What are you playing now?

[Humanoid]

 

The four cardinal directions, yes, so generally speaking it's optimal to build your facilities in a 2x2 square - particularly your satellite uplinks and workshops.

 

EDIT: To expand a bit, some people go nuts and build a 3x3 grid of workshops, but while optimal in a min-maxing sense, it's probably not the best idea for an early-game foundation. a 2x2 grid consisting of two Satellite Uplinks and two Satellite Nexuses (Nexii?) will be sufficient to cover every country on the map so more than that serves no purpose. If you end up building three Uplinks because Nexii aren't yet available, it just means the fifth facility can be plonked anywhere on the map. Labs are generally built in a 0x0 grid: building them tends to be counterproductive.

 

 

 

Meh, I just started construction of my second lab directly under the first lab. Why is it couterproductive to build labs adjacent to other labs?

Heh, I meant that most experienced players will build no labs at all. There's a relatively shallow tech tree in this game, which I imagine will remain so until an expansion at the very least, and so every single dollar (or simoleon) you have is always better spent on other things.

 

That said, it's on normal difficulty, so it's really not that big of a deal either way. At classic and impossible difficulties, you flat out can't afford to build any without hobbling your game: you can't afford to "waste" a single cent.

 

The strategic base-building aspect is one of the weaker parts of the game, and there really is a definitive "optimal" way to go about it once you're used to the game. Again, not a worry now, but once you've played through once or twice, future new games will play out exactly the same way in terms of initial builds.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Humanoid

[Gorgon]

I find that building whatever you need the most now works best. Getting the officer training school or foundtry even just a few missions earlier at the cost of having to invest more in power and tunneling later is well worth it.

[Majek]

I always have 1 lab built. On every diff.

edit: not to mention i always waste my first sattelites to cover South America. always. :|

Edited March 26, 2013 by Majek

[Katphood]

Playing F:NV Dead Money. It has been a pretty refreshing experience so far. Really enjoying it!

Edited March 26, 2013 by Astiaks

[Keyrock]

That Bioshock Infinite rating pic made me laugh. Not because I know whether the game is actually good or not....but yeah. Funny. Hehehe.

 

I've seen a few people post that they've played a couple hours of it already, and they're liking it so far. It'll be interesting to see what they say 10 hours later. I'm still half tempted myself, but the practical side of my brain tells me to wait until it drops in price, since I'm not familiar with the series.

Yeah, I'm going to be all Steam Summer Sale up in that Bioshock Infinite.  The reasons are threefold: 1) Backlog is crazy as it is  2) I'm a cheapskate frugal like that  3) By then I should have a new lappy that should let me play it with maximum shiny or at least moar shiny

 

I'm still playing Saints Row the Third.  I've taken a break from the main story for a while to do a bunch of side activities, including some of the stuff from the DLC packs, like GenkiBowl and the cheese-tastic alien action movie.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Keyrock

[entrerix]

im also probably going to wait until the summer sale for bioshock infinite, it looks good, but it also looks like it's gonna be a pretty short experience, and $60 seems a bit too steep for a one and done shooter, even a good one.

 

as soon as it hits $40 i'll pick it up.

[Nordicus]

Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy

 

Wow, mission #29 of Hero 30 mode actually made me sad. I was not expecting that!!!

 

 

There's this one girl whom you share a very sweet moment with and later you encounter her as a zombie. Normally, you could spare her by running away from the battle by pressing A + D.

 

I was foolishly wearing powerful cursed boots during that mission. What's the curse? You can't run away from battles!

 

Her final words were "Li...ar"

 

 

T_T

Edited March 26, 2013 by Nordicus

[Guard Dog]

Has anyone tried the Heart of the Swarm StarCraft expansion yet? Any thoughts? I just ordered both it, Wings of Liberty, and the original game with all the expansions. I've never tried them but I love the Total War games as well as SoaSE, Master of Orion I & II, and Space Empires 5. I've heard these are right up the same alley.

 

Heck this will be the first new game I've bought since New Vegas came out!

[melkathi]

Has anyone tried the Heart of the Swarm StarCraft expansion yet? Any thoughts? I just ordered both it, Wings of Liberty, and the original game with all the expansions. I've never tried them but I love the Total War games as well as SoaSE, Master of Orion I & II, and Space Empires 5. I've heard these are right up the same alley.

 

Heck this will be the first new game I've bought since New Vegas came out!

 

They are nothing close to Master of Orion or Space Empires.

I had fun with Starcraft 2. But I prefer Dawn of War (1) when it comes to RTS games.

[alanschu]

Company of Heroes was a pretty great RTS as well.

[WDeranged]

Bioshock Infinite is kind of sucking for me right now, very bad loading stutters and I just had a game breaking bug where no one appeared at the raffle scene, I keep saying I'm done with day one PC releases but they keep dragging me back for another dose of annoyance.

Edited March 26, 2013 by WDeranged

[Bokishi]

Strange I haven't seen any bugs yet, maybe try re-downloading or verifying your game cache 

[WDeranged]

Strange I haven't seen any bugs yet, maybe try re-downloading or verifying your game cache 

 

It might have been caused by the ini tweaks I used to help the stuttering, which was pretty severe, either way I'll just have to wait for a patch 

[AwesomeOcelot]

Bioshock: Infinite, if you liked Bioshock you'll probably love this because it's a true sequel. Columbia doesn't have the same charm as Rapture, and there's a lot of treading over old ground especially with the story. Obviously so much progress has been made in graphics, animation, sound. The PC version is great, much better than Bioshock. I would say the characters so far haven't been as strong as in Bioshock, and the enemies are just not as inspired as the big daddy and splicers. I guess it's just my preference that I enjoyed the Art Deco, Objectivist themes more than the idealized/vilified America caricature floating city.

