What game are you wasting time on?

[Ezekiel]

I've played through Sonic CD just once in my life. I don't remember the music being this boppin'. Chaos Emerald levels suck. The worst.

 

[flyingjohn]

Playing the psx port of space hulk vengeance of the blood angels.
It is basically a mix of a fps/tactical game.It fails hard because of numerous reasons:
-Path finding is garbage and your squad will constantly bump into each other.This is made worse because the entire game is corridor and small rooms.
-You can tell the squad mate to do something and who knows will he get stuck or just do nothing.Tell him o close the door and he walks in front of the door and just stares.
-Limited amount of time per action in strategy view is very stupid.I have no idea why they even did this.
-Controls are not designed for this type of game play. Regardless if it is the 3do,saturn or psx. The windows version is the only one that actually is playable thanks to the mouse.
-Half of the game(campaign) has no squad command and it is just boring because of a lack of enemy/weapon variety.

I wanted to give the console ports a chance.But a combination of lethality and requiring quick actions coupled with bad controls and path finding just make it a constant struggle to get any semblance of fun.
If you are curious get the win95 version.

 

[fork]

Got a new gamepad recently, went back and completed Elden Ring after a few months hiatus. Turns out I wasn't far from the end, anyway. Steam says about 12 hours played in the last two weeks.

It's an okay game, as far as AAA open-world action-RPGs go. But sad coming from the guy/company that made Demon's Souls/DS1. It's superficially the same as Dark Souls, but BIGGER, more EPIC!! and with the things that I liked most of all about the early Souls games either entirely missing or exaggerated to the point of parody. DS3 was already heading in this direction, but Elden Ring went all out.

Yep, it's shit.

 

[Kabas]

So what's the konsensus on Etherlords?
I installed it and took it for a spin, and had a very Codexian reaction:

Spoiler

Looks gay.

First game is an attempt to combine homm with magic the gathering. I don't think it was succesful.
Methinks main mistake was making any card that is slightly better than the shitty starting deck have a limited amount of uses before the need to replenish. Meaning that sending 1lvl heroes with starting decks against strong enemy heroes until they run out of cards to play is a valid tactic.
Second game is better, as they removed the strategic layer and focused entirely on deckbuilding and battles.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Playing Worlds of Xeen for the 2nd or 3rd time. This is the ultimate relax and play a game that I spend about 50% of my time at the merchants identifying and optimizing the party. Oddly complicated when I stop to think about it, but I'm not complaining. It's a game like Wizardry 6-8, MM(any), or Anachronix. I can fire up the game any time and just kinda zone out. Either way, I completed the Clouds of Xeen this last weekend and now am on the Darkside. Feel free to mail in my score to Hollywood if you've never finished MM4 - I have no idea if this is a righteous score or not.

Little tip, you can take screenshots in DOSbox by pressing ctrl+f5. If two keys together is too much for you, you can rebind it using the control menu in ctrl+f1 and set it to a single key. That removes the window border and you don't get any tooltips popping up like you have in the first screenshot.

 

[Daemongar]

Playing Worlds of Xeen for the 2nd or 3rd time. This is the ultimate relax and play a game that I spend about 50% of my time at the merchants identifying and optimizing the party. Oddly complicated when I stop to think about it, but I'm not complaining. It's a game like Wizardry 6-8, MM(any), or Anachronix. I can fire up the game any time and just kinda zone out. Either way, I completed the Clouds of Xeen this last weekend and now am on the Darkside. Feel free to mail in my score to Hollywood if you've never finished MM4 - I have no idea if this is a righteous score or not.

Little tip, you can take screenshots in DOSbox by pressing ctrl+f5. If two keys together is too much for you, you can rebind it using the control menu in ctrl+f1 and set it to a single key. That removes the window border and you don't get any tooltips popping up like you have in the first screenshot.

Thanks - I just use Alt+PrScr out of habit - but I'll try that ctrl+f5

 

[Devastator]

I’m playing RDR2 for the first time, never played the first one. The game is surprisingly decent, as I am not really a fan of open world games. I’m in chapter 4 and I already can’t spend my money. Bought the most expensive horse, fully upgraded the camp, all my guna are gold plated and engraved.

