I played BL 2 before BL 1, find BL 1 boring, maybe the order of playing?
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What game are you wasting time on?
- Thread starter Trash
- Start date
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- Mar 16, 2011
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- 7,563
Finished Late Shift a FMV interactive movie,the story is meh the characters and meh and the acting is just meh.It takes about 80 minutes for a playthrough and there seven endings you can get depending on your choices but the whole thing just isn't that interesting to go over so many times.Not recommended
No Great Name
Arcane
Which ending did you get?
Preparing my play list for year 2000.
1999 was definitely a peak year, and it looks like 2000 may be even better.
Especially the trio Deus Ex, Diablo 2 and Icewind Dale in the end of June is hard to beat.
So looks like a very strong years for CRPGs, but weaker when it comes to TBS.
1999 was definitely a peak year, and it looks like 2000 may be even better.
Especially the trio Deus Ex, Diablo 2 and Icewind Dale in the end of June is hard to beat.
So looks like a very strong years for CRPGs, but weaker when it comes to TBS.
Sigourn
uooh afficionado
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The good ending. From what I've read, the bad one would have been more interesting, as it is the one that actually ties in with the Shadow Hearts series (which I haven't played).
No Great Name
Arcane
Not necessarily the bad one, since I think that's the one where they all die, but I got the other ending where James sacrificed himself and Koudelka and James got it on afterwards. I forget what the conditions are for the ending you got.
Sigourn
uooh afficionado
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Yeah, there are three endings (I looked it up):
- The bad ending, where all die if you don't have the pendant.
- The canon ending, where James sacrificed himself. You need to lose against the final boss.
- The good ending, where all survive. This is the one I got. You need to beat the final boss.
Luckily I still have my save so I'll lose on purpose this time to get the canon ending.
EDIT:
Just got the canon ending. It's far better than the "good" ending, I'd go as far as to say this is actually the "good" ending considering what happens with James regarding Elaine. Sadly, it's nothing that couldn't have been solved by simply having the characters deal a certain amount of damage to the final boss before getting into the CGI; in that regard I really dislike Sacnoth's decision of rewarding the player's efforts in beating the boss by giving them a fairly shitty ending.
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No Great Name
Arcane
I can aassure you if you do
I could've sworn there was more to which ending you got but it's been a while since I played it. However, I can assure you (for when you get to play the first Shadow Hearts), Sacnoth really seems to like making those "bad" endings be the canon endings.
Sigourn
uooh afficionado
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- Feb 6, 2016
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- 5,735
No, that was my exact opinion on Baldur's Gate. There are way too many things I didn't like about that game.
1. Constant inventory management.
2. Awful pathfinding that led you to babysit your characters.
3. Juvenile writing.
4. Big, empty maps.
5. Lots of mooks.
And that's without getting into the whole RTwP matter.
grom
Educated
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2018
- Messages
- 79
You get it. Glad I'm not alone. Those are the exact same gripes I have with the game, right down to use of the term juvenile, which was the best way I could think to describe the writing.
On to IWD next. Expecting much more enjoyment than BG.
Krivol
Magister
Try scs, playing it vanilla is like playing RTS for poor people, except for Durlag Tower and few battles from add-on there is literally no challange (just spam spells and wands randomly if you have problem with enemy parties in vanilla, which is funny - every modern BW game plays like this :D )
grom
Educated
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- Dec 5, 2018
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- 79
Thanks for the tip but I've already finished it and do not intend to ever play it again.
unfairlight
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2017
- Messages
- 4,092
System Shock 2 has been completed.
Special thanks to Dayyālu for giving the game to me!
It was pretty good, I think. I'll have to let it sit for a while, but my impressions are mostly positive right now.
Some humorous notes:
I ran around for like 15 minutes in the Engineering deck, since I forgot that to get to the warehouse section you just had to walk into the door that is connected to the broken keycard reader. I right clicked on that keycard reader twice, but my mind went completely blank at the idea of just walking into that door and I didn't accidentally trigger the door either, so I was looking around for an alternate entrance that did not exist. It's even more embarrassing since I had already previously gotten to that section in a previous playthrough I dropped like 1 or 2 years ago, I just completely forgot.
