What are you playing now?

[Gfted1]

Your above video link automatically starts playing, also known as autoplay.

[Oner]

Oh. I closed the tab before it started.

[Janmanden]

ME 2. Just finished Samara's loyalty mission. No combat, but lots of pathos. You seduce a woman, her mother rushes in to kill her, and when she's dead admits that she was the smartest and bravest of her daughters, but it doesn't feel hamfisted or cheap. When I think about all the ways this could have gone wrong, I'm impressed.

 

I like it a lot too, unfortunately Samara's recruitment is one of my least favourite ones (I'm not sure why, I think I always do it at the stage where the core recruitment/loyalty treadmill starts getting a bit stale), which tends to ruin the whole thing for me.

The resolution of that one was satisfying, for reasons Maria mentioned, but I disliked the gameplay. I love the idea of a dialogue-focused mission to break up the series of shoot-from-behind-boxes missions, but I just didn't think it was executed well. The ME dialogue system might just be too rudimentary to support this kind of thing. Either that, or they felt that presenting a dialogue-based mission that was at all challenging would alienate too much of their audience. The end result was way too much hand-holding, IMO. The player gets told almost exactly what to say, picks those options, and picks the red/blue options as they come up (and hopes that they've been consistent to-date on whether Shep is a jerk or a sap). Boring.

 

Samara's quest is a basically a by the book detective/adventure game. You find all the right clues and the rest is just button mashing of the same corner, which the cordial menu do so well.. Sadly all the 'clues' are ham-handled jeopardy style and for someone who has been doing this for 400 hundred years Morinth is particular naive and gullible.. It's practically impossible to fail this mission unless you really make an effort.. Having either the P or R option available in the end is 'cool', but neither failing that makes any difference. Which really sums up all the follower missions.

 

Had Bioware made a random spread from game to game of the dialogue options around the clock I would actually have to pay attention sometimes and not just zap through them all. Unfortunately this predictable pattern of fixed buttons also tend to make my gameplay much stiffer, because I avoid all the options that would normally give me the opposite of what I want, even when they are not loaded with such.. I hate suggesting dumbing down the game more than it is, but it would actually be nice to know which options are loaded with R/P points to be able to choose 'neutral' options sometimes to break that dialogue numbing pattern.

 

Feels like the Quest is broken, because if you choose Morinth over Samara in the end, Morinth behaves pretty much as if you've already emptied out all of her dialogue options, because they never really change..

The worst part is that you are not quite as great and unique in the end as Morinth wants you to believe..

That's really quite a disappointment.

[Gfted1]

I hate suggesting dumbing down the game more than it is, but it would actually be nice to know which options are loaded with R/P points to be able to choose 'neutral' options sometimes to break that dialogue numbing pattern.

 

In SWTOR, the dialog wheel shows a Red triangle for darkside and a White star for lightside. Isnt it similar with ME?

[Morgoth]

There is no light/dark side in ME.

[Gfted1]

Of course, but there is Paragon and Renegade. I thought I saw Enoch post something about the choices being color coded but I may have misunderstood.

[Janmanden]

Well, partially.. You get special Paragorn and Renegade options sometimes, which are marked in their respective colours, blue and red, but you also get P/R from normal dialogue.. usually top-right for P and bottom-right for R, but sometimes neither one is loaded..

 

But it is a bit funny though that the more Renegade you become the worse you look with scars and red glowing eyes in the dark..

[Nepenthe]

Of course, but there is Paragon and Renegade. I thought I saw Enoch post something about the choices being color coded but I may have misunderstood.

It depends, the colour-coded ones are those that generally require a minimum paragon/renegade score to activate, and also do yield those points. Generally top right/bottom right are paragon/renegade respectively, but the amount of points, if any, is not disclosed beforehand.

[Malcador]

Civ V is a bit engaging now, the AI's erratic behaviour is a bit annoying as while I'd like to live in peace with my neighbours they continually want to kill me or love at random intervals.

[Jaesun]

Bought Gemeni Rue a long long time ago, just never had the time to play it. My gawd, this game is FANTASTIC <3 It's like I took a time machine back into the past when they used to make good old Adventure games.

