What game are you wasting time on?

[Grauken]

Playing worthy games chronologically I have so far managed to play all calendar years up to 1998 in less than a year each, but 1999 is really a peak year in computer gaming, with so many good games (and so many borderline worthy games), so many time consuming games (llike SMAC and JA 2), and so much quality user made content, and it will probably take me nearly three years to get through. I started on my 1999 play list in summer 2017, and now I've reached August 1999.

Next major game is System Shock 2, but I'm also playing old Thief missions, FRUA (next up is Keep on the Borderland), and HoMM 3 maps.

Just completed GoldHeart for HoMM 3, made by Timothy Duncan. Duncan was one of the major map makers for HoMM 2, but he got increasingly more verbose, and the story faggotry got so bad I couldn't play his HoMM 2 campaign Agent of Heaven. GoldHeart was an improvement, though, but not quite as good as the Pride trilogy by Jason Russell. But I couldn't bring myself to read the epilogue after having won. It's funny how amateurs can make better levels and maps than the pros, but when it comes to writing there's a striking difference in quality between amateurs and pros. And I personally have very little patience for fan fiction.

Do you manage that by excel list like the CRPGAddict? And how do you chose what to play and what not, just going by memory of what was good at the time, or read lots of reviews or Mobygames rating?

Regarding the writing, I think it comes from professional developers having writers on board (doesn't mean they're novelists, but a baseline competency that most amateurs lack), and since they're commercial, writing is often the first thing apart from graphics that sticks out the most even if you haven't played much, if its shit its obvious from the beginning and adjusted faster unlike later maps in any game

Whereupon mods are really about gameplay and most people don't go in expecting high quality (or any at all) writing, and you know the typical reaction of modders when you criticize their darlings (who often think they're great writers) is to puff up like a toad and go crazy, and since they don't have access to better writers, couldn't even change that aspect if they wanted to

 

[octavius]

Do you manage that by excel list like the CRPGAddict? And how do you chose what to play and what not, just going by memory of what was good at the time, or read lots of reviews or Mobygames rating?

I have a simple text file, although I've used Excel a lot at work lately, and grown more proficient with it, so I've been toying with the idea of converting.

As for what goes on to the list, Mobygames is of course a prime source. So is old issues of Computer Gaming World. And my own recollections of which games were good and which weren't.
For user made content, most games have dedicated sites that sort the contributions chronologically, and they have reviews.

I used to have no idea what games to play next, so I ended up replaying favourites instead of trying new or different games. That's no longer a problem when I have a pre-made play list.

 

[Grauken]

I can recommend LibreOffice for home use, pretty close to Excel even if it has some idiosyncrasies that can be annoying in the beginning

 

[J_C]

Started playing Half Life: Opposing Force for the first time yesterday, and sweet god it is like a breath of fresh air. Playing an older game after the current wave of popamoles riddled with quest markers, piss filters, overused bloom and blur is like coming up for air from under the water.

 

[sullynathan]

I got a PS3, playing The last of us for the 2nd time now on hard

 

[Prime Junta]

Hey bros, why am I supposed to hate Assassin's Creed again? I mean, other than on general principles for it being mainstream and MMO progression and all that shit, 'cuz Witcher 3 is like that too and I am allowed to not hate that too much. Honest question, this series has barely been on my radar so I really don't know what the word on the street is with it.

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Brain dead combat, worse than the witcher and even batman, most missions consist of pressing forward on the joystick, I had fun with naval combat in Black flag so I think it's the better one for anyone willing to give the series a go.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hey bros, why am I supposed to hate Assassin's Creed again? I mean, other than on general principles for it being mainstream and MMO progression and all that shit, 'cuz Witcher 3 is like that too and I am allowed to not hate that too much. Honest question, this series has barely been on my radar so I really don't know what the word on the street is with it.

The major beef I had with Black Flag was having to do the Aspergo stuff. I just wanted to helm the ship and brawl. But then the brawl really sucks and relies to much on awesum animations than actual skill.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Hey bros, why am I supposed to hate Assassin's Creed again? I mean, other than on general principles for it being mainstream and MMO progression and all that shit, 'cuz Witcher 3 is like that too and I am allowed to not hate that too much. Honest question, this series has barely been on my radar so I really don't know what the word on the street is with it.

Witcher 3 is utter shit and AssCreed is even worse. That's why.

 

[Prime Junta]

Brain dead combat, worse than the witcher and even batman, most missions consist of pressing forward on the joystick

Yeah well playing this for the combat would be pretty dumb. It is not a good brawler. But then the name isn't "Brawler's Creed."

The stealth and parkour work pretty well IMO. I just try to avoid melee as much as possible – stabbing someone in the neck from behind, shooting them in the eye, or throwing a smoke grenade and running when things do go pear-shaped.

Basically, it's nowhere near as much of a yawn as I expected. I'm having way more fun that with DOS2 for example (I know, very different game.)

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Hey bros, why am I supposed to hate Assassin's Creed again? I mean, other than on general principles for it being mainstream and MMO progression and all that shit, 'cuz Witcher 3 is like that too and I am allowed to not hate that too much. Honest question, this series has barely been on my radar so I really don't know what the word on the street is with it.

