What game are you wasting time on?

[pippin]

The only complaints were that DD had some content removed or something like that? Other than that, most people were happy.

 

[spekkio]

Finished 2 games recently:

Metroid Prime (Gamecube)

Good:
- Metroid, but in 3D. Exploration, boss battles, revisiting areas for hidden stuff, etc. - everything is here.
- Fantastic level design. Almost every room is a little puzzle in itself.
- Entire game is just one gigantic, open labyrinth.
- Writing is surprisingly good for an action game.
- Great atmosphere, to my surprise, quite similar to Unreal.
- Hunting for all 12 required artifacts is p. interesting (requires all visors, beams and some upgrades).

Ugly:
- No fast-travel between savepoints. I know that 'Vanias are about backtracking, but traversing 30% of the game's area just to grab some bonus thingie is too much sometimes.
- Lack of boss battles in the middle part. What happened there?
- Final battle is just too fucking long. Yawn.

Bad:
- Metroid, but in 3D. Instead of going with some proven method of FPP controls, devs decided to adapt original metroid controls to 3D. Problems:
a) No regular strife (using shoulder triggers or second stick) feels extremely convoluted and requires some getting used to. Imagine hiding behind a corner, knowing that there's enemy nearby. Problem is, you can't just strife around the corner while aiming. You have to "face" the enemy, lock onto him, and only then you can start strafing (L/R). Gay.
b) Looking up/down is only possible when standing still. Gay.
c) Low FOV + plenty of jumping puzzles. It's not a platformer, so you can't die, but you sure can fail the last fucking jump when climbing 27 platforms. Quicksaves help a lot here. Still - shitty design.
- Shooting super missiles is p. convoluted in 3D (charge beam by holding one button, then press another WHILE holding the previous one). All that while pressing 15 other buttons (movement, lock, jump, whatever).
- Convoluted way of reading environmental clues (you have to switch to special visor), plus there are no bookmarks for "recent" entries in journal, so if you didn't read some info while "acquiring" it, finding it in journal may take forever.
- Devs decided to make all doors octagonal. You will bump into door's frame over 9000 times during the course of the game. I can't comprehend how this shit wasn't fixed in testing. Just make them fucking round and let's be done with it.
- Repeating animations (recurring puzzles, using savepoint, etc.). Fuck year, devs are impressed with their 3D engine, I dig that. But can I play the fucking game for a change?

Verdict:


Flashback (DOS)

Good:

- Great mix of platforming, shooting and puzzles.
- Graphics and animations look great even today.
- Playing around with throwable teleporter is fun and resembles Portal puzzles a little.
- Fuckin' Reptilians, mang!

Ugly:

- Too much shooting, esp. in later stages.
- Fucking shapeshifting aliens raping ass and leg. Oh gawd, it's not fun actually.

Bad:

- Timed sections in a platforming game are just ghey.

Verdict:

 

[SpaceDriftingGrimoire]

Better overall performance on PC, I take it? I don't usually mention graphics or graphical fidelity when discussing games but the performance on 360 (alongside some texture pop-ins and other issues) did seem sluggish on occasion. Or is there something else about the PC version I'm unaware of?

No, nothing special. Do you even have to ask ?

Unless console port is completely broken, every action game is at least slightly superior due to graphic fidelity, fast loading/streaming and above "cinematic" framerate.
Even as shitty port as Dark Souls for example, is still superior.

Every First Person Shooter is *much* better by definition, gamepad for an FPS is a joke.

Peasant.

Response: I'm not very familiar with this specific PC port of this specific game, hence me asking, but I understand the gist of your point. In retrospect my question basically answers itself. -End-

It's also wierd how console peasants get pissed when their "beloved" action games go to PC and rant about how Pc gamers will just "destroy" it even if the PC community gives more love for the game.
Example. Vanquish, Dragon's Dogma, Jade Empire.

Response: Quite the contrary; I'm more than happy to see Ports get the exposure and attention that PC gaming can afford, and as a multi system player (console, handheld and PC) for most of my life I've always found the above stated notion ridiculous. And MOH: Airborne is not exactly what I would consider "beloved", considering my rundown of the game would posit its merits at best as being fairly competent, yet flawed and unspectacular. This was during the time in which EA basically ran the series on fumes, only to later try another go with the series in 2010 with the War on Terror focused remake. -End-

Don't remember console players getting mad that Vanquish came on PC after nearly a decade or DD after nearly 5 years, by that point not many are still playing said game.

