What Are you Playing Now: Living the Good Life

[BruceVC]

I finished Far Cry 4 last night and it was an entertaining experience, it gets a solid 65/100 on the highly respected global " BruceVC game score " system

We all know about Ubisoft games and  what they deliver on and  FC4 is no different. I found myself  compelled despite some " side quest fatigue " still doing numerous activities and killing random enemies right to the end. I like the way the economy of the game works, you utilize money quickly and the side quests provide ways to fund your ammunition purchases and healing syringes which are critical

I found the game to be very elegant and functional , everything worked and I had no bugs or crashes that I can recall

I particularly enjoyed  hunting animals and clearing the main enemy fortresses. And the crafting element made sense and it was fun finding animals to kill for resources 

Good game and recommended for a break from fantasy RPG which is the undeniable leader of  all gaming genres ....as we all know 

[Keyrock]

@BruceVCDid you do the secret (and best) ending? It only takes a 1/2 hour.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

@BruceVCDid you do the secret (and best) ending? It only takes a 1/2 hour.

I didnt but I saw a Steam post about that, I initially thought it was a joke. How do you achieve it and how does it end ?

I spent about 80 worthwhile hours on this game and immediately killed Pagan when I could....I cant believe after all the mayhem and destruction  he caused he actually believed I would want to scatter my mothers ashes with him !!!!

[Malcador]

11 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Peace or War path?  The peace one is actually a bit harder because of higher prosperity type ratings. I haven't played the whole campaign in ages but I do have the 'HD' version of it installed. 

Ah, gatehouses.  I loved doing that.  The market ladies and cart pushers always made me giggle.  I remember in later Impressions games they had these little road-block squares you could place, but for some reason I didn't like them as much as having gatehouses everywhere.  I can't recall why.  lol.   edit: maybe it was because it only stopped market ladies, not building workers and I liked controlling all workers? Maybe? Maybe not? Never mind me.

Peace path, I already did the War one back when I cleared the game. THAT run was fun, pissed Caesar off so he sent a legion which I crushed and when I won the game, the enemy was about to wipe me out   Sort of annoyed I never found out how gatehouses worked and to use them for blocks. 

Food distribution is tricky (read: I suck at it) , I forgot they love wheat first then I think veggies, fruit and meat last.  Problem is I am a fishing based city.

[Keyrock]

37 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

How do you achieve it and how does it end ?

At the beginning of the game you are sitting at a dinner table with Pagan Min. He gets up, asks you to wait for him, then walks away. In a normal playthrough, this is your cue to escape, but what if instead you honor his request and wait? 

After dinner Pagan lets you get your mother's ashes, then the 2 of you go up in a helicopter to fire off a rocket launcher. It's a more fun ending and leaves the country in no worse shape than the other 2 endings. Sabal is basically like your father, an intolerant religious zealot, and Amita is just like Pagan Min, a ruthless dictator, except without Pagan's sense of style. Neither one is an upgrade over Pagan. People will still be oppressed, just a different group of people, depending on who's the ruler.

[Raithe]

7 hours ago, Keyrock said:

At the beginning of the game you are sitting at a dinner table with Pagan Min. He gets up, asks you to wait for him, then walks away. In a normal playthrough, this is your cue to escape, but what if instead you honor his request and wait? 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

After dinner Pagan lets you get your mother's ashes, then the 2 of you go up in a helicopter to fire off a rocket launcher. It's a more fun ending and leaves the country in no worse shape than the other 2 endings. Sabal is basically like your father, an intolerant religious zealot, and Amita is just like Pagan Min, a ruthless dictator, except without Pagan's sense of style. Neither one is an upgrade over Pagan. People will still be oppressed, just a different group of people, depending on who's the ruler.

 

The fun thing is the clue is in the music playing when he Min walks away. As I recall, there's a radio in the distance playing that "Do you stay or do you go" music.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Raithe

[LadyCrimson]

11 hours ago, Malcador said:

Food distribution is tricky (read: I suck at it) , I forgot they love wheat first then I think veggies, fruit and meat last.  Problem is I am a fishing based city.

Yeah, I used gatehouses to prevent low-level housing market ladies from grabbing food from the palace areas and so many housing areas were all fish or maybe fish and wheat only. Or something.  You can do that if you have enough palaces/etc. IIRC.

