What game are you wasting time on?

[Great Deceiver]

By far the best Souls clone I've ever played.

 

[Fink]

Just completed Age of Decadence for the first time. Played it in the past and I never really got hooked on it. This time for whatever reason the cleverness of its design clicked for me and I smashed out a playthough over two long sessions.

Went with the Praetor background, and tried to work in the interests of House Daratan. Focused almost entirely on sword and block skills, with a smattering of critical strike, persuasion and etiquette.

My end-game character sheet for those interested:

I have a day off work tomorrow, I might try for a non-combat playthrough as a Loremaster.

 

[Perkel]

me in picture. Happy times in dump searching for treasure with shovel. Oh shit ! plastic galon bottle !

Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead. Currently my #1 the most complex game i have ever tried that i like.

For a game this comprehensive and detailed, it's incredible how easy it is to navigate through seemingly complicated interface once you spend an hour or two playing. So many quality of life stuff AAA devs should take note of. Keyboard is a good invention. CDDA is a proof that games should be made by people, for people.

It is both deep and simple at the same time. On surface level you just want to survive, hunt, scavenge, do quests, find npcs etc. essentially what you want to do in any RPG but under that facade there is super deep system conjoined with ultra deep crafting that allows for a lot of roleplaying that otherwise would be impossible.

The stories literally write themselves. BTW i made proper main thread for game. For some fucking reason this great game never got proper main thread which is a crime.

Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead. Currently my #1 the most complex game i have ever tried that i like.

What tileset?

default one. IT already comes with default tilesets.

 

[revani]

Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead. Currently my #1 the most complex game i have ever tried that i like.

What tileset?

UltiCA, which is the default these days as mentioned. Was still missing some textures a few months ago when I tried it (I was doing an Innawoods run tho, where you use a lot of stuff that you wouldn't in a regular run). Also check out UndeadPeople if you haven't already, I find it easier to recognize stuff in that tileset.

 

[Avonaeon]

Finally got around to playing Delta Force: Land Warrior after completing Delta Force 1 and 2. It's a pretty big let down and in a lot of ways is worse than Delta Force 2. The terrain is still voxel based, I think, but there's no longer the voxel grass Delta Force 2 had. It now has filtered textures which looks nice for the most part, but overall it lacks a lot of grit that the first 2 had. Weapons are now also sprites, which I have mixed feelings about.
Also lacking is a map during the campaign, where you previously could select the mission order yourself (somewhat) as well as see what country you're playing in, giving you some idea of what to expect. No maps during the briefings either like Delta Force 1, so you always go in completely blind, save for the briefing text. The briefing text is voice acted which is nice, but it seems like they did the recordings over 2 sessions, as the voice changes noticeably for a sentence or two.
The missions seem bigger, but gone are the missions where you're a team of 5 and all hell breaks loose (So far). Instead you're mostly solo, with maybe 1 AI somewhere else on the map that gets itself killed way too easily. Enemies in general have seen no improvements since the first game and can still act pretty retarded.
It also seems like they learned that the engine is kinda janky, because so far there have been none of the shenanigans Delta Force 2 tried to pull with moving platforms mid mission.

 

[NecroLord]

Played some Doom 3 and it still pretty fucking great.
The Delta Labs followed by the Hell level are the highlight of the game.
The game really needs more Hell levels. And more demons (just like in the good old days), but, you know, technical limitations...

 

[Ezekiel]

Wow, only 112 hours into Streets of Rage 4 have I discovered that you can grab the fire/acid bottles in the air. Unless they added this in an update.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Wow, only 112 hours into Streets of Rage 4 have I discovered that you can grab the fire/acid bottles in the air. Unless they added this in an update.

There's an achievement for it. You can catch knives and such also.

 

[Ivan]

Dave the Diver
A pretty mild "I liked it." It's definitely not something that typifies the games I like, hyper-action, fast reflex heavy, but Dave the Diver delivers on charm, has a great soundtrack, and drip feeds new mechanics and systems the longer you play. Unfortunately for me, not many of those systems are necessary for you to perform well, IMO many of them are just tiny dopamine sinks. Exploration is broken up across 4 hubs and a few puzzle dungeons. Item progression felt nice throughout the campaign, but the story was a tad too long IMO and I wished it wrapped up sooner. I also wish the enemy AI featured more variety but at the most, you're just facing charging enemies. My favorite thing about playing it was that you never quite knew if you ready to keep delving deeper and deeper.

some favorite tracks:

 

[mediocrepoet]

Dave the Diver
A pretty mild "I liked it." It's definitely not something that typifies the games I like, hyper-action, fast reflex heavy, but Dave the Diver delivers on charm, has a great soundtrack, and drip feeds new mechanics and systems the longer you play. Unfortunately for me, not many of those systems are necessary for you to perform well, IMO many of them are just tiny dopamine sinks. Exploration is broken up across 4 hubs and a few puzzle dungeons. Item progression felt nice throughout the campaign, but the story was a tad too long IMO and I wished it wrapped up sooner. I also wish the enemy AI featured more variety but at the most, you're just facing charging enemies. My favorite thing about playing it was that you never quite knew if you ready to keep delving deeper and deeper.

