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What game are you wasting time on?

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Developer
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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
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.
I have restarted the games many times, but I just can't bring myself to finish it. It's just so meh....
 

Humppaleka

Cipher
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
863
Well I just beat it in maybe 8 hours. Final big map was all auto-combat, spamming taverns and an endless supply of units and clicking resolve. Didn't fight a single battle myself. Game was much better that way.
 

Adon

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
667
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

A decent, mildy amusing game with hack-n-slash combat. The one thing this game has going for it are the environments. Even this many years later and the game is still very impressive looking which goes to show how important art direction is to games more so than graphic fidelity and polygon numbers. Not much to say about this game other than a few things.

  • It could've benefited from more puzzles in between the onslaught of combat. The game has a weird balance of a lot of combat in the beginning with a few puzzles here and there; then the later sections include less enemies, and more puzzles. Puzzles aren't hard, but they're a nice break from the monotony of the combat. Which brings me to my next point.
  • Mercurysteam made the mistake of having so many sections in Chapter 2. While each section isn't overly long, it slows down the pacing to a crawl and got me tired of the game much faster considering the game is very linear. This is where they would've benefited of having more puzzles at the beginning considering how limited your combat arsenal is at this point.
  • Certain enemy types were very annoying to fight, and nothing annoyed me more than how frequently they would block.
  • Titans were the worst bosses in the game. Poor imitations of the Colossi from Shadow of the Colossus.
  • Did they run out of budget while making this game? Because of how much combat there is in about 3/4ths of the game, the later chapters being bereft of enemies and more desolate (regardless of how easily you can explain this with the story) makes it feels like they rushed the last few chapters. As if the switch of focusing more on puzzles was done to pad out the game more than anything.
  • That being said, I absolutely loved the locations in the last couple of chapters of the game and the fact that there were less enemies.
  • I'm assuming the last 2 chapters were DLCs because that shit looked ridiculously low budget. Illustrated cutscenes over in-game or even pre-rendered? Jeez.
  • Forgotten one is easily a terrible boss. The game isn't nearly fast enough to have the tempo that they were going for with this boss nor the maneuverability. Whose idea was it to create a boss that gets faster with each phase and that eventually you can only attack when you can jump? This wouldn't be bad if you could dodge or block mid-air, but you can't. Eventually I had to resort to baiting out certain moves that had him attacking at a range, close in on him, whack him a few times, and then back away to wait for those attacks again. Absolutely terrible.
  • Gabriel's transformation to Dracula was p lame.
 

Strange Fellow

Peculiar
Patron
Joined
Jun 21, 2018
Messages
4,241
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Finished all the (main) endings of Nier: Automata.

In Nier: Automata you initially play as 2B, a combat unit part of an android fighting force locked in an endless war with machines in a postapocalyptic world. The android forces have been tasked by the remnants of humanity, who were forced to flee their home and seek refuge on the moon, to eradicate the machine presence on Earth in order to facilitate their safe return. The machines, on the other hand, fight in service of aliens who invaded Earth millennia ago, making Earth more or less a sci-fi post-apo Vietnam on which the humans and the aliens duke it out by proxy. To go into further detail would be spoiling, but suffice it to say that the game features more plot twists than you can shake a stick at, and some of the weirder story elements I've seen in a video game. And yes, it's all very, very Japanese.

At its core, the game is a third person action game in the vein of Devil May Cry (he said, without having ever tried a DMC game). Most of N:A is spent hacking up windup toy-looking robots with a variety of ridiculously oversized melee weaponry. However, like the original Nier, the game is in fact a genre mashup of sorts, and also features side-scrolling and top down action, as well as shmup and twin-stick shooter segments, among other things. It's an interesting way of shaking up the gameplay and makes for some unique set-pieces as the game plays with camera angles, but unfortunately it also means that none of the different styles are that great on their own. I did enjoy the regular hack-and-slash action throughout, but it's not particularly deep, even for someone with basically no experience in the genre, and after a certain point I just sat back and enjoyed trying to blow up robots in inefficient but spectacular ways, much like how I played the Batman Arkham games. The shmup/twin-stick segments, during which you control a Transformers-ish body suit/fighter jet, are quite bare-bones, but rare enough that they don't become a nuisance.

The biggest problem I had with the game is its difficulty. Automata features four difficulty settings, the lower two of which are: Easy, on which the game literally plays itself (I am not actually exaggerating here, there's even in-universe justification for it); and Normal, which is still pretty damn easy. Then suddenly you move up to Hard, on which every other attack is a OHK, and Very Hard, on which every single attack is a OHK. This would be OK -- not great, mind you -- if the game didn't have a bullshit saving system obviously inspired by Dark Souls, where you save at special terminals scattered about the game world. The devs obviously didn't take note of what made that system work in Dark Souls, as here you'll encounter literally half-hour long scripted cutscene-driven story segments with no way to save. Some of these segments have auto-save, but many don't. Imagine if the run from the bonfire to the boss fog door took 20 minutes instead of 20 seconds, and you'll have an idea of how it works.