Towards the end of the game in that part that you have to destroy the shuttles and you are ordered to build that thing with the Replicator, I had zero nanites. This situation meant to me that I had to either grind for about 15 minutes killing Hybrids in Medsci (who drop either 5 or 10 nanites roughly every 3-5 kills) which didn't sound fun to me, so I decided to just cheat instead and spawn 100 nanites to get the thing. I think it's arguably more immersive to cheat in that situation, than it is to grind for 15 minutes since it's a portion of the story where you race against the clock.
They should have just made that thing free to replicate or have them give you 100 nanites, there was even a TTLG thread on this same issue back in 2005.
As per usual I will whine about everything I thought to be negative on the game instead of the positives, since the positives are already heard of plenty of times.
At times, the pacing felt off. Particularly during the Engineering deck. Certain resources were stupidly abundant, while others were non-existent. I was particularly butthurt about the lack of maintenance tools in that area, which meant my shotgun and pistol were basically around 2 or 3 quality throughout that entire area. Hybrids had a tendency to spawn in rooms that I had just exited in Engineering, too. On that note:
Randomly respawning enemies suck! And SS2 is not an exception despite how much you cunts love this game. In a game that is so heavily based around resource management, having randomly respawning enemies scale your resource drain (3 resources at once, meds, ammo and maintenance tools) up or down by pure RNG is pretty bullshit. They are also an immersion breaker quite often, as an example I had a Rumbler spawn in a room that I just left the exact same second. Having this massive pink flesh beast spawn in a room where all the entrances are smaller than itself isn't particularly immersive.
Some of the balancing around skills is weird. Just as an example, Hack skill 1 is entirely useless. I never found a single thing that could be hacked with Hack 1. Maybe you could hack security terminals? I'm not sure since I never tried, I just shot turrets and cameras.
It's also similar with weapons, where you have Pistol at Standard level 1, Shotgun at level 3, and nothing at all at 4 and 5, only getting the assault rifle at level 6.
Special thanks to Dayyālu for giving the game to me!
It was pretty good, I think. I'll have to let it sit for a while, but my impressions are mostly positive right now.
Some humorous notes:
I ran around for like 15 minutes in the Engineering deck, since I forgot that to get to the warehouse section you just had to walk into the door that is connected to the broken keycard reader. I right clicked on that keycard reader twice, but my mind went completely blank at the idea of just walking into that door and I didn't accidentally trigger the door either, so I was looking around for an alternate entrance that did not exist. It's even more embarrassing since I had already previously gotten to that section in a previous playthrough I dropped like 1 or 2 years ago, I just completely forgot.
Towards the end of the game in that part that you have to destroy the shuttles and you are ordered to build that thing with the Replicator, I had zero nanites. This situation meant to me that I had to either grind for about 15 minutes killing Hybrids in Medsci (who drop either 5 or 10 nanites roughly every 3-5 kills) which didn't sound fun to me, so I decided to just cheat instead and spawn 100 nanites to get the thing. I think it's arguably more immersive to cheat in that situation, than it is to grind for 15 minutes since it's a portion of the story where you race against the clock.
They should have just made that thing free to replicate or have them give you 100 nanites, there was even a TTLG thread on this same issue back in 2005.
As per usual I will whine about everything I thought to be negative on the game instead of the positives, since the positives are already heard of plenty of times.
At times, the pacing felt off. Particularly during the Engineering deck. Certain resources were stupidly abundant, while others were non-existent. I was particularly butthurt about the lack of maintenance tools in that area, which meant my shotgun and pistol were basically around 2 or 3 quality throughout that entire area. Hybrids had a tendency to spawn in rooms that I had just exited in Engineering, too. On that note:
Randomly respawning enemies suck! And SS2 is not an exception despite how much you cunts love this game. In a game that is so heavily based around resource management, having randomly respawning enemies scale your resource drain (3 resources at once, meds, ammo and maintenance tools) up or down by pure RNG is pretty bullshit. They are also an immersion breaker quite often, as an example I had a Rumbler spawn in a room that I just left the exact same second. Having this massive pink flesh beast spawn in a room where all the entrances are smaller than itself isn't particularly immersive.
