What are you playing now?

[GhostofAnakin]

random stat progression is an idiotic game mechanic... regardless o' the game.  am not even gonna touch the "realistic" = good implication.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

You're thinking of the "Hidden Potential" option, rather than the "Not Created Equal" option, aren't you?

 

The latter generates random starting stats, while the former has to do with random progression as they level up.  I was referring to the former.

Edited January 9, 2014 by GhostofAnakin

[Gromnir]

...

 

am not seeing the confusion. random stat progression is hardly Less bad 'cause it occurs at genesis. in point of fact, randomized stats at creation is typically a greater problem than level-up randomized as in most systems more points is potentially distributed at genesis than at any other single leveling opportunity.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Azure79]

I started playing Shadowrun Returns but quickly ran into a game stopping bug and had to start the entire section over. Then my save game disappeared for no reason. 

 

I have stopped playing out of frustration.

 

On to the next game in my backlog. 

[alanschu]

After reading some of Shattered Sword, I felt compelled to dig out War in the Pacific again

[Serrano]

random stat progression is an idiotic game mechanic... regardless o' the game.  am not even gonna touch the "realistic" = good implication.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

I found those options along with training roulette made the game more interesting to be honest. It has nothing to do with realism but it does make each character more unique, costly to lose when they've developed and can effectively create sub-classes when say you have a high accuracy assault who is great at overwatch or a sniper who has a couple of medic skills but with low-accuracy. 

[Lioness]

 

Early Access of Blackguards and Wasteland 2

 

Nice, let us know what you think of Blackguards and W2. No need break the NDA just some high level perspectives

 

 

No NDA on those 2. They have balance issues, which will likely be ironed out by release... but I think both are worth picking up when they go into some steam sale,... if you are into turn-based, squad based, story-light type RPGs

 

 

The internet hive-mind is reporting that TESO sucks donkey balls. Whaddyou think?

 

I have played my share of MMOs and I like the TES franchise (esp Morrowind) so you'd expect this is right up my alley. It isn't: The centrality of PvP, the monthly fee and the compromises for co-releasing on consoles, each would be enough to turn me off.

 

I wont be breaking an NDA by saying I agree with this guy:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/02/predicting-the-biggest-disaster-of-2014-the-elder-scrolls-online/

 

That said the freedom in the character development and the combat are nice, so I am looking forward to playing around with it in Beta,... but paying box + $180/year  for a game I will only be playing occasionally ? Nope!

 

 

Also, what determines what class a soldier in XCOM becomes after graduating from rookie status? 

 I am pretty sure the post-rookie class is randomly determined but hidden when the rookie is created.

The only exception to the randomness is the four rookies you start with; each will graduate to a different class (if they live long enough)

[WDeranged]

Completed Dragonborn last night, it wasn't exactly an anti-climax but I was a little bit surprised how quickly I reached the boss battle, I think the issue is that Bethesda decided to go against their recent trend for linearity...the Apocrypha sections are required for the MQ but they allow you do most of it before you have to, if I'd avoided them until the end it would have felt more epic.

 

Oh well, there's a freaking ton of reasonably interesting stuff left to do 

[melkathi]

Got through the three levels in the early access alpha version of Dungeon of the Endless. Quite a lot of fun.

[BruceVC]

I've just finished Amnesia: Machine for Pigs and I really enjoyed it, a well deserved 70/100. I went into the game with relatively low expectations but was pleasantly surprised. The things I liked were

 

• I did get scared in several places
• The puzzles weren't too hard or frustrating
• I was captivated by the horror of what happened during the narrative

Here's to the next one

[Lexx]

And I just finished Max Payne 3. It actually was a pretty cool game, I'd say, better than I've expected. Shows that all the buzz about "this ain't no Max Payne, coz it is sunny!" was way overblown, imo. I mean, the game does have it's flaws, but it still feels quite Max Payne-y to me.

 

The things that annoyed me the most, though, were the fact that already in the first 20 minutes of the game I had killed more people than Rambo and John McClane together. Also I had to replay various scenes over and over and over again, because I had to learn the position of enemies first... Seeing the game over screen was way to easy for my taste (played on Normal difficulty).

[Keyrock]

More Shadowrun Returns on my phone during lunch at work.  My ork decker is up to the part where we're going back to the NTSB building.  Decker is easily the best class to play in the Dead Man's Switch campaign.  It's not my favorite, that would be Shaman, and it's not the most powerful, but it's the class with the most options to do things a different way or access optional areas.

