What are you playing now?

[LadyCrimson]

Last thread

 

...I'm going to play a little unpatched Majesty:Fantasy Kingdom Sim before going to sleep.

 

Also - last two posts from previous thread:

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

[Humanoid]

Stopped playing Mount and Blade: Warband about a week ago. Founding my own kingdom in that game was really the beginning of the end: the game's interface is blatantly inadequate for managing anything larger than a trivially small kingdom, and in the end my game sort of devolved into a frustrating mess. Maybe in the future I might try again without going in that direction, but eh, got my money's worth.

 

Nothing to replace it yet, will probably look for something shallow as I'm relatively busy with other stuff at the moment.

[Rosbjerg]

Stopped playing Mount and Blade: Warband about a week ago. Founding my own kingdom in that game was really the beginning of the end: the game's interface is blatantly inadequate for managing anything larger than a trivially small kingdom, and in the end my game sort of devolved into a frustrating mess. Maybe in the future I might try again without going in that direction, but eh, got my money's worth.

 

Nothing to replace it yet, will probably look for something shallow as I'm relatively busy with other stuff at the moment.

 

Perhaps you should try the Sword of Damocles mod? They've added a lot of features to Kingdom Management (more screenshots). I'm pretty sure they've ported it to Warband too - I think they called it Warlord or something like that.

 

[Humanoid]

I looked up some mods for Warband and it seems the most popular is something called Prophesy of Pendor, but no idea how it compares. Damocles for Warband is a thing too though. But yeah, if I ever come back to it (before the sequel, at any rate), I'll be sure to heavily mod up.

 

Aside, the capitalised typo in that screenshot made me chuckle, heh.

[melkathi]

 

 

...I'm going to play a little unpatched Majesty:Fantasy Kingdom Sim before going to sleep.

 

 

If our kingdom is to prosper, we need more Heroes!

 

Your Majesty! Our trading post now offers healing potions!

 

Ooooh! Pretty star!

[Moirnelithe]

Wurm Online, a nicely complex fantasy sandbox game with player housing, crafting and even servers with pvp for those that enjoy that kind of thing.  It reminds me of Ultima Online before EA took over.

 

/end of shameless plug.

[Humanoid]

I get what you mean by that, but EA had already well and truly taken over by the time of Ultima 8, and indeed was foreshadowed by the generators in U7.

[Tale]

Now for Tale's running commentary on Heart of the Swarm.

 

Initial impressions of the story aren't high. The first exchange between Raynor and Kerrigan has some issues:

1) Dialogue is pure cheese. "Don't give up on us!" "There can be no us!" "Don't throw it away on revenge!" I dare you to say any of those lines without hamming it up or mocking.

2) The love story retcon. I'm not against it being a love story, I just hate retcons. It would have been better in my eyes for Heart of the Swarm to develop their relationship, instead of it just being there as if it was all along. I really really hate retcons.

3) Why is Raynor's dialogue characterizing Kerrigan and not Raynor? One of the first things we get from Raynor is him telling Kerrigan not to throw "it" away on revenge. Revenge being going against Mengsk. Does Raynor no longer want to go after Mengsk? It seems like this line only exists to imply Kerrigan is reckless, but seems strange for Raynor.

 

Those are nitpicks, especially number 3. Though I do hate retcons.

 

By the second mission outtro I had already gotten past all three. Kerrigan herself is well characterized, though may be falling into the "women are defined by relationships" trap.

[Malcador]

Finished The Guild 2, luckily the tough patriarch of the last family died from old age so I managed to eliminate the rest by killing their spouses and then them. Grand ending was a 70 year old man being jumped by 11 thugs on a country road, heh.

 

Going back to Deponia & ArmA 3, trying to gauge feelings on the latter, should try some multiplayer. The stance dance still takes some getting used to.

[Tasaio]

Re: Kerrigan and Raynor's relationship (spoilers)

 

 

 

 

The problem is that Raynor's relationship with Kerrigan was expanded upon the novels, not the game.

 

Did you know that, years before meeting Kerrigan, Raynor was married to a woman named Liddy?

 

Or, that he had a telepathic son, who was seized by the (then-Confederate) gov't and shipped off to the Ghost Academy?

