What are you Playing Now? - What doesn't kill you, gives you XP

[BruceVC]

I completed FO2 after about 65 hours, It was a fantastic game and I did prefer it to FO1 but they both excellent CPRG will all the mechanics that we love from that era of gaming

Its also not really a fair comparison because FO1 is the original, iconic game and the developers couldnt predict it would be a success so FO2 has the benefit of expanding on established themes and lore which I appreciated like the Enclave, Hubologists and the NCR.

But the highlights for me around FO2 were similar to FO1 and they include
 

• real character customization and this allows you to truly solve quests in different ways so you feel your characters build matters
• open world and real sandbox and lots of quests and ways to influence your own journey and reasons to explore the world map
• unique towns and factions, I loved the lore around New Reno and Vault City
• a varied choice of weapons and an economy that means you need to find and sell resources like weapons. Ammunition being my biggest constant drain on my finances. I like this type of in game economy because you dont take money for granted

I had one major point of frustration and that was initially travelling on the world map and having to encounter endless random encounters as enemies but once I started increasing my outdoor skill that was vastly reduced and the world map became fun

i have decided Im going to play FO3 again and continue my Wasteland adventures but not right now

And finally I give F02 a 78/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system "

Its highly recommended for anyone who wants a fun and worthwhile CRPG experience

[Gfted1]

11 hours ago, BruceVC said:

" BruceVC game rating system "

Whats the highest rated game in this system, and what was its score?

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

Whats the highest rated game in this system, and what was its score?

Good question, it would have been BG2:ToB and I think it scored 84/100 on the globally followed " BruceVC game rating system". Remember the system is based on science and algorithms and has been refined through the years but we still make  functional improvements where necessary 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2023 by BruceVC

[Theonlygarby]

12 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Good question, it would have been BG2:ToB and I think it scored 84/100 on the globally followed " BruceVC game rating system". Remember the system is based on science and algorithms and has been refined through the years but we still make  functional improvements where necessary 

 

 

I stick to a simple 10/10 I liked it 0/10 I didn't like it formula

[melkathi]

There are two types of games, those that start with the same letter as your username and those that don't.

Username: melkathi

Good games: Majesty, Mordheim, Morrowind, Mech Commander, Troubleshooter: Abandoned Chlidren

 

All start with M.

Simple enough

[Mamoulian War]

Season 11 of LowFuelMotorsport ended on Sunday at 23:00 CET. In GT4 league I took the Bronze "medal" in Division 2 I made a new personal record in points and it took 3 less races than last season at position 8 In total, I am currently 33rd out of 2307 GT4 drivers, from all around the word, which attended this season

[LadyCrimson]

No Man's Sky:

I wanted to keep buying/trying (a lot of) different ships, for funsies but also function - cost doing that is high. Even my grinding self was finding it overly taxing re: grind 30-40 million, buy/try one or three, grind, etc. I noticed a difficulty setting that makes buying ships "Discounted."  I was expecting ship prices to be lower for less grind, but also that the scrap/sell value would be scaled to the same ratio (a small to moderate loss). But the sell value actually remains the same so you buy at half price but scrap for full price = 100% profit.

So I stood in a few space stations waiting for ships, bought only the "A" class ones (because they give you inventory augments when scrapped), scrapped, bought, scrapped. I now have 600million units, a lot of Nanites from selling the scrap-modules, and an Exotic ship with 70 storage and 43 Tech slots. Oh sure, you don't have to take advantage of this but I wonder if the profit ratio re: that setting is intentional or a long oversight. It would've been enough help just for the buy price to be halved.

That said, I finally got to try a bunch of ships. The variation of visual styles between the several "class type" is high. If you want a Fighter, Hauler, Explorer, Shuttle, Solar, Exotic etc in a certain style/color scheme, you're gonna have to stand in space stations for a long time hoping for RNG. I know there's some "special" ones to get too but in general.

EDIT: this is a game where once you've gotten far enough to have "learned a lot", it kinda makes you want to start over.

Edited October 3, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[BruceVC]

I have  some  very exciting news, I have decided to play Dying Light 2 as my next game. Im sticking to my rule of not playing the same genre twice in a row and I decided that I need some good, mindless Zombie apocalypse killing fun  

[ShadySands]

I'm still hoping for a Fallout 2 remake/remaster whatever.

I'm playing LOTRO because they just released a new class, the Mariner. Since I hadn't played since before they introduced River Hobbits I went with a River Hobbit Mariner named Burwell and did my best to make him look like Chesty Puller. I played through the River Hobbit intro then immediately quit to make a High Elf version instead and am still playing through the unreasonably long and unskippable HElf intro.

Edited October 4, 2023 by ShadySands

[Hurlshort]

5 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I'm still hoping for a Fallout 2 remake/remaster whatever.

