What are you playing now?

[Enoch]

Giving Dishonored a go while on furlough.

 

I'm having my typical love-hate reaction with stealth games.  The setting and art direction are interesting, and there's just enough mystery to keep me interested in seeing the plot advance.  It's just that stealth gameplay feels so gamey--  guards strolling about in repeating patterns; folks never go looking for their missing comrades; moving bodies removes all evidence of the assault; the idea that by creeping up behind somebody you can silently and without fail either execute or incapacitate somebody within a couple seconds...  I enjoy actually doing it, but afterwards I feel a bit sheepish about my success, rather than satisfied.  And the non-stealthy approach just leads to me playing a kind of game that I don't particularly enjoy. 

 

I've gone non-lethal so far, but not so far as ghosting everything.  Staying 100% undetected is beyond my tolerance for reloads. 

[Tale]

 

Edit: Did everyone know about this?

VERSION 4.13: Includes some new engine fixes, the highlights being fix to "Ice Knife" spell

http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/647-pst-ultimate-weidu-fixpack-v413/

 

Yes, Qwinn's fixpack has been essential for PS:T for years, just like the G3 fixpack has been to Baldur's Gate 2. Also the Unfinished Business, UI mod and the tweak pack from the same place are great.

 

Yeah, I have all of those installed.

 

It's just that they finally fixed Ice Knife. It took until August of 2012, but someone did it.

[Hurlshort]

I'm still grumbling about the browser launching stuff in BF3.  I played the beta for BF4 and it seems more stable, but I'm not sure if I will get it.  The magic that was BF2 is gone.

[Tale]

It needs Titans.

[Hurlshort]

It needs Titans.

 

I would love to see another BF2142, that game was cool.  I think they also need to do a real BF1942 follow up, not just a map or two tribute.

[Keyrock]

Risen 2 - I'm eager to get off Tacarigua so I can meet the natives and get my voodoo on, but I still have a few things left to do before Steelbeard will let me join the crew, namely I need to get sugar for Booze.  So far I've been putting all my points in Cunning and Toughness, so I'm still a wimp with a sword, but termites (which I need to dispatch to get the sugar) are easy enough enemies, even with my lack of skill.

[JFSOCC]

We'll see how the game fares. Not gonna give up. Can always restart if it really goes game over. And then, not normal or hard as some suggested here, but easy once more. I need it...

No you don't!

You're not going to improve if you don't get back on the horse after it throws you!

There is no shame in losing, tbh, I don't know if you can come back from a bad situation anyway. If you fall behind, usually you stay behind.

(don't let that dissuade you from trying though, you'll feel all the more rewarded for it when you do meet with success)

The insectoids, with which I think you mean Chrysalids (as they are the only creatures to create zombies) are a plague. I deal with them with extreme prejudice, they're always priority targets. If I can kill 3 of any other unit, or one chrysalid, it'll be the chrysalid meeting its doom.

 

A few tips for combat: always bring at least one recruit with your best team, it's easier saving them and levelling them. If you have limited armour, give your best armour to the newbie. Ideally you should always have 12 units that can deal with threats, so you can recover from a team wipe. try rotating out your better soldiers to give others a chance.

If you want to be effective against incoming forces, always keep your teammembers within range of eachother, it's the best defence against chrysalids or flanking. It also means that if you have an enemy within range, one hit is not going to make or break, you'll have backup to deal with them. Nothing sucks harder than having a 90% shot miss, and losing your best sniper because you had no team members nearby to cover for his or her failure. I learned that the hard way.

 

In terror missions, I find it pays to be aggressive, the faster you rescue civilians, the less fodder for the chrysalids to turn. But this comes with the caveat that you shouldn't break up your team. that's not an absolute rule, but a guideline.

 

As for shooting down UFO's, there are 3 special consumable items you can create to aid during the interception, these are incredibly useful. I made it my business to always have 2 of each of them, I have NEVER let a(n?) UFO get away. They can ruin your satellites if you do, and that's too expensive to fix.

 

Anyway, keep it up, you'll get better, I swear!

 

Edit: Just realized you went for the alien base way too early. While the game says to go do a story mission, you REALLY dont want to do that until you are ready. I took the time to get the best armors and weapons in the whole game when I finally went for that mission

This, I had this mission open and only played it when my panic levels started to rise. I had kept it as I had correctly guessed it would do wonders in bringing them down. It's a good way to give your self some breathing room.

 

Yeah, I think one of my biggest mistake is not having laser weapons yet 0_o

armour trumps weaponry. Because a soldier that can take a few hits can leverage those extra turns into extra damage output. You can have great damage, but if you drop quickly, that makes no difference.

 

one last thing.

Always pick snap-to shots for sniper, and always pick lightning reflexes for assault.

Edited October 7, 2013 by JFSOCC

[Hurlshort]

I prefer to have two snipers, one that can shoot anywhere on the map, and one that can move and shoot.

[Rosbjerg]

I loved the perk that allowed contionous extra shots if you killed someone out of cover.. damn that was effective

[Guest Slinky]

Yeah, lightning reflexes for assault absolutely, but you really want one sniper with squadsight with you all times. My main sniper with it had easily the biggest kill count at the end, almost twice as much as the second highest who was support if I recall correctly.

