What are you playing now

[Gorgon]

Crysis 3. Needs mouse smoothing. I can't make minute adjustments, you know, aim, properly despite having an expensive mouse with a very high polling rate. Also it's still just win button gameplay. 

 

Made for console syndrome I guess. 

[ManifestedISO]

 

 

I had a good time with the Elder Scrolls Online beta this weekend.  It was better than I expected, the videos and trailers didn't do much for me originally.  I really only played through one of the starter areas fully, but it was a nice mix of quests.  The use of disguises was neat, and lockpicking is a fun addition to the MMO model.  I even got a little boost from reading a book in the game.  They really did put in a lot of the staples of the single player experience. 

Does it feel worth a subscription?

 

 

That is super hard to say.  It feels like I will get a good 40-60 hours of it, like I get out of every Elder Scrolls game.  But I always peter out on the single player games after a month.

 

So I think it is worth the box price and I will enjoy the first month, and I will see where I am at after that.

 

 

Apparently more than $200 to play that game for the first year ... whew, much cost, very money, wow

[Hurlshort]

 

 

 

I had a good time with the Elder Scrolls Online beta this weekend.  It was better than I expected, the videos and trailers didn't do much for me originally.  I really only played through one of the starter areas fully, but it was a nice mix of quests.  The use of disguises was neat, and lockpicking is a fun addition to the MMO model.  I even got a little boost from reading a book in the game.  They really did put in a lot of the staples of the single player experience. 

Does it feel worth a subscription?

 

 

That is super hard to say.  It feels like I will get a good 40-60 hours of it, like I get out of every Elder Scrolls game.  But I always peter out on the single player games after a month.

 

So I think it is worth the box price and I will enjoy the first month, and I will see where I am at after that.

 

 

Apparently more than $200 to play that game for the first year ... whew, much cost, very money, wow

 

 

A lot of money compared to what?  If you are getting a lot of entertainment out of it, then it a very reasonable rate.  Whenever I subscribe to an MMO, I prefer to think about it as choosing that over buying another game.  I buy a couple games a month, but if a subscription to an MMO means I go without one, that probably saved me money.

 

It's the same thing when you pay for a movie service like Netflix.  Sure, you can think of it as paying $80 a year to use the service, but I tend to think of all the money I save by not buying or renting as many movies.

[Gorgon]

On an unrelated note if you buy a netflix subscription here you get less than half of what is available to the US user base, for no reason at all. There is no option to pay more to get the whole thing.

 

Could be about distribution rights I suppose. Certain companies don't want to risk potential sales to european networks. Either way it made me cancel. You can do a workaround, perfectly legal, but it affects dowload speeds. 

[Bartimaeus]

Just finished Metro: Last Light. It's like Metro 2033 but simply better in every possible way(Story, Gameplay, Visuals, Controls...). A very enjoyable experience from start to finish. Highly Recommended! I also replayed Bioshock: Infinite and I liked it a little better this time around. I suddenly found the whole quantum-physics-themed-story to be entertaining.

 

I thought the opposite - overall - in regards to Metro: Last Light. Much preferred 2033. The stealth was even poorer in Last Light than in 2033, the plot was completely pants-on-head retarded, (particularly anything involving Anna, who you make love to after having maybe five minutes total of actual face time with her - I quit and then uninstalled maybe fifteen minutes after that), uh...I felt like the gunplay was about the same, except more hampered by the even more ridiculously easy stealth, so I never used a real gun against anything mutants at any time, anyways...Khan went from a wise old man to some crack-smoking hippie "duuuude"...Miller and the other Rangers basically became your archetypal American meathead soldiers...I was very unimpressed, overall.

 

The final nail in the coffin, though, was that (quite frankly) idiotic love-making scene with Anna. Maybe it was just me, but I would've shot her before doing what Artyom did with her. If you're going to make a tsundere-like character, please spend more than literally no time at all to transition between "you are a worthless sack of crap, I laugh at you with my thick Russian accent, ha ha ha" and "oooohh, artyom-san, I missed you soooooo much, I've been so worried about you and oh how I missed you! now come make love to me in this disease-ridden hell-hole...".

 

When that...Communist, was it?...held her hostage as leverage against you, I immediately shot at him.  The completely psychotic things you can do when you're being forced into impossibly railroaded situations not of your liking!

Edited February 10, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Sargallath Abraxium]

...bored yesterday wit' no hockey on, so I's fired up an ol' save o' VAGRANT STORY on the PS...fergot how clunky the controls was back then...

 

 

...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!...

[LadyCrimson]

That is super hard to say.  It feels like I will get a good 40-60 hours of it, like I get out of every Elder Scrolls game.  But I always peter out on the single player games after a month.

