Screenshot thread

[Danikas]

fortnite did not age well :/

Lol that's Arma 3.

 

[someone else]

Project Zomboid

scavenging for food

running over zombies with cars is OP

shotguns are cool

driving at night is cool, you can also turn on the aircon to make it cooler.

 

[Reinhardt]

Being westerner in JAPAN is hard...

 

[PulsatingBrain]

New Xen is pretty

 

[Scarlet Lilith]

So my play-through of Thief Gold ends.

Spoiler

A continuation of my impressions follows.

Escape!
Those caves were even more annoying than I thought they would be since I explored just about every inch of them except that one area that was critical and had the expert mission objective. What the hell, Randy Smith? Even so the mission becomes cool again when you return to the mansion ground floor and it's completely changed from when you were there last. Super conflicted about this map, it would have been fine on the lower difficulties, but hiding that one spider cave that led to the objective? Why not just make it as interconnected as the rest of the level?

Strange Bedfellows
A return to the same map from Undercover, you might like think it is lazy or something, but it's actually perfect at this stage of the game. Since you know the place it's pretty effective to then see it trashed, ups the stakes and stuff. Then you get access to a new area and go on a rescue mission. Garrett being heroic, I like the role reversal here.

Into the Maw of Chaos
The final map is one last trip and I'm really happy that they didn't make it like the biggest and most complex heist ever or something along those lines. Instead it is one of the shortest missions in the game and it's completely dialed into adventure mode, being a hectic last race to set things right before that trickster guy sends the entire city back to the stone age. The only flaw here is that the climax was lame, once you finally get to him there should be more to it than just replacing the eye and waiting forever for him to finish the ritual. The game should put your skills to the test under the pressure of being timed here, but instead that big oaf just turns his back to you and you do the deed, super lame.

Overall it was a truly great game and when you look at it as a whole you can see why they added the heist missions in Thief Gold, they balance the game by letting you spend more time sneaking up on normal human beings, pilfering keys from pockets and such. While I initially wrote that there's much more to the game than that I can now also see why the developers thought there was too little of that in the first release and spent their time putting more of it in the game rather than making the trickster more tricky or whatever. If I were to guess then that's probably also why they made The Lost City worse unintentionally. Don't have much else to say about it, other than that the audio design is 10/10 for the entirety of the game and that if you haven't played it already for some reason then you should do it. Now. Right now, and wear headphones.

 

[someone else]

Enter The Gungeon

Lays mines.

Dr Wolf's monster looks familiar.

 

[Icewater]

someone else what game? looks cool.

 

[someone else]

someone else what game? looks cool.

Enter The Gungeon

Maybe I should change & put the name after the screenshots instead of in front.

 

[someone else]

Isn't it better to put the game name in front so we can tell what game it is from before looking at pics?
Wunderbar

 

[Modron]

Maybe I should change & put the name after the screenshots instead of in front.

Name first is superior in my opinion, if someone can't remember 10 seconds ago or is too lazy to scroll up it's not your fault.

 

[DraQ]

New Xen is pretty

Yes. In before Interloper rage.

Nu-hilanth is back in cool land, though.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Fallout Tactics - PART III

10. Jefferson (We need to destroy 4 generators. Seems easy enough, but the place is crawling with super mutants, and many of them are situated on the roofs. The best strategy is to move carefully through the western side, and sneak on them to gain upper hand. There are also some mines and booby traps, so it's best to be careful and send one person to detect them. Billy disarmed them, and I sold them with a nice profit. The economy works similar like in original FT. The more you are selling the same thing, the less it is worth to the buyer. Some enemies are hiding in the buildings as well, waiting for the perfect shot. It's best to flank or go from behind, if possible. This mission takes a lot of patience, but with good coordination and with methodical approach it's still more forgiving than St. Lois).

11. Kansas City (Instead of pushing forward while doing the mission objectives, we now have to defend a group of religious ghouls being led by their leader calling himself Bishop Defcon. Another favorite of mine, due to the sheer amount of mutants that is so overwhelming and at first it feels like line of defence can break easily. There are 3 points of entry, the north west is easiest one. There are mines and the ghouls can defend themselves, even if we need to concentrate elsewhere our efforts. I used Fleetfoot, which became a total beast with high stealth and ripper+grenades (many mutants have up to 20 each on them!) helped to soften the center group before they've started their attack. But the east flank, damn, it's like a total Zerg rush. Buffed commanders with soldiers wielding heavy guns and some HTH warriors. No to mention roofs and buildings hiding some of them as well. It's a total hell, where one critical hit can eviscerate our team. After defending ghouls, with a minimum casualties on their side I've killed the rest, adding the remaining commanders to my hit list. After that mission, I had so much ammo that I would start using shop for some extra stimpaks and armor. Sometimes the new weapons are unlocked earlier, so it's good to check on them as well.)