I'm playing LOTRO because they just released a new class, the Mariner. Since I hadn't played since before they introduced River Hobbits I went with a River Hobbit Mariner named Burwell and did my best to make him look like Chesty Puller. I played through the River Hobbit intro then immediately quit to make a High Elf version instead and am still playing through the unreasonably long and unskippable HElf intro.

Dangit, I'm playing LotRO too. Must be something in the water here.

[LadyCrimson]

NMS
----the way I play, big bases are largely pointless. Game keeps prompting me to set up something re: an overseer or some such. I'm happy with just teleporters, landing pad, storage boxes, and a room or area filled with resource refiners. I also read that there's a parts limit (all objects. not just walls/floors), across all bases you make in a save. After that you can't place anything else. Not that most would ever reach the limit, just the fancy mega builder types or those wanting a big base on multiple planets.
----did a few more main quests. I find them utterly boring and went back to making my own fun.
----started a new separate save. The tutorial is even more annoying/feels too long (for my impatience...) the 2nd time. It does give you some early things for "free" doing it all tho, and I don't know if you can access the Anomaly station initially if you skip it entirely. Actually, all the main missions after the first tutorial mission line ends, so far, still feel like tutorial in a way.

Edited October 5, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[SellSwordDev]

Started Weird West today. One hour in so far and I'm craving more.

[Wormerine]

Cocoon. The dimention hopping puzzle game. It's alright.

I mean it is very, very well designed, but I didn't find it that fun to play for the most part. Puzzles ramp up very gradually, and the game does an excellent job in introducing concepts. However, I didn't find this puzzle game actually required me to do much thinking, until last few puzzles. I was more often amazed how devs found clever way for me to do what they need me to do, and take with me balls they wanted me to have, but I had very few "aha!" moments.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Wormerine

[Wormerine]

[Mamoulian War]

Despite not much time, I got to Chapter 7 of Star Ocean 5. And as before, during my first playthrough, this is the place where the game starts to slog a lot, due to its flawed world and quest building. In some cases the game gives you fetch or hunt quest, to which you have to run around the whole map with no way of fast travel, and this takes sometimes more than 15 minutes. And it does it a lot of time. The fast travel option the game removed in chapter 4 or 5, and reintroduces it back again much later. But the damage to the enjoyment of the game has been already done. Despite that, I still like the game much more than Final Fantasy XV, which was released by Squeenix around the same time. Mostly due to the world map being much smaller and less empty. So you get over the most painful fetchquests much much faster.

[Hawke64]

Finished Anno: Mutationem. It is an action-adventure in the cyberpunk setting. The story follows Ann Flores, a security agency employee with a life-threatening medical condition, and her trusted friend, Ayane Misuno, in their search for Ann’s lost brother. During the investigation they stumble upon a larger conspiracy. Overall, the gameplay was fine, the story was ridiculous.

Review:

Spoiler

The combat system is straightforward and solid - there are light and heavy melee attacks and various ranged weapons. The attacks can be chained into combos, allowing to control the battle effectively. For the defensive options, there are dashing (including mid-air, which is unlocked much later) and blocking. Additionally, there are items, which heal, increase damage, or cure status effects, and a super form. The controls are responsive and comfortable, but the mouse is supported only in the menus and the DLC mini-game. The bosses are diverse and numerous, so are the regular foes, and include humanoids, robots, and some monstrous creatures.

The character development system consists of the base stats, combat style-related upgrades, and miscellaneous. To increase the former, the points gained from defeating the bosses are required, while the latter can be upgraded from the experience acquired from the normal foes. The other customisation options include the weapons and the outfits (cosmetic). The weapons can be found, purchased, and crafted. For crafting, materials scattered around the world are needed. In general, there is an adequate amount of boxes to loot and documents to read and they can be highlighted for an easier search.

The general structure of the game includes 3D non-combat hubs with merchants and quests and side-scroller style combat-focused dungeons with light Metroidvania elements, such as access cards, few new traversal abilities, and doors opening only from the other side. The maps are helpful and show the available paths, explored rooms, points of interest, and objectives.

The game saves the progress at checkpoints (computers and teleportation springs), with a few autosaves. The number of save slots is limited to 10 total. The save files are located in the AppData directory.

The graphics with 3D backgrounds and 2D character sprites are beautiful and fit the sci-fi setting. The sound and voice acting are adequate, with Ayane’s voice sounding somehow odd.

The weakest point of the game is its story - it is disjointed, tonally conflicting, and generally poorly-presented, making it look like a parody of classic sci-fi and anime stories. The occasional typos and the subtitles not matching the spoken lines do not improve it.

In conclusion, the gameplay and visuals are decent, but the story is extremely poor.

---

To elaborate on the story issues, ending spoilers:

Spoiler

The only serious parts I've noticed are Ann's quest to save her brother, who sought a cure for her life-threatening condition, and the Consortium's (like the Bureau from Control) human experiments. Though, the MC seemed to ignore the latter, because her brother was not among those humans.