 

So I think it is worth the box price and I will enjoy the first month, and I will see where I am at after that.

One of my main irritations with the ES series has always been the combat mechanics. Don't like 1st person melee, and the 3rd person never felt quite right. Does ESO change any of that or does it still all rather feel kind of awkward. At least some articles make it sound like ranged is fun-ish.

 

The early impressions, now that the press embargo is off, don't exactly inspire. Especially the writing. Not that I'd play a MMO for the writing, really. But one complaint I'm seeing is a lack of impact feel to combat. I might like the exploration and quest design, tho. That sounds at least promising, for my style.

 

rockpapershotgun's 1st several hours impression article made me laugh, tho, re: some of the tortured dialogue.

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/07/hands-on-the-first-few-hours-of-elder-scrolls-online/

 

Were these encounters, these play-lets, of any interest, this would likely be pretty enticing. But instead it’s all bluster, people telling you how utterly important everything is, because the Grand High Priest Of Cliffaffle Poplington has sworn his enmity to the Wolf Queen Of Qqqqqqqb, which will likely cause the Ancient God Robert to rise from the Tombs Of Fort Backalick, raising the terrifying forces of BasingStoke. As hard as I try to concentrate on what they’re saying, not only my eyes but my entire brain glazes over, until I realise they’ve all stopped speaking and the little arrow on the map has moved one building over. Actually, I needn’t make up my own barely-parodied versions – here’s a genuine sentence from the game:

 

“The ritual tore the veil between Nirn and Oblivion, allowing Mannimarco to begin stealing the souls his master needed to power the Dark Anchors and initiate the Planemeld.”

[marelooke]

 

Just finished Metro: Last Light. It's like Metro 2033 but simply better in every possible way(Story, Gameplay, Visuals, Controls...). A very enjoyable experience from start to finish. Highly Recommended! I also replayed Bioshock: Infinite and I liked it a little better this time around. I suddenly found the whole quantum-physics-themed-story to be entertaining.

 

I thought the opposite - overall - in regards to Metro: Last Light. Much preferred 2033. The stealth was even poorer in Last Light than in 2033, the plot was completely pants-on-head retarded, (particularly anything involving Anna, who you make love to after having maybe five minutes total of actual face time with her - I quit and then uninstalled maybe fifteen minutes after that), uh...I felt like the gunplay was about the same, except more hampered by the even more ridiculously easy stealth, so I never used a real gun against anything mutants at any time, anyways...Khan went from a wise old man to some crack-smoking hippie "duuuude"...Miller and the other Rangers basically became your archetypal American meathead soldiers...I was very unimpressed, overall.

 

The final nail in the coffin, though, was that (quite frankly) idiotic love-making scene with Anna. Maybe it was just me, but I would've shot her before doing what Artyom did with her. If you're going to make a tsundere-like character, please spend more than literally no time at all to transition between "you are a worthless sack of crap, I laugh at you with my thick Russian accent, ha ha ha" and "oooohh, artyom-san, I missed you soooooo much, I've been so worried about you and oh how I missed you! now come make love to me in this disease-ridden hell-hole...".

 

When that...Communist, was it?...held her hostage as leverage against you, I immediately shot at him.  The completely psychotic things you can do when you're being forced into impossibly railroaded situations not of your liking!

 

Just finished Metro: Last Light as well. And yups, a lot of things make zero sense if you think about them even the slightest bit. And yeah spending (much) more time around Anna would've made that entire "relationship" thing make much more sense.

 

Also wasn't too fond about the weapon modification thing, given how rarely you encountered places where you could modify your weapons I just ended up using pretty much the same weapons throughout the entire game (even more so than in the previous game), as I didn't want to sacrifice my familiar setup for something that might not work too great past the next point of no return. Some weapons are only encountered much too late in as well (and I'm not about to drop loads of dough on a gun of which I have no idea how it will perform). But maybe that is just me...