Response: I was very happy in particular to see Vanquish eventually get its time to shine on PC, and am glad to see continued releases (Bayonetta) from Platinum. Although their PC port of Nier: Automata is (unfortunately) a disappointing issue. -End-

 

[Quigs]

Finished 2 games recently

Soft spot for both games. Out of this World/Flashback are a blast. I vaguely remember playing another similar rotoscoped platformer game on the Genesis, but I can't find it now.

I'm currently playing Gwent and Witcher 3. Gave up Hearthstone after playing it since launch. Blizzard just hates their customers. Gwent has proven to be a deeper, friendlier, and more f2p friendly experience. Witcher 3 was on sale for 20 bucks with everything last weekend. Glad I picked it up. Great game.

 

[SpaceDriftingGrimoire]

Finished 2 games recently:

Metroid Prime (Gamecube)

Good:
- Metroid, but in 3D. Exploration, boss battles, revisiting areas for hidden stuff, etc. - everything is here.
- Fantastic level design. Almost every room is a little puzzle in itself.
- Entire game is just one gigantic, open labyrinth.
- Writing is surprisingly good for an action game.
- Great atmosphere, to my surprise, quite similar to Unreal.
- Hunting for all 12 required artifacts is p. interesting (requires all visors, beams and some upgrades).

Ugly:
- No fast-travel between savepoints. I know that 'Vanias are about backtracking, but traversing 30% of the game's area just to grab some bonus thingie is too much sometimes.
- Lack of boss battles in the middle part. What happened there?
- Final battle is just too fucking long. Yawn.

Bad:
- Metroid, but in 3D. Instead of going with some proven method of FPP controls, devs decided to adapt original metroid controls to 3D. Problems:
a) No regular strife (using shoulder triggers or second stick) feels extremely convoluted and requires some getting used to. Imagine hiding behind a corner, knowing that there's enemy nearby. Problem is, you can't just strife around the corner while aiming. You have to "face" the enemy, lock onto him, and only then you can start strafing (L/R). Gay.
b) Looking up/down is only possible when standing still. Gay.
c) Low FOV + plenty of jumping puzzles. It's not a platformer, so you can't die, but you sure can fail the last fucking jump when climbing 27 platforms. Quicksaves help a lot here. Still - shitty design.
- Shooting super missiles is p. convoluted in 3D (charge beam by holding one button, then press another WHILE holding the previous one). All that while pressing 15 other buttons (movement, lock, jump, whatever).
- Convoluted way of reading environmental clues (you have to switch to special visor), plus there are no bookmarks for "recent" entries in journal, so if you didn't read some info while "acquiring" it, finding it in journal may take forever.
- Devs decided to make all doors octagonal. You will bump into door's frame over 9000 times during the course of the game. I can't comprehend how this shit wasn't fixed in testing. Just make them fucking round and let's be done with it.
- Repeating animations (recurring puzzles, using savepoint, etc.). Fuck year, devs are impressed with their 3D engine, I dig that. But can I play the fucking game for a change?

Verdict:


Flashback (DOS)

Good:

- Great mix of platforming, shooting and puzzles.
- Graphics and animations look great even today.
- Playing around with throwable teleporter is fun and resembles Portal puzzles a little.
- Fuckin' Reptilians, mang!

Ugly:

- Too much shooting, esp. in later stages.
- Fucking shapeshifting aliens raping ass and leg. Oh gawd, it's not fun actually.

Bad:

- Timed sections in a platforming game are just ghey.

Verdict:

Never had the chance to play the Prime sequels but greatly enjoyed the original Prime, warts and all!

As for Flashback I still need to acquire and play this one, and continue to avoid the remake.

 

[anvi]

I'm currently playing Gwent and Witcher 3. Gave up Hearthstone after playing it since launch. Blizzard just hates their customers. Gwent has proven to be a deeper, friendlier, and more f2p friendly experience. Witcher 3 was on sale for 20 bucks with everything last weekend. Glad I picked it up. Great game.

Just get into Magic The Gathering, play Extended format. Costs a fair bit of money to get set up with a bunch of good cards and decks, but then you will rarely need to spend more. And it is so much better and deeper than Hearthstone or Gwent. I also think it is probably cheaper than Hearthstone unless you can play 10+ hours a day.

 

[Vorark]

Been stuck without my pc and on poor connection so 3ds is getting used for stuff besides Monster Hunter.

