What are you playing now?

[Nonek]

Since the advent of Origins I don't, but I really enjoyed certain aspects of the original Dragon Age, and the first two Mass Effects, and even more of their older back catalogue. All in all except for DA2 and NWN i've enjoyed their games, and I almost finished DA2 so I can't have been all that disgusted with the sub par design. Think i'm just too analytical.

[Keyrock]

The ridiculously cookie cutter lather, rise, repeat combat is what killed DA2 for me more than anything.  I could get past the disjointed uninspiring story and the shameless recycling of dungeons, but the fact that literally every single battle in the entire game was nearly identical drained most of the enjoyment out of the game.  The horrendous Act 3 took any shred of good will and enjoyment I might have had with the game and ground it into dust.  Still, it's not the worst final act in a game I've played, that dubious honor belongs to Two Worlds 2, whose final act is a soul crushingly boring and tedious grind of battle after battle after battle after battle, only to be capped off by one of the absolute worst final boss fights I have ever had the displeasure of playing.

 

In BioWare's defense, I've enjoyed pretty much their entire catalogue, NWN included (mostly for HotU and the community made stuff), right up until DA2 and the final 10-15% of ME3.  Note: That excludes ToR since I've never played it.

[mkreku]

I started playing Unepic recently and was having a good time (even though I usually suck at platformers with more than one control button) until I jumped into poisoned water. The poison got permanently stuck to my character and neither killing myself or reloading removes it. I guess I will have to start all over. Yay.

[GhostofAnakin]

The ridiculously cookie cutter lather, rise, repeat combat is what killed DA2 for me more than anything.  I could get past the disjointed uninspiring story and the shameless recycling of dungeons, but the fact that literally every single battle in the entire game was nearly identical drained most of the enjoyment out of the game.  The horrendous Act 3 took any shred of good will and enjoyment I might have had with the game and ground it into dust.  Still, it's not the worst final act in a game I've played, that dubious honor belongs to Two Worlds 2, whose final act is a soul crushingly boring and tedious grind of battle after battle after battle after battle, only to be capped off by one of the absolute worst final boss fights I have ever had the displeasure of playing.

 

Is that the one where you're shooting arrows from some sort of catapult/gun turret at a flying dragon?

[Keyrock]

I started playing Unepic recently and was having a good time (even though I usually suck at platformers with more than one control button) until I jumped into poisoned water. The poison got permanently stuck to my character and neither killing myself or reloading removes it. I guess I will have to start all over. Yay.

Most poisons wear off over time.  Have you gotten to the save point yet?  Once you reach it you'll get an item that allows you to teleport back there any time (it's an unlimited use item) and you can get fully healed for free and save your game there.  It's conveniently located right next to the fast travel hub.

 

 

 

 

The ridiculously cookie cutter lather, rise, repeat combat is what killed DA2 for me more than anything.  I could get past the disjointed uninspiring story and the shameless recycling of dungeons, but the fact that literally every single battle in the entire game was nearly identical drained most of the enjoyment out of the game.  The horrendous Act 3 took any shred of good will and enjoyment I might have had with the game and ground it into dust.  Still, it's not the worst final act in a game I've played, that dubious honor belongs to Two Worlds 2, whose final act is a soul crushingly boring and tedious grind of battle after battle after battle after battle, only to be capped off by one of the absolute worst final boss fights I have ever had the displeasure of playing.

 

Is that the one where you're shooting arrows from some sort of catapult/gun turret at a flying dragon?

 

Yep.  What better way to finish off an RPG than with a shooter, and a really crappy one at that.

[HoonDing]

Aside from the retarded plot twist and arcade crap in Two Worlds 2 finale, it was stupid how none of my 99% fire resistance potions helped against the dragon's instakill fire breath.

[mkreku]

..and then I found the leeches in my inventory. Argh.

[Keyrock]

..and then I found the leeches in my inventory. Argh.

Yeah, it took me a bit to figure that part out too.  

[GhostofAnakin]

 

Yep.  What better way to finish off an RPG than with a shooter, and a really crappy one at that.

 

 

I never finished that game for that very reason.  If I recall, aside from the stupidity of in general, I believe it also negated the entire way my character was built (I think I did a stealth build, which meant every single skill my character had built up was useless at that point).

[Keyrock]

 

 

Yep.  What better way to finish off an RPG than with a shooter, and a really crappy one at that.

 

 

I never finished that game for that very reason.  If I recall, aside from the stupidity of in general, I believe it also negated the entire way my character was built (I think I did a stealth build, which meant every single skill my character had built up was useless at that point).

