What game are you wasting time on?

[luj1]

 

[unfairlight]

black bars

 

[octavius]

Been playing only user made stuff lately, after System Shock 2.
I've mentioned some in the Screenshot thread, but some others I've been playing:

The Eastlands of the Realms campaign for FRUA.
This is good stuff if you can't get enough of the Gold Box games and/or want to play computer versions of the classic p&p D&D modules. Combat is a bit easier than in the GB games,.
I'm about to start C1, Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan.
By the end of 1999 the FRUA engine is really starting to show its age and limits, though.

Dead Forest for HoMM 3 (which unlike FRUA never gets old). Nice RPG like map, where you only control a few units, which are named characters (so the story line makes most units "essential").
It's a nice change of pace from the likes of The Lord of War and Dragonking 1, but in the end it felt more like an Adventure game than an RPG, since you have to do things in right order, and you can end up in a Dead Man Walking scenario if sacrifing some artifacts on an Altar of Sacrifice for XP. It turned out that right before the final fights you are supposed to turn in the artifacts in Seer huts and be awarded with extra troops.
3 Grand Elves, 2 Zealots, 1 Crusader and 10 Battle Dwarves, 40 spell points and Magic Arrow were not quite enough against 60 Wraiths, 100 Zombies and 200 Skeletons...

 

[Wayward Son]

aFuck you Stillwater Giant wtf you disagreeing abotu you shoud actualy proveide an rugemt to my fucking game that im gossame in the middel wo plauing you itt3er shit

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

When I'm not playing RPGs or bitching about something, I can be found destroying the online gaming experience for everyone. Four soft hearted millennials had the unfortunate idea to queue Dead by Daylight, unprepared that out there lurked a creature that was proficient in the ways of WinNuke and Warcraft II maphacking.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Started Ragnarok DLC for Titan Quest - Anniversary Edition.
You have option to start with lvl40 character with 2,5mln gold in his/her pockets. Sounds like a good start?

nope

Shopkeepers have absolute overpriced garbage items to sell (white items with 25% fire res and +30HP for 350k gold? are you for real?), no access to better items (that mean no decent resistances, no backup gear with other resistances), no artifacts that make basic game a total breeze.
Took Warfare+Dream and so far it's doable but I really need better items.

Played a bit - your first quest is to deal with troubles in the harbor. It's infested with sea monsters and boss deal absurd poison damage. They are way stronger than bandits outside the city walls. And there are no chests, barrels of hoards of junk with random items that would help you build character.

Other than that - it's still the same game. Rather play it than current league in Path of Exile that promised a lot and turns out to be disappointing.

 

[Kabas]

I reached that moment when i feel that i am forcing myself to play through the second War Wind, so i guess i can write a conclusion of sorts.

The first game is neat.
All factions feel different enough, even if they all follow the same unit pattern of mercenary/warrior/scout/etc. Like, the Eaggra start with some useful bio-upgardes already researched and with the ability to build certain things like mines right at the beginning. Obblinox also start with some bio-upgrades and their mage unit is an amazing army wrecker, but it will take ages until you can train one. Shama'li start with some of their spells already researched, seer/clairvoyance and healing. Tha'roon don't start with anything and everything is more expensive, but their units are the strongest stat-wise would be if the Shama'li personal vision quest spell didn't exist and, frankly speaking, their jump troop is the most fun to use uber-unit. There is also a few more flavorful things, like the thing that some of the Shama'li research requires the casting of the certain spell, that kills the one who casted it.
The campaigns are mostly of the "here is the enemy, figure out how to kill everyone with your limited resources" variety. My favourite were the ones where you don't have to bother with the base building and it's just you and your small squad of the bio-upgraded soldiers vs the world(Tha'Roon mission 6 as a perfect example).
The bad things about the first:
The micromanaging is damn annoying. Each spell/bio-upgrade must be given to your soldiers manually, which is annoying once you start to have too many units running around. If you don't have an endurance bio-upgrade installed your soldiers can't regenerate naturally, you need to command them to heal manually at your race lab analogue. (One neat detail, endurance upgrade gives you a movement speed penalty, which the speed upgrades cancels out. Install the speed upgrade without the endurance one if you want a fast guy in your army)
There is also some annoying gameplay quirks, like all your units being in perma reactive stance. Meaning, your units don't attack the enemy unless you order them to or if they get attacked themselves. You're at the terrible disadvantage against the enemy AI during any sort of direct mass combat.