[Majek]

Did you like the graveyard scene? I'm mentioning it because i repeated that the most. I played on hard though.

 

 

 

More Shadowrun Returns on my phone during lunch at work.  My ork decker is up to the part where we're going back to the NTSB building.  Decker is easily the best class to play in the Dead Man's Switch campaign.  It's not my favorite, that would be Shaman, and it's not the most powerful, but it's the class with the most options to do things a different way or access optional areas.

I always thought deckers had little choices. Guess i should pay more attention next time.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Majek

[Raithe]

And I just finished Max Payne 3. It actually was a pretty cool game, I'd say, better than I've expected. Shows that all the buzz about "this ain't no Max Payne, coz it is sunny!" was way overblown, imo. I mean, the game does have it's flaws, but it still feels quite Max Payne-y to me.

 

The things that annoyed me the most, though, were the fact that already in the first 20 minutes of the game I had killed more people than Rambo and John McClane together. Also I had to replay various scenes over and over and over again, because I had to learn the position of enemies first... Seeing the game over screen was way to easy for my taste (played on Normal difficulty).

 

I don't think I had that much grief on normal except a couple of occasions, most notably the end sequence with the grenade launcher in the hanger.

 

I think what always felt odd to me was this was a guy that everyone knew had pretty much done several serious kill spree's against armed men trying to kill him, and he not only survived he tore through everything in his way on sheer determination. So why they still felt the need to act as if he was some goombah who wasn't a potential threat...

[Lexx]

Yeah, this too.

 

By the way, I think that Max Payne 3 works best if you ignore that the second game existed. Else all this whining about his wife and stuff is not really believable.

[Calax]

CoD Ghosts.

 

It's the first one that I feel actually deserves that whole "uninspired recreation of different set pieces from other games!".

 

I beat it, and the credits kept listing different game dev houses and overall the blasted thing feels like it's missing probably half it's story elements (magically south america is able to rise up and attack the USA... and the USA has orbital weapons without any real explanation). But what really gets into your head and sits there is that your "organization" doesn't feel like a part of the military, no real command structure and ultimately they're pursuing a personal vendetta rather than a military objective.

 

I realize I'm probably digging to deep into this, but ultimately there just starts to build up these little things... A Dad who deliberately raises his kids to be "Tier One" soldiers. A Submarine who managed to get to a frozen lake in the Andes Mountains. The US managing to lose the South West and ends up in a defensive war. A "normandy beach" level where you are defending with a mounted machine gun.  A distinct lack of info on what military branch they're in.

 

Basically it's about as jingoistically propagandized as possible. Practically worshipping the military (and more specifically the "tier one" operators), and making them into insane supermen. And while yes this did happen on previous games to a degree, usually the protagonists weren't as Ubermench as these yahoos. The SAS crew in the MW series were a bunch of thugs with moral relativism, and the Treyarch series has a horrible father, a sociopathic cold war russian, and a kid with daddy issues (because of the horrible father).

 

I'll stop ranting now.

[Plutone00]

Consortium.

 

Pleasantly surprised about quality of indie games nowadays.

[Nordicus]

Ys: Oath in Felghana

 

It's technically an action jrpg, but the progression of power has so little meaning (except making backtracking to earlier dungeons easier) when you just dash through levels and equipment when you're underleveled in an area, and all progression almost comes to a halt when you're even slightly overleveled.

 

So whether you beat the next boss in 3 tries, 10 tries or 100 almost depends on your playing skills alone. This is a really fun and straight-forward action game with some really well designed and tough boss encounters, which most surprisingly of all, works really well with mouse and keyboard even when it looks like such a console game.

 

Also it's kinda nuts. I got my first block move after halfway through the game... in form of a magic earth-elemental tackle. That's like when you get your gliding ability by using your magic spin slash while jumping. The game is absolutely expecting you to use these attacks for utility purposes

Edited January 10, 2014 by Nordicus

[Monte Carlo]

Mainly Company of Heroes 2 (big 3 v 3 or 4 v 4 games, which are gonzo but enormous fun), have discovered the joy of IS-2 and T34/85 parties. Am also playing some original CoH, am still waiting for Walsingham to man-up and face me on the battlefield. The big girl's blouse.

 

Also a bit of Grim Dawn. Cannot, whatsoever get into Rome TW2 (it's so bloody confusing) so am going back to Medieval 2.

