What game are you wasting time on?

[Tito Anic]

Stopped playing Wizardry 7 again - too much illogical puzzles, without hintbook it is unfigurable. Also game is too linear. Sad, it has so much potential - large world, beatiful art, lore, combat/class system.
Jumped to Wizards&Warriors again, Bradleys best designed game

 

[newtmonkey]

Had a bit of a gaming marathon tonight!

Wolfenstein: The New Order
Bought this long ago, finally put a chunk of time into it.

Tiny maps, setpieces, non-interactive cinemas, no antialiasing whatsoever (WTF), main hero whining to himself constantly. How is this any different from Modern Warfare games? I'm a couple hours in, and I guess the game is not that long, so I might as well finish it (I mean, I paid for it, didn't I?), but I remember all the game reviewers flipping out when this game released, claiming it was a return to form for FPS games, etc. etc.

Quake
Finally decided to stop fooling around with getting this to run nicely in dosbox, and installed Quakespasm. Luckily, that source port supports software rendering. Looks great still thanks to gritty textures and great atmosphere (the soundtrack is crucial), and I feel that blurring the textures is a wasted effort, due to their low resolution. It obviously plays completely different from Doom due to smaller spaces and less enemies, but it's still the best feeling 3d FPS for me, and it somehow approaches the same manic pace of Doom even with aforementioned smaller spaces and less enemies.

Quake II
So then, why not find a source port for this one that also supports software mode? Yamagi is the answer.
If you've not tried Quake II in software mode, I suggest giving it a try. It doesn't make the game any more interesting of course, but you might be surprised by how different it looks. I always felt the colored lighting in 3d accelerated Quake II was too much—everything seemingly looks yellow or red all the time. In software mode, the colored lighting is turned off, and you get much more natural colors. This is noticeable in the main game of course, but it's especially noticeable in the expansion packs which look like completely different games. The difference is really night and day, almost like turning off weird post-processing filters etc. on modern games. It's not like Unreal, where turning off the colored lighting would seriously ruin the look of the game.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED
Game was utter brilliance, then the flood showed up. Fckn space zombies ruined the game, and the library happened. Finally, now it's just a tedious rush to finish the game.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Attempted to play Alpha Protocol
I just couldn't. The controls are among the worst I have played in a PC game. If its not a console port I'll be amazed, because the mouse in that game is garbage. Its slow and unresponsive, which makes the hacking minigame more trouble than it should be, and the camera made me uncomfortable.

Guess I'll play Sins of a Solar Empire : Trinity next then. My backlog isn't going to clear itself.

 

[Cerulean]

Finally playing through Grim Dawn, including the DLC, and really enjoying it so far. Although I don't quite get all the controls and details yet, I'm enjoying it more than I ever did Diablo III. It's nice to relax with a game that's both new and familiar at the same time.

Damn but I love ARPGs.

 

[sullynathan]

Holy shit, Dragon Age 2 is the game that keeps on giving.
It's like every negative thing said about the game is true yet it hasn't reached the point where I'm just gonna drop it.

HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED
Game was utter brilliance, then the flood showed up. Fckn space zombies ruined the game, and the library happened. Finally, now it's just a tedious rush to finish the game.

Yeah, Combat Evolved is pretty cool, but those flood levels are rather poor and I think they infinitely spawn too. The final levels that had environments that practically looked the exact same with soft backtracking is quite awful.

Hopefully you play Halo 2 afterwards, I found it slightly better but far more difficult than Combat Evolved. I maintain that Halo 3 is the peak of the franchise and that's without playing any Halo released after Reach.

 

[Prime Junta]

Anyone come across this potato cyberpunk migraine/hangover simulator called >observer_ starring Rutger Hauer?

It's spectacularly horrid although I suspect the price would buy you enough really cheap bootleg liquor to get the job done just as well IRL.

 

[Falksi]

Holy shit, Dragon Age 2 is the game that keeps on giving.
It's like every negative thing said about the game is true yet it hasn't reached the point where I'm just gonna drop it.

HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED
Game was utter brilliance, then the flood showed up. Fckn space zombies ruined the game, and the library happened. Finally, now it's just a tedious rush to finish the game.

Yeah, Combat Evolved is pretty cool, but those flood levels are rather poor and I think they infinitely spawn too. The final levels that had environments that practically looked the exact same with soft backtracking is quite awful.

Hopefully you play Halo 2 afterwards, I found it slightly better but far more difficult than Combat Evolved. I maintain that Halo 3 is the peak of the franchise and that's without playing any Halo released after Reach.

I somehow managed to finish DA2, and the second I did it felt like I'd come out of prison. It was a torturous experience, which only kept me playing because of the promise of what may come.

When I hit the end it really hit home just how bad it was.

