What game are you wasting time on?

[Durandal]

Just FYI, completionism got the better of me and I finished it in one sitting today. Opinion largely unchanged. I do wonder if there's a mod to change camera to top-down. A lot of my problems with it came down to the perspective making it hard to gauge distances, projectile size, and impossible to see anything when moving north-south.

With the exception of some phases like the final phases of The Line and The Song where the camera zooms out and the transparent bullets of The Star, the camera perspective is rarely a hindrance. There's no real need to gauge projectile sizes since you can cancel most projectiles, esp. with a charged shot. Melee attacks for bosses are pretty much homing attacks unless you're way out of range, but the best way to deal with them is to parry anyways. The third and fourth attack of your melee combo will always pull you towards the boss if the boss's close, whereas pulling off a succesful combo is as simple as 'get close and mash X'.

The camera is only problematic when playing with M&K, which you shouldn't be using anyways. The camera is the least of the game's problems.

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[Cowboy Moment]

Just FYI, completionism got the better of me and I finished it in one sitting today. Opinion largely unchanged. I do wonder if there's a mod to change camera to top-down. A lot of my problems with it came down to the perspective making it hard to gauge distances, projectile size, and impossible to see anything when moving north-south.

With the exception of some phases like the final phases of The Line and The Song where the camera zooms out and the transparent bullets of The Star, the camera perspective is rarely a hindrance. There's no real need to gauge projectile sizes since you can cancel most projectiles, esp. with a charged shot. Melee attacks for bosses are pretty much homing attacks unless you're way out of range, but the best way to deal with them is to parry anyways. The third and fourth attack of your melee combo will always pull you towards the boss if the boss's close, whereas pulling off a succesful combo is as simple as 'get close and mash X'.

The camera is only problematic when playing with M&K, which you shouldn't be using anyways. The camera is the least of the game's problems.

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The thing is, why? The game is fundamentally 2D, nothing is lost mechanically from just making it top-down, and a lot is gained. I suspect the reason is that it looks cooler this way, and the developers valued cool visuals and music over gameplay precision. I mean, I can understand camera problems in something like Ninja Gaiden, where good placement and perspective are often not obvious, but in a fucking twin-stick shooter? It matters everywhere where the game expects you to do somewhat precise dashes, which is what the bulk of the real difficulty consists of.

I'm not talking about the melee minigame, where it doesn't matter much, and you don't even need to (and often shouldn't) look at the enemy model, just follow the flashes.

 

[Durandal]

I'd rather attest the difficulty for the precise dashing to the controles and the on-release activation of dashing. It's always made clearly obvious in which direction you're supposed to dash, but because of the controls its easy to mess up.

The game's visuals are built around the isometric perspective. Stuff like rising pillars and other arena obstructions would be hard to get across to the player if you use a top-down perspective. Even though jumping isn't a thing, that doesn't mean Furi doesn't rely on height to get some information across. The animations would lack their punch in a top-down perspective, and your avatar would look like a mess of white hair because of the player model's design.

Besides, other games with a lot of bullets to dodge like Under Defeat, Nex Machina, Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours and (I guess) Assault Android Cactus employ skewed camera perspectives and aren't any worse off because of it, it's not like those games are about micrododging. A top-down Furi would just look wimpy.

I'm telling you, had the game been top-down, you'd be complaining about the controls instead since that's where the real problems lie. Maybe its lacklustre presentation too.

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[Abu Antar]

Started Arc the Lad II. I played the first game a few years ago and liked it a lot. I found AtLII for cheap and decided to put everything else (on console) on hold for the time being. I "Converted" my save from the first game, basically importing stuff from the first game. I read up on this and it seems that I missed some stuff before beating it, but I can't be arsed to go back and do that stuff.

