What game are you wasting time on?

[ebPD8PePfC]

Predynastic Egypt - it's a nice management game where you optimize a small system, with some Egyptian history stuff goes on in the background. It's cute, but lacks depth. If you enjoy min-maxing or Egyptian history than the game might be for you.

Egypt: Old Kingdom -The next game in the series. Adds some depth with a Civilization style buildings in provinces, more involved combat, as well as some RNG. The RNG suffers from the same issue as many crpgs, early on it's absolutely decisive while later on it's meaningless. On turn 3 I lost a worker to RNG, which would have taken me at least 10 turns to recovers from. After a restart I got 3 workers at random which would have taken me 20-30 turns to recruit on my own. At the later phases of the game when you have 70 workers these sort of events don't really matter, but early on they overshadow every other element of the game. Since I had good RNG early on, I maxed out all resources and explored the entire map by turn 100-120, and the game lasts 300 turns. I had nothing left to do for more than half of the game. The first game is definitely better.
I would add that the combat, while extremely primitive, does the job.

 

[Nietsche]

I used to waste a lot of time on Heroes of the New Earth - but there are too few players and too many of them are Russian - they are so weird. I am currently wasting time in WoW classic. Apparently, the time you had a nice time is not a waste time - but I guess then this thread would not exist. Probably a program in Classic for another month and I may get bored.

 

[Prime Junta]

Hey, Nietsche is my favourite philosopher, after Hegl and Schopenhaur.

 

[Nietsche]

Hey
I love him, also Kant, and I love Murray Rothbard (although he is not quite a philosopher, but I treat him like that).

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Jey's Empire - You play as J. Edgar Hoover, with the mission of staying in power for as long as you can without losing both the trust of the president, and your sanity. You get an army of agents to use against the different organizations causing trouble, including the mafia, communists, ACLU, and others. Successfully foiling their schemes keeps your trust and sanity up. On turn 1 you get an empire of 50 states, each with several cases, and with several operations you can run against them at the same time. It's probably hard to imagine, so with pictures:

50 states:

Spoiler

Each with their own cases:

Spoiler

Each case has 6-10 actions you can chose from:

Spoiler

Managing 500 agents over an empire of 50 states with 5 cases each means making informed decisions is a huge task, not in terms of difficulty, but in terms of time and busy work.
There is way too much information presented to the player, with no way to give automated orders ("All free agents should collect information"), so you have to give orders on a case by case basis. There's so many cases to check that you either get bogged down with endless details or you make decisions without thinking, and both aren't interesting from the player's perspective. Too much micro-management results in the players opting to manage nothing.
This should have been easy to predict to anyone who played Master of Orion / Civilization / any management game with an increasing number of provinces to manage, where in the late game no one bothers to micro manage. This is what you need to do from turn 1.
The best part of the game is engaging with the history parts that happen around the game - talking to historical figures, reading the different files that reach your desk, answering phone calls, and so on. Sadly that's not the core of the game.


Everything - It's a cool two hour art game where you roll around as different objects while listening to Alan Watts . I only found about a quarter of the lectures audio thingies by the end of the game, which is disappointing because the game is far less interesting when you aren't listening to them. Still, it's engaging for the two hours it lasts.

 

[Puukko]

I read that as Jade Empire first and was very confused.

 

[HansDampf]

System Shock 2, with a few (supposedly) faithful graphical enhancements. First time I played this was 6 years ago, and I remember having almost completely neglected the psi skills. I'm going to rectify this now, going the O.S.A. route and unlocking every psi tier (134 modules for 5th tier on Impossible

). It feels limiting at the beginning, having no tech and weapon skills at all, I can't even equip the pistol. And some of the tier 2 psi skills are tempting me to delay hacking even further. But so far I can defend myself just fine with Cryokinesis, the wrench and +2 Agility. I'm also going to avoid savescumming and just take the nanite cost for respawning. Those stations can even reconstruct my entire inventory. How convenient!

 

[Dayyālu]

System Shock 2, with a few (supposedly) faithful graphical enhancements.

I sorta like the graphics mods. Shitton of them, can take your pick. My favourite one is without doubt the one that gives you both hands on the guns.

Because I like seeing both hands on the gats.

First time I played this was 6 years ago, and I remember having almost completely neglected the psi skills.

Yeh, it's a completely different experience and a fairly punishing one. I mean, SS2's balance is completely out of whack, but a pure PSI run methinks is the hardest way to experience the game. Are you seriously going to go full OSA on Impossible? My hat to ye.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeh, it's a completely different experience and a fairly punishing one. I mean, SS2's balance is completely out of whack, but a pure PSI run methinks is the hardest way to experience the game. Are you seriously going to go full OSA on Impossible? My hat to ye.

Its not too hard if you can survive Engineering with a wrench and cryokinesis for turrets (and really, everyone who doesn't have energy weapons has to figure out how to use a wrench on most things for these areas due to lack of ammo/maintenance tools for the pistol). Aside from that its about not falling for all of the trap psi skills that aren't worth the modules and instead getting a high psi skill ASAP. Well before the start of the Rickenbacker you can be a psi-god with permanent invisibility and hundreds of psi hypos.

 

[eXalted]

Last of Us for PS4

If only at least 2% of the RPGs had encounters with as much work put in them as this non-RPG game.

 

[HansDampf]

Are you seriously going to go full OSA on Impossible? My hat to ye.

