marelooke

I'll have you know Test Drive Unlimited was on my list! It's not a sim, but it's still a race game (most sims are either console exclusive, don't play well without a wheel or have other issues and thus didn't make the cut) I loved that game, could've made the list, but I haven't played it in a few years unlike Richard Burns Rally. TDU2 was a real letdown though, no wheel support to speak of. TDU servers were shut down, unfortunately and converting a save to offline requires messing with hex editors and the like.. Also lost my TDU2 account and support is dead for that game (not that it matters too much, there was more wrong than good with the game, starting with the handling) Man, how I wish someone would make a game with that scope again, with some semi-realistic handling at least. Not the pure arcade stuff we got in stuff like "The Crew", but more like Forza Horizon, but with a big map for a change.

I thought they switched to something from Amazon a while ago, wasn't that what all the drama with CryTek was all about?

I'll have you know Test Drive Unlimited was on my list! It's not a sim, but it's still a race game (most sims are either console exclusive, don't play well without a wheel or have other issues and thus didn't make the cut) As far as games that I'm disappointed didn't make it. RTS fans really should check out Warzone 2100, it's free (the devs open sourced it when they went under) and still in development by the community (also, it runs on Linux). It was one of the first 3D RTS games back in the day (beaten only by some terrible game nobody remembers). Just a little warning that the "new" AI can really brutalize you, if you want to start off easier you might want to stick to classic until you get a grip on mechanics. Couple of things to note: the campaign videos are a separate download (originally due to copyright, nowadays the reason is simply download size I think). You probably want those if you intend to play through the campaign. (edit: installer can now download those for you, so that's nice) The game's relatively slow paced (which I personally like) and had some innovative mechanics (for the time at least) like "commander units" that controlled those under their command and true LoS (LoS affected by elevation etc.)

There's actually one surprise to me in the entire list ( double checked, so unless I'm going even more insane and/or Firefox' search function is broken...). No mention of Jade Empire, did we all just manage to forget about it, or ... ?

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. actually... I haven't played it myself but was all the same surprised by the high placing in the list, and slightly curious even though I've never been a huge fan of survival horror games (which I understand the game is? I could be wrong). You didn't ask me, but I ain't letting that stop me I never considered the Stalker games to be survival horror, really (unless you'd also consider the Metro 2033 games such, I guess). But rather greatly flawed open world shooters (well, very large maps at least) in a very interesting setting and with really great atmosphere. There's definitely some survival elements (eg. you need to eat, bleeding requires bandages, weapons can jam if not well maintained, etc) but it never got near Metro 2033 levels of "AAAAAA I'm out of air filters" levels (which I only ever had in the 2nd Metro game, but that's neither here nor there ). That said, the mutants created some really really tense situations so I get where the "horror" idea comes from, especially when dealing with specific areas, but really most of the time you're dealing with humans of some faction. I also kind of liked the story, though the pacing near the end in the first game was really off (you're slowly acquiring better weapons until suddenly they throw the entire arsenal at you and send you on the final mission...) I'd also argue the first game really *needs* some form of mods to make it enjoyable at the very least a mod that allows armor/weapon repair since they kinda forgot about that in the base game. Not that it's not completable in the original state (I completed it like that, after all) but having to drag a spare armour or gun around (or having to throw it away at some point) instead of being able to repair it at some faction camp is kinda...meh.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree as far as DA:O is concerned. While the game certainly had its flaws I think the direction they took with the engine was the best they could have taken to take the RTwP classic systems "to the masses" (so to speak). That the game was a buggy mess (the expansion, Awakening, is the only game I never finished due to an actually game breaking bug) with utterly broken combat balance (some spells were beyond overpowered until pretty late in the patching cycle and certain enemies didn't scale properly) and that the story itself was rather dull (albeit fairly well told) makes it only more disappointing that they gave up on that direction (something I blame entirely on their acquisition by EA) and went full on action with DA2/DA:I The storytelling in DA:I is considerably worse (though the overall story is arguably more interesting), the combat mechanics are just dull (though balance is better, I guess. I have no idea how one could find DA:O's combat worse than DA:I's though, especially when repetitiveness is brought up) and the tactical camera is utterly useless. The maps are good looking but most of it appears to be used to place collectibles. I also feel the characters in DA:I actually look worse than those in DA:O (especially the elves), but "de gustibus et coloribus...". Light armor otoh, yeah, let's just not mention DA:O light armor. I'd also argue the companions in DA:O were much better fleshed out and more memorable than those in DA:I. I mean, I can still name a bunch for DA:O (Wynne, Sten, Alistair, Leliana,...), from DA:I? I mean, I remember the "types" we had (the guy with the horns, the "Grey Warden", the beyond annoying city elf,...), but most felt more like caricatures than actual characters... DA:I could really have done with a lot more focus. Personally I'd have just made people play an Elf (given how everything centers about their lore) and fleshed that out, instead of making my Dalish apprentice to a loremaster seem just as ignorant about their lore as a random human... But hey, gotta have that checkbox for race choice, I guess...

