What game are you wasting time on?

[Rosey]

Played Terra Invicta until I realized that the aliens would only keep crashing ships full of easily dealt with zerg shit into earth until I dared shoot first. When I realized how long I would have to grind for a decent fleet I lost interest. Game had good atmosphere. Almost felt like playing X-Com Files again, at least in the beginning on a Humanity First playthrough. Using Austrailia's media to assist my evangelical Kayne in taking over the states while Stevan Segal murdered any tech weirdo or sympathizer that stuck their head out was fun. It just got boring by the time it came to build ships. Things got buggy at that point too. I guess now I'll just forget it exists until it's "done" in 3-4 years with mods.

Finally beat Dungeon Rats ironman on nice guy with a full party. Trying to figure out how to balance points in alchemy/crafting for solo run. Been trying alchemy at 4 but I've read the regen is a must for the last fights. Always feel too weak by the Judge. Game is perfect length for iron man runs and feels like an unforgiving conan story.

Tales of Maj Eyal 4 continues to be the best turn based RPG combat imo. Unlocking adventurer after your first win and trying to make broken builds to survive on insane difficulty makes it a whole new game.

 

[Hag]

Back to the End of Dyeus.
Funny how on several occasion I got stuck, called it a day and the next time I find the solution within a couple minutes.
Also starting to enjoy it more and more.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Fuck, i only just now realised that i have beaten the game without music.

Many such cases!

I completed Jedi Knight and almost completed Quake on pirated discs back then, so soundtracks weren't included. At some points they felt more like horror games lol.

I had to delete music files of most games because my HDD space was very limited those days:/ Even had to delete videos of Planescape Torment...

On topic:

Monkey island 2 - 2, boring, unimaginative and forgetable. I'll just presume that it didn't happen.
Pentiment, not even an adventure game, it is kinda walking sim, couldn't able to finish it and uninstalled.
Terminator Resistance, eh kinda liked the vibe and mood but really grow tired of open world, survival, crafting games, uninstall it is.
ELEX 2, "My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined."
Calisto Protocol, still playing, mediocre Dead Space clone that even can't surpass the original game...
Warzone II, playing it with my oldfaq shooter squad, probably gonna drop it and continue from older BFs yet again. Or maybe Darktide.
Wrath of the Righteous, haven't finished a demon mythic playthrough so I'll be doing that this week.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

The Case of the Golden Idol: Finished this recently. A deduction game in the vein of Return of the Obra Dinn but with a more unique and pleasant art style. The mystery narrative is well delivered over the course of each chapter with a nice twist that I did nazi at the end. Only about 5-6 hours of gameplay but still worth it.

 

[Ivan]

Eastward: gorgeous visuals, poor pacing and combat, decent Zelda-ezque puzzles

Persona 5: flashy, great music, frustratingly slow beginning, took a break after first story arc

Ghostsong: by the numbers metroidvania with uninteresting combat but features a pleasant art style

 

[Kabas]

Quake: Scourge of Armagon

Armogon himself ended up being a pushover.
The second level before that one was a lot harder, really tested my ability to manage pick-ups/ammo. I never run into ammo issues until the the second chapter of this mission pack, granted i played it on hard.
A lot of highlights in this one, like getting surrounded by four vores at once after picking up mjolnir, one of the three new weapons.

The secret to beating them was running circles around them so that their projectiles hit themselves.
Or the part in which the game gives you a friendly shambler.

My fren

 

[NecroLord]

I am playing some Morrowind.

 

[Wunderbar]

Finished Gothic, immediately booted Gothic 2 with an expansion. Very comfy game.

Not sure which faction to pick. Back in the day I only finished it as a Paladin, so it would make sense to try something different. However, I don't really want to play as a fire mage since mages aren't cool, and I don't want to join mercenaries either - iirc their path is way harder, and NotR's difficulty curve is already very rough.

 

[curds]

I don't want to join mercenaries either - iirc their path is way harder, and NotR's difficulty curve is already very rough.

Don't be a pussy

 

[Caim]

Earth Defense Force 5

In a world where science fiction stories do not exist, Earth comes under attack by monsters that it takes humanity a really long time to figure out that oh shit, they're aliens. What started out as a bunch of giant ants, giant spiders and relatively small UFOs rapidly escalates into even stranger things. EDF5 is a reboot of the franchise and pits you and a small squad of incompetent AI allies or incompetent fellow humans to cut your way through hundreds of alien critters like a giant B-movie, except the acting is even worse. The humans in this world cannot grasp the idea of "big spider" or "big ant", so they just call them monsters. To fight these monsters you have a massive arsenal divided between four classes, and so far I've put my time into the Wing Diver, a lady with a jetpack and energy weapons. Her weapons either reload with the self-replenishing fuel of your jetpack or drain from said fuel directly to fight. You unlock new weapons by picking up green weapon crates from the ground, which gives you a roll on an unexplained loot table to give you a shot at a new weapon or upgrading one of your current ones. The further into the campaign you are and the higher the difficulty you're on, the better your chances at good loot.

