What game are you wasting time on?

[Damned Registrations]

First ogre battle is still my favourite of the series. I'd kill for another 2D game made in it's image. OB64 always felt too goofy to me, and not being able to find as much hidden crap was disappointing.

Still, I can't call it bad from an objective standpoint. The gameplay is actually really good, with the morale/directional formation stuff added in, and I shouldn't be such a graphics whore, even about the style.

 

[funkadelik]

Just beat Outcast and now playing Little Big Adventure (don't know what to think of it yet, lots of backtracking and sneaking around insta-jail elephant robots) and Sanitarium. I can't believe I've never played Sanitarium, I really like the atmosphere and I am a total isometric whore.

 

[Divicus]

Playing the original version of Z (1995) right now using DOSBox:



Had quite a beef going on with this game back then. Never made it past the 10th or 11th mission as the difficulty level demanded for fast pacing actions in the mission beginning and quick reactions in general. Too much for a pupil in kindergarten...Ah, the memories!

The game is also available as an open source project on http://zod.sourceforge.net/

 

[Carceri]

I am a total isometric whore.

Yeah, you're part of a dying breed.

ATM I'm shooting things in Painkiller. It's fun.

 

[mugarod]

Just finished Sanitarium myself few weeks ago. Really good game and I also miss isometric games.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I am a magic dood(ette) and with a phantom to keep them from getting in my face (there was an NPC one if I bothered to go backa and kill the moonlight butterfly) I took them down easily.

Huh...an NPC probably would be helpful, if only to keep them off your back. I ended up just equipping my stamina boosting ring, eating some moss, and going as aggressive as possible against them, striking and dodging non-stop. I found that they don't do their nasty ranged attacks if you ran right up against them and stay close while peppering in a lot of attacks (maybe their poise isn't so great?). This requires a lot of stamina and a good shield though, hence the moss and the cloranthy ring.

Now I'm in the Duke's Archives/Crystal Caves and have found the boss there (the "real" boss fight). He's pretty tough on account of his ability to curse you with the crystal breath. And, like the Tomb of the Giants boss, death means fighting through a lot of stuff (both make you fight through powerful regular enemies in addition to a room full of a previous boss; Pinwheels in the Tomb and Moonlight Butterflies in the Crystal Cave). At least it's an opportunity for more souls, though the Butterflies give a startlingly low amount (only 400? Really?).

Should be done with the game by the end of the week, and then I'll probably write up a review.

/blogCodex

 

[deuxhero]

The guy I summoned was completely worthless and did almost nothing for me beyond distraction (I chugged the entire flask away just to keep him alive and distracting)

 

[Redlands]

Neverwinter Nights. And it feels like a waste of time.

I think I know why Skyway played it seven times. It's because the first six he fell asleep half-way through and missed the dialogue when his face hit the keyboard.

 

[Majestic47]

Neverwinter Nights. And it feels like a waste of time.

I think I know why Skyway played it seven times. It's because the first six he fell asleep half-way through and missed the dialogue when his face hit the keyboard.

Try modules - it's the saving grace.

 

[anus_pounder]

Neverwinter Nights. And it feels like a waste of time.

I think I know why Skyway played it seven times. It's because the first six he fell asleep half-way through and missed the dialogue when his face hit the keyboard.

 

[Sceptic]

Quest for Glory, this time with a Wizard. This series is glorious.

Neverwinter Nights. And it feels like a waste of time.

It is. Stop torturing yourself (unless you really want to fit in with the thread title) and go play something better, including some of the modules. The OC is abysmal and the expansions aren't that much better.

 

[funkadelik]

Three great games, excellent choices. Don't give up on LBA though, even if the game seems unfair at the beginning. Stick with it, you'll get used to the controls and upgrade the magic ball a number of times throughout the game, which will make things a lot easier. There are some great parts later on and I think you'll like it a lot, if anything, as a flawed prequel to the fantastic LBA2 (an all-around improvement over Relentless). Twinsen's Odyssey removes pretty much all the problems that you're seeing in 1, like bonking your head on anything if you're running (horrible idea, fortunately removed), it also has no gray elephants with stun gun, better camera controls, improved controls overall, insta hotkeys to change Twinsen's behaviour, more diversity... oh, and great music just like in LBA1

The main thing that made me put it aside was that I finally figured out how to drive the vehicles so I could fix the town water supply but I had no idea what the hell I needed when I got there. So I looked up what I needed and it says I needed to grab a potion back in the first island. Great. Now I have to backtrack, kill any guards I've already killed 10 times, and waste money on a boat trip. Then I have to steal a potion from the store and kill the guards and reverse the process I just did. I guess it wouldn't be so horrible if Twinsen didn't get hurt from running into a corner or a wall. But my main question is, would skipping LBA and moving on to LBA2 be a horrible move? Or should I really just stick to the game? Also, I can't aim that fucking magic ball to save my life.