I have about 80% honor simply because greeting everyone on the street somehow outweighs straight up murdering a few people every now and then. Here, RDR2 reminds me of Baldur’s Gate a bit. Murder the dude mocking you at the carnival, kill and loot Drizzt, kill the excavation crew, etc. Then go to a temple and you’re a good boy again.

 

[HoboForEternity]

i tired sable, it was really disappointing and just wasnt feeling it after 4 hours. the main problem is being an exploration focused chill game, the game shove you quest marker like skyrim/ubisoft game. i'll just copy/paste my rant on steam forum.

for an exploration game, the over-reliance on quest maker hurt the game
the game barely offer you organic direction, just mostly just rely on quest markers like ubisoft game. it really hurt this kind of game. the enviroment are memorable, beautiful and fun to traverse, but most quest just give you very vague direction and a questmarker, which turn the game into follow the dot type open world game. for example , the beetle husk quest in the burned oak town for example. they could easily give us direction in the quest log or dialog, no. the quest log just say "get 3 larva husk near the camp". "near the camp" the friggin beetle nest was on the other side of the region map. they could just write "the beetle nest is south from camp, go until you see a forest of rock formation, the beetle nest will be further inside the rock formation"

would make the game 200x more immersive and navigation an organic part of the gameplay. instead i just follow the dot on the compass like i am playing skyrim or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game.

i think the game was pretty, the music, atmosphere and locations with occasional simple puzzle was great for break between heavier / demanding games, but chill game is too chill with the handholding/lazy design. the game's inspiration, BoTW did organic navigation relatively well, but this one, i did few quests for it, and feel it's just a missed opportunity that the dev used this kind of design crutch when the world itself, those that i saw at least was very beautifuly made full of memorable landmark that would make navigation gameplau fun. ah well, there goes 10 bucks

 

[ferratilis]

No One Lives Forever. The style, humor, music, and atmosphere are still top notch. I believe the first game is superior to second when it comes to these things, but man the stealth sections have aged like milk. I recently played Deus Ex, and stealth is much better in that game than here, like infinitely better (not to say that Deus Ex has great stealth). NOLF is not trying to be Thief, but the stealth here, even as a rudimentary system, it's shit. I'll still push to the end, because everything else is just that good.

 

[Puukko]

Been going through the EA coop horror pile with bros after a year's break.

Devour is perhaps the most unique of the lot. It has scenarios that each work their own way. Gather X, perform Y, avoid monsters and the demon. It starts off tense and atmospheric and becomes increasingly loud and fast paced as it goes on, like a slasher film. It's also the hardest by far - me and my buddies have only managed to complete two scenarios on normal, by the skin of our teeth. Graphically it is the roughest, but it is also the cheapest. Spookiness: 3.5/5

Forewarned is just Mummy the coop game. Investigate a pyramid, find clues, gain access to the main chamber and escape. It has evolved a lot over a year, sporting improved grafix and refinement of the mechanics, most notably making the investigation phase way deadlier. Not terribly spooky, save for the escape phase where you have to evade the mummy, especially if you failed to identify it. If you see an archeologist in a hard hat start humming, get the hell out. Spookiness: 2.5/5

Phasmophobia, the OG and still my favorite. Gather clues using a multitude of tools to identify the ghost while trying not to join it. A novel idea in its simplicity. It hasn't evolved at the same pace as Forewarned, but they've made changes to make the gameplay feel more natural and less formulaic. The separation between safety and the hunt isn't as clear cut anymore, and getting results with the tools can take some patience. There are so many types of them now, it's going to take quite a long time to learn them all by heart. Very atmospheric though with some less than great audio design. Hearing your teammates directly above you in a standard house shouldn't sound like they're in a trashcan right next to your ear. 3.5/5 spooks.

 

[arekks]

I've been playing the Gunvolt series and I coincidentally happened to start doing so just in time to jump on the third game right after. They're 2D platformers with an emphasis on score-attack-style gameplay where you play as a few different characters with different styles through the series. The main gimmick is that an idol will sing for you when you accrue a certain amount of score.

