What are you playing now?

[Oner]

The pantaloo was farther I think. In the room with that...big stupid thing.

[RPGmasterBoo]

You're an RPG virgin until you finish the BG series Oner. So get down to it.

[Calax]

Sup Com 2.

 

It's different than the first (Obviously), and it's been cut down in terms of scale. Which isn't that bad, maps won't take 2+ hours and have a faster start. Also the experimental units now seem more cinematic and deadly in their fights, where in the first they were awesome, but they didn't handle being attacked very well.

 

I've been playing the campaign, and honestly, it could be a LOT better. Most missions aren't the multi-objective maps you're used to (where you're playing for a bit to get to one objective, only to get another objective deeper in your opponents territory because of something you discover) and instead the mission given at the outset is the mission you'll have. Also the campaign maps feel... limiting. I understand that GPG got yelled at (rightly) for having uninteresting level design in SupCom1 because everything was effectively flat terrain due to the scale of things. But in SupCom2 things have been chopped down so much that sometimes I've been looking all over for a location to put my experimental production facility because the factories in my base have left no room. They did solve a FEW of the pathfinding problems but really only added the ability for units to push each other around.

 

On the subject of experimentals: In the main campaign they tell you to pick up these experimental units via research, giving you the ability to make them. But what they don't tell you is exactly wtf they do. I mean the description for one is just "Experimental assault block". Thats it, doesn't say anything about AA or whatever. I personally ended up coming up with a rule of thumb for these things "Unless it flies, it has 0 AA". Which is a bit odd because even your COMMANDER has a small AA gun on it, You'd expect the titanic walking machine of doom that bristles with 18 guns, 2 of em bigger than the standard line unit, and 6 heavy missile launchers, to have some sort of puny gatling gun to provide some semblance of air cover for itself...

 

Research is the big new thing. Basically it's the command trees from Company of Heroes and Command and Conquer Generals. As you kill stuff or just let time pass (you can build research facilities to increase the pace you get points over time) you get research points. And EVERY version of unit gets a tree (Land, Air, Structure, ACU, and Navy) which has bonuses and unlockable units. For example, the air trees have unlockable gunships for somebody pushing into the tree. And if you get deep enough into either air or land (haven't done navy really) your individual units will get things like personal shields, 30% damage upgrades (overall), land units will get miniature aa guns stuck to them. It provides a LOT of flexibility and variety between each of the factions, and from what I've seen balances out well.

 

Basically: More cinematic, lower scale, mixed bag. Pick it up if you're going to be doing online, but otherwise wait for the price drop.

[Deraldin]

Are you saying that the experimentals are better than what was in the demo? The few that I was able to use just felt completely useless. Not only did they die very quickly, but they couldn't kill anything.

[Calax]

Are you saying that the experimentals are better than what was in the demo? The few that I was able to use just felt completely useless. Not only did they die very quickly, but they couldn't kill anything.

What little I played in the demo had you running around with the weakest of the UEF experimental that you didn't control. The others that you'll get are MUCH more powerful (Fatboys are more walking arty platforms than actual combat units).

[Calax]

I just beat heavy rain, gonna retry one of the last two chapters to try to save the ONE character that died on me. I know it goes against what the devs want but I need to keep my people alive.

[Purkake]

I think David Cage's point was that we have to live with the choices we make, in real life there are no do-overs.

 

Not saying that you shouldn't do it, but it's really cool that you never get a game over screen, the story just takes your failures and bad choices into account.

Edited March 6, 2010 by Purkake

[Calax]

Given the final plot twist, I think wonder what'd happen if three of your characters were killed..

[Purkake]

I'm sure there's an ending for that. Probably up on youtube as well.

Edited March 6, 2010 by Purkake

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Given the final plot twist, I think wonder what'd happen if three of your characters were killed..

 

There's an ending where

everyone dies and the murderer escapes

.

[Calax]

Given the final plot twist, I think wonder what'd happen if three of your characters were killed..

 

There's an ending where

everyone dies and the murderer escapes

.

That's basically what I was looking for

 

Played some more SupCom2. Made it to the cybran campaign where there are a few interesting missions. Including one that is JUST engineers attacking you... yes, building units are attaching you with russian bum rush tactics and building defense towers. I got probably around 1000 kills on that map ALONE (note, the max unit cap for a side is 500, and this was nowhere near unit cap for me or them). The story reason for this is that the engineers programming bugged so they were building automated defenses like nobodies business. It was an interesting turn from the standard skirmish style games. I ended up slaughtering them with four cybran expiramentals that slowly moved towards my objective while using beam weapons to knock out any incoming engineers. I think that technically the devs wanted me to build a fairly decent navy of battleships and destroyers (as this was the first mission with battleships) that I could use to sneak around and blow up the rear factories to slow down the incoming engineers, but watching six giant ant mechas with laser cannons blazing waltzing up the only road to my base guns blazing annihilating everything was more awesome, if more time consuming.

Edited March 6, 2010 by Calax

[Starwars]

Not been playing a whole lot lately. Just started a new game of Vampire: Bloodlines though. Went Malkavian the last time... I find it a bit hard to switch back to the "normal" clans after playing a Malk. But, playing as a Toreador female this time around.

 

This game really oozes atmosphere.

[Gorth]

Just bought Zombie Driver, currently downloading from GamersGate. For 10$ I get to drive around running over zombies. DRM free too. How bad can it possibly be?

[Krookie]

Anyone else interested in L.A. Noire? Look it up if you haven't heard of it but it's a Rockstar game (GTA guys) set in 1940s L.A. You play a detective solving a series of crimes and work your way up the ranks from street-crime officer to homicide detective. I'm very excited for this game.

