What game are you wasting time on?

[Dedup]

After many failed attempts, I'm trying to make some progress in Icewind Dale 2. Usually I stop playing because some other game distracts me and by the time I get back to it I feel like starting over, but I just finished the temple in the glacier which is now further than I've played previously.

My party consists of a cleric of Lathander, a barbarian, a monk, a druid, an archery focused rogue with a level of ranger for some dual wielding shenanigans, and a sorcerer. I'm a little disappointed in the monk's combat output so far but otherwise its a solid party.

 

[DeepOcean]

Desu Ex Mankind Divided

Finished Desu Ex Mankind Divided, it was an iterative sequel from Human Revolution, nothing terribly revolutionary, somethings like the level design were improved, others remain the same, I would be okay with it but... You know, do you know the trope of the guy that finaly is about to tell some really important stuff about some nasty corporation and his killswitch is suddenly activated right at that moment and you get to know shit? Frustrating isn't it? Well, Imagine that after alot of bullshit, you finaly managed to find Mankind Divided story and then right at that moment, some evil japanese corporation decided to activate the killswitch and the story died? Well, guess that must be a cyberpunk homage...

Another thing, the premise only makes sense for some french canadian high on marijuana, people that use mechanical arms aren't from another race, they are white people with mechanical arms, black people with mechanical arms, asian people with mechanical arms, you know, placing paraolympic athletes on fascist cyberpunk ghettos because they are supposedly dangerous doesn't make much sense. You know, if some totalitarian state said they were sending me to a gulag because of my augmented legs, next day I would pay for a surgery to remove them, problem solved, I'm not dangerous anymore, it must be cheaper than Michael Jackson paid to change his colour.




Secret World

Now, imagine a game where the gameplay is so atrocious that the developers released a patch making most of it piss easy so you could get over it faster? Yep, it is this game, if someone used a drilling machine on my skull, it would probably more fun than the combat on this game, yet, I still play it, why?

Generaly I hate multiplayer games, WoW like MMOS even more because of their terrible influence on the impressionable minds of poor niche cRPG developers that get really emotional with the amount of money a MMO makes. However, The Secret World is the first and probably the last MMO I will play.

Imagine if you recieved the following quest on a traditional MMO: Please sir, Mr. Hero, our village was attacked by a group of bandits that kidnapped out people and took them to a nearby cave as hostages, please, help us. You know what will happen, you will get there, kill some bandits on a really shitty combat system then click one on each villager then you will go back to the villager that gave you the quest and get a sack of gold, I can't tolerate this shit.

However, imagine that the villager that gave you the quest is actually a sargent of the USA army, division of paranormal and occult and the captured villagers are actually three meter tall sasquatches that are on a war with a race of semi sentient paranormal insects that took advantage of the chaos that is happening with an invasion from Cuthulu followers to claim a portion of their territory and that those insects have an entire reproduction cycle with nests, eggs, young bugs, adults and queens on their territory?

Now imagine that some developer took the effort of creating a whole island with an extensive past that actually have alot to do with what is happening on the game and all the major and sidequests are about this past and how it shaped the present?

This game made for me clear the difference of meaningful lore and throw away lore.

Meaningful lore is lore that makes what is actually happening on the game more meaningful and the story gains strenght from it, throw away lore has the opposite effect, it makes the story weaker. Throw away lore is literaly something that was thrown away, whole conflicts, background, history, setting details, that are crucial for the narrative are handwaved on meaningless blocks of text so developers have the excuse the game has an actual story when it doesn't have one. They can claim: "hey our game has a rich story and a rich world, just go there read those blobs of boring text we made.", this makes the story so weak because most of the background and worldbuilding is disconnected from it. I was dissapointed how this was evident on PoE.

Yep, worldbuilding can save a really shitty game, unfortunately, our hero niche cRPG developers are playing the wrong MMOs and taking the wrong lessons. I hope someone learn this eventually and finaly make a game with good gameplay AND a good story, why God? Why that is so hard? Please tell me.

 

[J_C]

Secret World

Now, imagine a game where the gameplay is so atrocious that the developers released a patch making most of it piss easy so you could get over it faster? Yep, it is this game, if someone used a drilling machine on my skull, it would probably more fun than the combat on this game, yet, I still play it, why?