 

The FPS elements are much improved, it very much follows from Bioshock 2. There's a movement mechanic that's about as well implemented as you could have hoped for, I was really worried about it, thinking they probably couldn't pull it off, but they nailed it. They haven't backtracked on the gameplay, succumbing to the force of stupidity that infects most modern games, the only thing people could quibble about is the regen shield, it does make everything a little too easy. Like Bioshock you're swimming with loot, it's nice that there are so many secrets, but they lose their value when you are overstocked on everything plus you get spoon fed ten times what you need in arenas. I think the trick is to just rush through and only worry about supplies when they run low.

 

I'm not really impressed with the companion, I feel they're really bland and not utilized in gameplay to as great an extent as they might be. They look great, and the animation is superb, but I think they tried to play way too safe. The player character on the other hand, is about as good as a predefined player character you could hope for in a game, well played Irrational Games.

Edited March 27, 2013 by AwesomeOcelot

[AGX-17]

Just finished B:I. The reason the game's getting all those perfect scores is because holy **** that was a mind****. Blows the original game out of the water (almost literally,) in terms of mind****ery. Makes me wonder why/how they intend to implement DLC.

I'm not really impressed with the companion, I feel they're really bland and not utilized in gameplay to as great an extent as they might be. They look great, and the animation is superb, but I think they tried to play way too safe. The player character on the other hand, is about as good as a predefined player character you could hope for in a game, well played Irrational Games.

Oh, you are so not ready for what's coming. You. Are. So. Not. Ready. Edited March 27, 2013 by AGX-17

[alanschu]

Intrigued.

[WDeranged]

Just out of interest, you guys who are playing it without issues, are you using AMD or Nvidia cards?

 

Also, I'm pretty sure I just got intentionally spoilered in a major way on the Steam forums while checking for fixes, the dickery of some people is agony sometimes 

Edited March 27, 2013 by WDeranged

[AGX-17]

Just out of interest, you guys who are playing it without issues, are you using AMD or Nvidia cards?

 

Also, I'm pretty sure I just got intentionally spoilered in a major way on the Steam forums while checking for fixes, the dickery of some people is agony sometimes 

No issues, nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti or whatever order those go in, latest drivers, no problems whatsoever.

 

Also, from Ken Levine on Twitter: "As always, kids, beware of spoilers. This is a game you want to play fresh! Don't let some "friend" ruin your fun. Also, floss daily!"

Edited March 27, 2013 by AGX-17

[Bokishi]

Just out of interest, you guys who are playing it without issues, are you using AMD or Nvidia cards?

 

Also, I'm pretty sure I just got intentionally spoilered in a major way on the Steam forums while checking for fixes, the dickery of some people is agony sometimes 

 

Nvidia GTX 680 latest drivers, it's pretty much bug-free and 100x better than the original Bioshock which was a crash-fest for me

[AGX-17]

 

 

Just out of interest, you guys who are playing it without issues, are you using AMD or Nvidia cards?

 

Also, I'm pretty sure I just got intentionally spoilered in a major way on the Steam forums while checking for fixes, the dickery of some people is agony sometimes 

 

Nvidia GTX 680 latest drivers, it's pretty much bug-free and 100x better than the original Bioshock which was a crash-fest for me

 

 

Original Bioshock on PC was just a crappy Xbox-to-PC port. Like "it won't work at all if you have a certain brand of sound card" bad.

[Bokishi]

 

 

Just out of interest, you guys who are playing it without issues, are you using AMD or Nvidia cards?

 

Also, I'm pretty sure I just got intentionally spoilered in a major way on the Steam forums while checking for fixes, the dickery of some people is agony sometimes 

 

Nvidia GTX 680 latest drivers, it's pretty much bug-free and 100x better than the original Bioshock which was a crash-fest for me

 

Original Bioshock on PC was just a crappy Xbox-to-PC port. Like "it won't work at all if you have a certain brand of sound card" bad.

yeah as i recall i was using 8800 gtx sli and on windows vista, disabling one card would fix most of the crashing (but not the ones in the menus), and make it run half as fast, such a crappy dilemma back then

Edited March 27, 2013 by Bokishi

[LadyCrimson]

Saw a few others saying they'd finished it already too. I still don't know how y'all can finish games so fast the first, "blind," time through it.

 

This one's sounding more interesting all the time...but I'm still going to wait.

[melkathi]

Don't know. It's sounding less interesting to me with people finishing it too fast

[Calax]

Has anyone tried the Heart of the Swarm StarCraft expansion yet? Any thoughts? I just ordered both it, Wings of Liberty, and the original game with all the expansions. I've never tried them but I love the Total War games as well as SoaSE, Master of Orion I & II, and Space Empires 5. I've heard these are right up the same alley.

 

Heck this will be the first new game I've bought since New Vegas came out!

There is a scale difference going on. With all of those listed, probably the closest to what SC is is Sins of a Solar Empire. Your scale is MUCH smaller overall from all of that, with each fight being in small parts of the worlds and bases not being persistent between levels (except in maybe one VERY Special case in the original I think... >.>). The campaigns are good, although HotS does suffer a bit of "not really sure what we're gonna do here" syndrome.

 

Just to warn you SC2 is going to require you as "always online" or close to it. Mainly because everything that Blizzard does is tied to Battle.net. As part of that you create a "real id" with your name and a "Battletag" with a handle that show up in game. Both of these can be used to befriend players like Steam although the integration is FAR less obtrusive.

[Bokishi]

Just got to the bioshock plot twist and omfg