What are you playing now?

[LadyCrimson]

HInterlands:Orc lord or whatever. Gamespot had the CD for $10, I wasn't going to say no to that.

 

First thought upon reading reviews/forums: Sounds like my kind of game.

2nd thought upon first quick game map: This is weird & confusing, and where's the manual.

3rd thought upon playing a few games: I like this game. Needs some more polish, but I really like it.

[Undecaf]

Playing the demo of ArmA 2 completely turned me off of the game.

 

When the training mission involves the AI "combat training" guys to start attacking me when I'm not even at that point of the tutorial yet, including shooting and killing my CO for the tutorial, I grow very cautious of the game.

 

Arma 2 had a fair share of glitches and bugs at first (and still has some). They almost turned me off the game too, but after the latest patch I haven't found anything gamebreaking (not yet anyway).

Edited October 7, 2009 by Undecaf

[entrerix]

i just got empire total war on the steam sale... so far im very pleased with it.

 

i've never played a total war game before, i'm quite happy with the mix between tactical battles and civ like gameplay. though i find myself autoresolving most of the battles... im not sure how i feel about this.... i like the battles, but they take so long, and when im wrapped up in my strategizing i dont feel like taking an hour to play out a battle i can autoresolve in seconds.

 

anyone have any thoughts on this conundrum?

[Hurlshort]

I only play about 1 in 10 battles. The game is long enough. Basically I play the tough or even battles.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Basically I play the tough or even battles.

 

That's what I do as well.

[Pidesco]

I'm kind of balanced between doing every single battle myself or auto resolving all the easy ones. The problem is that after auto resolving, I always think I could have done the battles better myself, and that torments me.

[vault_overseer]

Been playing Edge on the iPhone since it was re-released yesterday(**** you, Tim Langdell) What a great game! If any of you have/game on iDevices, get it nau!

 

I'm just gonna repeat myself. EDGE is freaking awesome. It's definitely sharing my top iPhone game spot along with Rolando 2.

[Calax]

What the others have said is true, but the thing is for those hard core battle players is that they usually end up taking FAR less casualties in fights (like getting a 100:1 kill ratio). but often it's just better to let the game auto resolve those that aren't pivotal in your plan (like defending your capital etc)

[LadyCrimson]

What the others have said is true, but the thing is for those hard core battle players is that they usually end up taking FAR less casualties in fights (like getting a 100:1 kill ratio). but often it's just better to let the game auto resolve those that aren't pivotal in your plan (like defending your capital etc)

Haven't played the game in question, but I know in other strategy games I'd auto-resolve battles a lot, especially once you're familiar w/the way the AI does it (so you know what odds you're likely you'll win). It's just to tedious to do it yourself every single time.

[kingofsquid]

Well, a good free iPhone game is Cartoon Wars (shows stick person holding giant ninja star).

[entrerix]

What the others have said is true, but the thing is for those hard core battle players is that they usually end up taking FAR less casualties in fights (like getting a 100:1 kill ratio). but often it's just better to let the game auto resolve those that aren't pivotal in your plan (like defending your capital etc)

Haven't played the game in question, but I know in other strategy games I'd auto-resolve battles a lot, especially once you're familiar w/the way the AI does it (so you know what odds you're likely you'll win). It's just to tedious to do it yourself every single time.

 

 

yeah but ive noticed then when i autoresolve i tend to suffer a few more casualties than i probably would have if i played it out myself. of course, im actually pretty awful at the battles. not having a pause feature for me to give orders makes it pretty rough to manage all those units. sometimes a unit will just be standing there because i'm trying to set up stuff and im taking too long.

 

or am i totally retarded and there is a pause feature that the tutorial forgot to mention?

[LadyCrimson]

yeah but ive noticed then when i autoresolve i tend to suffer a few more casualties than i probably would have if i played it out myself. of course, im actually pretty awful at the battles. not having a pause feature for me to give orders makes it pretty rough to manage all those units. sometimes a unit will just be standing there because i'm trying to set up stuff and im taking too long.

