What game are you wasting time on?

[Zep Zepo]

Starting on Code Vein today (The trial/demo). Should have the full game in a couple days.

First impression is...This game is not very good.

With the waifu creator, I cannot create a skinny, big tittied wifu. Only a generic body size.
And another, I create a face I like...then have to put on a Mask...WTF, Pointless.

I guess there is a "bonfire" mechanic, but it never explains it. If I happen to die, I am at the beginning of the level.

I'm getting the game via Gamefly on release...but looks like I'll be returning it early.

Demo Rating


Zep--

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Pillars of Eternity would be nice if the combat wasn't shit.
Ever had an asshole DM who swarmed the players with mobs if they tried exploring, or because the DM just wanted a big dumb action moment?
That's what the combat in this game feels like. Its not fun, its not interesting, its frustrating as hell and it pisses me off.

Seriously, as soon as you step 10 steps past the Caed Nul or whatever entrance you get swarmed by spirits. If you walk to the right you get swarmed by spirits. If you enter that building with the throne you get swarmed by spirits who stunlock you. If you go downstairs you get swarmed by spiders. If you go a bit further you get swarmed by spiders and beetles. Its bullshit.
Like, the combat in old CRPGs were tough, but they weren't complete fucking gauntlets where you can't leave and can't avoid combat, and at least you got EXP for your troubles, and at least the AI wasn't completely retarded. In Pillars you get nothing except rage and lost time.

 

[Jimmious]

Seriously, as soon as you step 10 steps past the Caed Nul or whatever entrance you get swarmed by spirits. If you walk to the right you get swarmed by spirits. If you enter that building with the throne you get swarmed by spirits who stunlock you. If you go downstairs you get swarmed by spiders. If you go a bit further you get swarmed by spiders and beetles. Its bullshit.

This is probably the worst combat part of the game though. The whole initial Caed Nua scene is very annoying especially in harder difficulties

 

[eXalted]

Hail to The King

Another fan-made Heroes III scenario. Very linear but doesn't matter. I enjoyed the good story and straightforward no-bullshit writing.
octavius I'm curious how you won the last battle. The one with the stacks of skeletons and zombies. I had to use Frost Ring to destroy my own catapult and block the gate with Force Field so I can reduce their numbers with archers until I run out of arrows. Slow didn't work because the AI was casting Haste immediately after that.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Seriously, as soon as you step 10 steps past the Caed Nul or whatever entrance you get swarmed by spirits. If you walk to the right you get swarmed by spirits. If you enter that building with the throne you get swarmed by spirits who stunlock you. If you go downstairs you get swarmed by spiders. If you go a bit further you get swarmed by spiders and beetles. Its bullshit.

This is probably the worst combat part of the game though. The whole initial Caed Nua scene is very annoying especially in harder difficulties

Its not just that though, Raedric's hold is pretty much the same, except with Vessals. The temple in Gilded Vale also has a tendency to swarm you with spiders and spirits, and in one room you fight like 2 of those weird goblin king things and his entourage.
Its like Obsidian wasn't sure they wanted to make Diablo or Planescape Torment, so they went for both. It doesn't work.
I have never played a RPG that punishes the player this hard for exploring and trying to play it. Like, there were some hard encounters in Planescape and Fallout, but they tended to be pretty rare and at least you got something out of it.

 

[Jimmious]

Seriously, as soon as you step 10 steps past the Caed Nul or whatever entrance you get swarmed by spirits. If you walk to the right you get swarmed by spirits. If you enter that building with the throne you get swarmed by spirits who stunlock you. If you go downstairs you get swarmed by spiders. If you go a bit further you get swarmed by spiders and beetles. Its bullshit.

This is probably the worst combat part of the game though. The whole initial Caed Nua scene is very annoying especially in harder difficulties

Its not just that though, Raedric's hold is pretty much the same, except with Vessals. The temple in Gilded Vale also has a tendency to swarm you with spiders and spirits, and in one room you fight like 2 of those weird goblin king things and his entourage.
Its like Obsidian wasn't sure they wanted to make Diablo or Planescape Torment, so they went for both. It doesn't work.
I have never played a RPG that punishes the player this hard for exploring and trying to play it.

