What game are you wasting time on?

[ironmask]

I have been feeling nostalgic for a time when star wars used to cool. Before Disney. So I have been playing super star wars for the Super Nintendo, but I'm playing it on an emulator. I'm on the first game but so far the game has been a lot of fun. I am playing on normal but the game is still pretty challenging. I plan on playing the rest of the games, then after that I might play dark forces. I know this part is a little off topic but I have also been rereading the star wars thrawn trilogy too. What the sequels should of been.

 

[RK47]

Hm. Finished Witcher 3, decided to revisit Warhorse's Kingdom Come Deliverance.
Performance is so much better with the new rig but the gameplay is still somewhat janky.

This for instance, baffles me:

I'm having a hard time finding a reason why this should not be possible. If this game is as immersive as some people claim, then surely picking up an apple from a table is a given.
I shrugged at this, recalling that this is the first thing I noticed when I played the game back in 2018. Clearly not much has changed since then.

The quiet introduction makes way for the Cuman invasion. Barely moments after Henry and his dad finished a sword for the local noble. Then we are treated to Vavra's cinematic direction of a young boy watching his parents' death helplessly. Of course, without the player input.

'IT'S A CUTSCENE, HENRY! THERE'S NOTHING ELSE YOU CAN DO!'
And so I ran as instructed and attempted to stop a rape in progress.

The rape never ends. I tried watching it for 1 minute.

I punched the rapists on the back and fled towards the horse and realized I can't remember the key to mount a horse. Game over. It's X, by the way.
What follows is a tutorial on how to do a horseback riding for the first time.

Failure to master the basics of horse riding tutorial results in death.

If the horse starts making noise, slow down. If you look back, the Cumans are riding just behind you, firing arrows occasionally. This puts great pressure on the player. I can't imagine anyone enjoying this segment when they start the game the first time. It's a bit much for a tutorial. Juggle the horse stamina while taking great care not to let Cumans murder you. How's that for the first 30 mins experience?

Wuhan, China

'At last, it's over. Can I have fun now?'
Well, not really. For the next 60 minutes or so, the player has no choice but to be trapped in Vavra's cinematic universe of a castle under siege and a young wife of a barren old noble trying to make passes at a young farmboy.
I was trying to pay attention to this while my character is complaining of extreme hunger and starts to close his eyes occasionally due to exhaustion.

Then the game literally told you to waste time until morning for the next cutscene to trigger. Or... if you prefer you can just hit T and wait for a few hours.

MOVE OUT! That is exactly what the player wants, but Henry wants to bury his parents.
Q: How do we resolve this contradiction?
A: Dan Vavra doesn't give a fuck what you want

So the player obliges or refund the game at this point. If the player chose the former, he progresses either by stealing a disguise or jumping off a bridge like a chad. Here Henry met with what everyone told him he will find.

There was no vaccine for Cumans yet.

And almost on cue, the game starts glitching out.
Alarmed, I decided to just Save & Quit. Thankfully Warhorse still included that function for Hardcore mode.

Except they didn't solve the 'saving during plotline semi-cutscene' bug and I couldn't reload my 3 hours of save game.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[Okagron]

Yesterday I finally decided to give Underrails a go.
For the first time.





Oh my GOD. Why I have waited so long???? This game is ... is... I don't find the words.

Decided to finally also give it at go a couple of days ago and i'm already 10 hours in. Really enjoying the combat and exploration.

"Accidentally" went into an area with enemies clearly much stronger than me and got my ass kicked. But i got stubborn and played until i killed them all. Then got gear that i'm pretty sure i'm not supposed to get until some levels later. I love these moments when you finally kill enemies much stronger than you and get their gear.

 

[JDR13]

Recently finished my replay of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. Good game but with some serious annoyances. Probably going to play Doom next.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Hm. Finished Witcher 3, decided to revisit Warhorse's Kingdom Come Deliverance.
Performance is so much better with the new rig but the gameplay is still somewhat janky.

This for instance, baffles me:

I'm having a hard time finding a reason why this should not be possible. If this game is as immersive as some people claim, then surely picking up an apple from a table is a given.
I shrugged at this, recalling that this is the first thing I noticed when I played the game back in 2018. Clearly not much has changed since then.

