What game are you wasting time on?

[Krivol]

Ok, I just had probably best gaming experience ever in KCD

Spoiler

- I was asked to infiltrate enemy camp
- I was attacked by guards during this quest, I managed to kill 5 of them, steal their armour and sneak into the camp
- MC found few ways to attack, so I decided to explore as much as possible to find every way as possible and make future attack easier
- my disguise was screwed, had to run away
- I returned back at night
- I destroyed few barrels full of arrows and poisoned food here and there
- I was found out again, had to run away
- I got back to sir Radzik and told him everything
- sir Radzik, after getting few more troops from nearest town, made a plan and decided to attack

And then we attacked

- I rushed forward against few enemy archers, bastards run away
- I waited for our shield wall to meet enemy shield wall, run around and stabbed some backs, wave turned on our side
- We've won battle of the bridge, now we needed to storm one of 2 enemy camps
- We rushed inside, I bowed few of enemies but as I am totally unskilled with bow, I just scratched them
- I wanted to use my previous tactic - run behind enemy line and kick their asses but it turned out that their archers were sitting on our flank and were shooting us like ducks
- Then I decided to rush them - heavy armoured knight (well, not exactly, but Henry in full plate looks like one) against light equiped bowmans. Bastards were butchered in few seconds.
- I returned back to my people, enemy commander was dead, but few enemies were still fighting, I stabbed them hard!

Ok, first camp captured, loses insignificant, let's attack the second one

- Enemy shieldwall at the entrance and 3 bowmans on the wall next to it
- I decided to run past shieldwall and go to archers. Even if I could not reach them with my sword (wall was to high) they decided to get their swords and attack me, jumping from wall. Bad idea, guys!
- Without range support their shieldwall was nothing for our shieldwall. After killing archers I was helping by stabbing.
- Ok, shieldwall was crushed, we started to storming gate to the ruined church. Suddenly some enemy reinforcements attacked. Hard fight, but after killing half of them, rest run away.

- After doors to the church were forced, cut-scene showed Henry (MC) running after enemy commander -the one we have some issues with. Henry got him at the last floor of the church. Enemy started taunting our hero. Bad, bad idea.
- Being well experienced hero, able to handle 3-4 enemies at once, duel with 1 -even heavy armoured and skilled -enemy was a breeze. Feeling of revenge! Glory for warriors!

After that battle I just have to listen some ManOwar - Warriors of the world maybe...

Great game! Maybe lacks some C&C so far, but everything else is just brilliant!

 

[the_shadow]

Just finished Deadly Premonition (Director's Cut). Overall my feelings are mixed. The central story is reasonably compelling and the characterization is great, but the open world idea fell flat for me. Deviating from the main plot and doing the side missions feels like Grand Theft Auto 3 with all joy sucked out. You'd think the side-quests would divulge background information about the case, but from the few I did were fetch/drive quests that resulted in rewards I couldn't care less about. Apparently you do get some interesting background information about certain characters from some of these quests, but it's here and there.

Another problem is that there is way too much filler, even for the main quest line. This game should have been as long as Silent Hill 1 or 2 (about 5 hours, perhaps 8 max), but there's too much driving, running about and meaningless exposition. There's one particular point in the game where you have to follow a dog around on foot for about 15 minutes, while you're continually interrupted by cutscenes/meaningless exposition. The story is too convoluted and cluttered by the 'Red Room' crap, the game wouldn't have suffered if all that rubbish had been cut. The Silent Hill series was relatively sparse on gameplay, but at least was short and sweet and could be played in a single sitting.

Finally, the game is absent of player directed detective work. You're dragged by the nose through the main story, where the in-game character pretty much pieces everything together, tells you what's going on, and leads you from place to place. At least you should have been able to use a bit of common sense and actually investigate yourself. Once I was given free roam of the town my first thought was to go to the murder victim's house and search it for any clues. Oh, wait, it's locked. Never mind, I'll go and visit her best friend, who has been acting strangely. Well, I can't talk to her, and if I 'peek through the window', I don't see anything important. Peering through windows is an option that pops up a lot in the game, but it never has any use, and also results in a 5 second 'loading' screen, as if you'd just transitioned to a new area. One of the residents says he'll tell me all about the Raincoat killer legend if I go see him, and when I do he wants me to go on a fetch quest to collect stuff to speed up my car instead?!