I like this one more than you, in the sense that all the systems work well together and it has more going on than I expected and I enjoyed the humour and music. I even managed to die a few times, but only when I was being greedy.

 

[BruceVC]

I just completed NWN2 OC, great game and worthwhile D&D experience. It gets a 75/100 on the "BruceVC game rating system "

Im am now going to play the expansions, Im enjoying my Forgotten Realms gaming sojourn

 

[markec]

Finished Lost Judgment, while I enjoyed it I had several issues with it. Gameplay wise its a superior game to Judgement, combat is better, the chase, following, investigation elements are better. The issue is the story, the first one had the personal backstory of the hero being the integral part of the main story and that made it much more involving. The story itself is also less interesting, the school segment I found to be low point of the story, I liked the two gang villains but they arent enough to carry the main plot. The biggest issue is character of Kuwana that is featured a lot in the main plot but I never actually liked him or his story. I realize that he is supposed to be a mirror of Yagami that went to the path of revenge instead of justice but at no point did I find him interesting. I have some other minor issues but overall I still liked the game and its more serious tone compared to main Yakuza series.

My new ranking: 0>Judgement>LaD>1>LostJ>2>5>6>4>3


I tried playing Like a Dragon: Ishin! but I just couldnt go past using the establish Yakuza characters likeness for the game. Its a shame because the story seems interesting, and I love the idea of Yakuza type game in Samurai period. Also the problem is that fights are oriented around mostly usage of swords and guns (there is also a single unarmed style). But it just feels silly that you have fights, you slash people with a sword and shoot them with a gun but there is no blood and they behave as being hit by a fist. Since I spent my monthly gaming budget on the Christmas sale im waiting for the paycheck to buy Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. So in two weeks Im going to continue with the Yakuza series.


Finished Colony Ship. Just to say I am not a fan of AoD but I did enjoyed and finished Dungeon Rats. I still bought it to support fellow Codexers and with hope that they learned from mistakes of AoD. And in my opinion Colony Ship did fixed some issues of AoD, enough for me to finish the game. I did enjoy my time playing but the game has some problems. The biggest one is that when you arrive to Habitat and are presented with factions it feels like the game at that point was cut and that all factions had their content greatly reduced. It gives impression of a game rushed from Early Access, something that only handful of repeating portraits doesnt help with. I wish there was more to explore of the depths and mysteries of the ship as I found those parts of the game the most interesting. So yes I liked the game and I recommend it to every RPG fan.


Currently Im playing Ashes Doom mod and I finished the first chapter. Its great and Im really enjoying it. Im not too far from finishing the second chapter and so far I prefer the more first chapters standard level system over hubs of second one. Still I find both great and I recommend them to all FPS fans.


For a surprise of the year I nominate Legendary Creatures 2 a indie auto battler RPG. The game seems simple but there is quite a collection of units, skills, artifacts to build around. I find the game quite fun and for 5$ its a bargain.

 

[Fink]

I have a day off work tomorrow, I might try for a non-combat playthrough as a Loremaster.

Reached the final act of AoD with my Loremaster character, but unfortunately couldn't find a way to make it through to the end slides with the build I went with. I'll give the game one or two more runs before moving on to my next games; just installed Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Dragonfall.

In the meantime, while my girlfriend uses my PC to play The Sims 3, I've been playing Dead Space (original 2008 version) on the Xbox. To me it feels less "Resident Evil in Space" and more "System Shock 2 for the Xbox 360 generation", but that could be 'cause I'm more familiar with SS2 than the RE games. It's tense rather than scary. I'm enjoying it quite a lot.

 

[Ezekiel]

A 13-year-old broke Tetris (NES) by reaching a level not coded into the game. It froze. The first person ever. Like I've known forever, kids can think creatively in ways adults no longer can. I used to be so much better at Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine as a kid, a puzzle game based on Puyo Puyo.

In 2011, one {player} got to Level 30 using a technique called “hypertapping,” in which a player could rhythmically vibrate their fingers to move the game controller faster than the game’s built-in speed. That technique took players to level 35 by 2018, after which they hit a wall.

The next big thing came in 2020 when a gamer combined a multifinger technique originally used on arcade video games with a finger positioned on the bottom of the controller to push it against another finger on the top. Called “rolling,” this much speedier approach helped one player reach Level 95 in 2022.