Moreover, this undermines Automata's otherwise ingenious upgrade system: Throughout the game you find a wide variety of computer chips providing a host of useful upgrades, like more attacking power, faster movement, improved counter damage, auto-heal, etc. These have to be equipped to your character's limited capacity chip slots in order to have an effect. They can also be upgraded by fusing two identical chips together, so two "HP up" chips become one "HP up +1" chip, two of those become one +2 chip, and so on. The cool bit about this is that the game also rips off the body retrieval system of Dark Souls, meaning that if you die, all the chips you had equipped remain in your now lifeless previous body. If you die again without retrieving them they're lost forever. However, once again the designers didn't consider what made this mechanic work in Dark Souls. Hint: when you die in that game you only lose the souls you have on you, you don't start again from level 1 every time. Now, a harsh penalty on dying isn't something I mind, but when the game allows you to carry a maximum of something like 500 healing items on your person, which can be used at any time from the pause menu, there isn't much room for making the game challenging short of making a whole bunch of attacks OHK even a character built for defence. Which is exactly what they did on Hard and above. Which is aggravating as hell when you have to rewatch 30 minutes of dramatic cutscenes and then pray to God that the game doesn't decide to pull out a OHK move you haven't seen before out of its ass before you have time to reach your previous body, thereby losing all your best chips and essentially starting from scratch. There is actually a persistent levelling mechanic in Nier: Automata, but it's just a boring boost to HP and damage with no choice involved. And while different chipsets can radically alter the way to efficiently play the game, you don't really need them to succeed. However, because I wanted to play around with chips and stuff, and because I don't hate myself, I played on Normal the entire time, and as far as I'm concerned you're an idiot if you don't do the same.

Now on a more pleasant note: Another unique thing about Automata is that it, much like gimmick games such as The Stanley Parable and Age of Decadence, features a plethora of different endings -- in fact, there's an ending for every letter of the alphabet. Most of these are of the joke, unique game over variety, in the vein of "2B suddenly decided she'd had enough of this whole scene and just walked away; then, everybody died" whenever you take a wrong turn on the way to the next quest trigger. But there are at least five proper endings to the game, and a few more interesting and involved game-ending ones on top. When you reach ending A, which is the first proper ending but by no means the first one you can achieve, you've barely seen half of what the game has to offer. By what is to my knowledge the final proper ending, you'll already have seen the end credits a minimum of four times. And there's plenty of pretentious mindfuckery on the way there, including, but not limited to, hacking into the pause menu, battling the end credits in an intense shmup segment and, if you have the DLC installed, duelling the CEOs of Square Enix and Platinum Games in an arena match. This probably isn't a game for jaded Codexers (not least because of the anime aesthetic, with combat robots prancing around in miniskirts and heels), but I had a lot of fun seeing whhere the game was going, it having left "over-the-top" behind pretty much by the end of the prologue. It's all intensely pretentious and presented in typical hamfistedly dramatic Japanese fashion, but I actually thought the game pulled it off in the end. Just don't think too hard about anything and enjoy the ride.

By my comments it may seem like I didn't like the game, but I very much did, for the storyfaggotry more than anything else. It's not a game for Codex storyfags, concerned with such trite stuff as "worldbuilding" and "things making sense," but I can absolutely recommend it if you like yourself some pretentious over-the-top weird storytelling, alongside a fairly entertaining hack-and-slasher.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Okay so Ass Creed Origins is well on its way to full retard. I thought the unicorn was a funny easter egg, but then sci-fi-y elements started creeping in, and I was like, okay, and then there was a glowy blue meteor that opened up a tomb with inexplicably Roman numerals and an ancient-tech sci-fi sundial puzzle that made no sense, and then an anime type stepped out of a portal and left me a steampunk anime sword and shield before flying off on a chrome anime hippogriff or something. Oh and now I have a mount that looks like an overgrown chicken.

WHAAAAT?

The best thing about this is the almost-believable, dusty, crumbling Ptolemaic Egyptian setting. This kind of garbage is just shitting on it. Am I supposed to ignore those blue lozenge quests or something?
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Messages
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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Okay so Ass Creed Origins is well on its way to full retard. I thought the unicorn was a funny easter egg, but then sci-fi-y elements started creeping in, and I was like, okay, and then there was a glowy blue meteor that opened up a tomb with inexplicably Roman numerals and an ancient-tech sci-fi sundial puzzle that made no sense, and then an anime type stepped out of a portal and left me a steampunk anime sword and shield before flying off on a chrome anime hippogriff or something. Oh and now I have a mount that looks like an overgrown chicken.