There are also some UI and mechanics problems, like the map being way too small, as if you're cramming your face right up against it and looking up and down the map when you want to plot your path from point A and B. Given that driving/walking from place to place is a major part of the game, this is a really bad thing. You also get a big blinking main quest pointer with how many yards you are away from the objective (of course), but you can't actually mark your map with places 'you' want to go and get that GPS feature. You have the option to eat and sleep for some bizarre reason, I'm not sure why this mechanic was included in the game, since you just have to buy a snack from a vending machine occasionally if you're hungry, and you never are short of sleep if you just follow the main plot line. For some reason you're also rather constrained on the number of items you can carry, I'm not sure what this mechanic is supposed to add to the game. Realism perhaps?

The whole thing reeks of one of those old FMV games that used to be the craze (Phantasmagoria or Ripper) instead of a proper game. Oh well.

 

[Chippy]

Hard West: currently £1.50 on Steam for the next 48hrs or so.

 

[ortucis]

Haven't played Prison Architect for a year or so, but was following updates for some time so I decided to load it up.

Discovered that the old saves from Prison Architect don't work when you launch x64 version of the EXE. My millions of dollars worth of prison is lost. So I started a new one.

I've had two escapes so far and I have no idea how they both escaped. There are no tunnels underneath, snipers outside don't seem to shoot them. They just escape. The new escaping mechanic is supposed to help them climb over walls, but I have no outdoor access for them. So I'm guessing they are just bribing their way out (I don't think that's possible). I was confused until I saw this happen:

Son of a bitch, I am in charge of Gotham City jail. They just let out anybody while the guards are being bribed to let escapes happen or admit maximum security prisoners into minimum security.

Time for another purge.

 

[markec]

Finished Warbanners a really good turn based tactical game.

The game has its flaws, rather small number of units you can recruit and fight against. Small number of artifacts that arent really that interesting, like finding an armor that gives you a +1 to evade, so doing a difficult side mission only to get a item that is hardly powerful seems like a waste or resources especially with penalties you get for death of a unit.

Mission difficulty is all over the place, with some early missions being very difficult and some late quite easy.

There are other faults like some balancing issues with units but still the good easily outweighs the bad.

There are many fun and challenging missions, the game has some nice C&C and combat itself, while nothing groundbreaking, is fun.

So if you are a fan of turn based tactical games you will enjoy this game.



Also finished Secret of Monkey Island, which I never played before.

While not a huge adventure fan I always enjoyed playing them. When I had C64 I played Zak McKracken and Maniac Mansion and while I loved those games there werent many adventures on that platform. I got my first PC only in 1998 so I missed out on a quite number of them and jumped immediately on newer ones like Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Sanitarium and Zork: Grand Inquisitor and never really looked back.

Recently I got back into adventures with Deponia series and after finishing it I looked for good lighthearted fun adventure game. During Steam Sale I noticed Special editions of Monkey Island are on sale so I bought it.

I must say that the game is great and I love the visuals, not the remastered graphics which are fucking horrible. I realyl cant comprehend anyone thinking that the remastered visuals are superior to the original. The only flaw I could mentions is a few moments of pixel hunting that pissed me off, but that didnt take away from the overall enjoyment of the game.

Great game, now will play Monkey Island 2.

 

[MSP]

Imperialism II.

Makes me wonder why I ever uninstalled it all the years ago.

 

[Big Wrangle]

Been playing Gothic II again over the last couple days and I actually advanced past the city of Khorinis for once. I still think the damage system is complete nonsense, but one can't deny the satisfaction that comes with your moveset upgrading with your weapon skill stats. I can't wait to utterly annihilate those damn orcs.
Picked the mercenaries because militia is lame. Also fuck the mages and their stupid system, though I'm technically one already due to how much I've been using scrolls to kill the tougher enemies.

