What game are you wasting time on?

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Finished Final Fantasy IX. Like I said, it was my first FF game ever.

If you enjoyed FFIX, you'll also enjoy FFIV and FFVI on the SNES (originally called 2 and 3 outside Japan). FFIX intentionally harked back to those earlier games. Nobuo Uematsu composed a good soundtrack for IX, but he did even better in IV and especially VI.

 

[octavius]

I'm stuck on the second map - Into the City - of Episode 4 of The Gate, a TC for Duke Nukem 3D. I don't suppose anyone know where I can find the Red Keycard?

Anyways, a very slick and professional looking TC, with very detailed maps, and new and deadly enemies (reminds me a bit of the Ninjas in Half-Life, but they come in different variants, with different weapons). Combat wise it's not very hard, but some of the keys can be rather tricky to find, and there's rather a lot of damage to be taken from the elements. So it's definitely harder than the original or the first official add-ons.

 

[Durandal]

Just finished my second playthrough of SS2 as an OSA character
just how OP and fast can one be

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Since I got it for free, I figured I'd give Hell Yeah! a try. This is a European-made Metroidvania 2D platformer where you're the Rabbit Prince of Hell and are tasking with finding and killing 100 monsters...because they saw pics of you taking a bath with a rubber duckie.

This is a strange game. On one hand a LOT of work has been put into it, it has OK-ish writing and it looks gorgeous.

On the other hand it has a LONG list of sins that drag the game all the way down to hell.

# Unskippable intro videos.
# Unskippable cutscenes, like when someone's talking...and there's a LOT OF TALKING going on. Also each and every one of those 100 monsters has a death cutscene, and none of those are skippable.
# Enemies that respawn by merely walking far enough away from them.
# Twitchy controls if using the keyboard.
# Unbalanced weapons. IIRC there are about a dozen of them, but the flamethrower WTFPWNS everything in the game, especially the boss monsters.
# The game sports a somewhat edgy/sassy attitude towards the player, giving strong indication that it's target demographic are teenage console peasants.
# The game cheats as enemies can aim and fire at you from several screen lengths away, yet your guns mysteriously can't hit anything that's outside of view.
# QTE's by the truckload (one for each of the 100 monsters).
# If the above isn't bad enough, pointless QTE's. How can pushing one button with no time limit count as a QTE?
# It has a checkpoint system, but it doesn't show you where the checkpoints are. Watching for the save icon is your only indicator.
# Pointless novelty additions. Over 120 hats to wear, and about 30 skins for your 'vehicle'.
# Every new hat/skin acquired is automatically applied, thereby completely ignoring the player's wishes.
# Pointless additions via DLCs. Why have a 'freemium'-esque 'out-of-game' resource management game (the kind that's supposed to require constant player management) when the main game can be completed in 7 hours?
# While most monsters have to be killed the old-fashioned way (shooting them) some of them need to be killed by other means...usually by dropping stuff on them. There are a couple of monsters though, that need to be killed in the most bizarre way. One needs that you acquire and wear a specific hat, another is completely out of reach and the game's only clue is "help him see the big picture". How to kill him? You press the "ZOOM OUT" button while the monster is on-screen. This is Adventure Game-level of puzzle-solving in a game that both doesn't cater to it, and gives no indications that suddenly you need to think outside of the box.

In short, this is a game that's done by the Book. And the book in question is "How to make the most generic, bland, banal shit boring game ever."

This game is down there with UnEpic as "brilliant idea and premise, utterly horrible execution". UnEpic's problem was that it was made by one guy. Hell Yeah!'s credits list hundreds of people involved - and it makes me cringe that their collective output resulted in this.

 

[octavius]

I'm stuck on the second map - Into the City - of Episode 4 of The Gate, a TC for Duke Nukem 3D. I don't suppose anyone know where I can find the Red Keycard?

Found it at last, behind a crack that was barely visible in the dim light.
But now I'm stuck on the penultimate level, and it looks like I will not be able to compleye this excellent TC.

 

[octavius]

Tried Redneck Rampage, but I just can't work up any enthusiasm for it.
Enemies are hitscanners (except the mosquitos), but unlike Outlaws there doesn't seem to be any tactics to use and the enemies require several shots to kill.
The humour is not my kind of thing either.
And having played Duke Nukem 3D with the eDuke port, the vanilla Build experience of RR is rough.
So I think I'll pass on this game.

 

[Kalin]

 

[Baron Dupek]

Finished act1 in Neverwinter Night 2. For the right buttcheek of Tyr, I have no issues with camera. I tried messing with it, but no problems happened.