12. Osceolla (We need to kill Gammorin, and for some extra XP - find out what happened to General Barnaky who was taken prisoner by super mutants. The part on the surface is the mix of the previous missions, so it should not be a big problem for anyone. We also can meet a legendary Roshambo from NMA, as he is sitting next to the fire near the gigantic destroyed airship. The big problem comes at the end, where the romm with Gammorin has only one entrance and he is really good with his Tommy Gun, not to mention his guards helping him out during his last stand. Don't forget to take briefcase, holodisk and Barnaky's letter from there, which will provide some additional experience for the team)

13. Junction City (Finding four robot parts sounds easy enough, but here FT feels more like original Fallout, where we need to find person of interest who have them, and somehow obtain them. I could use stealing easily, but I choose to play nicely to refresh my memories. Except that asshole Chuck, that will offer a fake robot part that I robbed without hesitation. Also, we need to confront reavers who have the last part that we need. First, it's best to visit the shack that is on the south in the desert. There we will be ambushed by a small group, who killed a guy named Hank who found a torso of a robot. The reavers are techno-freaks and took them to their base in the far northern east corner, outside the gates of the city. Also inside the shack, you can pick up a plasma rifle from the floor and a 7.62 FN fal from the shelves, which is a good compensation for helping poor Martha not sharing the same fate as her husband. With all team members have small guns maxed out, and energy weapons as well fighting was really not hard. Sure, the reavers have the big numbers, but with all critical perks going for the eyes and balls will just decimate them. The only problem are the rocks, where some of them can hide, if we are not careful, and the upper floor of their base with the huge balcony). Be sure to grab all the ammo and energy weapons to the APC.

14. Great Bend (Main and only objective : destroy all the robots. From here the energy weapons are a must, plasma and laser rifles plus pulse grenades. We can't use APC, and our synthetic enemies have huge advantage, when it comes to positioning their troops. Luckily, we won't be forced to fight bigger groups during this mission, so cleaning up the whole map shouldn't be a problem.)

Spoiler

 

[Strange Fellow]

X-COM spoilers below.

Spoiler

Twenty-six soldiers enter, only one lone squaddie still lives.

One man, one grenade, one shot.

Nailed it.

 

[Cryomancer]

Re playing BG2

 

[Psquit]

Post theme

Spoiler

PTSD dude wants to kill his daughter, Barret ain't having none of that.

Hojo getting mad pussy.

 

[someone else]

Project Zomboid

A prison!

There's too many of them!

 

[Psquit]

Is zomboid finished or the game is still in early access?

 

[JarlFrank]

Still early access

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

Is zomboid finished or the game is still in early access?

10 years+ waiting for the fucking npc implementation

 

[Alienman]

It will be at least 10 more years.

 

[A horse of course]

Parasite Eve (emulated via ePSXe, minor/mild spoilers)



Based on a sci-fi horror novel of the same name, Squaresoft’s 1998 cinematic action-RPG pits rookie NYPD detective Aya Brea against a DNA-warping evolutionary nightmare that is poised to plunge the big apple into hell on earth.

At its base, Parasite Eve is a fairly standard JRPG with a few twists on the formula. You’ll run around pre-rendered depictions of New York battling random monsters and looting chests for better items and equipment. When a combat encounter is triggered, the game will enclose the area in invisible walls rather than loading a separate battle screen. Combatants can then move around in real time and wait for their “Active Time” metre to fill, which lets them perform an action. Initially, you can only attack, flee and use items from your inventory, but Aya soon gets access to “Parasite Energy” that can be used to cast spells. These will be very familiar to anyone who’s played classic JRPGs, with the usual crop of heals, status effects, special attacks and such.

Though combat is quite action heavy, players can’t just rely on raw skill. Equipment and stats make a huge difference to not only damage and resistances, but also attack range, action recharge speeds, and extra abilities. A rifle, for example, does considerable damage per shot and will be effective from long range, whereas a handgun will let you attack more frequently and doesn’t force you to stand still for as long. You can make incremental improvements to weapons and armour by finding upgrade tokens, but you’ll also start discovering versions with special traits like letting you steal items, automatically use potions, use two commands per turn, guarantee first strike at the start of battle and so on.

Naturally, you can’t just use upgrade tokens on your starting equipment forever and will inevitably need to progress to equipment with better base stats. This is where the “tune up” mechanic comes in. By using one of the limited tools found around the game, you can transfer either stat bonuses or a single trait from one item to another. So, for example, if you’ve been using damage upgrades to improve your old weapon, you can transfer those bonuses to a newer one with better base damage. However, using a tool will destroy the original gear, so if you want both the stat bonuses and a special ability from something, you’ll need to choose between the two. On top of this, there are a very limited number of weapons and armour with the specific trait you want, so if you destroy or discard one, it could mean playing for hours until you see another – if ever.

