What game are you wasting time on?

[NecroLord]

Squad based (minimum two members) FPS/3rd person set during the Vietnam war.
Can be pretty rough if you go gung ho, you need to use stealth/sneaking which are not that greatly implemented.

 

[Borelli]

I finished The Elder Scrolls: Battlespire couple of days ago. Here are my thoughts on it.

I am one of those crazy people who genuinely enjoys Daggerfall dungeons, so i thought to myself i must love Battlespire then? Well, yes and no.
The first impressions were not good, while i agree with the general sentiment that the game has good exploration and atmosphere, the engine is a bit weak.
Jumping makes me stuck, why cannot i climb small ledges while i could climb whole city walls in Daggerfall?
Swimming is ridiculously fast, jumping is sometimes diagonal sometimes not etc.
All in all i kept thinking to myself, "Thief engine could be great for this type of game".
Also the inventory interface is horrible, i don't understand why not just copy the Daggerfall one and improve upon it.

My first character was a pure fighter, which was a bad idea because of no resting and RNG combat, this left a sour taste in my mouth but couple of weeks later i decided to replay except give myself mana regen ability and a heal spell. This made the first level much easier without spoiling the fun because strangely, i never once had to just sit and wait for mana regen, always something new to explore.
Late game it was unnecessary since i had 20+ mana and hp potions, i think if i would replay the game now i could do it
without mana regen (knowledge of healing crystals also helps) but for a first playthrough it really helps.
My character ended as fighter/archer since archery is so good in this game because of 100% hit rate (i think missile skill only increases rate of fire?)
I could not imagine playing a pure wizard, spells are ridiculously rare to find, and with AOE spells you are more likely to kill enemies than yourself.

Speaking of AOE spells, the Codex review was not lying when it said that AI is horrible, getting stuck in walls and killing itself with spells.
Luckily as a dungeon crawler combat is not the main focus so i could let it slide.

Level design was pretty good, highlights were level 1, anything with underwater caves and level 5 (open ended island where you are hunted).

In the end, a game. Lots of good stuff but bad stuff keeps it down. Now i'm in the mood for some more first person real time dungeon crawlers.

 

[Shin]

I'm on a bit of a nostalgia tour (probably not unusual for this crowd) and thus, after having finished Thief: Gold, I went on to play and finish Thief II: The Metal Age.

Oh boy, it's been long since I've been so engrossed in a game. While I understand the appeal of the horror themed levels in TDP, I simply never liked 'em. TMA however, has so many awesome levels (Shipping.. and Receiving, First City Bank and Trust, Blackmail, etc) which elevated the experience and (re)cements TMA as my favorite Thief game. I wholeheartedly recommend anyone to replay TDP and TMA if you haven't replayed them in a decade or so.

After finishing TMA I went on to Thief 3... and noped out during the first mission. When it came out I seriously despised T3 for its consolification but I gave it a chance when T4 came out a turd and actually finished a few missions. Mostly because I want to experience the 'Robbing the Cradle' mission that is often lauded as one of the best/iconic designed missions in video games. The discrepancy between the first two games and T3 is however, jarring, especially so if one has just finished Thief II...

sooo, I bought Gothic 1/2/3. Obviously I've played them back in the day but I never fully replayed Gothic 1, nor did I ever play Night of the Raven (blasphemy!). After 30 ish hours, I just finished Gothic 1 (seriously, fuck that Mad Cor Kalom guy and his stunlocking magicks) and I'm eager to continue on to Gothic II.

 

[Darth Roxor]

the marine radio chatter at the start of doom 3 will often give you a panicked 'they're breaking thru the walls!!!!' and yet after that you'll be hard pressed to find any broken wall

was mars an inside job

 

[NecroLord]

I wholeheartedly recommend anyone to replay TDP and TMA if you haven't replayed them in a decade or so.

I certainly intend to, kind sir!

 

[Hag]

was mars an inside job

Nope, only a bland one.

 

[Ivan]

Giving Solar Ash a spin and it's a solid experience that evokes Shadow of the Colossus. At its core, it's an action platformer. I do wish there was more player input involved during the "intense" sections where you tackle the colossi, instead it feels more watered down, almost QTE-ish in its design. It's stylish, almost never wrestles control away from you, and doesn't force feed you plot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msCeiD4t-Ms

I'm 2 to 3 hours in an so far

 

[CoolKid575]

Mainly the Advance Wars remake right now. I've always liked the series because it's essentially Fire Emblem but without the fluff, perma-death and bad level-ups. So when the remake came out I prompted picked it up. So far I've finished the AW1 campaign and I'm just starting on the second campaign.