The quiet introduction makes way for the Cuman invasion. Barely moments after Henry and his dad finished a sword for the local noble. Then we are treated to Vavra's cinematic direction of a young boy watching his parents' death helplessly. Of course, without the player input.

'IT'S A CUTSCENE, HENRY! THERE'S NOTHING ELSE YOU CAN DO!'
And so I ran as instructed and attempted to stop a rape in progress.

The rape never ends. I tried watching it for 1 minute.

I punched the rapists on the back and fled towards the horse and realized I can't remember the key to mount a horse. Game over. It's X, by the way.
What follows is a tutorial on how to do a horseback riding for the first time.

Failure to master the basics of horse riding tutorial results in death.

If the horse starts making noise, slow down. If you look back, the Cumans are riding just behind you, firing arrows occasionally. This puts great pressure on the player. I can't imagine anyone enjoying this segment when they start the game the first time. It's a bit much for a tutorial. Juggle the horse stamina while taking great care not to let Cumans murder you. How's that for the first 30 mins experience?

Wuhan, China

'At last, it's over. Can I have fun now?'
Well, not really. For the next 60 minutes or so, the player has no choice but to be trapped in Vavra's cinematic universe of a castle under siege and a young wife of a barren old noble trying to make passes at a young farmboy.
I was trying to pay attention to this while my character is complaining of extreme hunger and starts to close his eyes occasionally due to exhaustion.

Then the game literally told you to waste time until morning for the next cutscene to trigger. Or... if you prefer you can just hit T and wait for a few hours.

MOVE OUT! That is exactly what the player wants, but Henry wants to bury his parents.
Q: How do we resolve this contradiction?
A: Dan Vavra doesn't give a fuck what you want

So the player obliges or refund the game at this point. If the player chose the former, he progresses either by stealing a disguise or jumping off a bridge like a chad. Here Henry met with what everyone told him he will find.

There was no vaccine for Cumans yet.

And almost on cue, the game starts glitching out.
Alarmed, I decided to just Save & Quit. Thankfully Warhorse still included that function for Hardcore mode.

Except they didn't solve the 'saving during plotline semi-cutscene' bug and I couldn't reload my 3 hours of save game.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Yeah, I just finished KCD. It reminds me a little of stalker, in that you have a gorgeous open world that's pretty jank, except Stalker has better gameplay, doesn't end with an obligatory 10 minute horse ride and a cliff hanger.

Spoiler

You know that vengeance quest? There's no resolution. Its sequel baiting.

 

[DalekFlay]

I have been feeling nostalgic for a time when star wars used to cool. Before Disney. So I have been playing super star wars for the Super Nintendo, but I'm playing it on an emulator. I'm on the first game but so far the game has been a lot of fun. I am playing on normal but the game is still pretty challenging. I plan on playing the rest of the games, then after that I might play dark forces. I know this part is a little off topic but I have also been rereading the star wars thrawn trilogy too. What the sequels should of been.

I was a SNES kid but I always found the Super Star Wars games more annoying than fun. They have great music/visuals though, and it's cool to see Star Wars presented in that SNES pixel art style. I'll always be more a fan of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight and KotOR series though.

 

[Azalin]

The rape never ends. I tried watching it for 1 minute.

How the hell did you do that,I remember there were a couple of Cumans running after me trying to introduce me to their sabers and axes during that scene

 

[ironmask]

I was a SNES kid but I always found the Super Star Wars games more annoying than fun. They have great music/visuals though, and it's cool to see Star Wars presented in that SNES pixel art style. I'll always be more a fan of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight and KotOR series though.

Yeah the super star wars games can be very annoying sometimes but I still find the games fun enough to pull though the annoying parts. Overall these are probably the best star wars games based directly on the movies.

 

[Abu Antar]

I finished SaGa: Scarlet Grace. Unbeknownst to me, I had managed to unlock the harder form of the final boss. Counters and softlocking the boss saved my behind. Golden Note, Apathy, Call Lightning and Reverse Delta were basically the only moves that I used. I'm not a mega fan of multiple stages in boss fights, but this time, it went well. I'll try come back to the game and play as Urpina in a few momths. Balmaint's story felt fairly guided and not very open, but maybe that's just me. My party had between 500-700hp, but their gear was improved from my last, faiied attempt.