 

When they were informed that the son had died in training, Liddy sank into a depression and never recovered. She died soon after.

 

Part of the reason that Raynor's relationship with Kerrigan develops, is due to her telepathic ability to read his emotions that are too difficult to express.

 

Of course, all of this could have been presented in flashbacks in Starcraft II, but complexity does not seem to be Blizzard's strong point these days.

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2013 by Tasaio

[Tale]

I heard about that. I hate tie in novels that insert themselves into game plots. I hate cross-media stories in general. Fine if they want books for Starcraft, that's cool. Why do they have to be in the middle of the stories from the games and about the same characters? Make whole new stories instead.

[Tasaio]

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.

 

HotS spoilers:

 

 

 

 

One of the differences between Starcraft 1 and 2, is that you are no longer truly seeing the plot from all perspectives.

 

In Starcraft 1, you played as the Zerg, and then battled them in the final mission. In Brood War, you played as the UED, and then battled them as Zerg. One of the effects was to make Starcraft more like GRRM's ASOIAF -- there is no character presented only as an antagonist, so you came to sympathize will each faction's motivations (even Kerrigan's, when you play as Zerg).

 

In Starcraft 2, you never play from the Hybrid/Amon perspective. The result is that these antagonists come across as bare shells, with none of the depth that the Overmind or Kerrigan had.

 

And that's not to mention how blatantly Blizzard tries to make these characters seem evil:

- red, glowing eyes

- titles like "The Dark Voice", "The Fallen One"

 

All of this results in a reduction of complexity, which is the overall problem with Blizzard's storylines and characters, for a while now.

 

Others will disagree with me, but I felt Blizzard started on this path with Warcraft III. By separating the uncorrupted Orcs from the pure-evil Burning Legion, they made the demons into bare shells -- irredeemable, with no opportunity for character development. Frozen Throne started to push against this, with Varimathras, but he was discarded in WotLK.

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2013 by Tasaio

[entrerix]

lots of what tasaio is saying makes sense.

 

if i cared more about the games, i'd actually be raging pretty hard now that i know part of the reason for the incoherent characters in starcraft 2 is because the game is assuming you read the books.

 

almost as bad as the beginning of mass effect 3 making no sense if you didnt play one of the ME2 dlc's

 

fortunately/unfortunately, mass effect 3 and starcraft 2 are mediocre enough that i don't really care that much, its just a tad disappointing

 

i kinda feel like playing warcraft 2 again, but im sure the interface will drive me bonkers now (only being able to select a few soldiers at a time etc)

 

qq

[Malcador]

Nice to know Raynor has the requisite trauma every hero needs.

 

 

His switch from "We're done" to "I'm on my war, darlin!" is pretty funny as all it takes is Kerrigan stating she'll try to not kill everyone.

 

[alanschu]

Still some SimCity.  I think I'd prefer a mashup of SimCity 4 and this SimCity.  I would have loved loved loved SimCity 4 to have a MP mode.  I like how many of the social aspects work, and there's definitely some fun gameplay with the new one, but I do think that in general the City building was a bit better done in #4.

[Nonek]

Finished Mask of the Betrayer, as usual after such a roller coaster ride i'm left feeling a little saddened, I really wanted to join Kaelyn and tear down that damned Wall. If there's an unambigious statement of evil in the D&D setting that is it, a judge of affiliation not deeds, designed to keep the denizens of the multiverse blindly enslaved to false gods. I at least ensured that she has a decent epilogue, but the ending I recieved rang hollow while that structure still stands. Ah well it probably no longer exists in the fourth edition, and we've got the worlds of Eternity and Numenera to task us with such moral quagmires in the future.

[LadyCrimson]

If our kingdom is to prosper, we need more Heroes!

 

Your Majesty! Our trading post now offers healing potions!

 

Ooooh! Pretty star!

That's the one!

 

...the greedy rogue is the one that always made me giggle. "What a deeelicious looking reward." "My ambition has paid off." "Leave my gold...alone."

[melkathi]

That's the one!

 

...the greedy rogue is the one that always made me giggle. "What a deeelicious looking reward." "My ambition has paid off." "Leave my gold...alone."