 

or am i totally retarded and there is a pause feature that the tutorial forgot to mention?

Yes, computer AI loves to calculate odds in such a way as to generate more losses on your side than if you were in control, and probably will until the end of time, hehe. What the math reasons for that are, I don't know, but I'd hazard a guess it's because it doesn't creatively think, anticipate, or re-evaluate every micro-second of movement like a human. :D

So if it's a close battle or if the usual AI losses would somehow cripple me, I wouldn't do it...but 7 or 8 times out of 10, it would not cripple me, so I'd shrug and allow it. I don't generally become attached to strategy game units, unless I'm going for a scored game or something.

[Calax]

What the others have said is true, but the thing is for those hard core battle players is that they usually end up taking FAR less casualties in fights (like getting a 100:1 kill ratio). but often it's just better to let the game auto resolve those that aren't pivotal in your plan (like defending your capital etc)

Haven't played the game in question, but I know in other strategy games I'd auto-resolve battles a lot, especially once you're familiar w/the way the AI does it (so you know what odds you're likely you'll win). It's just to tedious to do it yourself every single time.

 

 

yeah but ive noticed then when i autoresolve i tend to suffer a few more casualties than i probably would have if i played it out myself. of course, im actually pretty awful at the battles. not having a pause feature for me to give orders makes it pretty rough to manage all those units. sometimes a unit will just be standing there because i'm trying to set up stuff and im taking too long.

 

or am i totally retarded and there is a pause feature that the tutorial forgot to mention?

There is one, down by the map there is a clock at the bottom on the right side of the map, above the clock is a pause, slo-mo, play, fast, and really fast button.

 

I was playing more empire today as Austria. The turks on my southern border appear to have decided to not stir up trouble for a bit, but the Prussians up north god adventurous. yes I'm using the right names this time. Anyway, Prussia decided that fielding half again as many troops as me against Prague would end up netting them a victory (one full army with another as reinforcement). I ended up doing the battle myself because the AI would do my troops little justice. I made a mistake at set up by having my demi cannons JUST outside my Line infantry's umbrella (stupid ai, moved my 12lbs cannon but not that thing). Didn't matter much, as they were killed off by cav in 2 minutes of the opening of the fight.

 

The main fight where I was worried I might loose took place early with the attacking army swarming my wall. I ended up pushing them back off the wall (sending six Austrian units into retreat) and sending a good portion of my force out the front gate to guard my cannon. The Austiran Reinforcements finally start getting into things after the main army (more like lead army) was beaten back and came at me from the side, trying to get to my forts front to use the ladders already up, unfortunatly I'd set up two regiments of line infantry and my cannon directly in the path to the wall. Cannon in the center Line infantry to the sides, needless to say they started throwing units at me but they got so strung out that I was ripping apart unit after unit without having to worry about a second one complicating things.

 

Battle ended with a "heroic victory" with me loosing 600 to their 2.1k. Great thing for me is not only did I defend prague, but it also WRECKED their armies in Saxony, so when my turn came up I attacked and took it (which was harder than I anticipated because they had in the city itself a single line unit and 3 militia, but within reinforcement range was the remains of the army I'd clobbered, I still got the win but it was costly).

 

In my southern theatre not much happened except that I managed to take Bosnia with a total of 420 men. I guess I'd wiped out most of the turkish armies with my battles further north.

[karka]

Just finished: PoP: Warrior Within (PS2)

Next: Psychonauts (XBOX)

[Oner]

Just finished: PoP: Warrior Within (PS2)

Next: Psychonauts (XBOX)

Already did Two Thrones?

[karka]

Just finished: PoP: Warrior Within (PS2)

Next: Psychonauts (XBOX)

Already did Two Thrones?

 

Nope, not yet. It's waiting on the shelf unopened. Probably I'll play it after Psychonauts.

[Purkake]

Well, a good free iPhone game is Cartoon Wars (shows stick person holding giant ninja star).