Generaly I hate multiplayer games, WoW like MMOS even more because of their terrible influence on the impressionable minds of poor niche cRPG developers that get really emotional with the amount of money a MMO makes. However, The Secret World is the first and probably the last MMO I will play.

Imagine if you recieved the following quest on a traditional MMO: Please sir, Mr. Hero, our village was attacked by a group of bandits that kidnapped out people and took them to a nearby cave as hostages, please, help us. You know what will happen, you will get there, kill some bandits on a really shitty combat system then click one on each villager then you will go back to the villager that gave you the quest and get a sack of gold, I can't tolerate this shit.

However, imagine that the villager that gave you the quest is actually a sargent of the USA army, division of paranormal and occult and the captured villagers are actually three meter tall sasquatches that are on a war with a race of semi sentient paranormal insects that took advantage of the chaos that is happening with an invasion from Cuthulu followers to claim a portion of their territory and that those insects have an entire reproduction cycle with nests, eggs, young bugs, adults and queens on their territory?

Now imagine that some developer took the effort of creating a whole island with an extensive past that actually have alot to do with what is happening on the game and all the major and sidequests are about this past and how it shaped the present?

This game made for me clear the difference of meaningful lore and throw away lore.

Meaningful lore is lore that makes what is actually happening on the game more meaningful and the story gains strenght from it, throw away lore has the opposite effect, it makes the story weaker. Throw away lore is literaly something that was thrown away, whole conflicts, background, history, setting details, that are crucial for the narrative are handwaved on meaningless blocks of text so developers have the excuse the game has an actual story when it doesn't have one. They can claim: "hey our game has a rich story and a rich world, just go there read those blobs of boring text we made.", this makes the story so weak because most of the background and worldbuilding is disconnected from it. I was dissapointed how this was evident on PoE.

Yep, worldbuilding can save a really shitty game, unfortunately, our hero niche cRPG developers are playing the wrong MMOs and taking the wrong lessons. I hope someone learn this eventually and finaly make a game with good gameplay AND a good story, why God? Why that is so hard? Please tell me.

THIS! I just love the lore, the world and investigation of TSW. But the gameplay is just the sitty MMO grindfist which I loath. Many people say that if this game were made in a singleplayer cRPG with decent gameplay, it would be one of the best on the market.

 

[Ivan]

Giana Sisters (kickstarted sidescrolling platformer)

Surprisingly great! The level design is mostly challenging without being too unfair (my biggest gripe is that your dash attack seems to connect with enemies 2/3 of the time). Bosses are also a real highlight of the game and make great use of the light world/dark world gimmick. It's rough around the edges, it has a pitifully short soundtrack, but by and large this is a damn good platformer that's worth your time (4-6 hours, including the DLC). Speaking of the DLC, it's the cherry on top. The level design is fresh, challenging, and expands upon the ideas of the OC. The final boss is a more fair fight than that of the OC. Really looking forward to a follow-up.

Spoiler

 

[pippin]

I love the first one too because the amount of comments from Edna regarding wrong solutions is just amazing and Edna is a very cool character.

Yeah, the first one has its moments, and the wrong solution comments are def one of its strengths. But last time I played it (2 years ago?), I got bored somewhere around the middle of the game iirc.

Oh, also, one more positive quality to Harvey's New Eyes - it has deep turn-based tactical combat.

The problem with the first Edna game is the rather primitive presentation. All of the characters, backgrounds and animations were hand made by one guy, Poki. He got a few assistants later but everything is mostly him. Later games got proper teams. The verb-based interface was pretty neat though, there was a point where I felt compelled to use the comic, pen and ketchup on everything just to see what was going to happen.

 

[Dux]

Playing some Might and Magic 2: Gates to Another World. On a SEGA Genesis emulator. I didn't really fancy the GOG version to be honest, mostly because I like to have actual in-game music.

Anyway, it's pretty good so far. A bit esoteric at times but I guess that's just how it was back then. It's been a fairly smooth ride so far. Although, I did once have to flee a battle against a pack of aggressive cripples and senior citizens.