The game was mostly a straightforward bug hunt with a lot of (endearing) jank, but then I got to the "Europe" level and instead of fighting the regular UFOs or bugs the alien invaders deployed their most powerful weapon yet: monsters that because of their outward appearance terrified my allies because they are bipedal, two eyes, hands to use tools with and language to communicate, reminding them way too much of humans... except these were giant cybernetic frogs. While this was ridiculous the gameplay shift was notable: the frogs are deadly and fighting them head-on is a surefire way to die. So I zipped around them, used the cover of the buildings to sneak up on them and unleashed barrages of explosive energy onto them. It was a sharp turn from a bug hunt into becoming the bug myself, while still being the hunter.

Good game if you enjoy mindless arcade shooty action or have a buddy or two to team up with, but if you want something serious or polished then give it a skip. In either case wait for a sale because 50 bucks is way too much for this. I know about EDF 4.1 which is also on Steam, but I feel that one's even jankier.

 

[Jvegi]

However, I don't really want to play as a fire mage since mages aren't cool

No, they are hot.

I don't want to join mercenaries either - iirc their path is way harder

Pussy.

Mercenaries are awesome, and so are the mages. The initiation quest for mages is something else.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Finished Gothic, immediately booted Gothic 2 with an expansion. Very comfy game.

Not sure which faction to pick. Back in the day I only finished it as a Paladin, so it would make sense to try something different. However, I don't really want to play as a fire mage since mages aren't cool, and I don't want to join mercenaries either - iirc their path is way harder, and NotR's difficulty curve is already very rough.

I had to fall back to scrolls for some of the dragons, playing as merc/dragon hunter. Spells like frost nova, summon skeleton/demon and firestorm really come in handy and saved my ass multiple times. Gothic II with NotR is definitely a lot harder than the base game without the addon, which was pretty easy after you got some good armor.

 

[The Decline]

Earth Defense Force 5

In a world where science fiction stories do not exist, Earth comes under attack by monsters that it takes humanity a really long time to figure out that oh shit, they're aliens. What started out as a bunch of giant ants, giant spiders and relatively small UFOs rapidly escalates into even stranger things. EDF5 is a reboot of the franchise and pits you and a small squad of incompetent AI allies or incompetent fellow humans to cut your way through hundreds of alien critters like a giant B-movie, except the acting is even worse. The humans in this world cannot grasp the idea of "big spider" or "big ant", so they just call them monsters. To fight these monsters you have a massive arsenal divided between four classes, and so far I've put my time into the Wing Diver, a lady with a jetpack and energy weapons. Her weapons either reload with the self-replenishing fuel of your jetpack or drain from said fuel directly to fight. You unlock new weapons by picking up green weapon crates from the ground, which gives you a roll on an unexplained loot table to give you a shot at a new weapon or upgrading one of your current ones. The further into the campaign you are and the higher the difficulty you're on, the better your chances at good loot.

The game was mostly a straightforward bug hunt with a lot of (endearing) jank, but then I got to the "Europe" level and instead of fighting the regular UFOs or bugs the alien invaders deployed their most powerful weapon yet: monsters that because of their outward appearance terrified my allies because they are bipedal, two eyes, hands to use tools with and language to communicate, reminding them way too much of humans... except these were giant cybernetic frogs. While this was ridiculous the gameplay shift was notable: the frogs are deadly and fighting them head-on is a surefire way to die. So I zipped around them, used the cover of the buildings to sneak up on them and unleashed barrages of explosive energy onto them. It was a sharp turn from a bug hunt into becoming the bug myself, while still being the hunter.

Good game if you enjoy mindless arcade shooty action or have a buddy or two to team up with, but if you want something serious or polished then give it a skip. In either case wait for a sale because 50 bucks is way too much for this. I know about EDF 4.1 which is also on Steam, but I feel that one's even jankier.

The silliness of the story is part of the charm. The grind for new weapons can be a pain, but once you unlock a level where you pilot the giant mech you can jack the difficulty up and farm high level weapons.