My fave war level was the one with the elephants.

Edited April 14, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[marelooke]

On 4/10/2021 at 10:50 AM, BruceVC said:

I loved the Dead Space series, that first one was the scariest game I have ever played...the way the aliens make noises and try to creep up on you created an amazing psychological gaming  experience 

I also use to enjoy hunting for ammo and resources and the unfolding narrative cant be ignored because its so interesting

 I dont remember ever having enough ammo 

For some reason the next games in the series didn't really scare me. The one part where I went "oh dear, oh dear, oh fscking dear!" was in Dead Space 2 when

Spoiler

you revisit the Ishimura.

People keep saying the "slow" aimining in the PC port of Dead Space was a bug, but imho it worked well given the heavy suit, and it really made you feel a lot more vulnerable, so I didn't even question whether that was intended until I read about it later...

 

Anyway, have mostly been hopping between my go-to "I dunno what I wanna play" games, Conan Exiles, Warframe, and FF XIV. I did give Outriders a go as the demo was promising. Unfortunately the final game, well, far less so.

Balance, for single players, appears to go entirely out of the window the further in the campaign you get. Enemies with assault rifles have sniper accuracy from across the map, and many "elite", or "boss" enemies will basically one, or two-shot you when you go near them (great when running a melee build...)

As such it often feels more like a case of luck (or not having "bad luck") when I get through an encounter alive, even on what is supposed to be "normal" difficulty. Not really the feeling I'm looking for, tbh.

This game, while mostly single-player, is always online. If the connection goes out during a mission you just get kicked out and get can start over.

This especially matters because there's an inventory wipe bug that happens on disconnects, and crashes, where you can irrevocably lose everything on your current character. Saves are local (and they rely on some sort of anti-cheat to keep people from tinkering with them) so the devs have no backup of your stuff. At best you get some random-rolls of items you may, or may not, have had back (imagine losing some tweaked out Diablo 3 character and getting some random rolled legendaries back. Yeah...)

So yeah, stopped playing until they can sort that stuff out, bit of a deal breaker right there...

Edited April 14, 2021 by marelooke

[MadLaugh]

Sometimes I play Escape from Tarkov, but recently PUBG is having a second life. My friends, who have always been very weak in this game, recently won a chicken dinner a few times - as a result, we spend time together again

I have to buy New Vegas again - I used to have it, but that was years ago. Apparently, a lot of interesting mods were created, giving this game another youth.
With what is happening on the gaming market, it is better to look for entertainment in older titles

[Keyrock]

Further thoughts on GreedFall:

The game looks fairly pretty. Character and creature models look good, the creatures in particular are great, and the animations are fluid enough. I haven't noticed any clothing clipping through hair, body parts, or other clothing, either. The foliage is colorful and vibrant and textures are pretty high res, even if you do some extreme wall licking. 

However, this is a Eurojank title, so there has to be some jank somewhere, right? Don't worry, there is. First thing I noticed is that the water looks like it's from a game from 2008. It's especially noticeable when almost everything else is quite close to contemporary AAA quality, at a glance, at least. I also found one area where the foundation of a house was floating because the devs didn't match it up with the hill underneath correctly. Granted, this was the back of the house, it was only noticeable up close, and I've only found one example of this so far (I bet there's more). Lastly, the grass and bushes don't react at all to you walking through them, they just phase through you. This is a minor complaint and it probably saves performance (the game runs quite well on my lappy) over having foliage collision physics.

This game also can't escape Spiders' infamous invisible walls. I'll say this, GreedFall is by far the most open Spiders game I've played, and I've played them all AFAIK, but it's still a maze of corridors rather than a truly open landscape. Still, the invisible walls are less egregious than in any of their previous titles. Spiders are moving in the right direction. This is easily the closest they've come to AAA quality yet. Keep getting better, you lovely French developers.

[uuuhhii]

12 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Further thoughts on GreedFall:

The game looks fairly pretty. Character and creature models look good, the creatures in particular are great, and the animations are fluid enough. I haven't noticed any clothing clipping through hair, body parts, or other clothing, either. The foliage is colorful and vibrant and textures are pretty high res, even if you do some extreme wall licking. 