 

[No Great Name]

Playing some Might and Magic 2: Gates to Another World. On a SEGA Genesis emulator. I didn't really fancy the GOG version to be honest, mostly because I like to have actual in-game music.

Anyway, it's pretty good so far. A bit esoteric at times but I guess that's just how it was back then. It's been a fairly smooth ride so far. Although, I did once have to flee a battle against a pack of aggressive cripples and senior citizens.

Better than running into a group of Sludge Beasts who can annihilate your party in one turn in the alley behind the Mage's Guild.

 

[anus_pounder]

Secret World

Now, imagine a game where the gameplay is so atrocious that the developers released a patch making most of it piss easy so you could get over it faster? Yep, it is this game, if someone used a drilling machine on my skull, it would probably more fun than the combat on this game, yet, I still play it, why?

Generaly I hate multiplayer games, WoW like MMOS even more because of their terrible influence on the impressionable minds of poor niche cRPG developers that get really emotional with the amount of money a MMO makes. However, The Secret World is the first and probably the last MMO I will play.

Imagine if you recieved the following quest on a traditional MMO: Please sir, Mr. Hero, our village was attacked by a group of bandits that kidnapped out people and took them to a nearby cave as hostages, please, help us. You know what will happen, you will get there, kill some bandits on a really shitty combat system then click one on each villager then you will go back to the villager that gave you the quest and get a sack of gold, I can't tolerate this shit.

However, imagine that the villager that gave you the quest is actually a sargent of the USA army, division of paranormal and occult and the captured villagers are actually three meter tall sasquatches that are on a war with a race of semi sentient paranormal insects that took advantage of the chaos that is happening with an invasion from Cuthulu followers to claim a portion of their territory and that those insects have an entire reproduction cycle with nests, eggs, young bugs, adults and queens on their territory?

Now imagine that some developer took the effort of creating a whole island with an extensive past that actually have alot to do with what is happening on the game and all the major and sidequests are about this past and how it shaped the present?

This game made for me clear the difference of meaningful lore and throw away lore.

Meaningful lore is lore that makes what is actually happening on the game more meaningful and the story gains strenght from it, throw away lore has the opposite effect, it makes the story weaker. Throw away lore is literaly something that was thrown away, whole conflicts, background, history, setting details, that are crucial for the narrative are handwaved on meaningless blocks of text so developers have the excuse the game has an actual story when it doesn't have one. They can claim: "hey our game has a rich story and a rich world, just go there read those blobs of boring text we made.", this makes the story so weak because most of the background and worldbuilding is disconnected from it. I was dissapointed how this was evident on PoE.

Yep, worldbuilding can save a really shitty game, unfortunately, our hero niche cRPG developers are playing the wrong MMOs and taking the wrong lessons. I hope someone learn this eventually and finaly make a game with good gameplay AND a good story, why God? Why that is so hard? Please tell me.

THIS! I just love the lore, the world and investigation of TSW. But the gameplay is just the sitty MMO grindfist which I loath. Many people say that if this game were made in a singleplayer cRPG with decent gameplay, it would be one of the best on the market.

Absolutely. I want to try out TSW so bad, but fucking MMO. This is the worst shit ever.

 

[DeepOcean]

Man, playing TSW is like having someone kicking your balls on 10 mins intervals, there are sabotage missions where you aren't supposed to fight and use stealth but guess what... the mechanics don't work well half the time and you end dying over and over because this is an MMO and there aren't things like cone of view, alert states, enemies line of sight and basic stealth mechanics.

There are straight combat missions... but do you enjoy hitting 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1, 2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2, 3, 4 ? The number keys from 1 to 5 are risking falling off from my keyboard.

There are investigation missions, those are the best, but the game doesn't have a decent tutorial and I banged my head so hard sometimes because I didn't know some basic functionalities of the game like the commands you can type on the chat for your character to do some emote. The clues sometimes require you to go on google to research some latin or biblical references and the temptation to just read an walkthrough is so great, they should have all the resources needed to complete the investigation missions inside the game, some investigation missions are so crazy hard because the game expect you are playing with friends and have alot of people helping you searching on google and all that shit but finding people willing to play the game together and not skip the story bits is hard.