[Morgoth]

Anyone else interested in L.A. Noire? Look it up if you haven't heard of it but it's a Rockstar game (GTA guys) set in 1940s L.A. You play a detective solving a series of crimes and work your way up the ranks from street-crime officer to homicide detective. I'm very excited for this game.

It's not a Rockstar game, it's from Team Bondi (unproved studio). And there's hardly any info out yet.

[Krookie]

Anyone else interested in L.A. Noire? Look it up if you haven't heard of it but it's a Rockstar game (GTA guys) set in 1940s L.A. You play a detective solving a series of crimes and work your way up the ranks from street-crime officer to homicide detective. I'm very excited for this game.

It's not a Rockstar game, it's from Team Bondi (unproved studio). And there's hardly any info out yet.

 

Published by Rockstar...

 

And there was just a 3 page spread in Game Informer about it.

[Purkake]

We had a thread about it a while back. There's also a CG trailer.

 

I'm not really excited about it, seems like a Daikatana situation.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

How bad can it possibly be?

 

It's an interesting little game, not overly good but not that bad either. The biggest issues seem to be the camera and the controls but after you get used to those it's a nice distraction.

 

[Shryke]

rome - total war

 

just installed it and started up a game as the Brutii

now their natural expansion area is into Greece, yet the Senate is bugging me to take on the Gauls and Carthaginians as well

 

i'm thinking the second the Marian reforms come about i'm gonna try and crush the damn Senate

[Calax]

Just finished the Supreme commander 2 campaign.

 

And now: thoughts

 

After you get used to the different resource model it's actually pretty fun. The biggest thing that annoys me however is the story. Basically the first two parts of the campaign (UEF and Aeon) serve only to create plot points for the third. In the UEF campaign, you rebel against a xenophobe and defend aeon cities, all of which ties slightly into the aeon campaign. The only thing that really ties into the third (cybran) campaign is the consequences of the FINAL mission. In the Aeon campaign you're playing a character who's kinda rebelling against her government because she doesn't think they do enough. (by kinda I mean "runs off on her own and follows a group that is more in line with her ideals") Her story doesn't really have an end beyond linking up with the UEF commander from the first campaign at the end, and having a SINGLE plot point that affects the cybran campaign.

 

The Cybran campaign feels MUCH bigger than the other two, because you're not fighting localized battles for the most part. The final missions for the other two campaigns are "Attack the primarly military base on the planet" and "defeat three commanders while keeping friendly commander alive" respectively. The Cybran final mission has you duking it out with waves of experimental units and other units charging at you while you try to use land units to destroy a number of objectives and finally the enemy commander... on a space platform while looking down at a planet that's under threat.

 

Now I understand it's stupid to nitpick this because "Lawl, it's SupCom, Taylors games have never been story driven!" but still, even the laziest of stories in RTS's tended to tie together the campaigns (assuming the campaigns were set up in this style). You don't just have each campaign tied together with a throwaway line and a cameo from the guys in the others.

 

Gameplay wise it's kinda fun, as I mentioned before the economic model is more like starcraft than SupCom1, but it works out well. Experimentals don't feel horribly fragile anymore and the later ones can actually take a SIGNIFICANT beating before going down. There are some basic units on each team that you really only use. UEF is a "titan" assault bot (titan in quotes because this sucker is about the size of the standard units), Cybran is their aa unit, you gotta back it up with some ground fighters, but these suckers pump out their own shields so if you mass them you'll see experimentals having trouble getting through the 30 layers of shields. And the Aeon is a mostly their basic fighter unit.

 

Shields have been changed so that they don't just fail all over. If you focus enough damage on one section, that sector will drop eventually, letting your shots through. So layering your shields around your defensive structures is a good idea. They removed Tiers in terms of factories and other structures. You don't need to upgrade your land factory to produce the best units, it comes with them. Factories CAN be upgraded so that they have built in defenses, shields, and radar (minimal use the defenses, at least the AG stuff). And defensive structures no longer are upgradable to another tier.

 

As I mentioned above the experimental units are MUCH tougher. But they come in two "tiers" based on research. for each faction there are one or two that are found early in the tree, they are more easily killed than their bretheren and thus I used them for early stopgaps on defense mostly. The later tier are the ones at the end of the tech trees, This is where you find the galactic colossus and it's cousins. They're MUCH bigger than the early tier units and can usually beat an entire army into a pulp (assuming the standard acchilies heel isn't there, air units, but each team has an anti-air experimental now).

For comparison:

 

That's the fatboy (the cross shaped unit on the left). which is tier 1

 

That's the King Kriptor, the Tier 2 experimental. (again on the left, the only blue thing there )

[Gorth]

How bad can it possibly be?

 

It's an interesting little game, not overly good but not that bad either. The biggest issues seem to be the camera and the controls but after you get used to those it's a nice distraction.

 

It is quite fun, as long as you don't play for more than 20 minutes at a time

 

There seems to have been a patch released recently (1.06) which deals with some camera (there are several camera modes now) issues. The controls are a bit iffy. It detected my joystick as a gamepad and refused to slow down my car until I found out which know/wheel/slider made it go full throttle

 

Eventually I found it (a Saitek x52 pro has a lot of buttons) and "centered" it, so I could use the keyboard for driving. Got some machine guns for my car, so now I can mow down mobs of zombies in addition to splattering them with my fender. Good fun.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Napoleon: Total War. Snazzy.

[BicycleOfDeath]

Not any UbiSoft DRM games.

[I want teh kotor 3]

I'm playing the award-winning game of "procrastination." The AI keeps on screwing me over.

[MacMichael]

Just finished Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. Not bad for the $7.50 I paid on Steam this weekend, but the single-player campaign is short and it feels like they didn't make use of half of whats in the game.