What game are you wasting time on?

[Twiglard]

Played The Forgotten City. It was originally a Skyrim mod. Quests weren't too hard but there was no hand-holding either. For something that was originally made by modders, it's actually decent. Still, I can't recommend it unless you have nothing fun to play right now.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Good news, I am now dealing damage in Elex. Bad news, it's too easy.
There's like, no difficulty curve.
Also, the fact that having high Cold forces me to side with the Hybrid is dumb. Like, one second Jax is like "death to the Hybrid" and then after one dialogue option he's like "you know what, the Hybrid is a pretty cool guy".
That's kind of dumb. Elex isn't a bad game and does have a lot of charm, but is it prime eurojank.
It's more polished than Hellpoint, but it's still pretty jank.

 

[Demo.Graph]

I've tried returning to Dark Souls 1 (the remaster) after an extended pause. Again, first hours are great: the level aesthetics are great, the enemies force you to pay attention and the lore is decently mysterious.
And then, again, it all falls apart. The levels are small and empty, the enemies are repetitive, the game is linear, combat mechanics are gimmicky and the lore is a taoism sparcely powdered with western fantasy elements. Worst of all, it lacks characters with an agency.
I would really like to like this game, if only for aesthetics.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I've tried returning to Dark Souls 1 (the remaster) after an extended pause. Again, first hours are great: the level aesthetics are great, the enemies force you to pay attention and the lore is decently mysterious.
And then, again, it all falls apart. The levels are small and empty, the enemies are repetitive, the game is linear, combat mechanics are gimmicky and the lore is a taoism sparcely powdered with western fantasy elements. Worst of all, it lacks characters with an agency.
I would really like to like this game, if only for aesthetics.

The areas are small and empty? Sounds like you're not exploring enough or are still in the early game. Blight Town and Anor Londo are huge, for example.

 

[Demo.Graph]

Blight Town and Anor Londo are huge, for example.

I did quit precisely at Anor Londo.
The level is big, but empty. It has what, 20-30 enemies, 1-2 NPCs and a lot of running around. When you progress through the level it becomes even emptier. Kill the gargs and central tower has absolutely nothing. Open a shortcut wicked gate and you have no reason to get into the temple living rooms again. You pass through the painting cathedral maybe two times per game (during the first walkthrough and en route to DLC), but there's nothing to do there. Also, living rooms, in my opinions, is one of the weakest parts of the game design-wise.

Same thing is true for Blight Town. You pass through it once to get all the items and that's it. There's no reason to return. For comparison, the Swamp is completely different - it has Quelana and that samurai guy, it's a crossroad of sorts and you can farm shards there. You have some reason to spend time there except being stuck in front of a new challenge.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Blight Town and Anor Londo are huge, for example.

I did quit precisely at Anor Londo.
The level is big, but empty. It has what, 20-30 enemies, 1-2 NPCs and a lot of running around. When you progress through the level it becomes even emptier. Kill the gargs and central tower has absolutely nothing. Open a shortcut wicked gate and you have no reason to get into the temple living rooms again. You pass through the painting cathedral maybe two times per game (during the first walkthrough and en route to DLC), but there's nothing to do there. Also, living rooms, in my opinions, is one of the weakest parts of the game design-wise.

Same thing is true for Blight Town. You pass through it once to get all the items and that's it. There's no reason to return. For comparison, the Swamp is completely different - it has Quelana and that samurai guy, it's a crossroad of sorts and you can farm shards there. You have some reason to spend time there except being stuck in front of a new challenge.

There's also the hidden area in the swamp, which you may or may not enjoy depending on how you feel about platforming.

 

[Krivol]

Full C# rewrite of Ambermoon - it's a great game I have never finished. Have a nice time playing it now.

 

[Naraya]

Full C# rewrite of Ambermoon - it's a great game I have never finished. Have a nice time playing it now.

Interesting. I assume you mean this? https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoon.net

Mmm, this game has SUCH a cosy art style.

