Keyrock

Sooooo... Michael is Tommy Vercetti, Franklin is CJ, and Trevor is... a redneck Brucie Kibbutz? I already knew they were recycling the setting, now they're recycling characters too?

Well, when this started out I thought the funding would succeed if they managed to reach 30% within the first week. They did just that, albeit barely, therefore I think they will reach their funding goal.

Awesome! I want my "Stronghold" to be a Winnebago my character cruises around The Bloom and parks outside of areas of interest.

That's it Boo, you are kicked off the Mars Exploratory Expedition. It could have been shades of orange and red at least. Why bother going to another planet if its not going to be colorful? Might as well stay in our ****ty brown and gunmetal gray homes. There are areas that are more reddish. To me, when I play the game, it does "feel" like Mars. Of course I've never actually been on Mars so...

I wonder if this was done more as an earnest plea to pirates or more as a publicity stunt? Honestly, I approve either scenario, and in either case, I thought this was cleverly done. Bravo to the developers, I hope this game earns them a tidy profit.

The game uses the Rage color palette. It's Mars, you're going to have to look pretty hard (and take some hallucinogens) to find a lush jungle.

Mars: War Logs In the P.O.W. Camp wearing starting armor: In Shadowlair wearing fully Technomancered out Leather Outfit and wielding copper tube crafted into bone axe: Character screen (note the Michael Jackson style single Technomancer glove ):

Ok, that killed my interest in the game. Argh. Here's what a typical area looks like in Mars: War Logs: It's not a straight line, but rather branching and intersecting corridors. Occasionally you'll get into a somewhat more open area, but still fairly limited in scope. There is some room to explore, but it's FAR from open world. Think Dragon Age 2 maps. Anyway, I'm over 8 hours deep in the game now and definitely still enjoying it. It definitely borrows heavily from The Witcher 2, which to me is not a bad thing. The combat, the skill trees, the use of melee, ranged weapons, magic, traps, and bombs, the way Roy climbs ladders, climbs up and down ledges, it all seems torn straight from The Witcher 2. I mainly focused on combat skills in Act 1, now I'm focusing on Technomancy (you don't get access to that skill tree until the end of Act 1), aka technological magic, so I can go Emperor Palpatine on people and zap them with lightning. I can definitely see myself doing at least one more playthrough of this game doing a sneaky sneaky focused build. Here's a screenshot of where I'm currently at in the game:

For those wanting to prettify Mars: War Logs a bit, you can use FXAA Injector to add and/or tweak some effects. It won't turn the game into Crysis 3, but it does make a difference. I've messed around with the FXAA Injector settings a bit and gotten everything to look sharper and crisper and gotten the colors and lighting more vibrant. I suppose FXAA Injector can be used with any number of games, with varying degrees of success.

That's extra bad if you don't find out until the morning.

I must be one of few to consider the combat being compared to Witcher 2 to be a bad thing. How bad depends on whether you mean fighting before or after they patched Witcher 2... After they patched it. I'd say it's a little better than fully patched The Witcher 2 combat, but that's the best comparison I can make because the style of combat is very similar. Attack, parry, roll around, use ranged attacks, plant traps, etc. The skill tree progression is also somewhat similar. You have 3 skill trees that you can advance in to make a "specialist" or a jack of all trades. There's a physical combat focused tree, a rogue-ish tree, and a mage-ish tree. Similar to The Witcher 2, you can focus on the fighting elements you use or enjoy the most, but you'll never profoundly change the nature of the combat. Geralt is who he is, similarly, Roy is who he is. It's a budget title through and through. The lypsincing is out of whack, there are some minor misspellings and mistranslations, the game is chock full of cliches, levels are relatively linear with only a small bit of room to explore, yet beneath all that is a pretty enjoyable game with some real campy charm. Some people have written that it's like playing a game from 2006 with all the bad and the good that comes with it. That's a relatively accurate assessment. Edit: The DRM is Steamworks. The engine is solid as a rock. I have had a grand total of zero issues downloading, installing, and playing the game.

Swen had been practically begging people for that during the campaign. I'm going to do my best to mod Kirill into the game, if he's not already in there as an easter egg or something. Kirill is way too awesome a guy to not be in the game. Second order of business will be modding the game so I can play as an orc, on account of orcs being awesome. As with practically any game, I can almost guarantee that a nude mod will be one of the first to pop up. The modding community has it's priorities in order.