So far, Arc the Lad II has been a lot of fun. It's not the most complex tactical game out there, but I do like the ability to explore in a game that plays like an srpg. It's fun to level up your characters. They can use different weapons, yet I have mostly used one weapon type for all characters. Seeing the characters from the first games was also a nostalgic trip. I thought I wouldn't remember them, but I do. The music is sublime. I have loved every tune so far. The mood is overall great. I also like the world with modern day tech but mixed with sci-fi and magic.

I wish there were more games that played like this.

 

[sullynathan]

WORST FUCKING BOSS EVER. I can't say how annoyed and pissed that I wasted time fighting this shitty boss in Onimusha 3.

This time travel shit is retarded too. How the hell can you fight a boss that was killed in 1490s and he wakes up in 2004 after he was killed? How the hell is our main character on an island in 2004 that was blown up in the 1490s?

 

[deuxhero]

Played New Vegas mod Coito Ergo Sum.

Start with trying to find a plausible solution (not necessarily the right anwser) to a prewar murder. Take trips into VR simulations and have conversations about economic theory with tribals. The dialog for existing NPCs is obviously reused/spliced making for ackward dialog (not much of a way around that though), but most (a few of the most minor ones have poor acting and not as good scripts, but they're very minor) of the new NPCs have pretty good VA and writing, certainly better than most of what Bethesda put out. Not just "good for a porn mod", but genuinely good and worth a play if you aren't a puritan.

Only real negative is that while there are some choices and consequences, all but one (select one option for resolving a quest cuts you out of a large chunk of content latter.) are pretty basic and all related to the business running part that's on auto-pilot once you get it working. Also not compatible with Freeside Open (which every other mod that touches Freeside has a patch because almost everyone runs Freeside Open) but all you need to do to get around that is some basic console.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS PLAYING RETURN TO WOLFENSTREIN MORE FUN THAN I RMEMBERED

JUST FINISHED WING COMMANDER

 

[Abu Antar]

More Arc the Lad II and The Witcher 3. There are many great things about TW3, but it has some issues that I also had with the second game in the series. Then it adds a couple of new ones. I like the open world, but it's a shame that they seemingly applied the Ubisoft formula to locations on the map. Still find exploring fun and there are many fun quests.

 

[Hellion]

Started a new Civ VI game as Saladin (Arabs), named my Religion "Catholicism" and am working towards a religious victory. Oddly satisfying. Deus Akbar.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Playing Storm of Zehir again, only mucking about a lot more this time. Holy shit I skipped a lot of stuff the first time.

And done, solo barbarian managed to purge the crap outta yuan-ti.
Should have had some consumables but eh, killing Zehir and then dying when the rage subsides is an ok way to go.

It's not like I have anything left in the game to use the end-game loot on either.

 

[Jarmaro]

solo barbarian

Are there games in which you don't role-play barbarian? Are you barbarian IRL?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Are there games in which you don't role-play barbarian?

Why would anyone want to do that?

 

[Wulfstand]

I've just now started getting into the Thief series. Playing Thief Gold at the moment, I'm really enjoying myself.

Despite only playing with a simple widescreen patch, the game is really engrossing. I don't feel like that many games nowadays have such memorable soundtracks any more, and it's a real shame, because the first Thief's soundtrack makes me look over its low poly count and still feel like I'm in the game.

 

[Hellion]

Thief and Thief II might have the greatest implementations of sound/music in games, ever. From the almost silent ambient music that plays by default while you're sneaking around (which results in all the environmental noises standing out more, so you can feel when you are being noisy and thus in danger of being discovered), to the slightly more fast-paced (but not inappropriate or out of place) track that starts when you are discovered or when an alarm rings, it really feels like music is an organic part of the experience and not just filler material that exists because "you gotta have music".

 

[sullynathan]

Thief and Thief II might have the greatest implementations of sound/music in games, ever. From the almost silent ambient music that plays by default while you're sneaking around (which results in all the environmental noises standing out more, so you can feel when you are being noisy and thus in danger of being discovered), to the slightly more fast-paced (but not inappropriate or out of place) track that starts when you are discovered or when an alarm rings, it really feels like music is an organic part of the experience and not just filler material that exists because "you gotta have music".

yea, Splinter Cell does this too with a better soundtrack

 

[flyingjohn]

Fuck dying light and it's piece of shit parkour system.