 

Edit: I guess it's down to play style, I mostly hunkered down and waited/lured the enemy to me so the sniper with squadsight was having a ball and murdered everything,

Edited October 7, 2013 by Slinky

[GhostofAnakin]

I've been replaying some of the co-op side missions in Splinter Cell Blacklist trying to master the various play styles.  I'm up to 3 Panther masteries and 2 Ghost masteries.  Oddly enough, despite the fact I'm more an action gamer than stealth gamer, I've yet to attempt the, um (mind going blank) combat mastery one.

[Serrano]

The Brock Samson?

Edited October 7, 2013 by Serrano

[Keyrock]

I had forgotten just how many things you have to do for Steelbeard to let you join his crew.  I don't mind most of it, but there is one quest that forces you to compete in a mini-game, a really crappy mini-game, at that.  Even if it was a good mini-game, forcing you to complete it for a mainline quest is just wrong.  Mini-games should be optional, period.

[Hurlshort]

Playing the BF4 beta made me decide to install BF3 and see if it runs better than it did when I played it at release.

[Humanoid]

armour trumps weaponry. Because a soldier that can take a few hits can leverage those extra turns into extra damage output. You can have great damage, but if you drop quickly, that makes no difference.

 

one last thing.

Always pick snap-to shots for sniper, and always pick lightning reflexes for assault.

Going to have to give the opposite advice to this. Gunslinger + Squad Sight is by far the preferred perk combo. Gunslinger is essentially like-for-like with Snap Shot, a little less damage perhaps, but without the aim penalty. But what the combination means is you get Squad Sight, which is amazing, compared to the mediocre and highly situational Damn Good Ground (which apparently does *not* work while flying).

 

And while researching armour first provides a safety net for beginners, it's a liability for higher difficulty levels. At classic you can still go either way (though even then I'd still heavily favour lasers), at impossible it's essentially mandatory: plinking away with conventional weapons at 6hp Thinmen and Floaters will ensure a rapid death, no matter how good your armour.

[Katphood]

Sleeping Dogs.

 

+Great story and narrative

+Memorable characters

+Purdy graphics

+Awesome car chases loaded with lots of shooting and explosions

 

-Awful hand-to-hand combat

-Annoying camera

-Pretty much nothing interesting to do in the city besides the main story missions

Edited October 8, 2013 by Astiaks

[BruceVC]

Sleeping Dogs.

 

+Great story and narrative

+Memorable characters

+Purdy graphics

+Awesome car chases loaded with lots of shooting and explosions

 

-Awful hand-to-hand combat

-Annoying camera

-Pretty much nothing interesting to do in the city besides the main story missions

 

I agree there weren't enough side missions to motivate you to want to explore Hong Kong but at least you did some exploring when you went after the idols and statues 

 

But I have to disagree around the hand to hand combat, I really enjoyed it and found it to be a nice change as opposed to having to use weapons to beat every opponent  like you do in your typical SR or GTA game

[Keyrock]

I'm with Bruce, the hand to hand combat was one of the highlights of Sleeping Dogs for me.  I enjoyed it immensely.

[Humanoid]

The combat *system* seemed mostly fine to me (except the grappling QTEs, ugh), but the problem was how it was employed in terms of encounters. Having to beat up 20 generic mooks for a random sidequest, who spawn a few at a time is not an interesting challenge, just lazy design. It's even brazen enough to give you a mook counter on your screen telling you how much of this chore is still left to do.

[Orogun01]

I'm not sure that the story was a high point either, seems like it starts to lose focus midway through. Plus a lot of the characters are presented and then never used again, wonder where they go?

[Malcador]

Don't recall many that happened to, most of the characters get some sort of resolution - beaten to death, go into hiding, cooked, etc. The hand to hand is fun, shame breaking limbs doesn't really have a permanent effect but it's still fun to do.

[Fighter]

Sleeping Dogs h2h combat is the best thing about it. So much fun.

[BruceVC]

I'm not sure that the story was a high point either, seems like it starts to lose focus midway through. Plus a lot of the characters are presented and then never used again, wonder where they go?

 

You are probably finding the narrative confusing. I read a few times on there forums that people didn't know what was the purpose or reason for character x.

 

Let us know if there anything that didn't make sense with the story

[Bartimaeus]

Friend convinced me to try Hitman: Blood Money after complaining so much about Hitman: Absolution, (and the new Thief and other recent "reboots"). Liking it so far, but a lot of things weren't very well explained and the controls were a bit hard to get a grasp of. Nonetheless, I've gone through like 8 missions now.

[BruceVC]

Friend convinced me to try Hitman: Blood Money after complaining so much about Hitman: Absolution, (and the new Thief and other recent "reboots"). Liking it so far, but a lot of things weren't very well explained and the controls were a bit hard to get a grasp of. Nonetheless, I've gone through like 8 missions now.

 

Bartie it is a terrible thing having to actually  think and work out how a game functions. This is how all games use to be, you console kids have it easy