What are you playing now?

[Calax]

 

I didn't play Enter the Dominatrix... I was just expecting (in a cyber world shaped by our "heroes") something like a nuclear power plant in the shape of a woman with cooling dome breasts. Or something else juvinile like that (Or a stripper pole with an active stripper on the ship or something).

With SR4 they somewhat moved away from "porn" territory, which, supposedly was something THQ more pushed them to do than what the devs wanted to do themselves, and more into just straight goofball wackiness territory.

 

Except they kept the sexual jokes and "The Penetrator" in the game. That's kinda why I'm boggled at it, the game. They have gimps and hookers and references left and right... hell even the DLC is "ENTER THE DOMINATRIX" and yet in game it feels like they try to say "SEX SEX SEX... aww we don't deal wit dat"

 

I mean the entire backstory of Kinzie is that she got fired for being a dominatrix.... and yet her "super form" is basically her in a body suit and a hoodie.

[Raithe]

 

 

I didn't play Enter the Dominatrix... I was just expecting (in a cyber world shaped by our "heroes") something like a nuclear power plant in the shape of a woman with cooling dome breasts. Or something else juvinile like that (Or a stripper pole with an active stripper on the ship or something).

With SR4 they somewhat moved away from "porn" territory, which, supposedly was something THQ more pushed them to do than what the devs wanted to do themselves, and more into just straight goofball wackiness territory.

 

Except they kept the sexual jokes and "The Penetrator" in the game. That's kinda why I'm boggled at it, the game. They have gimps and hookers and references left and right... hell even the DLC is "ENTER THE DOMINATRIX" and yet in game it feels like they try to say "SEX SEX SEX... aww we don't deal wit dat"

 

I mean the entire backstory of Kinzie is that she got fired for being a dominatrix.... and yet her "super form" is basically her in a body suit and a hoodie.

 

 

Hm, no, Kinzi got fired from the FBI because Matt framed her for all sorts of **** because she kept trying to catch him. That's why she hates his guts.

 

The Enter the Dominatrix DLC is generally a lot of self-referential humour. The conversations between the gang as they talk about how the original "Enter the Dominatrix DLC" was reaaally supposed to go and why it didn't happen. It gets very meta, and very silly. But it did make me chuckle quite a few times.

[Calax]

 

 

 

I didn't play Enter the Dominatrix... I was just expecting (in a cyber world shaped by our "heroes") something like a nuclear power plant in the shape of a woman with cooling dome breasts. Or something else juvinile like that (Or a stripper pole with an active stripper on the ship or something).

With SR4 they somewhat moved away from "porn" territory, which, supposedly was something THQ more pushed them to do than what the devs wanted to do themselves, and more into just straight goofball wackiness territory.

 

Except they kept the sexual jokes and "The Penetrator" in the game. That's kinda why I'm boggled at it, the game. They have gimps and hookers and references left and right... hell even the DLC is "ENTER THE DOMINATRIX" and yet in game it feels like they try to say "SEX SEX SEX... aww we don't deal wit dat"

 

I mean the entire backstory of Kinzie is that she got fired for being a dominatrix.... and yet her "super form" is basically her in a body suit and a hoodie.

 

 

Hm, no, Kinzi got fired from the FBI because Matt framed her for all sorts of **** because she kept trying to catch him. That's why she hates his guts.

 

The Enter the Dominatrix DLC is generally a lot of self-referential humour. The conversations between the gang as they talk about how the original "Enter the Dominatrix DLC" was reaaally supposed to go and why it didn't happen. It gets very meta, and very silly. But it did make me chuckle quite a few times.

 

The way they phrase it in SRIV's audio logs is that Matt just sent photos of her having "kinky fun" to her bosses.

[GhostofAnakin]

Taking a break from Dragon's Dogma.  I'm playing The Bureau, which I'd gotten on sale awhile back.  I was expecting the combat to actually be paused while I issue orders, but then I see all the enemies moving about while I'm taking my time organizing my squad.  The combat is basically like Mass Effect's (it's even got the Mass Effect wheel).