 

[octavius]

Had a tough nut in Wordfeud (Norwegian, which is actually more fun than English) with seven consonants. There was a free "I" on the board, but I had problems finding a word that would get me the maximum score possible in that situation. Then I thought "What would Crispy do in a situation like this?" And then suddenly I saw the right word: KRISPT.
It's nice to me a member of such a friendly community where people help each other even without knowing it.

 

[Yldr]

I've tried returning to Dark Souls

Looks like you're on the casual side of the Dark Souls audience (people who mostly want the Dark Souls formula as a vehicle, not an end in itself), so I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy 2 and 3 much more than 1.

The environments are huge and varied, with absolutely stellar visuals and skylines, and populated with enemies more on the traditional end of "heroic" fantasy. It's no wonder DS2/3 alienated fans of DeS/DS1, you can find their objections to the world design and underlying mechanics everywhere, but to me the series just kept getting better.

The basic Dark Souls formula is so good that I've never understood people who say a casual/EZ option would ruin it. I don't really think you can "ruin" such solid fundamentals, in fact I often look at other mediocre third-person a-RPGs, old and new, and keep thinking how much better they would be if you remastered them in the Dark Souls engine.

Shit like Bound by Flame or Crusaders of Might & Magic are prime examples: they would still be much easier than DS, with poorer level design and atmosphere, but it would still make them worthwhile simply because the basic 101 combat would be so orgasmic.

 

[Krivol]

Full C# rewrite of Ambermoon - it's a great game I have never finished. Have a nice time playing it now.

Interesting. I assume you mean this? https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoon.net

Mmm, this game has SUCH a cosy art style.

Yes, that's the version I am playing now.

The game looks great for something made almost 30 years ago for 16bit systems. And plays awesome.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

I just finished a playthrough of Dead Space 2. If it didn't take me 5 hours from start to finish I would have dropped it around the point you started retreading earlier levels. None of the tension or mystique from the first game is present and having Isaac talk was a massive mistake, completely takes me out of whatever I am doing when he starts swearing or whenever the dementia sequences kick in. Sort of reminds me of Resident Evil 4 where the focus on nonlinearity and puzzle solving of the previous entries was replaced with linear combat encounters that take place in hallways and set pieces. Not to say that the first game was also not guilty of this but all those problems were exasperated in the sequel. To be honest I would rather replay System Shock which does the brutal scifi survivalist motif that Dead Space was going for much better.

 

[curds]

the game is linear,

How so? It has a short, linear "bottleneck" right in the middle of the game (Sen's Fortress to Anor Londo) but both before and after that bottleneck it's totally non-linear, you always have several paths to go down and you can do them in whatever order.

combat mechanics are gimmicky

Again, how so? Combat mechanics are more or less quite simple and stripped down to basics, I don't know how you'd call that gimmicky.

The levels are small and empty,

The levels are as big as they need to be, and the only level I would come close to calling empty would be anor londo, precisely because it's not small.

the enemies are repetitive

Almost every area is primarily populated by enemies you won't see anywhere else.

Worst of all, it lacks characters with an agency.

What do you mean by this? Majority of characters have some agenda or quest that they carry out, excepting merchants and the crestfallen warrior (who's basically a hint kiosk).

 

[curds]

The basic Dark Souls formula is so good that I've never understood people who say a casual/EZ option would ruin it.

Because lack of casual/easy options is a huge part of the formula?

 

[Yldr]

I appreciate feline younglings.

 

[curds]

You said you never understood why, I just gave you an answer as to why people think that way. I didn't intend to tap dance around the rest of your post for the sake of forum ratings, just had nothing to add to it.

 

[Yldr]

That's fair, this sounded edgier than intended so let me edit that out just in case. Still, in case that quote needs a little follow-up, I "don't understand" as in I can't relate and fundamentally disagree. Odds are it would even result in the existence of harder modes: established precedent of different difficulties + larger pool of players who start on easy and gradually ramp it up.

