What are you playing now?

[SadExchange]

I finally got into the Path of Exile beta and have only put an hour or two into it. Thoughts to follow when work is not pressing. Here's a shot of the skill tree which the developers have taken a different approach to where leveling your character.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Just finished Assassin's Creed II. Not sure if I agree the story was tight in any way (characters were decent but the plot.. ahahah so bad). The bad Italian pronunciation was kinda charming (ironically the citizen NPCs have barks done by Italian voice actors.. kind of jarring hearing them next to the main characters, who in the best of occasions still **** up the prosody), the setting very well realized, and the gameplay night and day compared to the very repetitive first one.

 

I was a bit prejudiced on the Assassin's Creed IP considering the first one was boring to me despite the hype (plus on PC it had an always-connected DRM solution), but I think I'm going to get the later installments in the future, had a jolly good time with Ezio.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I'm in the process of rediscovering my PS2 starting with Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance 2 co-op with my gf.

 

It boggles the mind how many good games that console has.

[Morgoth]

Played through the Darkness 2 demo.

 

Interesting little game, though I prefered the first one due to it's lesser "always-crazy-****-going-around" presentation, and the muted color palette. Still, pretty cool overall and worth a play for a reduced price.

[GhostofAnakin]

Maybe it's just my imagination, or I'm not remembering the first two games clearly enough, but it seems like Brotherhood has way more timed missions, or missions where you have to avoid detection. I find them annoying, especially when they incorporate BOTH time and no detection in missions.

 

I don't recall getting frustrated with this in the original Assassin's Creed or Assassin's Creed 2, but in Brotherhood I find myself annoyed at every second mission.

[Tel Aviv]

Played through the Darkness 2 demo.

 

Interesting little game, though I prefered the first one due to it's lesser "always-crazy-****-going-around" presentation, and the muted color palette. Still, pretty cool overall and worth a play for a reduced price.

Yeah, it plays fairly well and the noodle arms add an interesting dimension but the Darkling's ****ney accent grates on my English sensibilities like so much cheese! *shakes fist*

 

I'm a short ways into Kingdoms of Amalur also. The interface is awful. Equipping a kite shield is much more cumbersome than it ought to be.

[Gorth]

The 'Demolition Inc.' demo. Game just entered my "must have" list for the full version.

[Tale]

TRAUMA

 

A 2010 IGF finalist. It's also nearly incomprehensible. It's framed around a young girl, about college age, being in a car accident. And some hidden object / gesture sequences are I guess supposed to represent mental issues dealing with being stuck in a hospital bed after such an event. But it doesn't do much to establish any connection beyond the assumption. The second sequence has you chasing ghosts, only to capture it, and she realizes the only thing stuck is her and the top of a building blasts off like a rocketship. Which maybe is a metaphor for relationships. Or it could be it's her recovering, but there's no evidence of that in the framing sequence as it's just her seeming as depressed about the whole thing as ever.

 

I won't say "it's too deep for me." It's not. It's just abstraction for its own sake. And while that could be indeed represent something about the mental state of those suffering traumatic events, the actual character in the game is just as befuddled about why a crate has a drain on top of it as I am. Which suggests that the car accident victim is perhaps more grounded in reality than the game's own designer.

 

That's not to say abstract or incomprehensible can't be enjoyable. Salvador Dali's paintings were pretty, but if you tell me the melty watches are anything more than merely beautiful to look at, I will kick you in the face. This game does present a handful of what would be pretty photos, with lots of hunting for obscure ways to reach locations and learning gestures just to free teddy bears from under boulders. It struck me as a woefully lacking in payoff.

[Tale]

Posted in wrong thread.

Trying out stuff today to see what hits me as worth devoting some time to.

First up is Machinarium. The third (that I recall) game from Amanita. Quirky sidescrolling adventure games. Fails to really grab me. The logic is solid, but the pixel hunting is not. And there's nothing else really there.

Next up is Gish. It's a sidescrolling platformer game where you play as a blob of tar. He can stick to walls. That's about all he does. So it bored me pretty quickly. No interesting puzzles and way too slow.

Shank. Okay, now I'm on a winner. Fun sidescrolling action game. Good combos and they don't overdo the platforming. I'll probably give it some time.

Next up is King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame.

 

Edit: Got a round of King Arthur in. Really like it. Only strategy game of this type I've played before was Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. I think I liked that a bit better. But it's still good.

Maybe I'll give The Last Remnant a shot tomorrow and decide between King Arthur and it as my go to game for the next week.

[Enoch]

First up is Machinarium. The third (that I recall) game from Amanita. Quirky sidescrolling adventure games. Fails to really grab me. The logic is solid, but the pixel hunting is not. And there's nothing else really there.

The music is quite good. Try to at least get to the point where you're helping robot musicians recover their instruments. It's not too far in, and the payoff for that is worth it, IMO.

[Fionavar]

Are you saying that the gameplay was indeed not repetitive like the first one? I never finished the first one owing to that and I have the second waiting ...

Just finished Assassin's Creed II. Not sure if I agree the story was tight in any way (characters were decent but the plot.. ahahah so bad). The bad Italian pronunciation was kinda charming (ironically the citizen NPCs have barks done by Italian voice actors.. kind of jarring hearing them next to the main characters, who in the best of occasions still **** up the prosody), the setting very well realized, and the gameplay night and day compared to the very repetitive first one.