I'm not actually a big fan of these games overall. Luminous Avenger iX (just the first one, the second is awful) is great fun because the character you play as (Copen), while fairly basic, is fundamentally enjoyable to play: you ping-pong around the level and off of enemies, each "air dash" has limited range but the range is recovered by an angled bounce off of a surface, and each time you bounce off a surface you regain one unit of the resource that is used per air dash. You find the optimal route to bounce through the level without landing, it's a blast.

Through most of the first two games you play as Gunvolt and he sucks. His whole mechanic is that he has a gun that can put up to three tags out overall on to enemies, and then you hold a button to do damage that is proportionate to the number of tags you place. Getting simultaneous kills is how you score. Some enemies take more damage, so you'll perhaps put two tags on one and one tag on another to balance it out. That's basically it. There's a broken skill system that they neutered in the second game. The level design sucks. There's even a levelling and crafting system, and some of the equipment you craft is essential to gaining a high rank.

Gunvolt 3 is like a smart person took the ideas of the previous games and expanded on them. You play as a new character called Kirin, a ninja with a sword and sealing talismans. You tag enemies with talismans (basically like Gunvolt's gun) and you can do a homing dash attack that kills or damages any tagged enemies and teleports you across them sequentially; some enemies require just one tag and big enemies require more. You have one air jump but each dash attack resets that. The challenges of the game are to stay aerial (like Copen) and multi-kill enemies (like Gunvolt) at the same time. You also have a sword combo and a variety of special moves including, usefully, an upward sword attack that can be used in the air and which elevates you. You can also switch to playing as Gunvolt, who is more powerful in terms of damage output and has infinite air jumps, can also do the tag-homing-dash-attack with the same multi-kill scoring mechanic from prior games, but playing as him also uses a limited resource that you build by playing as Kirin. Oh yeah, and you can shoot at 45-degree angles, something that wasn't possible before. It's really thrilling to play and my favourite game of the year so far.

 

[Kabas]

I still didn't finish with the Star Wars - Galactic Battlegrounds.

Empire campaign

Zaloriis formally declares it's independance.
Request denied, minister.

Stuff like this is exactly what i imagine when people try to sell to me the game in which you're the bad guy. It's hard to fuck up the formula of crushing rebels and force choking people for incompetence. Mara Jade being a campaign narrator is nice.
Rebel campaign has a really cool third mission in which you need to steal a relic/holocron from the imperial base that can afford to spam units at you while you have no base to produce units. The moment i took the artifact it felt like a real desperate escape.
Cool thing about Wookiee campaign is that it chronologially happens right after the original movies. This era of empire warlords and rise of the new republic was kinda my low-key favourite one before disney happened.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Those three are the best of the game's campaigns. Having the two Wookiee campaigns annoyed me back in the day, but it felt like the best constructed, plot-wise, since they could actually do a decent plot twist.
Have you finished the Gungan and Trade Federation campaigns yet?

Spoiler

I remember the first half of the Gungan campaign was some weird historical stuff, while the rest of it followed the movies and was quite boring. Its funny, I remember being disappointed by the first part originally, but now I realize it was the better part of it.
It was pretty cool slowly taking over Naboo as the Trade Federation. Marching through the big city felt pretty grand back then.

 

[Ivan]

Cuphead DLC

Had been a while since I completed the base campaign, but I held my own pretty well. The animation is as mesmerizing as I can remember, the controls are smooth, I've always loved the parry mechanic. If I had to knock it, I'd say that b/c the DLC has fewer run and gun levels (which I'm in favor of and felt that was the weakest element of the base game) the game's difficulty could make it feel like you're bashing your head against the wall, and after you break it, a new wall appears. Sure it's enjoyable to tear the walls down, but also more fatiguing. I took a few more breaks with this one. Nonetheless, fun was had and I'd recommend picking it up.

 

[Kabas]

Those three are the best of the game's campaigns. Having the two Wookiee campaigns annoyed me back in the day, but it felt like the best constructed, plot-wise, since they could actually do a decent plot twist.
Have you finished the Gungan and Trade Federation campaigns yet?