It's already been debated to death virtually everywhere Dark Souls was ever mentioned so TL;DR: Dark Souls is always top notch melee porn and you can't "ruin" it, short of IDDQD... and even then, who knows.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Beat Elex

Spoiler

I got the Mana Hybrid Ending, which I thought was pretty neat. Outlaws getting pissed off at you and declaring war on you is hilarious too, especially when you seduced Nasty and killed Logan in front of her. I murdered her brother and she still loves me, Jax is a chad
I really liked the Clerics. The Regent Armor looks cool and their fluff is pretty interesting.
I like how despite being the religious faction, a lot of the members seem pretty chill, especially the Judicator who doesn't really care if you uncover the secret about Calaan. He knows that it's a lie, but he also knows that revealing the truth now would break the Clerics and strengthen the Alb threat, and as such would rather people discover the truth on their own
The Berserkers are actually preachier and sanctimonious than the Clerics, funnily enough

I would play Elex II, but I really hope they fix how progression works as well as the UI. Having to play for about 10 hours before you can start to actually have fun instead of running from everything isn't great. The UI doesn't tell you enough and selling items is annoying because they put food, ammo, documents, materials and trophies into the same section instead of separating them out.

Onward to Planescape Torment Enhanced Edition. It's been a while since I played PST.

 

[Demo.Graph]

The levels are as big as they need to be

I began to write a reply, but dropped it.
You like the game, good for you.

There's also the hidden area in the swamp, which you may or may not enjoy depending on how you feel about platforming.

Yeah, I've completed it.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

Since Faces of War won't let me finish the Soviet campaign (there are a few german soldiers floating above the Reichstag that I can't kill in order to trigger the objective's completion), I'll be moving on to Men of War.

Gonna give Chernobylite another go now that's been released (the performance was atrocious in pre-alpha).

 

[Ivan]

Detention

A horror side-scrolling adventure game, Detention excels in telling its story through excellent pacing and foreshadowing. You can sum up plot in one sentence, but the way information and character backstory is doled out to you via metaphors and smart foreshadowing is what makes this such a joy to experience. I actually had an itch to replay the game (relatively short once you know the optimal path through the map) to better see all the little nuances and clues the game has buried in the environment and little cutscenes. Aesthetically, animations is barebones, but is effective, especially with regard to the few monsters you meet. Audio and music is notably well done, at times reminding me of the suffocating nature of Silent Hill. My final appreciation is that this is a mature tale that doesn't have a happy ending. I found it to be adult and sobering, and so I respect it all the more. I'm eager to check out the follow up Devotion and am glad I purchased both when Red Candle started re-selling the latter.

 

[Pentium]

Fallout Tactics. Started training my main char for EW and grinding a new BG in the team in worldmap encounters - hired a low lvl merc mid-game, I just want that guy lol.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I started playing Syberia. This is my third attempt at this game - the previous two times I dropped it after leaving the hotel at the start. All this time I thought it was because the protagonist's bitchy voiceover in Potato was too grating to continue.

But now I tried it in inglese, and I made it as far as getting to the toy factory, and I don't feel like continuing. Something about this game is just completely uninteresting to me. The background, the premise, the protagonist - it's all so very blaaaaaaaah.

 

[Yldr]

Total Eclipse Turbo (1994) on PS1

Spoiler

A shmup in a 3D engine with all the good and bad that comes with the concept. The visuals are alright especially since it's one of the absolute earliest PS1 releases, but it's sped up compared to videos of the original 3DO version, instead of simply smoother. Unlocking the framerate has always been black magic, it would seem.

Unusually for a shmup I like that there has been an effort to have an actual plot with CGI cutscenes. Nice 90s cheese too.

It was pretty boring and I'm rather looking forward to the "sequel" Solar Eclipse / Titan Wars.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

I started playing Syberia. This is my third attempt at this game - the previous two times I dropped it after leaving the hotel at the start. All this time I thought it was because the protagonist's bitchy voiceover in Potato was too grating to continue.

But now I tried it in inglese, and I made it as far as getting to the toy factory, and I don't feel like continuing. Something about this game is just completely uninteresting to me. The background, the premise, the protagonist - it's all so very blaaaaaaaah.

Once you leave the starting village the game becomes more interesting but never what I would call good, the whole game is full of backtracking and some of the most braindead easy puzzles you will see in an adventure game. Shame too because the aesthetics are top notch.