Then other obstacles arose. Because the original Tetris developers had never counted on players pushing the game’s limits so aggressively, bizarre quirks began to crop up at higher levels. One particularly difficult issue arose with the game’s color palette, which traditionally cycled through 10 easily distinguished patterns. Starting at level 138, though, random color combinations began to appear — some of which made it much harder to distinguish the blocks from the game’s black background.

 

[Viata]

I have seen someone using AI for that:

 

[Butter]

I've been playing Rogue every day. It's a waste of my time in the sense that I don't expect to ever beat it, but it's also really fun. I'm enjoying it more than any other roguelike I've played, perhaps not despite but because of its comparative simplicity. Not spending time building my character means I'm less invested so it's not a gut punch when he dies. It's really easy to just start a new run and get going. There's a lot to learn about playing the game, but it's not overwhelming the way some later roguelikes are. It really reminds me of the original Wizardry, in that every time you go into the dungeon you learn something new, even if you don't reach your ultimate goal.

 

[NecroLord]

Have just finished Star Trek: Elite Force Voyager.
Now playing Elite Force 2. Classic Star Trek awesomeness. Nu Trek can go straight to hell.

 

[Machocruz]

I've been playing Rogue every day. It's a waste of my time in the sense that I don't expect to ever beat it, but it's also really fun. I'm enjoying it more than any other roguelike I've played, perhaps not despite but because of its comparative simplicity. Not spending time building my character means I'm less invested so it's not a gut punch when he dies. It's really easy to just start a new run and get going. There's a lot to learn about playing the game, but it's not overwhelming the way some later roguelikes are. It really reminds me of the original Wizardry, in that every time you go into the dungeon you learn something new, even if you don't reach your ultimate goal.

You've played Brogue? Easy start up, not too much investment in character building as it's defined by items and enchantments. Beautiful use of color and fx with the limitations of ascii, very immersive for such games.

 

[Butter]

I've been playing Rogue every day. It's a waste of my time in the sense that I don't expect to ever beat it, but it's also really fun. I'm enjoying it more than any other roguelike I've played, perhaps not despite but because of its comparative simplicity. Not spending time building my character means I'm less invested so it's not a gut punch when he dies. It's really easy to just start a new run and get going. There's a lot to learn about playing the game, but it's not overwhelming the way some later roguelikes are. It really reminds me of the original Wizardry, in that every time you go into the dungeon you learn something new, even if you don't reach your ultimate goal.

You've played Brogue? Easy start up, not too much investment in character building as it's defined by items and enchantments. Beautiful use of color and fx with the limitations of ascii, very immersive for such games.

I've played Rogue, Zorbus, ToME, and Infra Arcana. I'm pretty sure I could spend the rest of my life just playing roguelikes, with how many versions are there of each one.

 

[Avonaeon]

Currently Im playing Ashes Doom mod and I finished the first chapter. Its great and Im really enjoying it. Im not too far from finishing the second chapter and so far I prefer the more first chapters standard level system over hubs of second one. Still I find both great and I recommend them to all FPS fans

I agree, the first chapter I felt was better because you were constantly moving forward. The second chapter arguably had better looking areas, but there was a lot of revisiting areas and a lot more of searching for the entrance to the next level, which got both a little boring and frustrating, because you just wanted to get to the next place. That being said, both chapters are fantastic!

 

[ferratilis]

Been playing a lot of Assetto Corsa for the last week or so, both with a controller and with a Logitech G29 wheel. All other racing games feel like they're made for kids compared to this, honestly. The physics, the weight of the car, the steering, it's all perfectly done. The amazing modding scene also elevates the game, some of the laser scanned tracks made by modders are done more competently than those in the latest Forza Motorsport, a game that cost more than a hundred mil. Because AC was made on an older engine, before all the modern rendering features became common, it also looks less fuzzy/aliased and with better colors than a lot of more modern titles. For example, I also got Automobilista 2 recently, a game made with a more advanced Madness engine, but it just looks cartoony compared to Assetto Corsa, despite the texture resolution and effects being better. Physics also seem a bit worse, at least that's how it feels through the wheel. Although Automobilista 2 has much better AI, the one in AC is dumb as rocks. AC is truly one of a kind game, I doubt that even a sequel can top it, since afaik the studio was bought by some bigwigs a few years ago. It will probably be relevant even a decade or two from now.

Oh, and don't let people tell you AC can't be played with a controller, just use these settings, turn off stability control, set traction control based on your feeling, and you're golden:
speed sensitivity: 70
steering speed:1
steering gama:130
steering filter:5
steering deadzone:15
Wheel will always be better, of course, but you can get some good lap times even with a controller. It's definitely more playable than Automobilista 2.

As for the modding scene, this is a good example of how amazing it is:

You know a sim racer is good when you forearms are sore after a few laps on Monza.

