What game are you wasting time on?

[Abu Antar]

In Syberia, I've been solving issues in Barrockstadt. Gotta get that train rolling again. There are some nice looking backgrounds in this game, but it feels rather heavy on the backtracking. Compared to Broken Sword 2, which felt like it moved on to new locations all the time. The games have very different pacing.

I got the mod manager working properly in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It kept crashing the game. I got a tip to run the game in full borderless windowed mode. I don't know why, but it helped. Been enjoying turn-based mode. Need to find who pointed out and thank them in the official thread. I'm running a monk, which might or might not get two kukris instead of unarmed combat. I got the fangberries for Bokken. While I beat the spider swarms, my first encounter with them was very humbling. Time to go after that pesky Tartuccio fellow next.

Other than those, I'm still playing Tales of Symphonia, Dragon Quest XI and Bravely Second.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Fwiw, I've played through all the ME games and didn't think ME:A was completely terrible. The combat is smoother and more enjoyable than the older titles imo, but the game is way too bloated with repetitive and generic content. I thought it was slightly better than ME2 and ME3 at least, but that's not saying much. I enjoyed ME1 the most, but I tried to replay it after playing ME:A and it felt clunky as hell and badly dated. I think the series as a whole is overrated, and I don't see myself ever going back to it.

As for DA, I consider DA:O a decent game, but that's where it ends. I couldn't even finish the first chapter of DA2, and the trial version of DA:I didn't inspire me to play the full game. I did end up purchasing the GOTY edition for dirt cheap awhile back, so I might give it another shot one day.

DA2 and ME2 were the one-two punch that made me stop buying Bioware games at full price. DA:I and ME:A made me regret continuing to buy them at all. I actually kinda liked ME3 since it was at least an ok shooter, while ME2 sucked on pretty much every level.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Getting my ass handed to me in Liberty or Death as the British. I don't know if the game is tougher than I remember or if my skills are fadin', but trying to win this game even on easy is a chore. I can't even make it to 1777 without losing 3/4 of the map. The British may rule the waves, but they're shit on land.

 

[Comte]

Getting my ass handed to me in Liberty or Death as the British. I don't know if the game is tougher than I remember or if my skills are fadin', but trying to win this game even on easy is a chore. I can't even make it to 1777 without losing 3/4 of the map. The British may rule the waves, but they're shit on land.

Which version are you playing? I actually have been watching lets plays or this the last few days thinking about trying it out.

 

[Curratum]

I finally gave in to curiosity and grabbed Dark Souls Remastered. Worth every penny. Haven't played in a few years, so many feels flooding right back...

 

[Baron Dupek]

Tomb Raider III
Beat the London levels, fuck that shit. Especially museum (Lud's Gate) and it's water sections.
I need a vacations, what's the next destination on the world map?
.... Antarctica? Well, bollocks.

Spoiler

and yes there are some scenes inspired by The Fly and The Thing because why not

 

[Draconis]

Right now I am playing Mental Omega, the total conversation mod for Red Alert 2. Holy fuck is it good, it feels even better than the original, I absolutely love how they remade the original storyline and campaign. These guys should be hired to do a proper C&C game.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Getting my ass handed to me in Liberty or Death as the British. I don't know if the game is tougher than I remember or if my skills are fadin', but trying to win this game even on easy is a chore. I can't even make it to 1777 without losing 3/4 of the map. The British may rule the waves, but they're shit on land.

Which version are you playing? I actually have been watching lets plays or this the last few days thinking about trying it out.

Sega Gens emulator version. I have the DOS version somewhere but can't find it and the SEGA and SNES versions are still ok. I cut my teeth on those versions years ago.

I restarted and am doing better this time. South is mine and north is American, and we're squaring off in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Best to keep General Gage away from the front though. His stats are shit, plus if he gets captured it's game over.

 

[Okagron]

