What game are you wasting time on?

[octavius]

Completed Heroes Chronicles: The World Tree.

Playing with handicaps this HC was actually quite challenging, at least the first map was a struggle. The next three maps were unsually (for HC) hard too.
The final map was too easy, though. You are supposed to build the Statue of Legion, but what's the point when you can't afford all your units (lots of extra ones from numerous dwellings) anyway?
The AI never paid a visit, and didn't even mop up its own area before the barbarian horde arrived.

So easily the most challenging of the four HCs I've replayed so far, but also the crudest one, with only Barbarian and Necromancer units and heroes in play.
Quite interesting storyline (an enemy who models himself after Tarnum 1.00), but as usual bad writing and too much of it dealing with p. banal matters.

It's funny, but I never get the classic Eagle Eye vs Estates choice when leveling up a hero I try to gimp. Instead it's Wisdom vs Fire Magic, Wisdom vs Tactics and similar. So Tarnum turned out quite powerful for a gimped hero:

But I wonder how a gimped hero will fare in Master of the Elements? IIRC you are supposed to have all four magic skills.

 

[Catacombs]

Completed Heroes Chronicles: The World Tree.

Nice. How many hours did you get out of this?

 

[octavius]

I don't count the hours, but I would guess around 10 hours.

 

[Catacombs]

I don't count the hours, but I would guess around 10 hours.

Did you play it on GOG?

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I'm playing Death Stranding, which is fantastic. It's different than anything else I've played or probably anyone has played because far as I know, nothing like it exists. The whole game is about traversal and building traversal methods to get from one place to another. Especially once you unlock ziplines and start building routes with them, it exercises a totally different part of your brain than I've ever used in a game or in life. It truly is a unique, highly innovative AAA game, and it's oddly meditative and rewarding to play. Considering all of the stuff that could go wrong with bugs with the way the game works, it's impressively bug free. It also features less silly exposition than some of the MGS games (particularly IV ugh). I hope Kojima will make another totally unique game after this one. It doesn't hurt that the game is gorgeous either. Biggest con is the aggressively stupid names that Kojima insists on giving his characters. Die Hardman? Seriously? I do not know if Kojima understands how aggressively and jarringly stupid some of the names sound.

I completed the game few days ago. What surprised me is that all the weird and surreal details, names, visuals, etc. that you see during the game (and in the trailers too), have a kind of explanation, at the end.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I just finished playing Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition on Come Get Some difficulty. All 4 episodes. It's still a great FPS. Level design in the first 3 episodes is as good as classic shooters get, the 4th episode being only slightly less impressive but still a lot of fun.

There is a lot of smart game design in Duke 3D. There's a separate button for melee, for example. All the guns are useful in one way or another, including the pistol. Even in the later levels, there is still a reason to use it.

As I played it I could't steer away from thinking about the current state of the series. I've come to the conclusion that there is a fundamental misunderstanding in regards to the tone and style of Duke 3D that can help explain why Duke Nukem Forever flopped so hard.

Duke 3D is an exaggerated, at times grotesque interpretation of the 80s action movie meathead protagonist. There is an alternative comic strip quality to his bizarre antics. He takes steroids on the fly to boost his physical prowess. The only way he knows how to interact with women is by offering them money to "shake it", in an understated indication that he hasn't really interacted with the opposite sex a lot outside of strip clubs and brothels. There's a cut-scene where he shits in the severed neck of an alien giant. Literally. The Duke themed fast food chain in the 4th episode serves dog meat. When you finish the entire game, you are greeted farewell with the sounds of Duke having sex with a lady. And let me tell you, it doesn't sound sexy.

The world of Duke Nukem 3D is one where nothing is right.

 

[octavius]

But I wonder how a gimped hero will fare in Master of the Elements? IIRC you are supposed to have all four magic skills.

It seems that Heroes Chronicle has anti-gimp measures:

So it looks like I'm gonna end up with all four magic skills wether I like it or not.

 

[Silly Germans]

But I wonder how a gimped hero will fare in Master of the Elements? IIRC you are supposed to have all four magic skills.

It seems that Heroes Chronicle has anti-gimp measures:

So it looks like I'm gonna end up with all four magic skills wether I like it or not.

I thought you were talking figuratively until i saw this,

Spoiler

Those heroes really could use some protection.

 

[Gamezor]

I'm playing Death Stranding, which is fantastic. It's different than anything else I've played or probably anyone has played because far as I know, nothing like it exists. The whole game is about traversal and building traversal methods to get from one place to another. Especially once you unlock ziplines and start building routes with them, it exercises a totally different part of your brain than I've ever used in a game or in life. It truly is a unique, highly innovative AAA game, and it's oddly meditative and rewarding to play. Considering all of the stuff that could go wrong with bugs with the way the game works, it's impressively bug free. It also features less silly exposition than some of the MGS games (particularly IV ugh). I hope Kojima will make another totally unique game after this one. It doesn't hurt that the game is gorgeous either. Biggest con is the aggressively stupid names that Kojima insists on giving his characters. Die Hardman? Seriously? I do not know if Kojima understands how aggressively and jarringly stupid some of the names sound.

