What game are you wasting time on?

[Ivan]

Finished my replay of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, ending my replay of the trilogy as a whole. Although on replaying Call of Pripyat I found I liked it far more than before, SoC still ends up being my favorite. I would say it is the most consistent in quality of the three, with even the final areas of Pripyat and Chernobyl feeling as dense as necessary; unlike in CoP there is no expectation that Pripyat will be a full fledged hub area so the fact that it offers a highly detailed locale as well as some challenging fights against monolith forces feels enough. The big difference between the two games is how side-quests are handled, and looking at the side quests of the two in themselves those in CoP are far superior, but in a certain way they are more similar than they seem. It's only that in CoP the complexity of the side-quests are fulfilling the relative lack of complexity in the main plot, finding the helicopters being merely a clever pretext for getting the player to explore the maps; in SoC the main story-line is what displays the most complexity while the often repetitive side quests are there to offer a means for gaining an optional edge and may have the player explore areas they would not see if only following the main path. In terms of scripting the side quests in CoP are more intricate, but the story-line of SoC remains more appealing to me. Uncovering the secrets of the Brain Scorcher, discovering C-Consciousness, following the footsteps of Ghost, Fang, Strelok, all present a more mysterious and eventually satisfying story than the military focused plot of CoP. Strelok's personal determination to get to the center of the Zone also gives the story some more drama than the meandering goals of Degtyarev in CoP. In fact I always thought it was odd that at least two of the plot elements comprising the main story of CoP, the shifting of anomalies as well as the development of the gauss rifle, that, as far as I can tell, were meant to be surprising, are already dealt with in both SoC and Clear Sky: the shifting of anomalies were revealed in CS, as the very premise for the central plot, and the gauss rifle is available in both CS and SoC. It would seem to make more sense to have the central plot in CoP deal with what effect the elimination of the C Consciousness had on the Noosphere. The lack of some of those more enigmatic qualities of the zone, explored and alluded to in SoC, made CoP far less atmospheric.

As someone pointed out before, here or in the STALKER mod thread, the enemies in SoC are noticeably more durable than in the later games. And in the vanilla game even on Master difficulty there is still some random spread applied to bullets. It's a conflicting difference because although it can at times be aggravating or absurd to dump half a magazine into an enemies chest and have them survive, or spend 5 seconds shooting at an enemy from far away with your bullets going anywhere but where the scope is pointed, it does make gunfights significantly more intense in my experience. In CS as well as CoP enemies will go down from one or two shotgun blasts from even a fair distance away, and once a high quality rifle is acquired it becomes a trivial matter of pointing and clicking on the enemies head. Likewise, from what I could tell, the player similarly died far faster in CS and CoP, making firefights a matter of whichever character gets the drop on the other, rather than a more sustained back and forth. I think this is one reason CS threw far more enemies at the player, to try and even out the difficulty, and in CoP they did not even do this, for better and worse, resulting in the game being the easiest of the trilogy. After all although it's realistic that a headshot would kill or incapacitate someone in one shot, it's simultaneously unrealistic to believe that someone in the midst of a firefight could be calmly popping off dozens of headshots, due to a variety of factors.

Glad to see love for STALKER. Have you experienced Misery 1.2? I highly recommend it, it's my favorite STALKER experience. I'm always looking for new reasons to re-play this series.

 

[markec]

Day 1 bought Fallen Haven on GOG and finished the human campaign, as mentioned before it is rather simplistic game but still quite fun.

On Steam sale got The Quest, Im 9 hours in and I might say that so far Im enjoying the game.

How on earth do you have time to play games?

Friday and Monday were work free days in Croatia so we had 4 days long weekend.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i'm saved from the new vegas craze. all i needed to do was thinking of the inventory.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Now I'm stuck in Dungeons of Dredmor... again.

Due to how badly the game upscales graphics (and doesn't allow some UI elements to upscale at all) I'm forced to play it at 1280x720 resolution, but beyond that I'm having a blast, just like last time.

This time I'm just experimenting with some builds I hadn't bothered with before. Dual-wielding backstabbing Communist is doing alright so far, but he has no trap perception and no means of expedited movement. Some would say that's far too appropriate, but soon he'll have The Bomb, and then we'll see who's laughing!

 

[DalekFlay]

Pillars of Eternity goes on for fucking eveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr......

 

[Farewell into the night]

Hey, screw the vampire games, playing Gothic 2 for the first time in my life, and I'm going to play it for real.

Played total 30 mins today, it has it's charm.

 

[sullynathan]

Just beat ninja Gaiden sigma. I haven't played a game this infuriating in my life. Fuck you team ninja

 

[Valky]

Hours of autism later, I've added the finishing touches to the roof of this weeaboo house. Ice line and below is meant to signify water, I intend to turn that area into a lake, and the bottom floor will be my fishing spot.

