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What game are you wasting time on?

Nak

Barely Literate
Joined
Feb 21, 2024
Messages
1
Installed GTA IV again. I have my favorite spot near the sea where I block the road and push cars off the cliff. When my car starts to get damaged from pushing other cars off the cliff, I stop pushing cars off the cliff for a moment and I wait till a traffic jam accumulates. Then I damage my car some more and park it near the other cars. I stand back and watch the explosions and people burning alive. Sometimes, if some of the exploded cars drop into the sea, more cars keep coming and riding into the havoc and exploding, and I don't have to do anything just watch the situation unfold. I do this for 30 minutes up to an hour. I have not done a single quest, nor I ever will.
This reads like a sexual fetish confession post on r/offmychest
 

Jack_Deth

She/Her
Patron
Joined
Dec 13, 2002
Messages
275
Insert Title Here
I'm big into iRacing, I love the online competition. I usually stick to road courses but occasionally run NASCAR trucks and the community over there is a bunch of MAGA rednecks.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
24,063
I managed to build foundry in Satisfactory, and now I don't know why I bothered. But I found if you don't want to make multistory buildings, you can make foundation on side of cliff and expand into free space.
 

Axel_am

Exploring and Enjoying
Patron
Joined
Jul 23, 2023
Messages
727
Location
Buckkeep
Codex+ Now Streaming!
I've been wanting to finish PoE II and D:OS 2 but the games are just not doing it for me. Pillars has its moment but the writing and the pirate setting are something it's hard for me to vibe with. The combat is fun (I'm playing RTwP) but the way the units just push and glide each other in order to get to one another kills it for me. I can probably get used to it but I'm not doing that right now.

Divinity on the other hand is fun but again the setting is too colorful and cheery and not that much to my liking. In a way it reminds of Terry Pratchett's Discworld but only in the sense that I wish I was playing a game in that universe or reading a book from it. No need to comment on the writing. I can just combatfag the game, both games actually, and ignore all kinds of dialogue but I really don't like doing that on a first CRPG playthrough. I imagine I'll get back to both of these in time but for now they are on the bench.

So, I've been drowning myself in dangerous amounts of DotA2. I am truly a DotA fiend. And I love it. The rank is going up, I've been running into my french bro with whom I grinded the earlier ranks of my DotA ranked journey. It's been fun and nostalgic. Too fun actually. I've been sinking a lot of my free time in the game and it feels like I need some sort of a pause on the whole MMR grind thing. So I'm downloading Weird West and will give it a shot later on. That's about it for my gaming in the past few months. With winter coming I am sharpening my teeth for some big ass CRPG to play. Maybe it's when the snow falls that I will get back to ascending to Divinity or marauding ships and exploring unknown islands.
 

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,546
System Shock Remake. I played the original (for the first time) just over a year ago, so I don't remember every single detail. But this remake looks like the best kind of remake. Just the same game with modern graphics, controls, and some adjustments here and there. New Citadel Station is almost a 1:1 copy. Some of the adjustments are good, others are not. Still a great game. I'm not finished yet, but here are a few notable things:
+ First, a change they didn't make but one I expected: They didn't add a quest log with typical quest markers and shit. Like in the original, you have to pay attention to audio logs and you have to have a functioning brain to figure out what to do next.
+ Some of the egregious enemy spam is gone, like the invisible mutants in Maintenance. Original Maintenance has better atmosphere, but I wasn't a fan of slicing millions of mutants with the laser rapier.
+ Throwing grenades is easier now. You won't blow yourself up by accident anymore.
- Using any drugs, batteries, recharge stations now comes with annoying animations that take control away from you. Makes me not want to use drugs that often. The original lets you quickly take multiple different drugs to get ready for tough combat situations.
- The new graphics make the game harder to read. Which items are junk and which are useful? What type of ammo/grenade is this? The Sensaround feels like a crutch to "fix" this. I almost missed the laser rapier, too. The original has a big and bright sprite you can't miss despite being in a dark room. In the remake it looks like a small junk item. The only reason I spotted it was because I remembered the laser rapier was supposed to be on the Maintenance level, and I double checked.
- New UI and inventory are a downgrade. The original game is known for its "outdated" UI because it takes some effort to learn it. The remake is easier to get into but also tends to get more annoying in the long run. Here is a simple experiment: See how long it would take you to select a frag grenade in the original.
vc2rUP.png
Easy to find since everything is automatically categorized. (The UI also seems to tell me more useful info.)
Now select a frag grenade in the remake.
nEXnTo.jpg
It's a mess, even after auto-sorting. But it's also an issue with item graphics. The remake has 3 different grenade types, and they all look almost the same. Why not make frags red, EMPs blue, and gas green? The remake has 10 quickslots. The original gives me 21 (basically everything is a quickslot). Auto-sorting the inventory tends to leave a 1-tile line at the bottom, and I still have to play Tetris to make room for a 2x2 item. Maybe a grid inventory wasn't the best choice here.
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Sep 6, 2022
Messages
14,815
Did the remake fix the horrible cyberspace controls? I couldn't get into the first system shock because of them.
Only played the original and enhanced edition.
You just get used to the cyberspace after a while.
You just have to learn to maneuver and locate the yellow nodes.
 