Etrian Odyssey V
- Dunno if I'm getting old but I can't stand bunny girls and moe artwork. It wasn't bad back in EO and EO2 but it's been downhill since EO3.
- Music feels uninspired and the 1st stratum and battle tunes are annoying, gives me a headache.
- I hate enemies are in full 3d, even the orange FOE blobs are gone.
- Too much focus on food and gathering crap, there's even forage and hunting skills. we
- Draw distance is horrible, it's like 3 steps max. Didn't mind it when the series was on the DS but 3DS can do better.
- Translation feels off. It's too quirky, unlike the DS entries. I've read the translator who used to work on it left, which explains a lot.
- Game keeps shoving tutorials up your ass and gives you exp for all those events during the labyrinth. It treats the player as if she/he is a child... Or is it the series new target audience?
- While there are too difficulty options, I can't help but feel it cheapens the game. It tells you Basic is for general RPG players, while advanced is aimed at the EO base. However, feels more like the latter just get bloated stats. Back then the game was designed in one specific way.
- Gameplay is still good but everything else soured me on the game. The original EO 1 and 2 are still kings, limited as they might feel.

Metroid: Samus Returns
This one is painful. You have Nintendo shoving money on yet another Mario and Zelda game but such a venerable series like Metroid gets this shovelware treatment? Fuck you.

- Game itself isn't bad, Mercury Systems actually did good here. However, I'm not fond of Samus uppercutting enemies, even metroids. I mean, by past games, if she tried to do such a thing the metroid would just latch on her arm and kill her.
- Backgrounds are bland and music is non-existent. Yeah, the original Metroid II didn't leave much for the imagination. Still, Fusion had awesome 2d visuals while Super had a kick-ass soundtrack. It's like a minimum effort was made. If I'm not mistaken, during the opening hours of Fusion you get to see Samus exploring SR388 and it looked more vivid than these poor 3d geometrical shapes. It's like those horrible PS1 polygons.
- The little continuity nods are an welcome touch. Like the frog enemies Samus fights - one of them was infected by the X during the beginning of Fusion. I couldn't stand to play till the end, so I checked how the final sequence was on YT. It's was a nice foreshadowing to Super's final boss fight and the X menace in Fusion.
- Gameplay is too actiony for my tastes and enemies feels like hp sponges. Metroid was never much of fighting a crapload of enemies, but more of exploring eerie places, be it a pirate base, lab research facilities or desolate planets. This game completely missed the point of both Metroid II and the classic games overall.
- I reiterate how most of the game feels soulless. When AM2R, a fan game made by a lone fan with limited resources but with necessary passion completely outshines this Nintendo sanctioned game... Well, fuck. It's dead, Jim.

Who knows, maybe someday we might get the fabled Metroid V, in beautiful 2d spritework, tight gameplay, an awesome score to accompany all of it. Till then, I'll cherish the past classic 2d games and move on, because it's obvious Nintendo doesn't care.

 

[flyingjohn]

So i have spent some time testing out different versions of the original tomb raider games and came to tso some conclusions.
Now let's break down the version differences:

-Gog vanilla
Uses dosbox and 3dfx.

There are a lot of black artifacts on background textures,especially when moving.Resolution changes don't seem to do anything and you can't change the resolution.
Also the color is blander then the psx versions,especially in the water.

Audio quality and fmv is shit compared to the psx version,and this is true for all pc versions(windows,dos).

Here is a demonstration:


Feature wise you also don't get the bonus missions making this versions worse then both gold windows editions and the psx versions.

Major fuck up by gog.

-Gog with tomb ati Patch
You can find the patch here:http://www.glidos.net/tombati.html?lang=en.
Instructions:
1-Use teh installer and extract files to somewhere on your drive.
2-Copy files from that folder to your gog installation folder.
3-Use importer exe and import gog game files.
4-Play game using tombati exe for original or tombub for gold levels.

No more dosbox,the exe is now a native windows app.

Less amount of black artifacts(almost non existant). You can select multiple resolutions and use hd texture pack.
Audio quality is better,same as fmv's since it uses the psx files.

You also get the bonus missions.
This is personally the best version of tomb raider youc an find for modern systems.

-Psx version
Artifacts are frequent thanks to how the psx works,and no emulation setting is gonna help.
Would not recommend resolution changes since the background won't change much,only the textures on lara and enemies will change.
Color is a lot more vibrant then the pc counterparts giving it a unique style.

Audio and fmv here are the preferred versions if you are not running tomb ati.

No bonus missions,although somebody managed to port unfinished business ,but it may not work for everybody(it is buggy)

Also if you are looking for a psx versions to play on emus,you need the one with multiple bin files,or else it won't work.
Any 1.1,1,2,goty editions are just normal tomb raider game with some more demos and that is all.

