What game are you wasting time on?

[Citizen]

Drakan 2: The Ancient Gates.

It's not so good. It has better combat than the original game, but thats probably it, the level design is much worse, useless RPG elements and tons of loot insted of a simpler, but more fun hack&slash of the first game. And the atmosphere is completely lost, the first game featured minimum cutscenes and they were mostly interactions between Rynn and Arokh, the second one has lots of oblivion-tier ugly-ass NPCs with stupid monotonous voices

Next on a list is...

 

[Great Deceiver]

Just finished my replay of Memoria. It's every bit as good as the first time when I played it at release, and it makes up the trio of the best adventure games of the last 10 years - possibly even beyond - together with Primordia and Heroine's Quest.

And the final plot twist is, I dare say, sublime.

Too bad Daedalic had to turn stupid after that.

I've only played Chains of Satinav and I didn't think that much of it. Is Memoria worth going through even if I didn't particularly like the prequel?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yes. Memoria is better than Sat-Nav.

 

[someone else]

I'm enjoying the religion and tourism aspects of Civ 5.

Got tired of other civs converting my people, I destroyed Islam by eliminating their founder and having an inquisition on their holy city, suppressed Judaism by converting the holy city & all it's surrounding cities.
More fun than using inquisitors to protect your cities.

 

[Puukko]

Gonna need some protection against aggravated damage because VTMR is trying my patience, but at the same time I'm enjoying it.

Christof keeps getting nuked with spells by these high ranking Tremere and consequently frenzying, sometimes from one hit. And that is on top of the long freezes they do. I bought bracers to help but I can't notice a difference in frenzy levels. Hopefully I'll see a one with this ring I just got.
The previous level was some serious bs. First, I had to travel during the day and avoid patches of sunlight that my AI partners were all too happy to traipse through, on top of some tough ghouls. I burned through my blood vials immediately. Then a bunch of wraiths that could only reliably be damaged by spells, but I was out of blood. Then I got captured and had to fight my way through a whole company of teutonic knights - seriously, I must have slain over a hundred. The best part is, I could not feed on them due to their armor and the first half of the area offered barely any blood vials. The second half had a decent amount, but I lost Serena and had to finish it with 3 dudes, scraping by on my remaining resources and doing my best to bait the AI to fight them one by one. I couldn't use a town portal to go level up either, and there were zero Awaken scrolls in the whole place. I made it, but Serena missed out on some 6000 xp. Oh well.

Tldr: fuck the Tremere.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

If you're having trouble, the Feed skill is seriously overpowered, and you can do it on vampires too.

 

[deuxhero]

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2010: Reverse of Arcadia

If the sequel didn't exist, I'd think this was a great game. 2011 does exist however and is just better in every single way except AI speed. The cards options aren't even given in a different order (aside from how you can control the order structure decks come in in 2010 but not 2011, and that's really minor in the grand scheme of things) so the best deck option to trivalize the main game is the same across all three in the trilogy: Combine the two zombie structure decks, use the password system to get multiple copies of cards that are singles in the structure deck, and throw in staples from starting boosters. The plot is just the MC awkwardly self-inserted into the anime's events instead of 2011's mostly original one so not even that is worth playing it for.

 

[Puukko]

If you're having trouble, the Feed skill is seriously overpowered, and you can do it on vampires too.

It is very very tricky to get it work even with decent investment in both the skill and wits. Enemies like to flee and trying to feed on them like that even if they're alone practically never works. Then when I manage to feed on someone near the end of combat, one of my dudes finishes him off anyway.

 

[Abu Antar]

I reached the Lemurian Health Center in Underrail. It's locked down. This does not bode well.

In Pathfinder: Kingmaker, I finally have a 6 character party after saving two of them from Technic slavers. I got a 7th character two, so I'll have to think about who will stay behind at Oleg's post. I'm playing blind, but I feel like I am missing lots of things. Also, my lawful good sure likes to slay evil characters. Oh well, no mercy is the name of the game. My monk is doing fairly well, but he's a squishy for now. From the brief inclusion of Octavia in my party, she seems useful once her sneak attacks go in effect. I need to think about how to spec her. My next goal is to try and explore some of the map. There is revenge to be executed on a manticore I met when I was level 2.