AI on the other hand....that's something hosed up. There is "Behavior" tab in character screen but that's not enough. See - whenever (any) character move, which happen a lot in combat duh, while you switch to other member or cast spell - everyone gather around selected character. Every. Fucking.Time.
I like attempts to grey out cliche characters but nothing fancy or ultra deep, but props for attempt.
Patchfinding is bad. Walking through the doors is bigger challenge than fighting demons with bare hands.
Not much side quests. IIRC same thing with NWN1.

PS. Lord Nasher is white nigga, hosing white Luskan's bitch.

 

[Durandal]

Finished the Marathon Phoenix scenario.

I love it, the new weapon arsenal has been carefully designed around each situation and the weapon balance is much better than in the original trilogy, although this highlights a fatal flaw in Aleph One: weapons are not bound to individual keys.
For some reason the Aleph One developers still haven't implemented this, instead forcing you to use Weapon_Next/Weapon_Prev buttons until you equip your desired weapon. This often leads to situations where you want to pull out your crossbow/fusion mortar/fusion cannon/whatever, except you don't know how many mousewheel turns away your desired weapon is, which causes alot of dead time where you could have been shooting the Pfhor, but instead you are still fumbling about your inventory.
On the other hand, compared to most Marathon levels, in Phoenix they are more action-oriented, throwing loads of enemies at you which are always fun to massacre. Some attempt has been made to actually differentiate AI behavior between ranks, which also makes enemy ranks feel different. There's a whole lot less underwater exploration/switchhunting bullshit involved in Phoenix. I rarely ever got lost in Doom thanks to its simple colored keycard structure and flat level design, while in the Marathon Trilogy the larger focus on vertical level design, abstract enviroments, non-standard objectives, slow underwater exploration, and confusing layered automaps could make following the level designer's intended route somewhat difficult. This is less so the case in Phoenix, thankfully. Each level stands out well on its own.
The story in Phoenix is alright, but nothing really special compared to the trilogy. I think Phoenix reaches Marathon's fullest potential when it comes to combat. I'd recommend it to anyone who played Marathon.

 

[tormund]

Aleph One has some p bizarre flaws that still haven't been fixed and probably never will be. Fact that you still can't bound weapon selections to individual keys is just one of them, for example when playing you still cannot go to menu without having to end your current game.
It's just so unwieldy and lacking compared to the likes of Zdoom and eDuke based ports, and that is real shame...

 

[Scruffy]

Heroes of the Storm and Lord of the Rings Online. I'm enjoying both.

 

[Durandal]

Also finished Binary Domain today
It is still a popamole at its core, but it has enough underlying details as expected from the Yakuza Team that it stands out from other generic third person shooters
the story is a whole lot more interesting, and the game really makes you bond with your squaddies
your squad also reacts to your actions, play like shit and everybody will look down on you, become popamole god and everyone will suck your dick
funnily enough, you are nicknamed the Survivor, so if you play like shit everyone assumes you survive, but play good and everyone assumes its because of your skill
also agreeing like a bitch will make your squaddies like you more, and not shooting them also helps. if they like you more, they become better in combat, although I didn't really notice the difference
since most enemies are robots, it is really awesome how they react to being damaged. shoot a leg and they will crawlmaul you, shoot their head and they can't IFF, shoot their arms and they will use the other, it's like Soldier of Fortune gore for robots
the weapon arsenal is really standard, you mostly use one gun with a shock stun attachment, which you can upgrade amongst the weapons of your other teammates
it suffers from alot of linear setpieces though, but the boss battles are alright. It's fun seeing how they keep coming back

 

[Jaesun]

Talisman: The Horus Heresy was released today, I probably won't leave my house for weeks...

 

[sser]

Just finished Blackguards, which I really enjoyed. Thing is though, I didn't actually kill Urias and the ending loaded up anyway. That shit is unheard of.

Not really unheard of. People were talking about it after the game came out.

 

[Abu Antar]

Playing the Dungeon Siege 3 expansion. The last time I played this game was in 2011. It feels like it is better than the main game.

I am also playing The Legend of Legacy in 3DS. It's very apparent that the game didn't have the biggest budget, but they did good, imo. Gaining new skills/stat boosts is addicting. The story is barely there, but I don't mind. I treat it as a SaGa dungeon crawler, even if you are spending most of your time in outside areas.

 

[Mustawd]

If you have the expansion pack, you're in for a rude awakening.