Replaying modded Bloodborne on my jailbroken PS4 and Graveyard Keeper on my Steam Deck.

 

[Dayyālu]

Once every year, I get hit by the Warhammer bug. So I checked what the endless deluge of Licensed Games threw out in the last years....

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 (Tindalos Interactive,2019).

Spoiler

Can someone explain to me why so many Warhammer Games are French? I'm serious. I do know that the British are culturally and technically bankrupt, but it feels weird nonetheless. I did enjoy BFG1 despite the jank. BFG2 tries to be bigger and betterer, and exchanges depth with width: the basic game systems are a bit more refined than the first game despite being more shallow, and the main campaign is a pseudo 4x where you develop sectors and engage in random missions/campaign missions. The 4x layer is... janky. It works well initially and keeps working well despite the economy collapsing and some details being clearly there as band-aids (for example, the enemy has random chances to move based on their "danger level", probably because the devs realized giving them a move each turn would have made the game a slog). There's also the completely insane feature of RANDOM INVASIONS, where secured sectors get randomly invaded until you genocide all the enemy races (thankfully you can disable that).
The tactical layer is... more of the same. You enjoy throwing torpedoes, managing fighters&bombers, having to fight even more factions (sadly no Tau in campaign) and the factions are varied enough to be fun. The Imperial campaign in particular gives you control at the same time of the Imperial Navy, Speesh Mehreen and Mechanicus, each of them fun to play in a different way (boarding or spamming Nova cannons). Enemies force you to be adaptive, like the Nids being close ranged rapemachines or the Eldar being non-functional free kills.
The main problem is that the gameplay gets kinda repetitive after a while, and the game never spices it up enough for it to be worthwhile. Titan units are sadly misused or give too late, campaign missions are barebones, C&C is kinda weak, and the writing being Nu!Lore is painful at times (I'll never stop cringing at AELDARI). Also bugs, but most of the bugs were pluses for me (I got invincible defense platforms out of borked spawns and bugged economic bonuses that didn't stop) and I've read that the initial game was a complete bugfest with even shittier random invasions and ALL THE GENERIC MISSIONS where take&hold insanity. As usual, buy a Warhammer game after two years for 2 eurobucks and that's the correct value.
Also, I can't fathom how a man can endure more than one campaign because the gameplay simply isn't here. Imagine replaying the Necron campaign where you have a single, small faction and have to endure again all the chaff.
Nonetheless, good timewaster, 7/10.

Necromunda: Hired Gun (Streum On Studios, 2021).

Spoiler

Oh god it's the French again. Ahh, Streum, after EYE you.... never stopped developing EYE. It's always the same game. Necromunda is a schizo game: it's EYE with Doom Eternal's mobility. It's so, so completely schizo. Let's start with the positives.

+ Art. The game is , despite technical limitations, gorgeous to look at. Character models are dead and lifeless, but the vistas and levels are magnificent. Textures are bad, but the geometry is striking and wonderful, you can lose yourself in admiring all the small little things, to realize the same fighter that was not even a unit in Battlefleet Gothic here is a setpiece. Finding graffiti and signs of a forgotten history (like, inscriptions praising Vandire and the like). Necromunda is an athmosphere fag game.
+ Shooting is fun, occasionally. Good variety of weapons, good feedback.

Sound design is.... just there. Dubbing is mediocre. Music is functional.

- What the fuck where they smoking with the basic gameplay loop. Ok, it's a Doom Eternal clone. Ok, it does not make any sense from the lore perspective that your character is a speedy jumping maniac running around executing people, and the gameplay rewards you with execution and close-range kills with extra health, but you also get a shitton of powers straight out of EYE that make no sense and make the game hilariously easy even on Hard. It simply does not work because...
- Holy shit, the levels are pretty but are completely crap in design. Yes, build a close-range focused game with SPRAWLING EMPTY LEVELS where you can easily snipe everyone and... when you're in close range or enemies jetpack simply dump 600+ random powers on them and pulverize them.
- Holy shit the enemy design, holy fucking shit. You have random mooks (with occasional energy fields) random mooks with jetpacks (only because they need to follow the player), Ogryns and Ambulls, they're not enough to keep up a engaging FPS loop and Streum STILL USES RANDOM SPAWNS INSTEAD OF HAVING A FUCKING LEVEL DESIGNER NO CHARLES DUMPING EIGHTEEN MOOKS IN A LEVEL DOES NOT MAKE FOR A GOOD FPS EXPERIENCE
- Here, you have a dog. All he does is giving you cheats in seeing the enemies beyond walls, very useful because every enemy is grey&brown at a distance. WHAT ABOUT GLANCE VALUE CHARLES HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED ANOTHER FPS
- LOOT BASED ARSENAL, FUCKING FUCK, WHO THE FUCK WANTS TO GRIND FOR WEAPONS

It's still better than Deathwing (FROM WHERE THEY RECYCLED THE JEANSTEALER MODELS) but.... Streum, seriously. Fix your shit. It's not a bad game for 3-4 euros, but... so much wasted potential, just so much jank.... and I played it after a year of patches. DLCs are completely puzzling too, who the fuck pays for SKINS YOU CANT SEE
5/10, enjoy the pretty levels and the occasional place where the gameplay shines through all the jank.

