What game are you wasting time on?

[Gurkog]

Fired up King's bounty: the legend and Armored Princess. Thank goodness I panhandled them from the beggar thread because I forgot how much fun these games are. Enjoying them a lot. perhaps I just love simple strategy games.

 

[Minttunator]

The King's Bounty games are great! The Legend is one of my most played games on Steam.

 

[octavius]

Just finished Duke Nukem 3D.
Damned, what a fine piece of FPS! Why the hell don't they make games like this anymore?

Playing games chronologically, I think it is in most ways an incline compared to Doom 1+2, Heretic and Hexen.
Better level design. More realistic settings and layout, good use of the Z axis, open ended, ventilation shafts, underwater levels.
Better weapons. Shrinking and freezing weapons for some significant shrinkage, RPGs, trip mines and grenades makes for a wider variety of tactics.
Physics; you can actually blow up things other than enemies, and use it tactically.
On the downside the monsters are somewhat less distinct than those in Doom, and the AI is more variable in quality. Monsters will try to shoot through doors. They will also try to shoot through each other, but there are no in-fighting rules.

Overall a great game; only thing that annoyed me was monsters spawning behind my back. Doom did traps better, without resorting to such cheap tricks. I don't mind some respawning, but not if it's literally right out of thin air.

There were some shades of Half-Life and Deus Ex.
Especially Half-Life must have been inspired by DN3D; from the ventilation shafts, many of the weapons to the "trains".

Too bad GOG doesn't sell any of the expansion packs. They don't seem to be to hard to find other places, though.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

That's because the Duke3D expansion packs aren't worth bothering with.

Play Blood next, tell us what you think of that.

 

[octavius]

That's because the Duke3D expansion packs aren't worth bothering with.

Really? I thought Life's a Beach and Duke It Out In D.C were considered good. Also, the reason GOG don't sell them is because they were not released by Apogee, but by a 3rd party that is long defunct.

Play Blood next, tell us what you think of that.

Blood is on my 1997 play list, so that will take a while. And before that there are games like Strife, Quake, Redneck Rampage and Shadow Warrior to play first, of which I've only played the shareware version of Quake.
Seems I missed most of the FPS'es between Doom 2 and Unreal...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I own Duke It Out in DC (box and all). I remember at least 2 locations where you could look into an "out of bounds" area (that ghost-trailing effect you get when you noclip in many FPS games) from witin the game map itself. Getting too close to one of these areas made my game crash every time. Add in the fact that it adds nothing "new" to the game except sub-par maps, I can safely say that you can skip on that one without worry.

I tried Nuclear Winter once, it has re-skinned enemies and recycles official Duke3D maps. No new content spotted. Didn't see a reason to play it any further.

And since all of these expansion packs were developed/published by the same company, I think it's safe to say that the same level of quality is present in all of them.

I played all the games you mentioned back in the day, you're in for fun times. Except maybe with Redneck Rampage, the gameplay in that one runs out REAL FAST for my tastes. And Strife may break your balls, I recall it being the toughest FPS I had played at the time.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Blood is on my 1997 play list, so that will take a while. And before that there are games like Strife, Quake, Redneck Rampage and Shadow Warrior to play first, of which I've only played the shareware version of Quake.
Seems I missed most of the FPS'es between Doom 2 and Unreal...

Have you played dark forces? It´s a star wars shooter that doesn´t rely on light sabers. It was one of the first FPS with the possibility to look up, down, jump, crouch, etc. It had some 3d models in it and it´s quite good, but it doesn´t have quicksaves. Lucas arts made a second game with the engine, outlaws, that has some improvements. Being lucasarts games, they´re not bloody like the doom clones of that time, but anyway they should be on this play list of yours.

 

[octavius]

Blood is on my 1997 play list, so that will take a while. And before that there are games like Strife, Quake, Redneck Rampage and Shadow Warrior to play first, of which I've only played the shareware version of Quake.
Seems I missed most of the FPS'es between Doom 2 and Unreal...

Have you played dark forces? It´s a star wars shooter that doesn´t rely on light sabers. It was one of the first FPS with the possibility to look up, down, jump, crouch, etc. It had some 3d models in it and it´s quite good, but it doesn´t have quicksaves. Lucas arts made a second game with the engine, outlaws, that has some improvements. Being lucasarts games, they´re not bloody like the doom clones of that time, but anyway they should be on this play list of yours.

Yeah, I was supposed to play it last year, but I'm waiting for a remake to hopefully be completed soon. The entry for Star Wars: Dark Forces on my play list hopefully says: "Wait for XL Engine version".
Sometimes it really pays off to wait for a remake, like the Ultima 6 Project, but sometimes I'm not so sure (Realms of Arkania 1).
Outlaws is on the list too.

 

[panzertoter]

XL engine for Dark Forces is working great right now.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Playing E.Y.E. again for some reason. Just as delightfully insane as I remember. For some reason, this time through, I can't stop laughing like an idiot at how stupidly oversized the areas are. I just spent ten minutes crawling through a single vent for absolutely no reason at all.

 

[octavius]

XL engine for Dark Forces is working great right now.