Yeah they really got it wrong initially. Gets much better in the DLCs and in PoE2. But PoE "trash battles" are really... trash

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Another thing that drives me nuts is that I can't use my party's stats. Like, I have Dwarf with survival 6, and I can't use it. What's the point of having a party if you can't use their stats for dialogue options?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Another thing that drives me nuts is that I can't use my party's stats. Like, I have Dwarf with survival 6, and I can't use it. What's the point of having a party if you can't use their stats for dialogue options?

Using a party member's stats for dialogue options is shit because you essentially can pass every dialogue option without fail.
This is how Deadfire (sort-of) works, and essentially what I describe happens.

 

[J_C]

Played through the first chapter of Painkiller, then I uninstalled. It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, I expected something which is closer to Doom with its gameplay.

But what it was is a bunch of arenas connected together with a door. Everytime I entered a room, the door closed and a dozen enemies spawned. After I killed them, I went through the next door, which closed behind me, and another dozen enemies spawned in the room. The gunplay was alright, but it's just so barebones. I'd rather play the original doom again, with is better level design.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Another thing that drives me nuts is that I can't use my party's stats. Like, I have Dwarf with survival 6, and I can't use it. What's the point of having a party if you can't use their stats for dialogue options?

Using a party member's stats for dialogue options is shit because you essentially can pass every dialogue option without fail.
This is how Deadfire (sort-of) works, and essentially what I describe happens.

Except that's how a traditional RPG works, and CRPGs are supposed to be based off of it. If someone in your party has a skill, he uses it.
If balance is what you are worried about, you should at least be allowed to use a part of a party member's stat. Like half of it or something in addition to yours.

 

[Grauken]

Another thing that drives me nuts is that I can't use my party's stats. Like, I have Dwarf with survival 6, and I can't use it. What's the point of having a party if you can't use their stats for dialogue options?

Using a party member's stats for dialogue options is shit because you essentially can pass every dialogue option without fail.
This is how Deadfire (sort-of) works, and essentially what I describe happens.

Except that's how a traditional RPG works, and CRPGs are supposed to be based off of it. If someone in your party has a skill, he uses it.
If balance is what you are worried about, you should at least be allowed to use a part of a party member's stat. Like half of it or something in addition to yours.

That's a common misconception, CRPGs are inspired by P&P RPGs, and a few of them are based on them, but only a marginal number

 

[Desolate Dancer]

Except that's how a traditional RPG works, and CRPGs are supposed to be based off of it. If someone in your party has a skill, he uses it.
If balance is what you are worried about, you should at least be allowed to use a part of a party member's stat. Like half of it or something in addition to yours.

The way I see it, and how it should be separated is the following:
- Dialogue: If we are talking about a party-based game where you are representing only one character, the lead character, then I'd argue that this character should be the only one to influence dialogue outcomes in a direct way (in an indirect way, party-members can ofc interject). This also means that you can roleplay your current character in the game knowing that you must be consistent all thruout the game and consequently, this increases replayability. In order for this to work for every build, all attributes, races, classes and factions should be considered for the dialogue options (to a varying degree).
- Interaction: An interaction e.g. climbing up a cliff, crawling thru a crack, jumping over a destroyed bridge etc... can be complete by any character. This is legit since as a lead character you can 'instruct' any of your party-members to attempt such a task, but they are never really the initiators here either.

The problem with allowing them to interfere in dialogues in a direct way is exactly the fact that you can circumvent tension and obstacles in the game that way. Imagine you having to convince someone, and the only way to reach the best result is thru high CHA. Well, you don't have it, but you know this to be the case so you use your Bard to do that. I think it reduces roleplay value if we allow that, but Interaction does not, since the latter only simulates what one can imagine to be the part of dungeoneering... as for dialogues, one always imagine's that it is the 'lead' or the 'hero' or the 'protagonist' that handles the talking and thus, consequently the flow of the narrative. You can ofc deviate from that basic assumption, but is is not recommended.