Maybe when I have decent gear and level up my character more, we could hit some dungeons, the game is an ghost town on some zones, I fear the fime for EAxtermination is comming for this game very soon.

 

[Jasede]

Factorio and Stardew Valley... especially the last one sucks up my time like mad. I looked at it before and thought the graphics look bad but the instant you sta rt it it begins to look great, like brain-issued graphical filters. And the guy is working on a big update too, adding a lot of content.

 

[Ivan]

Odallus: The Dark Call

Pretty much Castlevania 3. Fair enemies, bonus levels that must be found/completed before taking on the final level (which was pretty underwhelming). A solid title. No Volgar, but an admirable effort. Music is nice and the art is well done. Combat was what felt "same old."

(g-image)

 

[Starwars]

I can't stop playing Crusader Kings II. Halp

 

[PeachPlumage]

Fallout: New Vegas (again!)

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Pike & Shot: Campaigns.
I've been playing historical scenarios through on Major General difficulty (Italian wars and From Tercio to Salvo all done), until I came across Battle of Lutter.

Again and again.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Why are the troops carrying those huge blocks of hay?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Why are the troops carrying those huge blocks of hay?

To distract enemy horse.

I just had one of my better attempts; managed to rout 51% imperials before losing.

e. Time to continue my Rage of Mages play through instead.

 

[Carrion]

I installed Dead Space which I got for free years ago but never got around to actually play until now. I've spent about ten minutes with it, and my first impression is that it is quite simply unplayable. It's outright hostile towards a PC control scheme: even with maximum mouse sensitivity you have to drag your mouse halfway across your desk to turn around, there's godawful mouse acceleration, and as if that wasn't enough there's also a very noticeable mouse lag as well as deadzone that is like rubbing salt into your gaping wounds. Why do these things exist? Is there a single person on earth that enjoys this kind of shit or thinks that it actually improves a game? I naturally edited all that shit out immediately via the game files, and now the mouse sensitivity at least approaches tolerable levels (it still feels like crap compared to any true PC game because I don't think you can get rid of the acceleration, lag etc. completely), but only when you're standing still. When you move forward it's like it suddenly becomes impossible to turn your head or something. You start aiming and you have to slowly drag the crosshair across the screen like you were swinging a huge boulder in your hands or something. I guess it's the old horror game trick of making the player feel more helpless by turning the controls into shit, but from what I understand this game is more of a horror shooter than anything else, so it's beyond me why they would do such a thing when this ruins any enjoyment you could possibly get out of the shooting. Oh, you also can't really even properly move diagonally (are they fucking serious?), and your character's back covers one third of the screen, but those are pretty minor issues at this point.

I'm not sure whether I should go for uninstall right away or soldier on hoping that I'll somehow get used to this. From what I understand the game does actually have some good things going for it, but I'm not sure if it's going to be worth all the suffering. It obviously hates me and doesn't want me to play itself.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I installed Dead Space...

I tried playing Dead Space a few years back. Started by redefining the keys. The game wouldn't let me choose a few keys I use normally, and a few others keys the game instantly reverted back to default after I left the Options menu.

I went online to look up a solution: "Oh, you have to edit the config file with a hex editor to get that working."

Uninstall.exe followed immediately afterwards.

 

[Deflowerer]

Use a gamepad ffs.

 

[tormund]

Where is this thing with third person shooters and gamepads coming from anyway?

Unless you are already used to gamepad aiming, and unless you alreay prefer them for one reason or other, they won't make the game play better.
It's no different than it is with FPSs for me, and yet you don't see anyone jumping and claiming how some FPS is automatically better if played with a pad (and with a good reason), and yet every other guy is parroting "play it with da pad" in case of TPSs.

 

[octavius]

Where is this thing with third person shooters and gamepads coming from anyway?

Halo?
Delenda est X-Box.