Err...that a good or bad thing?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I quite literally strolled through the first 3 acts of the game without any effort, then I reached the endboss and got slammed hard. Turns out the devs responsed to player feedback that the endboss was too easy, so they ramped up his difficulty for the expansion.

The expansion pack, which comprises the entire fourth act, then continues that ramped-up difficulty.

 

[Mustawd]

Interesting. Yeah, strolling is my experience so far in the vanilla campaign.

 

[pippin]

Went back to Doom games... and pretty much confirmed my opinions. 1 is perfect from beginning to end, the 4th chapter starts as shit but the second half has decent levels, and got bored halfway into Doom 2. The level design is just not as good or memorable as it was in the first game, and sometimes fighting against dozens of barons of hell or those new enemies they introduced for the game didin't had me thinking "hell yeah", it just makes me raise an eyebrow instead. Overall I think it feels more like an expansion pack for Doom rather than a proper sequel. In my opinion, they should have left the game as it was and focus on different games with different settings, or probably a spinoff, like the Heretic/Hexen combo.

Also replaying Wolf 3d now, last time I did was decades ago and never to completion. The gameplay is excellent. People complain about lack of minimap+key hunting, but that's what makes the game enjoyable for me. Hitscanning enemies are a bummer, although it gets pretty hardcore when one shot can drain 50% of your life.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The only reason I still play Doom nowadays is because of mods. First it was the Aeons of Death mod, and now it's Brutal Doom.

I can understand that someone would get bored or feel burned out after having played 4 Episodes of Doom 1 and then have a go at a 32-level monster campaign like Doom 2. To be honest, I haven't touched Doom 1 since the mid-1990s, and that was just to play through the fourth episode - which I ended up not liking. 3 episodes is enough, but those are 3 episodes of sweet levels. Doom 2's main campaign has too many sub-par levels.

If you still have a hankering for Doom, try the Final Doom WADS (I'm currently slogging through The Plutonia Experiment) or the 2012 "No Rest for the Living" mini-wad.

 

[Gregz]

Talisman, Underrail and Path of Exile. Good games, but a bit bored with them now, need a new drug game.

 

[kazgar]

I'm playing the dig, never got around to it when it came out, having a grand time of it all in all. Looks and sounds great.

 

[kwanzabot]

Finished Sacred 2. Found that addon (Ice&Blood) is just 3 new islands so I dropped it. With Community Patch v0150.

There was nice feature in S1, where lower level enemies did not attacked you until you bumped character into them. But in S2? It's hard to notice thanks to lvl scaling.
Didn't do much side quests (same case like S1) because I had no patience for this and drop the game whenever I try to do more than few, so did maybe 3-4?
Twist - the more side quests you do, the better prices you get in the city and better loot drop from elite enemies wandering nearby. What is this I don't even.

Quest markers are borked. Got scroll from the cave, teleported to the nearby city, only to find out that I need to exit from the cave on foot to update quest marker. Bullshit design.
And you feel that game is intended for multiplayer you feel like game is playing with 200+ping. Can't explain it better.

Camera is bad, worse than the one from NWN2.
Even worse when you fight with a boss. Camera focus on the (huge) bosses, while your character run somewhere on the edge of the screen.
Oh, and sometimes it start shaking for no reason. Happened 3 times in playthrough. Height problem?

Next title - Loki. Looks good on paper, played 1st chapter. They lied about full playthrough, where you need to play either all 4 characters or all difficulty settings to see full story.
On the bright side - there is no level scalling. Enemies respawn when you want to.
You start from original location of the characters, then choose one of the 3 others+last dark land.
Just don't choose Aztek themed chapter next, jaguars (400hp+strong melee) will slaughter low level characters.

*Edit - interesting rant from fag who played the game more than I did:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197997400818/recommended/200510/

Played it for few hours.
Totally agree. *click, click* uninstalled. I don't like when things are out of my control (exception - Dominion games).

wow great post man i'm sure everyone is interested in your blog about sacred 2, i know i personally read the first 2 words then stopped but im sure the rest was really interesting

 

[Jaesun]

I'm playing the dig, never got around to it when it came out, having a grand time of it all in all. Looks and sounds great.

Have fun with the Bone Puzzle.....

 

[kazgar]

I'm playing the dig, never got around to it when it came out, having a grand time of it all in all. Looks and sounds great.

Have fun with the Bone Puzzle.....

Been there, done that, raged already.

Probably ponder it some more in adventure forum when i'm done, a few puzzles seemed obtuse, but i'm a bit out of practice.