What game are you wasting time on?

[whydoibother]

So apparently ANNO 1800 finally got cracked, and I didn't even notice.
I avoided buying this one because of the Epic exclusivity thing they did in the last minute, no notice to fans, despite the Steam pre-order campaign. I did play the free beta, and liked what I saw. I'll download it tonight and see if I catch the "one more turn" type disease that Civilization games give me, and ANNO 1404 used to when it was fresh.

 

[Fenix]

Since I last posted, Ys 9 has opened up with some large outdoor areas that make full use of the added 3D movement abilities. Depending on how things go this could be the best Ys game and a strong GOTY contender for me. My biggest complaint is that I'm playing on Hard and there's been basically no challenge so far. Then again, I started with Oath in Felghana, which has a Normal mode that's harder than most Ys games' Hard mode.

WTF, I remembered I played it haha. I thimk I played Ys Origim? The ome where you are im some kimd of tower.
I coudm't progress past some boss - I remmeber it was somethimg about clock? boss wa white color, hm... it wa hard, I tried but coudm't do amythimg.
Probably with sort of mace imsted of hamd? Mybe it wasm't evem a proper boss, but mimi-boss lol, cause I cam't fimd it amomg boss battles.
I defimitely remember I have foumd mage boy, amd remember half of bosses, evem 2/3 of them.
Ys Origim is solid game - mot stellar, but quite solid.

 

[baud]

Playing I am not a monster, 75% because of its pulp sci-fi look and 25% because ValeVelKal said it was good. So far it's more puzzle than tactics, but it's quite fun. It's two-AP squad-sized tactics, but turns are resolved nearly simultaneously (it goes your attacks > enemies attacks > all movements (so you move at the end of the turn, which is quite confusing at the start)). Also I feel it relies a little too much on meta-knowledge of the levels (or at least playing the levels a first time to learn where the enemies will spawn).

Also playing conquer club (asynchronous multiplayer Risk, with lot of different maps) with randos on internet after starting to play with other members of the Codex last year. As it follows the rules of board game, it's very random, but it's still enjoyable

 

[JDR13]

Playing I am not a monster, 75% because of its pulp sci-fi look and 25% because ValeVelKal said it was good. So far it's more puzzle than tactics, but it's quite fun. It's two-AP squad-sized tactics, but turns are resolved nearly simultaneously (it goes your attacks > enemies attacks > all movements (so you move at the end of the turn, which is quite confusing at the start)). Also I feel it relies a little too much on meta-knowledge of the levels (or at least playing the levels a first time to learn where the enemies will spawn).

I remember giving that a try because I thought it looked cool, but some of the encounters were retard-level difficult. I don't mind a challenge, but I don't enjoy games where 1 wrong move can make the battle unwinnable.

 

[baud]

Playing I am not a monster, 75% because of its pulp sci-fi look and 25% because ValeVelKal said it was good. So far it's more puzzle than tactics, but it's quite fun. It's two-AP squad-sized tactics, but turns are resolved nearly simultaneously (it goes your attacks > enemies attacks > all movements (so you move at the end of the turn, which is quite confusing at the start)). Also I feel it relies a little too much on meta-knowledge of the levels (or at least playing the levels a first time to learn where the enemies will spawn).

I remember giving that a try because I thought it looked cool, but some of the encounters were retard-level difficult. I don't mind a challenge, but I don't enjoy games where 1 wrong move can make the battle unwinnable.

yeah, I just got slaughtered in level like this. Really makes it more a puzzle where you have to know what's going to happen (trying and losing an encounter at least once), then puzzle out the correct sequence of moves and objects to use. Also the difficulty is very uneven going from walk-in the park easy to being attacked on all sides by waves of enemies

 

[ValeVelKal]

Playing I am not a monster, 75% because of its pulp sci-fi look and 25% because ValeVelKal said it was good. So far it's more puzzle than tactics, but it's quite fun. It's two-AP squad-sized tactics, but turns are resolved nearly simultaneously (it goes your attacks > enemies attacks > all movements (so you move at the end of the turn, which is quite confusing at the start)). Also I feel it relies a little too much on meta-knowledge of the levels (or at least playing the levels a first time to learn where the enemies will spawn).