Decided to play Age of Mythology and still very enjoyable even after nearly 13 years of not playing it. Reaching the end of the Egypt portion of the campaign.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Wizardry III has been kicking my ass. I've reached level 4, opened the path to level 5 and got one of the orbs. I was trying to map out the entire level 4 before tackling level 5 and got my entire party wiped out by a duo of komodo dragons. Fucking beasts. This got me really down and made me decide to start a game play on the side, something less stressful to play and actually have fun in between Wizardry grinding sessions. I decided to install Chrome, a FPS that's been on my Steam backlog since forever and I was always semi curious to check out. I got AntonioR's Visual Fidelity unofficial patch working and then banged my head against the wall for a couple of hours trying to figure out how turn on Vsync. Without it the player character slides around the game like it's a Mario ice level every time the frame rate surpasses 200, which is pretty easy to reach even on modest hardware at this point. No vsync option in game or in the game's equivalent to a .ini file. Forcing it through the GPU control panel didn't work. Forcing it via RivaTuner didn't work. Forcing it via D3DOverrider didn't work. I was going to give up and play it like that but I reached an in-door section where the frame rate went all the way to the 800s and it became legit unplayable. Finally, I tried NVIDIA Inspector and it miraculously worked where everything else failed, for reasons unknown. Finally time to play, or so I thought. Playing on medium, I kept dying over and over on the prologue. I started to think the game was a bit too hard and decided to review the keyboard controls, to see if I wasn't missing something important. Well, by default the game doesn't map the peek right / peek left commands to anything. Good luck trying to be stealthy without them. I quickly realized this game is not the guns blazing dumb fun FPS I expected, but rather a clearly Deus Ex/Thief inspired game with big emphasis on stealth. Even on medium, you have to use crouch and prone all the time just to avoid alerting every enemy in a mile radius of your position. It took me what seemed like an hour of play and more deaths than I can count just to complete the prologue. When I got to the actual first level of the game, it introduced a new game mechanic: augments. You get these special powers that you activate for a short period of time, making you faster, able to zoom aim with any weapon, etc. Yes, it's basically just like Crysis, but in 2003. I'm currently half way through this first level, it feels like Deus Ex meets Far Cry, and I'm actually very optimistic about this game. I might have stumbled into a rough gem. Did I mention the main character is voiced by John "Duke Nukem" St. John?

 

[JDR13]

Decided to play Age of Mythology and still very enjoyable even after nearly 13 years of not playing it. Reaching the end of the Egypt portion of the campaign.

What difficulty are you playing on? I tried getting into AoM several times, but I couldn't find a difficulty level that I was comfortable with. The default was way too easy, but the next level up felt like too big a jump.

 

[Watser]

Easy.

 

[HansDampf]

AM2R has received some big updates since its initial release in 2016. Some boss battles and enemies have been rebalanced, lots of sprites have been updated, improved graphical effects, high quality music, NG+, randomizer, ...
Now is a good time to revisit the game and go for 100% completion, which I didn't do last time. One hour in, and those Metroids are still a pain in the ass while I'm trying to get used to the control scheme.

 

[Azalin]

Finished Arkham Origins,it's obvious that this game was made by the B-team and not the main studio.Graphics are good for a 2013 game but the story,writing,and general level design aren't as good as the main series.Still they are quite decent and the core gameplay is mostly the same.Using the Joker once again wasn't a good idea they should have stuck with Black Mask and Bane as the main antagonists,Deathstroke was wasted in this one btw.If they wanted to use the Joker at some they should have used him as the Red Hood,his original alter ego and then have him fall into the chemicals during the game,that would fit with the Origins theme of the game.Adding some detective work was a good idea though and fits the character.The dlc Cold,Cold Heart was ok although buggy.Recommended only during a sale

 

[Strange Fellow]

I suppose I'll stick it out with Mysteries of the Sith. Yeah the design is lacking, but at least shooting people to the SW soundtrack is pretty fun.

Mysteries of the Sith, the very next level: can't use your guns lol

okay then

 

[spectre]

I was browsing through the family friendly shit for my kid to play and came across this:

The gameplay could be best described as a metroidvania pinball. I mean, I've seen some shit, but this is something you don't see everyday.
Last time I played pinball was the one that came with windows, turns out not only it's the very opposite of shit, it's actually quite enjoyable playing it for myself.

Looks well made and gives you a pretty laid back experience (reminds me a bit of Ori and the Blind Forest). It's even got a demo and a nice discount.

 

[flyingjohn]

