Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

What game are you wasting time on?

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,514
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
When I think about it, in later years, I have been more and more uneasy with more closed environments. Is it claustrophobia? Maybe. That's probably how I felt when I was nopeing out of the game. There was a non-scary portion when you're in deep water, in a tunnel leading to a door. It made me feel uneasy. I guess it could be that. While the house isn't that enclosed in Resi 7, I guess it stil felt that way with jack so close up to you.

I had this feeling when I was swimming in the caves in Maneater. There was nothing scary about it at all, but I got a feeling that I really needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.

It's either claustrophobia, or being a coward. I guess I gotta pick a poison.
 
Last edited:

Adon

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
667
Went through the entire Thief series

Thief: Gold

What can I say about this game that probably hasn't been said a million times? Great ass level design, good stealth mechanics, moody as hell atmosphere, amazing music, and the freedom to approach any level the way you want, or at least most of them. Writing is nothing spectacular, but it's a nice build-up to the twist. Thief's supernatural elements are included in the way that I like them best, minimalist -- where it exists, but it isn't meant to be a part of everyday life. Thief 1 is a definitely a point where they created a framework and managed to do the best they possibly could with what they had.

Thief 2: The Metal Age

But overall, I find myself being more keen towards Thief 2 in general. Admittedly, the lower points are lower than in Thief 1, but there's more than enough to make up for it everywhere else. Thief 2 basically took the framework of the first game, and increased the complexity of objectives in each level after giving you two introductory levels. Whereas Thief 1's missions mostly played out in a straightforward manner, Thief 2 goes out of its way to essentially start subverting your expectations for a how a mission will develop. It becomes a bit of a hassle in later levels, but the only one that feels obnoxious is Sabotage at Soulforge.

I'd also say the writing is more noteworthy in this game in comparison to its predecessor. Notes that you find in the missions are actually interesting and even relevant to events that happen later on in the game. The world is much more fleshed out in this game as is the worldbuilding, and it is apparent very early on in Framed when you find notes that refer to the internal conflict within the city watch, which actually come into play later on with Blackmail and Trace the Courier. I was also a bit of a fan of how the events of the first game were directly responsible for shaping what happens in this game with the Hammerites and the Mechanists, and I honestly think this is what elevates the game for me over Thief 1.

Thief: Deadly Shadows

The weakest of this trilogy, but it's still pretty good in its own way. Deadly Shadows is more interesting to think about what they changed than it was to actually go through. Levels are bite-sized chunks of the bigger levels in previous Thief games, and as a result, some of them end up fairly linear despite still having the same core framework. Main difference here is that instead of level-based missions, you are free to explore the city in between missions to do side-quests or to just to get more loot. The city itself isn't that interesting to explore, but it was nice to see the progress in terms of AI where you could walk around normally with regular civilians, and would have to hide from the City Watch.

Dynamic lighting system would've been a great addition if they had done more with it. The House of the Widow Moira is one of my favorite levels partially because of how the lightning strikes will momentarily illuminate you, but unfortunately that whole system is never used in an interesting way other than giving guards torches. Cradle is also a nice change of pace, and a pretty great level except for the tail end of it where it outstays its welcome, but other than that, there's still some gems in this game.

Thief (2014)

Fuck this game.
 
Last edited:

JDR13

Arcane
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
3,930
Location
The Swamp
I'm about 30-40% through Metroid Prime using the PrimeHack build of Dolphin and the HD texture pack. Runs like a dream and looks like a fully remastered version of the Wii classic but with all the extreme annoyances and no QoL of the era (early 2000s). Still, I'm enjoying myself despite MASSIVE backtracking and outrageous cock-blocking of fun with all those puzzles almost every step of the way. And I encountered a balls-hard boss already that made me truly feel like the incredible shrinking man if he was fighting gargantuan rock god monsters instead of adorable little house tabbies.

