What are you playing now?

[Katphood]

Playing Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. After recruiting Jahira and Khalid I pretty much avoided everything else and went straight for the mines and now I am having my A handed down to me. I did recruit minsc and that monk fella too, but the little critters in the lower levels of the mine have started throwing stuff at me and my party members get hurt pretty bad before they can reach them. Meybe I should try hitting them with a bow or something.

[Keyrock]

Scooped up Saints Row the Third because it's 85% off at GamersGate and I just couldn't resist at that price.  I had enough blue coins to cover the price of Saints Row 2 so I got that too since it was essentially a 'freebie'.  I decided to play the earlier game in the series first.  I know it was a horrific PC port, but I figured the issues should be mostly solved by now, if not by official patches then unofficial ones.  No crazy framerate issues, it runs fairly well on my modest lappy, however this game has quite possibly the worst driving physics ever.  I'm not sure if this is just the PC version or all versions, but the handling is unbelievably twitchy and there is no way to reduce the steering sensitivity.  There is a mod out there that reduces the steering sensitivity, but it comes with one BIG caveat, it changes the steering sensitivity for the AI drivers too and the game was built with the original super twitchy handling characteristics in mind so with the mod the AI drivers crash into each other constantly because the cars behave differently so the whole city is one massive pile up.  Scrapped the mod and did my own "work around".  Basically, whenever possible, I use the most "sluggish" vehicles available.  My current favorite is "The Job", basically a stretch Hummer.  It's very sluggish compared to other vehicles, which means it steers only somewhat twitchy, rather than so twitchy that it's almost impossible to control.  Anyway, despite the horrific steering model, the game is a blast.  Just the sheer dedication to complete ridiculousness and lunacy is admirable.  My favorite part of the game so far is the Insurance Fraud activity.  Running into traffic and getting ragdolled into oblivion never ceases to be amazingly entertaining.  My best so far was getting hit by a bus on a highway overpass, flung 20 feet into the air, hit by a large pick up on the  way down, flung into the air another 15 or 20 feet, then hit by a dump truck that was hauling ass on the way down and flung about 70 feet into the air and off the overpass.  Good times.

Edited March 17, 2013 by Keyrock

[melkathi]

Mostly playing King of Dragon Pass.

 

I founded a tribe together with a large part of my neighbours, then supported one of them for leadership of the tribe. Now I am trying to do PR work with other clans and build up my clan's wealth so that the next time a king is elected it will be me.

[Raithe]

Tried starting a new game of Civ V.

<sigh>

For some reason it starts up that intro piece of "you are yada yada yada, your great kingdom yada yada yada" and then when it hits the "can you stand the test of time?" it crashes.

Screen goes blank, music starts playing, and then it just freezes there, with the music looping a short section over and over. I can ctr-alt-del out, and it shows a small "Terrain Texture Error" message, before flickering back to a completely black screen.

To get out of that, I have to ctrl-alt-del and tell it to log me out of the computer....

Spent half an hour looking around for fixes, but nada I've found work. I think I'll just have to uninstall the whole lot.

[Labadal]

Mass Effect 3

 

Save the students at an academy. Using Garrus and Liara as my squad mates, and I'll probably keep doing so for the rest of the game. Can't really dislike Garrus. The gameplay isn't bad, slightly better than the second and it feels like a little bit more varied in the enemy department. Writing isn't as good as ME1 but slightly better than ME2. One thing I did shake my head at was the new companion.

[alanschu]

@Raithe

 

You can't kill the process through task manager?

[Calax]

spent most of the day playing heart of the swarm, it's... ok.

 

honestly, its probably my nostalgia goggles, but i remember the campaign from warcraft 2 and starcraft being miles better than those in warcraft 3 and starcraft 2

Not really. I think it's more that the devs are trying to hard with their games. Warcraft three should have really just been paired down to two sides in the conflict, with two campaigns. To much design and work went into the hero units (particularly in the campaigns) and the games might as well have been re-built around being RPG's rather than RTS's.

 

Starcraft is more complicated, but I think what happened with 2 was that they just ended up focused to heavily on the multiplayer aspect. And the campigns suffer from a more free form mission structure. Thus what you do in one mission/mission set, has to be ignored in the others up to a point because they didn't want to put in the effort of having to acknowledge every possible permutation of mission structure. In WoL it meant that you've got four or five actual climaxes as each string of missions ends, none of which are really acknowledged by the other missions until you're in the final stretch. HotS is the same, you've got a bit more mission structure, but even then the overall writing and effort put into the design feels lower. The fact that you can split up your level design and "unlock" units at different rates, ends up causing the difficulty to skyrocket if you go a direction different. You could go into a mission with only banelings and zerglings... and face mutalisks.