I completed the game few days ago. What surprised me is that all the weird and surreal details, names, visuals, etc. that you see during the game (and in the trailers too), have a kind of explanation, at the end.

That would be great. I’m in chapter 7 but dicking around building up zip lines and roads before I continue the story.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Just played my first hour of Elderborn. Seems pretty fucking cool to just blow off some steam with melee combat.

Still can't actually tell if the levels are going to be randomly generated or not, but it's just like endless caves and ruins full of enemies. Has a system like Souls games for dying then collecting your experience. Sword, spear and warhammer don't feel super different but they are distinct enough that I swapped out for certain enemies.

Also, it has Dark Messiah kicking mechanics, complete with ledge-death, which is nice.

 

[octavius]

But I wonder how a gimped hero will fare in Master of the Elements? IIRC you are supposed to have all four magic skills.

So it looks like I'm gonna end up with all four magic skills wether I like it or not.

It did.
Heroes Chronicles: Master of the Elements is such a travesty that I can't force myself to continue replaying this manure.
Very limited use of the HoMM 3 engine, with only a small selection, no not even a selection, a fixed set of skills you have. But when you get Expert Air and Earth combined with the respective Tomes, all strategy flies out the window, and you can mop out the AI in two turns by Dimension Door'ing, and that only with Tarnum's own starting troops and using auto-combat.

 

[Sceptic]

The World Tree was a free (if you have bought the two first HCs) DLC, and seems to be unconnected with the main storyline; just a side adventure for Tarnum.

It actually expands quite a lot on the lore of the Ancestors and Tarnum's relation with them, though that may be more in the sequel The Fiery Moon (which was also free). I thought you had played both some years ago the first time you went through the Chronicles, and I even remember you liking The Fiery Moon at the time, though I'm not sure you'll feel the same playing it again.

The whole point of Master of the Elements was to have Tarnum, well, master all the schools of magic. It is one of the cases where trying to fit the gameplay to the narrative damages the gameplay, and the narrative isn't great to begin with. Still, the Chronicles spinoffs were always meant to be introductory and story-driven campaigns and NOT meant for Heroes veterans, so I can forgive them for going in that direction.

 

[octavius]

The World Tree was a free (if you have bought the two first HCs) DLC, and seems to be unconnected with the main storyline; just a side adventure for Tarnum.

It actually expands quite a lot on the lore of the Ancestors and Tarnum's relation with them, though that may be more in the sequel The Fiery Moon (which was also free). I thought you had played both some years ago the first time you went through the Chronicles, and I even remember you liking The Fiery Moon at the time, though I'm not sure you'll feel the same playing it again.

I recently checked my old postings, and I see I did indeed like World Tree and Fiery Moon back then. It was back in 2013 I played most of the HCs, so I guess that explains partly why I remember nothing at all from most of them, and only fragments from the rest. I had forgotten that I played them in the game-world-chronological order.

The whole point of Master of the Elements was to have Tarnum, well, master all the schools of magic. It is one of the cases where trying to fit the gameplay to the narrative damages the gameplay, and the narrative isn't great to begin with. Still, the Chronicles spinoffs were always meant to be introductory and story-driven campaigns and NOT meant for Heroes veterans, so I can forgive them for going in that direction.

Well, HoMM 3 was already quite newbie friendly (at least the base game). I think they went too far with the Chronicles, at least with the ones that provide no challenge whatsoever even when playing on Impossible with auto-combat (CotU and MotE). OTOH, I guess most of the existing fans (like me) saw the Chronicles as shameless milking and bypassed them when they were at full price.

 

[Gregz]

The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk

GOTY.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Just finished chapter 2 of Sanitarium, and holy fuck did that get crazy fast. I'm pretty surprised to finally be really enjoying a point and click. I'll definitely finish this

 

[wyes gull]

So, Outer Wilds is a thing. It rubbed me the wrong way the second it suggested that it should be played with a controller, kept rubbing me when I found out it was a FP(S) and wound up rubbing me raw when I realized just how bad it handled with a mouse. Turn and stop with it and for some reason the camera keeps turning. Why? Regardless, I powered the ship, managed to land on a "planet", found some messages, filled a bit of the "journal" or whatever that was, got sucked into sand pillar (!), ran out of air and died. Then realized what it was trying to do and went "bah, fuck it".
After the controls cock up there were too many tiny things rubbing me the wrong way like the style and tone, to the point I couldn't be arsed. Don't get me wrong, it's probably as good as people say but it's not for me right now. Might revisit it. Probably won't.