Some of the balancing around skills is weird. Just as an example, Hack skill 1 is entirely useless. I never found a single thing that could be hacked with Hack 1. Maybe you could hack security terminals? I'm not sure since I never tried, I just shot turrets and cameras.
It's also similar with weapons, where you have Pistol at Standard level 1, Shotgun at level 3, and nothing at all at 4 and 5, only getting the assault rifle at level 6.
Since new year started I finished Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland which I found to be a ok game but nothing special. If anyone is interested in playing a decent JRPG this is not a bad choice but only on a really steep discount around 10 euros.
Also finished Evenicle, a game that I bought just because its from creators of Rance. Last year I played and loved Rance VI - Collapse of Zeth and so I was hoping this will be a good game but also cautious that it will be just a AliceSofts cash grab.
First thing that becomes clear that MC is complete opposite of Rance by being a nice guy that will never force himself on girl or do any bad deed while always being cheerful and optimistic. While not as interesting character as Rance he is still interesting enough and manages to carry the story.
Second thing thats different then Rance games is that main quest is completely linear with only few flavor choices that immediately end the game. While this makes the game lack replayability its still quite long (even a bit too long) so expect lots of hours of gameplay.
Combat is ok while being simple and quite easy while biggest problem being constant random encounters that will suck the life out of you. There is a skills you can find that prolongs the time before encounters triggers and that makes you auto win against weak opponents that makes traveling a little less of a chore.
Despite those problems what makes the game worth playing is the writing, both world building, main quest and especially the characters are very well done. There are some issues with tone difference as you have one lighthearted moment filled with humor and then next second a horrifying scene that will feel like a punch to your stomach. Now Rance had both of this but those games did better work building atmosphere that would lead to those dark scenes.
Still, as I said, the writing carries this game and makes it well worth playing and buying. You should buy this game not only because its a good game but if this have good enough sales we might get more AliceSoft games translate.
Also finished Evenicle, a game that I bought just because its from creators of Rance. Last year I played and loved Rance VI - Collapse of Zeth and so I was hoping this will be a good game but also cautious that it will be just a AliceSofts cash grab.
First thing that becomes clear that MC is complete opposite of Rance by being a nice guy that will never force himself on girl or do any bad deed while always being cheerful and optimistic. While not as interesting character as Rance he is still interesting enough and manages to carry the story.
Second thing thats different then Rance games is that main quest is completely linear with only few flavor choices that immediately end the game. While this makes the game lack replayability its still quite long (even a bit too long) so expect lots of hours of gameplay.
Combat is ok while being simple and quite easy while biggest problem being constant random encounters that will suck the life out of you. There is a skills you can find that prolongs the time before encounters triggers and that makes you auto win against weak opponents that makes traveling a little less of a chore.
Despite those problems what makes the game worth playing is the writing, both world building, main quest and especially the characters are very well done. There are some issues with tone difference as you have one lighthearted moment filled with humor and then next second a horrifying scene that will feel like a punch to your stomach. Now Rance had both of this but those games did better work building atmosphere that would lead to those dark scenes.
Still, as I said, the writing carries this game and makes it well worth playing and buying. You should buy this game not only because its a good game but if this have good enough sales we might get more AliceSoft games translate.
Latro
Arcane
"bad" endings are usually easier to write off of
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 28,566
When in Engineering you're still at that point in the game where you're dependant upon second-hand gear. You having scarce supplies is normal.
The respawn rates in Engineering and the cargohold are out of wack, though.
There are plenty of other lulzy stuff to be found in the skills. Most things can be hacked if you can get close enough and have the skills. The silliest one is you needing Hack 6 to hack the handheld game console.
unfairlight
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2017
- Messages
- 4,092
No shit, but as I said it's just out of scale. I just checked my save after I had just installed the hardware override in Engineering. It doesn't make much sense for me to have 90 shotgun shells, 60 pistol bullets and plenty of med supplies while finding almost no maintenance tools at all. My shotgun was at 5 and pistol at 6 quality, but that was after I got lucky and found 2 and my good maintenance skill allowed me to get a lot out of them, most of the time it was at 2 or 3. See picture below. After I had reached Hydroponics I had it always at a reasonable quality of 6 or so, and at the end and after Hydroponics I never had any of my guns below 6.
