What game are you wasting time on?

[Kabas]

The next episode is going to be fun!
And challenging...

You mean expansion episodes?
Nah, maybe later. There is some other games i wanted to try for now.

 

[Kabas]

Aaaand Anvil of Dawn makes it into the list of blobbers/dungeon crawlers i didn't complete, which is practically all of them.
Restarted the game while doing certain things properly, completed dark lantern again. A good dungeon, but i am already feeling the monotony of the gameplay.

Bad things that made me abandon it:
-gameplay feels a bit monotonous after awhile, as i mentioned.
-it further cements my dislike for "rise skills by using them". I wanted my character to be magic proficient swordsman but i only later learned that shackles of ice is a poor starting spell as it doesn't rise your magic levels, only direct damage spells do that. Meaning that at the time i realised this my damaging spells couldn't deal enough damage to quickly level-up magic and i don't have enough mana to spam them unless i am willing to constantly wait 10 actual minutes for mana to recharge.
Hell, not being conservative with magic items is the only reason i even could put one point into water magic.
-Not fan of having to hold a bunch of stones for those puzzles that require a precise amount of kg to put as a weights. They make my inventory look messy.

Good:
This is exactly what i want from a fantasy world. Cool-looking characters and places. Magic that feels amazing to use even if it's all generic fire and water - it's all presented in a great way. Gear that looks like an absolute drip.
And the writing itself is great, proper amount of verbosity. You can meet a gargoyle that would have happily told you how to unsummon itself if it could, a book demon that will teach a void spell and will beg you afterwards not to leave. A lady of the water that will teach you a vampiric mist spell but will immediately eat your soul after that unless you took a special precaution. A sleepy imp that tells you about the spell he dreamt of, there is probably a way to learn it from him. Love this kind of shit.
Also, i kinda liked the inventory screen itself. It's better than the one in Lands of Lore.

 

[newtmonkey]

Kabas
Agree 100% on AoD. I've tried completing it several times, but always get bored with it. It has an awesome atmosphere, great graphics, perfect soundtack (and I love the earnest dialog and good-natured voice acting). Unfortunately, the game is basically just dropping sacks of rocks on pressure plates. Having to wait in real-time to regenerate spell points is a major drag, also.

You might consider moving on to a turn-based party-based blobber next. With the notable exception of Dungeon Master, I think the blobber format works best with turn-based combat.

 

[Azalin]

Finished Still Life 2,had to use a walkthrough after a point just to get through it fast since it's not a good game,The cliffhanger from the first game is basically resolved in the prologue and 90% of the game takes place years later following a new killer,this game was made by some people who saw too many Saw movies and CSI episodes,the gameplay is not that enjoyable since many puzzles are meh,there are some puzzle with a time limit and there is a limit to your inventory which means you have to waste your time running to some container to unload some stuff just to pick up some new items,Just ,not recommended

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Replayed Eye of the Beholder 1 & 2 on Steam. Ran flawlessly, and came with an automap feature similar to LOL. Started EOB 3, but quit it because meh.

I want to play more games like EOB 1-2 though. What are some good alternatives aside from LOL, Grimrock, Grimoire, and Stonekeep?

Considering Ishar 3, as I played it but never finished it as a kid.

 

[Victor1234]

Campaign Series Vietnam is great. Very detailed, going all the way from the French war in Indochina to the more famous conflicts, including the periods when it was just Vietnamese vs Vietnamese action. Especially like the way they treat things like snipers and helicopter landing zones. Lots of unique mechanics for these conflicts that you don't usually see in wargames.

I can't understand why a game released in 2022 should still have a UI out of 1996 though. It doesn't bother me since I can cope, but I just look at it and think of the lost potential when anyone who didn't play wargames in the 90's sees it and runs for the hills.

 

[pakoito]

I'm enjoying Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. Most Zeldas are good fun but stupid easy once you've played a couple, as they're mostly designed as gateway games. For once it feels that this game picks up the difficulty from a mid-level dungeon of Link's Awakening and goes from there.