I don't like it because u do the exact same thing over and over for the entire game. Every enemy has the same moveset and has super bloated hp also if u play with level scaling off they expect u to grind lmao.

Graphics are good but that only gets u so far

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Yeah well playing this for the combat would be pretty dumb. It is not a good brawler. But then the name isn't "Brawler's Creed."

The stealth and parkour work pretty well IMO. I just try to avoid melee as much as possible – stabbing someone in the neck from behind, shooting them in the eye, or throwing a smoke grenade and running when things do go pear-shaped.

Basically, it's nowhere near as much of a yawn as I expected. I'm having way more fun that with DOS2 for example (I know, very different game.)

Even if you ignore combat which sometimes you get forced into all you have left is "parkour" which is basically holding forward on the joystick, stealth is non existant you choose a path and hope no one spots you, maybe the new games gained the ability to crouch? I guess you need to pay some attention to pathing when going for a stab? Very barebones gameplay, I bet the average RPG has higher input rate which is insane for an action game.

The game coming out every year like a fifa may be part of the problem but even when it stands on its own these are little more than historical virtual tours, the witcher at least seem like an adventure in a well crafted environment where your dialogue has consequences if nothing else.

 

[Prime Junta]

stealth is non existant you choose a path and hope no one spots you, maybe the new games gained the ability to crouch?

Crouch, sneak through or hide in tall grass or vegetation, jump into a haystack to hide, and so on. Also decent LoS mechanics, the ability to whistle at enemies to get them to investigate so you can whack them, mechanics about hiding bodies, etcetera. Quite a lot really. Nothing mindblowing but good clean fun.

What I really don't like is the leveling mechanics. Something's (significantly) above your level? Don't even try. Got a nice piece of gear? Congrats, it'll be obsolete in about fifteen minutes. And so on and so forth. But then that's exactly what I hate about TW3 and both DOSs. It's pure retardation, but by that criterion I might as well give up computer games because it is fucking EVERYWHERE.

 

[sullynathan]

Brain dead combat, worse than the witcher and even batman, most missions consist of pressing forward on the joystick, I had fun with naval combat in Black flag so I think it's the better one for anyone willing to give the series a go.

Ass creed wombat isnt worse than the Witcher.

Hey bros, why am I supposed to hate Assassin's Creed again? I mean, other than on general principles for it being mainstream and MMO progression and all that shit, 'cuz Witcher 3 is like that too and I am allowed to not hate that too much. Honest question, this series has barely been on my radar so I really don't know what the word on the street is with it.

I started wit Ass Creed 2 & beat Brotherhood. I have 3 & black flags but my PC isn't good enough to play them. Ive also played AC1, and that game is just mediocre. The ones I played had no rpg and mmo progression, they also weren't really stealth games but I did like AC2.

 

[111111111]

IM playing doki doki literature club. I like the art style alot and the poems are cute.

 

[sullynathan]

Playing Devil May Cry, it's still great but a PS3 still has it's annoying problems. Even owning a game on Disc needs a mandatory install. Not good.

 

[No Great Name]

Finally finished writing my Dark Souls review here for the original PC version of the game. Wow. I did not expect to end up writing that much and I still get the feeling that I'm missing stuff, too. I think this one is easily the longest review I've written to date.

A lot of what I have to say about this game has been said before in the Dark Souls thread, but after some time has passed, I still have some fond memories of playing the game. I really like how you get punished for just rushing in blindly like a madman or for doing something stupid and how the game rewards the player for careful exploration and watching enemy patterns. Having said that, I do have to say that the bosses in the DLC don't really give the player that kind of luxury as they seem to be much more aggressive than the bosses from the main game. It was much harder for me at least to sit behind my shield and try to pick up their patterns though it was still just as satisfying to defeat them all the same. I never got good at parrying but I made do without it and I swear the backstab hitbox angle made no sense to me sometimes. All in all, I am exactly the kind of player who really enjoys this type of game.

Next up, I'm going to take a break from action games and RPGs and I'm going to play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All for a bit of a change of pace.

 

[Berekän]

IM playing doki doki literature club. I like the art style alot and the poems are cute.

Nice, let me know how it goes.

 

[newtmonkey]

I set aside a bunch of time last weekend to play some games:

Bard's Tale IV
I'm about 20 hours in now, and enjoying it. I didn't follow its development at all and it's not at all what I was expecting or hoping for... and while I was extremely disappointed at first (in fact, refunded it and then rebought it once the first patch came out), I have grown to appreciate it. The only thing I can compare it to is M&MX, as they are both attempts to create "modern" blobbers, but I would rate BTIV above M&MX easily—BTIV is merely okay in a lot of aspects, but at least it's not annoying, unlike the mid-late game of M&MX. Character building and equipment are both unfortunately dumbed down to a ridiculous degree in BTIV, but they aren't totally braindead, as doing even 1-2 points more damage per attack (or preventing 1-2 points of damage with armor class) can make quite a difference up until the mid game.

