What game are you wasting time on?

[Sigourn]

100 hours into The Witcher III.

I had higher hopes for the game. Then again, the Codex didn't fail me. I should have known better than to trust Redditors.

• Outside of the initial "wow, this looks beautiful", there's not much to look at here. There's nothing special about the game world. It's exactly the same as Gothic's, with better animations and graphics. It's huge, for sure, and that makes it far more realistic than Skyrim's or Morrowind's. Doesn't make it any more fun, though. On the contrary, it makes movement across the world tedious, and abusing fast travel to get around the huge world just proves it was too big for its own good.
• The combat is rather clunky and unfun, it gets old pretty quickly and there's no semblance of strategy: potions and oils resupply, you can apply the same oil how many times you want in a single fight, which begs the question of why didn't CDPR simply made oils autoapply at the beginning of combat (short of removing them altogether, really).
• Enemies shower you in shitty leveled loot. Gone are the days of The Witcher 1 where you could tell at a glance whether a weapon was worth it or not, and where the only armor you could equip was better than the one you were currently wearing. Enjoy a shitload of useless equipment! Which looks fuckugly, to boot.
• The writing is... fine, I guess? The problem with quests in the game is that Geralt automatically knows far more than the player, as he is canonically an experienced Witcher and we are not. It's not really satisfying to look for clues in the environment using your Witcher Senses™ when the player will more likely than not never guess what monster was responsible for the killings at hand. When it comes to NPCs, I think it's the animation that elevates the characters, not the writing itself. And what's more, the fact that, unlike Bethesda RPGs (before Fallout 4, at least), your character, Geralt, actually talks with NPCs, which leads to more dynamic scenes. There's also the possibility of multiple characters engaging in dialogue, which doesn't happen in Bethesda RPGs.
• The "RP" in this game may as well not exist. Just make an action-adventure with C&C and it will instantly be 200% better than what we got. Almost every RPG element (outside of dialogue choices) that I can think of only worsens the experience: leveled loot, leveled monsters, leveled rewards, worthless junk and stuff to purchase and sell, character upgrading (particularly so since most skills offer numeric upgrades as opposed to new abilities).
• I don't understand a fucking thing about the main quest in this game. Honestly I don't really care. I know I'm looking for Ciri, but I'm having a hard time chaining together events in the game. Probably because the game loves to waste your time with long, long sidequests (as part of the main quest) that are completely unrelated to the task at hand. e.g. Bloody Baron questline, Dandelion and Dudu questline, etc. For all the shit I gave to the game, I quite liked how New Vegas kept stuff simple: go to the last place Benny was seen, keep on going, face him in New Vegas. Because The Witcher III tends to tell Ciri's side of things only after playing through a lot of hours, and in brief cutscenes at that, understanding the story becomes quite an endeavour.

Send help, because I've already finished Doom 3 + Resurrection of Evil, and I need something else to play when I become inevitably bored of TW3.

 

[gamerguy]

I never understood the 'RPG' of the witcher series. Here's your boring character we already made for you. Hope you wanted to be a grey ponytail. /shrug

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

100 hours into The Witcher III.

I had higher hopes for the game. Then again, the Codex didn't fail me. I should have known better than to trust Redditors.