 

Also the game throws a few curves at you that then turn out to be sort of "oh yeah, this happened" rather than bigger moments. I can imagine a few moments that were completely underwhelming for what they were supposed to be (Hello Belial fight). And it doesn't help that your opponents aren't actually the "galaxy destroying evil" that we're supposed to have fought. Instead it feels kind of petty, and Kerrigan comes off as more of an emo monster rather than a sympathetic character (which is what they were going for).

[Raithe]

@Raithe

 

You can't kill the process through task manager?

 

Heh. Nope.

I try opening task manager and all I get is a solid black screen with the whirly globe icon from Civ V still going.

I try alt-tabbing to it, and I get a brief flicker of windows and the taskbar..and then it goes straight back to that black screen.

The only way I can get out is to ctl-alt-del and log off. Then everything shuts down.

 

What's bugging me is that if I verify the game files, it keeps downloading the same 1.8Mb files. Every single time. Even if it's just done it. So I'm guessing I'm going to have to waste an hour or three reinstalling the game and then letting it update...

[alanschu]

Ugh.  I remember having something similar happen to me with Saints Row: The Third (although with less fatal consequences... the game just exited).  Reinstalling didn't work either, but what did work was copying the missing files from someone else (he copied them onto a flash drive for me) and then loading the game.

 

Very frustrating and I'm not sure what causes that.  Hopefully a reinstall works for you.

[Malcador]

The Guild 2, rogue is almost near victory - it is rather fun to kidnap people, ransom them and then murder them as they're leaving their prison (or murdering the Bishop in front of the church).

[Blarghagh]

 

spent most of the day playing heart of the swarm, it's... ok.

 

honestly, its probably my nostalgia goggles, but i remember the campaign from warcraft 2 and starcraft being miles better than those in warcraft 3 and starcraft 2

Not really. I think it's more that the devs are trying to hard with their games. Warcraft three should have really just been paired down to two sides in the conflict, with two campaigns. To much design and work went into the hero units (particularly in the campaigns) and the games might as well have been re-built around being RPG's rather than RTS's.

 

Starcraft is more complicated, but I think what happened with 2 was that they just ended up focused to heavily on the multiplayer aspect. And the campigns suffer from a more free form mission structure. Thus what you do in one mission/mission set, has to be ignored in the others up to a point because they didn't want to put in the effort of having to acknowledge every possible permutation of mission structure. In WoL it meant that you've got four or five actual climaxes as each string of missions ends, none of which are really acknowledged by the other missions until you're in the final stretch. HotS is the same, you've got a bit more mission structure, but even then the overall writing and effort put into the design feels lower. The fact that you can split up your level design and "unlock" units at different rates, ends up causing the difficulty to skyrocket if you go a direction different. You could go into a mission with only banelings and zerglings... and face mutalisks.

 

Also the game throws a few curves at you that then turn out to be sort of "oh yeah, this happened" rather than bigger moments. I can imagine a few moments that were completely underwhelming for what they were supposed to be (Hello Belial fight). And it doesn't help that your opponents aren't actually the "galaxy destroying evil" that we're supposed to have fought. Instead it feels kind of petty, and Kerrigan comes off as more of an emo monster rather than a sympathetic character (which is what they were going for).

 

Actually, I agree with Entrerix that the old campaigns were better, and I think your reasons are actually why. Specifically, the focus. WarCraft, WarCraft II, StarCraft, they were all very focused on the conflict going on at the time. WarCraft III and StarCraft II both spend most of their time with conflicts of no consequence while the real fight is being set up. It feels very much like we're being gimped. It also helps that the old games had much stronger faction identity by way of them not all being "the good guys who band together to fight the nonplayable evil". I loved playing the evil Orcs in WarCraft II, or the evil Zerg in StarCraft. Now both of those seem to have just been "misunderstood". I think StarCraft II would have been better if it had kept its focus on the conflict between the three factions. Hell, so far the Protoss haven't even factored into the plot. They just "show up" occassionally.

[GhostofAnakin]

Finally finished Dead Space 3.  The final couple of chapters were boring, IMO.  Everything was "solved" by that point, and so it was just a slog through enemies in order to set up the final encounter.