I feel like I am coming close to the end of Geneforge. I'm in some snowy areas. In X-Com: Apoclypse, I'm starting to wreak havoc in the alien dimension (finally).

I started Cat Quest, which was gifted to me on the Codex. Charming and very catsy. When the above games are done, I will start INSOMNIA: The Ark, also gifted to me.

On consoles, I'm still slowly playing through Tearaway and Titanfall 2.

 

[DalekFlay]

I finished FEAR: Extraction Point. I don't think it's worth playing, overall. It has a cool level near the start set in a church and its catacombs, and an okay subway level near the end, but everything in-between is filler using the first game's assets. The story is super stupid and pointless, the voice acting is often reused from the main game and the level design is nowhere near as good as Monolith's. It does have some cool combat sections, the laser gun is cool and if you're into the horror aspect there is some neat stuff in the second half, but overall it just feels like a b-movie version of its main game. FEAR is kind of like Doom 3 where the main game is so long and thorough in exploiting its concept that you don't need more of it. The one situation where I could see recommending it is if you haven't played FEAR in a long time and start with Extraction Point to get something different, but even then... maybe just replay the main game?

No way I can do Perseus Mandate now, maybe someday. Gonna install FEAR 2 but if it's as meh as I remember I won't last long.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I'm playing Kileak: the Blood 2: Reason in Madness (known as 'Epidemic' among gaijins) for research purposes.

After repeatedly trying and dropping Kileak: the Blood due to rapid decline in quality about 1/3 through, I decided to try the sequel to see if they've learned anything. Considering that just 11 months passed between the releases of both games, I didn't expect much.

Well, I was wrong. Apart from improved level design (and larger maps in general -- the level sizes are pretty impressive by the PS1 standards), the game got rid of cheap encounter design and narrow corridors with little to no space to maneuver and instead drops you into dungeons (several floors each) and lets you have your way. Overall, it's a much more enjoyable game, especially if you spend time looking for secrets to improve your battlesuit.

It's not without a fair share of drawbacks (sometimes dungeons feel pretty samey, low overall difficulty), but overall it's a decent enough game to warrant a playthrough if you're craving for a futuristic mecha shooter.

It also seems it's pretty short -- I've managed to get through 5 out of 7 missions in ~2 hours and expect the last two missions to take about an hour total.

EDIT: Yep, finished in just 3 hours. Pretty short, but the length is just right given the game mechanics -- ends right before it falls into repetition.

Some of the puzzles feel obtuse at first, but I like that some of them require a bit of tinkering to understand the logic behind them, while others can be solved by exploring the dungeon -- although I didn't like that it outright tells the solution in most cases.

 

[RK47]

The rape never ends. I tried watching it for 1 minute.

How the hell did you do that,I remember there were a couple of Cumans running after me trying to introduce me to their sabers and axes during that scene

Maybe they patched it?
I played this back in 2018 and did remember a Cuman chasing me from start.

Yeah, I just finished KCD. It reminds me a little of stalker, in that you have a gorgeous open world that's pretty jank, except Stalker has better gameplay, doesn't end with an obligatory 10 minute horse ride and a cliff hanger.

Spoiler

You know that vengeance quest? There's no resolution. Its sequel baiting.

Yah, it's a replay for me. I finished it with a poor rig in 2018. Just wanna see how performance works. There's not much of a hook if you just follow the main quest.

 

[Azalin]

The rape never ends. I tried watching it for 1 minute.

How the hell did you do that,I remember there were a couple of Cumans running after me trying to introduce me to their sabers and axes during that scene

Maybe they patched it?
.