Spoiler

I remember the first half of the Gungan campaign was some weird historical stuff, while the rest of it followed the movies and was quite boring. Its funny, I remember being disappointed by the first part originally, but now I realize it was the better part of it.
It was pretty cool slowly taking over Naboo as the Trade Federation. Marching through the big city felt pretty grand back then.

Yeah, i finished these two.

Spoiler

I don't recall the part in the movies in which viceroy ordered his droids to construct his throne in front of the palace as way to flex on Naboo.
Last Trade Federation bonus mission is a bit tricky, i found the key to winning is bating the last gungans into abandoning their defensive positon on the other side of the river. Dumb gungs.
Surprised there is no mission in which you properly play as a Naboo royal guard.

 

[curds]

Trying Gothic 3 yet again - I seriously cannot believe how awful the combat is. Probably the worst action combat I have ever seen in an RPG. It's like nobody ever playtested it, ever.

Fuck Piranha Bytes for this game. The "not enough time from publisher" excuse doesn't wash with me when the core design is just so bad. I really want to see the end of the trilogy but G3 is just an absolute punishment to play.

 

[arekks]

Cuphead DLC

Had been a while since I completed the base campaign, but I held my own pretty well. The animation is as mesmerizing as I can remember, the controls are smooth, I've always loved the parry mechanic. If I had to knock it, I'd say that b/c the DLC has fewer run and gun levels (which I'm in favor of and felt that was the weakest element of the base game) the game's difficulty could make it feel like you're bashing your head against the wall, and after you break it, a new wall appears. Sure it's enjoyable to tear the walls down, but also more fatiguing. I took a few more breaks with this one. Nonetheless, fun was had and I'd recommend picking it up.

Cuckhead ftw. I'm confused though. Are you trying to claim that the run-and-gun levels in Cuphead are good (retarded opinion) or bad (normal opinion)???

 

[Spukrian]

I started Fallout New Vegas. I followed the Viva New Vegas guide mostly, there were some things I chose not to install. I'm enjoying it so far. My character is (10, 01, 10, 01, 09, 07, 01, Melee, Sneak, Speech, Heavy Handed, Hot Blooded).

I'm still playing The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna. It's really hard. I've gotten quite far in the main puzzles but I'm having a hard time with the optional/secret puzzles.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS BEEN GETTING MY EMULATION STUFF SET UP FOR MY FIFTY INCH TV

BEEN PLAYING GENESIS GOLDEN AXE AND PIRATES GOLD WAY TO MUCH

TAKING A BREAK FROM ELDEN FAGS

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm almost done with The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. It says that I am in thr final chapter, and from the dungeon I am in, it can't be anything but the final one. Overall, a good game but has too many insufferable characters mixed with some decent to good characters. I like the villages and towns you visit, dungeons are acceptable. Nothing amazing. The combat is solid, but a bit on the easy side. As long as you pump up speed, and get pre-emptive attacks, you're almost certain to not get attacked. Boss fights are okay, but there was a section in the 6th chapter that felt a bit unfair. I will play the sequel after beating this.

Sands of Destruction on Nintendo DS. It never came to Europe, so I imported it many years ago. It's not a game that I can recommend. Combat is too easy, dungeons are too annoying, and the story moves way too quickly to have any real impact. The most positive thing I can say is that character/enemy sprites look good.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I started Fallout New Vegas. I followed the Viva New Vegas guide mostly, there were some things I chose not to install. I'm enjoying it so far. My character is (10, 01, 10, 01, 09, 07, 01, Melee, Sneak, Speech, Heavy Handed, Hot Blooded).

I'm still playing The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna. It's really hard. I've gotten quite far in the main puzzles but I'm having a hard time with the optional/secret puzzles.

You get upto 2 str free with old world blues.
Speaking of which, replaying nv myself.

