What game are you wasting time on?

[Twiglard]

VtM - Night Road: a CYOA, way better writing than those shitty VtM visual novels.

 

[Rean]

VtM - Night Road: a CYOA, way better writing than those shitty VtM visual novels.

Added to the list, thanks.

I actually didn't even get a glimpse of the writing in those VNs even though I had them because the first thing that popped up ingame was some LBGTQ---- faggot propaganda. Instant uninstall.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Armed Assault: Gold Edition - Playing the main campaign. Truly the Dark Souls of Arma games.

 

[502]

I'm about to move to a new flat, working on furniture, appliances and utilities and in the interim I'm stuck with my cheapo office laptop. Intel graphics. I have a decent collection of installed essentials on Steam/GOG/piracyiswrong™ on this thing but sometimes you just want something different, and I was also curious of its performance when it comes to older 3D games.

So I installed this decade-old shooter called Bulletstorm again because I kept seeing it in those online "games compatible with Intel graphics" lists that make you click after each entry written by non-humans. It's exactly as I remember from the color palette and gameplay to the writing and the obligatory sequel bait. Shooting is decent for a while but gets repetitive much faster than the short campaign ends. It's everything I remember and despise from the aughts.

The best thing I can think of is the short demo called "Duty Calls" which was an attempt by PCF to mock cookie cutter modern military shooters, but in a kinda sorta expected turn of events Bulletstorm itself is as formulaic and banal as those.

 

[forumvisitor#451]

Armed Assault: Gold Edition - Playing the main campaign. Truly the Dark Souls of Arma games.

Why the fuck are you not playing ARMA 1 campaign in ARMA 3? There you have all the upgrades and updates done to engine etc. and its even a same game. Plus you can play original OFP campaign and other ones in nice graphics and with new features.

 

[Slaver1]

Started another playthrough of Crusader: No Regret. It might just be one of my favourite games of all time. I don't think there's any other one out there that gives the same vibe of being a super-commando wrecking shit from the inside against all odds by any means necessary. Maybe Republic Commando, but still not to the same degree as Crusader.

Also, I always chuckle at the 'Thank you! Area secured! ^___^' message when you turn off an alarm. Corpses of guards strewn as far as the eye can see, everything is wrecked to hell - yep, looks secured enough to me!

I know you're a Command and Conquer fan. Yesterday I checked out this C&C Generals Total Conversion mod for Red Alert 3 -> https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-and-conquer-generals-evolution

Great visuals , satisfying and fast gameplay loop for a RTS and variable tactics according to which side you choose. There isn't a campaign or anything but the skirmishes were lots of fun and I bet multiplayer is a blast.

 

[Yldr]

The best thing I can think of is the short demo called "Duty Calls" which was an attempt by PCF to mock cookie cutter modern military shooters, but in a kinda sorta expected turn of events Bulletstorm itself is as formulaic and banal as those.

Figures, I had the exact same conclusion:

Spoiler

I just finished Bulletstorm Full Clip Edition and was thoroughly underwhelmed. The game is so stale compared to its smug trailers, the Duke Nukem DLC was the only reason I bothered pushing through to the end, there are some genuinely good moments though the post-credits scene is a missed opportunity to close on a Duke one-liner.

The irony is that once you have made peace with the fact that it's not a mechanics-oriented shooter, you have most of the midgame where it's fairly adequate as a story shooter, i.e. follow friendly NPCs through over-the-top setpieces. Like Bad Company 2, due to the marketing you would be forgiven for thinking it's a humor game, but in reality it's pretty "serious" and grounded.

Still, enemies can eat way too much lead, the story is nothing special, the gunplay is basically Dark Messiah with guns (enemies take forever to die so kick enemies into 1-hit-kill environmental hazards over and over), and in general I felt like I was playing a poor man's Inversion.

"Duty Calls" is like a quadriplegic guy mocking you for not running fast enough.

I doubt your laptop is as bad as you think if it can run Bulletstorm decently (I wouldn't be surprised if you had a decent 6th-gen emulation machine), but if you're up for another shooter, try Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. You will easily push it to max settings and although the GOG repack has been removed from their store, you should easily be able to hunt it down.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

At the time Bulletstorm was pretty decent.
Keep in mind though that FPS games were scripted military shooter shit back then, so that's not really a high bar to clear.
I liked it more than Borderlands 1 anyway.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Armed Assault: Gold Edition - Playing the main campaign. Truly the Dark Souls of Arma games.