After I'm done I'll probably take a rest before starting Oracle of Ages.

 

[NecroLord]

Thinking of playing some Star Trek: Bridge Commander with the Kobayashi Maru and DS9 FX mods.
I'm telling you, guys, this stuff is absolutely awesome. You can travel through the Bajoran Wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant. You can choose so many different ships, from the lowly Ferengi D'Kora to the badass Defiant, Akira and Sovereign ships. Battle Dominion, Breen and even Borg Cubes(though you need an entire fleet to do it). So many different battle scenarios.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I want to play more games like EOB 1-2 though. What are some good alternatives aside from LOL, Grimrock, Grimoire, and Stonekeep?

The original Dungeon Master is excellent.

 

[Kabas]

Pretty much completed the arcane dimensions, only some test maps are left to try out.
It's great overall, even the weakest maps are worth checking out.

luj1 suggested me to try Underdark Overbright. A full episode that showcases a copper mod.​

First few things i immediately noticed are some pretty nice lightning, a transparent water and vores who are less threatening.
Levels themselves are pretty good. I am going to miss widowmaker shotgun but it feels refreshing to play levels that are comparable to original quake in terms of length and enemy quantity. Some pretty cool secrets too, like in the first hub level that looks like destroyed first level from original Quake you can reach the Quad damage powerup that will immediately spawn some zombies. If you gib all the zombies until quad runs out you will unlock the way to find grenade launcher early.

Also tried out the first Hexen: Beyond Heretic

It looks nice, some impressive visual stuff like leafs flying around and just less static environments. Four weapons total seems like a low number but the game also throws a lot more consumables at you compared to heretic.
My trusty mace and poison flasks got me far so far and now that i found the Serpent Staff things are looking good.
The thing about confusing level design seems to be overblown. It's usually helps to bactrack a bit if you feel stuck, a button you just pushed have likely unlocked one of the previously locked doors.
Not disabling jumping and mouselook, as it seems the original also had these functions.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Cleric. The gentleman's choice.

The thing about confusing level design seems to be overblown. It's usually helps to bactrack a bit if you feel stuck, a button you just pushed have likely unlocked one of the previously locked doors.

Play some more

 

[NecroLord]

The Mace sucks. Not really a great weapon(except visually).
The rest of the cleric weapons are awesome though. Particularly the Wraithverge.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Replayed Eye of the Beholder 1 & 2 on Steam. Ran flawlessly, and came with an automap feature similar to LOL. Started EOB 3, but quit it because meh.

I want to play more games like EOB 1-2 though. What are some good alternatives aside from LOL, Grimrock, Grimoire, and Stonekeep?

Considering Ishar 3, as I played it but never finished it as a kid.

If you really wanna test your noodle, go for Hired Guns. You won't be controlling four guys in a blob, you'll be controlling each one individually.

Or you can get 1-3 of your mates to tag along, crowded in front of the computer. (Good times.)

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS FOR WHATEVER REASON MY CARPAL TUNNEL IS CURED I ACN PLAY PC SHOOTERS WITH A MOUSE

PLAYED THROUGH MOST OF BRUTAL DOOM I DO VERSION 20B WITH PROJECT BRUTALITY ADDON

PLAYING THROUGH PRODEUS ITIS OK THE WEAPONS ARE FUN ENOUGH

BEST NEWS EVER I HAD NECK SURGERY TODAY SO ONE MONTH OFF WORK AND EVEN BETTER MONSTER HUNTER RISE COMES TO FAG PAD DURING MY TIME OFF

 

[Average Manatee]

Decided to replay System Shock. All difficulties max except plot (which enforces 7 hour time limit), as usual. Ended up coming in 45 minutes below the time limit, which surprised me. Nice to see that you can actually beat the time limit "legit". Explored 100%, didn't have any keycodes memorized, didn't really have any meta knowledge I remembered except to note the passcode for each level you get when destroying the Shodan cores, which is semi-obvious. Wasn't really specifically rushing either.