• Outside of the initial "wow, this looks beautiful", there's not much to look at here. There's nothing special about the game world. It's exactly the same as Gothic's, with better animations and graphics. It's huge, for sure, and that makes it far more realistic than Skyrim's or Morrowind's. Doesn't make it any more fun, though. On the contrary, it makes movement across the world tedious, and abusing fast travel to get around the huge world just proves it was too big for its own good.
• The combat is rather clunky and unfun, it gets old pretty quickly and there's no semblance of strategy: potions and oils resupply, you can apply the same oil how many times you want in a single fight, which begs the question of why didn't CDPR simply made oils autoapply at the beginning of combat (short of removing them altogether, really).
• Enemies shower you in shitty leveled loot. Gone are the days of The Witcher 1 where you could tell at a glance whether a weapon was worth it or not, and where the only armor you could equip was better than the one you were currently wearing. Enjoy a shitload of useless equipment! Which looks fuckugly, to boot.
• The writing is... fine, I guess? The problem with quests in the game is that Geralt automatically knows far more than the player, as he is canonically an experienced Witcher and we are not. It's not really satisfying to look for clues in the environment using your Witcher Senses™ when the player will more likely than not never guess what monster was responsible for the killings at hand. When it comes to NPCs, I think it's the animation that elevates the characters, not the writing itself. And what's more, the fact that, unlike Bethesda RPGs (before Fallout 4, at least), your character, Geralt, actually talks with NPCs, which leads to more dynamic scenes. There's also the possibility of multiple characters engaging in dialogue, which doesn't happen in Bethesda RPGs.
• The "RP" in this game may as well not exist. Just make an action-adventure with C&C and it will instantly be 200% better than what we got. Almost every RPG element (outside of dialogue choices) that I can think of only worsens the experience: leveled loot, leveled monsters, leveled rewards, worthless junk and stuff to purchase and sell, character upgrading (particularly so since most skills offer numeric upgrades as opposed to new abilities).
• I don't understand a fucking thing about the main quest in this game. Honestly I don't really care. I know I'm looking for Ciri, but I'm having a hard time chaining together events in the game. Probably because the game loves to waste your time with long, long sidequests (as part of the main quest) that are completely unrelated to the task at hand. e.g. Bloody Baron questline, Dandelion and Dudu questline, etc. For all the shit I gave to the game, I quite liked how New Vegas kept stuff simple: go to the last place Benny was seen, keep on going, face him in New Vegas. Because The Witcher III tends to tell Ciri's side of things only after playing through a lot of hours, and in brief cutscenes at that, understanding the story becomes quite an endeavour.

Send help, because I've already finished Doom 3 + Resurrection of Evil, and I need something else to play when I become inevitably bored of TW3.

You didn't play 1 and 2. If you did you could've gotten a better understanding of it all. You don't even need to read the books.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I should have known better than to trust Redditors

Lmao

 

[Average Manatee]

You didn't play 1 and 2. If you did you could've gotten a better understanding of it all. You don't even need to read the books.

Not really? You know some characters, but Ciri is absent and the making the whole plot revolve around Geralt worrying about an adopted daughter who he doesn't need to worry about really comes out of left field and makes little sense with what he was doing in TW1 and 2. If anything I'd say the TW3 plot works better on its own.

 

[Zeriel]

100 hours into The Witcher III.

I had higher hopes for the game. Then again, the Codex didn't fail me. I should have known better than to trust Redditors.

• Outside of the initial "wow, this looks beautiful", there's not much to look at here. There's nothing special about the game world. It's exactly the same as Gothic's, with better animations and graphics. It's huge, for sure, and that makes it far more realistic than Skyrim's or Morrowind's. Doesn't make it any more fun, though. On the contrary, it makes movement across the world tedious, and abusing fast travel to get around the huge world just proves it was too big for its own good.
• The combat is rather clunky and unfun, it gets old pretty quickly and there's no semblance of strategy: potions and oils resupply, you can apply the same oil how many times you want in a single fight, which begs the question of why didn't CDPR simply made oils autoapply at the beginning of combat (short of removing them altogether, really).
• Enemies shower you in shitty leveled loot. Gone are the days of The Witcher 1 where you could tell at a glance whether a weapon was worth it or not, and where the only armor you could equip was better than the one you were currently wearing. Enjoy a shitload of useless equipment! Which looks fuckugly, to boot.
• The writing is... fine, I guess? The problem with quests in the game is that Geralt automatically knows far more than the player, as he is canonically an experienced Witcher and we are not. It's not really satisfying to look for clues in the environment using your Witcher Senses™ when the player will more likely than not never guess what monster was responsible for the killings at hand. When it comes to NPCs, I think it's the animation that elevates the characters, not the writing itself. And what's more, the fact that, unlike Bethesda RPGs (before Fallout 4, at least), your character, Geralt, actually talks with NPCs, which leads to more dynamic scenes. There's also the possibility of multiple characters engaging in dialogue, which doesn't happen in Bethesda RPGs.
• The "RP" in this game may as well not exist. Just make an action-adventure with C&C and it will instantly be 200% better than what we got. Almost every RPG element (outside of dialogue choices) that I can think of only worsens the experience: leveled loot, leveled monsters, leveled rewards, worthless junk and stuff to purchase and sell, character upgrading (particularly so since most skills offer numeric upgrades as opposed to new abilities).
• I don't understand a fucking thing about the main quest in this game. Honestly I don't really care. I know I'm looking for Ciri, but I'm having a hard time chaining together events in the game. Probably because the game loves to waste your time with long, long sidequests (as part of the main quest) that are completely unrelated to the task at hand. e.g. Bloody Baron questline, Dandelion and Dudu questline, etc. For all the shit I gave to the game, I quite liked how New Vegas kept stuff simple: go to the last place Benny was seen, keep on going, face him in New Vegas. Because The Witcher III tends to tell Ciri's side of things only after playing through a lot of hours, and in brief cutscenes at that, understanding the story becomes quite an endeavour.