I remember giving that a try because I thought it looked cool, but some of the encounters were retard-level difficult. I don't mind a challenge, but I don't enjoy games where 1 wrong move can make the battle unwinnable.

yeah, I just got slaughtered in level like this. Really makes it more a puzzle where you have to know what's going to happen (trying and losing an encounter at least once), then puzzle out the correct sequence of moves and objects to use. Also the difficulty is very uneven going from walk-in the park easy to being attacked on all sides by waves of enemies

Guys, in escort missions, always put turrets where the hostages gather (or 1 turret plus a bunch of spider bots).

But yeah, some missions are really hard, especially before you get used to using spider bots to guard positions (instead of following you). Actually it was part of my review

Mission design goes from the incredibly good (eg : heavy combat mission where you have a limited number of turns to reach the air purifier while under fire from all sides BUT not by an infinite number of enemies so you can really balance “killing as much as possible and reach the air purifier just in time “ vs “beeline or possibly sneak to the purifier then kill everyone”) to the really boring (bad puzzles where you must sneak around, or where you need to cross area where everything gets destroyed every three turns),

Missions can also go from the trivially easy (defend a position from attack when you have a machine gun, cover and NPC characters on your side) to the insanely hard (save humans before they all get killed AND bring them to the evacuation point where they still can get attacked). For super difficult missions like this, keep in mind that you can create turrets and order spider bots to guard a place with some of the fairly accessible « special actions »).

In short, I had a lot of fun in roughly 33% of the game, some good fun in another 33%, and the rest was either boring (for boring but easy missions) or dreadful (for boring but hard missions).

 

[baud]

Playing I am not a monster, 75% because of its pulp sci-fi look and 25% because ValeVelKal said it was good. So far it's more puzzle than tactics, but it's quite fun. It's two-AP squad-sized tactics, but turns are resolved nearly simultaneously (it goes your attacks > enemies attacks > all movements (so you move at the end of the turn, which is quite confusing at the start)). Also I feel it relies a little too much on meta-knowledge of the levels (or at least playing the levels a first time to learn where the enemies will spawn).

I remember giving that a try because I thought it looked cool, but some of the encounters were retard-level difficult. I don't mind a challenge, but I don't enjoy games where 1 wrong move can make the battle unwinnable.

yeah, I just got slaughtered in level like this. Really makes it more a puzzle where you have to know what's going to happen (trying and losing an encounter at least once), then puzzle out the correct sequence of moves and objects to use. Also the difficulty is very uneven going from walk-in the park easy to being attacked on all sides by waves of enemies

Guys, in escort missions, always put turrets where the hostages gather (or 1 turret plus a bunch of spider bots).

But yeah, some missions are really hard, especially before you get used to using spider bots to guard positions (instead of following you). Actually it was part of my review

Mission design goes from the incredibly good (eg : heavy combat mission where you have a limited number of turns to reach the air purifier while under fire from all sides BUT not by an infinite number of enemies so you can really balance “killing as much as possible and reach the air purifier just in time “ vs “beeline or possibly sneak to the purifier then kill everyone”) to the really boring (bad puzzles where you must sneak around, or where you need to cross area where everything gets destroyed every three turns),

Missions can also go from the trivially easy (defend a position from attack when you have a machine gun, cover and NPC characters on your side) to the insanely hard (save humans before they all get killed AND bring them to the evacuation point where they still can get attacked). For super difficult missions like this, keep in mind that you can create turrets and order spider bots to guard a place with some of the fairly accessible « special actions »).

In short, I had a lot of fun in roughly 33% of the game, some good fun in another 33%, and the rest was either boring (for boring but easy missions) or dreadful (for boring but hard missions).

yeah, I'm totally using as many spider bots and turrets as much as I can, but yesterday it wasn't enough

 

[ValeVelKal]

Playing I am not a monster, 75% because of its pulp sci-fi look and 25% because ValeVelKal said it was good. So far it's more puzzle than tactics, but it's quite fun. It's two-AP squad-sized tactics, but turns are resolved nearly simultaneously (it goes your attacks > enemies attacks > all movements (so you move at the end of the turn, which is quite confusing at the start)). Also I feel it relies a little too much on meta-knowledge of the levels (or at least playing the levels a first time to learn where the enemies will spawn).