Got to the end of the first parkour challenge and died because my character refused to grab a fucking ledge not even a meter in front of him.
So you want to make a parkour game,well here are some hand tips from dying light:
-Try to mix mirrors edge,assassin creed style platforming,regardless if it makes sense.
-When repeating multiple same jumps always have different results even if the moment and the action was identical.
-Have specific objects bounce the player in the wrong direction and make it so it is impossible to dodge.
Here is a handy scenario:There is something on the other side you can't reach.Have a small sand bag near it so you can jump off it.The moment the players runs on the sandbox make him bounce a little to fuck him up.The player get's lucky and hopes the grab button will grab the ledge or he will fall to his doom.
-Make the climbing animation extra slow
-make the grab button able to clip through walls and make it able to grab objects far way.
-make the grab button have a chance to completely fail to gran anything because fuck you
-if the players wants to climb quicker make him bash the button before jumping instead of precision timing
-and the most important thing make a rpg system so the players feel week before leveling up parkour moves

 

[forumvisitor#451]

There was no change in music when you got discovered in original Thief games. You confuse that with something else.

 

[flyingjohn]

Chasm the rift,aka "Corridor the game".
Oh cool a game made by the same dev's of cryostasis which was interesting but the game play got stale quickly.
Well chasm is certainly not interesting and got stale quickly.
Level design is mostly corridors and maze like,with no focus on open areas whatsoever.
This means that explosive weapons will fuck you up and that enemies will be hiding behind corridors and ready to shoot you in a heartbeat.
Every single location is the same set of corridors but with a aesthetic change(like Egypt and medieval seeings)
Weapons are boring and ripoffs of other fps games.You get a rifle with infinite ammo(boring and weak),shotgun and bfg from doom,a generic rocket launcher that looks like a grenade launcher and explosive crossbow.
The main gimmick is that you can decapitate specif body parts from enemies(take out their arms and they are useless),well the gimmick is nothing special and other games years later have done it better.
Oh and it is a pain to setup in dosbox when it comes to frame rate,there is a patch but it doesn't like 64 bit systems.
Combine all of this and you get a underwhelming quake clone.
Oh and if you hate jesters with a passions this game allows you to kill them indiscriminately :

 

[Darth Roxor]

stay tuned for the action-packed sequel: abyss - the crevice

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Playing Diablo 1 for the first time. Played the shit out of Diablo 2 back in the day, but never got around to playing the original. Rectifying this.

I went ahead and installed the HD Mod. It's actually a very cool mod, lots of work was put into it, it adds a lot of improvements that make the game much less of a chore, such as auto attack, item highlighting, hold shift to hold your position, completely redone barter interface, trade stash a la Torchlight, high resolution/widescreen support with zooming in and out with the mouse wheel, etc. Seriously impressive.

I tried the warrior at first, but he's just eating damage with his face and you can't get very far without stocking up on potions and chugging them all the time. But the rogue with her bow? ... fuck, it's just easy mode all the way. I hold shift, press down the left mouse button, make some passes across the room, and everyone's dead without me taking any damage. This is a very badly balanced game.

Also, maybe it's the mod, but uniques are dropping like it's Christmas, and I'm leveling up all the time. I've only cleared 3 floors of the dungeon, but I'm already level 8 with some good gear.

The game's main problems so far are the awfully slow moving speed (basically you can't run, who the hell thought this would be a good idea for an action RPG) and the inventory size. You pick up 4 axes or armor suits and you're full, cast the town portal scroll, go sell your shit to at least 2 merchants (blacksmith buys armor/weapons while the witch buys potions/scrolls/staves/etc). And don't forget to run up by Deckard Cain first to identify everything. Argh. Feels like I'm spending at least 50% time peddling vendor trash. But eh, I've already got 10k in my name.