 

[deuxhero]

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2010: Reverse of Arcadia

If the sequel didn't exist, I'd think this was a great game. 2011 does exist however and is just better in every single way except AI speed. The cards options aren't even given in a different order (aside from how you can control the order structure decks come in in 2010 but not 2011, and that's really minor in the grand scheme of things) so the best deck option to trivalize the main game is the same across all three in the trilogy: Combine the two zombie structure decks, use the password system to get multiple copies of cards that are singles in the structure deck, and throw in staples from starting boosters. The plot is just the MC awkwardly self-inserted into the anime's events instead of 2011's mostly original one so not even that is worth playing it for.

An update on this: 2010 just randomly switches to turbo duels (an otherwise anime exclusive variant where normal spell cards don't work and the replacements cost counters, which you get every turn, to activate) for most of the end-game fights. You're just thrown into a series of boss fights using an unfamiliar deck for a game variant that doesn't support a lot of archetypes, which means its time for grinding since you need an entirely new turbo deck. That's pretty bad gameplay design. 2011 handles this much better since, while the final duels there are also turbo duels, you're introduced to them fairly early on and have had access to multiple turbo deck support boosters before then and get to build a turbo deck you like.

 

[baud]

I've play quite some time of SWTOR, mostly on the smuggler's storyline. So it’s a SW RPG, but the whole game is stretched between the opposing designs of a MMO and a story-focused RPG. But at the current state of the game, playing just the story and avoiding the MMO parts (ie the farm of mobs) is doable, though I wonder what could have been the result if Bioware had used the same budget (100s of M$) and setting (SW 300 years after KotOR) to make single-player RPGs, with stories not just revolving around the Sith & Jedi and multiple planets, ships, companions… Of course at the time Bioware was already owned by EA, so the probabilities of a good game were remote anyway, but one can dream.
Though not all the MMO side of SWTOR is bad, I mean I’ve had fun doing dungeons, furnishing my housing space and playing fashion designer with my characters.

I also went back to Rance 6 and finished the story, so now I'll start on the post-game content.

And some of Warhammer Mark of Chaos, since it was recently released on GoG. Apart from the good use of the license, it's just as mediocre as I read it here. I think the devs shot themselves in the foot by not copying more the Total War battles.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I've play quite some time of SWTOR, mostly on the smuggler's storyline. So it’s a SW RPG, but the whole game is stretched between the opposing designs of a MMO and a story-focused RPG. But at the current state of the game, playing just the story and avoiding the MMO parts (ie the farm of mobs) is doable, though I wonder what could have been the result if Bioware had used the same budget (100s of M$) and setting (SW 300 years after KotOR) to make single-player RPGs, with stories not just revolving around the Sith & Jedi and multiple planets, ships, companions… Of course at the time Bioware was already owned by EA, so the probabilities of a good game were remote anyway, but one can dream.
Though not all the MMO side of SWTOR is bad, I mean I’ve had fun doing dungeons, furnishing my housing space and playing fashion designer with my characters.

I thought the smuggler was one of the weaker class stories IMO. But yeah, you can pretty much just ignore the MMO part and do the class stories. If you enjoyed them enough, it's worth paying for a month to permanently unlock the rest of the content. The content afterwards is more unified between classes, but it also has a much more branching narrative heavily dependent upon your choices.

Also, the Cantina music is pretty good. Authentic Huttese songs:

 

[Citizen]

And some of Warhammer Mark of Chaos, since it was recently released on GoG. Apart from the good use of the license, it's just as mediocre as I read it here. I think the devs shot themselves in the foot by not copying more the Total War battles.

Should've copied more Dark Omen

 

[jasaro96]

I started playing The Witcher 1 and the combat felt pretty lame until somehow it began growing on me at the end of chapter 1. Still it feels weird to play but everything else pays off, from the music to the attention to the lore and background from the books. One can see the love from CD Projekt to the books and I love that fanfic feel of the story. I also installed the combat overhaul mod but I soon returned to vanilla (although I appreciate the respect to the original source I feel the changes in the mechanics polarises too much the experience in a "kill quickly or be killed" way).