 

[BruceVC]

I'm busy with NWN2 MoB and Im loving the narrative and the epic level gaming experience, Im about 20 hours in

Obsidian really knows how to create captivating stories and as usual I appreciate the Forgotten Realms integration because its my favorite fantasy world with Elder Scrolls being my second

I am getting a little annoyed with the mechanics of hunger and how you need to feed but thats because I misunderstood how it works and I let my energy drop to 10-15% so just to survive I am literally camping and feeding on animal spirits in the Ashenwood forest but once Im done with these quests I will feed properly on undead which will restore my energy to manageable levels

I got so frustrated I was even considering loading a mod that lets you restore the energy immediately but I wont do that because that will destroy the immersion and point of being a spirit eater....so it would be a real "cheat " that undermines the point of the game. So I decided not to do that

 

[Ezekiel]

I hate my spazzy hands. I play Streets of Rage WORSE with the Mega Drive-style controller because my fingers keep accidentally pressing A and B simultaneously, wasting stars, and I don't jump as much as I used to because there is more of a separation between the attack buttons (A and B) and C (jump) than with the modern YXBA diamond. The ABC controls are objectively superior to YXBA, but I can't WORK them properly.

 

[Puukko]

Watching a friend play it (and curse the difficulty) got me interested in some F-Zero GX. It's been a small eternity since I last did arcade racing and yeah, this works. Sometimes you just need a high octane palette cleanser. I cleared the second grand prix on standard difficulty after several attempts. Not because I couldn't score high enough to win, but because the fifth and last course ate all of my five retries like four times due to all the ways you can fly off the track. No mercy at all.

The challenge comes from finding a good racer that can handle the different courses well since you need to clear all five of them without being able to change. There are four to choose from to start (naturally including Captain Falcon) with another 20 or so to unlock. You can tweak the acceleration/max speed balance after each race which you want to do to accommodate each track.

Maximizing efficient use of the booster is vital. It also acts as your health bar, depleting when hitting the sides or other racers. At the end of each lap there's an opportunity to charge it via a special lane though making the most of that is tricky since there may also be speed boosts next to them... or your vehicle may be so finicky that getting it lined up is easier said than done.

The story mode is actually something you have to buy with credits from the grand prix, usually one-on-one races with stage hazards or extra conditions. The cutscenes are great, they really put in the effort. Well, except when it comes to the voice acting.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

F-Zero is a really a good palette cleanser, I agree. And graphically it holds up and emulates super well- the casino stages still look beautiful. In GX I always liked Octoman, but goddamn I tried to make it work with James McCloud in GX and F-Zero X and usually failed in the process since his arwing has tin foil for armor plating. I played through X last year and actually had some good results playing Jodi Summer / White Cat and managed to finish the Master Cup on all of the circuits with her.

Do not feel obligated to torture yourself by trying to complete the story mode, though. I was able to do it when I was a teenager, but it was one of the hardest challenges I ever completed it my gaming 'career' and it's probably not worth the pain and suffering. The mission where you have to collect all the capsules and escape the exploding tunnel had me resorting to rebinding the analog stick

---

After several weeks of being sick to the point that gaming wasn't even a consideration, I've been enjoying some different retroarch games. Was pleased to finish a run of Outrun, which felt impossible after attempting it in the Yakuza 0 arcade years ago.

Played some Granblue Fantasy with a buddy of mine and some of his friends. I love fighting games but it's honestly been a long time since I've played one online that isn't Smash Bros (which calling a 'fighting game' is dubious, at best. but i still enjoy it, and several characters in Smash Bros have movesets I just find really fun to pilot). In Granblue I'm still in the "I've owned this fighting game for less than 24 hours and am mostly doing retarded mashing and getting punished for things that work in other games' phase. But I managed to score a few wins and make a good showing, and leveled up a little bit by playing these guys who are much better than me.

Also been playing some Dragon Warrior 3 on the NES. First RPG I ever played as a youngin. We never actually owned it, just rented it repeatedly from our local brick and mortar store. I have no idea how I managed to endure playing it without the fast-forward you get from emulation. Even the movement speed is super slow by default. The encounter rate is frankly ridiculous but most dungeons don't have bosses and completing them is a matter of surviving the battle of attrition. I'm using a Fighter/Cleric/Cleric party this time around and it's going pretty good. Never used fighters as a kid- and now I can appreciate that they have ridiculous agility and the ability to attack first in a turn makes up for the fact they can't equip armor.

I'd like to try the DS port of Dragon Quest 4 but I can't get DS games to look right in my retroarch install. The aspect ratio always looks messed up and the usual shaders I use completly break using the DS cores. I'll just need to mess with it more- there's a few other DS games I'd really like to play like Infinite Space.