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,546
Did the remake fix the horrible cyberspace controls? I couldn't get into the first system shock because of them.
Yes, remake Cyberspace controls well, but it isn't good either. At first I liked it. But there is almost no variety. You always get locked into rooms and have to fight wave after wave with the same weapon. Enemies also shoot in these weird random(?) patterns that are hard to avoid consistently. They'll chip away at your health over time.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
24,063
fzpqj1X.png

I just wanted second queen.

It has interesting shape, these pawns down looks like Harris vs Trump election.
 

Kabas

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Messages
1,719
Still trying demos.

Blood Bar Tycoon - a vampire bar management game where you kidnap your human customers, drain their blood and serve it to your real customers while trying to maintain the masquerade. You can make your bar look like the cheapest-looking saloon ever known to men while having a hidden "vampire only" high class bar with dart games and pinball machines hidden behind the backdoor.
Fun even if a bit lacking in complexity so far. I suspect that the full version will be introducing more mechanics as the game goes on.

Skogdal - a deckbulding roguelike about you beating random people in a rural Norwegian town during the 90s.
Wouldn't call myself an authority on the subject but i felt it was not too shabby mechanics-wise. It also has arguably the coolest presentation i have ever seen from a deckbuilder.
xuj1sWD.jpg


Poke All Toads - a fun little puzzle game where your goal is to poke all toads and get away with it. Gets progressively more challenging as the levels goes on. Fairies are cute, especially the main one who pokes toads.

Spy Drops - a metal gear solid clone with a white haired anime girl as a protagonist and AI voiceovers. Not too bad but i felt that i should rather try the orginal metal gear solid first with an emulator, never played it before.

Glitch Dungeon Crystal - a 2D puzzle platformer with some metroidvania elements about babushka cleaning dungeons from glitches. Surprisingly fun.

Card-en-Ciel - another deckbuilder roguelike/roguelite with a very japanese plot about a gaming chair detective fighting crimes in a virtual world. Each card has a voice acting.
0jPqijs.jpg

I found mechanics interesting with you having to discard cards in order to move and dodge enemy attacks. You can also lower enemy damage with a break effect in case you can't dodge or dodge by using an [action] card which works only at the moment the enemy is about to hit you.
There are characters that you can recruit called muses that grant a special effect by fullfilling a certain condition. Like "use three 0 cost cards in a single turn" after which a corresponding muse will come out, theme song will start blasting and now all these zero cost cards has Edit:perma damage boost effect that lasts until the end of turn. One of these muses plays a japanese Baba Yetu.
Card-en-Ciel just came out by the way, you can buy it now.

Silly Polly Beast - a pretty good looking survival horror game that i can instantly tell was made by slavs. Story is about a mute girl who has fallen into some sort of purgatory where she must hunt down some moffos in order to buy her freedom. Some Yuri might be involved too.
Not a survival horror connoisseur but i found this one pretty fun, even if the key to combat seems to be just spamming the dodge move.

Space Tales - a very starcraft inspired rts with the differences being the retro futuristic aesthetics and heavy focus on single player. There is a bunch of lore and research points that you can find during missions that can be used to ugrade your units.
Pretty nice based on what is avaliable in the demo.

Battlefall: State of Conflict - another one of those tiberium sun clones. There is a bunch of AoE buffs that you can use on your units like increase their movement speed or rate of fire.
Not bad but it didn't leave much of an impression on me.

Kill the Shadow - a detective game with a plot that succeeded in making me feel invested. Features multiple outcomes and branching narrative paths.
Game consists of gathering and connecting clues with the help of a mysterious shadowy companion who can pierce past memories.
E0qiAk3.png
NbsiKwk.jpg

Pretty cool but the demo is buggy.
 
Last edited:

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
24,063
QinZ0BI.png

I had smaller headache from this than when I played against Stockfish, but I rather return to strategy games, I don't like playing living opponents anyway.
 

Caim

Arcane
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Messages
17,413
Location
Dutchland
Card-en-Ciel - another deckbuilder roguelike/roguelite with a very japanese plot about a gaming chair detective fighting crimes in a virtual world. Each card has a voice acting.
0jPqijs.jpg

I found mechanics interesting with you having to discard cards in order to move and dodge enemy attacks. You can also lower enemy damage with a break effect in case you can't dodge or dodge by using an [action] card which works only at the moment the enemy is about to hit you.
There are characters that you can recruit called muses that grant a special effect by fullfilling a certain condition. Like "use three 0 cost cards in a single turn" after which a corresponding muse will come out, theme song will start blasting and now all these zero cost cards has perma damage boost effect. One of these muses plays a japanese Baba Yetu.
Card-en-Ciel just came out by the way, you can buy it now.
Ah yes, Mega Man Battle Network for coomers.
 

