What game are you wasting time on?

[Jack Of Owls]

In fact, I just finished Far Cry 6 and as bad as it is compared to FC 1-4, I enjoyed it, though it can only be played with a mod

That's every Far Cry game that's ever been released, even 1.

You talking about the regenerating health thing? Funny, I don't remember that in earlier entries in the series but I don't doubt you. One problem with FC6 is how its entire loot/weapon upgrade mechanic is based on acquiring "Supremo" weapons which are ridiculously overpowered so I thought I'd try to play with as few of them as possible. Bad idea since some of the higher-level combat content sometimes seems balanced around them and you might find it a struggle to do without. The game has way too many tower defense sequences too compared to previous entries. I hate tower defense. However, it was enjoyable seeing Gus from the Better Call Saul-verse as the main baddie where they don't even dare change his real-life appearance. The ending was unexpectedly grim for a FC game with more than just the main villain being vanquished or killed. I don't regret my time with it and I've even been playing some of the post main game content though I finally had my fill yesterday, I think. and want/need something else now. But what? That iz zee question.

No I mean that none of them are fun without mods, both 1 and 2 have mods that make them less unbearable to play, 2 had a small mod scene dedicated to making it playable instead of just being a bad tech demo.

Always wanted to play Far Cry 2 but was scared off by descriptions of having to commute/drive long distances to assignments and back again after having completed missions instead of just using a less boring way of telling your handler you completed your objective, say, by radio or something like in the later FC games; then you could go directly to your next objective. I think I also remember something about camps you've cleared that respawn new enemies too soon or something. Did they ever fix these things with mods? It's difficult to go from the more streamlined later games to something like this.

 

[BruceVC]

I have just finished my second play through of Oblivion with mods. I spent about 240 hours on the game and it scores a 80/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system "

Mods like Maskars Overhaul and Ultimate Levelling really address all the shortfalls like level scaling and Ultimate Levelling makes advancement based on XP so its makes exploring and questing both rewarding and worthwhile

Now Im faced with that exciting question that only us gamers get to answer " what to play next " and I have many options from my long list of unplayed GOG and Steam games

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/sureais-new-project-enderal-the-shards-of-order.73191/

Excellent suggestion, I have Enderal on Steam and I have only heard glowing reviews about it

But I still havent played Skyrim yet so I need to play Skyrim AE first? But I have a gaming rule where I generally never play the same type of game twice in a row. So for me Oblivion is a single character RPG which means I cant play another game like it straight away. I do this so I never get bored with one type of gaming design

Which means I need to choose a game that is any of the following

• party based RPG like BG
• CRPG like Ultima or Wizardry
• Action FPS like Far Cry, Assassins Creed or similar games
• Survival games like The Forest
• Adventure games like Kings Quest
• Action\Adventure games like RDR2

Such choices

If you go with Far Cry or AssCreed, I'd start with FC 3 or AssCreed 2/Brotherhood. Far Cry 3 set the template for the later entries and had the most memorable single C&C among any game I played (of course it was the only C&C moment in the game but it's one of the very rare instances, I think, where you actually enjoy totally losing a game *satisfied grin*). AssCreed Origins had some big "Wow!" moments if you can crank up the graphics if your card supports it, ie hippopotamuses or nile crocodiles rearing up out of nowhere and attacking your boat.

I have played FC2-4 and several AC games and most recently AC Odyssey. I havent played Origins or Valhalla yet

Ubisoft games are great and they do certain mechanics exceptionally well. I find their game worlds to be beautiful and historically authentic and I always enjoy the side activities like hunting, capturing bases and crafting

Odyssey was really well done with the naval combat and the options to kill creatures from Greek mythology

 

[Derringer]

In fact, I just finished Far Cry 6 and as bad as it is compared to FC 1-4, I enjoyed it, though it can only be played with a mod

That's every Far Cry game that's ever been released, even 1.