 

Having said all that, I'm actually enjoying it.  It got such bad ratings that I figured it would be garbage (that never stops me from buying stuff on sale, apparently), but I'm about an hour in and having quite a bit of fun.

[JFSOCC]

I have been a shooter fan since Goldeneye/Perfect Dark on the N64.  I played some CS 1.6 on PC back in the day too, but always had a console in the house growing up.  Right now I'm enjoying some Dead Rising 3 and Battlefield 4 on my Xbox One.  Very much looking forward to Titanfall, The Division, Watch Dogs, the next Halo, and hopefully some Rainbow Six within the next few years or so.  I've been dying slowly inside without my AAA anti-terrorism group.  I miss Ding.

Yeah I miss rainbow six, I did not like the removal of the planning phase at all. I always built the perfect plan and then just watch the team execute it. Ravenshield was the last proper Rainbow Six title imo.

 

I've been playing race the sun. Arcade, pick up and play, great for if you don't want to spend ages playing. Ton of fun.

[NOK222]

Fire Emblem Awakenings. 

 

It's not an easy game. 

[Majek]

Like any Fire Emblem game is?

[Malcador]

Finished off Broken Sword 5, total time was 6 hours or so - did leave it running now and then but probably no more than 45 minutes.  Was a fun game, though I find the characters just up and go places you need to go to by themselves or locations are locked out if you don't need them for a puzzle.

[Enoch]

Is it weird that I sorta want to play Mass Effect?  I wonder if I can find the disc...

 

 

Edit:  I did!  It was in a stack of bare discs on a shelf, right between Civ4: Beyond the Sword and BG2: ToB. 

 

Edit2:  It says "Disc 1" on it.  Not a good sign. 

 

Edit3:  "Disc 1" is a lie.  I found the box, with the manual and CD Key in it.  According to the manual, there is no second disc.  Attempting install.  (Also, LOL at remembering that the video named "SarenSuicide" is one of the very first files that pops up in the installer!)

 

Yeah, I played that for an hour or two, and my patience is already waning a bit.  I get that there's a lot of exposition that the game needs to throw at you at the start, which is tiring but understandable.  But then I was reminded of the inventory management system, and I am totally not looking forward to dealing with all that nonsense. 

 

This is the first time I've installed ME1 on this PC, so all my achievement data is empty, which means that I don't get any of the little benefits that you get on a re-play.  I made a Sentinel, which makes me quite squishy at the start, and set the combat difficulty to Veteran.  So I'm actually having a pretty tough time.  That'll probably change once I unlock more powers and get my cooldowns lower. 

[Hurlshort]

I picked up Planescape Torment for sale on GoG.  I hadn't played it since college, and I don't remember much of the content past the mortuary, so it has been interesting learning about the world a second time.  I never finished it back in the day, so this might be the playthrough that gets me there.

[Labadal]

Fire Emblem Awakenings. 

 

It's not an easy game. 

It's not a bad game either. 

 

I picked up Planescape Torment for sale on GoG.  I hadn't played it since college, and I don't remember much of the content past the mortuary, so it has been interesting learning about the world a second time.  I never finished it back in the day, so this might be the playthrough that gets me there.

Are you using mods?

 

http://www.gog.com/news/mod_spotlight_planescape_torment_mods_guide

I played with most of these on my last playthrough and loved it.

[NOK222]

I had to restart my campaign twice cause I forgot to get someone. 

[Hurlshort]

 

 

I picked up Planescape Torment for sale on GoG.  I hadn't played it since college, and I don't remember much of the content past the mortuary, so it has been interesting learning about the world a second time.  I never finished it back in the day, so this might be the playthrough that gets me there.

Are you using mods?

 

http://www.gog.com/news/mod_spotlight_planescape_torment_mods_guide

I played with most of these on my last playthrough and loved it.

 

 

I tried the widescreen mod, but it started giving me a headache.  I'll stick to the native resolution, it still looks pretty good.

[AGX-17]

Super Robot Wars OG2nd: Dark Prison; the only game to date I've played where the protagonist was the final boss of the previous game in the series and for whom destroyed galaxies are collateral damage (as the protagonist.)