I remember giving that a try because I thought it looked cool, but some of the encounters were retard-level difficult. I don't mind a challenge, but I don't enjoy games where 1 wrong move can make the battle unwinnable.

yeah, I just got slaughtered in level like this. Really makes it more a puzzle where you have to know what's going to happen (trying and losing an encounter at least once), then puzzle out the correct sequence of moves and objects to use. Also the difficulty is very uneven going from walk-in the park easy to being attacked on all sides by waves of enemies

Guys, in escort missions, always put turrets where the hostages gather (or 1 turret plus a bunch of spider bots).

But yeah, some missions are really hard, especially before you get used to using spider bots to guard positions (instead of following you). Actually it was part of my review

Mission design goes from the incredibly good (eg : heavy combat mission where you have a limited number of turns to reach the air purifier while under fire from all sides BUT not by an infinite number of enemies so you can really balance “killing as much as possible and reach the air purifier just in time “ vs “beeline or possibly sneak to the purifier then kill everyone”) to the really boring (bad puzzles where you must sneak around, or where you need to cross area where everything gets destroyed every three turns),

Missions can also go from the trivially easy (defend a position from attack when you have a machine gun, cover and NPC characters on your side) to the insanely hard (save humans before they all get killed AND bring them to the evacuation point where they still can get attacked). For super difficult missions like this, keep in mind that you can create turrets and order spider bots to guard a place with some of the fairly accessible « special actions »).

In short, I had a lot of fun in roughly 33% of the game, some good fun in another 33%, and the rest was either boring (for boring but easy missions) or dreadful (for boring but hard missions).

yeah, I'm totally using as many spider bots and turrets as much as I can, but yesterday it wasn't enough

Which mission are you at ?

 

[baud]

Playing I am not a monster, 75% because of its pulp sci-fi look and 25% because ValeVelKal said it was good. So far it's more puzzle than tactics, but it's quite fun. It's two-AP squad-sized tactics, but turns are resolved nearly simultaneously (it goes your attacks > enemies attacks > all movements (so you move at the end of the turn, which is quite confusing at the start)). Also I feel it relies a little too much on meta-knowledge of the levels (or at least playing the levels a first time to learn where the enemies will spawn).

I remember giving that a try because I thought it looked cool, but some of the encounters were retard-level difficult. I don't mind a challenge, but I don't enjoy games where 1 wrong move can make the battle unwinnable.

yeah, I just got slaughtered in level like this. Really makes it more a puzzle where you have to know what's going to happen (trying and losing an encounter at least once), then puzzle out the correct sequence of moves and objects to use. Also the difficulty is very uneven going from walk-in the park easy to being attacked on all sides by waves of enemies

Guys, in escort missions, always put turrets where the hostages gather (or 1 turret plus a bunch of spider bots).

But yeah, some missions are really hard, especially before you get used to using spider bots to guard positions (instead of following you). Actually it was part of my review

Mission design goes from the incredibly good (eg : heavy combat mission where you have a limited number of turns to reach the air purifier while under fire from all sides BUT not by an infinite number of enemies so you can really balance “killing as much as possible and reach the air purifier just in time “ vs “beeline or possibly sneak to the purifier then kill everyone”) to the really boring (bad puzzles where you must sneak around, or where you need to cross area where everything gets destroyed every three turns),

Missions can also go from the trivially easy (defend a position from attack when you have a machine gun, cover and NPC characters on your side) to the insanely hard (save humans before they all get killed AND bring them to the evacuation point where they still can get attacked). For super difficult missions like this, keep in mind that you can create turrets and order spider bots to guard a place with some of the fairly accessible « special actions »).