You talking about the regenerating health thing? Funny, I don't remember that in earlier entries in the series but I don't doubt you. One problem with FC6 is how its entire loot/weapon upgrade mechanic is based on acquiring "Supremo" weapons which are ridiculously overpowered so I thought I'd try to play with as few of them as possible. Bad idea since some of the higher-level combat content sometimes seems balanced around them and you might find it a struggle to do without. The game has way too many tower defense sequences too compared to previous entries. I hate tower defense. However, it was enjoyable seeing Gus from the Better Call Saul-verse as the main baddie where they don't even dare change his real-life appearance. The ending was unexpectedly grim for a FC game with more than just the main villain being vanquished or killed. I don't regret my time with it and I've even been playing some of the post main game content though I finally had my fill yesterday, I think. and want/need something else now. But what? That iz zee question.

No I mean that none of them are fun without mods, both 1 and 2 have mods that make them less unbearable to play, 2 had a small mod scene dedicated to making it playable instead of just being a bad tech demo.

Always wanted to play Far Cry 2 but was scared off by descriptions of having to commute/drive long distances to assignments and back again after having completed missions instead of just using a less boring way of telling your handler you completed your objective, say, by radio or something like in the later FC games; then you could go directly to your next objective. I think I also remember something about camps you've cleared that respawn new enemies too soon or something. Did they ever fix these things with mods? It's difficult to go from the more streamlined later games to something like this.

People have tried fixing it, I've seen discussion about it on here before. The least shitty of the overhaul mods is Tom's Mod.
https://www.nexusmods.com/farcry2/mods/288?tab=description

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I have just finished my second play through of Oblivion with mods. I spent about 240 hours on the game and it scores a 80/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system "

Mods like Maskars Overhaul and Ultimate Levelling really address all the shortfalls like level scaling and Ultimate Levelling makes advancement based on XP so its makes exploring and questing both rewarding and worthwhile

Now Im faced with that exciting question that only us gamers get to answer " what to play next " and I have many options from my long list of unplayed GOG and Steam games

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/sureais-new-project-enderal-the-shards-of-order.73191/

Excellent suggestion, I have Enderal on Steam and I have only heard glowing reviews about it

But I still havent played Skyrim yet so I need to play Skyrim AE first? But I have a gaming rule where I generally never play the same type of game twice in a row. So for me Oblivion is a single character RPG which means I cant play another game like it straight away. I do this so I never get bored with one type of gaming design

Which means I need to choose a game that is any of the following

• party based RPG like BG
• CRPG like Ultima or Wizardry
• Action FPS like Far Cry, Assassins Creed or similar games
• Survival games like The Forest
• Adventure games like Kings Quest
• Action\Adventure games like RDR2

Such choices

If you go with Far Cry or AssCreed, I'd start with FC 3 or AssCreed 2/Brotherhood. Far Cry 3 set the template for the later entries and had the most memorable single C&C among any game I played (of course it was the only C&C moment in the game but it's one of the very rare instances, I think, where you actually enjoy totally losing a game *satisfied grin*). AssCreed Origins had some big "Wow!" moments if you can crank up the graphics if your card supports it, ie hippopotamuses or nile crocodiles rearing up out of nowhere and attacking your boat.

I have played FC2-4 and several AC games and most recently AC Odyssey. I havent played Origins or Valhalla yet

Ubisoft games are great and they do certain mechanics exceptionally well. I find their game worlds to be beautiful and historically authentic and I always enjoy the side activities like hunting, capturing bases and crafting

Odyssey was really well done with the naval combat and the options to kill creatures from Greek mythology

A lot of people dump on the later Assassin's Creed games but I enjoy them. I stopped playing Valhalla though because it felt too easy but maybe there was a way to ramp up the challenge so it was more like the others. AC2 had a brilliant system of introducing optional, much more difficult challenges during a mission where you got greater rewards or additional unlocking of story elements if you succeeded. If you weren't good enough though, you missed those rewards and sequences. I wish they'd bring that system back instead of the series becoming increasingly more popamole. Origins has a nice educational option where you can just free-roam the major places you've been in the game and learn about their history, like a kind of no-pressure virtual tour.

 

[Sigourn]

I finished The Plutonia Experiment (Final Doom) a few days ago.
The super secret Go 2 It map was pretty annoying. It makes heavy abuse of Cyberdemons, which are probably the only true challenge in the entire level. You have to fight quite a few of them in cramped spaces, and taking a rocket in your face will instantly killl you.