 

Every single skill anyone built up was useless at that point (for shooting at the dragon anyhow), and, as Drudanae pointed out, fire resistance potions were also completely useless.  Two Worlds 2 was definitely a disappointment, though I guess it shouldn't have been, considering how piss poor the first game was (though it did have a weird "good gravy this is bad" charm to it).  Two Worlds 2 started out really bad, the starter island was a horrifically boring and tedious slog, got better during the middle, becoming nearly decent with some semi-interesting side quests and fairly sprawling open spaces to explore (the Asian themed island was the high water mark in my opinion), then the game took a turn for the worse in the swamp area, got horrifically linear, boring, and tedious in the final act, and then capped it off with the aforementioned abortion of a final boss fight.

 

It saddens me how often developers fall into the routine of just tossing a metric ****ton of fights at you in the final act.  There are ways to have an exciting finish without resorting to fight after fight after fight after fight after...

Edited July 28, 2013 by Keyrock

[kirottu]

For me it was the insultingly simplified side quests, the endless waves, the repeated enviroments, the inability to talk to friends and family, the inability to be able to control your own dialogue, the ugly engine, the reliance on combat alternating with conversation, the lifeless enviroments, the inability to affect the linear plot, the reliance on the standard mcguffin plot, the inability to get rid of the companions, the horribly cliche'd and caricatured companions themselves, the vogue-ing combat system, the lack of subtlety in every aspect from narrative to art design, the upper, middle and lower right morality system and the horribly creepy hands.

 

The boots and gauntlets were nicely rendered however, and I enjoyed it generally.

 

Edit: Thought the central conflict was also rather uninspired and illogical, the Qunari were far more interesting than the simplified and childish Templar and Mage conflict.

 

Low point for me storywise came about middle of act 2. My brother is a templar, mom just died, behind every corner is either a blood mage or a demon. Why should I stay here? And there is no reason. No reason what so ever. 

[Humanoid]

^ I asked myself the same question repeatedly throughout DA1 though.

[Zoraptor]

That's a problem with a lot of games though. You can think to yourself "waterchip? fetch it yourself you sanctimonious git" then "supermutants? Not my problem" in Fallout for example. Fundamentally it is a game and you have to play within its limitations, all a designer can do is give you reasons to follow the story and not everyone will think the reasons are good/ sufficient.

[kirottu]

But at least in DA1 you are a warden and you were born and raised in Ferelden. So you kinda care what happens. 

[Humanoid]

Fundamentally yes, but some of the origin stories, ironically perhaps, serve to undermine that by removing any reason for you to stay. i.e. they do the exact same thing complained about in Kirkwall, except it's done in the prologue instead of the second act.

[Guest Slinky]

Tried Faster Than Light, which I got from GoG summer sale. Fun little game, untill your well going game gets flushed down the toiled, not because you did something stupid, because you simply got unlucky. I think I'll stay away from this one while I still have hair on my head.

And day later I install it back. A worrying sign of one of these kind of games:

 

[alanschu]

FTL is a game where random can screw you over, true.  It's advantage is that the game takes so little time to actually play that it's easy to pick back up, and often the bad things that happen are depicted in a rather humorous way (IMO anyways).

[Guest Slinky]

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I usually hate it if I get screwed by things I have zero chance of changing, but now I've actually smiled or actually laughed when I've been shot to pieces! Sorcery!

[Maria Caliban]

I have to agree that the game is obliged to give you some reason to care about events.

 

Dragon Age II was good at that in the beginning, and then it went around killing or kicking out your family members while making Kirkwall itself a place that was hard to give a fig about.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Maria Caliban

[Tale]

I finished Shadowrun Returns. Now I'm going through the editor tutorial videos.

 

This is so much better than my usual strategy of fumbling around reverse engineering the intro sequence.

[GhostofAnakin]

Still plugging away at Defiance.  Like with many sandbox-style games, I always tend to forget to actually do the main missions.  I've been playing for about a week now, but I'm still relatively early into the second chapter of the main storyline.  I've been spending my time doing Arkfalls and the various side missions and challenges.

[Oerwinde]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I had forgotten there was no subtitles and the baddies run around so quick its hard to target them.

[Nordicus]

Hard Reset

 

This game's pretty interesting if also tiring. I like the various guns and the fact that enemies don't hold back at all, that they're out to ****ing murder you.

 

It could use less HUD effects on hit though. There's too much going on in screen already without the red veins, resulting in some rather random deaths

 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I had forgotten there was no subtitles and the baddies run around so quick its hard to target them.

I've spent so many pistol rounds on those damn zig-zagging dogs it's not funny

[Majek]

Shadowrun returns. Seems good enough after 20  minutes.

[Humanoid]

Finally managed to wrangle together four people for the full Monaco experience. Arguably the most fun in gaming I've had this year.