Why the fuck are you not playing ARMA 1 campaign in ARMA 3? There you have all the upgrades and updates done to engine etc. and its even a same game. Plus you can play original OFP campaign and other ones in nice graphics and with new features.

Going through my GOG backlog.

 

[JDR13]

At the time Bulletstorm was pretty decent.
Keep in mind though that FPS games were scripted military shooter shit back then, so that's not really a high bar to clear.
I liked it more than Borderlands 1 anyway.

Borderlands isn't a very high bar to clear. I found Bulletstorm mediocre in most aspects. The only sequence I really liked was the chase scene when you're on the train.

 

[Carrion]

It's often seen as the ugly duckling of the ArmA series and I did like it less than the others, but the campaign has a great selection of mechanized missions compared to how infantry-centric ArmA 2 and 3 would become.

The campaign's so fucking lazy, though. They didn't even bother naming the player character for many of the missions, and a lot of it feels like it wasn't playtested at all.

Still pissed off that I bought a new computer to be able to play it. Then I did the same thing when Arma 2 came out, and got disappointed again... Oh well, countless hours were wasted playing around with the mission editors, at least.

Lately I've been playing a bit of PES 6, but mostly I've been trying to not suck at chess.com.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

At the time Bulletstorm was pretty decent.
Keep in mind though that FPS games were scripted military shooter shit back then, so that's not really a high bar to clear.
I liked it more than Borderlands 1 anyway.

Borderlands isn't a very high bar to clear. I found Bulletstorm mediocre in most aspects. The only sequence I really liked was the chase scene when you're on the train.

That is true. I did actually play Bulletstorm lnot too long ago and found it lacking. It did not age well at all.
The only thing I appreciate was the kill skill mechanic, and they didn't even do that much with it because the game is so damned short and scripted.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I confused Bulletstorm with Rage. I think I tried Bulletstorm about 8 years ago, hated it after 10-15 minutes, then never gave it a second thought. Then last month I saw Rage on sale, got it, but worried, "Is this that shit game I tried to play 8 years ago and abandoned?" So the good news is: I played Rage, and it wasn't that game I played 8 years ago. The Bad News: I hated Rage at least as much as I hated Bulletstorm. Now I will remember to avoid both games in the future so will never be confused again.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I confused Bulletstorm with Rage. I think I tried Bulletstorm about 8 years ago, hated it after 10-15 minutes, then never gave it a second thought. Then last month I saw Rage on sale, got it, but worried, "Is this that shit game I tried to play 8 years ago and abandoned?" So the good news is: I played Rage, and it wasn't that game I played 8 years ago. The Bad News: I hated Rage at least as much as I hated Bulletstorm. Now I will remember to avoid both games in the future so will never be confused again.

Yeah Rage is pretty lacklustre too. I remember how dull it was, every all those years back then. At least with bulletstorm I had to play it again to remember how mediocre it is. Don't have that problem with Rage.
And ID created it too, can you imagine that? How the mighty have fallen.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

It's often seen as the ugly duckling of the ArmA series and I did like it less than the others, but the campaign has a great selection of mechanized missions compared to how infantry-centric ArmA 2 and 3 would become.

The campaign's so fucking lazy, though. They didn't even bother naming the player character for many of the missions, and a lot of it feels like it wasn't playtested at all.

Still pissed off that I bought a new computer to be able to play it. Then I did the same thing when Arma 2 came out, and got disappointed again... Oh well, countless hours were wasted playing around with the mission editors, at least.

Lately I've been playing a bit of PES 6, but mostly I've been trying to not suck at chess.com.

I played Arma 2 with the expansions but didn't get too far though I loved its totally unforgiving, hardcore approach. I think I ended up getting the DayZ mod soon after buying Arma 2 and going online and got sidetracked and never went back to the official campaigns. I have Arma 3 in my collection but last week I went to run it and was disappointed I couldn't play at highest detail settings (yes, I'm a graphics whore that likes beautiful things) without stuttering since the engine didn't seem that much more advanced than the one used in Arma 2. Even my new i9 cpu at 5 GHz didn't make a difference when many other games that used to struggle have a noticeable improvement due to brute forcing with the processor. So now I know it's a gpu bottleneck issue and will probably play Arma 3 when I upgrade from my current GTX 1070.

 

[Carrion]

I played Arma 2 with the expansions but didn't get too far though I loved its totally unforgiving, hardcore approach.