 

"You are not getting MY gold!"

 

Though a classic is always: "I am meeeeelting"

 

My favourids were cultists of Fervus because of the 4th wall breaking comments.

Star appears over a cultist as he levels up "Oooh! Pretty star!"

You place a reward flag "What a pretty flag."

And "Pretty bright light dead..." when they, being pixels, die.

[Keyrock]

Saints Row the Third.  I should have never started playing this, now I don't know how I could ever go back to Saints Row 2 (It was my intention to play 2 first, then 3, but curiosity got the best of me), SR3 is just SO MUCH better than SR2.  I haven't had this much fun in a sandbox since, well, since Sleeping Dogs.  GTA IV may have a better story (story is pretty much throw away in SR3) and better characters, but SR3 is just waaaaaaaaaay more fun to play.  It's just so utterly and completely insane, just complete madness.  I'm going to have a lot of good times with this title for years to come.  This is definitely the type of game that even once I finish it I'll be happy to come back to just to **** around for a little while.  I mean, it doesn't get much better than walking into a crazed firefight wearing nothing except a giant Johnny Gat mascot head, doing the Nature Boy Strut while bullets are flying at me, then running up to an enemy and punching him in the ****.  Maybe I'm just easily entertained?

[melkathi]

Saints Row the Third.  I should have never started playing this, now I don't know how I could ever go back to Saints Row 2 (It was my intention to play 2 first, then 3, but curiosity got the best of me), SR3 is just SO MUCH better than SR2.  I haven't had this much fun in a sandbox since, well, since Sleeping Dogs.  GTA IV may have a better story (story is pretty much throw away in SR3) and better characters, but SR3 is just waaaaaaaaaay more fun to play.  It's just so utterly and completely insane, just complete madness.  I'm going to have a lot of good times with this title for years to come.  This is definitely the type of game that even once I finish it I'll be happy to come back to just to **** around for a little while.  I mean, it doesn't get much better than walking into a crazed firefight wearing nothing except a giant Johnny Gat mascot head, doing the Nature Boy Strut while bullets are flying at me, then running up to an enemy and punching him in the ****.  Maybe I'm just easily entertained?

 

The SR2 fans seem to say that SR3 is a terrible game that completly ruined the series

 

I think part of the reason I wouldn't be able to get into Sleeping Dogs is that I had spend som much time in SR3 (which is the first game of this type to draw me in since Vice City).

 

If you ever need a coop partner, you can find me under the same nickname on steam.

 

Especially when Saints Row 4 comes out soon.

 

 

And it does come better than that. Wait 'till you do ensurance fraud challenges: launching yourself in front of cars, so you can get run over and tossed around to claim insurance.

Edited March 19, 2013 by melkathi

[alanschu]

SR3 was my first and it was hilariously awesome.

 

Loved playing it co-op to boot.

[Keyrock]

And it does come better than that. Wait 'till you do ensurance fraud challenges: launching yourself in front of cars, so you can get run over and tossed around to claim insurance.

Those are my favorite side activities.  Getting ragdolled around into oblivion, while repetitive, is endlessly entertaining.

 

Edit:  Though Super Ethical Reality Climax is pretty great too.

Edited March 19, 2013 by Keyrock

[AGX-17]

Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Plays a lot better than the original (downright terrible combat at times, cheap combat encounters abound, like jumping down from a ledge with no gun, zooms to one Taken out far in front of you and three are right behind you out of camera view, even if you avoid them, you haven't got enough stamina to sprint to the light/checkpoint you're supposed to sprint to, and there's a generator you can't possibly activate with 4+ enemies chasing you placed as a deliberate cheap trap by the devs to get you killed, that sort of thing.) Obviously the scares are few and far between as a result, but the story and style are much more creative than the original game.

 

Also currently downloading X-COM: Enemy Unknown. Yes, free because of Bioshock Infinite preorder.

[Bokishi]

Playing a free game that was given away due to the Sim City server issues; Need for Speed Most Wanted

[alanschu]

Do you know if the free game can be giftable?  I haven't accepted my gift yet as the games don't really interest me (I can get most EA games for free anyways) or I already own them.