 

[Chippy]

Was thinking of buying Warhammer: DOW3. Then I just installed the originals, and started a Necron campaign in Dark Crusade and started mentally ticking off all the things they didn't do in DOW3; and after a day of awesome gaming, I don't think I'll be playing DOW3 if they gave it away.

 

[ortucis]

I feel like this image can have that shitty "DEDICATION" inspiration text underneath.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Been playing Gothic II again over the last couple days and I actually advanced past the city of Khorinis for once. I still think the damage system is complete nonsense, but one can't deny the satisfaction that comes with your moveset upgrading with your weapon skill stats. I can't wait to utterly annihilate those damn orcs.
Picked the mercenaries because militia is lame. Also fuck the mages and their stupid system, though I'm technically one already due to how much I've been using scrolls to kill the tougher enemies.

BIG BOSS HERE.

YOUR MISSION IS TO INFILTRATE!

BE CAREFUL NOT TO LET ENEMY DETECT YOU.

 

[janior]

Iv'e been playing Darkest Hour with tgc mod since i got tired of hoi4 played CK2 for the first time got me hooked as fuck and i played it for 12h yesterday, loads of fun, although the combat kinda lacks depth.

 

[Egosphere]

Half way through Half Life 2. I think the last time I played it was in 2012 and I finally got the gripes a lot of people have with the game. Boat and Buggy should have been scrapped and the barrel/cinder block/crate puzzles dialed back. Still, the gravity gun fun in Ravenholm and the assault on Nova Prospekt are superb. The soundtrack is class as well.

 

[ortucis]

So I bought all The Guild (Europa 1400?) games on the last Steam sale, finally started playing The Guild (first one).

First thing that'll annoy you is that resolution cannot be changed from 4:3 (1152 max) and you have to launch a specific EXE to avoid slowdown on new GPU's. Other thing that's weird about it is, the game is just too dull looking when you are in top down view, not sure why. But the gameplay is fun, if you can ignore the exterior top-down visuals.

What is definitely disappointing is that all upgrades and research you do for your business and home are not displayed visually on top down map (at least I don't see much difference). HOWEVER, they are do show up when you enter the buildings, so that's still nice.

Not to mention, the game has some nice weather effects, from snow covering the whole place (including buildings) to rain.

Also, inside your home, when the going gets tough.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Third time's the charm, they say.

Twice now I have tried to get through Cave Story(+), and twice I have given up after the crap the game throws at me.

Like Aquaria, this game should not need an introduction, except to say that it's a (deep breath) homemade one-man Metroidvania 2D platforming indie game that was released years before the indie scene ever took off. Therein sadly lies its biggest Problem, but that problem kinda falls into the shadow of all the good things this game does very well. Somehow the game manages to grip people from the start and refuse to let go of them until well after they've put the game away. It feels like it gets so many things just right. But there's a devious mind at work behind this game. The 'normal' path is a steady and linear progress with ever-more challenging bosses, new weapons and levels to explore, and a solid story that keeps up the pace. It's one hell of a ride that many don't want to end at all, especially with the cute graphics and kicking soundtrack the game's packing. But observant players will soon notice that there's a second path through the game, one that requires that the player avoids the obvious things and refuses most upgrades offered. This is the path to the game's true ending, and it is here where the Problem rears its head.

The biggest downside to one-man projects is that there's no one to oversee them. This is what producers are really for: To know when to let creators run loose, and when to rein them in. And the author of Cave Story loves a challenge, but sadly he seems to run out of means to make these challenges interesting somewhere along the way. The Sand Zone is a prime example of getting it right: The game expects the player to get Curly's machine gun and just rat-a-tat-a-tat through the level, which makes both it and the ensuing boss fight rather easy. But try playing it without the machine gun and the Sand Zone almost feels a completely different level. You can't just run-and-gun through it any more, you need to plan ahead. The game repeats this a few more times throughout, but the last few times it's just annoying and only there to inflate the difficulty. More on inflated difficulty later.