Pacth what?The whole point of that scene is that you are running for your life while the place is being overrun by Cumans,in fact it looks like it might be a bug not a patch and the guys that where supposed to hunt you got stuck somewhere or didn't spawn for some reason

 

[DalekFlay]

Last night I played the first chunk of FEAR 2. It's amazing how the primary platform being the 360 caused changes that are immediately obvious. I'm not even talking the huge HUD or the "saving, don't turn off your PC" nonsense. The FOV can be modified too in the .ini file thank god. What I'm talking about is gameplay. It's obvious right away the combat has now been designed and balanced around mid-range assault rifle fights with aim down the sight auto-aim. The shotgun fucking blows, only accurate at all close up and all the fights are designed for long range, which is especially depressing since FEAR 1's shotgun was amazing. Slo-mo is a greater focus even for long-range fights, to help analog sticks aim, and enemy damage is increased dramatically (on hard anyway) to encourage popping slo-mo as soon as a fight starts (with much longer lasting time limit). Feels like slo-mo the game, which FEAR 1 never did despite it being a core mechanic. Also enemy movements are much slower and more cautious, jumping over railings and taking corners as if they have arthritis. Also the military "bro" language is super different and blatant in its pandering.

Not saying it's a total loss... the graphics are nice for the time, the SMG is pretty satisfying to use and Monolith are good with level design... but what an immediate and obvious step down firmly rooted in the platform priorities of the time.

 

[Puukko]

Now play 3 and despair.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Now play 3 and despair.

I did. They somehow made it even more popamole and the cover based shooting even shittier.
Remember when Monolith used to be cool? I do

 

[baud]

Regarding Fear 1, I've just been killed when a turret hit the sticky bomb I was throwing at it, making it explode in mid-air, killing me.

 

[DalekFlay]

Remember when Monolith used to be cool? I do

FEAR 3 wasn't by Monolith, it was some Warner studio. I finished FEAR 3 but remember nothing from it other than Fettel's powers being cool. Maybe I'll replay it after 2.

I switched to "normal" difficulty in FEAR 2 because on hard you lose life so fast, especially to shotgun rounds, that you have to go slo-mo preemptively. Going around corners in slo-mo or popping it every time you see an enemy is a fucking boring ass way to play, so fuck that shit. Of course now the game's mind-numbingly easy. Despair.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, I played FEAR 2 on hard, and it was some badly designed shit. If you absolutely have to use Slow-mo to progress in fire fights, then your game play is crap.
I think I even had to decrease the difficulty to normal for the last boss fight because of how cheap and unfair it is. They basically swamp you with a bunch of ghost soldiers that aren't really affected by slow mo and there's no cover, so you'll pretty much die instantly after reloading the check point.

 

[Momock]

Soooo... it looks like the real problem for you was not the use and abuse of slow-motion, just that it was too hard.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

No, my problem is that it was poorly designed and boring.
I slogged through most of the game on hard, abusing slow mo and popping behind cover and taking shots at a glacial pace like some ground hog. The final boss fight removes cover (which you NEED on hard difficulty because of how slow your character moves and how much damage the enemies deal) and have you fight something like 5 enemies at once who aren't affected by slow mo, which is horrible design. If you are going to design a difficulty setting where slo mo and cover is required, don't introduce a segment where slo mo is useless and where cover is absent.

 

[octavius]

After replaying Icewind Dale again I felt a craving for more AD&D stirring in my...uh not loins excectly, but anyway I was inspired to resume my playthrough of the Realms Eastlands campaign for FRUA. I rage quit C1, Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan over a year ago due to unavoidable party death traps and generally the design constantly reducing HP from traps and events, while the monsters are pitifully weak, which is the excact opposite of what I prefer.

I completed HSoT and decided it was the weakest Realms module I've played so far. Currently playing X3, Curse of Xanathon, which is an improvement, but it would have been more fun and challenging with a lower level party.

So I don't quite agree with the recommended order of playing. Splitting the modules into two different campaigns would have made things more interesting. Even with very limited resting options in these modules they are still way too easy once you're about a third or halfway through the campaigns (at least the West and East ones).

 

[ERYFKRAD]

stirring in my...uh

That was the wind which always blows north of a man's heart.

 

[Catacombs]

I was inspired to resume my playthrough of the Realms Eastlands campaign for FRUA.

Is this pen and paper? Are you playing with a group?

 

[octavius]

I was inspired to resume my playthrough of the Realms Eastlands campaign for FRUA.

Is this pen and paper? Are you playing with a group?

No, it's adaptations of D&D modules for Forgotten Realms Unlimited [yeah, right] Adventures, using the Gold Box engine.