Wizardry III has been kicking my ass. I've reached level 4, opened the path to level 5 and got one of the orbs. I was trying to map out the entire level 4 before tackling level 5 and got my entire party wiped out by a duo of komodo dragons. Fucking beasts. This got me really down and made me decide to start a game play on the side, something less stressful to play and actually have fun in between Wizardry grinding sessions. I decided to install Chrome, a FPS that's been on my Steam backlog since forever and I was always semi curious to check out. I got AntonioR's Visual Fidelity unofficial patch working and then banged my head against the wall for a couple of hours trying to figure out how turn on Vsync. Without it the player character slides around the game like it's a Mario ice level every time the frame rate surpasses 200, which is pretty easy to reach even on modest hardware at this point. No vsync option in game or in the game's equivalent to a .ini file. Forcing it through the GPU control panel didn't work. Forcing it via RivaTuner didn't work. Forcing it via D3DOverrider didn't work. I was going to give up and play it like that but I reached an in-door section where the frame rate went all the way to the 800s and it became legit unplayable. Finally, I tried NVIDIA Inspector and it miraculously worked where everything else failed, for reasons unknown. Finally time to play, or so I thought. Playing on medium, I kept dying over and over on the prologue. I started to think the game was a bit too hard and decided to review the keyboard controls, to see if I wasn't missing something important. Well, by default the game doesn't map the peek right / peek left commands to anything. Good luck trying to be stealthy without them. I quickly realized this game is not the guns blazing dumb fun FPS I expected, but rather a clearly Deus Ex/Thief inspired game with big emphasis on stealth. Even on medium, you have to use crouch and prone all the time just to avoid alerting every enemy in a mile radius of your position. It took me what seemed like an hour of play and more deaths than I can count just to complete the prologue. When I got to the actual first level of the game, it introduced a new game mechanic: augments. You get these special powers that you activate for a short period of time, making you faster, able to zoom aim with any weapon, etc. Yes, it's basically just like Crysis, but in 2003. I'm currently half way through this first level, it feels like Deus Ex meets Far Cry, and I'm actually very optimistic about this game. I might have stumbled into a rough gem. Did I mention the main character is voiced by John "Duke Nukem" St. John?

A lil better formatted version for anybody interested.


Wizardry III has been kicking my ass. I've reached level 4, opened the path to level 5 and got one of the orbs. I was trying to map out the entire level 4 before tackling level 5 and got my entire party wiped out by a duo of komodo dragons.
Fucking beasts. This got me really down and made me decide to start a game play on the side, something less stressful to play and actually have fun in between Wizardry grinding sessions. I decided to install Chrome, a FPS that's been on my Steam backlog since forever and I was always semi curious to check out.
I got AntonioR's Visual Fidelity unofficial patch working and then banged my head against the wall for a couple of hours trying to figure out how turn on Vsync. Without it the player character slides around the game like it's a Mario ice level every time the frame rate surpasses 200, which is pretty easy to reach even on modest hardware at this point.
No vsync option in game or in the game's equivalent to a .ini file. Forcing it through the GPU control panel didn't work. Forcing it via RivaTuner didn't work. Forcing it via D3DOverrider didn't work.
I was going to give up and play it like that but I reached an in-door section where the frame rate went all the way to the 800s and it became legit unplayable. Finally, I tried NVIDIA Inspector and it miraculously worked where everything else failed, for reasons unknown. Finally time to play, or so I thought.
Playing on medium, I kept dying over and over on the prologue. I started to think the game was a bit too hard and decided to review the keyboard controls, to see if I wasn't missing something important. Well, by default the game doesn't map the peek right / peek left commands to anything.
Good luck trying to be stealthy without them. I quickly realized this game is not the guns blazing dumb fun FPS I expected, but rather a clearly Deus Ex/Thief inspired game with big emphasis on stealth.
Even on medium, you have to use crouch and prone all the time just to avoid alerting every enemy in a mile radius of your position. It took me what seemed like an hour of play and more deaths than I can count just to complete the prologue.
When I got to the actual first level of the game, it introduced a new game mechanic: augments. You get these special powers that you activate for a short period of time, making you faster, able to zoom aim with any weapon, etc.
Yes, it's basically just like Crysis, but in 2003. I'm currently half way through this first level, it feels like Deus Ex meets Far Cry, and I'm actually very optimistic about this game. I might have stumbled into a rough gem.
Did I mention the main character is voiced by John "Duke Nukem" St. John?

 

[Vlajdermen]

I downloaded the eDuke32 mod for Duke Nukem 3D, which gives it modernized, Half-Life style controls. It's how Civvie played it, and he was right to do so. It plays like a dream. I can't wait to finish it and move on to Blood.

I just finished Blood. Amazing game, but not without some dips in quality

First off, it plays a little differently to Duke and Shadow Warrior. It's slower and more methodical, with careful dynamite-throwing and flare-shooting being a huge part of the game. I got used to it quickly, and it can be very satisfying when pulled off right. The standard weapons are no different; the Marko Perković, sawed-off, Tesla cannon and napalm launcher all sound powerful, and can turn enemies to jelly. I don't like the Voodoo doll and Hell staff, though.