[Lexx]

Started a new DX:HR playthrough. Still love the game, the atmosphere is very fancy. Especially with my new monitor it is all even better than before. Somehow disappointing that they only did one DLC, which also is stand alone... really should have includet it into the main game.

[Nepenthe]

Started a new DX:HR playthrough. Still love the game, the atmosphere is very fancy. Especially with my new monitor it is all even better than before. Somehow disappointing that they only did one DLC, which also is stand alone... really should have includet it into the main game.

One... so far.

[Lexx]

Well, the Missing Link was released quite some time ago and so far there is no news on possible future DLCs. Not even rumors, as far as I am aware.

[Malcador]

Been only 4 months no ? Christmas break probably broke up plans a bit, so probably still working at getting something worth rumour milling, I'll venture a guess.

 

Should have Syndicate tonight, huz-zah.

[Nepenthe]

Right, nothing apart from the comment in the end titles of the DLC.

 

But yes, considering the trade-in mentality, I suspect they've moved on to a sequel.

[Lexx]

What have been these comments? I don't remember anything like that and a ninja-google now doesn't show anything useful as well.

 

/Edit: Ok, just found it. "We're just getting started..."

 

Still, it's pretty silence since then.

Edited February 22, 2012 by Lexx

[Flouride]

Crusader Kings 2. Playing as the King of Sweden and Finland. Pretty damn funny, though even the smallest mistakes cost a lot.

 

For example my strongest vassal Duke of Uppland poisoned both my heir and myself in my 1st game with just one go. Thus grabbing the power for himself. And since I still had the elective method to decide the next King, he got control of the nation.

[pmp10]

Shogun 2 on and off.

Overall nothing special.

 

Crusader Kings 2.

Any improvements from the original?

Do you still spent 80% of the game time on match-making?

[Tigranes]

Better than the original in almost every way, and finding wives is now a pretty quick affair.

 

I'm currently celebrating the fiftieth year of Alfonso the Wise's reign, wherein he demonstrated his wisdom by surrendering to local dukes to give them the right to declare war on each other, thumping some Muslims when they were preoccupied with other powers, assassinating rebellious Dukes at opportune moments, and somehow managing to keep the Kingdoms of Leon, Castille, Galicia, Portugal and Andalucia together.

 

Also, he's currently on a decline into senility as he drowns himself in drink and frolicks with his third wife half his age. (But he's chaste, so no danger of too many children!)

[Zoraptor]

You can match make in two seconds.

 

Its biggest problem at the moment seems to be a tendency towards steamrolling- either the christians or muslims get on a roll and before you know it north africans have taken over Paris or Mecca has a cathedral in it. Since that's a balance issue it should be relatively fixable though. Personally I don't like how wars work that much either as you can be on the verge of victory and if your claimant dies the war ends whether you were on the verge of victory or defeat. Coupled with assassinations being cheap and relatively consequence free you can bail on many wars before losing by (in)judicious use of assassins.

 

Overall it's a good game. Don't know if it's better than CKDV, which is probably my favourite vanilla Paradox game, but it certainly is potentially better.

[WorstUsernameEver]

This is fairly disappointing, but I know nothing of CKII besides the fact that you can de-gayfy your kids by beating them up.

[Majek]

Motorstorm RC. Fun little game, especially with friends.

[Flouride]

 

Any improvements from the original?

Do you still spent 80% of the game time on match-making?

 

No idea, never played the original. Matchmaking is pretty fast, sometimes it does take time if there are no suitable people available for your kids/siblings.

 

My Kingdom is doing pretty fine, now if I only could assassinate the remaining members from the ruling house of Duch of Uppland... And get

[HoonDing]

I'm replaying Mass Effect 2 and somehow I find myself loaded with all loyalty missions of my recruits and I haven't even been to Illium yet. I don't remember the game rushing me this much when I played it two years ago.

[Starwars]

Replaying some Bulletstorm. For all the things in its design that really hold back its excellent gameplay and true potential, it's a really fun game to go through. Excellent writing (for what it is of course) and voice acting as well.