 

[Mark Richard]

The Dwarves has unskippable credits where orcs named after members of the development team run across the screen. It was a cute touch until the 6,000 Kickstarter backers showed up. I can't fathom sitting through the whole thing - the sequence takes about 30 minutes. That's longer than the movie credits for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (10 minutes for vanilla, 20 minutes for the extended edition), though it doesn't quite beat GTA V which comes out at a whopping 36 minutes.

Not much to say about The Dwarves itself. They tried? It's an Indi game attempting to be a LotR style fantasy epic, so of course they didn't have the financial muscle to back that up.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The Dwarves has unskippable credits where orcs named after members of the development team run across the screen. It was a cute touch until the 6,000 Kickstarter backers showed up. I can't fathom sitting through the whole thing - the sequence takes about 30 minutes. That's longer than the movie credits for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (10 minutes for vanilla, 20 minutes for the extended edition), though it doesn't quite beat GTA V which comes out at a whopping 36 minutes.

Not much to say about The Dwarves itself. They tried? It's an Indi game attempting to be a LotR style fantasy epic, so of course they didn't have the financial muscle to back that up.

Why would they do that? That's a terrible idea. I don't understand modern credits sequences. Why are they so long? Why are they unskippable? Are developer egos just that massive now?

 

[Modron]

Yeah in game credits should be immediately accessible from the start menu, something you can advance by clicking (not some movie), and can be skipped post game.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Shadowrun Hong Kong does that. There's a back button you can press, and there are fast foward buttons too.

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Unskipable credits with final playable sequence and cutscene

 

[Dux]

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Risen? I thought not, it's not a story Piranha Bytes would tell you...

RISEN 3: TITAN BALLS

Or something like that. With the... rousing end to Risen 3, my Risen journey is now finally over and if it ever sought to assuage an aging gamer's debilitating jadedness, it failed miserably. With the first Risen we had a sort of return to form for PB, where they obviously attempted to recapture the old wisdom and magic of Gothic I/II. While not perfect, it's a game well worth playing for any fan of the formula. Then came Risen 2 and comprehensively defecated over everything that was pristine and promising, hurling the ravaged carcass overboard so that the frenzied and invasive console school could chow down. What the fuck am I on about? Nevermind. The point is that we now had a franchise with no real identity, barely held together by borrowed and bland elements from games such as The Witcher and Skyrim. QTE bosses, twitchy combat designed for controllers and an overbearing sense of mediocrity. The quintessential PB experience has to be the in the value of exploration and while they never nailed down combat you could ignore it in favour of the world-building and the characters therein. Risen 2 and 3 has none of that. These games have plenty of people to talk to and do quests for but it's never interesting. It's just bland, almost aggressively so.

Risen 3 is like one of those weak farts that tries to slip under the radar but you can still smell that shit. Risen 2 was a whole shart committed right in the open. I can't really decide which is worse. The cardinal sin that was Risen 2's excuse for a combat system carries over to Risen 3, except now it seems worse somehow. The completely unreliable soft lock-on targeting system with roll dodging, a retarded corruption of Arkham's rubber-banding fighting mechanics, with a cyanide sprinkle of Skyrim (kill cams and all). The best way to describe the clusterfuck that is the combat is that it's the AI's world and you're just living in it. Add some of the worst and laziest AI programming you'll ever see in a game with any kind of budget and you have the perfect manifestation of Decline. Monsters, for example, will only ever notice you - even if you have several henchmen with you. The number of times I've seen monsters run past my entire team just to get to me is mind-boggling. However, if they're hit twice they will immediately switch focus. This goes for every hostile thing in the game. Additionally, I've seen enemies block attacks with their backs to me simply because they're in "block mode". Not to mention the innumerable times I've got stuck in the terrain while rolling around like Sonic. Things like that. Maybe there's some rhyme or reason to it but it's simply not worth the bother. The only reason I was able to get to the very end was because I was playing a magic-user and could often bypass melee. Companions will gladly watch on the sidelines as you get your ass kicked simply because their AI is broken. Anyone who wants to play this game has to install some kind of AI mod. Seriously. Not that the combat in itself is all that challenging, mind. Nothing is challenging in this game, apart from keeping your patience intact. Exploration is boring despite the pretty visuals simply because there's nothing interesting to discover. Chests contain random useless shit. The best weapons are all purchased. Buried treasure mean just more money, not that you'd actually need any more. Healing is trivial because there's so much food and drink available.

The voice acting is decent, I guess, but there's only so much you can do with a weak script. The voice actor for the main character speaks with a cartoonishly raspy voice, delivering an acting performance straight from 70's porn. The strange thing about that is that I actually started to appreciate it after a while. The grimdark voice acting seemed to channel my own feelings and it's obviously quite self-aware. The gameplay consists of travelling between boring islands - just like Risen 2. This routine is sometimes interrupted by so-called boss fights like fighting monsters out at sea and ship battles - which are all identical to one another and never deviate from the norm. There's really nothing to say about these events. Even the final boss was like an afterthought and then the game just ends abruptly. No fanfare or closure. Nothing. Just credits. Maybe that's for the best.