No. I've invested a few points in hacking and also unlocked energy weapons. Hacking was needed to disable security and to lower cost of psi hypos. I'm in Hydroponics now, and Cargo Bay seems to be the hardest part that gave me trouble the first time also.

 

[overly excitable young man]

Enjoying Underrail at the moment. Somehow underestimated how good it is, because Codex gets hyped about anything which just vaguely looks like Fallout.
But exploration is really great.

 

[Max Damage]

Dear RPG Codex, today I learned that oozes can be tripped

 

[FreshCorpse]

Wolfenstein: Old Blood. Decent enough game but the PC port is truly awful. Even with exe-renaming hacks there is still a constant 50ms or so of input lag which slowly drives you crazy.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Grabbed Fallout 3 during this week's gog sale. Hadn't played it in a couple of years.

I'm missing New Vegas already.

 

[Puukko]

Really, what were you expecting?

 

[Abu Antar]

Darksiders III is finally completed. I suppose it was a fun enough game that I got to play via PS+, but I would probably have been disappointed if I'd bought it for more than $20. It has good moments, but I can't shake the feeling like it feels a bit half assed, not intentionally, but it reeks of "I want to be a AAA game, but the budget isn't there" game. I don't know if it wants to be a Zelda-like, a Metroid-like or a Devil Mya Cry-like game. It tries to blend all of these elements, but it doesn't do it better than the games it is trying to emulate. Combat, while decently fun thanks to some enemies, is still fairly simple. Fury also strikes me like a character that should feel nimble, but it feels like you're controlling some fat Codexer that has to do all these agile moves.

Didn't really like the main character. You don't really see the antagonists much, but I did enjoy the boss fights and some of the exploration. I didn't enjoy all of it, though. The interconnected world is cool, I always enjoy that, but some of the exploration was just tedious. Overall, it could be a decent time killer if you just want a comfort food game.

I also completed Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma. A visual novel with some puzzles here and there. The game is better than most VNs out there, but the weakest game in the trilogy. I played to get the Platinum trophy, which I unlocked today. I'm planning to get the next game developed by these guys, but I have a few more VNs to complete before that.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Really, what were you expecting?

A momentary distraction, followed by the sting of disappointment. It delivered.

 

[Puukko]

Hey, I launched Oblivion for 10 minutes again before being put off by everything about it aside from the grafix.

 

[CuckMasher]

Im playing ori which is great. Fun gameplay, good challenge level, gorgeous visuals, and good music. Started up outer worlds but havent gotten anywhere yet. Its not much of an opening hook.

Alo playing a lethal dishonored game which I never did try before.

 

[Ivan]

Courtesy of Xbox Game Pass

Ruiner
Style over substance title that tries to do Hotline Miami but with garbage level design and half baked hub, tacked on "skill" tree. Even the "hyped" soundtrack left me wanting.

Ape Out
Fantastic take on the Hotline Miami formula. Level layouts and enemy placement are procedurally generated as you make your way to the exit. What makes this one special is that it prioritizes player skill and improvisation rather then trial and error memorization. I had an absolute blast with this. It is very short but it was a fantastic experience. The music is the cherry on top. Also, probably my favorite epilogue/credits sequence ever

 

[HansDampf]

Finished SS2. My original plan didn't work out 100% as I skipped psi tier 4 and went straight to tier 5. Tier 4 had only one skill I was interested in (invisibility), and unlocking that tier just for one skill seemed too expensive. Tier 5 didn't disappoint though, with psi shield, mind control, and also barrier. Barrier is interesting, because it summons a solid block that not only serves as cover but you can also climb onto it. And you can stack them, meaning you could climb as high as your psi hypos take you. I got this skill pretty late and didn't get much chance to try. For example, on the Recreation deck, one of the rooms on the upper floor in crew quarters has a vent that leads back down to the elevator area. Normally you can't get into crew quarters without an access card. But with enough barriers you should be able to climb up that vent. I also wonder if teleport has any good uses apart from saving time, maybe a quick escape to safety in case you get overwhelmed?

Compared to Prey, SS2 is the overall better experience. I love both games, and both games stumble near the end, SS2 more so with its linear final levels. I could also endlessly dissect the balance of weapons and skills and compare those. But I've played Prey with RoSoDude's balance mod that creates a similar resource scarcity as SS2 on Impossible. The key difference, for me at least, is SS2's interface. You have everything you need on one screen, and the game never pauses. Whether you are reading logs, managing your inventory, or even upgrading your skills, the interface will never take you out of the 3D environment, and as a result you are almost never safe. Prey doesn't do that. It has standard separate menus for everything that cover the entire screen, yet another concession to gamepads. Makes me sad.
Also, SHODAN is obviously a much better villain than the faceless Typhon.

 

[Perkel]

Outer Worlds.
Uninstalled it after about 12 hours.

Obsidian hit papamole bottom.

 

[pakoito]

I just saw a speedrun and that's the impression I got. I wouldn't tell the difference with a regular action game like Prey, other than stat usage.

 

[Ivan]

Forgot to add this to my previous post: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
It delivered exactly what I was expecting. I was never surprised, nor never truly disappointed. The very definition of "solid" / more of the same. I felt the same way with Guacamelee 2. It's comfort food. You could do a lot better, but you won't hate yourself for experiencing it.

-truly wish we would do away with healing by pausing the game & accessing menus
-soundtrack did a fine job
-enemy design was p. weak, with several reskins and some odd (backer influenced) inclusions