I guess, Ayane could be a foil for the MC (extremely gay talkative hacker with disability vs a serious silent aro/ace body-able combatant) and Ryan (an unarmed technician/hacker) being able to reach the deepest parts of the "dungeons" full of hostiles could be a general video game story trope or it could be explained that the AI Prophet guided him, while Ann's father and most of the merchants could be comedic reliefs (e.g. the humanoid corn brothers, some random merchant losing a sci-fi nuke, or a talking hamster).

The things that stood out in juxtaposition were the Mecha Virus, turning people into cyborgs when there were "normal" cyborgs around, the not-Sephiroth/Vergil (Absalom?) in general (though, the boss battles were good), Ann asking for a meeting with a criminal boss after slaughtering a whole ship of his subordinates and destroying his giant mechanical arms, the Christian crosses in the Hinterlands dimension (a random Eva reference?), and the whole end-game sequence - the monkey scientist, 2 antagonists teleporting to a desert, the OP child exorcising a dragon, the final boss being a dragon, and Ryan's suicide in the Bad Ending.

 

 

[LadyCrimson]

NMS Sky - along with not really needing complex bases for functionality (not yet anyway), another reason it doesn't appeal to my personal obsessive nature is ... I've become so used to 7 Day's structural integrity building rule concepts that the whole modular room building stuff just isn't very engaging even if you can make kewl things visually. I suppose it's a little bit like FO4 style.

I've been wanting to put mini-bases above ground now, because if you don't, eventually you may find rocks/bushes growing in the middle of it as stuff like that respawns close to, but not exactly, the same spots. There are pole foundation pieces, but I can't figure out how to place them at height, they always start at ground level if you try to place one first. But I was able to place the "square room" module ... in mid-air. Just floating in space. Then the foundation would "snap" underneath it and spawn legs.

Ok then.

[LadyCrimson]

So, I got that freighter, deco'd it a bit, then left, fully intending to ignore it. But now every time I warp anywhere and fleets pop into the system, I'm bombarded with "hey don't you want to hire my frigate" messages if I get anywhere near them. Which I could ignore, but it's annoying. There's a whole mini-game re: freighters/fleets/expeditions (expeditions mostly make you items/money passively), which I'm not ready/willing for.

Should I copy back/reload the save folder just before I bought it? Hmm...maybe if I just delete that command room module? Or hire max frigates no matter the type and maybe they'll shut up then and leave me in peace? Haha.

Game dilemmas! 

[Hurlshort]

Started playing Wartales, despite having a ton of other games on my docket. But they added helmets and it does make a difference!

[Gorth]

On 10/2/2023 at 4:12 AM, BruceVC said:

Good question, it would have been BG2:ToB and I think it scored 84/100 on the globally followed " BruceVC game rating system". Remember the system is based on science and algorithms and has been refined through the years but we still make  functional improvements where necessary 

 

 

I sometimes wonder how some of my all time favourite games would have fared

 

They are exclusively on the C64 or Amiga though, they probably missed the bus so to speak

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Gorth said:

I sometimes wonder how some of my all time favourite games would have fared

 

They are exclusively on the C64 or Amiga though, they probably missed the bus so to speak

The globally respected " BruceVC game rating system " doesn't asses games on there  age or the reality of  older mechanics

I just havent played many of the older games that you probably have played 

 

[LadyCrimson]

Apparently there's a hard limit of something like 450ish "claimed bases" you can create in NMS - the base list won't show/activate the base-computers after that. If you delete some, then go back to that base computer you can active them, but...

.....noooooo, my plans for multiple universe/all solar systems conquest are thwarted!

....just kidding. I have no desire to make 13 quintillion bases or whatever. I have been trying to fly toward the center of the current Universe, although from all I've read, moving Galaxies doesn't seem particularly worthwhile/not a reason. Still, I wanna manually (vs. being warped there via quest or something) reach the Center just once. 

Edited October 10, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[uuuhhii]

just notice the new game august soft published have a slightly different art style compare to older game

did they finally find a different artist

did the august face meme finally die

[Hawke64]

Shadow Tactics. A stealth tactical game in the Edo (?)/Japanese setting. Played a few missions, really nice in all aspects for the genre (e.g. no story choices or character customisation), except the lack of pausing.

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Hawke64 said:

Shadow Tactics. A stealth tactical game in the Edo (?)/Japanese setting. Played a few missions, really nice in all aspects for the genre (e.g. no story choices or character customisation), except the lack of pausing.

Welcome to Mimimi goodness.

If you like it, Desperados3 is pretty much the same, but more polished and robust (and with pause!). Shadow Gambit ain't bad either, though it's more freeform nature made it less appealing to me.