Eventualy i got tired of the standart mission formula and the Eaggra campaign was the only one i didn't finish. But, all in all, it was fun while it lasted.

 

[Kabas]

As for War Wind 2, from what little i played.
The developers decided to completely rethink the whole system from scratch and the result is not so bad. They streamlined a lot of things that were annoying about the first game, i think in a good way.
Now you finally have the ability to change the stance of your units, no more autistic reactions towards the enemy attacks.
Healing process got simplified, your wounded unit just need to enter the lab/medbay to get fully healed.
Bio-upgrades got simplified, you now have three "packages" of which you can install only one. But they also added skils, which you can rise on certain units from your main building(stealth is now a skill). However, we lost that cool paper doll which showed your installed bio-upgrades, a huge shame me say.
You don't need to learn spell by spell on each of your spellcaster anymore, just rising his skill is enough.
You don't have inns anymore, now you need to recruit from the civilian population. There is even a special persuasion skill for a certain leaders to cut the recruitment cost. I don't know if they respawn or not.
Oh, and they the changed the way you acquire the upgraded version of your units. You needed a certain number of the simple version of the unit and sometimes a reasearch in the first one. Now some of the recruits can be born with the potential, meaning that they will automatically become an upgraded unit upon the training. Gunny serg. instead of a marine grant, Sham'li Cavalier who can mount boncas instead of the defender.
Races now have a different vehicles and you can now burn down the forests and deny your opponent resources, yay!

Now the campaign is having some branching and you get more of the various interactables like merchants and stuff. It's also nice to see some familiar names from the first game pop-up.

^This guy is not lying, Wenda of Ohio is a tough one.
The alien setting in both games makes me wish we had an rpg in it. I don't feel like the humans isekaing into Yavaun ruins it or anything like that. I like both the descendants and the marines, they have character.

But you know what faction also had a nice character to them? The Obblinox and the Eaggra, they got shafted the most during the merge into the Overlords and the S.U.N. Just as an example, the Eaggra druid is now an upgraded version of the Eaggra ranger. Meh, is all i wish to say to that.
Obblinox mage is now an alchemist who can craft potions, and both human factions have the same inventor/techie "mage" who can craft useful staff like armor.

But for some reason i lost the interest to continue, i guess i got burnout from the first game and the sequel is not different enough for me. Oh well, but it was also fun while it lasted and trying this one at least was worth it.

 

[lightbane]

As for War Wind 2, from what little i played.
The developers decided to completely rethink the whole system from scratch and the result is not so bad. They streamlined a lot of things that were annoying about the first game, i think in a good way.

I'll consider playing it then, I thought it didn't hold well the passage of time but we'll see.

But you know what faction also had a nice character to them? The Obblinox and the Eaggra,

Now, for something different, let me talk about a game you should not waste your time on: Sharpshooter 3D. While at first sight it looked like a Postal game made in the Build engine, it's actually a ZDoom game, poorly done at that, seeing that you can copy-paste specific files and play the game yourself without the Steam launcher.

Either way: In this game you play as a rebel fighting against society for reasons, killing your way through to the end of the level. Since there are no end-level screens, it's pointless to fight the rather passive enemies and search for secrets, but the game goes a good job to offend everyone, I guess. It's not very long at least. Moreover, the final level lacks an ending but has you fight against what it describes as the ultimate evil: The President of Russia, who will mutate into an eldrich abomination after you punch him, forcing you to look for a conveniently placed shotgun with infinite ammo to finish him off.