In short, I had a lot of fun in roughly 33% of the game, some good fun in another 33%, and the rest was either boring (for boring but easy missions) or dreadful (for boring but hard missions).

yeah, I'm totally using as many spider bots and turrets as much as I can, but yesterday it wasn't enough

Which mission are you at ?

It's called Ambush/Personnel Cabins B, the first one where the enemies have a lot of ranged weapons. Though I realized that I'm not supposed to be trying to kill the enemies entering the room, but rather run away (yeah, I'm not too bright); doing that I've successfully completed that level

 

[ValeVelKal]

It's called Ambush/Personnel Cabins B, the first one where the enemies have a lot of ranged weapons. Though I realized that I'm not supposed to be trying to kill the enemies entering the room, but rather run away (yeah, I'm not too bright); doing that I've successfully completed that level

Ah ! The game gets REALLY fun now that the enemy have ranged weapons as well.

 

[Forest Dweller]

https://ogn.theonion.com/biggest-games-of-winter-2021-1846184628

 

[Puukko]

Tried out Valheim, the latest early access coop survival game to explode in player count. I'll preface this by stating that my experience with these types of games is essentially zero. The ratings for this are overwhelmingly high and the amount of content and polish seems high plus they're pushing out constant updates. I don't have any good screenshots, but visually it is pretty unique, blending blocky characters and unfiltered textures with some dense vegetation, nice lighting and various effects for a very nice aesthetic. The gameplay loop is easy to grasp and avoids some of the typical survival game pitfalls of feature creep and lack of design focus. Once you've got a house and some gear, you'll want to take on the bosses which make a pretty striking entrance when you summon them. This is all wrapped in a Norse mythology setting which isn't necessarily unique, but it works well. I played for some 3 hours and go to see the first boss out of five and to my knowledge they're all there already.

 

[Abu Antar]

Bugs and shitty party composition didn't stop me from beating Demons Age. The final boss was a pain in the ass for me. I died twice in that battle. You can have five characters in your party, and are pitted against 14 enemies, including the boss. On my third try, I beelined for the boss and beat the game that way. They did manage to cobble together a game, but there's no role playing. No choices in dialog, and the same goes for character development. You auto level up. Encounters took a very long time but I wouldn't call them challenging. It's only the last battle that is bullshit. Itemization is basically nonexistent. There are no + versions of equipment. You'll more or less use the same gear throughout the whole game. I did buy fullplate armors for my fighters. Almost all other equipment was from looting chests and barrels. Side quests consisted of either enemies to defeat, or collect x number of an item. I did most of them at first, but later on, I didn't even bother. There's a world map, but you can only walk on the road. Basically, there's no exploration. This is product had the minimum amount of effort put into it. A quick cash grab, if you will. It's a shame that a game I anticipated had to die, so this game got to live. 17 hours, it took me to beat this turd.

Turn-based, tactical, party-based and top-down camera all sound good on paper, but I can only say that you should not play this. Not even out of morbid curiosity. There's only crushing disappointment to be had. This is the last game I beat on my PS4. What a way to go. I'll hook up the PS5, tomorrow and play the PS4 backlog on that.

I also beat Geneforge 5. Now that I am done with the series, I will take a long break from Vogel games, and then, in a very distant future, I'm going to try Avernum 3-6.

Last, but not least, I'm finally in the Premier League with Boston United. It took me several years, but I managed to do it. My stadium only has an attendance capacity of 5000, but the board announced that they will build a new stadium that can take 16.000. I'm expecting to get wrecked. Everything but relegation is a major success. We'll see how it goes. Why is Football Manager so addictive? Why?

 

[octavius]

Bugs and shitty party composition didn't stop me from beating Demons Age. The final boss

The Demon Sage?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

played wrath of the righteous beta for about 15 minutes before it crashed, that was exciting.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

M&M VII is my favorite in the series.

WoX is the best though.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I play Panzer General and nothing else now, and man, what a game it is. It was on my go-to list for like twenty years but for some reasons I never got to it. Well, finally, time has come, and it goes straight to my all-time favorites.

As TB RPGs are clearly superior to RTwP ones, so TB strategies are superior to RT ones.