 

[Axel_am]

The codex has really grown on me. It's become one of those places that I visit at least once a day. And never when using the facilities mind you. So with that being said I'll start doing Logs in this thread where I share parts of my gaming experience/thoughts from the passed week.

Log 1:

I have been playing DotA2 very heavily the past weeks. The weekend is just getting started and I've already played 38 games. Pumping that number to 50 by the time Monday comes is very likely. My MMR has been going up steadily and I've almost fixed the negative win ration of my account. When I decided to go back to DotA I had a balance of over -100 win/lose games. Now it's down to -10.

I've met a lot of people while climbing the ranks. The voice chat is an endless source of entertainment for me. Fucking love the voice chat. With how wide-spread toxicity is in MOBA's I can understand why other games from the genre don't have vc as an option but they are really missing out on something big. Really glad Valve managed to add it and keep it. Out of all the people I've played with I found a french guy with who we duo que quite often. Currently we have 53 games together and are sitting at a win ration of 73.6%.

With The International right around the corner (the biggest DotA 2 tournament), all of the cosmetic rewards that Valve are giving for just playing the game, the visual overhaul, behavior score and report system rework I'd say this is a great time to play DotA 2 for anyone that's interested. The current patch involves a lot of fighting which is something newcomers would surely love.

I have also been invited to multiple party stacks to play with. The mentality is always different from stack to stack. Last night a guy made a comment that I didn't want to play Ranked with them because I value my rank too much. It was a funny joke but it left an impression on me. Obviously, we signed up for ranked and got stomped moments later. It's hard to win the game when your carry doesn't want to buy a Magic Stick vs Undying on lane. Anyway, at least by the end of the game the whole mood in the discord changed to a more serious one. Most likely because of the comments me and another guy were making, not being toxic just giving suggestions. Of course, the abuse that was happening on all 3 of our lanes also helped with that.

People need to understand that playing DotA or any other MOBA for that matter is very different to playing the same game in ranked. Ranked is the place where people try hard and pick the most broken and over powered shit in the current patch. Of course, you won't have a good time if you aren't prepared for it. More comments can be made on this but let's wrap this up.

Previously in this thread I've mentioned that I'm also grinding Pillars of Eternity on Path of the Damned. I've played PoE on PotD in 2017 and reached Act 3 but didn't finish the game. I'm not sure why but my playtime in Pillars has once again decreased vastly after reaching Act 3. I'll comment more on this in some other Log. For now the goal is to finish the main story of PoE by the of the September.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Arcane Dimensions and community Quake maps recently got me back into the Art of First-Person Shooters so I'm currently back to dabbling in Doom I/II mods and maps. Really impressed by Voxel Doom which takes all the original id models and artwork and enables the 3D aspects. Cool as fuck. The mod works with many vanilla-esque user-made maps and even A.L.T has its space Nazis showing up in 3D. When I used it with Hexen wads I half-thought, "I'll bet this black magic works with any Doom engine game!" It doesn't. I'll be getting a pair of JBL 2.4Ghz headphones Sunday with DTS:X 2.0 and hope to find a way to use "3D" positional audio with Doom stuff and Thief. Might be fun.

 

[NecroLord]

Playing Doom 3.
Really good, but I understand some of the people who said that it's a good game, just not a good Doom game.
Focus is on atmosphere and with a great sound design. The shotgun is absolute dogshit (you should install a mod that either fixes it or replaces it, as the spread is absolutely insane). Plasma rifle is awesome, as is the BFG 9000, an updated version of the BFG, a gun which needs no further introduction.
Yeah, overall I like Doom 3

 

[gabel]

Shotgun is pretty good even in the base game.
But play the expansion with the double barreled shotgun...

 

[Darth Roxor]

The shotgun is absolute dogshit (you should install a mod that either fixes it or replaces it, as the spread is absolutely insane).

L2p, you just have to be a man and run into a nigga's face for immediate demon removal.

 

[Ivan]

Aeterna Noctis
A damn fine metroidvania in the vein of Hollow Knight. It has more The End Is Nigh (precision platforming) DNA in it, so if you enjoyed The White Palace, then this should scratch that itch. I'm having mostly a fantastic time with this. Let's see how the end-game holds up.