Puukko
Arcane
Getting closer towards the end of Digital Devil Saga 2. The story exposition kicks into overdrive around this point and I'm sure there's still juicy stuff left, but I particularly liked the revelations about your main character.
In the first game you play as AI in a simulation, but neither you nor the characters themselves know this. They're all based on real life people who are now dead and their AI versions start developing human traits like emotions. The leader you play as is portrayed as a silent reliable type, as in he literally never says a word, only a few non-voiced choices. In 2 these AI are thrown into the real world which is a hellscape where the sun turns people into stone. After one boss fight quite a long way into the game, there's a flashback cutscene where the real life originals are seen talking and the 'MC' speaks for the first time, turning out to be a misanthropic mad scientist. The AI clone is shocked and has to fight himself in a boss fight. Afterwards your second-in-command who betrayed you dies, but he only ever really betrayed you because he learned this truth, and also that the OG MC was more or less responsible for killing the SIC's real life counterpart.
This was all after the AI MC had been presumed dead for a good while until being resurrected, so it was a double wham of seeing him return and then learning these shocking twists about his 'past' that had been set up as open questions in the beginning of the first game.
This was all after the AI MC had been presumed dead for a good while until being resurrected, so it was a double wham of seeing him return and then learning these shocking twists about his 'past' that had been set up as open questions in the beginning of the first game.
Completed the Strange World campaign (eight or so maps) for Unreal.
Great stuff, starting out quite mediocre, but each map getting more intersting, with some very large levels, lots of intense firefights including fights between Mercs and Skaarj, nice scripted events, a cannon you can use (only I discovered it after sniping the enemies), and finally the pitiful Bio Rifle became (very) useful since it now fires guided missiles with camera control.
Highly recommended, especially if you care more about gameplay (especially firefights against Mercs and Skaarj) than visuals (which are still good, but not as good as in the original game) and story.
I regret somewhat that I played it on normal difficulty, as you get more than enough of both ammo and room, so I'll have to replay it some time on a higher difficulty.
One minus about this campaign is that the new weapons (the modified Bio Rifle and a Rail Gun) are quite a bit more powerful than the standard weapons.
Great stuff, starting out quite mediocre, but each map getting more intersting, with some very large levels, lots of intense firefights including fights between Mercs and Skaarj, nice scripted events, a cannon you can use (only I discovered it after sniping the enemies), and finally the pitiful Bio Rifle became (very) useful since it now fires guided missiles with camera control.
Highly recommended, especially if you care more about gameplay (especially firefights against Mercs and Skaarj) than visuals (which are still good, but not as good as in the original game) and story.
I regret somewhat that I played it on normal difficulty, as you get more than enough of both ammo and room, so I'll have to replay it some time on a higher difficulty.
One minus about this campaign is that the new weapons (the modified Bio Rifle and a Rail Gun) are quite a bit more powerful than the standard weapons.
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Prime Junta
Guest
Civ VI. It is the English golden age detective story of computer games, competent, comforting, safe, and boring. Sometimes you need that.
sullynathan
Arcane
Devil may cry V boys
Puukko
Arcane
Finished Digital Devil Saga 2 and man, what a ride this series was. 2 did quite a few things to improve upon 1. The story in 1 was very much set-up for 2 where shit just got crazy. However, the setting snd characters were the game's strengths on the narrative front. Not all characters were made equal - Gale for example had lots of development, turning from a matter-of-fact autist to a principled philosopher type, while some like Argilla stayed largely the same, which is fine as she served her function in the story fine that way. There was a bit of a ~friendship~ cliche going on but I'd be lying if those scenes before the last dungeon didn't get me emotional.
Skill development was improved with the introduction of the grid and there was incentive to keep everyone leveled. Dungeon design was slightly improved and received some spice in the form of half-transformations, Jack Frost quizzes and item hunts to unlock optional bosses. I managed to beat several of said bosses on Hard, but I did savescum with savestates on some of them as they were tough as balls even with a walkthrough. Sometimes I would reload and beat a boss in a clean manner after I had learned its tricks, but some I just wanted to survive through even if it meant cheating a bit.
This game loved its teleporter dungeons, though. Wasn't a huge fan of those. That eldritch dungeon was particularly annoying.
The artstyle and OST continued being excellent, no surprises there.
Next up is Nocturne, after which I will dive into the 3DS games. Might not get to other series until like, May.
Skill development was improved with the introduction of the grid and there was incentive to keep everyone leveled. Dungeon design was slightly improved and received some spice in the form of half-transformations, Jack Frost quizzes and item hunts to unlock optional bosses. I managed to beat several of said bosses on Hard, but I did savescum with savestates on some of them as they were tough as balls even with a walkthrough. Sometimes I would reload and beat a boss in a clean manner after I had learned its tricks, but some I just wanted to survive through even if it meant cheating a bit.
This game loved its teleporter dungeons, though. Wasn't a huge fan of those. That eldritch dungeon was particularly annoying.
The artstyle and OST continued being excellent, no surprises there.
Next up is Nocturne, after which I will dive into the 3DS games. Might not get to other series until like, May.
Hearts of Iron 
Played as Sweden and aided the Allies efforts with haphazard and often inept naval support until my resources ran out and the Soviets ruined everything.
Hearts of Iron II
Played as Canada and trundled alongside the Yanks on the road to Berlin with much fanfare. When we conquered said city the game saw fit to hand much of Germany over to a shambolic and bankrupt Soviet Union cowering in Moscow. Because Paradox logic, that's why. Then the save game crashed to hell.
Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday
I continued with Canada in the 1947 Doomsday campaign versus a rampant Soviet Union with their innumerable infantry divisions. A stalemate was ultimately created over at Bremen where a lot of US divisions had landed, creating a beachhead. I utilised my sparse mechanised infantry and armoured divisions - with interceptors, tactical bombers and close-air support - to liberate Italy, France, Spain and half of Germany from dirty Communist hands, while the Soviets retardely were stacking divisions on the borders of Bremen. Then the Soviet Union wigged out and everything that I had accomplished went to shit fast, because the US and the British were too busy jacking off to help me out. My heroic divisons were finally cornered and annihilated in Marseilles. R.I.P.
Hearts of Iron III
Played as Venezuela and created the most elite infantry divisions in the world. These were put to good use in the liberation of Europe from Hitler. After Italy and France had been liberated by a concerted effort by the Allies, the intrepid Venezuelan infantrymen - with lard-ass HQs in tow - raced towards Berlin, only to be beaten on the goal line by a brigade of Mexican cavalry.
All in all, it's been a pretty fun ride.
Played as Sweden and aided the Allies efforts with haphazard and often inept naval support until my resources ran out and the Soviets ruined everything.
Hearts of Iron II
Played as Canada and trundled alongside the Yanks on the road to Berlin with much fanfare. When we conquered said city the game saw fit to hand much of Germany over to a shambolic and bankrupt Soviet Union cowering in Moscow. Because Paradox logic, that's why. Then the save game crashed to hell.
Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday
I continued with Canada in the 1947 Doomsday campaign versus a rampant Soviet Union with their innumerable infantry divisions. A stalemate was ultimately created over at Bremen where a lot of US divisions had landed, creating a beachhead. I utilised my sparse mechanised infantry and armoured divisions - with interceptors, tactical bombers and close-air support - to liberate Italy, France, Spain and half of Germany from dirty Communist hands, while the Soviets retardely were stacking divisions on the borders of Bremen. Then the Soviet Union wigged out and everything that I had accomplished went to shit fast, because the US and the British were too busy jacking off to help me out. My heroic divisons were finally cornered and annihilated in Marseilles. R.I.P.
Hearts of Iron III
Played as Venezuela and created the most elite infantry divisions in the world. These were put to good use in the liberation of Europe from Hitler. After Italy and France had been liberated by a concerted effort by the Allies, the intrepid Venezuelan infantrymen - with lard-ass HQs in tow - raced towards Berlin, only to be beaten on the goal line by a brigade of Mexican cavalry.
All in all, it's been a pretty fun ride.
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