 

[sullynathan]

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, they traded blood & gore for boob physics & jiggling

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

downloading new vegas =_=

 

[Ivan]

Dying Light

Highly skeptical this is for me after the 2 hour-long tutorial. Movement feels good (definitely going for the sped-up mounting/climbing animation perk ASAP), human enemies pose actual threats (which is super refreshing). Exploration feels great so far. Let's hope the tutorial ends soon so we can explore freely....

 

[flyingjohn]

Dying Light

Highly skeptical this is for me after the 2 hour-long tutorial. Movement feels good (definitely going for the sped-up mounting/climbing animation perk ASAP), human enemies pose actual threats (which is super refreshing). Exploration feels great so far. Let's hope the tutorial ends soon so we can explore freely....

Try doing the parkour challenges without any points in the parkour skill tree for some nice parkour challenge.

 

[Dux]

Picked up Euro Truck Simulator 2 on the Steam sale.

Parking a double trailer...

 

[Ivan]

will do, thanks. still just exploring for the fun of it. Zombies seem pretty tame, no real danger (playing on Hard) so far.

 

[exe]

FEAR Trilogy, first time
The first one is just great, in gameplay, atmosphere and minimalistic plot. The spooky parts aren't generally very spooky but are a good breakup between all the combat, keeping you from getting tired of it. I really like that there is no happy ending and everything is very bleak and keeps getting worse, especially in Extraction Point. Would have really liked to see the teased Ghost Apocalypse Liked it a lot more than Max Payne, which does have the same gimmick.
Fear 2 is a good game, but a disappointment as a sequel. It only has early onset of consolitis, but plot got really retarded, especially with the ghost pregnancy. Alma made like a 180 turn with that.
Fear 3 is just shit in every regard. They basicly went full retard with everything from gameplay to plot, not much more to say, except it's super short so I finished anyway. Playing as Fettel was actually more fun than PointMan, can't imagine how derpy and unFear it would get in coop.

What a time we live in, were everything just gets worse instead of better.
Since I'm now really in the mood, some recommandations for similar games? I doubt there is much, but worth asking.

 

[Ivan]

Nothing will be as good as Fear 1, but try

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
Nuclear Throne
nu-Doom


yeah, there aren't many/a lot of good pure-shooters, sadly. there are always the classics, which I assume you've played:

Shadow Warrior
Blood
etc

 

[Deflowerer]

F.E.A.R 1 was probably the last linear PC shooter incline. Sad.

 

[SeenMike]

Been spending time on Hitman (2016) lately. Can't wait for Hitman 2.

 

[Ivan]

That being said, Witchfire may be worth following

 

[ortucis]

FEAR Trilogy, first time
The first one is just great, in gameplay, atmosphere and minimalistic plot. The spooky parts aren't generally very spooky but are a good breakup between all the combat, keeping you from getting tired of it. I really like that there is no happy ending and everything is very bleak and keeps getting worse, especially in Extraction Point. Would have really liked to see the teased Ghost Apocalypse Liked it a lot more than Max Payne, which does have the same gimmick.
Fear 2 is a good game, but a disappointment as a sequel. It only has early onset of consolitis, but plot got really retarded, especially with the ghost pregnancy. Alma made like a 180 turn with that.
Fear 3 is just shit in every regard. They basicly went full retard with everything from gameplay to plot, not much more to say, except it's super short so I finished anyway. Playing as Fettel was actually more fun than PointMan, can't imagine how derpy and unFear it would get in coop.

What a time we live in, were everything just gets worse instead of better.
Since I'm now really in the mood, some recommandations for similar games? I doubt there is much, but worth asking.

Wait, you're telling me, people actually found FEAR scary and its shitty story good?

I thought people played it for the action and good scripted AI. I know I did. Maybe that's why I enjoyed all FEAR games, event the expansions..


FEAR 2 is still my favorite of the series.

 

[Darth Roxor]

FEAR 2 is still my favorite of the series.

how the fuck is this even possible

like

why

 

[Adon]

Not scary, but compared to its successor, F.E.A.R. has a stronger atmosphere lending itself to the series' premise much better than F.E.A.R. 2 did. Their use of lighting and (admittedly limited) locales were good at evoking a sense of isolation, and at times -- uncertainty. Having recently finished the sequel, the only section that comes even close to F.E.A.R. 1 is the elementary school, and maybe certain sections of the old underground metro.

I enjoyed F.E.A.R. 2, but it doesn't even come close to the visceral action, and moody atmosphere of the first.

 

[Farewell into the night]

Back in the day I played a lot of F.E.A.R. but multiplayer with my boy friend. I had a blast.

 

[Darth Roxor]

FEAR was best in multi on kung fu/no-gun servers

 

[DeepOcean]

FEAR is the last FPS that I remember that actually tried to be a good FPS, after that, it became console peasant multiplayer autism fest.