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,546
I have to vent about the final boss in System Shock Remake... I sometimes wonder what goes through a devs mind to come up with objectively shitty design, thinking "yeah, this is perfect!", and ship it. It's not rushed. I've read that this fight used to be different, and people complained it was anticlimactic, cheesable, lame, whatever. So they changed it in their last update and turned it into an unnecessarily tedious and frustrating mess. The original Shodan fight doesn't have much to offer. You basically spam Shodan in cyberspace and hope to kill her before she overwrites you. There is a neat effect with her face covering your screen, but that's about it. The fight is over in seconds.
What happens in the remake?

You're in cyberspace again with your standard cyberspace weapon ... but on foot. No 6dof.
Sit through a 2 minute long cutscene and listen to Shodan's monologue as you slowly move to the arena.
Fight several waves of viruses (which got old 10 hours ago). Then you're allowed to hit Shodan once to advance to the next phase.
There are 3 phases, each with more viruses and more complex arenas.
The entire fight takes 15 minutes!
There are no checkpoints. You can't save in cyberspace. If you die, you have to enter cyberspace from the terminal again and watch the 2 minute cutscene.
There are no health pickups. You can't heal at all.
You can pick up different weapons, but they suck, and you can hurt yourself with them if you're not careful. Accidents will happen because this is a frantic fight.
There are launchpads in phases 2 and 3. If you run over them unintentionally or at a bad angle, they can easily launch you off the arena into the abyss, which is instant death. You have almost no air control.
I died three times in phase 3.
:x
VmAcbSU.png
:abyssgazer:
omfg What were they thinking!
 

Cheeki Blyat

Literate
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2024
Messages
9
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
I'm wasting it on Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition. Pretty good remaster if I have to be honest after 8 million years of there being no real good ROTT source port
 

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mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
Patron
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
13,522
Location
Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
I have to vent about the final boss in System Shock Remake... I sometimes wonder what goes through a devs mind to come up with objectively shitty design, thinking "yeah, this is perfect!", and ship it. It's not rushed. I've read that this fight used to be different, and people complained it was anticlimactic, cheesable, lame, whatever. So they changed it in their last update and turned it into an unnecessarily tedious and frustrating mess. The original Shodan fight doesn't have much to offer. You basically spam Shodan in cyberspace and hope to kill her before she overwrites you. There is a neat effect with her face covering your screen, but that's about it. The fight is over in seconds.
What happens in the remake?

You're in cyberspace again with your standard cyberspace weapon ... but on foot. No 6dof.
Sit through a 2 minute long cutscene and listen to Shodan's monologue as you slowly move to the arena.
Fight several waves of viruses (which got old 10 hours ago). Then you're allowed to hit Shodan once to advance to the next phase.
There are 3 phases, each with more viruses and more complex arenas.
The entire fight takes 15 minutes!
There are no checkpoints. You can't save in cyberspace. If you die, you have to enter cyberspace from the terminal again and watch the 2 minute cutscene.
There are no health pickups. You can't heal at all.
You can pick up different weapons, but they suck, and you can hurt yourself with them if you're not careful. Accidents will happen because this is a frantic fight.
There are launchpads in phases 2 and 3. If you run over them unintentionally or at a bad angle, they can easily launch you off the arena into the abyss, which is instant death. You have almost no air control.
I died three times in phase 3.
:x
VmAcbSU.png
:abyssgazer:
omfg What were they thinking!

That sounds terrible, but I like to think that they design these sorts of things and then tool around on message boards looking for reactions like yours and /popcorn.
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
9,928
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
I finished and enjoyed Two Worlds 2 and one of its DLC, Call of the Tenebrae after about 65 hours. I made full updates in that official thread but its an entertaining open-world , Eurojank RPG with some unique crafting mechanics like spell creation

Then I played 3 more Fighting Fantasy PC games, Citadel of Chaos, Creature of Havoc and Assassins of Allansia and as usual they all great nostalgic reminders of the original books. They just quick to finish, 4-6 hours

Now Im playing Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and its excellent. I love the combat mechanics and options in combat. I like the whole integration and interaction of Xana into the narrative, her comments are hilarious :lol:

Really enjoying it
 

ghardy

Educated
Joined
Jun 18, 2024
Messages
323
Finally, I beat Protoss Mission 8: The Trial of Tassadar from the original StarCraft.

My first tries were experiments with mixes of ground troops and air power. Repeated failure and the hint about Carriers at the beginning of the mission made me focus exclusively on Carriers and their upgrades.

I made about twenty Carriers and had them assault the central fortified area with the stasis cell. I segregated them in groups of three and four to thwart those dang Arbiters.

I was down to six Carriers before the cell was destroyed to finish the mission.

So many interceptors on screen...
 

Ezekiel

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2017
Messages
6,687
Tried out FFVII on RetroArch. Got killed by a scorpion mech after about a half hour. Turn-based combat is lame. Well, I do remember finding Skies of Arcadia and Paper Mario TTYD more satisfying. Really like that intro credits and game over theme. Doubt I'm gonna get into this, however.
 

Grauken

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
13,171
SMT3, dungeons feel like they were designed for grid-based dungeons and then ported to a 3d environment which makes traversing the dungeons a fucking pain, more gimmicky, and overall a decidedly downgrade compared to earlier iterations of SMT
 

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