 

[Monk]

I play Panzer General and nothing else now, and man, what a game it is. It was on my go-to list for like twenty years but for some reasons I never got to it. Well, finally, time has come, and it goes straight to my all-time favorites.

As TB RPGs are clearly superior to RTwP ones, so TB strategies are superior to RT ones.

What do you think of real-time war games in place of turn-based, stackable units, and historical-based units like, for example, infantry divisions with anti-aircraft and recon units?

 

[DalekFlay]

Played the shit out of Hitman 3. Will keep playing it a bit here and there for escalations and challenges, but now replaying Hitman: Contracts for the most part. Game is still great in a ton of ways. The mood and atmosphere are what it's most known for, and for good reason. I know many today would call it 90's teenage edginess, but it's nice to have a game that treats its subject matter in such a dark and grungy way. The gameplay is basically the same as Blood Money and modern Hitman, though a little more guided in the sense that there's less routes and options. I was also surprised it offers as much help as it does, since I remembered it being a lot more cryptic compared to the modern games. Anyway the only issue with it is it's clunky as fuck to play in a lot of little ways, and after getting used to the modern games I'm annoyed at only having one non-lethal knockout, but overall having a blast with it and I'd say it holds up. Might replay Blood Money after, we'll see how tired of the formula I am.

 

[Ol' Willy]

What do you think of real-time war games in place of turn-based, stackable units, and historical-based units like, for example, infantry divisions with anti-aircraft and recon units?

What do you have in mind? I played Graviteam Tactics a little, not TB, but great game overall.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I know many today would call it 90's teenage edginess

Fuck those retards. It's called "noir"

Game is still great in a ton of ways.

Contracts has excellent atmosphere and some of the best locations in the series. Mission in Netherlands, where you can kill Russian and just walk away with the detonator in hand is one of my favorites all time.

 

[DalekFlay]

Contracts has excellent atmosphere and some of the best locations in the series. Mission in Netherlands, where you can kill Russian and just walk away with the detonator in hand is one of my favorites all time.

I just did that one and man, if you wanna do anything but storm the boat with SWAT then you must have to sprint directly to it and know where it is. They're like "plant a tracker on the car so you can follow it" but it moves in literally 60 seconds and then it's on the boat. Unless I encountered a glitch of some kind.

 

[Ivan]

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order


A solid action/adventure reminiscent of the Uncharted and 2010s Tomb Raider series. Production values are the game's strongest element. It looks and sounds great. Player movement is well done, especially when the game combines jumping, wallrunning and force powers. Combat leaves much to be desired. The lock-on system has trouble moving between multiple enemies, also I wish parry has more feedback. It wasn't clear to me what triggered finishers, either having a parry lead to a stamina drain. Exploration in and of itself is fun, the map is very helpful, it all reminds me of the Metroid Prime series. What's unfortunate is that the majority of the rewards for said exploration are boring cosmetic items. I wish they tethered the player skill progression with the exploration. Just as Cal recalls his force powers, it would have been cool to earn some currency to explain his powering up through the campaign.

Bugs: I had a game-ending bug where the final QTE would spit me out into gameplay so I couldn't finish the cutscene, will watch the ending on youtube.

TLDR: It's great to see Respawn take a stab at a third person adventure after their excellent FPS Titanfall 2. If they tighten up the combat, fix the camera tracking when faced with multiple elements, ditch the boring coemstic loot and add a more meaningful progression system that's tied to the exploration, I think they can pull off a great title. As it stands, Fallen Order is a stable foundation from which Respawn can build.

Spoiler

 

[JDR13]

Jedi Fallen Order is pretty good. Definitely better than that rating. I'd say it's a solid 7.5/10

Speaking of Star Wars, I just played through SW: Batllefront II. It was an ok time-waster. I'm glad I didn't pay for it though. (Epic store giveaway)

 

[Monk]

What do you have in mind? I played Graviteam Tactics a little, not TB, but great game overall.

I was thinking of something like Meier's Decision in the Desert or the rest of the series: historical units, real-time with pausing, etc. But better AI, graphics, etc.