 

Oh, and some Baldur's Gate 1/2.

 

Dammit I've got quite a lot of games going on at the moment.

[teknoman2]

the thing i dislike about company of heroes, is the lack of certain automations for the controls... this makes it a micromanagement nightmare (and also the fact that i cant customize the controls)

for example i want to move a squad to a position. they can jump a fence or go around the building to get there. if i do not give them the order to jump the fence and then the order to go to the destination, they will go around the building

[GhostofAnakin]

My sniper from my first play through of XCOM has spoiled me.  Or maybe my snipers in my current play through just suck.  Could be a combination of both.

 

The sniper from my original play through hit everything.  She went through a bit of a slump when I changed her hair style (women!), but the majority of the time I could count on her.  She even saved my bacon on one mission, where two of my guys were about to bleed out, including my only medic, by killing the last three enemies in a row with her "on fire" (or whatever it's called) ability to end the mission.

 

My new snipers hit at around a 50% success rate.  Even pretty easy shots they'll miss on occasion.  They're certainly not as dependable as ol' "Lockdown" Braun was.

[Majek]

Just finished the  story portion of NNK. Off to finish the other stuff and invest another 50 hours.

[LadyCrimson]

Hubs: "Torchlight 2 is free this weekend I hear."

Me: "Oh yeah, I haven't played that in ages, never finished."

 

*turns Steam/TL2 on, loads lvl38 chr.*

 

Holy pistols, I barely remember how to play this game. I don't mean the "whack things until dead" part. I mean what/how to's of all the skills, spells, items, the gems, hotkeys, what the heck was I doing with 100 gold fish in my stash (up to no good I imagine!)...and I have mule characters. How did I mule? Oh yes, shared stash. Wait, how did I stand still while fighting? Shift isn't working. Wut? Oh yeah, I mapped it to E. Fishing hole? Oh yeah, fishing!

 

*Man I should start a new game at least temporarily to remember stuff*

 

Hey! New pet options, that wasn't there before. Must be some patch Steam D/L'd ages ago and I never looked. And you can mod. Must...get...pet mods...

 

...forget hubby, I'm playing this game again, with or without him.

[Keyrock]

Hubs: "Torchlight 2 is free this weekend I hear."

Me: "Oh yeah, I haven't played that in ages, never finished."

 

*turns Steam/TL2 on, loads lvl38 chr.*

 

Holy pistols, I barely remember how to play this game. I don't mean the "whack things until dead" part. I mean what/how to's of all the skills, spells, items, the gems, hotkeys, what the heck was I doing with 100 gold fish in my stash (up to no good I imagine!)...and I have mule characters. How did I mule? Oh yes, shared stash. Wait, how did I stand still while fighting? Shift isn't working. Wut? Oh yeah, I mapped it to E. Fishing hole? Oh yeah, fishing!

 

*Man I should start a new game at least temporarily to remember stuff*

 

Hey! New pet options, that wasn't there before. Must be some patch Steam D/L'd ages ago and I never looked. And you can mod. Must...get...pet mods...

 

...forget hubby, I'm playing this game again, with or without him.

I haven't played in ages either.  Hit me up if you want to do some new character co-op Saturday or Sunday (assuming out schedules magically line up).

[Inyourprime]

Ass Creed 4: Black Flag.

 

Beat the game, actually. And I don't think I can stomach boarding another ship. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the game, I did, but it's ridiculous how repetitive it is. But I did enjoy the story though. Ya boy Captain Kenway had quite a life.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Inyourprime

[Monte Carlo]

the thing i dislike about company of heroes, is the lack of certain automations for the controls... this makes it a micromanagement nightmare (and also the fact that i cant customize the controls)

for example i want to move a squad to a position. they can jump a fence or go around the building to get there. if i do not give them the order to jump the fence and then the order to go to the destination, they will go around the building

 

A force move order would be good, whereby troops took the most direct route to an objective, but micro is all part of CoH. If you force moved, especially with the true-sight system, your troops will probably blunder into a machinegun or a lurking Panzer. However, you can stack up orders for units, hit shift + order when toggling them. For example, you can order a unit to move to 'A' vault wall 'B' then take green cover at point 'C' simply by holding down shift. This is what I tend to do, especially with opening units (if I play Soviets, say, I usually send an engineer to cap by shift-clicking then deploy my first three conscripts to cap in cover likewise).

 

So try some shift / click and see if that helps.