So my sugegsestion is to play both the tombati gog version and teh psx versions,you will not be disappointing.

Also i didn't bother glide bullshit since it still uses dosbox stuff and there is no point with tomb ati existing.

Edit:Forgot to mention,you need to edit the dosboxTR.conf file for gog version else your game menu will move by itself.
Find the line joysticktype=auto, and change it to joysticktype=none.

 

[Quigs]

Just get into Magic The Gathering, play Extended format. Costs a fair bit of money to get set up with a bunch of good cards and decks, but then you will rarely need to spend more. And it is so much better and deeper than Hearthstone or Gwent. I also think it is probably cheaper than Hearthstone unless you can play 10+ hours a day.

I got heavy into Magic for Innistrad and Return block. Had a lot of fun, but I was picking up a box each for myself and the wife per release. 450+ a year wasn't great. The local scene was hit and miss. You'd run into some really nice folks, but one pre-release I came back from the event smelling like someone else's balls. Was disgusting. Another time some mook was laughing with his friends because he managed to use bullshit to cheat against my wife. (She did 4 damage, he blocked with 2 2's. He kept asking her 'which *one* do you want to kill?' because technically you could overdamage one for no real reason.) I don't advocate for violence, but that cunt would have had it coming. In any case, the ability to play without leaving the house is pretty good, and Gwent plays the strengths of digital fairly well.

 

[anvi]

jk lol

 

[Quigs]

Was that playing Standard format? I did that for a while but it was way too expensive. I like how balanced it is because there is a small pool of cards, but you have to buy whole new sets every release which is such a rip off. That's why I think Extended is the best because nothing rotates out, and new cards are rarely better than what you already have. So it costs hundreds to get a good set of Extended stuff but then you will hardly spend anything in the future. I never played it in real life, I dread the nerds. I only played it online, MTG Online is really good.

Standard over time is more expensive, but in the short run is cheaper. I can't imagine keeping up with standard over a 5 year period, that'd be madness. When Hearthstone switched over to the standard TCG formats it annoyed me quite a bit. Depreciating collections with no means to offload them. On top of their poor decision making and increased greed, the whole thing just went to shit. As you suggest, I did try MODO a ways back. Didn't like it so much. When I play magic now (and it's rare) it's with friends around the table, all of us playing goofball decks for the fun of it. MODO feels like playing against degenerate gamblers. Their UI doesn't help shake the feeling.

Anyway, dig the location. EQ master race represent.

 

[anvi]

Yea their client is pretty gimpy and takes some getting used to, I really enjoyed it though. I think they updated it more recently. I played with a few RL friends but they quit so I did too. I also used to play the 2 Headed Giant mode which was really fun. The only thing I didn't like about MTGO is that the casual room is full of losers who play net decks and are desperate to win by any means. So basically, it isn't casual at all. And because people play like that, everyone makes even more brutal decks just to survive, so it is like an arms race. The result is everyone wants to win in a few turns. I hate that. I would show up with some wacky deck idea, and I'd be up against some douche with a $200 deck he copied from the latest tournament. I like long games with big cards, but once my cards got good enough, I could drag people into playing my way But it cost me quite a lot of money. I think I spent something like $600 or so. Spread over about 3 years it wasn't too bad, similar to an MMO subscription. But when I started playing less, I started feeling uneasy about having all that money wasted in a game, and as new stuff came along, the game wanted me to spend more and it just started to feel ridiculous. So I sold it all, got about half my money back which was not a bad deal for 3 years of fun! I love that game so much but I get bored playing the same few decks over and over, so it really needs a lot of money spending on it to keep it fresh and I have other stuff I'd rather buy. Maybe some day I'll get back into it.

I had some fun in Hearthstone, but I hated all the netdecks in that too, and it was taking too long for me to build up good cards, and the prices seemed too high for me to want to spend money on it. So I ended up trading all my stuff for one card I really wanted and built a deck around that. A few months later, they nerfed it and ruined it... Haven't played since. I would play it if it wasn't such a rip off.

And yea EQ <3

 

[McPlusle]

Ninja Gaiden Black. It rolled out on the Xbone yesterday and I'm up to the twelfth chapter. The combat is hands-down the greatest in any 3D action game I've ever played, with the constantly challenging and interesting enemy encounters, and the weapons whose movelists are truly fighting game-length. Too bad the platforming is godawful and there's a surprising (disheartening) amount of it. I can't wait to finish the game and unlock the mission mode.