Overall thought is game hasn't aged too well, way too much hitscan and the balance of each level is drastically dependent on whether you stumble across the cyborg conversion chamber in the first 10% of your exploration or the last 10%. In the former case you just run around as a god on turbo skates, the latter you can't really do anything except try to abuse sniping the corners of enemies from around cover whilst barely getting by with the minimal amount of health (medi patches really suck in how slow they are) and energy (batteries run out quick) you can carry. Which ends up incentivizing running multiple levels backwards for the free recharge/heal stations every couple of fights.

Level 7 was the worst, there's areas absolutely crawling with enemies that take you out in ~4 shots w/o shield on and ~8 shots with it, while you take 3 shots/hits to take them out and there can be multiples. And the cyborg conversion chamber is pretty well hidden. The level 3 shield hardware should really be a bit stronger and way cheaper to run to make level 7 not suck. Thankfully level 8 and 9 actually give you a lot of health pickups so they aren't awful, and you get level 4 shielding which is both way stronger and super cheap on level 9. Also fuck the respawns on level R and level 3. Having no cyborg conversion chamber on level 3 sucks and level R just has way too high a respawn limit leading you to kill like 50 hoppers next to the elevator.

 

[Darth Roxor]

And das it for Heretic.

Episode 5 was so bad it made me glad to finally be done with the game

Was there a SINGLE expansion pack to a classic shooter that wasn't a letdown? Off the top of my head (Blood, Duke, Shadow Warrior, Heretic, Doom...), they are always either shit or just meh.

 

[Average Manatee]

Plutonia is great, fite me (and my 10 chaingunners + 30 revenants)

 

[Darth Roxor]

plutonia is so great it made me ragequit at level 3

or was that evilution, i always mix them up

because they are BOTH SHIT

 

[Average Manatee]

plutonia is so great it made me ragequit at level 3

or was that evilution, i always mix them up

because they are BOTH SHIT

Laugh at this fool, he messed up and played evilution twice.

Plutonia exists as god's gift to gaming to weed out the casuals and those who don't actually like FPS games.

 

[octavius]

Was there a SINGLE expansion pack to a classic shooter that wasn't a letdown? Off the top of my head (Blood, Duke, Shadow Warrior, Heretic, Doom...), they are always either shit or just meh.

The first Quake expansion was an incline IIRC.

 

[curds]

Was there a SINGLE expansion pack to a classic shooter that wasn't a letdown?

Half-Life OpFor rules

 

[octavius]

Return to Na-Pali was an incline too. At least I thought the UT remake of it had better gunfights than Unreal.

 

[Wunderbar]

Q2 The Reckoning was better than the original game.

 

[Abu Antar]

Hellpoint is done. That is game #3 of the year beaten. Took me less than 20 hours to beat. It was easier than all From Souls games that I have played. I took a quick glance at YouTube after I was done. I missed the true boss and ending, plus some other side stuff. All in all, it was fun but a bit janky.

I might have to give up on Elden Ring. While I like the Souls games (beat Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, played Bloodborne for a while), and having a decent time with Elden Ring, I cannot beat Malenia. I will grind for a while, and do other stuff, then we'll see. If I cannot do it, I will put the game back in my backlog and return at a later point.

 

[snoek]

I played a bit of wargame: red dragon again the last few weekends .. friendly AI is super broken like 80% of the time when you play skirmishes for some reason. It ruins it for me. I used to play with a friend for a bit but he's also lost interest because it's too hardcore for him (I think).
Also I have close to 200 hours in the game and I'm getting kind of tired of it. Contemplating if I should get WARNO or one of the other wargame inspired spiritual successors instead.

I tried getting started in Underrail again but I'm always getting my ass kicked in the beginning stages of the game .. Why is this game so hard, wtf?

Have bought Yakuza 0 for a fiver a while ago and I'm planning to play that after hours for a bit to get the daily stress out of my system.