 

As for the stealth, I preferred it over the Metro 2033 system where you often had no idea how visible you were and often were 100% visible to enemies even in very dark corners leading to some pretty frustrating levels. That said, I feel they might have gone overboard in the other direction with the watch. Still, I rather they retain the new system than go back to the 2033 system (or lack thereof)

 

Overall I enjoyed the game, still have to play through the DLC levels and considering the stealth wasn't quite as frustrating as in 2033 I might actually replay this at some point to get a totally "no-kills" playthrough (think I killed one guy I shouldn't have, /sigh, got the same in Deus Ex: HR at the helicopter defense and a few dudes eaten by rats, at least that's my assumption, in Dishonored)

[Bartimaeus]

2033's stealth could be frustrating and in some ways difficult, sure. But if you look at it from a realistic standpoint - as in, how would this situation play out if I were actually doing this - what you could do was quite frankly ridiculous. I've played through 2033 several times with killing every single human opponent and never causing an "alert" while only using knives/bolts. That's fairly difficult, especially considering you often run into situations where two or three guys (or even more) are bunched together and notice immediately when one of their own dies. From what I played of Last Light, it was pretty rare you ever ran into more than two guys together like that, as you could often kill guys right by other dudes without them noticing, (but of course, like 2033, it was inconsistent as all heck). Breaking out of the Nazi stalag defied belief, where you were shooting them with your little dinky silenced revolver in a huge chamber where sound would very much echo around and be heard, where it be the bullets or the sound of bodies dropping... 

 

I don't know why they got rid of the 4-stage stealth watch in favor of the two-stage one. Truth be told, while I was a little annoyed by the stealth, it's not what made me quit...

Edited February 11, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[darthdraken]

Games. I am currently playing xenonauts, project zomboid, shadowrun game on steam, plus rome 2. Etc etc

[Labadal]

Reached chapter 12 in Uncharted 3 It's fairly fun, I guess.

[LadyCrimson]

For the past week or two, I keep going back to stare at the DayZ early access page. While not normally my type of game, somehow, going in and constantly being in fear that someone is going to kill you for your shirt and a piece of fruit as soon as you spawn, or while walking down a road, or while trying to save someone else, is kinda appealing.

 

But the price seems a little steep for early access and a lot of bugs...

[sorophx]

it will only get more expensive as time goes, if Arma 3 is anything to go by. the cheapest Arma 3 ever has been is its Early Access price. so if you really want to try it either wait for release and grab a gray Steam code from someone online or get it now

[LadyCrimson]

Rust (the most popular imitator, I gather) is cheaper...I wonder how they compare.

[GhostofAnakin]

Decided to replay some ME3.  I'm doing the Aria T'Lok DLC at the moment and am wondering why they even bothered paying Carrie Ann Moss all that money.  She didn't bring anything to the role that some no-name actress costing peanuts could have brought.

[AGX-17]

Decided to replay some ME3.  I'm doing the Aria T'Lok DLC at the moment and am wondering why they even bothered paying Carrie Ann Moss all that money.  She didn't bring anything to the role that some no-name actress costing peanuts could have brought.

All these AAA published RPG-like games have to have a promotional video with some respected A-list or B+ (let's face it, Carrie-Anne Moss isn't exactly headlining any Oscar nominated films,) actors singing the praises of the game's story or writing no matter how bad it actually is. EA has money to burn.

Edited February 11, 2014 by AGX-17

[GhostofAnakin]

I just meant that with the usual complaints companies have of "we only have so much money and time to implement X features", that BioWare/EA could have used that extra money they spent on Moss to use toward some of the corners they cut when it came to actual game play (ie. more depth to sidequests, better dialogue/depth of dialogue with existing squad mates, etc.).

[Katphood]

Bioshock: Infinite on 1999 difficulty. I am also avoiding the Dollar O Bill vending machines for the achievement(I never really used them in my first or second playthrough, a real challenge would be to finish the game on 1999 mode without upgrading any weapons). I am past Heros Hall and so far things have been going on without a hassle. 

Edited February 12, 2014 by Astiaks

[AGX-17]

I just meant that with the usual complaints companies have of "we only have so much money and time to implement X features", that BioWare/EA could have used that extra money they spent on Moss to use toward some of the corners they cut when it came to actual game play (ie. more depth to sidequests, better dialogue/depth of dialogue with existing squad mates, etc.).

I don't have time to put on my best Armani and rolex so I can tap the watch while saying "Time is money!" so...

 

Time and budget restrictions are a concrete reality of the game industry. Do you remember why the video game Kickstarter boom happened in the first place? It's because devs wanted to be free from the constraints placed by publishers on time, money and content. Bioware might have so much leeway to color-code their endings, but they're a subsidiary of EA, it's EA that's paying for the game's production, and thus EA exercises complete control of the budget. They can propose as many budgets devoted heavily to improving whatever area needs to be improved, but if the suits at the publisher don't think that's going to generate more sales then they're just going to send it back with "suggested revisions".

 

Bioshock: Infinite on 1999 difficulty. I am also avoiding the Dollar O Bill vending machines for the achievement(I never really used them in my first or second playthrough, a real challenge would be to finish the game on 1999 mode without upgrading any weapons). I am past Heros Hall and so far things have been going on without a hassle.