 

[adddeed]

I installed Dead Space which I got for free years ago but never got around to actually play until now. I've spent about ten minutes with it, and my first impression is that it is quite simply unplayable. It's outright hostile towards a PC control scheme: even with maximum mouse sensitivity you have to drag your mouse halfway across your desk to turn around, there's godawful mouse acceleration, and as if that wasn't enough there's also a very noticeable mouse lag as well as deadzone that is like rubbing salt into your gaping wounds. Why do these things exist? Is there a single person on earth that enjoys this kind of shit or thinks that it actually improves a game? I naturally edited all that shit out immediately via the game files, and now the mouse sensitivity at least approaches tolerable levels (it still feels like crap compared to any true PC game because I don't think you can get rid of the acceleration, lag etc. completely), but only when you're standing still. When you move forward it's like it suddenly becomes impossible to turn your head or something. You start aiming and you have to slowly drag the crosshair across the screen like you were swinging a huge boulder in your hands or something. I guess it's the old horror game trick of making the player feel more helpless by turning the controls into shit, but from what I understand this game is more of a horror shooter than anything else, so it's beyond me why they would do such a thing when this ruins any enjoyment you could possibly get out of the shooting. Oh, you also can't really even properly move diagonally (are they fucking serious?), and your character's back covers one third of the screen, but those are pretty minor issues at this point.

I'm not sure whether I should go for uninstall right away or soldier on hoping that I'll somehow get used to this. From what I understand the game does actually have some good things going for it, but I'm not sure if it's going to be worth all the suffering. It obviously hates me and doesn't want me to play itself.

Yes how about have some patience and "soldier" through. What a crybaby. Played the game twice no issues. Not every game plays and controls identically. And yes the game is damn good fun.

 

[Deflowerer]

Where is this thing with third person shooters and gamepads coming from anyway?

Unless you are already used to gamepad aiming, and unless you alreay prefer them for one reason or other, they won't make the game play better.
It's no different than it is with FPSs for me, and yet you don't see anyone jumping and claiming how some FPS is automatically better if played with a pad (and with a good reason), and yet every other guy is parroting "play it with da pad" in case of TPSs.

Because your whole complaining of how the mouse acceleration feels so slow is because the game is better suited for analog sticks, although the slow ass controls and character's slow ass movements in this case are intentionally designed.

 

[Carrion]

It's a game where you can't even walk and turn at the same time. If you want to go around a corner, you need to stop, turn your character ninety degrees and then start walking again. It's absolutely ridiculous, and you are possibly retarded if you think this kind of shit is acceptable in a PC game.

There's also no way I'm going to use a gamepad to play anything that involves shooting things, even though I do have one plugged in right now. As far as the controls go, there's only one worse PC port in recent history that comes to mind, and that is Dark Souls, but in that game's case even the developers admitted that they didn't give a shit about turning it into an actual PC game.

Because your whole complaining of how the mouse acceleration feels so slow is because the game is better suited for analog sticks, although the slow ass controls and character's slow ass movements in this case are intentionally designed.

The control scheme is the same as in every third-person shooter ever, and it should be perfectly suited for WASD and mouse. After all, it is presented as the default control scheme in the game, and dozens of mulitplatform games have done similar stuff while working decently with mouse and keyboard. From what I've seen so far, there's absolutely nothing about the controls that should require a gamepad or analog sticks.

I'm not sure what the controls being slow and unresponsive is supposed to achieve. Adding a sense of vulnerability? Making the game actually challenging? I'm playing on the hardest difficulty setting available at the start, and every enemy has been a complete pushover so far. There has been absolutely no horror so far, and the only tension comes from battling the godawful mouse sensitivity rather than the actual enemies. It's clearly more of a shooter than a horror game anyway, so why does it insist on having absolutely terrible shooting? The fact that the game handles like shit is also severely breaking muh immersion, because it takes your attention away from everything else. If the game's challenge lies in the fact that you can't have proper control over your character's action, it is an absolutely worthless shit game that should've been aborted right after conception.

Mostly I'm pissed off because it's a game that obviously has decent elements in place and which I'd like to enjoy, but the game doesn't let me.

 

[sullynathan]

Where is this thing with third person shooters and gamepads coming from anyway?

Unless you are already used to gamepad aiming, and unless you alreay prefer them for one reason or other, they won't make the game play better.
It's no different than it is with FPSs for me, and yet you don't see anyone jumping and claiming how some FPS is automatically better if played with a pad (and with a good reason), and yet every other guy is parroting "play it with da pad" in case of TPSs.

generally speaking, tps play well with controllers.