Send help, because I've already finished Doom 3 + Resurrection of Evil, and I need something else to play when I become inevitably bored of TW3.

You didn't play 1 and 2. If you did you could've gotten a better understanding of it all. You don't even need to read the books.

That's not true. If you played 1 & 2 it's worse; they discard virtually everything that happened in the previous games in favor of "LOOK JUST TRUST US THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, IF YOU READ THE BOOKS YOU WOULD CARE ABOUT THESE PEOPLE!!!".

 

[Sigourn]

You didn't play 1 and 2. If you did you could've gotten a better understanding of it all. You don't even need to read the books.

I... did. I played The Witcher some 4 years ago. And played The Witcher II this year, before The Witcher III.
I know very little of Yennefer and Ciri, but that doesn't change anything because it's not really Geralt's relationship with them that I don't understand, but the sequence of events in Ciri's story that give meaning to my actions as Geralt. The game likes to play "piece things together" and nonlinear storytelling, but it just doesn't work in a massive open world game. Unless, of course, you focus on the main quest and ignore the diversions.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I totally burned myself out on Witcher 3 and never want to play another damn game in the series. It's a shame too because it happened right after I had just finished the first DLC before I could play Blood & Wine (which some consider the best thing about W3). Let that be a lesson to y'all.

 

[NecroLord]

I should have known better than to trust Redditors

Lmao

You sought advice from and trusted...redditors?
What the hell's wrong with you, bro?

 

[Zeriel]

I totally burned myself out on Witcher 3 and never want to play another damn game in the series. It's a shame too because it happened right after I had just finished the first DLC before I could play Blood & Wine (which some consider the best thing about W3). Let that be a lesson to y'all.

Blood & Wine is terribly structured tbh if it is the best thing about W3. By the time most people get to it they will be completely burnt out on the game, so it's hard to appreciate it. Especially the things in it that are dramatic systems improvements that should be in the base game (i.e mutagens being more like W2's passive tree system with meaningful improvements with each click rather than W3's passive system which does virtually nothing even with all points invested).

 

[Hag]

Might have accidentally started a M&M6 game while drunk.

Spent my first level bactracking and resting a lot. Also kiting way too many enemies in the city. Not sure I like the way it plays but it is really nice and comfy. Ah well, we'll see.

 

[octavius]

PLZREZ? Is that some MMO meme/reference?

 

[Hag]

PLZREZ? Is that some MMO meme/reference?

Yeah. I've typed it way too many times in game chat not too believe it's actually all priests/clerics real name.

 

[Spukrian]

This game - along with G-String - intrigues me. Someday I hope to get around to playing it, maybe with the re-translation mod to help it make a little more sense in a confused cyberpunk world

I've read that the fanmade translation of E.Y.E is bad and alters the plot. Supposedly most of the weirdness is present in the original French.

 

[Caim]

This game - along with G-String - intrigues me. Someday I hope to get around to playing it, maybe with the re-translation mod to help it make a little more sense in a confused cyberpunk world

I've read that the fanmade translation of E.Y.E is bad and alters the plot. Supposedly most of the weirdness is present in the original French.

I'm not going to learn French just so that I can understand the cultural context of you threatening to wear someone's face as a moron party mask.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I totally burned myself out on Witcher 3 and never want to play another damn game in the series. It's a shame too because it happened right after I had just finished the first DLC before I could play Blood & Wine (which some consider the best thing about W3). Let that be a lesson to y'all.

Blood & Wine is terribly structured tbh if it is the best thing about W3. By the time most people get to it they will be completely burnt out on the game, so it's hard to appreciate it. Especially the things in it that are dramatic systems improvements that should be in the base game (i.e mutagens being more like W2's passive tree system with meaningful improvements with each click rather than W3's passive system which does virtually nothing even with all points invested).

I might use The Witcher 3 ray-trace remaster as a benchmark or something someday to test my GPUs but I honesty can't imagine playing or re-playing a witcher game anymore for fun.

 

[asper]

I have been playing through the excellent horror game "DARKWOOD".