Played some more Mars: War Logs. I'm really liking it. It's thoroughly impressive for a budget title. Heck, some publishers would likely try to pass this off as a $40 or $50 game. It's like a mashup of Rage, Dune, Firefly and Chronicles of Riddick, with The Witcher 2's combat system and classless 3 skill tree advancement system. Perspective is an interesting thing. Had I paid $40 or $50 for this, I don't know if I would be enjoying it as much right now, despite the fact that it's better than some big budget titles. However, having paid $16 for it, I feel like I got a real bargain, which is probably adding enjoyment to what is already a pretty fun game.

I agree. I have no interest in "playing" Cutscene: The Video Game - QTE Edition, but I wouldn't mind watching it.

I changed it over there to the sleepy rat too, for consistency's sake. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on Mars: War Logs. With the 20% voucher I got it for 16 bucks flat at Green Man Gaming. At that price my curiosity and love of sci-fi overrode my tightfistedness. I've played it for about an hour so far and I've already had more fun with it than my recent foray into MMO Land. ***Grain Of Salt Alert! Super Small Sample Size*** * It looks a lot like Rage, though not nearly as graphically good. * The fighting and RPG systems are sort of like something along the lines of The Witcher 2. * Graphic and production values are really good for a 20 dollar download only indie game, though not AAA. * Voice acting ranges from bad to halfway decent. * Crafting system seems decent, though not overly deep. Again, I'm barely scratching the surface, so all these thoughts are based on very little gameplay and extremely subject to change, but I'm enjoying this Rage/The Witcher 2 mashup so far. For a budget title, it seems quite good so far. Hopefully it stays that way throughout.

Better "this time" than not at all.

It's definitely better than: <company name> has stupid idea, <company name> is told idea is stupid, <company name> goes through with it anyway, <company name> keeps insisting stupid idea was great idea. That scenario has happened all too often. Buddhists say there are 3 steps to wrong doing: Step 1: Thinking about it Step 2: Doing it Step 3: Celebrating it The sooner you stop the less damage that is done. I commend CD Projekt RED for stopping at Step 1.

I too am teetering on the edge of pulling the trigger on this one. I've been hearing mildly positive things about it.

Titan Quest is freakin' awesome. I can't wait for Grim Dawn, from the lead designer and some of the people that worked on Titan Quest. The alpha should be dropping within a matter of weeks, if not days, and I'm in on that. I'm giddy like a school girl backstage at a Bieber concert.

Well, if you end up in Champions Online, let me know. I also have Guild Wars 2, The Secret World and The Old Republic installed, but I forget to log into those. Cool, will do if I wind up there. Right now, for whatever reason, I'm not in any mood to do anything superhero themed. I'm in the process of downloading TERA. I'm a bit turned off by the jRPG style comically gargantuan weapons and ridiculous bikini/carapace and obnoxiously over stylized armors, but I heard TERA actually has a good action/hit detection based active combat system rather than get within 10 yards, stand still, and push keyboard keys, like 95% of MMOs. The upside to F2P MMOs is that you can try them out for free and there's no pressure to keep playing due to having already paid for a subscription. If I don't like it I just uninstall it and forget about it, nothing lost besides a couple hours of my time.

Nightmare at North Point, Zodiac Tournament, Year of the Snake.

If you thought Saints Row the Third was dull, you might just not be capable of having fun. I keed, I keed. I guess those types of games are just not everybody's cup of tea. Buying the base game (Sleeping Dogs) is a less "risky" proposition, I guess, but if you're going to eventually get at least all the story DLCs then you'll likely wind up paying $17.50 or close to it anyway. Either way, I just figured I'd share that alternative deal. Choice and all that jazz.

You hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability (the game fairly really soon).

Do it, it's a great game. It was my second favorite game of 2012. Green Man Gaming has the complete pack 75% off (every DLC included). There is also a 20% off voucher (GMG20-GGN5D-FC3NA) that you may likely be able to apply on top of that (I can't say for sure). It unlocks on Steam. I haven't played an MMO in likely over half a decade and I decided that it's probably wrong of me to keep hating on MMOs and shunning them like they're the bubonic plague without having actually played any in such a long time. I'm not about to pay for one so I decided to give a F2P one a try for kicks. Loaded up Age of Conan and made a Cimmerian Conqueror. Played the game for about 2 hours and so far I actually had a bit of fun. Of course it's at later levels that I'll find out if the game is any good, assuming I stick with it that long. At least without a subscription I don't feel inclined to spend as much time playing it as possible to get "my money's worth" so I can play it casually, avoid any and all microtransactions, and if I level up slow as molasses, then so be it.

You can find the stream recording on their twitch so try that? Doesn't work either. I'll have to wait until a kind soul uploads to Yootube. It's definitely worth watching, even if for just for Kirill playing and David singing Smoke on the Water.