At least NWN2 beat NWN1, phew.

You game is just fixing itself. I mean, he's a robot, being able to stimpack him didn't make sense to begin with From what I read hitting him with something that stuns, or just shooting him until he needs a stimpack could both work (or fast traveling, but yeah...). Made the mistake of pushing through the start of NieR: Automata and I think I'm likely to actually finish this game even despite the control scheme. My biorhythm is not going to like this though, not at all...

They are big and I am small and that's not fair!

I assume that's for the Baba-Yaga DLC? When I finally managed that I noticed that achievement was bugged and it didn't trigger since the game hadn't counted one of the collectibles. Nothing much I can do about it either since I, well, collected them all. I assume they fixed the achievement, just not retroactively so I'd have to start over if I wanted to fix that. In other news, I played and finished Submerged, fun little exploration game. Simple mechanics, nice vistas and relaxing music. No combat and no way to die. Story is told with pictures, there's not really any voiced dialogue (even though the main character speaks a line here and there it's a made up language). Took me 6 hours to complete according to steam, probably less since I let the game running for the "stay in the boat for a full day/night cycle"-achievement.

You are aware you need to beat it twice to get the full story "reveal"? Though I guess most here will have figured out what would/could happen after the first time through...

Oldest game I remember playing (well one of two, couldn't find a screenshot of the other one), but here goes: The other one was something where you played as a snake and you had to get elephants into an enclosure. The *real* goal was to get the elephants to break through the wall though.

I tossed all of them out of my list since MMOs evolve too much. Me Liking WoW years ago (during the TBC/WotLK era) isn't exactly representative of my feelings about the game now. Same goes for a few others I've spent quite a bit of time on (eg. EverQuest 2, which I forgot to even put in the honourable mentions, shame on me). Single player games might get patched, but after a few years they don't tend to evolve as much (if at all) anymore, and while tastes change over the years other people can get to experience the game as I did (or something very close to it), unlike with MMOs.

It's a lazy way to create "difficulty". Iirc a Blizzard dev commented on this (in regards with permastunning thieves in WoW PvP) that leaving players in a situation where they don't have any actions they can take (eg. being stunned or knocked down without any active ways to recover quickly) is extremely bad game design and they try to avoid it at all cost. Unfortunately most developers haven't gotten that memo yet. I always found it amusing that people complained about permastun in wow but have no problem with the druids heals/beast shape, disc priest (seriously wtf), or holy pallys in pvp. "OMG I can't move bc someone blew all their CDs on me but then the person gets ganked by the next person bc no CDs" is more of a problem than "omfg I've done nothing but ****ing massive dmg to this damn druid but bc of the hots and cat/bear form running around and I die from being nickled and dined over several mins"..... "I can't do anything but can easily kill them the next time I or a team mate sees them if shortly" to "OMG why I am even dps when this person can easily heal thru but since I can't heal I'm gonna lose". Anyone in pvp would much rather face a rogue than a druid or a disc priest or even a holy pally. I'm not sure how current balance issues invalidate this dev comment (which was made during the TBC/early WotLK era). I haven't played the game in quite a long time (had a quick stint earlier this year, decided there was nothing in WoW for me anymore) so I'm not aware of the current state of the (end)game.