Where most people cry foul at this game and its bizarre choices is the Booster. At one point in the game a friendly character can be seen falling into a pit in front of the player. The obvious choice is to go in after him, if only to see if he's OK. But if the player does so, he'll be trapped down there and the only way out is for the friendly character to hand over a Booster to enable limited flight. Cool gadget and all, but... if the player ignores the friendly character and just continues the game as normal, he'll turn up later on, safe and sound, with an upgraded Booster for the player... and the upgraded Booster is needed to get the true ending, the standard one isn't strong enough. Does the game inform the player about this somehow? Well, there's a notebook in a house right before the final (three-round) boss fight that hints at this, but considering that the player is at the end of the game by then and the game only allows a single savegame slot, it's clearly intended as a Dick Move by the author.

There are several such Dick Moves in Cave Story, and all but one of them concern whether the player have a chance at reaching the true ending or not. If the player refuses to hand over the starting weapon and makes his way all the way back to the start, he'll get the Ultimate Weapon of the game. If the player finds an optional area and completes the optional quest there, he'll get one of his weapons upgraded... except this weapon works contrary to the other weapons and their level-up systems: The higher a level this weapon is, the weaker it gets. And that optional quest isn't exactly easy (mainly because the Booster is required, and its controls are pants). If that isn't bad enough, there's an 'obstacle course'-level right before the final boss fight that is somewhat challenging... but if the player is going for the true ending this gets switched out for an even harder version of the level (for no reason) and all the weapons get downgraded to their basic level (again, for no reason). On the run that I finally got through this level, I spent 40 minutes inching through it, and had to go through the boss fight there with only 4 health.

And assuming the player does manage to find all the things needed for the true ending, and reach the final boss, and beat all three rounds of that fight, and the player decides to go sight-seeing at the worst possible time, then the true ending may be accessible. But what's the first thing the game does once the Ultra-Super-Duper-Mega-Secret Level is entered? Downgrade all the weapons to their basic level. Because Fuck You. The secret level is easily the hardest part of the game (including the True Boss Fight) but frankly there's no point in constantly artificially inflating the difficulty like this... at least not in this manner. Were I the producer of Cave Story I would have shunted all of this extra-tryhard stuff into a New Game+ mode, where it belongs. But because Cave Story is the way it is, it suffers needlessly.

The first time I played Cave Story I beat it normally and realized afterwards that there's a whole extra level in the game if you make a few different choices, so I started a new game and tried to make those choices correctly... and screwed up. The second time (some years later) I tried again with the specific goal of reaching the secret level, only to realize how stupidly easy it is to screw that up. So now, in my third (and final) attempt I got as far as the first part of the secret level... but that's where I call it a day. I'm done with this game, I don't have the patience for this anymore.

For those that haven't played Cave Story+, give it a go. Just roll with it, don't try to get the true ending on your first playthrough, it'll spoil an otherwise fun game for you.

 

[Humppaleka]

I don't know, stuff that requires metagaming and many playthroughs have been around for ages. Or maybe I missed the point, but I mean sure, some hints are extremely vague and at the end of the game, but it's not like they are supposed to be easy to find or to be done or your first playthrough right?

 

[ortucis]

Well, that's new. Suddenly, I died, no idea cause of old age or cause of plague which arrived a day ago in town? Game doesn't tell you that. I do like how this game makes simple living and dying sound exciting through narrator's voice, I like it.

The worst part.

I had over 50K in my pockets when I died and over 40K worth property with a booming tailor and trading business. I guess my under-aged daughter will have to suck dicks for a living now? Considering this is London, probably yes.

Virtual daughter, noooooooooo..






On the plus side, I did find a fix for muddy visuals. Apparently it's cause of missing Direct Draw in Windows 10. Microsoft being Microsoft, you'll have to download this DLL and put it into same folder as game's EXE. It fixes the broken UI visuals and slowdown (mostly) when you launch the regular game.

Compare it with previous shots. Looks nicer.

 

[the_shadow]

Metro 2033.

Overall it was an enjoyable experience, with the gunplay vs. the mutants being the highlight. Fighting against human enemies was way too easy because they can't see anything which is hidden in even the tiniest bit of shade, they don't bum-rush/flank you, and seem to lose track of you too quickly if you break their line of sight. The weapons are real satisfying to use, although it's pretty funny that stuff cobbled together from bicycle pumps and voltmeters is so effective.