 

[HansDampf]

Celeste got a free new chapter. It's the longest and hardest chapter according to my time and death count (over 2000). But I also hadn't touched the game for 9 months and had to get used to the controls again.
It starts off a bit mediocre with some confusing gimmicks. But after 1/3 or 1/2 it introduces wavedashing, a "hidden" movement tech that is otherwise only used in speedruns. Now it is required throughout the remainder of the chapter. The devs put a lot of effort into explaining this tech with a ppt presentation, several tutorial screens and a ghost player showing how it's done. And yet, it's still not a complete explanation. Here is a tip: You can also diagonally dash into the ground from a standing position, but then you have to delay the jump by a few frames. Wavedashing is difficult to master, but really fun if you can string a few of them together. The chapter ends with a typical looooong C-Side-type of challenge that could take you an hour to get through.

 

[Tiger]

I've caved and tried Factorio for the first time. I'm a huge fucking autist. Goodbye life.

 

[Dayyālu]

Played through the first chapter of Painkiller, then I uninstalled. It was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, I expected something which is closer to Doom with its gameplay.

I'd suggest to endure the first Chapter of Painkiller: it's essentially an arena shooter but the Painkiller level design and amusement can be aptly described as a hill: after a frankly mediocre start it gets better and better until it starts becoming worse and worse and then nosedives in the last levels and the expansions are trying to dig a bunker.

But the "good levels", when you get enough weaponry and special cards to spice it up, are quite good.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I remember Painkiller being lots of fun when it first came out. I especially remember the witches flying around on brooms. Yet at the same time, I had no desire to play the sequels/expansions so it didn't have that certain something that makes a game classic.

 

[YldriE]

I guess Doom and Duke Nukem 3D levels were a succession of arenas spawning waves of trash mobs until the door opens when the last monster dies. I mean, everyone was in awe at how oldschool Painkiller was, a throwback to the good old days, a heartfelt hommage to the Doom days, surely they knew what they were talking about.

Painkiller is trash that shows almost everyone who claims to like old games is a poser who wants to appear cultured. It's not a throwback to how shooters used to be, it's what someone who never played them imagines they were.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Remember, it's not wasting time if you are enjoying yourself.

And life is meant for enjoyment, so enjoy! <3

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Kickle Cubicle - it's a cool block puzzle game with some real time elements. The first three worlds are really basic, and after that the game slowly ramps up difficulty. The post game puzzles are really hard in a good way. Sadly the real time elements relate less to solving the puzzles, and more to dodging the enemies that roam around the map trying to kill you. Most of them don't interact with the puzzle elements, so they don't add much to the game beyond forcing restarts, which can be annoying in some of the longer puzzles. Overall, the puzzles are good so the game holds up.

 

[Jvegi]

Still TFT baby.

 

[Puukko]

Did people consider Painkiller a true successor to FPS of old? I always kind of treated it as its own thing, inspired by those games for certain but by no means claiming to be authentic to them.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Mini-golf games on home computers seem to suffer from two problems: They age badly and their physics and mechanics tend to be pretty poor. Through the years I've tried my hand at Crazy Golf (1982) on the Spectrum, Mini-Putt (1987) in DOS and Zany Golf (1989). It's only in the past five years that mini-golf games have seemingly solved the second problem, so that's progress. But at least these mini-golf games were fun back in the day, but time has been really hard on them and only curious nostalgiafags will have any reason to even play them anymore. Which is precisely the reason I dug up Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf (1995) and gave it a go... and it is no exception to the above.