You playing the original or the Triogy version? I didn't know there was an HD texture pack for those games. I checked it out and it looks pretty good, although I don't think there's a huge difference between that and Dolphin's built-in upscaler.
 

Rincewind

Magister
Patron
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
2,431
Location
down under
Codex+ Now Streaming!
k, fair enough.
Does that happen with classic titles like the original RE or Silent Hill as well?
Nope. The weird thing is that it didn't used to happen when I was younger. This is something that has come up in the past five years or so. Maybe my body can't handle stress. I don't know, to be completely honest.

Well, the body slowly breaks down as you get older. Plus it's not natural to sit in a chair for hours, only your hands and fingers moving, and be exposed to unnaturally high stress levels. In nature you either win a fight, outrun your enemy, or just die, then the stressful period is quickly over.

I started and aborted Silent Hill 2 a few times for that reason. Fuck that shit, I'm playing a game for enjoyment and relaxation, not to feel worse in my normal everyday life.

Turn-based battles give me all the excitement I need these days, even RTS is too much, they make me feel stressed and nervous and overwhelmed.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,283
Location
Massachusettes
I'm about 30-40% through Metroid Prime using the PrimeHack build of Dolphin and the HD texture pack. Runs like a dream and looks like a fully remastered version of the Wii classic but with all the extreme annoyances and no QoL of the era (early 2000s). Still, I'm enjoying myself despite MASSIVE backtracking and outrageous cock-blocking of fun with all those puzzles almost every step of the way. And I encountered a balls-hard boss already that made me truly feel like the incredible shrinking man if he was fighting gargantuan rock god monsters instead of adorable little house tabbies.

You playing the original or the Triogy version? I didn't know there was an HD texture pack for those games. I checked it out and it looks pretty good, although I don't think there's a huge difference between that and Dolphin's built-in upscaler.

I'm playing the trilogy version. Yeah, I'm using the upscaler too and while there's a noticeable difference with the HD texture pack, it's not a dramatic one. The important thing is that it plays great and looks fantastic and is a major improvement compared to the original wii/gamecube releases. I watched a few old YT videos of people playing the originals and man does it look murky and blurry as shit. And wow, is this a loooong game. I only just got the grappling hook with a shit ton more to go, I suspect. I think I have like only 5 or 6 of the 12 artifacts but the game keeps throwing new things at you so I'm not bored... yet.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
Banner Saga. I bought it on release and for some reason it had just been sitting there unplayed all these years. It's surprisingly atmospheric and I like it a lot so far.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
Banner Saga. I bought it on release and for some reason it had just been sitting there unplayed all these years. It's surprisingly atmospheric and I like it a lot so far.
The only thing that irked me about the 1st game was the feeling that the results of some choices seem to blindside you with totally unpredictable results. I think there was one in particular where I lost a character and it just felt like thinking about which choice to make didn't matter because something like that could come out of left field.
 

Rincewind

Magister
Patron
Joined
Feb 8, 2020
Messages
2,431
Location
down under
Codex+ Now Streaming!
Banner Saga. I bought it on release and for some reason it had just been sitting there unplayed all these years. It's surprisingly atmospheric and I like it a lot so far.
The only thing that irked me about the 1st game was the feeling that the results of some choices seem to blindside you with totally unpredictable results. I think there was one in particular where I lost a character and it just felt like thinking about which choice to make didn't matter because something like that could come out of left field.

I kinda liked that, it's like real life in a way. You can rarely predict what will lead to what exactly, and often there's no optimal or good choice.
 

Gamezor

Learned
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
306
I started playing Stranger of Sword City Revisited on recommendation of I think Aweigh and Fluent in the shoutbox. Playing it on my Vita which is ideal here because it's easy to suspend, and you can play it in either long or short bursts. It's my first real Wizardry-like unless you count MM1, and I love it. Not that far in, but it's great. Things I like:

-Interesting turn based combat. Can be very challenging and rewarding.
-Love the blobber abstraction of positioning.
-Combat can be super fast against trash mobs, because blobber, abstracted positioning, and QOL features.
-Tension of only being able to save in town.
-New skills and level up can make a big difference.
-New gear can make a big difference.
-Many options for character building and class switching.
-Limited exposition but enough of it.
-Nice art style.