 

[Ivan]

Too bad the platforming is godawful and there's a surprising (disheartening) amount of it.

why I dropped it

 

[Ivan]

Finished 2 games recently:
Metroid Prime (Gamecube)
Verdict:

Prime 2 is perhaps the greatest sequel I've ever played. Hope you get around to it.

 

[sullynathan]

isn't sigma > black?

 

[J_C]

So, I've embarked on a long journey regarding playing through my huge backlog. I realized that my GOG and Steam account is just sitting around and I don't play any games on them. I figured that I will play through the games I haven't played yet in the order they were released. One rule is that if i don't enjoy a game, I will just pass and advance to the other one.

It turned out my oldest game I had was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade from 1989, so I started with that. Aaaaand i quit after 30 minutes. I'm sorry, I can play old games, but there is a limit they have to pass. This games is too barebones when it comes to music, the sound effects are basic beeps, and the controls are stiff. I also never liked like the verb style controls, so that didn't help either. Uninstalled.

Then came Loom. What a wonderful game that was, played it through in 3 days. It had 2 or 3 riddles I had to look up in a walkthrough, but the other parts of the game were clever and charming.

Next Tex Murphy 1 and 2. I write them together because they suffered the same problem as the first Indiana Jones game, so unfortunately they ended up the same way. Uninstalling in 10 minutes.

Currently I'm playing Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Now this is how it is done. Although the verb interface is still in, but it is more comfortable to use. The music is great, decent voiceacting, decent soundeffects, nice pixelart, and an interesting story. Continuing to play it.

 

[Daedalos]

Playing HS, HOTS as usual, and just awaiting Battlefront 2 in two weeks.

Played Evil Within 2, p. decent I guess. Gonna romp around in the new wolfenstein for luls and then some Starcraft Remastered.

Need to start Prey also.

 

[Hyperion]

isn't sigma > black?

No, the general consensus is actually that Black is preferred over Sigma. Sigma has much better visuals, but Black doesn't have the missions with you as the big titty broad. Those things were dismal. I haven't played Black, but everyone who's played both swears the A.I. is also superior. The big advantage for NGS is that you have access to Dual Katanas.

Can't go wrong playing either, though.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

So, I've embarked on a long journey regarding playing through my huge backlog. <snip>

Spoiled brat.

 

[J_C]

So, I've embarked on a long journey regarding playing through my huge backlog. <snip>

Spoiled brat.

Whaaat? :D

 

[flyingjohn]

So continuing my tomb raider series retrospective :

Tomb raider 2 and 3:
-Options and resolutions are configurable and the games work on modern systems.
No bonus levels for 2 and 3 which is a shame.

Tomb raider 4 and 5
-Gog versions of 4 includes both level editor and the bonus missions making it the perfect version.
5 doesn't have any bonus stuff so it doesn't matter.

Here is a video showing the difference in loading and in color in tomb raider 3:


I would post other videos but most of them are horrible commentary,so no point.

Bottom line is if you are interested in tomb raider 2-5,the gog versions work nicely with windows 7 and 4-5 have everything included.You can find the bonus missions easily.
Next i will be tackling the abomination called angel of darkness and seeing what fixed work with the gog versions.

Also for anybody interested in more old tomb raider style game play here is a link to a fan site contain hundred of fan made levels:
http://trle.net/
The missions work out of the box and don't require any tinkering,which is really surprising .

 

[Unkillable Cat]

So continuing my tomb raider series retrospective :

Tomb raider 2 and 3:
-Options and resolutions are configurable and the games work on modern systems.
No bonus levels for 2 and 3 which is a shame.

Just to be clear on this one: GOG doesn't have the "Gold" versions of these two games, but the bonus levels are available via fan-patches, or something similar?

 

[flyingjohn]

So continuing my tomb raider series retrospective :

Tomb raider 2 and 3:
-Options and resolutions are configurable and the games work on modern systems.
No bonus levels for 2 and 3 which is a shame.

Just to be clear on this one: GOG doesn't have the "Gold" versions of these two games, but the bonus levels are available via fan-patches, or something similar?

The bonus levels have to be downloaded separately,and linking to any files would be piracy.You can find them easily on Google.
Basically they are standalone missions you don't even need to have the originals for.
For 2 the expansion is called golden mask and for 3 it is called the lost artifact.
That should tell you everything you need to know.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Still on Sea dogs: Age of Pirates: City of abandoned ships: Pirates of the Caramba.

Managing to fight off 5 ships at a time and actually managing to sink one is a hell of an achievement. Exit to map feeling triumphant despite heavy losses and my ship barely holding together...
To get attacked by a fleet of 5 spanish patrolships.
And then I just ignore them by flying a Spanish flag.