This game's tension grabbed me by the balls hard. It's stark, dark, and terrifying. Great game, highly reccommended. Don't let the slightly tired survival theme fool you. Give this one a whirl, if you have strong nerves.

Top down perspective, 2d graphics. Gather supplies, upgrade your shelter, and survive attacks by monsters at night. Complete quests and progress the over-arching narrative. Meet characters, complete quests.
Limited FOV due to darkness, reflex-based souls-like combat.
To this is added excellent graphic, sound and location design, character art, dialogues, and an appropriately dark narrative.

The maps are randomized, but contain handmade locations. I found this a really effective design. The environmental storytelling within the locations is great, letting the player piece together the story on his own. The atmosphere of the game is thick, sticky, suffocating. Play this at night with headphones, get ready to shit bricks.

At the game's nighttime the game's audio design truly shines. Monsters will try to break into your shelter and attack you, you hear them coming. All the grunts, approaching footsteps, creaks of floorboards, doors opening, boarded windows being cracked open... Sweat on my forehead.

Someone said on the 'Dex, that the atmosphere of this game can be taken straight out of a Cormac McCarthy novel or a Tarkovsky film. It's outstanding.

I had to stop playing this game though. It became stressful - hunkering in the corner in the darkness, listening to the monsters approaching... After the monster appears with a jump-scare, you have to fight it with reflex-based soulslike combat. Whoah, I needed a break. Undoubtedly a very good game, though.

I moved on to a game that is more in line with my current possibilities for gaming: relatively short sessions, and no reflexes needed, a bit less tension please.

The excellent "THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL"

This game has a gameplay idea that makes you wonder why no-one came up with this earlier - at least, as far as I know.

One screen, depicting an event, where with point and click mechanics, you investigate inventories, dialogues, objects. Cliking on words add them to a ledger. In a second screen, you piece together the narrative of what happened, using the words you found. Sounds convoluted, but it's simple.

All gameplay happens on one, or a few, static screens. Point and click, explore the scene, collect words, and piece together what happened. There is a overarching, slightly Lovecraftian, story, with quite good writing. I had to get used a bit to the sometimes weird character art. The music is quite good and adds to the atmosphere.

This leads to a relaxing, yet surprisingly involving and addictive gaming experience. Figuring out the story is fun, there are a few twists. The puzzles are well thought out. Like a good detective novel, couldn't tear myself away from this game!

Impressive how such a simple concept, executed as well as this, created such an enjoyable gaming experience, to the point of being the favourite 2022 game of a few Codexers.

It's not too easy, as is often the case with current puzzle/adventure games. But I also never got stuck, and finished this in about 11 hours. Enjoyed this tremendously. Codex thread.

Inspired by the gameplay of GOLDEN IDOL I started to revisit the unforgettable "RETURN OF THE OBRA DINN".
Similar concept, but deeper, more sophisticated, as you need to examine a 3d scene. I had forgotten a bit already and never finished it, so it was a blast to play this again.

Funny how this game looks way better in motion than on a screenshot!

Much has been written about OBRA DINN already. I'll just say here that don't be fooled by the retro graphics on this one. It might seem to be style over substance if you just look at screens, but in this case the gameplay is great, with interesting gameplay concepts.

There's is a very interesting devlog of this game here.

It's impressive how the developer found technical solutions for making the game look and feel so good. The swaying of the boat, the ropes, modelling of the ship, the historical research, designing a workflow to create the 50 or so characters, composing the music, drawing the art... Very impressive one-man project. Great developer, sadly his new project is exclusive to a handheld retro console with a small screen.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I totally burned myself out on Witcher 3 and never want to play another damn game in the series. It's a shame too because it happened right after I had just finished the first DLC before I could play Blood & Wine (which some consider the best thing about W3). Let that be a lesson to y'all.

Blood & Wine is terribly structured tbh if it is the best thing about W3. By the time most people get to it they will be completely burnt out on the game, so it's hard to appreciate it. Especially the things in it that are dramatic systems improvements that should be in the base game (i.e mutagens being more like W2's passive tree system with meaningful improvements with each click rather than W3's passive system which does virtually nothing even with all points invested).

I might use The Witcher 3 ray-trace remaster as a benchmark or something someday to test my GPUs but I honesty can't imagine playing or re-playing a witcher game anymore for fun.

