Keyrock

I'm trying to do the low expectations thing too, it's a good strategy, but it looks and sounds so good that it's trying to rope me in. Don't fall for the trap, don't fall for the trap.

The initial pitch was poorly done and made the game sound like just a dungeon crawler, while now it is becoming clear that the game is a lot more than that. The damage may be done. Hopefully it's not to late for this campaign to get going, but it;s not looking good right now.

Shantaemobile Mark II: Here's the mod if anyone wants it: http://www.mediafire.com/download/5kla7l2q8ff8lgd/Shantaeskin2.scs

Sounds like fixes/added functionality is incoming: http://www.incgamers.com/2013/11/egosoft-apologise-for-the-state-of-x-rebirth I'm going to go back to Terran Conflict for a couple of months, as implementing this will take some time and in the game's current state, building a trading empire is next to impossible (trading is my jam). Hopefully by early next year the game will be in a lot better shape.

Zinyak is an absolute delight. In a game filled with fun characters and great voice acting, Zinyak EASILY steals the show. He is a treasure.

I think Unwritten was on Kickstarter before and failed to get written. Looks like they're trying to get it written again.

I'm so jealous right now. Us Muricans haven't gotten a demo yet. That game makes it look like there may yet be a little bit of Square left in Squeenix. There are a few people from Square Enix that have been involved but other than that, the game wasn't developed by SE themselves. Well, it looks more like a Square game than anything Squeenix has published in nearly a decade.

You don't like it? I want to like it, but it's a mess. I never thought a game would make me wish for the UI from X3. The whole thought for this game was to make it more accessible to people that aren't hardcore space sim players. Somehow they managed to make it even less accessible to those people while at the same time alienating the hardcore space sim crowd which is their customer base. It will likely be a good game... eventually. It's a broken mess right now. The UI... It's so horrible I can't even put it into words.

X-Stillbirth

Same here. My flightstick doesn't have enough buttons to accommodate everything, but there is enough for all my regular flight/combat stuff. Communications, maps, obscure squadron commands, and trading commands are all keyboard buttons. Right now, in X-Stillbirth, everything is done by keyboard and mouse because of the broken flightstick support (it's a friggin' space sim, how the **** do you not make flightstick support a top priority?) Edit: Holy ****, there isn't even a key for target next enemy? What the ****!? How do you not include a target next enemy key? Damn, I guess I'll go back to playing Terran Conflict until this reaches a somewhat playable state.

The craziest part is that the consolitis excuse isn't even valid as it's a PC only game and controllers and flightsticks don't even fully function properly at this point. The UI is such a mess and for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I think eventually, once all the bugs are sorted out and the modding community rescues the awful UI it will be a great game for hardcore space sim fans, but their effort to open the game up to more casual fans is an EPIC FAIL.

I'm so jealous right now. Us Muricans haven't gotten a demo yet. That game makes it look like there may yet be a little bit of Square left in Squeenix.

Yeah, the on-foot part of the game is... awkward. Honestly, they should just not have included it if it was going to be this shoddy. This looks like something they hastily added so that they can add a line to the back of a box (ironically no physical version exists right now): * Walk around space stations and interact with its inhabitants! They should have just kept it as it was before where you'd just open a channel of communications to whoever was on the station. Whatever, the space part of the game is what really matters, and that part is quite good, even without proper flightstick support (*shakes fist*). So far the campaign is pretty awful, as per Egosoft protocol. I'd probably be better off just playing in sandbox mode, that's what these games are all about, but the completionist in me demands that I go through the nonsensical campaign at least once.

As per standard Egosoft protocol, the game is a bit of a mess right now. Definitely a bit of a learning process for me, even as a seasoned X player. I don't know if it's not detecting my flightstick correctly or what, but I can't set it up entirely right now because it's picking up a couple axes as one and the same, so, begrudgingly, I'm playing with m&kb at the moment. As licketysplit mentioned, this is not an isolated issue (you'd think a freakin' space sim would take care to get its flightstick support in order before launch). Cringeworthy voice acting, which is par for the course for Egosoft, and some Morrowind-level character animations makes the on-foot parts of the game pretty hilarious. The space part of the game, which is obviously the bulk of it, is quite good. Even having to use m&kb, the ship controls quite well, once I set up the controls to my liking and inverted the Y axis (Why isn't the Y axis inverted by default? Who plays a space/flight sim without the Y axis inverted?), anyway. I'm not sure how I feel about the highway system yet, but you can always just not use them.

Meanwhile, in Florida: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/man-impersonates-cop-for-dunkin-donuts-discount-576324

Thifourf Ditches QTEs That's a nice bit of good news.

Blood Bowl 2 screenies:

There have been a lot of nice releases on PC when it comes to platform/arcade games. Both with old style graphics and modern top notch visuals. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (though the devs are...) is a fantastic, stupidly hard, platformer with beautiful visuals. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants to remember the good old days of Sonic etc. Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender is a great little arcade game with retro graphics, were you swim left and right, up and down in a little submarine, defending milk miner kittens from robot fishies. Even plays two player co-op on one keyboard Valdis Story (posted pics in the other thread) is a nice side scrolling hack and slash which reminds me personally of a modern day version of Wonderboy in Monsterland. Then there are the reimagined versions of Ducktales and Mickey and the Castle of Illusions. Both are not too hard but well worth it just for the nostalgia value. And they are well made on top of that. There are more of course... My problem is rapidly becomming that I can't keep up. Yep. If there's any type of game that's under-represented on PC, it's jRPGs.

I don't have any swords, but I do have a flanged mace. I'm not exactly an expert, nor even trained, but I can swing it (it's surprisingly easy to wield) and I can guarantee that whatever body part it hits will shatter.

I'll give impressions in a day or two, but a full blown review, for a game like this, will have to wait for quite a long time. I just hope they didn't destroy the game's complexity and depth in the attempt to make it more accessible. I know they've been saying all the right things about not making the game more shallow, but I'm still a little worried. We shall see.

If it comes to Android I'll likely get it. Edit: I'm also thinking about scooping up an Android copy of Shadowrun Returns. That game would be perfect for my phone. I wonder if there would be some wacky way for me to share save files between my PC and my phone. It would be pretty sweet to play the game at home, then be able to continue on the go, and vice versa.

I don't quite understand why people target iOs for anything but puzzle games. Am I just so out of touch? A windows release would have me interested. Ossian did well with Mysteries of Westgate. Yes. I actually think RTwP would work quite well from an overhead/isometric perspective. Touch controls would be even faster and more intuitive than moving a mouse pointer for selecting targets, and multi-touch is perfect for AoE spells, allowing you to very quickly and intuitively not only determine where you want to center the spell, but also allow for further refinement by allowing you to adjust the size of the area of effect. Selecting abilities/spells from a quickbar would also be quick easy and intuitive, though it would work a lot better on a tablet, as a phone's screen is just to small to make the quickbar icons large enough to be tapped easily.

3 hours to go until it arrives 7 hours to go until I actually get to play it At least it's pre-loaded so I won't have to sit through an hour of downloading.

Mobile games have come a long way. Though, I'm not sure how well this will play. RTwP, I'm assuming that's how the combat works here, may not be particularly well suited for mobile, especially if it's played from a 3rd person perspective.