 

Waiting for Walking Dead S2 to drop on Steam.

 

I picked up Planescape Torment for sale on GoG.  I hadn't played it since college, and I don't remember much of the content past the mortuary, so it has been interesting learning about the world a second time.  I never finished it back in the day, so this might be the playthrough that gets me there.

You probably unconsciously blocked the hive out of your memory because of the Hive's seemingly endless supply of needlessly violent unsavory types.

[Llyranor]

Yeah, I replayed Torment earlier this year (last time might have been 10 yrs ago) and I was surprised at how much I had forgetten about it. It was like revisiting an old friend, with a bit of familiarity but also (re-)discovering new things. A timeless classic.

 

Currently, singleplayer-wise I'm playing Fire Emblem: Awakening.

On the multiplayer side, I'm mostly cycling between Wargame: Airland Battle (Cold War 'RTS' with wargame elements), War Thunder (WW2 and early era jets flight game), and MechWarrior Online (as mismanaged as the project is, the core gameplay is still a lot of fun).

[Nepenthe]

I picked up Planescape Torment for sale on GoG.  I hadn't played it since college, and I don't remember much of the content past the mortuary, so it has been interesting learning about the world a second time.  I never finished it back in the day, so this might be the playthrough that gets me there.

 

I never finished it either. I started it right before going into the army, then had to take an enforced break from it, and never could get it to work properly (ie. even boot) after getting discharged.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Nepenthe

[melkathi]

Playing pretty much the last game I bought before deciding not to buy more:

Shufflecup Cantina Deluxe

Makes it easier not to buy more games seeing how I am totally absorbed in that. Trying to unlock everything, do everything and climb up the Leaderboards. The last one will be the hardest. The top players have insane scores.

[Nepenthe]

Oh, meanwhile I've been playing Battlefield 4 every now and then. The campaign reminds me of a girl I use to date, pretty, no substance and always goes on for a bit too long.

 

Their water tech is really impressive, but they kind of ram it down your throat on every possible level. Looking forward to seeing other games with the engine, especially if actual content in the game won't need that much paring back.

[melkathi]

 

Their water tech is really impressive, but they kind of ram it down your throat on every possible level.

 

Next time, please put in a clear disclaimer that the dating analogy is over.

[Nepenthe]

 

 

Their water tech is really impressive, but they kind of ram it down your throat on every possible level.

 

Next time, please put in a clear disclaimer that the dating analogy is over.

 

 

 

I totally deserve that for posting from work.

[Walsingham]

 

 

Their water tech is really impressive, but they kind of ram it down your throat on every possible level.

 

Next time, please put in a clear disclaimer that the dating analogy is over.

 

 

ROFLMAO

[PrimeJunta]

Rome II Total War.

 

I didn't follow the hype at all (didn't even realize it was coming out), and only jumped it at Patch 7, so I missed all the angst about it. Apparently it was badly broken on release, and some hyped features weren't in at all, which caused a certain amount of upset among the calm, collected, and rational set of human beings known as 'gamers.' Lots of outrage going on in the forums still as a matter of fact.

 

I, however, am having a hell of a good time. I figured out how the mechanics work and am back to playing on Hard, and this is definitely the best TW yet, no question. Specifically:

 

Campaign play. In all the previous installments, it was just dopey. The AI was doing really dumb things based on extremely local conditions, which made campaign play dull. That's way improved. Diplomacy in particular actually means something: it's possible to pursue an actual policy of, say, forging a chain of alliances along a border to secure it, while leaving other borders without such alliances so you can expand in that direction. Yet it's not trivially easy; you actually have to pay attention to the relations between your neighbors, pick the ones to befriend, and build up on that to strengthen ties with their friends. Conversely, if you suddenly do a U-turn and stab them in the back, things will get ugly fast. This makes the whole thing much more interesting in my book.

 

The AI also plays the campaign map much more intelligently, sometimes even springing nasty (i.e., nice) little surprises. Example: I had two legions close enough to support each other on an enemy map, hoping to entice it to attack in the open. It did, but it first used an agent action to slow down one of the armies so it couldn't support the other, and then attacked the other one. I was suddenly seriously outnumbered. I won that one on the battlefield – just – and it was a lot of fun. 

