melkathi

I have been playing Warhammer 40.000: Mechanicus. (Since Shady asked) It is a small tactics game in the 40K universe. The player takes on the role of an Adeptus Mechanicus magus in command of an exploratory fleet/ship in orbit of some planet. The planet so happens to be a Necron tomb world. The player sends teams into the tombs on missions. They scavenge for blackstone (some whatever resource in 40K) and try to not take too long. There are three parts to the game: The ship is the usual management interface where you can select missions and equip and upgrade your tech-priests (your main soldiers). You use the blackstone you have scaveneged to upgrade tech-priests and in this the resource works as XP. There are 6 skill trees, though tree is the wrong word as they are linear. You do have the option though of spending points in any specialization. The higher the upgrade level of a tech-priest, the more augment slots they have and the more stuff you can equip them with. When you go on a mission you choose a squad of 6. You start the game with only two tech-priests, so you will have to fill up the extra slots with cannon-fodder. Initially that means Servitors. Though later on, through mission rewards, you will unlock other soldier types that will cost blackstone to deploy to the mission (half of the cost being refunded if the unit survives). When your cohort (they aren't called squads in this game) enter a tomb, you see a 3D scan of the tomb with visualizations of the cohort's location. You command the cohort to move through rooms to reach their objectives. Most rooms will trigger an event, which will give you three options to react. Some results will be good. Some results will be bad. Sometimes results will be be both. Your command staff have different personalities and will have their own views on how you act. When you enter an objective room or a room with wake Necrons the game changes to the turn based tactical map. Combat is about managing a unique resource to the Mechanicus: Cognition. You collect this from specific spots on the map and from defeated enemies. Cognition is required to use abilities and most weapons. It also is your cohorts action points. Cognition is shared among the whole squad. So a base move is free, but a second move will cost 1 point. Attacking with the trusty power axe? Another point. Shooting with a flamer? 4 points. Etc. Early on there doesn't necessarily seem enough of cognition around, but as tech-priests upgrade and more tech becomes available, they will get some tricks. And there is always the trusty Servitors. If a servitor gets attacked, the Mechanicus analyze the effect of the weapon on the unfortunate target and get cognition for it. After the mission you get your reward, loot etc and heal your tech-priests using obviously blackstone, the resource for everything. The game is not difficult. It also doesn't seem to be too long. After a bit over a dozen missions I am 38% done (the game has a timer that slowly ticks up to 100% which I expect will result in the final battle - an average mission advances it by 3% for me). I expect the game to be no more than 16-18 hours of gameplay if you replay things, take it slow and don't rush too many missions. The Mechanicus as protagonists are refreshing for 40K as we haven't seen them used this way before. [[Verdict:]] emotional receptors experiencing :fun:

Indeed.

In other news, no Random Video Game News thread has ever reached, much less passed, 50 pages.

Part 2

Part 1

That game had potential. Or at least the characters and the world had potential. Would have made for a great Borderlands style game or RPG. Turning it into a shooter was a silly idea.

Checking old CD-ROMs to see what I can throw out and found the installer for the Auto Assault closed beta. I miss that game.

I got a silver medal on the first legacy campaign. Accidentally created a Psi Zombie and that got killed, costing me 5000 points, leaving me just a bit under 5000 points shy of the gold medal. Got a gold medal on the second legacy campaign, but it was a close one. On the third story now and it went so badly that I'll have to restart again. I ignore the story. It's pretty fanfic level. And I keep wondering who at Firaxis thinks people like Bradford. I mean there is a Quiet Bradford mod to make the guy shut up because people can't stand his constant talking. How many NPCs can put that in their CV?

Do I need to Photoshop ciri into those screenshots again?

prid <00003b59> resurrect prid <00003b59> moveto player And the same for 00003b3c

Obviously you are talking about assassin's creed, not majesty gold HD

Fervus is awesome. Fun fourth wall breaking. And loved the poison mushroom interaction with rogues. Similar to the ranger-healer combo.

You're not getting my gold. Hard work is it's own reward. I'm melting. Another day Krypta. Ooh, pretty star. Let Agrela help.

Why apologize? It was a good game

And Humble has a Tabletop discount going.

With the choice of name and signature we would not have guessed

You so know that is the announcement for either a C&C MOBA or a C&C Arena Shooter

Well, after Shen fixes the airship and XCOM Starts recruiting, they find Bradford hiding at the bottom of a bottle, so that would make sense

I read the dragon age ones. First one was meh, trying to name drop a lot to include stuff people would see in the game. It created inconsistencies that shouldn't have been there when written by the guy writing the game. Second one was terrible. Read some Deus ex novel. Was OK. StarCraft stuff I read was surprisingly fun. XCOM 2 was commissioned by a writer who would have nothing to do with the game. When the game came out it showed. War of the Chosen at least brought the Lost into the game that were interesting in the novel.

XCOM 2 was planned as an alternate story to XCOM, rewriting what happened. It never was planned with any sort of continuity in mind. The novel was written to show people the events leading up to XCOM 2. There is a difference. You can't draw conclusions from the first to the second.

The novel was explicitly written as a prequel to XCOM 2, to set up the alternate setting, so no. Following your logic, every mission should retcon the previous one.

It bothers me a bit that XCOM 2 basically redcons the prequel novel more and more with every bit of content they add. So not too keen on the little bit of the legacy story I have played so far. Hope to be surprised.

Finished the main story of Star Control: Origins. Now I am sitting in the free mode, left to explore the galaxy and do the one side mission I hadn't completed. And wait for the DLC/Expansion to be announced.

I doubt the next game is still in concept, Fenixp. The writers and artists had most likely mostly moved to the new project by the time we saw the trailer for war of the chosen.