The premise is (as always) to play a round of golf through miniaturized courses that usually have some traps gimmicks going for them. In Fuzzy's case the gimmicks are two-fold: A retro sci-fi theme, and that the golf course is located out in space. Sadly that doesn't mean that the golf ball is unaffected by gravity or inertia... quite the contrary. I'm guessing the ball is magnetically held down onto the course or something so that it doesn't shoot off into space, because at no point can the ball be launched off-track, nor even be made to fly any amount of distance, no matter how hard you whack it. Combine this with the game's wonky psuedo-isometric perspective, and you'll find that aiming the ball actually becomes quite challenging, but at least the golf-swinging interface is easy to use.

About the only upsides to this game is its aesthetics: It looks nice and the music is OK, but the gameplay is not that great. Also there are only 18 holes to play, and no further holes or editor available to extend that, so there's little replay value here.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Abzu - it's an hour long walking simulator where you play as a diver who swims between corals and fish, looking at the pretty sights. The art direction is top notch, the music is great, and the game constantly hits you with beautiful sights. There's some collectibles if you're into it, but it's not worth mentioning. It's not a terribly deep game, but it definitely holds up as a short experience.
Sadly the controls are somewhat confusing for how simple the game is - the mouse is used to look around, wasd turns the swimmer around, and right click swims forward. The controls wouldn't be an issue for anyone here, but the game seems perfect for children and adults new to gaming, with how simple and short it is. I can see why this control scheme was picked, but outside of cinematic scenes there's no situation in which the player is required to swim in one direction while looking at another. Should have been one joystic / mouse to look, right click to swim, and left click to look in a different direction while swimming. In the few cinematic sequences they could have disabled camera control while keeping the player swimming.
The game should have also been about a mermaid instead of diver. It's so colorful and fantastic that a mermaid would have been a perfect fit.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS PAINKILLER IS SOMEWHAT CLOSE IN MANY WAYS

KINDA LIKE SERIOUS SAM CLOSER TO OLD SHIT THAN NEW SHIT

NO COVER RUN AND GUN HOLD A MILLION WEAPONS AND NO REGEN HEALTH

NO IDEA IF ITS REALLY A SUCCESOR BUT IT IS CLOSER THAN ALOT OF OTHER SHIT

 

[Adon]

Just finished Divine Divinity as my beginning foray into the Divinity series. I'll probably skip ahead to Divinity: Original Sin after this instead of going through each individual games. I used to have this thing about going through each game in release order, but with my time being more limited than before, I'll just go straight into the one I've been the most interested in -- but enough about that.

Let me start with the two strongest points that DD has going for it which is the music, and the visuals. Immediately the first thing that drew me into the game was the art direction and the atmosphere that gets strongly carried by the music as it completely enhances every area that you visit in the game. I'm saddened to hear that the composer's last game was D:OS but given that this was my first time becoming aware of him and first time playing the Divinity series, I have his music to at least look forward to with most entries.

The rest of the game isn't nearly as strong. The combat is so-and-so after you get out of the initial area. It's still fun in parts, but the game never gets challenging in a fun way, especially once you realize how broken the Frozen spell is, but even without that, it is still relatively easy to just go through the rest of the game with the exception of 1 boss that you fight two times. Josephina was the only enemy that gave me a run for my money and the only time I had to back away from a fight in order to level up and get a skill to get rid of the Dreadknight (in the sense that I turn him over to my side to attack her).

Then there's the final dungeon which is essentially one big dungeon compromised of 6 small dungeons of which 5 is relatively reasonable size. But as if the game wants to give one last big fuck you, the size of the last area leading up to the final boss is filled with enemies, and is bigger than the other areas. Suffice to say that you get tired long before reaching the endgame that by the time I realized the number of enemies I was going to be fighting against that I ended up just using an invisibility spell to just skip past all the enemies, click the two levers to open up new areas in this oversized place, and just go straight to the final boss who ended up being a joke.

In terms of writing, serviceable is the word I'd probably use as the majority of it is pretty typical of D&D. There's a lot of fun scenarios that the game takes you through, but it never gets interesting enough to elevate the story or any of the quests or any of the characters.