It's a lazy way to create "difficulty". Iirc a Blizzard dev commented on this (in regards with permastunning thieves in WoW PvP) that leaving players in a situation where they don't have any actions they can take (eg. being stunned or knocked down without any active ways to recover quickly) is extremely bad game design and they try to avoid it at all cost. Unfortunately most developers haven't gotten that memo yet.

For me personally DK2 is easily in the top 10 or even top 5 of my most disappointing games ever. That explains a lot What OS did you try to run it on btw? I don't think I ever had trouble with it up until at least Windows XP, I don't think I have tried it since.

I think most of the flak was directed at the original reboot. Which was weak in many areas. Rise otoh is a pretty good game, could do with some more/bigger puzzles (I kinda miss entire levels being a giant puzzle like Palace Midas or St Francis' Folly), but it's a net improvement over TR2013 in all areas (can't think of any it didn't improve on at least). No, those thankfully have been scrapped. Lara now also actually has a brain and a spine, quite unlike in TR2013.

Find my what? On a more serious note, I actually did decide to go to the Institute a little while ago and the main quest made me lose interest in playing for a bunch of days. It's so so bad So I'm back to ignoring it exists so I can enjoy exploring the Wasteland.

Hi! Awww, cute! Can we keep him! (how I managed to walk up to a Deathclaw in power armor without waking it up I'll never understand. I grabbed the loot from the box and went on my merry way leaving the cutie to murder more raiders) "Pop!" She might have had a few "accidents" with explosives...

Making the list was hard, ordering them was even harder and kinda falls apart after the first few I feel: Dungeon Keeper 1 (1997) Baldur's Gate 2 (2000) S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007) Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004) Dragon's Dogma Dark Arison (2016) Warzone 2100 (1999) Jade Empire (2005) Dead Space (2008) Far Cry (2004) F.E.A.R. (2005) Unreal Tournament (1999) Metro 2033 (2010) Mass Effect 1 (2007) Prey (2017) KotOR2 (2004) KotOR1 (2003) Half Life 2 (2004) TES V: Skyrim (2001) Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga (2009) Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006) The Witcher (2007) Test Drive Unlimited (2007) Dragon Age: Origins (2009) Mass Effect 2 (2010) Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast (2002) Honorable mentions (no particular order): Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (2009) Mordheim: City of the Damned (2015) SOMA (2015) Endless Legend (2014) Legend of Grimrock (2012) Fallout: New Vegas (2010) Hunted: The Demon's Forge (2011) Resident Evil Revelations (2012) Saints Row: The Third (2011) World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (2007)/Wrath of the Lich King (2008) Guild Wars 2 (2012) Warframe (2013)

He spoils the start of Prey and arguably one of the (few) big jumpscares as well. Anyway, most of those are console games (or console ports of varying quality) so not really relevant to me. And yeah, did manage to watch most of the video (skimmed through some of the console game due to not relevant to me) despite the...enthusiasm of the host.