 

[what am i doing]

Reinstalled Cyberpunk 2077, played through it. I played a netrunner, which was probably a mistake - it's neat, but it gets old fairly fast, and then you're left with a build that's not great at straightforward combat. Netrunning in CP2077 plays kind of like hacking in EYE, but with some differences - you hack people via direct line of sight whereas in EYE it's more range-based, and CP2077 has quickhacks, but the general idea of remote hacking and being able to jump around cameras is the same. I do like that they scaled everything with your level, because I was worried that I'd get into a situation where hack damage fell off as the game progressed; this is not the case. Specialized for it, the short circuit hack would one-shot most enemies throughout the whole game.

The game looks great on maxed settings, especially in rainy weather where the ray tracing really shines (wet surfaces and so on). Story is pretty good, mostly in terms of characterization, and the side quests are generally more engaging than just "go here, do this". At the same time it felt kind of lacking in free-form ability to go around and do stuff without your hand being held; almost every little area such as offices or clubs or whatever is tied specifically to some sort of quest. It's a good game, but it did feel a bit "curated." I also feel like the game was really directed towards the "Street Kid" idea in terms of both story progression and V's character, which was what initially turned me off the game, and something that I still didn't like. I dunno, it was decent and I might give it another play through some time, but probably not for a while.

I also installed Ghostwire Tokyo, got a message telling me to install the VP9 codec, found there was no direct installer and I'd have to install the Microsoft Store (lol no) or go through a bunch of hoops with some shit off Github, got a refund instead. It looked like a neat game but they can fuck off with that Microsoft shit.

Last of all I'm doing an Egypt -> Arab Union playthrough in Victoria 2 EEM mod (basically HPM but with some fixes and tech extensions to 1956). I was going to do a defensive play in the Oriental Crisis, let the intervening Western powers give the Levant back to the Ottomans so I don't have to worry about brits attacking me and then kill off the turks when they invaded Egypt proper and gradually take back my land, but - perhaps because I never had positive warscore - the AI didn't get the event, but Spain, which had me at Friendly status, actually intervened, sieged / blockaded the Ottomans a bit, and then got me a white peace retaining all my land. Currently I own all of Arabia and Morocco (plus Egypt itself, of course), just going to war with the Turks to get Iraq and Libya, and then I'll be biding my time to take back Algeria from France and Yemen from Britain.

 

[Sunri]

I lost 15 games in a row in Dota 2

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

playing victor vran as it was on sale earlier in the week

some good voice acting straight off the bat and the voice continues as you hack your way through enemies and dungeons you need to be at a higher level to take on.

three weapon choices: shotgun, sword and hammer.

liking the hammer the best so far; has some awesome secondary attacks and critical chance is significantly higher than the others.

no skill trees

weapons, kit, cards and demon powers plus perks/bonus items at each level up are your main stats

alt-tabs like a boss with no slowdown or glitches

gameplay is smooth but sometimes your boy walks in a totally different direction that you clicked on. Not a deal breaker early game; dont know if it will be an issues end game tho

nice dodge mechanic - its your mouse wheel and is fun to use because some FUCKERS interrupt you while you are charging a special attack and will hit you hard


good game

 

[jackofshadows]

Reinstalled Cyberpunk 2077, played through it. I played a netrunner, which was probably a mistake - it's neat, but it gets old fairly fast, and then you're left with a build that's not great at straightforward combat. Netrunning in CP2077 plays kind of like hacking in EYE, but with some differences - you hack people via direct line of sight whereas in EYE it's more range-based, and CP2077 has quickhacks, but the general idea of remote hacking and being able to jump around cameras is the same. I do like that they scaled everything with your level, because I was worried that I'd get into a situation where hack damage fell off as the game progressed; this is not the case. Specialized for it, the short circuit hack would one-shot most enemies throughout the whole game.

There's no level scaling. You can easily find too tough enemies even in the first district. And you don't have to really keep direct los if you carefully use cover.

The problem is that even with all the patches netrunner is an easy mode since your damage output is waaaay more than you need (max diff) once you get a good deck and pick the right perks.

As for the fun - get the berserk hack asap (that's not possible in the 1st act iirc).

The only downside is that you would be really squishy if min-maxed - I've struggled with the sikrit ending assault at the start - just too much incoming dmg.