It's great to see that ambiguous morality from your actions in chapter 1 of the villagers of the outskirts and that Abigail witch as it remembered me the Lesser Evil short story from the books. Loved that guilty/despair feel of being wrong whatever the conclusion. Also I love that ambient music.

 

[502]

Playing Guild Wars 2 as my fuck around game, as I've been doing for years.

And currently replaying Arcanum with the newest UAP.

Went with an ugly melee, dodge and persuasion master elf male plus some utility spells. I don't remember if Raven or the widow can be porked when the beauty modifier is low. We'll see. I have to say, unlocked follower point allocation is a total game changer with so much potential. The game now needs a much higher difficulty to offset this.

 

[Morgoth]

Been playing through Dark Messiah this weekend as a backstabbing sneak fuck and enjoyed every single minute of it. It also reminded me (again) how lousy most modern games are.

 

[Puukko]

Ah, VTMR. Only you could introduce a modern nights tower of London that looks straight from the middle ages, filled with wraiths and ghoul spiders. That was probably the toughest part of the game so far - wraiths that take almost no damage from physical (but could sometimes seemingly get badly damaged by guns - if only the game provided actual combat information...) and only became manageable once I realized I had a source of aggravated damage in Pink's wolf form. All this and ZERO sources of blood in the entire dungeon, and mediocre loot so I barely had any cash to buy blood. The areas before and after (Setite temple and Nossie sewers) had enemies that were pretty easy to feed on, and the sewers in particular had tons of good loot. Fat xp, too.

Supposedly the mod makes Serena available in the modern nights too, I wonder when that'll be considering I don't think I have too much of the game left.

 

[Machocruz]

Brutal Doom 64 - I couldn't care less about the edgy gore shit (although it seems toned down from Brutal Doom), I wanted the added monsters, enhanced sound, and whatever little extras they put int. Fuck, the classic Doom formula is...it just works. They will never be outdated and I will never stop playing them. So simple and straight forward, but so complete and satisfying. That's what you call elegance. The antithesis of modern game design that is less effective and complete for all its skill trees, crafting, weapon upgrade tiers, etc.

 

[cosmicray]

But yeah, you can pretty much just ignore the MMO part and do the class stories. If you enjoyed them enough, it's worth paying for a month to permanently unlock the rest of the content. The content afterwards is more unified between classes, but it also has a much more branching narrative heavily dependent upon your choices.

I've recently completed my Inquisitor run that I started way back in 2012(yeah...). I have to disagree here. Sure, there is some focus on story parts, but the core part is MMO gameplay. So you basically do MMO stuff most of the time between dialogues which are nothing more than choosing light/dark options. And dialogues... they're barren of any depth, because you're supposed to receive a quest, nothing more. On the surface the game looks good, though. And I scratched that SW itch when I needed it several times, but the fact that I couldn't complete one storyline in several years, while I completed KOTOR almost in one go, speaks for itself.

Half-Life: Blue Shift - I'm continuing my HL playthrough. Doens't feel as different as Opposing Force, but we'll see.
Nier: Automata - stil on route C. Haven't played much, because other stuff. I'm keen on upgrading/finding all weapons so it's gonna take a while.
Football Manager 2020 Demo - Haven't played FM since 2012. Lots of new stuff, which I like(but probably won't make much difference in-game). If I make it through half the season, then I might think about updating to full game. But I doubt it.
World Of Warcraft - Dunno why, but decided to try. Current 100% XP boost surely helps. Gonna try making in to 120 lvl.

 

[deuxhero]

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2010: Reverse of Arcadia

If the sequel didn't exist, I'd think this was a great game. 2011 does exist however and is just better in every single way except AI speed. The cards options aren't even given in a different order (aside from how you can control the order structure decks come in in 2010 but not 2011, and that's really minor in the grand scheme of things) so the best deck option to trivalize the main game is the same across all three in the trilogy: Combine the two zombie structure decks, use the password system to get multiple copies of cards that are singles in the structure deck, and throw in staples from starting boosters. The plot is just the MC awkwardly self-inserted into the anime's events instead of 2011's mostly original one so not even that is worth playing it for.