You know, people like to talk shit about Bethesda and BioWare which is fine, but they are mere acolytes compared to what PB exhibited with Risen 2 and 3. The sad thing about this is that PB actually has the ability to create something special. They obviously had the budget but maybe they were hamstrung by the publishers, I don't know. It is a tragedy nonetheless that the Risen series went down the latrine like it did, because it's easy to sense the potential when you play these games. They're very pretty games and sometimes immersive but when there's no depth to those visuals - what's the point? At the end of the day, Risen 2 and 3 are mere distractions for the very bored and the one positive thing I can say about them is that they're mostly SJW free. I'm a completionist at heart and that's the only reason I've seen the end of these titles. Now there's only ELEX left and by all accounts it seems PB has done some soul-searching and is heading back on track. Still, it's impossible to escape the fact that Risen 2 and 3 are without a doubt some of the worst entries in RPG history.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Risen? I thought not, it's not a story Piranha Bytes would tell you...

all you had to do was read the revio

but you preferred to suffer

 

[Grotesque]

Just finished it.
10/10

 

[ERYFKRAD]

all you had to do was read the revio

What a ridiculous proposition.

 

[Beowulf]

Just finished it.
10/10

Care to elaborate?

 

[Dux]

Oh and guess who makes a cameo in this maelstrom of lard...

Spoiler

Only now he has a cockney accent and can't be killed.

 

[unfairlight]

I think Mud has been in just about every PB game. You chose Demon Hunters I assume? Good choice, they're by far the coolest faction, although I wish that they were as fleshed out as the Mages were. Probably just the fact that Risen 3 had a horribly small amount of time for development.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

I have all 3 Risen games and I want to play them but I just find that combat fucking unbearable

 

[Grotesque]

Care to elaborate?

Sure!
Here you go!

Spoiler

 

[unfairlight]

I have all 3 Risen games and I want to play them but I just find that combat fucking unbearable

Risen 1 was good in my opinion, only issue was the sometimes strange NPC attack patterns that felt way too fast or connected in a weird way. Risen 2 could be very easily essentially skipped by just getting your first gun from the first island. Risen 3 was pretty good, I don't see what was wrong with it aside from pretty high enemy HP pools early on.

 

[Prime Junta]

i saw a butt

 

[newtmonkey]

Descent
I finally decided to give DXX Rebirth a try, rather than fooling around with CPU cycles etc. in DOSBOX. WOW. This is a great source port, up there with Quakespasm (for Quake) and Yamagi (Quake 2). Like with those source ports, you can really customize how closely you want to game to mirror the original experience (I prefer non-filtered textures for games from this era, as filtering them just makes them look too blurry).

Playing this game with a flight stick and keyboard is simply amazing. One of the most amazing gaming experiences I've ever had; it is worth getting a decent flight stick solely to play Descent and Descent II (and Overload for that matter), though of course once you've got one you've got dozens of amazing flight sims stretching back 30 years or more waiting for you.

Gabriel Knight (original DOS version of course)
Never had this back in the day, though I had a friend who had it and I watched him play it for a bit.

I have recently been taking a break from RPGs to delve into adventure games, as I never really got into them as a kid (except for Kyrandia 1, QFG series, and Leisure Suit Larry). I started with Secret of Monkey Island, which I finished for the first time but had mixed feelings about (in summary, some of the best EGA graphics of all time, amazing MT-32 music, truly LOL writing, awesome insult swordfighting puzzle, but some annoying stuff where I got stuck mostly due to the interface [the semi-hidden hatch on the boat, not realizing you could scroll on the map for Monkey Island]). I gave the sequel a try and liked it more (especially that dynamic iMUSE music), but started to get annoyed with comedy adventure game logic and wanted to try something else.

Now this is more like it. It's a Sierra game so I'm sure I'll run into some bullshit at some point, but I was able to get to Day 2 without getting stumped, because stuff just made sense. I love how the game gives you a bunch of locations to explore right off the bat, even though some of the stuff is optional. Giving you access to optional locations in a game is a huge deal and I think not enough developers realize this. As long as you aren't wasting my time too much, give me some nice locations to look around in, maybe give me some optional story details... it goes a long way toward making the world feel like a world, rather than just a series of locations you have to visit in order to progress the plot (this is what soured me on Unavowed, btw, as I felt I was just being ushered from screen to screen following the story, without any chance to explore on my own and just get an idea of the world the game takes place in).

Anyway, some of the greatest graphics in an adventure game, a truly great soundtrack (that sounds godly on Sound Canvas hardware), interesting characters, and fun locations to explore. What's not to love about Gabriel Knight?