It's actually a very small and primitive game, despite the fact that it started a genre. It's just one town with one dungeon. You get to choose between 3 classes (warrior/mage/rogue), but apart from their sprite they all behave mostly the same, just with different attribute caps. Your sprite also never changes, no matter what armor you equip. There are no skills, but you get spell books to learn spells (so basically anyone can be a mage, as long as they put enough points in Magic to use the books and have enough mana to cast spells).

It's kinda charming in that old 90's game way, so I guess I'll play some more, haven't got to the Butcher yet, maybe it picks up later.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Your sprite also never changes, no matter what armor you equip.

Sort of. They change when you change gear tiers. As I recall, that's basically with each act's gear.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The armour changes at chain and plate. Pictured:

scrublord

Chainmail

Plate armoire

 

[Sceptic]

That's interesting and odd. I guess Blizzard couldn't fit a whole copy of the soundtrack on the CD?
EDIT: Does this have it all?

Yeah I'm not sure, it probably is the reason since the soundtrack is so long it wouldn't fit on an audio CD. As for your link yeah it's the complete soundtrack but in OPL3 (Sound Blaster 16) mode. I think it sounds much better on a Sound Canvas. I might make some recordings myself since it doesn't look like anyone else has made them, though I did also find the whole soundtrack recorded on a Gravis Ultrasound.

Anyway when I said I was starting Warcraft 3 a week ago... I ended up taking a little detour and playing Warcraft Adventure instead

This is an interesting little game, mostly because, while it's not that great, it's also not so horrible. It's clear that, had it not carried the Warcraft name and lore and had it been released anyway, it would've quickly been forgotten as rather mediocre. Still I think Blizzard made a mistake cancelling it, because it would've still sold quite a bit, and developed a fandom due to it being so unique in Blizzard's catalog, and the part of Warcraft lore that it tackles. Seeing how Thrall got to where he is at the beginning of War3 is fun, as is meeting some old War2 friends (Doomhammer, Kilrogg, Grom, Blackhand's sons). Some of the lore references are a little laughable, like the fearsome Zul'jin running a pawn shop, and the whole segment with Deathwing is utterly trippy and bizarre (put it this way: it starts with Deathwing smoking a hookah) not to mention it completely contradicts everything Blizzard have said about him before and after this game. As for the gameplay itself, about half the puzzles are stupendously easy and the other half is only tricky because their solutions are completely nonsensical in the best "bad adventure game" fashion, and a far cry from some of the more brilliant ones you can find in LucasArts or even Sierra games. Graphically it looks fine, which probably means it looked great compared to the average back then. Blizzard have tried to blame with the game's shortcomings on Animation Magic but I think they were disingenuous. AM is an animation studio, not a developer, and all the game's faults are squarely in the development part. Still I must say I had fun with it for the afternoon it took me to finish it. The game is almost completely functional in its current state. It's missing 2 cutscenes (very noticeably) but these are both on Youtube, and while the sound and graphics are out of synch in many, and there are obvious placeholder sounds and missing music cues. One funny little quirk is that there are 2 versions of the opening cinematic, and they differ quite a bit in how events unfold. I think it would've taken very little extra work for Blizzard to finish it and release it, and it would've done well enough. But as for playing it today, it's an interesting diversion but little more.

 

[wyes gull]

Played and finished Still Life over the week.

Like I remembered it, it's a P&C caught between eras. It portrays a fairly film-like plot about the hunt for two serial killers but does so through the extensive use of pretty amateurish pre-rendered cutscenes. The rest of it is handled in-game through a series of dialogs and puzzles as you go flick between your main character, Chicago detective Victoria McFfffurson and her grandad, a PI in 20's Prague, both investigating a series of oddly similar murders. The majority of it, however, happens through case files. These are hidden in your inventory so you can basically ignore them the whole way through and barely miss anything but if you want the most out of the plot and world, you'll be doing a lot of reading.