I didn't like 1999 mode. I don't remember DOOM or Quake throwing these huge bullet sponges at me without giving me a rocket launcher that has 100 shots, never needs reloading, and a strafing speed that would impress sonic the hedgehog. Modern headshot and cover-oriented shooters simply don't work within the design principles of FPS games from the 90s.

Edited February 12, 2014 by AGX-17

[Katphood]

I don't remember DOOM or Quake throwing these huge bullet sponges at me without giving me a rocket launcher that has 100 shots, never needs reloading, and a strafing speed that would impress sonic the hedgehog. Modern headshot and cover-oriented shooters simply don't work within the design principles of FPS games from the 90s.

Hmmm, let's take a look at a few FPS games released in 1999:

 

Requiem: Avenging Angel

Aliens versus Predator

Kingpin: Life of Crime

System Shock 2(Bonus!)

Medal of Honor

Quake III Arena

The Wheel of Time

Half Life: Opposing force

 

While none of these games are like what you described(except for Quake 3 maybe...), can someone please tell me why they have decided to call it 1999 mode?!

 

Also, the Quake and DOOM your looking for weren't released in 1999, you should keep an eye out for a 1996 mode.

[Keyrock]

Pfft, 1992 Mode with Mecha-Hitler End Boss is where it's at.

[Humanoid]

Pfft, that was just a ripoff of Ultima Underworld and its Slasher of Veils.

[marelooke]

rockpapershotgun's 1st several hours impression article made me laugh, tho, re: some of the tortured dialogue.

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/07/hands-on-the-first-few-hours-of-elder-scrolls-online/

 

Were these encounters, these play-lets, of any interest, this would likely be pretty enticing. But instead it’s all bluster, people telling you how utterly important everything is, because the Grand High Priest Of Cliffaffle Poplington has sworn his enmity to the Wolf Queen Of Qqqqqqqb, which will likely cause the Ancient God Robert to rise from the Tombs Of Fort Backalick, raising the terrifying forces of BasingStoke. As hard as I try to concentrate on what they’re saying, not only my eyes but my entire brain glazes over, until I realise they’ve all stopped speaking and the little arrow on the map has moved one building over. Actually, I needn’t make up my own barely-parodied versions – here’s a genuine sentence from the game:

 

“The ritual tore the veil between Nirn and Oblivion, allowing Mannimarco to begin stealing the souls his master needed to power the Dark Anchors and initiate the Planemeld.”

 

Well, NDA is still up, so can't really say much. But gotta agree with the RPS article. Maybe it picks up after, at least Bester seems to like it. If I get another invite I might force myself past the early bit and maybe my opinion will change.

[Hurlshort]

 

rockpapershotgun's 1st several hours impression article made me laugh, tho, re: some of the tortured dialogue.

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/07/hands-on-the-first-few-hours-of-elder-scrolls-online/

 

Were these encounters, these play-lets, of any interest, this would likely be pretty enticing. But instead it’s all bluster, people telling you how utterly important everything is, because the Grand High Priest Of Cliffaffle Poplington has sworn his enmity to the Wolf Queen Of Qqqqqqqb, which will likely cause the Ancient God Robert to rise from the Tombs Of Fort Backalick, raising the terrifying forces of BasingStoke. As hard as I try to concentrate on what they’re saying, not only my eyes but my entire brain glazes over, until I realise they’ve all stopped speaking and the little arrow on the map has moved one building over. Actually, I needn’t make up my own barely-parodied versions – here’s a genuine sentence from the game:

 

“The ritual tore the veil between Nirn and Oblivion, allowing Mannimarco to begin stealing the souls his master needed to power the Dark Anchors and initiate the Planemeld.”

 

Well, NDA is still up, so can't really say much. But gotta agree with the RPS article. Maybe it picks up after, at least Bester seems to like it. If I get another invite I might force myself past the early bit and maybe my opinion will change.

 

 

Like every ES game ever, there is some good and some bad.  That quote sounds ridiculous when taken out of the context of the overarching plot.  I played through something similar on one of the early islands, and the setup for the confrontation with the big bad guy was pretty well done.  

 

That's the same article where the guy complains about John Cleese portraying a mad bard.  He lost all credibility at that point with me.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Hurlshot

[sorophx]

Rust (the most popular imitator, I gather) is cheaper...I wonder how they compare.

Rust has more features. Also, it's made by the guy(s) behind Garry's Mod, if that tells you anything. A lot of people swear by Rust and put down DayZ. Personally I don't like how Rust is shaping up, but I'm biased, I've spent hundreds of hours playing DayZ, there's no switching sides for me now