BPM or Bullets Per Minute, on the other hand, rubbed me in all the right ways. First time in a good while where a game has me develop the requisite skill in order to be able to play it as it's intended. Or maybe it's just the fact I hadn't played FPSs (real ones) in a good while. Regardless, there's a definite learning curve. A FPS with randomised map layouts, drops and enemy groups where the common actions of firing, reloading and dodging, all have to be done to the beat. Insert "not quite my tempo" joke. It's the worst parts of nu-Doom done right, IE- the sound. Hell, it IS nu-Doom done right. Fuck nu-Doom. Give me more of this. Thumping metal tracks, tons of pickups that affect your playstyle, plenty of weapon variety and enough enemy types to keep you on your toes.
On the negative side, once you're acclimatized to the beat, the difficulty is all over the place, as is common with games with roguelike elements. So one run might be piss easy and the next will be damn near impossible. And I'm not crazy about the way it looks. The way it sounds, tho.............

Spoiler

I'd give it a thumbs up but devil horns are more appropriate. Great little game.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Hades. It's the best game of the year for me - very fun gameplay, great graphics, surprisingly good writing that manages to avoid SJW contagion for the most part.

It's not the deepest game in the world but it has a lot more to it than what is immediately obvious. To me it's by far the best out of all these "roguelites" that have come out in recent years.

My only real criticism is that only the game's bosses are really hard after a point; filler enemies should have been given modifiers to make them more difficult. Once you clear it once, you have an option to make regular enemies harder (the game calls these modifiers "heat"), but it's kind of an afterthought.

I'd have paid full price for it - I paid less than 10 dollars, which is an absolute steal. Kudos to the team.

 

[Gamezor]

The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk

GOTY.

Is it actually good? Hard to tell from the steam page.

 

[Gregz]

The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk

GOTY.

Is it actually good? Hard to tell from the steam page.

I lubs it

 

[JDR13]

I love when people crown something GotY when there's still a quarter of the year remaining.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I played King's Field 2 & 3 back to back. KF3 is one of my all time favorites but i'd never played 2 for some reason. Twas fun, bit harder then KF3 but then again I've played that game so many times it's too easy now. Bosses were overall tougher, especially Guyra who you couldn't just meltdown with magic spam. Also made me appreciate the graphics of KF3 more. It was never a great looking game but it's a marked improvement over KF2. I kinda wish they'd kept expanding outwards after KF3 with a bigger world instead of going back to the megadungeon with KF4. But we all know what happened to From Software after this.

So then I started Shadow Tower and uhh, this game can fuck right off. Okay, its not that bad, but I was not expecting such a massive difficulty spike. The first two worlds were nothing, but the Fire levels are sum boolshit. I completely gave up any semblance of trying to play legit, savestates FTW.

It's pretty interesting though, basically survival horror RPG. It's always got that tension of trying to stay ahead of the resource curve. I thought I did well hording potions in the early areas but now there are zones in the fire realm where I burn 3-4 potions per room. It's nuts. It's also impressive how they upped the enemy graphics after the potatoland of King's Field, but as a result it has loading screens for your goddamn inventory.

 

[JDR13]

I played King's Field 2 & 3 back to back. KF3 is one of my all time favorites but i'd never played 2 for some reason. Twas fun, bit harder then KF3 but then again I've played that game so many times it's too easy now. Bosses were overall tougher, especially Guyra who you couldn't just meltdown with magic spam. Also made me appreciate the graphics of KF3 more. It was never a great looking game but it's a marked improvement over KF2. I kinda wish they'd kept expanding outwards after KF3 with a bigger world instead of going back to the megadungeon with KF4. But we all know what happened to From Software after this.

So then I started Shadow Tower and uhh, this game can fuck right off. Okay, its not that bad, but I was not expecting such a massive difficulty spike. The first two worlds were nothing, but the Fire levels are sum boolshit. I completely gave up any semblance of trying to play legit, savestates FTW.

It's pretty interesting though, basically survival horror RPG. It's always got that tension of trying to stay ahead of the resource curve. I thought I did well hording potions in the early areas but now there are zones in the fire realm where I burn 3-4 potions per room. It's nuts. It's also impressive how they upped the enemy graphics after the potatoland of King's Field, but as a result it has loading screens for your goddamn inventory.

I loved KF 2&3 back in the day, but I don't think I could do a full playthrough of them now. They've aged like an old whore's ass. Never played KF4.

They have some great BGM though. I can still hear that track in the first area of KF2 perfectly.