 

Combined-forces assaults. Navy battles are kind of broken (they tend to turn into clown-car free-for-alls with half the ships sunk really fast), but combined-forces assaults on coasts do work. Navies become a real strategic asset; you can raid unprotected coastal settlements, or when working together with land armies, add more pressure to them. That's a whole new dimension to the battles, and a good one.

 

Cover and concealment. Terrain topography matters for line of sight. It's suddenly possible to plan battlefield ambushes, hide flanking groups behind ridges, and so on, and then spring them on the enemy. (Doesn't always work of course.)

 

Building tree and economy. The usual dumb "build everything you can as fast as you can" method doesn't work. Your food or public order consumption will outstrip your food or public order production, and your empire will collapse in famine or rebellion. Instead, you have to actually plan what to build and where. (This could be deepened, balanced, and polished a bit, but it's already much better than the previous TW's). 

 

Dynamism. The factions – especially on Hard difficulty – are quite active, and produce unpredictable results on the map. It feels much more like a living world than the previous iterations.

 

I've also had zero crashes and performance is excellent. There have been occasional bugs but they're more in the annoyance department than real showstoppers; e.g. sometimes the diplomacy screen gets "stuck" so you can't get out of it, and once two of my provinces suddenly stopped growing for no reason I could tell. I haven't looked closely enough at the animations to see anything badly wrong with those; there are some cosmetic things e.g. with routed units running off the map in neat queues, that sort of thing, but that's about it.

 

A lot of the rage is about the family tree (not implemented) and politics (which is thin on the ground and strangely random), but I don't particularly care about either; in fact I think the main problem with those may be that (I believe) they were hyped a lot before release and don't measure up to the promises.

[JFSOCC]

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I played it for a bit when it came out and found it to be vastly inferior to the original RTW and basically unplayable thanks to all the bugs. Eventually I stopped when it became clear I had grown large enough not to have any competition any more.

 

Enemy AI was terrible, btw, so I'm curious and happy to hear that it has been fixed.

[PrimeJunta]

Enemy campaign AI is surprisingly good IMO. Battle AI is... I would say OK in battles on open maps, but limited in other ways, especially at settlement assaults; defending against that is pretty much a guaranteed Heroic Victory if you have any troops in place at all. So that does need work. I don't find it all that important actually because it's fairly rare to run into that situation; if the enemy army hits an undefended city you might as well auto-resolve (and lose) anyway, and if it's defended the garrison is probably big enough that the AI won't attempt to storm. You'll only get a settlement assault worth fighting on the battle map if it's a province capital, or if you have a navy in place to provide just enough power to give you shot but not so much it'll deter the attack, which isn't all that common.

 

There's some other AI dopeyness in there too, for example it doesn't appear to account for dismounted cav units, and mounts aren't on transports when doing a naval invasion, which leads to really silly situations, like war elephant units, minus the elephants, marching right at heavy infantry and subsequently getting slaughtered.

 

Battles on open terrain are fun and the AI does do stuff that's interesting enough to make things, well, interesting; for example it attempts to do flanking maneuvers and such. And it's of course much faster at coordinating things than a human player, which makes combat against barbarians quite challenging since they have such good charge bonuses, and the AI will do that all at once.

 

I played the bejeezus out of the first RTW, and even more out of the Rome: Total Realism mod. I miss some of the realism aspect of RTR, in particular cultural conversion is way too fast and you can build up your own culture's training camp in a settlement as soon as you get it, so that whole business of eventually accumulating armies made up of a core of own-culture units mixed up with a rainbow range of auxiliaries isn't really there. So it's not perfect by any means.

 

But it's certainly not the disaster (now) that the initial reviews and fan response make it out to be. IMO as always.

[PrimeJunta]

Woah, today's patch did something to the AI. Definitely more aggressive and meaner. It even made a decent attempt at a naval invasion of one of my settlements. No more picking off units one by one, it hit me in a coordinated wave. Turned into an actual battle!