Try replaying it with Enemies of Rivia mod and Death March difficulty. The mod makes enemies block or dodge (block if humanoid, dodge if monster/animal). This will make combat challenging and interesting, as you can no longer spam LMB, and have to counter and dodge yourself to get hits in. So now 2 out of 3 RPG pillars (writing and combat) are excellent. Exploration is still hurt by cookie trails and map markers and not a well designed open world, but at least you got great quests and visuals.

 

[BLOBERT]

If you're interested in an ARPG with a little more emphasis on story and goofy nonsense I would highly recommend Divine Divinity

BRO I TRULY LOVED DIVINE DIVINITY

YOU CAN BREAK THE GAME EASY THOUGH

 

[Modron]

As long as you're not using scorpion trap the game is never really broken is it?

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO THAT AND I THINK THE FREEZE CHARM ON WEAPONS

 

[BruceVC]

Im about 45 hours into Mafia 3 and Im having a great time, its basically a watered-down version of GTA. But to summarize the aspects I like about it

• The narrative is set in New Orleans but its called New Bordeaux. I have always wanted to go to New Orleans and Im enjoying the realistic representation of that city and in the game you visit places like the swamps and the French district. And the culture and restaurants are very similar to what you find in Louisiana in 1968
• The protagonist is a Vietnam vet and he is also black. The game does an excellent job at capturing themes that existed in that era like racism in the South, Vietnam and other similar things
• I am really enjoying the 1960's music when you drive around, I know most of the songs because they timeless classics like " I see a red door " and Johnny Cash songs
• The upgrades to your car and weapons are worthwhile
• The consequence to death makes sense, if you die you lose 50% or so of your wealth you carry but you can bank your wealth. However on missions you cant bank your wealth so you end up not wanting to die because there is reasonable penalty
• Im enjoying the overall narrative and people who join you in your quest for vengeance. They all interesting and believable with good side stories

 

[NecroLord]

Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast.
Vanilla, no Enhanced Edition shit.
Current lineup is:
Me - Level 7 Fighter, Human Male.
Branwen - Level 7 Cleric of Tempus bae.
Minsc - Currently have him with Gauntlets of Dexterity and Composite longbow, he is pretty good overall.
Dynaheir - Invoker, she can fling fireballs and webs all over the place.
Imoen - I dualled her at level 5 Thief, made her into an Enchantress.
Coran - Currently has high Stealth skill and the Dagger of Venom for some nice, highly damaging backstabs. That poison can seriously fuck up enemy mages and anyone without a good Save vs. Death.

Currently at Chapter 5 in Baldur's Gate, doing quests and stuff. Getting equipped and ready for the awesome Durlag's Tower. Must not forget that there is an insane amount of traps there.

 

[gamerguy]

Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast.
Vanilla, no Enhanced Edition shit.
Current lineup is:
Me - Level 7 Fighter, Human Male.
Branwen - Level 7 Cleric of Tempus bae.
Minsc - Currently have him with Gauntlets of Dexterity and Composite longbow, he is pretty good overall.
Dynaheir - Invoker, she can fling fireballs and webs all over the place.
Imoen - I dualled her at level 5 Thief, made her into an Enchantress.
Coran - Currently has high Stealth skill and the Dagger of Venom for some nice, highly damaging backstabs. That poison can seriously fuck up enemy mages and anyone without a good Save vs. Death.

Currently at Chapter 5 in Baldur's Gate, doing quests and stuff. Getting equipped and ready for the awesome Durlag's Tower. Must not forget that there is an insane amount of traps there.

can you take a screenshot of the AI options in vanilla for me? i want to compare to ee

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast.
Vanilla, no Enhanced Edition shit.
Current lineup is:
Me - Level 7 Fighter, Human Male.
Branwen - Level 7 Cleric of Tempus bae.
Minsc - Currently have him with Gauntlets of Dexterity and Composite longbow, he is pretty good overall.
Dynaheir - Invoker, she can fling fireballs and webs all over the place.
Imoen - I dualled her at level 5 Thief, made her into an Enchantress.
Coran - Currently has high Stealth skill and the Dagger of Venom for some nice, highly damaging backstabs. That poison can seriously fuck up enemy mages and anyone without a good Save vs. Death.

Currently at Chapter 5 in Baldur's Gate, doing quests and stuff. Getting equipped and ready for the awesome Durlag's Tower. Must not forget that there is an insane amount of traps there.

can you take a screenshot of the AI options in vanilla for me? i want to compare to ee

But that would be the same as GOG's version, isn't it? TOTSC is the version they used to sell.