Apart from that, monster infighting makes the map easy to deal with. But those Cyberdemons... Make one mistake, and you lose a 10 or 20 minute run.

 

[d1r]

Have been playing Final Fantasy XII with the SFF mod lately, and I have to say that it's still one of the most comfy games out there. The atmosphere, the music, the setting, the characters, everything fits so perfectly together. The game is also the reason why I got into Final Fantasy XIV, since the game was radiating the same comfiness that XII has.

The game's battle system is fine, and I personally don't have a problem with grinding, but I have to say though that the game becomes a MAJOR chore if you play it on normal speed, and I am not sure if I ever had the motivation to actually finish it on OG hardware (at least not in my age). Dungeons have huuuuuuge hallways, and you're just keep running, and running, and running to the next group of mobs. Even checking new dialogues in the town after every new chapter would probably take like 30 minutes. However, it's a strange feeling to play this game with x2 speed, since it kinda feels like cheating, respectively not experiencing the game as it should have been at its original state. It kinda ruins the mood, and kinda does not. Weird.

I definitely can understand why people say that it's one of the worst FF's out there, and it's kinda sad, because everything else feels so grande and spectacular. Facial animations are so smooth, and the cinematics are gorgeous. The game truly was ahead of its time in a lot of areas.

Regarding the SFF mod: It does a lot of rebalancing for a lot of items, spells, monsters, well, basically everything. It also gives you the choice to use a rebalanced Zodiac Licence board, or make the characters go a linear path, eg, characters becoming specialists. I actually don't know how the original licence board looked like (has been like 15 years since I last played FFXII), so I don't really have a comparison.

Also, have some

Spoiler

ass:

 

[Abu Antar]

I've been playing a bit of Dangerous Golf with three other bros, and was a decent time waster while chatting shit. We saw that Deep Rock Galactic is on sale for €10, so we all grabbed it. Hopefully, we can get an hour of two in the weekend. We're also looking at the new turtles game. Six player co-op would be fun.

They have been trying to convince me to play Sea of Thieves, but I'm unsure. If it goes on sale for €15, I will bite the bullet.

The single player games that I am playing are The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, and Betrayal in Antara.
The former is fun, but butt ugly. Combat is solid enough, writing is somewhat decent, and soundtrack is, as always in Falcom games, great. I haven't gotten very far, but what I have played is good on the jrpg scale. As usual for the series, I can't recommend it to people who hate lots of dialog, or long cut scenes. Play something else.

Antara is an acceptable game, but it's clunkier, slower, less interesting version of BaK. An acceptable game is still not what I am looking for. It is worse than Antara in most ways that I can think of. Lore is not great, quests are mostly boring, voice acting is lol-worthy, and exploration is less fun than in BaK. I do like the spell system, some tunes are nice, and I can't say that the chants in bars aren't charming. My biggest annoyance is probably the combat. It's very slow, and the randomness of hit chances is all over the place. I will play it to the end, but a classic, it is not.

 

[Gamezor]

I have just finished my second play through of Oblivion with mods. I spent about 240 hours on the game and it scores a 80/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system "

Mods like Maskars Overhaul and Ultimate Levelling really address all the shortfalls like level scaling and Ultimate Levelling makes advancement based on XP so its makes exploring and questing both rewarding and worthwhile

Now Im faced with that exciting question that only us gamers get to answer " what to play next " and I have many options from my long list of unplayed GOG and Steam games

Man I love modded Oblivion. They really do fix basically all the major issues. Game is huge and fun to explore. I should try that levelling mod sometime. It's a pain to get all the mods installed every time is the problem.

I also like that it's funny and doesn't take itself to seriously like Skyrim.

 

[Gamezor]

I’m playing Homm3. Restoration of Erathia campagin seemed a bit easy, so Im doing the blade of armageddon which seems more my speed. I have not played since I was a teenager and don’t remember how far I got then. Tons of fun.

Playing ratchet and clank on ps5. Very pretty legit next gen game with lots of fun and no woke bs. Also playing elden ring and fh5 (on series x) a bit but I think I need to finish some of this other stuff before I really get into Elden Ring.