The atmosphere is pretty good, and the story is compelling, although the aesop is pretty blatant and heavy-handed, and the Dark Ones are kind of... dumb, if you assume they

Spoiler

want peace.

They remind me of the Eldar from Warhammer 40K, speaking in obscure statements and being associated with some pretty dodgy stuff.

 

[someone else]

Not my pic.
Replaying Dead State Reanimated on hardcore.
ITZ coming!
Remember the meme?

 

[the_shadow]

The only way to play Dead State: Reanimated is on hardcore, otherwise save-scumming makes it way too easy for a 'survival' game. And yeah, their portrayal of RPGCodex is pretty LOL.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS YOU CUNTS HERE GOT ME INTO HELHERRON

I JUST WANTED TO POP SOME FUCKING MOLES NOW IM INTO A REAL GAME

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Planescape: Torment.

Spoiler

That moment when Drusilla readily let herself die in Ignus's fiery embrace was unexpected and seemed weird... yet very coherent and understandable at the same time.
"Your last glimpse of her is burned into your memory". A very suitable word they used there, I must say.

 

[Okagron]

Forgot i bought the Half Life pack of every game in the series in the Steam Summer Sale (it was 4 bucks) and decided to try Half Life 1. Installing the game currently.

 

[AbstractKazzy]

Recently beat Grandia 2. Great combat system. Makes me wonder why I put it off for so long.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Monster Hunter: World. It's great despite some technical issues with the port. The amount of crazy shit that can happen in this game is incredible - the feeling of seeing gargantuan monsters duke it out while you're hunting something else is amazing. There is some scripting involved (I would imagine), but it feels very organic.

The game is addictive as shit, though. Given my obsessive tendencies I'll have to make an effort to reign in my playtime. I haven't felt like playing a game as hard as this one for a long, long time.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Much to my own surprise, I gave The Deadly Tower of Monsters (2016) another go, my earlier impressions can be found here.

I say "to my own surprise" because the game is short and kind of a one-trick-pony, but even though I played it just over two years ago it still manages to be somewhat fresh and entertaining.

TDToM is best described as a 3D platformer with Metroidvania elements. What literally sets it above all the other similar games is its vertical element - the player must scale a tower that just goes on and on and on and on, with the best part being that the player is free to jump off and skydive to the bottom as he wishes - there are no loading sessions, it's one gigantic integrated level! In fact the skydiving gimmick becomes essential to progress, as some sections can only be reached via insane altitude jumps, with one notable instance needing to be done from the very top! What figuratively sets the game above most other similar games is its setting (cheap 1960s-era sci-fi flicks) and the narrator. This is one of the best narrators I've heard in quite a while, he makes the game work.

Gameplay-wise however, the game suffers a little. The player controls one of three characters, but even though each character has a unique special ability they play and feel all so alike that the game really shouldn't have bothered... but the way the narrator sells it to the player just makes most people shrug and carry on regardless.

The graphics and animation are top-notch, and they need to be to get the setting right. Cheap plastic costumes look cheap, the larger monsters move with a Ray Harryhausen-esque stop motion-gait and even trivial graphical stuff like lens flares get their day in the sun. But sadly there are few opportunities to enjoy the view, as camera angles are fixed and there's no free-look beside a downward-look command over edges. This will get annoying when planning certain jumps or looking for the various secrets.

But as mentioned at the start, the game is very short, almost painfully so. Short of the elements I've mentioned there's nothing new or groundbreaking to be found in TDToM, but the combined package of it all is still worth a play, IMO. If you have $10 or so lying around while this game is on a sale and want something fun to play, you can't go wrong with this one. Unless you have vertigo. Then you're fucked.

Fun things to try out:

# Keep an eye on the title screen, as it changes each time you start the game. Naturally the narrator has something to say about that.

# Try running against a conveyor belt using the male protagonist for a while.

# Return to the starting area (where the ship crashed) once you climb back up to that altitude.