Can't find anything I don't like yet. No long story exposition getting in the way of gameplay. I wish AAA games had developed more in this direction than in the direction of something like FF7 (which I like).
 

Puukko

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
3,862
Location
The Khanate
Jumped into DMC5 as my first foray into these games. I have obviously been well aware of the series for a long time, and it's been on my backlog forever. I played up until the point Dante gets his second devil trigger a good chunk in one go.

I'm having great fun. The game never stops being entertaining and having to learn multiple movesets for different characters really activates the neurons. Dante has so many layers to him, it makes Nero and especially V look simple in comparison. Not a clue how Vergil compares, but considering he apparently gets to play through the whole campaign just on his own, I imagine he has to be on the same level as Dante. This is definitely a game with good replay value but I have quite a lot of games on my plate at the moment so we'll see.

On the technical side, the game's a marvel. Well above 100 fps most of the time at good settings on my ol' 1070. Makes for probably the smoothest and most responsive action game experience to date for me. This is how it should be.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,283
Location
Massachusettes
Can't find anything I don't like yet. No long story exposition getting in the way of gameplay.

You mean there are post-FF6 jRPGs that don't have a minimum of 2 pages of dialogue in every new character interaction and/or 2+ hours of cut scenes of story exposition???! I didn't think such a thing existed.
 

JDR13

Arcane
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
3,930
Location
The Swamp
Playing XCOM 2 for the first time. Seems pretty great so far, but some of the missions are really frustrating on the first try.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,760
You mean there are post-FF6 jRPGs that don't have a minimum of 2 pages of dialogue in every new character interaction and/or 2+ hours of cut scenes of story exposition???! I didn't think such a thing existed.
Stranger of Sword City is a turn-based blobber, i.e. a Wizardry-like, not part of the JRPG subgenre, although it is a Japanese-developed game.

712890-saviors-of-sapphire-wings-stranger-of-sword-city-revisited-screenshot.jpg
712883-saviors-of-sapphire-wings-stranger-of-sword-city-revisited-screenshot.jpg
346691-stranger-of-sword-city-screenshot.jpg
712889-saviors-of-sapphire-wings-stranger-of-sword-city-revisited-screenshot.jpg
 

YldrE

Learned
Joined
Nov 18, 2021
Messages
27
Finally rolled the ending credits on FF7.

The production values are off the charts for a PS1 game: the gigantic scale, the constant setpieces, the cutscenes, the varied and detailed environments, the huge bestiary and elaborate combat visuals...

...but on the other hand the writing is trash, the combat system isn't anything to write home about, the world and dungeon design offers neither challenge nor depth (in part owing to how story-driven the game is: gameplay is a vehicle, not an end) and everything is just so fucking slow. I can't emphasize this enough, this has to be one of the most tedious games I ever played, I can't even imagine slogging through it without constantly hitting a fast-forward button.

AAA games in a nutshell: a shallow experience wrapped in ungodly amounts of production money. Had the writing and/or the gameplay been any good I would have been the ideal audience for it. Granted, I did like FF9 a lot so I'll give them that they were still in the process of figuring shit out.
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
Patron
Edgy
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
27,828
Im fairly impressed with Xenonauts (Community Edition, that is) - It recreates the feeling of the old UFO games very well while modernizing stuff in a sensible manner. You don't need to keep stock of every single grenade and clip of ammo, for example and there's an actual air combat minigame. It's essentially what Long War claims to be but isn't. I also enjoy the fact that not all civvies are helpless. Plenty of midwestern farmers with shotguns and jihadis with AKs that give the xenos a warm greeting!
 

Gamezor

Learned
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
306
Finally rolled the ending credits on FF7.