The writing and voice-acting are surprisingly competent but unfortunately, the background being entirely 2D (a la Resident Evil; some of them of pretty impressive design) means dialog has to rely on them for in order to be dynamic. It succeeds but not without showing its age. Your influence in it is extremely limited and comprises merely of hitting LMB to go through a series of questions pertaining to the matter at hand and RMB to go through personal questions and snide remarks. You can't even choose the order of the questions. Progression is linear. The game has you mostly do some put-object-in, combine-object-with, use-thing-on actions (which to its credit are pretty fluid in terms of inventory usage) but these are often too obvious to count as challenge. This comes in the form of puzzles. Again, unfortunately, there are too few of these. Actually, scratch that. What is unfortunate is how obtuse a couple of these are. The safe is pretty inscrutable, even with the help of the clock, and I solved it mostly through trial and error. Whoever designed the lockpicking should be shot out of a cannon and into the moon. Long story short, there are 15 tumblers and each of them activates a couple of others. They also reset others. So you'll have to note down which reset which, which block the pick's path and that's after you find an order of use that gives you access to all of them. You'll find yourself having completed 80% of it only to have to reset it all the way back. Multiple times. Even after you jot everything down and have a solution in hand, it's a pain. The final one that triggers the ending cutscene is also stupid. You have to investigate a series of pictures for clues and then insert them into a computer you haven't used and with no clue exactly how many of the terms you need to use. The solution ends up being about as logically sound as 3 others. Fortunately, these puzzles aside, the P&C "programmers' logic" that seems to make up the bulk of the difficulty in the genre is pretty sound (the one exception being a couple of benches in Prague which boil down to a misuse of props). Finding the next place to go or the next issue to tackle is hardly ever a problem.

But, puzzles aside, problems there are. Problem 1: It is way too short. I didn't keep a counter but I reckon I clocked 6 or so hours. Problem 2: Limits of the design mean that every exciting bit happens in a cutscene with zero player control. Yeah, you're a detective in a crime thriller and you don't get to shoot the gun. Problem 3: The story started in a previous game (Post Mortem) and supposedly finishes in a sequel (Still Life 2), which leads directly to.. Problem 4: It's a murder mystary that ends with the killer alive and incognito. This despite the number of characters that are antagonistic to the PC which fit the mold and out of whom you're guessing for the killer for half the game. I repeat, a writer looked at the game and said "Fuck it, let's have the killer fall into the river after having been shot once, only to disappear. We'll sort the rest out in a sequel.". Fuck. That.

The story is convoluted but interesting and as humorous as it can be, given how grim a subject it portrays. The game, however, does it as many favors as it does disservices.

But hey, at least its heart is in the right place.

 

[Krivol]

Also, maybe it's the mod, but uniques are dropping like it's Christmas, and I'm leveling up all the time. I've only cleared 3 floors of the dungeon, but I'm already level 8 with some good gear.

The game's main problems so far are the awfully slow moving speed (basically you can't run, who the hell thought this would be a good idea for an action RPG) and the inventory size. You pick up 4 axes or armor suits and you're full, cast the town portal scroll, go sell your shit to at least 2 merchants (blacksmith buys armor/weapons while the witch buys potions/scrolls/staves/etc). And don't forget to run up by Deckard Cain first to identify everything. Argh. Feels like I'm spending at least 50% time peddling vendor trash. But eh, I've already got 10k in my name.

It's kinda charming in that old 90's game way, so I guess I'll play some more, haven't got to the Butcher yet, maybe it picks up later.

Mod changes everything (it's quite hard to get 3-5 uniques in normal single playthrough of D1).

I am not sure but in HD you may change walking speed in town and global game speed by changing FPS in options (may not work this way, never tried get past 60 fps).
If HD mod is the one I've played, getting to Butcher is a bit tricky (a bit, I mean, really easy, but not just "open the door"). Don't grab all stuff that drops, just yellows, greens and uniques.