepass. Probably going to replay the wolfenstein series.
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I beat Final Fantasy VII Remake. It was on PS+, and I thought that I would finally give it a shot. In short, they made a lot of money on this, which is the only thing that matters. Visuals are okay, but I don't think much else is great. The additions weren't good, neither new characters, not new story changes. The voice acting is cringy, and the exploration leaves much to be desired. In the demo, I did not enjoy the combat system, but in the full game, it was probably one of two things that kept me going. The other thing being my curiosity to see the story through until the end. They plaster Sepiroth everywhere, ruining the mystery of the character. It also ends when you leave Midgar, which is not a spoiler. I wonder how many parts they will milk this Remake series with. Three would make sense, so therefore, my bet is at least five games.

I've been plowing through Front Mission 3 . I chose Emma's path, and the game is just as fun as I remember. You do have to be careful, because just going in willy-nilly could get you a game over screen, which I haven't gotten. I'd say that's more due to me knowing the missions, than being actually great at the game. I said in an earlier post that I might not have it in me to do Alisa's path, but that's no longer true. I will absolutely do it. While the game is sci-fi and unrealistic, I like that it feels more down to earth than other mecha stuff from Japan. Political plot, and your mechs won't fly 1500 meters into the air, and do back flips and other shit. In my last session, I reached a scene that would never fly in this day and age. Yun says: Are you retarded?" to one of the other characters. I had forgotten this, and it made me chuckle.

Playing FM3, I got the urge to play more Japanese tactics rpgs, which means that I finally booted up God Wars on PS4. It's made by Kadokawa Games. Warning bells of the highest magnitude should be ringing. When you boot it up, the in-game graphics aren't hot and the English VA is trash. Luckily, I am enjoying the combat system, and the VA is now in Japanese. The game is based on Japanese mythology, so that means thumbs up from me. Even if they butcher said mythology. The job system is fun. (I have a soft spot for job systems.) You can have a main job, a sub job, and a unique job equipped. That's cool, because it means that you can use abilities from three jobs at the same time. There are three difficulties to choose from (Easy, Normal, Hard). It doesn't do anything groundbreaking, but it does offer you a decent srpg if you're into that thing.

Not to be confused with God Wars, I am playing God of War. I'll give them credit for a couple of things: The game is very beautiful. probably one of the nicest looking games that I have ever played. Dialog may be great overall. It's decent from what I have played. What I don't like is the revamped combat system. This does not feel like a God of War game to me in that regard. A very big disappointment. The camera is very close, and it has now abandoned the character action style combat for a more slow paced, gritty, close up combat system. I'm not far enough in the game to comment on exploration, but I really hope to see some crazy locations like you get to in previous games.
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
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Mar 7, 2011
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Azores Islands
I beat Final Fantasy VII Remake. It was on PS+, and I thought that I would finally give it a shot. In short, they made a lot of money on this, which is the only thing that matters. Visuals are okay, but I don't think much else is great. The additions weren't good, neither new characters, not new story changes. The voice acting is cringy, and the exploration leaves much to be desired. In the demo, I did not enjoy the combat system, but in the full game, it was probably one of two things that kept me going. The other thing being my curiosity to see the story through until the end. They plaster Sepiroth everywhere, ruining the mystery of the character. It also ends when you leave Midgar, which is not a spoiler. I wonder how many parts they will milk this Remake series with. Three would make sense, so therefore, my bet is at least five games.

I've been plowing through Front Mission 3 . I chose Emma's path, and the game is just as fun as I remember. You do have to be careful, because just going in willy-nilly could get you a game over screen, which I haven't gotten. I'd say that's more due to me knowing the missions, than being actually great at the game. I said in an earlier post that I might not have it in me to do Alisa's path, but that's no longer true. I will absolutely do it. While the game is sci-fi and unrealistic, I like that it feels more down to earth than other mecha stuff from Japan. Political plot, and your mechs won't fly 1500 meters into the air, and do back flips and other shit. In my last session, I reached a scene that would never fly in this day and age. Yun says: Are you retarded?" to one of the other characters. I had forgotten this, and it made me chuckle.

Playing FM3, I got the urge to play more Japanese tactics rpgs, which means that I finally booted up God Wars on PS4. It's made by Kadokawa Games. Warning bells of the highest magnitude should be ringing. When you boot it up, the in-game graphics aren't hot and the English VA is trash. Luckily, I am enjoying the combat system, and the VA is now in Japanese. The game is based on Japanese mythology, so that means thumbs up from me. Even if they butcher said mythology. The job system is fun. (I have a soft spot for job systems.) You can have a main job, a sub job, and a unique job equipped. That's cool, because it means that you can use abilities from three jobs at the same time. There are three difficulties to choose from (Easy, Normal, Hard). It doesn't do anything groundbreaking, but it does offer you a decent srpg if you're into that thing.