 

[Gragt]

I guess you wouldn't miss too much from skipping LBA, but if you can try to get used to its idiosyncrasies because it's a really nice game.

 

[Cassidy]

Try A Dance With Rogues - it's the raping grace.

 

[Serious_Business]

Playing New Vegas again, this time I want to finish it and go through the dlcs - which I didn't do in my first playthroughs. I'm playing with the Project Nevada mod which does wonders for the difficulty curve, but other than that no mod installed, the game doesn't need it (fuck Morrowind). I continue to say that this is the best sandbox rpg ever. Probably because it tries to be more than a sandbox game. Skyrim was good for about 20 hours but then it got lifeless and boring. I don't even think a level scaling removal would fix Skyrim, as all the areas start to feel the goddamn same after a while. With New Vegas, everything is unique and injected with life, it's great.

I'm also going for a Arthur playthrough, first time since I got my new pc, should hold up better this time. I know Arthur 2 is coming soon too. Pisses me off that these games don't get the recognition they deserve. Even the people who do enjoy them just say casually that they're "fun little games" and nothing more, but they hold up to TW games easily - and more. I'll go for a Christian Tyrant playthrough of course, this is the only valid option

 

[mugarod]

Finished Saints Row 2. Good game with some funny dialogue and nice shootout and execution cinematics. There are still a bunch of activities to do around city but I dont think I will do them right now. It was a fun ride for sure though. Will probably get Saints Row the third on one of steam sales later down the road.
Finished 1st Binding of Isaac ending which opened up another floor. Finished that too. Now I read that I need to finish game 10 more times to open another floor. Got to Satan on another attempt anyway by having most of my hearts up in moms room. Almost killed him but he got me in the end anyway. Don't really feel like playing it right now anymore and I dont know if I should count the game as completed or not, I allready seen credits twice but I guess this game is more about getting 100% complete rather then just finishing it.
Had an awsome mage char in Dungeons of Dredmor and fucked myself over by running away from monster zoo in to a shop. Dont feel like playing it now but I wont calm down till I get to Dredmor and kick his ass.
In chapter 2 of Betrayal at Krondor right now and having fun exploring the world and finishing up quests. Story seems to be intriguing for now so this will be my main priority to finish right now.
in Shogun 2 I "lost" by running out of turns even though I got to Kyoto. Now all old allies are slowly turning against me and I am just building up forces at their borders and having a lot of back and forths around Kyoto. I need to move some armies from my starter ciities so I dont get massacred, because I technically lost I think about retrying but I want to finish the campaign. Just need to stop all those neighbors knocking at my doors.

Thinking of continuing my playthroughs of NWN 2 MOTB (I stoped due to stoping gaming completely back in october and now I dont really feel the drive to do it.) Outcast ( controls are horrible in this game is there any way to rekey bind them? Otherwise good game but I hate waiting 20 seconds to see that fucking crystal spin around just so I can save). Serios Sam the second encounter ( I like this one but once I put it down I dont really feel like starting it up again, but once I do I cant put it down. I had the same effect on me from Diablo 2)

Uhhh that is it for now I guess.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Been playing the Touhou games. I suck pretty terribly (Still can't 1CC any of them on normal mode, and only some of them even on easy) but I've been steadily improving since I replaced my controller and can actually, you know, control my movements again. I try not to play the same one more than once every 2 days, and only make a single 1CC attempt on each game to avoid memorizing the patterns too much, since that kind of defeats the purpose for me. Though some of them are pretty retardedly hard to beat without memorizing the tricks. 13 is especially bad for this. Whole fucking game scoring system and everything depends on you memorizing shit, pisses me off.

I mostly just play 7-13 since they have a unified graphical style for shots and hitboxes and such, but I play some of the spinoffs once in a while too, and CrimsonClover a bit. But seriously, fuck the 2nd stage boss in that game. Fucking bullshit jump attack fucks me every time. And I can't see worth shit where the bullets are in that game most of the time, let alone my hitbox.

 

[Metro]

Just finished Derpgeon Siege 3 (plus it's DLC). As I mentioned before I think the combat is actually pretty good. The story is decent, graphics are fine, voice acting is fine (don't get why people complain about it). Flaws: Game drops a lot of loot but the way the game is set up it's total overkill. Going through it all is extremely tedious (although I guess that's true for a lot of these isometric ARPGs). Character progression is pretty bland -- you really don't have to make a whole lot of interesting choices for your build as even without the increased level cap provided by the DLC you can still get most of them. I don't necessarily think the system itself is bad it's just not that varied. The game advances fairly linearly and while there are a couple of areas where you can do one quest chain before another you're still going to tackle them all so there's no trade off. Dialogue choices/key resolutions just result in a different cut scene exposition dump at the end a la Witcher and essentially have no impact on the game at all. Level design is pretty awful. Linear corridors. You're basically herded from one quest point to another.