 

[Ivan]

Started CrossCode but was put off by how formulaic it feels. It looks and sounds nice, but it adheres too much to tropey flow of town>dungeon>towns with boring quests. Will give it another shot.

Started Omori b/c it came to gamepass out of nowhere. It was always on my radar b/c it was often likened to Undertale and thus far it has been excellent. Thoughtful, succinct writing with excellent music, and cute animation. I also liked how the battles are presented here via highly detailed sketch drawings. Will definitely be continuing this one. I hope it holds up.

 

[Machocruz]

Have you made the medium armor yet? It looks dope.

No I haven't a tanning rack up yet to make the medium padding. That's my next goal. Btw I'm in the same area you are, but further north closer to the river.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

No I haven't a tanning rack up yet to make the medium padding. That's my next goal. Btw I'm in the same area you are, but further north closer to the river.

 

[BruceVC]

I’m playing Homm3. Restoration of Erathia campagin seemed a bit easy, so Im doing the blade of armageddon which seems more my speed. I have not played since I was a teenager and don’t remember how far I got then. Tons of fun.

Playing ratchet and clank on ps5. Very pretty legit next gen game with lots of fun and no woke bs. Also playing elden ring and fh5 (on series x) a bit but I think I need to finish some of this other stuff before I really get into Elden Ring.

Everyone I know in RL and most people I chat to on gaming forums have loved Elden Ring, it sounds like an amazing game so you must keep us updated around your impressions.

Do you want to read a really positive opinion on Elden Ring from a gamer I know?

 

[HansDampf]

Started CrossCode but was put off by how formulaic it feels. It looks and sounds nice, but it adheres too much to tropey flow of town>dungeon>towns with boring quests. Will give it another shot.

Please do so. I don't know how far you got, but the combat is the meat of the game, and it peaks after you get the second element, like the game is backloaded. It gets better the more options and abilities you have, and it changes things up with different enemy types and also incorporates puzzle elements into the combat.
I was annoyed at first by the excessive amount of trading items, and the first area is pretty bland. But the game had me at the twist in chapter 7, and it's in my top 10 of the last decade.

 

[Gamezor]

I’m playing Homm3. Restoration of Erathia campagin seemed a bit easy, so Im doing the blade of armageddon which seems more my speed. I have not played since I was a teenager and don’t remember how far I got then. Tons of fun.

Playing ratchet and clank on ps5. Very pretty legit next gen game with lots of fun and no woke bs. Also playing elden ring and fh5 (on series x) a bit but I think I need to finish some of this other stuff before I really get into Elden Ring.

Everyone I know in RL and most people I chat to on gaming forums have loved Elden Ring, it sounds like an amazing game so you must keep us updated around your impressions.

Do you want to read a really positive opinion on Elden Ring from a gamer I know?

Oh I'm sold on it, but it's not really something to be played casually in between other games, at least for a low skill gamer like myself. It needs more serious focus.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Playing the Burial at Sea parts for Bioshock infinite.
I forgot how much I dislike Infinite. The gunplay feels wrong to me. It feels really floaty and sluggish and the enemies have way too much health. Part 1 is a pain in the arse because of this, especially when apparently you can't one shot enemies with sneak melee attacks.

The story is even more convoluted and pretentious; they retconed parts of the infinite for some odd reason and also retconned the original game too.
Elizabeth comes across as a massive bitch and I couldn't stand her dialogue.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Many many years ago, here on the Codex, I mentioned a game that I (and a few others) had played, and how it was Good and Cool and such.

Well, due to some Codexers recently talking about it, I dug it up again, dusted it off, and gave it a go, all those years wiser about gameplay and game mechanics and such.

The game is Seiklus (pronounced Saku-loose to English-speakers) and is a freeware collecta-thon platformer from 2003 where you're not punished for your efforts - at best you only suffer a temporary setback.

The plot is so simple and so well laid out, I'm not even gonna mention it. If you do decide to play this game, the short (and wordless) intro explains all there is for you to know. The rest is up to you, your awareness and your sense of exploration.

Get the game here.

So what do I think of it today? It's a lovely little game, but not without some minor faults. The controls are a little iffy, especially when it comes to making those long-jumps you'll need to make lots of to beat certain areas. Learn the difference between making a jump from a 'clean' piece of platform, and when you're making a jump from an obstacle of some kind, or a ladder. Checking your foundations is key.