I think I'll wait at least until it's out of Alpha.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Jagged Alliance: BiAtch
It's same case like Fallout 3 - based on original (not for mindless ppl) and turned into popamole abomination that you could enjoy when you found one thing, that make some enjoyment. And stop thinking too much, only to operate controls and aiming. In F3 it was exploration*. in BiAtch (for me) was light tactical combat for not so tactical geniuses.
But also very faithful to the original. In both titles enemy soldiers got ridicilous range when wielded pistols or smg, in BiAtch they constantly harras my Raven (sniper) from long range when even portable cannon like M82a1 Barret fail in hands of 95+ accuracy mercenary.
Enemies are basicaly cheaters from multiplayer - godlike aim and no brain for any tactical approach to player.
*based on forum opinions from (not so) hardcore players.

Also - my first time with Spiderweb game - it's Avernum: Escape from the Pit. Why? Two things - I heard that there was some kind of treasures and secrets to find (and I like exploring but not from TES series) and it was my another bundle deal. So maybe it was time to stop collecting and actually start it.

And still got no will to back to the Thief 2, friggin' Dead City overpopulated with Bike Mechanics...

 

[Blonsky]

Just finished Prey. I expected something like Doom3 but it dosen't have the same atmosphere. Doom3 was more about the dark and fright and Prey is more about "puzzles".
The puzzles are just using the right ability at the right time to get through the level, abilities like portals(find/activate a portal to another place), gravity manipulation(hit a device on the wall to start walking on it), spirit walk (walk through force fields or activate switches that are not acesible otherways) and flying in a small craft through coridors and tight places. This puzzles are prety easy, but there is alot of them, and on some levels i spent more time doing puzzles then fighting enemies.
The game has boring and broken weapons (no reload and needs to cool off if used to much) and very little diversity between enemies. The story is a more/less standard alien invasion with some native american elements in it. Also the game has one really weird boss/girlfrend fight.
The puzzles are really fun but because of crapy combat i will never play it for the second time.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I breezed through Prey in about six hours the first (and only) time I played it, though I had played the demo beforehand. It's one of the best examples of "loaded demos" in the industry I've seen, all the cool and interesting stuff can be seen in the part of the game that's included in the demo, the rest of the game is virtually all needless filler. They don't even bother explaining what's going on with the ghost kids.

Speaking of the Doom 3 engine, the local GameStop had a sale on PC games recently. All 6 titles, that is. One of them is the retail version of Doom 3 (BFG Edition) and even at the low price they were asking I wouldn't touch it. In fact, all the retail PC games they were selling needed Steam to activate. Which kinda defeats the point of the retail copy in the first place, if you ask me.

 

[AlexOfSpades]

Decided to revisit an old gift from a friend recently: Hotline Miami.

Yesterday i was having a very bad day, so i got some beers and decided to fight my way through to the ending of this game, or at least to the end of what seemed to be the first campaign. I was hooked until that Biker fight, that was extremely stressful. And it kept up - eventually, during that stage where SWAT breaks in, i wasnt just "mad". I felt nothing else but hate - i wasnt me, anymore. I had nothing - the world didnt exist. It was just... pure, concentrated hate, like a reverse-nirvana. I had to get to the end, i had to get my answers. During the last showdown, i was just a machine repeating the fight over and over, every time improving, until i won. And it felt so good. I'm now listening to the soundtrack, amazed at how great this whole experience was. So simple and yet so adrenalin-fueled.

 

[Darth Roxor]

About to finish NOLF2, and here's a question:

Is Contract J.A.C.K. as bad as everyone says?

 

[Crane]

Replaying DreamWeb.

What the hell is the point of this menu screen in the kitchen?

 

[J_C]

Still playing Deus Ex 1. A good game overall, although Human Revolution does a better job at using the augmentations. In DX1, they appear almost useless, since I'm playing at a stealth character. Basicly I'm playing it like thief.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

About to finish NOLF2, and here's a question:

Is Contract J.A.C.K. as bad as everyone says?

It's just a cash-grab with a mute guy. No interesting plot, killing rooms and moving forward to ending which shits on player. Avoid it.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

-Risk of Rain (unlocked the Engineer, Enforcer and Acrid, still trying to get past a third level)

-The Faerun mod for Gods and Kings (got Civ V Gold for dirt cheap on Amazon along with Xcom and Civ IV)

-Fallout: New Vegas (technomancy through Robco Certified and the Mr. House route, bitch)

-Grand Theft Auto V (Franklin just got himself a pimpin' new house in the hills. But Trevor killed Johnny the Jew. Boooo-urns!)

 

[Gregz]

Still playing Deus Ex 1. A good game overall, although Human Revolution does a better job

 

[bertram_tung]

alpha protocol. with some control tweaks and some graphical tweaks through the .ini i'm enjoying it so far. still in saudi arabia though.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

with some control tweaks and some graphical tweaks through the .ini

Please share.

 

[sea]

Still playing Deus Ex 1. A good game overall, although Human Revolution does a better job at using the augmentations. In DX1, they appear almost useless, since I'm playing at a stealth character. Basicly I'm playing it like thief.

You get silent running, high jumping, extra speed, lifting heavy objects, aqualung, radiation resistance, etc. All of those are useful for a stealthy character because stealthy characters rely on navigating (and creating) alternate paths through the environments. The augmentations are basically generic tools you can use creatively (but are rarely required, at least early in the game). This is unlike Human Revolution where stealth largely consists of picking the "cloaking" augmentation and running past all the enemies and following the obvious vent-pathways.

 

[Ninjerk]

The speed/jump augmentation was pretty badass. For the mission where you align the dish I avoided fighting the whole building by putting in the code and jumping off the roof all the way down to the area where the dogs are (3 stories)?