 

[Abu Antar]

I beat a couple of games (walking simulators) that felt more like like tech demos than anything else.

I also beat Bionic Commando. Again, I'm frustrated by the execution in gameplay. Poor controls drags the experience down. Low enemy variety was also disappointing. There was some fun had, but it could have been so much more.

Mafia: Definitive Edition is also beaten. I just stuck to main missions, and didn't touch anything else. A decent game, but I do prefer the original. I wouldn't have minded a few more missions. It felt like the story fast forwards to much in the last ones.

Four games beaten in less than 20 hours. 52 games beaten in a year challenge is still well on track.

 

[Gostak]

Obviously Open Realms of Stars.
Obvious because of recent posts:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...combat-sea-space-or-other.135483/post-8676019
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/open-realms-of-stars.148260/post-8667214

Before, liberated third stronghold in Heat Signature and also had a session while tipsy of that game
where I just went dare-devil with fresh contractors and also worked towards being able to liberate the last stronghold (and ended one or two of said fresh contractors
being a bit too dare-devilish ...).

If I had a Nintendo Switch with online capability I'd probably be playing F-Zero 99!

 

[Denim Destroyer]

I just finished Quest For Glory 1: So You Want To Be A Hero (VGA) as a fighter. Never before have I played a Sierra game due to having reservations over their supposed difficulty and my preexisting disdain for moon-logic that plagues the adventure game genre. It is quite sad these preconceived notions have stopped me from playing this game as Quest For Glory 1 was quite enjoyable. The puzzles all make sense within the games context and the only thing that halted progression was my own stupidity, for example I did not think to try and bust down the gate to the brigand fortress or to enter the archery range from the east side where you are more concealed versus the west which is more open. The writing is nowhere as clever as in some Lucas Arts games but I will gladly take logical puzzles and okay writing over moon-logic and excellent writing. On the topic of Lucas Arts, out of the four of their games I played nothing has ever compelled me to replay them which is the opposite of Quest For Glory. I want to replay the game to get more points and try out the other classes. If the mundane fighter path offers so much fun then I am curious to see what the Thief and Wizard bring to the table. Overall a great game that makes me want more of it and more like it.

 

[Average Manatee]

The shotgun is absolute dogshit (you should install a mod that either fixes it or replaces it, as the spread is absolutely insane).

L2p, you just have to be a man and run into a nigga's face for immediate demon removal.

The strange thing about the doom 3 weapons is that they are very well balanced and all feel useful (aside from the pistol of course). The Shotgun needs to have a range of about 5 feet for a kill and 10 feet to double shot things or else it'd be way too overpowered, because the whole game is primarily fights in a range of around 5-20 feet. But it's absolutely devastating within that range and feels good when you one shot something. You're also quite fast in D3 while sprinting and can easily get in range to make those point blank shots. It's just kind of comical how inaccurate it is, but if you modded it to reduce the spread then it'd invalidate most of the other low tier guns in your arsenal.

 

[Gregz]

Aces & Adventures​

 

[mediocrepoet]

I just finished Quest For Glory 1: So You Want To Be A Hero (VGA) as a fighter. Never before have I played a Sierra game due to having reservations over their supposed difficulty and my preexisting disdain for moon-logic that plagues the adventure game genre. It is quite sad these preconceived notions have stopped me from playing this game as Quest For Glory 1 was quite enjoyable. The puzzles all make sense within the games context and the only thing that halted progression was my own stupidity, for example I did not think to try and bust down the gate to the brigand fortress or to enter the archery range from the east side where you are more concealed versus the west which is more open. The writing is nowhere as clever as in some Lucas Arts games but I will gladly take logical puzzles and okay writing over moon-logic and excellent writing. On the topic of Lucas Arts, out of the four of their games I played nothing has ever compelled me to replay them which is the opposite of Quest For Glory. I want to replay the game to get more points and try out the other classes. If the mundane fighter path offers so much fun then I am curious to see what the Thief and Wizard bring to the table. Overall a great game that makes me more of it and more like it.

Fantastic game and series.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The shotgun is absolute dogshit (you should install a mod that either fixes it or replaces it, as the spread is absolutely insane).

L2p, you just have to be a man and run into a nigga's face for immediate demon removal.