Gameplay-wise, since you have no armor and can only carry one weapon at once, it's better to move around the clunky enemies rather than engage them. There are firearms, but antifa members cannot into saving ammo so they're situational.

Overall, not even worth pirating. That Grezzo 2 game does it better and it's free.

 

[octavius]

Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon's Blade

I have a boxed copy of this expansion pack, but I don't think I played it much, both because I found the new Elemental Conflux rather boring, and I had much more of a life back then than I do now.

So I started with the Dragon's Blood campaign since it's supposed to take places before the other campaigns. There's several innovations in the expansion compared to the base game: campaign editor, quest guards and random map generator. Sadly, it looks like the first map I played - Culling the Weak - was a multi-player map created using that RMG. A very tedious map indeed, even after editing the map files so I can play on Impossible. I really hope it improves.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Started Thief Gold today - I hope there is a good reason for me to bear the game's seeming clunkiness and terrifying visuals.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Started Thief Gold today - I hope there is a good reason for me to bear the game's seeming clunkiness and terrifying visuals.

It takes a while to get into it. Give it that time.

 

[Rahdulan]

Finally getting around to The Banner Saga... seeing as I own the entire trilogy. I'm known for my wise financial decisions, btw. I'm still in the tutorial section where the routes have yet to converge.

GIBBMES

 

[janior]

Games recently finished:
DMC1(normal)
DMC3:SE (normal(gold),hard(yellow),bp(normal)
DMC4(normal)

 

[Nano]

Started Thief Gold today - I hope there is a good reason for me to bear the game's seeming clunkiness and terrifying visuals.

You know what's something? Playing Thief with the software rendering mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hIKym6rKH0

Gives the game a very eerie feeling.

 

[Abu Antar]

Warhammer Online with 2 bros, and then a Chinese game when I need to be asocial.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Star Wars: Galaxies has been my go to for a while now. I usually play on the Legends server. Wah wah NGE turned your wine to vinegar and gave you errectile disfunction. Beyond the misguided retardation of trying to turn the game into a WoW clone it did some shit right like having more content and a greater sense of direction to guide the little 'uns through the world. The sandbox and RP shit I was a mong for is still there. Plus Jump to Lightspeed actually works unlike EMU. Holy shit were the multi crew ships in SWG a load of fun.

 

[octavius]

Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon's Blade

...

Sadly, it looks like the first map I played - Culling the Weak - was a multi-player map created using that RMG. A very tedious map indeed, even after editing the map files so I can play on Impossible. I really hope it improves.

Thankfully it did.

The second map was quite a challenge, with hardly any resources lying about and mines in out of the way places. So it took a while to build up the town playing on Impossible. One of the enemy heroes was a serious annoyance whizzing around in Boots of Speed. But I found a Dragon Utopia, and looted a Tome of Air, and with Dimension Door plus some nice artifacts and lots of cash the rest was easy.

The third map was the highlight of the campaign, and the map most have had problems with, some even calling it impossible.
When I played there was no showdown with Ordwald, but instead one of his lackeys attacked in what was the biggest battle of this campaign:

Ordwald himself was running a much smaller army, and was cornered by two of my heroes.

This was the only map of the campaign with any clever level design.
Most people probably chooses a Red Dragon as stating bonus, but on Impossible a Endless Bag of Gold is more valuable, especially when you know most spells and have about 10 in Spell Power and Knowledge.
The Visions spell is also quite handy to see which stacks will join you, and with a well planned recruiting campaign I was able to build up a sizeable army and conquer the first enemy castle without paying for a single unit.

The fourth and final map was an anti-climax and felt rather pointless.
When after a couple of turns you see that you are top bitch in Army Strength you realize it will be a boring breeze.

So overall quite a good campaign; better than the RoE campaign and the Heroes Chronicles; it was certainly more of a challenge and I like that it favours rapid expansion. But it's not as good as the best user made maps.