Not to be confused with God Wars, I am playing God of War. I'll give them credit for a couple of things: The game is very beautiful. probably one of the nicest looking games that I have ever played. Dialog may be great overall. It's decent from what I have played. What I don't like is the revamped combat system. This does not feel like a God of War game to me in that regard. A very big disappointment. The camera is very close, and it has now abandoned the character action style combat for a more slow paced, gritty, close up combat system. I'm not far enough in the game to comment on exploration, but I really hope to see some crazy locations like you get to in previous games.
Front mission 3 was the last great tactical rpg we ever got. It's an absolutely fucking experience from start to end. It's a shame we never got a pc version and are forced to play with an emulator.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
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Djibouti
Approaching the end of my Rayman marathon, I'm now going through the last part - Rayman 3 (I started with Legends). I feel like this game is considerably worse than I remembered it. It's much more focused on combat than platforming, and the combat isn't particularly amazung. Also, the camera controls are total ass.
 

Sceptic

Arcane
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10,871
Divinity: Original Sin
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

I don't hate the movie as much as most people, but the game tie-in is every bit as terrible as you'd expect. It reminded me a bit of Dynamix's David Wolf in structure: 4 mini-games that you can select independently, or a "campaign" mode that plays them in order with appropriate cutscenes. The minigames cover the gamut of such things: one involves navigating a wormhole (looks more like it comes from ST:TMP than ST:TFF), one has you trapped in the center of a minefield and have to shoot mines to clear a path out, one is Street Fighter style beat em up against a Klingon, and I didn't even bother trying the last one. They are all quite awful, I'd say much worse than in David Wolf (which isn't exactly a stellar game to begin with). The Street Figher one in particular stood out because I wasn't really having trouble with it, I just gave up because the controls are so limited that you can really only do very few actions and hope your hits don't get blocked, as you sloooooooooooooowly whittle your opponent's health down; I just gave up after several minutes, afraid I'd die of boredom.

In-between minigames you get treated to graphical cutscenes with minimal animation and some text. The graphics in these is nothing short of stunning for 1989. Unfortunately there is no sound beyond the occasional beep bop of the PC Speaker. I didn't spend very long trying to win the game, one attempt at the first 3 minigames (including as mentioned earlier simply abandoning the 3rd out of boredom) and I decided that was enough. I really don't recommend trying to play this (I should look for an LP though).



Star Trek: New Worlds (2000)

Interplay's attempt at a Star Trek RTS, when they were surfing on the success of several ST games. This one's looks remind me a lot of Dark Reign 2, which came out around the same time. It may not look as pretty but the graphics are functional and units and buildings look distinctive, which is the most important thing in this kind of game. You can play as either Federation, Romulan or Klingon; in practice, the differences are quite minor (more on the order of Warcraft 2 than Command & Conquer), as most units and buildings are just reskins (though each side gets a few uniques). The 3 campaigns do play very differently: of the 14 missions (15 including the bonus missions) each campaign gets, only a couple have the same objectives, and even those with the same name can have different objectives and will play very differently. The campaigns themselves are quite good, with some interesting and varied objectives (scan landmark, defend structure, protect ally, kill all enemies, build a special weapon... many more, and in many combinations), some fun storylines with occasional twists and turns, and each campaign's story will references occurrences in another or show you how things might've gone down from the other side. There's a surprising amount of detail there.

Unfortunately the game is completely wrecked by some major strikes. First, you can't save the game, at all. Missions are picked from a menu, and completing one unlocks the next in line (there is no real campaign progression otherwise). Since some missions can go on for a LONG time (hunting down every last unit on large maps being a bad contender) and not being able to save mid-missions, or losing after one hour of play when you were minutes away from victory is quite frustrating. Second, the AI is terrible. This can make some missions easier, since the enemies will rarely try anything clever, but it also makes getting your units to do what you want an exercise in perseverance and patience, especially since the UI has some quirks in unit selection. Third, the game is buggy and never got much patching or support. Some scripts won't always fire properly, trying to complete an objective will not work without any feedback on why (it doesn't fail; it just doesn't work). I had fun with the few missions I played, but once the missions got longer and more difficult I ran out of patience, and once the game crashed on me mid-mission I decided that was it.



Starfleet Command Gold (2000)

What a magnificent game.