Finished the initial Season 12 journey in Diablo 3 with my Necromancer. Can't help but feel that the Necromancer is kind of weak. I tried a few different builds but didn't really find anything that really worked for me. My Monk at this point felt just waaay more powerful In good news I finally managed to open a portal to Greed's realm, the bad news was that it was from killing a Menagerie Imp and that I accidentally clicked the portal before I had a chance to loot anything. So I guess I might have lost out on a mini ... (unless they just don't drop loot when they open a portal)

The government didn't really have anything to do with Hayes, did it? It was basically an attempt to reform Hollywood's image. In a way, the MPAA, the ESRB, and the CCA are all the same. Just attempts to make the industries look like they're being responsible so the common populace aren't throwing fits about it. Because the government's ability to censor media is actually not very strong in the US. Heck, all of these self-regulation bodies are entirely optional! You just can't sell in Wal-Mart. So optional in fact that the CCA is defunct now. And it has simply been replaced by "Adults" labels similar to what the music industry does. Censorship is hard for the government to get away with in the US. But there is a long precedent for legislation targetting gambling. I can't speak to whether the government should or not. I really haven't made up my mind there. In an ideal world, our education system would be where gambling is fought, not limitation on the gambling itself. But they're not showing any signs of a willingness to do that. The problem with making people responsible for their gambling is that the gambling industry just abuses human psychology so perfectly reasonable people tend to fall for it (people like to think it can never happen to them, like depressive disorders). I imagine that better education would help some, but believing it will eliminate the problem or relegate it to the "unwashed masses" seems naive. As far as I'm concerned the main reason more people don't get gambling addicted in the "real world" is because most people don't really get exposed to it since the majority of it is relegated to casinos (which most of the population doesn't ever visit) and the stuff outside casinos can be described as the "mobile games" of "real world" gambling. Companies like EA lower the barrier of entry by bringing the gambling to the masses, abuse psychology to make people participate as much as possible and target children to boot. "Irresponsible" is the best I could say about this, but "evil" seems more like it.

The Belgian government published a study already, which has a lot of facts about how it is already legitimate health concern for minors. I linked a partial translation I did of a Belgian newspaper article covering it in the random video game news thread, assuming that's the study you are talking about (I'm not aware of any others, at any rate) Actually it was requested (and as such likely at least partially funded) by the National Lottery, who, if anything, would reasonably have a vested interest to not have this information come out.

Well, given that I'm also playing FO4 currently... I'd say the companions are a little less two dimensional for a change. So there's progress in that respect. Serana was already a step in the right direction and they've improved some more in that respect. (just have to get this off my chest though, and this is probably me, but I can't stand Curie's over-the-top accent. Phew, feeling better now) The story and faction choices seem rather ridiculous and being forced to make choices that appear to be all be bad isn't exactly thrilling (to me), I then rather have FO3's basically "no choice"-choice so I can at least ignore what passes for the main story without ending up being locked out of a bunch of stuff later. That said, as usual some of the side quests and environmental story telling is pretty good. (some of it is also cringe-worthily bad, also as per usual). As far as the story not being worse than FO3, not so sure, I think it's up for debate but I'd say they're close cousinst. Difficulty is just the typical TES game thing, starts off relatively challenging and then falls off rather steeply later. There's still enemies that can make short work of me, but they're not exactly common (thinking higher tier Deathclaws and Behemoths probably) That and having a Vertibird crash on my head, of course. Stealth does appear to be gutted and if you take companions along it's almost impossible to murder anything without getting detected since as soon as enemies go into "cautious" state they appear to go Rambo on them. Then again, with the improved scopes you can often pop their heads off from halfway across the map to similar effect, at least in outside areas... My main gripes are basically that the game is a technical trainwreck (loading times are just bad, especially in the city areas, had a few crashes and a slew of bugged quests that I had to fix through the console) and Bethesda's hostile stance towards the modding community. Also have to admit I'm not particularly fond of having my character speak, hope that was a first and never again thing for a TES game. (not that the voice actress is bad, just that most of the time my character doesn't say anything, so when there's suddenly dialogue it's...jarring and pulls me right out out of the image I had formed of my character). As for getting building stuff to line up. There's concrete foundations that you can build to even out terrain, that helped a bunch. (think that might be part of some DLC though I'm not sure which one). Pulling electricity everywhere is a pain though, or lining up lights or stuff like that. At least if it's not supposed to look like a dump.