marelooke

I'm just hiking around sifting through buildings and building stuff in my settlements doing my best to ignore the main quest. At some point I'll run out of places to visit I imagine, but I'm not quite there yet.

Run by a crew of robots...

Without context this might as well be about Bethesda... Given how Horizon 3 had loads of issues at launch, many of which were never fixed I don't find that inspiring confidence. The assumption that it will go through the Microsoft Store if it makes it to PC is also not a real good sales argument as the Microsoft Store is a piece veritable trainwreck.

Home sweet home Fistbump? Oh no a zombie! (didn't realize how much Trashcan Carla resembles one until I took this shot) ...and I was just forgetting about the main quest idiocy.

Playing whack-a-mole with Windows 10 issues. Booting was starting to take ages so I did a reinstall. Then it installed updates and deleted its own master boot record. Then the start menu broke. After I fixed the start menu it upgraded again and messed up the CLR and PowerShell (and all the tools that you're always told to use to "fix" things) Running an in-place upgrade now. This is easily the worst Windows version I've experienced so far. Everything breaks and since MS decided to "integrate" everything you can't even reinstall them. Only real solution is reinstalling Windows or that in-place upgrade, apparently. What a mess. Let's see what this is going to have broken once it completes. EDIT: didn't break anything. The installer broke, so I'm stuck. Only option left being a clean install, which I just did. Tempted to wipe Windows 10 and reinstall 7 at this point.

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)