 

Only the lite version is free and it's not good. It's just another tower defense wannabe, TapDefense is way better.

[HoonDing]

Just finished: PoP: Warrior Within (PS2)

Ubisoft clearly wins when it comes to celebrity voice actors. They used Monica Bellucci for WW... that puts them a few light-years ahead of Bethesda & BioWare.

 

I'm replaying NWN. Still the best series ever!!!

Edited October 8, 2009 by virumor

[entrerix]

thank the lord for calax telling me about the pause button!!!

 

it makes the battles so much easier!

 

now im having a lot more fun doing them myself! and i finally beat bunker hill! i got it on my 3rd try, i kept wasting my calvary trying to disrupt their cannons, but it was better to use them for hit and run tactics on weakened and flanked units. my cannons were also not killing as much as i wanted, i'm not sure what i was doing wrong with them, maybe i needed to move them closer to the enemy? i saw a lot of shells smack straight into the ground ahead of them...

[Jaesun]

I've been playing Magic The Gathering on the Xbox360... It's like crack! or something...

[Calax]

thank the lord for calax telling me about the pause button!!!

 

it makes the battles so much easier!

 

now im having a lot more fun doing them myself! and i finally beat bunker hill! i got it on my 3rd try, i kept wasting my calvary trying to disrupt their cannons, but it was better to use them for hit and run tactics on weakened and flanked units. my cannons were also not killing as much as i wanted, i'm not sure what i was doing wrong with them, maybe i needed to move them closer to the enemy? i saw a lot of shells smack straight into the ground ahead of them...

Cannon is there mainly to knock down walls and do a bit of moral damage at REALLY long range. If you're fighting at close range and you don't have your own forces between the cannon and your target, swap to canister and watch the soldiers collapse (you do know how to shift ammo right?)

 

Cav is no longer the main unit you want to use for battles, if you go strait line infantry you'll have a better time (maybe back em up with grenadiers). Cav is more hit and run, and for disrupting arty when you find they're undefended.

[SteveThaiBinh]

I'm playing Risen. It seems okay so far, though I haven't made it out of the bandit swamp yet. Moderately enjoyable.

[Calax]

Started messing around with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. The developers said "if we're gonna rip something off, might as well be blatant" and the story opens with a condenced opener for Civil War (from Secret Wars all the way up to the Stamford incident).

 

Gameplay is the tried and true model, not many changes, but you might as well just let the game auto level you up rather than do it manually. But honestly, it feels kinda like the devs just phoned it in. Their big selling point was "fusion attacks" where two characters combine their abilities to do massive amounts of damage. Well from what I've seen there are only really four or five attacks, just with different models being used in the animation to represent the different characters. So most blasters and most melee will do an attack where the blaster floats in the air and describes a circle while the melee is making something explode in the center to clear out a crowd. I've only seen like 1 other variation of that.

 

Also the voice work is as terrible as ever (admittedly there was a funny appearance by Stan Lee). When I'm playing the voice work gets really crackly like they having trouble with a connection (may be my 360), and I've noticed a couple of times the camera is enjoying not doing what I want it to do. I fought a boss that was basically in a tarantula from Mechwarrior and I ended up getting pushed around so that we I was pressed up against a wall with the boss right in front of me. The camera didn't turn to look down at the character, so I switched characters, the camera didn't move so i spent probably 2 minutes zooming around trying to stay alive while my screen was full of giant boss (thank god you can spam special attacks like no tommarow).

 

Like I said, it feels like the devs are moving to the Madden method, take the game, give it one or two new features, and send it out as a sequel. It just takes longer because they have to rewrite a comic story for the game.

[Morgoth]

I was actually thinking about gettin Risen, but then I reconsidered, and finally decided not to buy it. I heard only Chapter1 is good, the rest is mindless slaying.

[HoonDing]

Now that I finally have my new PC back, I'll be playing Risen soon after installing hundreds of Vista updates, game patches & mods (thank you, Bethesda). God, PC gaming sucks.