But those minor control problems are almost done away with by all the positives. Simple, but servicable graphics, a good soundtrack gathered from the FastTracker-community and their renditions of good commercial chiptunes (think Rob Hubbard and Fred Gray at their finest) and the general optimistic atmosphere this game generates - and it's hard to be disappointed by this game, especially since it's free. On modern systems the screen resolution will default to a large black border around the game screen, but it's still legible enough to get the job done.

My only two tips for this game?

1: Read the manual (text-file) to learn about all the keyboard commands, especially the one where you have to save the game manually by pressing 'S' - Seiklus has all the qualities about making automatic saves at the correct intervals... except actually making them. You'll have to fill in.

2: There's a section where you have two empty light receptacles on both sides of an empty chasm. Try jumping straight up while standing at one of them, see what happens.

And above all - have fun on your adventure! :D

 

[Daemongar]

For some reason, I fired up Ultima 9 last week and spent about 10 hours laboring away on the game.

• Wow! This game is still terrible.
• How could they spend *that* much time on the game and have it still be this buggy?
• How did they manage to find writers that seemed to have no idea of the characters or the virtues?
• Why did they design the game for people that weren't alive when the original Ultimas were released?

I'm not looking for answers to any of the above questions, I know the answers. This horse has been beaten to death and then some. I just need to fire this game up on GOG every once in a while to - I don't know. Punish myself?

 

[thelegend]

God Of War (2018) - A mediocre game masquerading as a masterpiece. Art design - not good Gameplay - mediocre. Enemy variety is the worst in the series and they are all green, red ,blue etc. Boss Fights suck and I wonder how this game won game of the year 2018. Gameplay is extremely simplified and not as good as previous games. As someone said this is a marvel movie in the making. The characters and story do suck and there seems to be emptiness in the game.

Red Dead redemption 2 - This is the one of the best movie game I have played. I liked the story and characters in the game. The game is buggy as hell for pc. Gameplay - outdated and random missions suck. Side missions were bad to mediocre. Wonky movements. Still liked it better than the first part.

Red Dead redemption - I liked the characters in the game. Story - mediocre ( it is the standard one found in western movies). The side missions were much better than the second part. Gameplay - mediocre. Graphics - Outdated. Nothing revolutionary as hailed by critics.

 

[Comte_II]

For some reason, I fired up Ultima 9 last week and spent about 10 hours laboring away on the game.

• Wow! This game is still terrible.
• How could they spend *that* much time on the game and have it still be this buggy?
• How did they manage to find writers that seemed to have no idea of the characters or the virtues?
• Why did they design the game for people that weren't alive when the original Ultimas were released?

I'm not looking for answers to any of the above questions, I know the answers. This horse has been beaten to death and then some. I just need to fire this game up on GOG every once in a while to - I don't know. Punish myself?

I did this last year and got stuck pretty far into the game. Some location I entered kept crashinh to desktop. It was part of the main quest. I threw in the towel.

 

[Hag]

snip Seiklus snip

One of my all time favorite game is Knytt, a similar looking and maybe playing exploration game, so your post really pumped me up. I gave it a quick try but the controls really are wonky. It feels there is a small lag while jumping that is really annoying. Plus there seems to be a heavy use of invisible platforms and traps. Not a big fan I Wanna Be The Guy type games, so I don't think I'll carry on.
Thanks for the head up anyway, was worth a try.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

There are exactly three instances of invisible platforms in Seiklus (two minor and one major) and if you can find the correct treasure first, the platforms are revealed to you (but are still kinda hard to spot).

The traps are another matter, but I'm thinking it's mostly the caves. Again, find the proper treasure (hint, go upwards where there doesn't appear to be a passage) and the traps will be revealed to you.

There is nothing difficult about Seiklus, you only have to be patient and perservere. It's not like you can die in this game anyway...

 

[Hag]

Oh ok, if you can have them revealed I will try again, I'm a sucker for this kind of laid-back exploration games.

 

[Üstad]

I'm very far in Tower of Time.

Is it good, should I try it?

 

[Zenithsan]

I'm playing Matsuno's Dark Souls