However, this is a Eurojank title, so there has to be some jank somewhere, right? Don't worry, there is. First thing I noticed is that the water looks like it's from a game from 2008. It's especially noticeable when almost everything else is quite close to contemporary AAA quality, at a glance, at least. I also found one area where the foundation of a house was floating because the devs didn't match it up with the hill underneath correctly. Granted, this was the back of the house, it was only noticeable up close, and I've only found one example of this so far (I bet there's more). Lastly, the grass and bushes don't react at all to you walking through them, they just phase through you. This is a minor complaint and it probably saves performance (the game runs quite well on my lappy) over having foliage collision physics.

This game also can't escape Spiders' infamous invisible walls. I'll say this, GreedFall is by far the most open Spiders game I've played, and I've played them all AFAIK, but it's still a maze of corridors rather than a truly open landscape. Still, the invisible walls are less egregious than in any of their previous titles. Spiders are moving in the right direction. This is easily the closest they've come to AAA quality yet. Keep getting better, you lovely French developers.

the worst part of that game might be some big empty building that player have to pointlessly run up and down many time

spider also very good at creating occasionally epic moment with great image and music

will likely never forget the shadow dragon scene in bound by flame and that crown on massive horned skull in greedfall

[melkathi]

The right direction for Spiders would be to pick up that Faery game again. I want my sequel

[melkathi]

Other than that, playing the waiting game. Raithe bought Secret Government (screenshots of me playing during the free week are somewhere here on the forum). It is a better game than Evil Genius and far better than Necromunda (granted, most games are far better than Necromunda), so waiting for Raithe to get around to actually playing.

 

I am not in the mood to buy games right now as my purchases over the last year or so included Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars, Necromunda, and Evil Genius 2.

They also included XCOM: Chimera Squad and Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children, but Chimera Squad had Terminal who annoyed me so it doesn't count.

[Malcador]

Caesar 3 attempt on Massilia is a bust. Unstable pottery supply of all things doing me in, guess I'll restart and try to be very efficient with the warehouses. I just hate having housing just to link to global labour pool as I maintain slums

[Hurlshort]

I cleared some sort of goblin dungeon on the Isle of Siptah in Conan Exiles. It was scary.

I'm enjoying the Isle a ton. It's fun just to have a whole new area to explore, but I also feel like funcom has come along way with the engine and their world building, and it resulted in a pretty focused expansion with great effects.

I am building my fortress on a large rock outcropping in the middle of the maelstrom. 

[Raithe]

5 hours ago, melkathi said:

Other than that, playing the waiting game. Raithe bought Secret Government (screenshots of me playing during the free week are somewhere here on the forum). It is a better game than Evil Genius and far better than Necromunda (granted, most games are far better than Necromunda), so waiting for Raithe to get around to actually playing.

I just picked it up and installed it last night. Briefly ran it, and made the mistake of testing out in the Open Game variety, and found absolutely no tutorial type happening. So at some point I'll have to run it in one of the set scenarios and see if they come with explanations for what I actually have to do

[melkathi]

You want that England scenario. It is the closest the game has to a tutorial. Without it, it's a bit like diving into Crusader Kings saying "I need no manual!" though it is still more forgiving than Dominions

[Wormerine]

Deep into my 2nd Outer Worlds playthrough. More or less same impression as my first playthrough. I like it, but not love it. Gaming comfort food. As far as gameplay goes: solid foundations, not much build on top. Tried to do 3 different ranged "builds" and all end up feeling the same with just different thing sticking out of hand. Ended up respecking to long guns, as in my first playthough: between shotguns, assault and sniper rifles I feel it offers the most variety. As far as story itself goes it has "Bioware" problem - sure, there are other ways I could solve quests, but I feel there is an optimal solution to each quests. I could be an asshat, or make morally questionable choice but why would I, if there is a better way out?