It's got a lot of puzzles, but there are generally only 3-4 types of puzzles total. They keep adding stuff each time, though, to keep them "interesting." If you hate puzzles, you'll hate this. If you love puzzles, you'll probably also hate it cuz it never gets truly brain-bustingly hard (again, at least until the midpoint). If you are in the middle, like me, they are a nice distraction from combat and exploring.

The lack of random/respawning encounters in combination with no respec worried me at first, but you get plenty of mercenary tokens which allow you to create new characters that are automatically leveled up to your current party level. This is a fair compromise for fixed encounters with a heavily skilltree based character system (M&MX would have benefited greatly if you could have discarded characters and created new ones).

Bard's Tale Trilogy
Considering the absolute sales disaster that BTIV has been, I worry that this trilogy will even be finished.

I put a few hours into BT1 (obviously, since it's the only game available now), and it's okay. The reduced experience requirement seems to make the game way easier than the original, but I suppose it evens out eventually. I'd rank it 3rd after Wiz 1 and M&M1, from what I have played of all three. The town is annoying to navigate and 99% empty, while the sewers are just a maze without any rhyme or reason. Still, it's fast as hell to play and it's always exciting to level up at the Adventurer's Guild and see those numbers go up. Plus the bard is a lot of fun. I like it, but early on it feels sort of like a pale imitation of Wiz and M&M to be honest.

I really dislike the scaled up art, but I find that playing with the smaller (default) dungeon view makes it much less noticeable. I assume the art was drawn for the default dungeon window at 1920x1080, so increasing the size of the dungeon view just blows it up and makes it look weird imo.

Wizards & Warriors
The GOG version finally has fixed the mouse cursor lag issue, and is now worth playing over just downloading it on some ISO site. After trying it to see if the mouse cursor was fixed as reported (it has been), I created my party and played for an hour or so. I'm not in love with the combat, but it could be worse. I've always had a soft spot for this ever since it was released (even over Wiz 8), so it's nice to finally be able to play it without major issue.

Might & Magic 1
I only played this a little bit last weekend. I progressed the main quest a couple steps and explored a bit. M&M1 plays fast enough that you can just drop in, explore a bit, and then drop out... but to really appreciate it you need to set aside a chunk of time to actually get stuff done. I'm kind of at a part now in the game where following the main quest has become challenging for my current level, so I probably need to explore a bit, so I need to be in the mood for that.

 

[Prime Junta]

A'ight, I'm now on level... 22 or 23 I think? Am riding a unicorn, which sparkles and leaves trails of rainbows from its hooves. Not what I was expecting from a grim assassin, but it goes fast, you gotta say that for it.

And yeah, it's starting to wear thin. There isn't much to do here apart from stabbing people in the neck, with side dishes of shooting them in the eye or doing slashing at them from unicorn-back. The game suffers from the same thing every other major AAA title I've played since... years, really: it's too fucking big. The stabbing + sightseeing thing just gets old after a while. I believe I'm a bit over halfway now, and the other half feels ... daunting. I wouldn't mind if the endgame was right about now but unfortunately I don't think so.

I haven't been grinding much, just taking sidequests as they come. The MMO leveling really fucks with the game too -- the zones are level-ranged, so it's pretty much lawnmowing one zone after another.

The quests themselves have surprised me positively. There's not all that much "fetch me 11 leopard pelts" type stuff, most quests fit the setting and the story nicely even if solving them usually amounts to busting somebody out of a bandit camp or garrison, or similar nonsense.

But yeah, it's getting to me. Same thing wore me down with Witcher 3 and DA:I -- the games are just too big and sprawling for their own good. I think FONV is about where the sweet spot is for open-world games and it's pretty damn big too.

 

[111111111]

IM playing doki doki literature club. I like the art style alot and the poems are cute.

Nice, let me know how it goes.

Without spoiling anything anything let's just say the game turn very dark and completely different than what I thought it would be. Some parts just leave you hanging..

 

[Humppaleka]

Divinity: Dragon Commander. All the politics are absolutely retarded, WHYYYY. Basic gameplay is kind of fun, beating overwhelming odds by tricking the AI. Still, I sense abandonment soon. Also I don't get the research, by stalling in the first/second map you can just get all research easily if you want to before moving on.

 

[J_C]

Divinity: Dragon Commander. All the politics are absolutely retarded,

What? That's the most fun aspect of the game. :D Marrying an undead princess to gain political benefits? Hell yes, count me in. The RTS part is so bland on the other hand, I abandoned the game because of it.

 

[MicoSelva]

The RTS part is so bland on the other hand, I abandoned the game because of it.

I forced myself to finish that game, and regretted it many times. Playing games you don't really enjoy is the best way to start hating the medium.

 

[Humppaleka]

Divinity: Dragon Commander. All the politics are absolutely retarded,

What? That's the most fun aspect of the game. :D Marrying an undead princess to gain political benefits? Hell yes, count me in. The RTS part is so bland on the other hand, I abandoned the game because of it.

Have to rephrase, meant all the gay marriage, lesbian general, womens rights, real-life political scenarios and issues absolutely hamfisted into your face -politics.

EDIT: Oh yeah of course I married a lizard.