The production values are off the charts for a PS1 game: the gigantic scale, the constant setpieces, the cutscenes, the varied and detailed environments, the huge bestiary and elaborate combat visuals...

...but on the other hand the writing is trash, the combat system isn't anything to write home about, the world and dungeon design offers neither challenge nor depth (in part owing to how story-driven the game is: gameplay is a vehicle, not an end) and everything is just so fucking slow. I can't emphasize this enough, this has to be one of the most tedious games I ever played, I can't even imagine slogging through it without constantly hitting a fast-forward button.

AAA games in a nutshell: a shallow experience wrapped in ungodly amounts of production money. Had the writing and/or the gameplay been any good I would have been the ideal audience for it. Granted, I did like FF9 a lot so I'll give them that they were still in the process of figuring shit out.

I love the gorgeous 2d background art in the ps1 ff games. Im not sure many modern games have anything similar other than adventure games. I need to do full playthrough of ff9 and give 8 a fair shake.
 

curds

Magister
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
1,098
Trying to get back into The Witcher 3 and finish it off but, fuck, it's so long. I struggle with games much longer than 40 hours, I'm 50 hours into this one, and I'm not sure the end is in sight any time soon. Just finished the battle of Kaer Morhen, which I thought was gonna be the end, but it wasn't. Still got the expansions to deal with, too. It doesn't help that the game has very little to offer aside from taking in the breathtaking scenery.

I really wish CDPR kept the formula of the first two games; not open-world, broken into distinct chapters, and about half the length of this monster. Less is more.

Playing as Ciri is a drag, too.

I also have like ten other games installed, too. Nothing's really holding my attention at the moment.
 

OSK

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 24, 2007
Messages
8,004
Codex 2012 Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
The last few weeks I played through Avernum: Escape from the Pit and Avernum 2: Crystal Souls. Just started Avernum 3: Ruined World.
 

NerevarineKing

Learned
Joined
Jan 6, 2021
Messages
315
I was playing Chronicles of Myrtana but then got distracted with Underrail. Underrail is really fucking good so far and has much better combat than any Fallout game. I've been using a gun/armor build and seems to be working so far.
 
Self-Ejected

ZodoZ

Self-Ejected
Patron
Joined
Nov 6, 2013
Messages
798
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I started playing "Life" the saga of The Dragon again. Can't seem to escape this one. Gotta admit it has been kind of slow going recently but there has been some interesting moments and some progress is being made. I made it to a new expansion area with an interesting and complex economy and culture. This is a "actual" playthrough meaning actions have consequences sometimes unknown until much later. Combat is mostly voluntary unless venturing in to hazard areas or joining a combat guild.

Highly recommend
4*
 

Belegarsson

Think about hairy dwarfs all the time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Patron
Joined
Oct 20, 2015
Messages
1,261
Location
Uwotopia
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
37 hours into Days Gone, I never expected to like it this much.

On paper it's a generic story-driven zombie game with generic mechanics, gameplay is looting resources to craft stuff, Red Dead Redemption-ish slo-mo shooting, traditional open world structure with camps to clear, credit to earn and zombie, I mean freakers' nests to clear. The first 1/3 of the game is terrible, the way the game zigzag through 3 or 4 storylines at the same time made it difficult to follow what the hell was going on, especially a flashback cutscene so confusingly stitched together gave me an impression that there was a lot of cut playable content.

Then the Lost Lake plot begins and boy it started to get real. For once, I really appreciate a zombie game that's not too dark and inhumanly desperate, the game doesn't pretend to be a dark gritty modern age medieval shit with grey morality, it makes clear who the bad guys are, who the good guys are, and between them is a shockingly likable protagonist who's stubborn, desperate, has trust issue but also acts really real, acknowledge his flaws and is actually not as selfish as he thinks he is. Deacon reminded me of a time when I was a stupid kid dropping out of college and insisted on living alone because I didn't want to bother anyone, but time goes on and I simply accepted that I couldn't hold a grudge on everything forever. He can survive on his own, but surviving isn't living, and being desperate enough to hold out hope, in this case his wife, is still worth a reason to live.