An update on this: 2010 just randomly switches to turbo duels (an otherwise anime exclusive variant where normal spell cards don't work and the replacements cost counters, which you get every turn, to activate) for most of the end-game fights. You're just thrown into a series of boss fights using an unfamiliar deck for a game variant that doesn't support a lot of archetypes, which means its time for grinding since you need an entirely new turbo deck. That's pretty bad gameplay design. 2011 handles this much better since, while the final duels there are also turbo duels, you're introduced to them fairly early on and have had access to multiple turbo deck support boosters before then and get to build a turbo deck you like.

After completing that and its weak post-game, I went back to 2011 to finish more of the post game since I never 100%ed it. 2011 improves on 2010 way more than I remembered. The interface is better, the game runs faster (even when the AI chokes due to a full field), the graphics are better, there's more customization options (both player avatar and additions like sleeves) and easter eggs. Having played most of the ones that follow the real rules at this point, even if briefly, I can safely say that if you want to play a single player YGO game, play the tutorial in Over the Nexus (or learn the rules some other way) then play Stairway to the Destined Duel and actually play Over the Nexus once you're done with that. The others just aren't worth bothering with for single player except maybe Tag Force Special (which I've only touched a bit).

 

[Dramart]

Brutal Doom 64 - I couldn't care less about the edgy gore shit (although it seems toned down from Brutal Doom), I wanted the added monsters, enhanced sound, and whatever little extras they put int. Fuck, the classic Doom formula is...it just works. They will never be outdated and I will never stop playing them. So simple and straight forward, but so complete and satisfying. That's what you call elegance. The antithesis of modern game design that is less effective and complete for all its skill trees, crafting, weapon upgrade tiers, etc.

The shit part about doom is when you have a lot of keys in one level, but the gameplay is good. It's fun but also easy for people without skill, or people that like that classic kind of gameplay.

 

[CootKeeper]

Just finished playing Quest for Infamy (2004). AFAIK, it's a tribute to the Quest for Glory 1-5 games (1989-1998). Gotta say, it felt like a breath of fresh air after playing through the whole QFG saga. I was worried I would not like it but I thought it turned out way way better than ANY of the QFG games.

Positives: Funny and clever dialogue, good story, good-looking scenery overall, interesting characters.

Negatives: Combat was easy, never had to reload. Combat was very similar to what you find in QFG games, but it felt much better to play. Not sure why. Maybe it was a bit less janky? You have to backpedal quite a bit around the map. After a while it felt pretty tedious everytime you get stopped by a creature that wants to fight. Character skills are useless in the game, it's a pity. you can fight anyone and win, or sneak without having any skill in it, etc.

Good game. Really liked how it ended in a big party just like in QFG 1.

 

[Krivol]

I've just finished Atom RPG. It's great game, I haven't played Underrail yet so I can't tell if Atom is the best RPG of last 10 years, but it's definitely close to.

 

[Sad He-Man]

I have been trying to finish Kentucky Route Zero. For now without success.

The game has good dialogues and has excellent experimental presentation. It is too long for its own good. Too unfocused in its supernatural presentation. The gameplay is virtually nonexistent. For some reason it is less than the sum of its parts.

Episodes 1-3:
Episode 4:
Episode 5:

I have earlier written that Disco Elysium does to rpgs what Dear Esther does to FPSes. I feel guilty now. I still stand by my statement, but the extent of Disco's gameplay subordination to story and atmosphere is much less pronounced than in Dear Esther's or KRZ's case.

I guess I am just not feeling the americana.

 

[baud]

I wanted some simple action, so I'm playing Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death. I like it, it doesn't try to be more than just a fun brawler (or a GoW clone, at some moments the resemblance is uncanny), but it works rather well.
It's fluid, being able to send back projectiles to their sender is fun. It doesn't bore too much with the story and I also like how some of the cutscenes are done

Spoiler

(should be timestamped, otherwise at 9:10)

Though if only it could run for longer than 40 min without having a CTD