 

I was a bit prejudiced on the Assassin's Creed IP considering the first one was boring to me despite the hype (plus on PC it had an always-connected DRM solution), but I think I'm going to get the later installments in the future, had a jolly good time with Ezio.

[mkreku]

God I'm tired of all these hyped indie games that sound so cool and innovative and edgy on paper/reviews, and then when you play them they're just weak copies of some really old games, but with worse controls.

 

I tried The Binding of Isaac just now. It felt like a Flash coded version of Smash TV. Inexact, to say the least. I think I regret paying 2

[entrerix]

binding of isaac is only "good" from the point of its art and sound design, the gameplay itself is 20 years old and not even that good

[Orchomene]

Posted in wrong thread.

Trying out stuff today to see what hits me as worth devoting some time to.

First up is Machinarium. The third (that I recall) game from Amanita. Quirky sidescrolling adventure games. Fails to really grab me. The logic is solid, but the pixel hunting is not. And there's nothing else really there.

Next up is Gish. It's a sidescrolling platformer game where you play as a blob of tar. He can stick to walls. That's about all he does. So it bored me pretty quickly. No interesting puzzles and way too slow.

Shank. Okay, now I'm on a winner. Fun sidescrolling action game. Good combos and they don't overdo the platforming. I'll probably give it some time.

Next up is King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame.

 

Edit: Got a round of King Arthur in. Really like it. Only strategy game of this type I've played before was Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. I think I liked that a bit better. But it's still good.

Maybe I'll give The Last Remnant a shot tomorrow and decide between King Arthur and it as my go to game for the next week.

 

I got quickly tired of King Arthur the RPW. I don't know why exactly. I was hooked at the beginning, but it became perhaps a bit too repetitive.

The last remnant is ok, but not much more. Fun, but nothing really special about it.

 

Now I'm just playing a EU3 game (with Magna Mundi), the Naples Kingdom. I'm trying to unite Italy, but I think I will have issues when annexing the Papal states. The most difficult part was the first war against Venice. The one against Aragon was pretty tough and I knew I had to do it quickly before the merge with Castile. The remaining tough part will of course be the wars against Austria. I will certainly wait for the development of the Ottoman empire before attacking the HRE.

[Janmanden]

I am playing a bit of ME(h)2 with all the DLC's that I added posthumously.. I really regret adding the Genesis, because I thought it would be more like the character creation in Vampire Bloodlines, but instead it's just another staller. A cartoony intro of about 15 minutes of length with nothing but that nasal twang of Commander Shepard as the narrator all the way.. Now the intro alone last almost 40 minutes, before the escape, and my patience is already stretched thin after 30 seconds. Phew.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Silent Hill 2, BG Dark Alliance 2 and Zone of the Enders 2.

 

Sequel orgy

[Mamoulian War]

Changing discs between Disgaea 3, Gran Turismo 5, Star Ocean 4 and ****loads of Excel sheets for my employer :S

[WorstUsernameEver]

Are you saying that the gameplay was indeed not repetitive like the first one? I never finished the first one owing to that and I have the second waiting ...

 

It's much much more varied, both in terms of regular missions and side missions (well, the handcrafted ones anyway, the others all pretty much follow a certain pattern). Mechanics haven't been changed that much, though you generally have more options to tackle your objectives.

[WDeranged]

God I'm tired of all these hyped indie games that sound so cool and innovative and edgy on paper/reviews, and then when you play them they're just weak copies of some really old games, but with worse controls.

 

I tried The Binding of Isaac just now. It felt like a Flash coded version of Smash TV. Inexact, to say the least. I think I regret paying 2

[Morgoth]

Indie games = waste of time for kidz, housewives and other people who do not want a challenge. It's basically the same people who also enjoy crossword puzzles -just banal.

[WDeranged]

On the subject of what I'm playing now, I decided to try Daggerfall, if I'd have played it when I was 15 my mind would have been truly blown, unfortunately it's now just a curious distraction, I don't know if I'll complete it but I'll definitely have an honest go at it.

 

It occurs to me that the dazzling amount of options amount to bugger all if your imagination isn't doing most of the work, I do wish I'd got my hands on it when it first came out, maybe the story will grab me as I get deeper into it.

[entrerix]

Indie games = waste of time for kidz, housewives and other people who do not want a challenge. It's basically the same people who also enjoy crossword puzzles -just banal.

 

 

world of goo and braid were banal?

[Tale]

I'm not sure Morgoth knows the difference between indie and Bejeweled. Of course, he may just be going for controversial.

[Vilhelm]

Finally finished Uncharted: Golden Abyss today. It was a nice game but to say that the boss battles are underwhelming is an understatement. They're 100% QTE that use the touch screen.

 

I bought a copy of Super Stardust Delta (the Vita version of Super Stardust HD). It's really, really addictive... really good. I can see myself spending hours upon hours playing it. My only gripe is that the only way to look at the high score list (and get me on it!) is to connect by wi-fi, which I unfortunately do not have access to.

[Flouride]

Victoria 2 as USA. My start went completely bad, I've finally managed to bounce back and conquered American states from Mexico and while I was teaching the Mexicans a lesson the British Empire decided to contain my rising power and attacked me from Canada. They did destroy most of my fleet, but I took their part of Alaska and Manitoba (cutting Canada in half) after a very long fight.

Should probably destroy their precense from North America completely...