WHAAAAT?

The best thing about this is the almost-believable, dusty, crumbling Ptolemaic Egyptian setting. This kind of garbage is just shitting on it. Am I supposed to ignore those blue lozenge quests or something?
Piramids = aliens.
maxresdefault.jpg
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Fuck it, I finally got the reference. It was a Final Fantasy cameo.

It would be funny as an easter egg but easter eggs should be harder to find than this. I'm not being particularly meticulous about this, just dicking around in general.

Speaking of dicking around, that Kimi Räikkönen haiku book? Fake. Expurgated. From the book:

Finland

In the summer there is fishing

In the winter the fishing is bad​

What he really said was

Finland

In the summer there is fishing and fucking

In the winter the fishing is bad​
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
Patron
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
28,396
Location
Not Here
Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
Tried Vigilante.

I8dA6zu.jpg


This is very low budget nu-XCOM with AP system.
Kinda let down by the combat. Seems very lacking in terms of depth.

43455XG.jpg


Subject material: you're some masked guy doing crime fighting against crime factions. They get stronger as the game goes so you gotta make sure you clean them up, sector by sector in good time.
As the game progress, new allies will appear and such.

1kiYBm0.jpg


You don't level up from EXP - you gain skill increments from usage. Meaning a shitty puncher will most likely remain a shitty puncher cause you won't spend AP on 40% chance to hit.
I felt dissatisfied and probably will refund this game. I can't really feel anything special from this game. Combat is very silent affair, no scream of pain etc. Even Fallout 1 has those glorious death animations and sound effect. This game's combat for me is stay on cover. Take 60% hit chance shots and watch the enemy do dumb things like charge at you and make a comment that 'This is too much, I gotta run' when they get into melee range at 30% HP.

First combat encounter


Also, the combat quips are bad.

unknown.png


:hmmm: Maybe I'm too harsh here... but meh.
 
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DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,405
Okay so Ass Creed Origins is well on its way to full retard. I thought the unicorn was a funny easter egg, but then sci-fi-y elements started creeping in, and I was like, okay, and then there was a glowy blue meteor that opened up a tomb with inexplicably Roman numerals and an ancient-tech sci-fi sundial puzzle that made no sense, and then an anime type stepped out of a portal and left me a steampunk anime sword and shield before flying off on a chrome anime hippogriff or something. Oh and now I have a mount that looks like an overgrown chicken.

WHAAAAT?

The best thing about this is the almost-believable, dusty, crumbling Ptolemaic Egyptian setting. This kind of garbage is just shitting on it. Am I supposed to ignore those blue lozenge quests or something?
You are overthinking it Ass Creed games are about larping on pretty ancient worlds, don't try to understand the story.
 

Agame

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Messages
1,707
Location
I cum from a land down under
Insert Title Here
Okay so Ass Creed Origins is well on its way to full retard. I thought the unicorn was a funny easter egg, but then sci-fi-y elements started creeping in, and I was like, okay, and then there was a glowy blue meteor that opened up a tomb with inexplicably Roman numerals and an ancient-tech sci-fi sundial puzzle that made no sense, and then an anime type stepped out of a portal and left me a steampunk anime sword and shield before flying off on a chrome anime hippogriff or something. Oh and now I have a mount that looks like an overgrown chicken.

WHAAAAT?

The best thing about this is the almost-believable, dusty, crumbling Ptolemaic Egyptian setting. This kind of garbage is just shitting on it. Am I supposed to ignore those blue lozenge quests or something?

It has been like that from the first game, an actual interesting historical setting ruined by garbage tier sci fi writing "time travel/space aliens oh my!"

I wish I lived in their shitty sci fi world so I could go back in time and abort this crappy series.
 

Valky

Arcane
Manlet
Joined
Aug 22, 2016
Messages
2,418
Location
Trapped in a bioform
Does anybody have some helpful advice for the gryphon miniboss thing in the Twin Labyrinths near Inferno Cavern? If I get close enough to attack it it always freezes me in place and does damage so I have a 100% chance of death. Am I just missing a vital item?
 

Walden

Savant
Joined
Mar 23, 2016
Messages
289
Lots of fun in Ultima Underworld. Level 6, the automap and personal notes feature works great. So far my only concerns are the not so vast bestiary and the inventory, sticking with 15 in strength in the long term was a poor choice, although I like to manage my personal storerooms, but I'm not even able to carry some gold and food, ah, and the midi soundtrack sucks. But great experience so far.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
14,305
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Three games.