Your first instinct would be to hoard all the gear you can find, but at the start of the game there are few inventory slots available. Only ammo can stack (which is mostly irrelevant unless you’re using a weapon with low damage but a high rate of fire), whereas each potion, key, and piece of equipment will take up a full space. Whilst the number of slots will slowly increase as you level up or put bonus points into them, it’s an ever-present concern. During points in the story in which the world map is available, you can trek all the way back to Police HQ and dump your stuff for later sorting, but this would devour an enormous amount of time, so your best bet is to try and stuff one or two items back in trunks and prioritize the rest according to need and value.

Put all these systems together and there’s a bit of depth to personalizing your combat style and planning Aya’s equipment upgrade path, which is a nice change from just grinding for stat boosts. Unfortunately, not everything meshes quite so adeptly. The action combat is usually quite fun, but invisible walls combined with instant damage auras around all enemies can lead to frustrating situations where you get stuck in a corner and chain-stunned by monsters, especially those with medium or large profiles. These phantom boundaries are equally frustrating during boss fights, where it can be difficult to avoid some of their powerful attacks. The team were clearly aware of this, as the possible monster combinations for each combat area are tailored to its dimensions, but you’ll still be encountering these issues in almost every battle you fight. I suppose the upshot of this awkwardness is that the average player will be forced to try and learn not only real-time action mechanics – since they can’t just endlessly out-heal boss attacks or being stunlocked, but also the number-crunching of optimal equipment builds – since they’re definitely going to take a few bad hits all the same. Another unfortunate addendum to the bosses is that a couple of them (including the final boss rush) are proceeded by non-combat instant death sequences that mean doing the fight(s) all over again until you get them right.

Another problem is that the limited inventory is often attributed to the influence of survival horror titles, but it just doesn’t fit in an RPG. Resource management in classic survival horror is contingent upon the fear of combat, with backtracking increasing the player’s risk of losing more of those resources. But combat in Parasite Eve, like most JRPGs, is inherently rewarding because it both contributes to your increasing power level and can be used to farm further resources. Backtracking is therefore often beneficial to the player in the long run, and only the endgame boss rush will risk their overall stockpile of health and ammo. Another traditional RPG trope that conflicts with the inventory limit is the late/post-game collectible grind, where players are rewarded for submitting several hundred “junk” items or finding special trading cards.

I can’t say much about the post-game content as I wasn’t interesting in trying it myself. “EXgame” will reset the player’s level but give them thousands of bonus points to spend, plus carry over their main weapon and armour and some of their resources. The attraction of this mode is the Chrysler Building, which is a 70-floor mega-dungeon of randomly generated layouts housing the best loot and most difficult bosses in the game.

Taken as a whole, Parasite Eve is a pretty good package. The plot involves quite an interesting sci-fi premise filtered through the typical JRPG nonsense and gives everyone involved adequate motivation for their actions. There are times when characters are too keen on giving exposition dumps in cutscenes, though this is likely because the story acts as both a sequel to - but also retelling of - the novel, trying to cast the events in New York in the context of “the Tokyo incident”. A lot of money was poured into the numerous pre-rendered cutscenes, from grotesque creature transformations and crowds of people being rendered into primordial ooze, to jet fighters screaming through Times Square. Obviously pre-rendered backgrounds don’t look so hot blown up to widescreen, but retain enough detail to work their magic, whilst the 3d models look fine for the era. What peeves me here is that Aya herself looks halfway between the exaggerated physiognomy of Final Fantasy VII and the more realistic art style of later games. Returning to the positives – the music usually does a good job contributing to the atmosphere of wandering around “dungeons” like eerie, snow-capped Central Park, and the combat tracks are snappy and exciting. Due to its brevity (around 8-10hrs for a first playthrough assuming you explore thoroughly) I can’t say it’s a must-play for JRPG fans, and it doesn’t really have much to offer as a supposed survival horror experience, but if it sounds interesting to you then I can certainly give it a mild recommendation.

Spoiler

 

[Kalin]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Is zomboid finished or the game is still in early access?

10 years+ waiting for the fucking npc implementation

For all you know the NPCs turned into zombies anyway.

 

[Puukko]

Sakura Wars (Saturn)

Spoiler

 

[someone else]

Sakura Wars (Saturn)

Sega Saturn Sakura Wars you say?



Segata Sanshiro!

They have concerts & that is the voice actress.

Spoiler