This is based on the Starfleet Battles boardgame, which I have never played, but it even comes with a massive PDF explaining the SFB rules and giving you enough material to set up a few simple SFB missions. I'm almost tempted to try them out.

There is so much detail, so much complexity, and such good gameplay here. Tons of ships, each controlling very differently. You have to manage power to each system, you can manage weapons separately, shields can be boosted, you can run around enemies and try to keep shields facing them, or blow them up, or cripple specific systems and leave them stranded, or captuie them to your side... The UI is extremely complex and allows you to control every little thing, but also has shortcuts, and it is possible to keep a lot of things on autopilot (though this is never optimal). You can have up to 3 ships and all are deployed on a mission (see caveat below). You get to play as one of six (!) different factions (Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Gorn, and 2 that are creations of SFB, Lyran and Hydran). Although all factions share base systems, some have completely unique ones (the Hydrans' Fighters, the Romulans' cloak) and while they all have the same general families of ships, the ships themselves are quite different and can have access to very different weaponry. Playing as, or against, each faction really feels quite unique. Graphically the game looks beautiful despite its age and the blockiness, there's a lot of nice detailing in the models and textures. Music is fantastic, each race has a completely different soundtrack that captures their character perfectly.

The Dynaverse campaign system seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity. Much of what it tracks, such as alliances and off-screen skirmishes between factions, has no effect on actual gameplay beyond minor cosmetic variations. The "regular" missions are kinda boring and repetitive, with no real plot or connection to them other than "destroy ships" or "protect convoy". The real meat of the campaigns is unlocked when you join the special force of a faction, which you're offered after a certain amount of success. Doing so starts unlocking the unique missions, and these can actually be a lot of fun, with unique objectives such as infiltrating an enemy starbase and gathering data, scanning anomalies and planets, stopping a Doomsday Machine (straight out the TOS episode!). All campaigns stories share one common thread (the disappearance of the Organians, who had brokered a peace treaty between the various factions and without whom tensions erupt again) but each one introduces its own major plot thread as well, and these can sometimes refer to each other or intersect. Some campaigns even have a secondary plot thread accessed through optional missions that may relate to one or more threads. This results in a surprisingly rich tapestry, and it is this that creates the appearance of an interesting world more than the Dynaverse system itself.

Unfortunately, the game has one almost fatal flaw: level scaling. Simply put, each ship has a BPV value that is proportional to how good it is. Your total BPV (additive of all your ships) determines how powerful your opposition is. Need to buy a better ship because you need the extra speed or power for a particular objective? Suddenly your enemies have upgraded their entire fleet to Dreadnoughts. I can understand wanting to provide a constant challenge, but this should've been handled differently. It's a good thing the game is otherwise so good because this could've been a dealbreaker.

The other major problem is that some things don't work as advertised (the Supplemental Manual acknowledges this, bu it's not a very good excuse). Captured ships are supposed to be under your command, but they're not, they either just sit there, or get taken over by the AI doing whatever it wants, so it's not usually a good idea to bother unless it's part of an objective. The worst problem though is trying to control multiple ships. As good as the UI is otherwise, it is extremely finnicky about what the sequence of clicks (many, many clicks) you need to do to get a ship you are not in direct control of to do what you want it to. It's even worse when you start on a particular course of action on ship 1, then decide to switch to ship 2. I found it usually better to simply not bother with more ships, but some special missions force another ship on you, and others are impossible to complete without more than one, most egregiously the final Federation mission. You have to run around dealing with things that are spawning at all corners of the map (and maps are vast in this game), and you're on a strict timer. There is a waypoint marker system, which should make this task much easier - except of course, as the Supplemental Manual helpfully points out, markers are all thrown out as soon as you switch to another ship.

Despite both flaws being quite major I had a ton of fun with the game, and of all 4 I talk about here this is the only one I kept playing. The Hydran campaign is incomplete, but what's there is still quite fun, and the other 5 campaigns are all good to great.



Star Trek: Tactical Assault (2006)

I played this on a PSP emulator (there's also a DS version apparently). This seems to be a simplified version of Starfleet Command, with some of the same general gameplay but stripping away much of the complexity, and with a much more linear and straightforward campaign. You only control one ship which you don't pick (assigned to you in each mission). Unfortunately taking away the complexity also takes away most of the tactical options, which turns most missions into a game of "orbit around enemy, keep your best shield facing their weapon, keep your weapon facing their weak shield". With very slow gameplay, with such simple tactics, against usually overwhelming odds, the game quickly becomes boring and tedious and a chore. The campaigns are quite interesting, with some cool objectives and storylines, but I found the game too difficult for how simplistic the mechanics are and gave up rather quickly.
 

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