This is easily one of the rare cases where the longer the game goes on, the better it plays. At first it played like a generic The Last of Us open world clone, sneak, one shot headshot, preserving your ammo and shit. But when you get better guns and finally get to fight the horde, shit gets real. Memorize explosive barrels, set up gas cans and mines, hoard enough resources to craft napalm molotov, then try to find high grounds, lure them into choke points, there's a particular nuance in these horde fights and it's always exhilarating when you clear one. The bike also reminds me of your car in Mad Max, there's a lot of upgrades that make traversing a flexible experience the longer you play it genuinely feels like a trusty companion. The devs cleverly designed the first map with a lot of hills to let save gas by freewheeling, so there's this "rhythm" when it comes to driving your bike.

Two things I'm not a fan of: those NERO missions where you have to infiltrate a research team, get detected and you must restart back at checkpoint, pretty boring and repetitive. Second, playing on PC definitely broke the combat, since the game relies a lot on slo-mo shooting, it's really easy to aim and headshot everyone John Wick style with pinpoint accuracy even on hardest difficulty.

Did I mention that it looks pretty? It does look pretty.

B530BAAD85665FC6A956BF444E15F1FCA588CA08
 
Last edited:

JDR13

Arcane
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
3,930
Location
The Swamp
37 hours into Days Gone, I never expected to like it this much.

On paper it's a generic story-driven zombie game with generic mechanics, gameplay is looting resources to craft stuff, Red Dead Redemption-ish slo-mo shooting, traditional open world structure with camps to clear, credit to earn and zombie, I mean freakers' nests to clear. The first 1/3 of the game is terrible, the way the game zigzag through 3 or 4 storylines at the same time made it difficult to follow what the hell was going on, especially a flashback cutscene so confusingly stitched together gave me an impression that there was a lot of cut playable content.

Then the Lost Lake plot begins and boy it started to get real. For once, I really appreciate a zombie game that's not too dark and inhumanly desperate, the game doesn't pretend to be a dark gritty modern age medieval shit with grey morality, it makes clear who the bad guys are, who the good guys are, and between them is a shockingly likable protagonist who's stubborn, desperate, has trust issue but also acts really real, acknowledge his flaws and is actually not as selfish as he thinks he is. Deacon reminded me of a time when I was a stupid kid dropping out of college and insisted on living alone because I didn't want to bother anyone, but time goes on and I simply accepted that I couldn't hold a grudge on everything forever. He can survive on his own, but surviving isn't living, and being desperate enough to hold out hope, in this case his wife, is still worth a reason to live.

This is easily one of the rare cases where the longer the game goes on, the better it plays. At first it played like a generic The Last of Us open world clone, sneak, one shot headshot, preserving your ammo and shit. But when you get better guns and finally get to fight the horde, shit gets real. Memorize explosive barrels, set up gas cans and mines, hoard enough resources to craft napalm molotov, then try to find high grounds, lure them into choke points, there's a particular nuance in these horde fights and it's always exhilarating when you clear one. The bike also reminds me of your car in Mad Max, there's a lot of upgrades that make traversing a flexible experience the longer you play it genuinely feels like a trusty companion. The devs cleverly designed the first map with a lot of hills to let save gas by freewheeling, so there's this "rhythm" when it comes to driving your bike.

Two things I'm not a fan of: those NERO missions where you have to infiltrate a research team, get detected and you must restart back at checkpoint, pretty boring and repetitive. Second, playing on PC definitely broke the combat, since the game relies a lot on slo-mo shooting, it's really easy to aim and headshot everyone John Wick style with pinpoint accuracy even on hardest difficulty.

Did I mention that it looks pretty? It does look pretty.

B530BAAD85665FC6A956BF444E15F1FCA588CA08

Days Gone surprised me as well. It ended up being one of the best games I played this year.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom