What game are you wasting time on?

[the_shadow]

Just played through the Story mode for Total Annihilation Kingdoms: Iron Plague. TA: K was one on my favorite games during high school (I had never played the original Total Annihilation), and I always wanted to get my hands on the expansion pack, but the internet was still in its infancy. Overall the missions in Iron Plague are much more difficult than the original, and everything is still horribly unbalanced (but fun), as you can't enable the 'Crusades Balance' option in Adventure mode. I know that most people see TA:K is seen as a step down from the original TA, but it just resonates with me. I think the fantasy setting, the unit variety, and colorful graphics compensate for the lack of balance and rather dense AI.

 

[Phaserlight]

Vendetta Online: it's like being home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q7PjQaTVy4

Who are you dude? There is only one Raz and it ain't you.

I'm playing Teamfight Tactics. Have you heard about it? It's fun.

On a little bit more prestigeus note I'm playing through Grim Fandango Remastered and having a blast.

Woah, it's me!

I've read good things about Grim Fandango.

 

[markec]

Just finished Valkyria Chronicles 4, it was the first game in this series that I played and I enjoyed it very much. The story is a mixed bag with its anime cliches, the game is overall quite easy with exception of very few maps, especially when playing the hard version of the last mission in order to get true ending. Still the gameplay is fun and if you like tactical turn based games I can easily recommended this.

 

[BlackGoat]

My deep dive into all the adventure games I never played continues. Maniac Mansion was cool tho I found out afterward there's a better looking version I could've been playing. Will play again in the future perhaps to get some of the different endings.

Followed it up with Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders which is painfully unfunny and annoying to play, even after I gave in and just used a walkthrough.

Not sure what's next. Either continue on to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, or continue my Tex Murphy run with Under a Killing Moon. Or King's Quest II. Or Sins of the Fathers. The Blackwell games seem pretty quick, so maybe I'll do Blackwell Unbound to decompress after McKracken's bullshit.

 

[eXalted]

Heroes 3

Started playing some fan-made scenarios (with some recommendations by octavius ). Rediscovering the game as a whole with these. Got so used collect resources and kill enemies type of Heroes, these are like a new game.

The Imp
This was a very good S map. Provided some fair challenge. Really liked the "1 unicorn vs 1 titan and 1 dread knight" battle. Surrender at the last battle and thus teleported myself to the castle and won. Then I saw that this is actually not the way and it's beatable so I tried it a couple of times and won.

Bug Hunt
A very weird map. Sci-fi theme poured all over the Heroes 3 fantasy world. Didn't like it that much. I can fight only so much flies before I get bored.

Fairy Tale
Another very good S map. Nice fairy atmosphere and Snow White lore. Was pretty surprised by how much content there was in such a small map. Fights provided a good challenge until I got the Fire Wall spell. Didn't know what to do with that released from prison Sharpshooter - he died two battles later. The final fight was pretty hard too.

 

[octavius]

Heroes 3

...

Fairy Tale
Another very good S map. Nice fairy atmosphere and Snow White lore. Was pretty surprised by how much content there was in such a small map. Fights provided a good challenge until I got the Fire Wall spell. Didn't know what to do with that released from prison Sharpshooter - he died two battles later. The final fight was pretty hard too.

I used him as a squire (pick up resources and hold all the but the fastest stack when you hit End of Turn to make the main hero as mobile as possible) and for converting the elf troops to Sharpshooters.

 

[Curratum]

Did 13 hours of Spyro Reignited over the last three days. I haven't had this much pure fun with a game in a while.

 

[eXalted]

hold all the but the fastest stack when you hit End of Turn to make the main hero as mobile as possible

I don't think I want to be this hardcore. This doesn't sound fun at all.

and for converting the elf troops to Sharpshooters.

That's weird. I couldn't find any elf archers.

 

[octavius]

hold all the but the fastest stack when you hit End of Turn to make the main hero as mobile as possible

I don't think I want to be this hardcore. This doesn't sound fun at all.

and for converting the elf troops to Sharpshooters.

That's weird. I couldn't find any elf archers.

I like to use as little time as possible for a better score. Helps me "stay sharp".

It's possible I confuse Elves with Archers. There was at least one stack you could convert.

 

[Dux]

Thief 2: The Metal Age

An almost impossible game to rate. 3/4 of it is an undisputed masterpiece. The final part, however, is pretty horrible and the very definition of anticlimactic. You have two missions (Casing the Joint and Masks) which really should have been morphed into one. I had already gotten tired of the level by the time I was done "casing" it, so when I actually got to the proper mission afterwards I was just frustrated and bored. Then there's the final mission (Sabotage) which is such an ungodly clusterfuck of robots, cameras and Karras' endless garbled speech, most of which I never really could understand. Honestly, I got really tired of hearing that shit all the time.

Come to think of it Thief 2 is quite similar to System Shock 2 - not just in terms of their overall design. Both of these games are masterpieces when it comes to atmosphere, sound and gameplay, but they are also blighted by really weak endgames as well as an abrupt and unsatisfactory plot resolution. It's a shame because the ending is supposed to validate the journey in a way. Thankfully Thief 2 has enough going for it that it scarcely matters.

It's just not as good as The Dark Project, in my opinion. I'll take zombies and ghosts over loud robots any day of the week.

I remember the first time I did the Constantine's mansion in TDP and my mind was just completely blown. It was fucking fantastic. Thief 2, sadly, doesn't really have that equivalent. The mission in the police station was probably my favourite because it really is vintage Thief: go in, sneak around, take stuff, leave stuff, get out - all unnoticed.

 

[Curratum]

Thief 2: The Metal Age
The final part, however, is pretty horrible and the very definition of anticlimactic.

I usually just ctrl-alt-shift-end Casing the Joint.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain. Stealth/tactical/run & gun amusement park open world with lots of goofy as well as serious shit to do, but I need to mod it. Just little things like hearing a loud fucking musical TA-DUM! every time you get into a vehicle can fray a player's nerves. Feels like it has incredible depth, or maybe because it has a fairly high & complex learning curve with resource management/crafting at your base, it just seems that way. Appears there are a large number of ways to subdue a foe (you can hold a gun on him to prevent him from sounding alarms, knock him out, kidnap him for your own army, interrogate or cut his throat). The extensive Infinite Heaven mod doesn't want to work nicely with my particular build.

 

[J_C]

Thief 2: The Metal Age

An almost impossible game to rate. 3/4 of it is an undisputed masterpiece. The final part, however, is pretty horrible and the very definition of anticlimactic. You have two missions (Casing the Joint and Masks) which really should have been morphed into one. I had already gotten tired of the level by the time I was done "casing" it, so when I actually got to the proper mission afterwards I was just frustrated and bored. Then there's the final mission (Sabotage) which is such an ungodly clusterfuck of robots, cameras and Karras' endless garbled speech, most of which I never really could understand. Honestly, I got really tired of hearing that shit all the time.

Come to think of it Thief 2 is quite similar to System Shock 2 - not just in terms of their overall design. Both of these games are masterpieces when it comes to atmosphere, sound and gameplay, but they are also blighted by really weak endgames as well as an abrupt and unsatisfactory plot resolution. It's a shame because the ending is supposed to validate the journey in a way. Thankfully Thief 2 has enough going for it that it scarcely matters.

It's just not as good as The Dark Project, in my opinion. I'll take zombies and ghosts over loud robots any day of the week.

I remember the first time I did the Constantine's mansion in TDP and my mind was just completely blown. It was fucking fantastic. Thief 2, sadly, doesn't really have that equivalent. The mission in the police station was probably my favourite because it really is vintage Thief: go in, sneak around, take stuff, leave stuff, get out - all unnoticed.

I can second this. For a long time I was on the opinion that T2 is better than T1. But then I realized that T2's endgame is pretty terrible. Although I only had a problem with the final mission, not with the ones before it. It is just boring and unimaginative. Still a fantastic game, but I like TDP better now.

 

[Curratum]

Thief 2 is only better than Thief 1 because of the colored lighting and the FMs.

 

[eXalted]

It's possible I confuse Elves with Archers. There was at least one stack you could convert.

I completely forgot that he can convert human archers too. That makes the last battle not that hard anymore.

 

[eXalted]

Gremlins & Titans

I'm really starting to waste time with this one. It's the first map of that guy but he sure can play a thousand times better than me because I'm stuck 10 minutes in.

 

[HansDampf]

Outer Wilds, aka Groundhog Day in space.
This is one of the few adventure/exploration games where progress is tied to knowledge. You never get new tools or abilities. Everything is available from the start. The only thing that changes is your knowledge. If you knew what to do, you could finish the game during the first cycle. That's unlikely to happen, but I could imagine someone playing through this game while missing 50% of the content. Progression is non-linear. But there are some clues that lead you down certain paths. It's well designed in that way. Many of the riddles are solved by being in the right place at the right time. Some require a bit more thought.
My biggest complaint is the story and how it's presented. Take every sci-fi trope you can think of, black holes, teleportation, artificial gravity, quantum shit, time travel, supernovae, ..., warp them into a fairy tale shape, and throw everything into a miniature star system. Welcome to Outer Wilds. The planets are tiny. In a time span of just 22 minutes your home planet goes through multiple day/night cycles, and you can watch the sun turn into a "red giant" and then into a supernova. I understand why everything is scaled down. It's a necessary concession. Nobody wants to explore realistically sized planets that are 99.9% desert, or wait a million years for the cycle to repeat. But I found it difficult to actually care about any of this. When grandpa is chilling on the moon and complains about being lonely and nobody visiting him, I'm like, dude, if you jump high enough you're almost home. I don't know how you could improve this without hurting the gameplay. Maybe this story just isn't the right fit for this type of game. Astronomy and physics are shown from a rather naive perspective, like how a clueless child would imagine them. This also extends to the writing (when science = magic). I'm not asking for 100% hard sci-fi accuracy, just a little more respect, if I'm supposed to take this seriously.
The game has its trippy moments though. The main premise and mystery is interesting. Every planet has some crazy properties that offer cool set pieces. And the final stretch, when you take the required item to the end, is satisfying. One minor missed opportunity on the ending:

Spoiler

You need a warp core to power up a space ship. But the only warp core you can find is powering the the machine that is responsible for your time loop. Once you take that warp core out of the machine you are no longer immortal. And the path to the ship isn't that trivial. If you die now you will get a Game Over instead of a new cycle. But the devs didn't have the balls to actually delete your save file. It's really a minor thing, but I thought this would have been a nice touch. No real progress would be lost anyway. You could just start a new game and go directly to the warp core. The only thing that you would lose is your ship log (and achievement progress, I guess

), which is irrelevant at that point. In the old days you would have had to take notes yourself anyway.

Oh, btw, I must have had 10 or so crashes overall. But I'm not sure if I can blame this entirely on the game...
I'd wait for a sale. Best played when high.

 

[Onionguy]

Thief 2: The Metal Age

An almost impossible game to rate. 3/4 of it is an undisputed masterpiece. The final part, however, is pretty horrible and the very definition of anticlimactic. You have two missions (Casing the Joint and Masks) which really should have been morphed into one. I had already gotten tired of the level by the time I was done "casing" it, so when I actually got to the proper mission afterwards I was just frustrated and bored. Then there's the final mission (Sabotage) which is such an ungodly clusterfuck of robots, cameras and Karras' endless garbled speech, most of which I never really could understand. Honestly, I got really tired of hearing that shit all the time.

Come to think of it Thief 2 is quite similar to System Shock 2 - not just in terms of their overall design. Both of these games are masterpieces when it comes to atmosphere, sound and gameplay, but they are also blighted by really weak endgames as well as an abrupt and unsatisfactory plot resolution. It's a shame because the ending is supposed to validate the journey in a way. Thankfully Thief 2 has enough going for it that it scarcely matters.

It's just not as good as The Dark Project, in my opinion. I'll take zombies and ghosts over loud robots any day of the week.

I remember the first time I did the Constantine's mansion in TDP and my mind was just completely blown. It was fucking fantastic. Thief 2, sadly, doesn't really have that equivalent. The mission in the police station was probably my favourite because it really is vintage Thief: go in, sneak around, take stuff, leave stuff, get out - all unnoticed.

Sabotage isn't nearly as bad as people make it to be, its problem is that it comes after that doubled mission, and as such it may feel a bit dull and overwhelming. All the busy work that you do in the beginning, things like find a number ingredients, insert them in a specific order into a machine- that's the bad part. But the moment you leave it behind, that's when things start to get more interesting. There is an unique feeling of descending deeper and deeper into some dehumanized maze of madness. That's at least how it felt to me.

 

[Apostle Hand]

playing Max Payne

I played this game several years ago but couldn't past one tough encounter.

 

[Abu Antar]

I tried The Witness. I've activated 5 lasers, I think. It's a good change of pace when you just want to chill from Bravely Second, Persona 5 and Underrail.

I also completed The Journey Down Chatpers 1 and 2, which puts me at approximately 50 beaten games in 2019.

 

[Vincente]

Playing Splinter Cell for the first time, i need to laser-mic a glass elevator atm. Really fun game, probably gonna play the other entries in the series when i finish 1.

 

[eXalted]

playing Max Payne

I played this game several years ago but couldn't past one tough encounter.

Completed Max Payne 1 a few months ago, then completed Max Payne 2........... and then installed Max Payne 1 and completed it again. What's wrong with me?

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

playing Max Payne

I played this game several years ago but couldn't past one tough encounter.

Completed Max Payne 1 a few months ago, then completed Max Payne 2........... and then installed Max Payne 1 and completed it again. What's wrong with me?

Nothing. Better to a good thing a thousand times than a bad thing once. After all, variety is the spice of life.

 

[octavius]

Diablo 2, 1.09 Patch.

Battling The Ancients with a bow wielding Amazon on Nightmare. Holy shit, this was the most difficult fight so far.
Hit and run seems to be the only valid tactic. Fortunately my Amazon has about 40% extra movement (would have been 65% with her previous bow), so after some reloads I learnt to avoid the Leap Attacks and Whirlwinds. One direct hit with a LA would be fatal.
I watched some YouTube videos to compare, and as usual I was disgusted. Seems the Valkyrie and Merc are near invincible with the newer patches, while in 1.09 they have a very short life expactancy. The merc dies right away, while the valk lasts maybe a minute if lucky. And of course the YouTubers are 20-40 levels higher than my lvl 51 character.
Also noticed that with newer patches you can buy mana potions. With 1.09 you can't.

Seems in general damage from special attacks and auras was reduced in the newer patches.
I kind of miss Classic D2; less micro-management of Charms, and I felt I had a chance of collecting a Set. A remote chance, but still a chance.

 

[Cael]

Diablo 2, 1.09 Patch.

Battling The Ancients with a bow wielding Amazon on Nightmare. Holy shit, this was the most difficult fight so far.
Hit and run seems to be the only valid tactic. Fortunately my Amazon has about 40% extra movement (would have been 65% with her previous bow), so after some reloads I learnt to avoid the Leap Attacks and Whirlwinds. One direct hit with a LA would be fatal.
I watched some YouTube videos to compare, and as usual I was disgusted. Seems the Valkyrie and Merc are near invincible with the newer patches, while in 1.09 they have a very short life expactancy. The merc dies right away, while the valk lasts maybe a minute if lucky. And of course the YouTubers are 20-40 levels higher than my lvl 51 character.
Also noticed that with newer patches you can buy mana potions. With 1.09 you can't.

Seems in general damage from special attacks and auras was reduced in the newer patches.
I kind of miss Classic D2; less micro-management of Charms, and I felt I had a chance of collecting a Set. A remote chance, but still a chance.

I thought you could always buy mana pots. They are standard items at the alchemist/magic item dude back in the cities.

The Bowazon had always been about hit and run. That was the problem with a solo archer. Always had been. You always needed the pets to tank for you.