Overall it's a shame they squandered a really good engine, good combat system, good art, and decent atmosphere on such a boring on-rails game world. If you really like isometric ARPGs it isn't a bad investment for $10 or so (got it for $5 during an Amazon sale). I'd say pass on the DLC unless you can get it for $2.50 or less. Even then it's borderline. You don't really need the items it adds, you don't really need the ability to respec, the enchantment system is pretty terrible -- for whatever reason there's only like four or five different stats (out of the fifteen or so in the game) you can get and they aren't very noticeable (life drain, chance to return damage, chance to stun on attack or block, increased critical hit damage). The DLC content itself is okay. Maybe about two or so hours long but I could have done without it as the game just seemed to drag on.

 

[spekkio]

Completed Ogre Battle at last!

Got shitty ending:

Some hexediting later:

Now onto something totally different:

 

[Damned Registrations]

Ogre Battle is another game I'd love to do a LP of. Metroid too, but that doesn't suit a forum and I'm not going to try a video LP.

 

[spekkio]

Two days of playing, and our blondie went from 'little harmless girl' to 'aryan valkyrie of doom':

What a great game. No story, cutscenes, character development and gay romances. Only pure fucking gameplay: jump, shoot, run, expolore, think... have fucking FUN for a change.

 

[Metro]

Chipped away a bit more at Arcania. I don't know why but I bought it for $5 (which I regret) so I figure I might as well persevere to the bitter end. This is probably the worst RPG (ARPG or otherwise) I've ever played from the quest design to the combat to the writing to the character progression to... basically everything.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Finished Dark Souls. "Awesome game, great job!" to the developers. Probably the best action-RPG I've ever played. I'll probably have a review in a week or two, assuming rpgcodex.pl has been fully UPGRAYEDD'd and nothing else gets in the way (though thanks to Billy Cundiff...).

Probably start in on SMT:Nocturne at some point and begin to slowly advance through for a few months. Hard mode is unlocked from the start, so I assume that's the only way to rock out with my cock out.

 

[thesoup]

Playing New Vegas again, this time I want to finish it and go through the dlcs - which I didn't do in my first playthroughs. I'm playing with the Project Nevada mod which does wonders for the difficulty curve, but other than that no mod installed, the game doesn't need it (fuck Morrowind). I continue to say that this is the best sandbox rpg ever. Probably because it tries to be more than a sandbox game. Skyrim was good for about 20 hours but then it got lifeless and boring. I don't even think a level scaling removal would fix Skyrim, as all the areas start to feel the goddamn same after a while. With New Vegas, everything is unique and injected with life, it's great.

I'm also going for a Arthur playthrough, first time since I got my new pc, should hold up better this time. I know Arthur 2 is coming soon too. Pisses me off that these games don't get the recognition they deserve. Even the people who do enjoy them just say casually that they're "fun little games" and nothing more, but they hold up to TW games easily - and more. I'll go for a Christian Tyrant playthrough of course, this is the only valid option

I know I'm a bit late to reply, but whatever.
Why don't you use Sawyer's mod?
I'd also highly recommend the MTUI mod which makes the UI more PC friendly and a mod which removes skill / attribute tags in conversations.
How good is project Nevada? I've been thinking about installing it solely for the grenade hotkey. If it's compatible with Sawyer's mod, I'll definitely take it during my 2nd playthrough.
Also, did you try out NMC's graphic overhaul? Looks rather nice from the screenshots, but my PC crashes when I enter combat with that mod installed. =\ Guess I'll just wait a week or two 'til I upgrade my PC.

 

[sser]

King's Bounty. Very enjoyable so far (at the second continent). Still figuring things out as I go -- like learning spells instead of using scrolls... whoops. And you can garrison soldiers, apparently, instead of disbanding them.

Also started on Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Played about four hours. Non-combat, non-lethal approach. Beat the first mission without so much as touching someone. But forgot about the hostages. Oops. Enjoyable game so far, but I feel like there's an FPS cap at times. Something is just off with the keyboard/mouse controls that is just... floaty, or something. It's alright, but it really fucks up during the hacking sequences when the mouse skirts like a cloud and misclicks shit. So far, I don't mind the yellow vibe. I could leave it or take it. The game certainly has a very open ended design so far.