Finished Peril on Gorgon yesterday. It's not very good. Not that there is much wrong with what is in there - all of it is quite good, and quite a lot of it. It's about what is not in there - characters to talk to, choices to make. It has very Systemshock/Bioshock vibe, with almost everyone being dead, and us fighting through local threats and discovering how things went so wrong. Story is told mostly through terminals and audiologs - which means, that for the vast majority of the adventure the only interaction with other beings is a bullet to the head. Could work, if the game would take a way 10,000 ammo I have at my disposal, and find a way to make combat tense or interesting. Lot's of unique items to find, and some potentialy interesting science weapons, but with combat that easy, and me becoming so overleveled it's difficult to care. At it's very best it was like being in Edgewater again, with things not dying from one shot... but throughout the DLC I gained over 10 levels and got even more OP. Now I am overleveled for DLC2. 

Just started Murder on E. so we will see how it will develop, but so far unlike PoG it seems to focus on what OW does well. Looking forward to playing more of it. 

Finished main story of Yakuza Kiwami2. Silly good stuff, but Yakuza0 still remains my fav by far. I just don't know, if it's because it is the best, or if it was my first one. After I am done with it, the dilemma will be - continue to Yakuza3 and aim to finish Kiryu's story, or skip straight to Like a Dragon. hmmmm...

[Keyrock]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

Finished main story of Yakuza Kiwami2. Silly good stuff, but Yakuza0 still remains my fav by far. I just don't know, if it's because it is the best, or if it was my first one. After I am done with it, the dilemma will be - continue to Yakuza3 and aim to finish Kiryu's story, or skip straight to Like a Dragon. hmmmm...

I actually like Like a Dragon even more than 0. The main reason is that, and this may be blasphemy, Ichiban Kasuga is a better protagonist than Kiryu Kazuma. Granted, you get to play as Goro Majima for roughly half of 0, and I love Majima, but you also play half the game as the most stoic man that ever stoic'd. Kasuga is just so much more relatable than Kazuma. He's an extremely easy to like protagonist. I mean, Kazuma has a good heart, but he's also basically a statue, while Kasuga is a lot more excitable and fun-loving.

[Hawke64]

Hardland. An open-world action-adventure. Seems nice so far. The combat is simple, AI is weird, the depth of field effect is strong. Somehow reminds of Dark Souls and Gothic.
I've reached Snow Peak and met Queen Ingrid. Still not enough Great Hearts to gain access to the Root Hall (in the previous "area"). I guess, I shouldn't have eaten them (eating hearts allows to level up).

[ComradeYellow]

1 hour ago, Hawke64 said:

Hardland. An open-world action-adventure. Seems nice so far. The combat is simple, AI is weird, the depth of field effect is strong. Somehow reminds of Dark Souls and Gothic.
I've reached Snow Peak and met Queen Ingrid. Still not enough Great Hearts to gain access to the Root Hall (in the previous "area"). I guess, I shouldn't have eaten them (eating hearts allows to level up).

I bet it doesn't topple HZD tho.

[LadyCrimson]

I would like to be playing something, but nothing interests me.

I goofed off a little more with both DK1 and DK2, just some levels I made for dungeon building and avatar-whacking.  Thought about redoing a few of the fave levels from Deeper Dungeons (the ones with the zillions of tunnelers at the beginning where you have to wall off fast or die) but .... eh. 

Actually, I pulled out my DK-Gold Prima guide and read through it - that one was especially entertaining, the writer/s were amusing and it was so full of details.  Sure, 'net guides are easier, but I miss those Prima guides, in a way. 

Edit: from the start of that guide: (and they kept this kind of tone most of the time)

Quote

 

Field Guide for Novice Keepers
Start Intro.  (note from LC - refers to the games start movie)

It's customary for entry-level Evil Doers to view an inspirational film about the powers of darkness triumphing over the pathetic and puny heroes.  It is indeed inspiring.  The Lord of the Realm walks into the dungeon, an alarm goes off, there is a brief battle and the knight is dispatched.

Is is an excellent film, but keep in mind it is for recruitment purposes only. 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

I don't know if I should be allowed to pick what video games I play anymore.

[ComradeYellow]

Literally nothing more satisfying than luring a Sawtooth into a hail of traps and tripwires in Horizon Zero Dawn.

All I need is one measly rat bone and I will have every satchel upgrade.

I'm such pathetic, thorough, utter completionist!

[Raithe]

After several years of playing around with it, I finally decided to try running an ironman game of Stellaris.

Suddenly I have achievements popping up.