The strange thing about the doom 3 weapons is that they are very well balanced and all feel useful (aside from the pistol of course). The Shotgun needs to have a range of about 5 feet for a kill and 10 feet to double shot things or else it'd be way too overpowered, because the whole game is primarily fights in a range of around 5-20 feet. But it's absolutely devastating within that range and feels good when you one shot something. You're also quite fast in D3 while sprinting and can easily get in range to make those point blank shots. It's just kind of comical how inaccurate it is, but if you modded it to reduce the spread then it'd invalidate most of the other low tier guns in your arsenal.

Exactly this. Sticking the shotgun right into an enemy's face can even instakill possessed commandos before they whack you with the tentacle lunge. It's also very reliable at one-hit-killing all imps and wraiths, and can very easily two-hit-kill pinkies and cacodemons even far from point blank, because they are so fat that the megaspread doesn't matter that much.

 

[NecroLord]

The shotgun is absolute dogshit (you should install a mod that either fixes it or replaces it, as the spread is absolutely insane).

L2p, you just have to be a man and run into a nigga's face for immediate demon removal.

The strange thing about the doom 3 weapons is that they are very well balanced and all feel useful (aside from the pistol of course). The Shotgun needs to have a range of about 5 feet for a kill and 10 feet to double shot things or else it'd be way too overpowered, because the whole game is primarily fights in a range of around 5-20 feet. But it's absolutely devastating within that range and feels good when you one shot something. You're also quite fast in D3 while sprinting and can easily get in range to make those point blank shots. It's just kind of comical how inaccurate it is, but if you modded it to reduce the spread then it'd invalidate most of the other low tier guns in your arsenal.

Exactly this. Sticking the shotgun right into an enemy's face can even instakill possessed commandos before they whack you with the tentacle lunge. It's also very reliable at one-hit-killing all imps and wraiths, and can very easily two-hit-kill pinkies and cacodemons even far from point blank, because they are so fat that the megaspread doesn't matter that much.

Reached the Delta Labs in Doom 3 (original, not crummy BFG edition).
My favorite area in the game.
Communications was also really good, getting a chainsaw from those chainsaw zombies and using it on the zombies is brutal and awesome, classic Doom. Chainsaw actually does a lot of damage if you aim for their heads while getting in close and personal.

 

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

Armored Core 6 :
A good fun-filled game with good combat.
One of the GOTY nominees for 2023.
This game reminded me of Freespace 2 storytelling but some of the level designs were not on par with other action games.
++++inimal storytelling (the story is decent) and maximum combat.
------ Some missions were dud and a lot of assets were recycled.

Certain cutscenes reminded me of Blizzard storytelling (like Starcraft and Warcraft).
Worth multiple playthroughs so do not miss playing it this year.

 

[Hag]

Playing Armored Core 6 made me hungry for some more serious mech action, so I wen ahead and reinstalled Mechwarrior Living Legends.
Good to see some things stay the same. One server to play on evening, one hour long complex games where you have to stay on the edge, explosive shit flying everywhere, and the satisfaction of good teamwork. Hiding on a cliff with a Raven, TAGging some poor sod downhill and seeing him pummeled by dozen of missiles never gets old. Also Shadowcats and Black Lanners being the usual nuisance. Wish there was more games were fighting was less about guns and more about electronic warfare, movement and careful asset management. Good fun.

 

[General Disarray]

Playing Armored Core 6 made me hungry for some more serious mech action, so I wen ahead and reinstalled Mechwarrior Living Legends.
Good to see some things stay the same. One server to play on evening, one hour long complex games where you have to stay on the edge, explosive shit flying everywhere, and the satisfaction of good teamwork. Hiding on a cliff with a Raven, TAGging some poor sod downhill and seeing him pummeled by dozen of missiles never gets old. Also Shadowcats and Black Lanners being the usual nuisance. Wish there was more games were fighting was less about guns and more about electronic warfare, movement and careful asset management. Good fun.

Going to try Mechwarrior Living Legends, sounds fun! I enjoy vehicle gameplay in Project Reality and Squad. About a game with more electronic warfare focus I did see some Unity post about something like that long ago, don't think it took off. https://forum.unity.com/threads/scan-jam-kill-working-title-mech-a-crew-simulator.1179352/

On topic, I recently discovered Pathfinder: Kingmaker, I loved the king mini game in Dragon age: Inquisition. So far I like the game, it's fun with balance the baron duties with adventure. Playing as a two handed neutral good fighter. It hasn't been that difficult, baring some set piece fights, but a lot of areas that I have to stay put of. I enjoy it. Don't know why I didn't play it earlier.