The best thing about Blood is its art design. All the enemies ooze personality, and the environments are densely decorated and varied. There's a morgue, an iron smelter, a mental hospital, a classy hotel, a Frankenstein-esque laboratory, a wild west-era train, and much more, but my personal favourite is the carnival, if mostly for Caleb's quips. Both Duke and Wang could be funny, but Caleb grumbling "noone wants to pwaay with me" in his raspy edgelord voice after gunning down a cultist was comedy gold. On top of that, there's plenty of charming death and damage animations, like how when an enemy gets an electric shock, his skeleton will show.

Like Duke and SW, Blood puts a lot of effort into making its levels feel like real hotels, trains, asylums, etc. rather than just themed shooting galleries. It does a great job of this for the most part. The Overlooked Hotel, for example, is very non-linear and laid out in a way that makes it interesting to explore. You can tell someone had a good time designing it. Sadly, they got lazy with the last few levels and made them too short and linear. Spare Parts is the last real great level.
The first 3 levels or so are prone to dick moves like exposing you to hitscanners before you have the means to deal with them. Using Cheogh, the giant gargoyle with 6 gorillion hit points, as a miniboss was a retarded idea. He's a waste of time and ammo.

Finally, the graphics are amazing for what they are. The pickups are all 3D, and the discarded casings from tommygun bullets remain on the ground. It may seem like a backhanded compliment, but after getting used to Build engine graphics, this genuinely impressed me.

Is this the best Build engine game? Yes and no. While Duke is a consistent 8/10 and Shadow Warrior is a consistent 9/10, Blood is a 10/10 at its best and a 6/10 at its worst. As a whole I'd say it's above Duke and barely below Shadow Warrior.

 

[baud]

I was browsing through the family friendly shit for my kid to play and came across this:

The gameplay could be best described as a metroidvania pinball. I mean, I've seen some shit, but this is something you don't see everyday.
Last time I played pinball was the one that came with windows, turns out not only it's the very opposite of shit, it's actually quite enjoyable playing it for myself.

Looks well made and gives you a pretty laid back experience (reminds me a bit of Ori and the Blind Forest). It's even got a demo and a nice discount.

I played through the demo and it's really cool. I don't know how it holds for the whole game, but the implementation of the idea is well done. Also I don't feel like I'm good enough at pinball (as in hitting the ball at the right time so that it goes where I want) to have fun once the difficulty ramp up a little.

 

[JDR13]

Is this the best Build engine game? Yes and no. While Duke is a consistent 8/10 and Shadow Warrior is a consistent 9/10, Blood is a 10/10 at its best and a 6/10 at its worst. As a whole I'd say it's above Duke and barely below Shadow Warrior.

Interesting. Duke 3D and Blood were both a lot more memorable than Shadow Warrior to me. I suppose which setting you prefer and the order in which you played them probably has a lot to do with people's opinions on the Build Engine games.

 

[spectre]

I played through the demo and it's really cool. I don't know how it holds for the whole game, but the implementation of the idea is well done. Also I don't feel like I'm good enough at pinball (as in hitting the ball at the right time so that it goes where I want) to have fun once the difficulty ramp up a little.

Well, it's pinball, you mash them buttons and cool stuff happens. The difficulty seems quite lenient, because when the ball falls through the flippers you only lose a bunch of fruit, giving you plenty of opportunity to get good and try stuff out.
I'm not too far in, somewhere around 30%, but the progression is very nice.

 

[Sranchammer]

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Most if not all of that should be Injun land.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Most if not all of that should be Injun land.

Might is right and woe to the vanquished.

 

[Arbiter]

Is this the best Build engine game? Yes and no. While Duke is a consistent 8/10 and Shadow Warrior is a consistent 9/10, Blood is a 10/10 at its best and a 6/10 at its worst. As a whole I'd say it's above Duke and barely below Shadow Warrior.

Interesting. Duke 3D and Blood were both a lot more memorable than Shadow Warrior to me. I suppose which setting you prefer and the order in which you played them probably has a lot to do with people's opinions on the Build Engine games.

Out of those 3 I only finished Duke (including the expansion pack). I did not like the horror theme of Blood and got bored with Shadow Warrior after playing a demo.

Blood and SW also felt dated, having been released after Quake. Duke proudly claimed "I ain't afraid of no Quake" in early 1996, but by 1997 the engine was clearly past its prime. 1997 also saw releases of Hexen 2 and Jedi Knight, the era of sprite graphics and software rendering was over.