 

Then again, that's how I feel about most games' final couple of hours.  All the interesting stuff is pretty much done (learning about the story, dealing with any plot twists, etc.) and now all there is is one or two more waves of enemies thrown at you until you face the final boss fight.

[entrerix]

started playing vampire:tm bloodlines for the first time, seems decent so far, like a way lower budget deus ex

[Calax]

 

 

spent most of the day playing heart of the swarm, it's... ok.

 

honestly, its probably my nostalgia goggles, but i remember the campaign from warcraft 2 and starcraft being miles better than those in warcraft 3 and starcraft 2

Not really. I think it's more that the devs are trying to hard with their games. Warcraft three should have really just been paired down to two sides in the conflict, with two campaigns. To much design and work went into the hero units (particularly in the campaigns) and the games might as well have been re-built around being RPG's rather than RTS's.

 

Starcraft is more complicated, but I think what happened with 2 was that they just ended up focused to heavily on the multiplayer aspect. And the campigns suffer from a more free form mission structure. Thus what you do in one mission/mission set, has to be ignored in the others up to a point because they didn't want to put in the effort of having to acknowledge every possible permutation of mission structure. In WoL it meant that you've got four or five actual climaxes as each string of missions ends, none of which are really acknowledged by the other missions until you're in the final stretch. HotS is the same, you've got a bit more mission structure, but even then the overall writing and effort put into the design feels lower. The fact that you can split up your level design and "unlock" units at different rates, ends up causing the difficulty to skyrocket if you go a direction different. You could go into a mission with only banelings and zerglings... and face mutalisks.

 

Also the game throws a few curves at you that then turn out to be sort of "oh yeah, this happened" rather than bigger moments. I can imagine a few moments that were completely underwhelming for what they were supposed to be (Hello Belial fight). And it doesn't help that your opponents aren't actually the "galaxy destroying evil" that we're supposed to have fought. Instead it feels kind of petty, and Kerrigan comes off as more of an emo monster rather than a sympathetic character (which is what they were going for).

 

Actually, I agree with Entrerix that the old campaigns were better, and I think your reasons are actually why. Specifically, the focus. WarCraft, WarCraft II, StarCraft, they were all very focused on the conflict going on at the time. WarCraft III and StarCraft II both spend most of their time with conflicts of no consequence while the real fight is being set up. It feels very much like we're being gimped. It also helps that the old games had much stronger faction identity by way of them not all being "the good guys who band together to fight the nonplayable evil". I loved playing the evil Orcs in WarCraft II, or the evil Zerg in StarCraft. Now both of those seem to have just been "misunderstood". I think StarCraft II would have been better if it had kept its focus on the conflict between the three factions. Hell, so far the Protoss haven't even factored into the plot. They just "show up" occassionally.

Yeah. I think the guys at Blizz are starting to think that "If we force players to play the "evil" race... they want it to be a sympathetic character... MAKE EM ALL NOT-EVIL!" The only truly "evil" faction was the Undead in WC3, and they were more "we want independance" rather than "we're good guys!".

 

It doesn't help that in HotS Kerrigan goes from "oh woe is me, I don't want to be the monster mummy" to "You want back in my swarm bitch? You exterminate this planet like it's nobodies business!" WoL gave us a reason to complete it's quest... we got to see what'd happen when Raynor failed/messed up in (arguably) the best mission of the game, where the Villain showed up, and wiped out the last pieces of civilization (in the form of Protoss). Here? Best we get is Samir Duran in a costume... and he's taken care of in ONE mission.

 

If they'd set up Mengsk as the new "Overmind" style villain that'd play a role in all three games and the ultimate climax was his death, the games would feel much more satisfying.

[nikolokolus]

Finally picked up Arcanum a month or so ago from GOG.com and have been slowly working my way through that.  I think I must have stopped and restarted 6 times now because I'm never quite happy with the way my character turns out because of some choice or another I make.  Definitely one of those RTFM kinds of games.

 

Beyond that, I've got a fledgling replay of Torment underway inspired by the Torment: Numenera kickstarter, but I know that if I get into it, I'll never finish Arcanum.

[Labadal]

started playing vampire:tm bloodlines for the first time, seems decent so far, like a way lower budget deus ex

The game is all about the writing and the characters, imo. The VA's did a great job in this, too.

 

Have you installed the unofficial patch? It helps a lot.

[LadyCrimson]

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