I could never really get into Shadow Tower. Didn't like how it has no music, and the level layouts were confusing af sometimes, especially with no maps in the game.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

A.I.M. Artificial Intelligence Machines - Russian game where you fly around in an airship in an alien planet. The world is populated by many other AI ships, most of which are simply interested in trading, while others will attack you on sight, depending on their faction. You can join one of the factions that suit your style of gameplay and obtain different benefits from it. There don't seem to be any drawbacks in quitting, rejoining, etc. Progression comes from obtaining credits by finishing missions, trading, destroying other ships. This enables you to upgrade your ship in many different ways and exchange it with other models that are suited for different tasks. Some are better for transporting cargo, others for attacking; there's one attack ship made from organic materials that regenerates on its own, for example. Money is really tight as you spend lots of money repairing and upgrades are very expensive. Fighting outnumbered gets you shredded in seconds, so you'll spend most of the time running away or finding alternative routes.

What I like about it: biggish world with interesting features, exploration and free roam. After learning how to use the boost/jump button, you can take big detours by using the mountains and avoid trouble. Need to pick your fights carefully and learn how to maneuver. It's clearly a low budget game and some things could take a bit more work, but all in all seems good for what it is. I haven't explored the different areas after the rock planet, so there might be some things I'm missing. I can't play it for very long as the entire game is FPP and I get motion sickness.

Morrowind - Never gave this one any attention, I don't know why. I have a PC Gamer DVD with the main title plus the expansions, which on the cover tells me it got a magnificent score of 83%. Seems like a good deal given how much I paid for it, so why not? The first 5 minutes I was laughing at how stupid the characters look and reading the skills descriptions wondering how broken they'll turn out to be. The world seemed interesting, though, some really scenic landscapes... and the interiors... I'm a sucker for RPGs with tasteful interiors. After putting it down I wasn't sure whether to continue playing, but the world pulls you in. I'm playing an Argonian as I really like the concept of an amphibian character and after finding my first secret water cave I was sold. I'll play any game with good exploration, so I'm likely to continue on to the end.

Alisia Dragoon (Mega Drive) - Childhood game, which I gave away then reacquired much later. I don't have enough time or patience to finish old-school action games the legit way, so I usually first finish them with emulators and save states even when I have a physical copy. This is one of the most beautiful of its generation. Some of the music is fantastic, too. The game is a sidescroller action-platformer/SHMUP/ARPG hybrid where you control a girl with magical powers who jumps around and shoots energy beams from her hands. This can be upgraded as you progress, together with your pets. You have 4 pets, who get stronger as they go up to level 3 (sadly not higher than that). Switching pets to deal with specific dangers and enemies is the most original aspects of the game. Exploration is necessary to get all the upgrades, as some goodies are hidden behind tunnels and invisible entrances. The SHMUP heritage is manifested in getting hit from every direction at once, often without time to react. There were cases where I found it impossible not to get hit, but maybe I'm just too slow. Not the best game ever, but should be interesting to many.

Geneforge - Played this some time ago and got the urge to replay it, hopefully the entire series. My views are similar to what has been said already elsewhere. Let me just tell this is probably my favorite fictional setting in any RPG besides Fallout. Since I've recently learned Jeff Vogel is "remaking" it (I don't keep up with the news), I intend to play both and compare them... eventually.

 

[Machocruz]

I played King's Field 2 & 3 back to back. KF3 is one of my all time favorites but i'd never played 2 for some reason. Twas fun, bit harder then KF3 but then again I've played that game so many times it's too easy now. Bosses were overall tougher, especially Guyra who you couldn't just meltdown with magic spam. Also made me appreciate the graphics of KF3 more. It was never a great looking game but it's a marked improvement over KF2. I kinda wish they'd kept expanding outwards after KF3 with a bigger world instead of going back to the megadungeon with KF4. But we all know what happened to From Software after this.

So then I started Shadow Tower and uhh, this game can fuck right off. Okay, its not that bad, but I was not expecting such a massive difficulty spike. The first two worlds were nothing, but the Fire levels are sum boolshit. I completely gave up any semblance of trying to play legit, savestates FTW.

It's pretty interesting though, basically survival horror RPG. It's always got that tension of trying to stay ahead of the resource curve. I thought I did well hording potions in the early areas but now there are zones in the fire realm where I burn 3-4 potions per room. It's nuts. It's also impressive how they upped the enemy graphics after the potatoland of King's Field, but as a result it has loading screens for your goddamn inventory.

I loved KF 2&3 back in the day, but I don't think I could do a full playthrough of them now. They've aged like an old whore's ass. Never played KF4.

They have some great BGM though. I can still hear that track in the first area of KF2 perfectly.

I could never really get into Shadow Tower. Didn't like how it has no music, and the level layouts were confusing af sometimes, especially with no maps in the game.

Play ST Abyss, disregard original

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Play ST Abyss, disregard original

I'm this far into ST original I'm going to try to power through it. I have Abyss though and tried it briefly and it does seem quite a bit better.