 

[Tweed]

I don't want to join mercenaries either - iirc their path is way harder, and NotR's difficulty curve is already very rough

What kind of rubbish is this? They get great armor and an extra bowl of str boosting soup, and Lee is a bro.

 

[Darth Roxor]

zumg dergons so hard

hehe crossbow go brrrrrrrrr

 

[Kabas]

Quake: Dissolution of Eternity is completed.

It's obvious that both mission packs were made by different people that have a different idea of what could be added to Quake.
Instead of adding new distinct weapons like Scourge of Armogon they added new ammo types to the ones you already have. Lava Nails are just boring damage upgrade but the multi-grenades are fun. Thanks to that, perhaps, i never felt the need to carefully manage my resources like in the later Armogon levels.
Overall, the Armogon expansion had a lot more memorable setpieces.

And now... to the Arcane Dimensions!!!

First level i decided to tacle on gave me a 4-barrel shotgun and a bunch of new enemies to try it on.

First impressions are pretty good.

 

[Abu Antar]

In Jagged Alliance II, my latest exploit was cheesing the bug queen, and clearing the mines. I don't know, men. I'm pretty fine with not having 1.13 installed. Not that it isn't good, but I wanted to replay the classic base game to see if my memory of it being more arcadey was right, and it is. I kinda like it this way.

In Cold Steel II, I'm chugging along. I prefer this to the first Cold Steel, especially the structure, and bosses are more balanced. In the first game, it was impossible to know what resistances a boss used, and if you didn't have them, you might as well just reload. I've reached December 27 in the story line, and I don't see this ending any time soon. I have over 50 hours clocked.

Other than that, I am just playing some stuff as palette cleansers. XMORPH Defense. I'm not really a tower defense fan, despite not hating the genre. I will play a few more missions. The other game I have ongoing is World End Economica Part 3. If you have absolutely no interest in anime in general, and the stock market specifically, you should not read this VN. Other than these, I have Bug Fables, because I was in a Papaer Mario game kind of mood, and Troubleshooter every now and then. If I am in a Christmasy mood, I will probably give away a copy or two. Not sure yet.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Started playing Bloodrayne 2. Playing this game gives me an erection, just as it should be.

That said, it feels remarkably clunky and cheap compared to the first game. It's like the budget for this was 50 bucks. What gives?

 

[luj1]

Quake: Scourge of Armagon

Armogon himself ended up being a pushover.
The second level before that one was a lot harder, really tested my ability to manage pick-ups/ammo. I never run into ammo issues until the the second chapter of this mission pack, granted i played it on hard.
A lot of highlights in this one, like getting surrounded by four vores at once after picking up mjolnir, one of the three new weapons.

The secret to beating them was running circles around them so that their projectiles hit themselves.
Or the part in which the game gives you a friendly shambler.

My fren

You should try Arcane Dimensions

 

[Kabas]

You should try Arcane Dimensions

Already playing them

 

[luj1]

First impressions are pretty good.

After AD you should try Underdark Overbright

 

[Naraya]

After AD

...everything will disappoint you.

 

[luj1]

After AD

...everything will disappoint you.

AD is the apex shooter experience, but Underdark Overbright and The Punishment Due are on its level

 

[Cyberarmy]

Started playing Bloodrayne 2. Playing this game gives me an erection, just as it should be.

That said, it feels remarkably clunky and cheap compared to the first game. It's like the budget for this was 50 bucks. What gives?

First slam dunk of 2000s?

I'm back to Path of Exile, fuck me sideways I guess. Let's see how long I last this time. (that's what she said!)
Kinda wasting time on Marvel Snap while travelling, nasty little addictive bugger.
Also back to Ultima Underworld, no idea why, probably feeling a bit nostalgic.
Gonna replay Dead Space 1 and 2 so I get rid of Calisto Protocol's influence.
And for last Brigand: Oaxaca is waiting for me.