After Operation Flashpoint they seemed to lose all interest in single-player campaigns. Cold War Crisis was a genuinely great campaign that clearly had thought and effort put into it, whereas the one in Arma felt like they just quickly threw something together in the mission editor and called it a day. Arma 2 was a bit more interesting with its more open-ended missions, but it just focused on a small group of marines and didn't come even close to the scope of OFP, only really having a handful of good missions before fizzling out. There are the expansions and the fan missions, some of which are great, but for me those can't replace a long, official campaign.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I played Arma 2 with the expansions but didn't get too far though I loved its totally unforgiving, hardcore approach.

After Operation Flashpoint they seemed to lose all interest in single-player campaigns. Cold War Crisis was a genuinely great campaign that clearly had thought and effort put into it, whereas the one in Arma felt like they just quickly threw something together in the mission editor and called it a day. Arma 2 was a bit more interesting with its more open-ended missions, but it just focused on a small group of marines and didn't come even close to the scope of OFP, only really having a handful of good missions before fizzling out. There are the expansions and the fan missions, some of which are great, but for me those can't replace a long, official campaign.

I never played an Operation Flashpoint game - mostly played stuff like the earlier Medal of Honor and Brothers in Arms series - but I noticed that its GOTY edition has all three early games, including CWC. I should probably check it out. I like a good campaign with some depth that actually makes you feel a part of something big & hectic happening.

 

[Machocruz]

Ah, the first ARMA. Where installing a sound mod fucked up the objective triggers in the campaign. And by fucked up I mean they didn't trigger.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

If there's one thing I've learned over the years it's a great big caveat emptor for even the highest rated user-made mods, modules, TCs and remasters, in all game genres, else you might just discover that those beautiful new 3D character and monster models chasing after you that put the original ones to shame can no longer fit through the door and you're a bit too safe in your journeys. Or as the late Jon Pertwee (the 3rd Doctor Who) once said: "I never much cared for the Daleks... all you had to do to get away was just go up a couple of steps and they were screwed."

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Still playing the excellent NFS Heat. I finished up the main story, which was pretty interesting, especially for a racing game, but obviously that's not why anyone plays them. Just continuing to unlock and upgrade new cars and doing the harder races. I really enjoy every type of event except the drifting. Not to say that it's bad, I've never liked drift events in any racing game.

Also just finished Wasteland 3. Not much to say really. I liked it a lot more than Wasteland 2. It's like a 6.5/10 kind of game. I liked it but I doubt I'll go back

Currently I'm about an hour into Enderal and I already like it more than Skyrim. The scale of it is very impressive for a mod. I was just kind of testing the waters when I installed it, but I see myself completing it now, and maybe trying Nehrim afterwards

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS RIGHT NOW CODE VEIN

LOLLOLLOLL!! 11! LOVE MY AMINE WEEABOO LOVE TOY

BROS COMBAT IS FAST AND OK BUT EXTRA BROS HELP

DARK SOULS WITH WORSE MECHANICS BUT STORY FAG BETTER.

 

[Yldr]

Tomb Raider VI: Angel of Darkness, how to put it...

A cursory Internet search shows very mild complaints like "the controls aren't the best". Talk about an understatement.

It looks like every single aspect has been designed to be laborious. The UI, the level design, the puzzles, but really it's the basic controls that take the cake, they have to be the worst tank controls ever: movement is as janky as can be and every single animation take forever to resolve, the most minute action becomes an excruciating exercise in tedium while you slowly position your character properly and then spend half an hour watching her push a fucking lever.

It's one thing to be banal shit boring, you can just put one foot in front of the other, watch the end credits and move on. This game is actively twisting your balls constantly.

 

[samuraigaiden]

GTA 5 really is just more GTA.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

A cursory Internet search shows very mild complaints like "the controls aren't the best". Talk about an understatement.

Back when I first played it, somewhere near release, I kept thinking, not that the controls were bad, but that the setpieces and the platforming were awful. Like, jees, I keep failing this platforming bit, or this fireball is impossible to run away from. But reading what you said, yeah, that's it, the game just controls badly. I think that, like myself, most people are thinking of it not like the controls are bad, but just that the game is too hard. That makes me wonder if the game would have been good if it controlled well or if the game would have been bad even if that handicap was fixed.

 

[fork]

Replaying Dark Souls again (again [again {again}]). It's From's best game by far. Infinitely replayable, perfect length, atmosphere, level design etc. As close to perfect as it gets for a relatively complex game.
I've also been playing Dirt Rally again, superb racing game.