The protagonist in the Dragon's Blood campaign is a charming little Dragon Lady with a big attitude.

She also does lots of write-ups:

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Games recently finished:
DMC1(normal)
DMC3:SE (normal(gold),hard(yellow),bp(normal)
DMC4(normal)

No DMC2? What, you don't like just shooting everything in a character action game that's meant to be about sword fighting?

 

[janior]

Games recently finished:
DMC1(normal)
DMC3:SE (normal(gold),hard(yellow),bp(normal)
DMC4(normal)

No DMC2? What, you don't like just shooting everything in a character action game that's meant to be about sword fighting?

You make me feel guilty bruh

 

[Average Manatee]

Games recently finished:
DMC1(normal)
DMC3:SE (normal(gold),hard(yellow),bp(normal)
DMC4(normal)

No DMC2? What, you don't like just shooting everything in a character action game that's meant to be about sword fighting?

That exists in DMC4SE, it's called lady and she plays way better than that filth.

 

[Adon]

I mean, you can always just use Trish in DMC2 to make the game semi-enjoyable. She plays exactly the way Dante should've in that game.

 

[octavius]

Started Heroes Chronicles: Clash of Dragons. It's like a continuation of the Dragon's Blood campaign from Armageddon's Blade, and this time Mutare the Dragon Lady from the Dragon's Blood campaign will be the enemy, by the looks of it.

Looks like it's one of the better chronicles. There's not resources in every other square, and there's some monster stacks for which you need to build up a decent army first. Compared to Dragon's Blood it's much easier of course, but OTOH is has more interesting (as in not symmetric) map design and more events.
But starting the vanilla game it looked really ugly and stretched after playing AB using HoMM 3 HD. Fortunately you can play the Chronicles as a Custom Campaign from HoMM 3, and the only thing you lose are the voice overs. But since I can read I can live with that.

Just completed the second map, where the objective is to get the Vial of Dragon's Blood, but the bloody thing ended after I captured Red's castle and his second hero suicded against its walls.

So checking with a YouTube LP I there was actually a Vial on the map and I didn't free Valota from the prison. I didn't get to level up my heroes more, so I finished with lvl 1 Kyrre and lvl 9 Tarnum only.
Oh well, the the Chronicles are too easy anyway, and I probably finished this map in as short time as possible, which will be good for the final score.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Resident Evil HD Remaster. I actually bought REmake for the Gamecube when it came out in 2002, but i never got around to playing it for more than a couple of hours, for some reason or another. In effect, I hadn't played through the first Resident Evil in over 20 years. It practically felt like playing it for the first time, even though I completed the original on the Playstation multiple times all that time ago.

The remake is very well designed, with good atmosphere, lots of tension and scarce resources. Some of the inventory management aspects (having to constantly run to and from item boxes) are tedious but the limitations are necessary - the game would simply be boring and trivial without them. The constant backtracking forces you to commit the layout of the mansion to memory. I prefer this old style of RE to the new action-oriented games by a mile. It is also reasonably difficult without looking anything up online.

I just wish Capcom had taken the time to properly re-render the prerendered backgrounds instead of upscaling 640x480 assets and slapping some shoddy sharpen filters on them. The 16:9 mode is also tacky (it uses a weird variation of pan & scan, except vertically instead of horizontally), so I recommend playing it in 4:3. Still, it looks very good most of the time.

Definitely recommended. If only the remake of the 2nd game was something like this, instead of the full popamole that it eventually became.

 

[octavius]

Started Heroes Chronicles: Clash of Dragons.
...
Just completed the second map, where the objective is to get the Vial of Dragon's Blood, but the bloody thing ended after I captured Red's castle and his second hero suicded against its walls.

So checking with a YouTube LP I there was actually a Vial on the map and I didn't free Valita from the prison..

Octavius is not amused.
I'm gonna be pissed of if I need Lolita Valita to actually complete this campaign...