Dragon Quest XI. While it goes for a by-the-book story and old school feel, I would put this as the most fun generation 8 jrpg. Writing is fun and witty. Combat, on hard mode is really fun. You’ll stay on your toes most of the time. The game looks great, and I am actually enjoying the music now that I modded in the orchestrated soundtrack.

Primordia is a game with depressing atmosphere, but it has lighthearted moments. I love the art. This is one of those games that look weird in a good way. Characters are charming and puzzles are decent.

SteinsGate. I have only played a few visual novels, but this one is by far the best. I’m probably not even halfway through, but the game is crazy. There are some many hilarious or exciting moments. I’m basically the :wtfamireading emote: half the time while I am playing.
 

Siveon

Bot
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
4,510
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Lots of fun in Ultima Underworld. Level 6, the automap and personal notes feature works great. So far my only concerns are the not so vast bestiary and the inventory, sticking with 15 in strength in the long term was a poor choice, although I like to manage my personal storerooms, but I'm not even able to carry some gold and food, ah, and the midi soundtrack sucks. But great experience so far.
You can easily change to CD audio with the right configuration.
 

Valtiel

Scholar
Joined
Jun 27, 2017
Messages
116
Playing Batman: Arkham Knight, must say: they always delivers. Very high amount of nice contents, side missions are pretty good with most of them carrying some narrative. Tons of gadgets and upgrades, so many that you start losing count of them and end up not using all of them. Core combat mechanics stayed the same but it's still rewarding, easy to beat, hard to master (a la DMC or Bayonetta, there you got style point, here the combo sequence). Batmobile is cool. I'm reaching the end and i'm very satisfied, but I could never complete all side missions in a game like this, there's just too much stuff (200 enigmas to beat the guy??), I'm happy there's plenty of things to do for people who enjoy maxing out their purchase, I just cannot give that much attention to a game like this, I'll just finish plot related sidequest, main missions and the dlc, and with that you have still a great amount of quality content.
 

sullynathan

Arcane
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Messages
6,473
Location
Not Europe
Yea the last of us is still quite boring in the beginning as I remembered.

Devil may cry is great and quite difficult. I will say that people give the level design of this game more credit than the rest of the series. The best part of this game really are the bosses and enemies.

Very few games can have repeated boss fights but make every encounter different.

Now I've beat Devil May Cry for the 2nd time in 4 hours 57 minutes, no retries with yellow orbs
 
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Walden

Savant
Joined
Mar 23, 2016
Messages
289
Finished Ultima Underworld, what a game. Despite being the whole time in rotten borrows and tunnels I cherished the epos that permeates the stale air in the last levels, a sense of epicness that comes always from a meditated experience, never immediate but rewarding.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Finished Assassin's Creed Origins. Better than Syndicate no doubt, but not as fun in the MQ or systems as AC 4 and Rogue.

Beautiful scenery though. I’m now finishing all the locations just so I can explore the world a little bit more.
 
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RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
Patron
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
28,396
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Not Here
Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
I played Mount & Blade Warband again. I was enjoying myself with the lancing stuff. But realized the most profitable way is to dismount and draw the two-handed hammer against a horde of peasants to capture. Because we all know a hammer to the skull isn't going to kill.

I also tried to install a mod.
And they started me off with just 50 dinars as a commoner and an option to take loans.
I decided to go for soldier career path instead and served under a Kherjit warlord till I rose to Lancer.

2C2J0tX.jpg


In-between downtimes, I took 2 weeks of leave to do some independent huntings of my own. Was pretty fun. The most memorable scene was probably going down in the first 3 minutes of a siege and watch as the army of 300 v 300 slug it out over 20 minutes.


ChrSJz2.jpg

jfMuSiV.jpg

NnClnFb.jpg


Spoilers: we won the defense. :lol:

cyXth9P.jpg

VJG7sgU.jpg


Fuck Swadians.
 
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RepHope

Savant
Joined
Apr 27, 2017
Messages
440
Finished up KOTOR2. I still love the game, broken and incomplete as it is. I’ll always be sad they never got to complete the story with KOTOR 3.
 

Oracsbox

Guest
I recently tried my old 3DO console which surprisingly enough still worked and started playing one of my first fantasy games which as a kid I thought was amazing.
This guy has a playthrough.

What surprised me was seeing mushroom buildings prototype guar and numerous other things not a million miles away from certain bethesda games only this was 1994 ! Watch part 9 of the playthrough and listen to the music and watch near the end and you'll see the Dragonborn from Skyrim I shit you not.

Next I'll be playing Star Control 2.
 

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