What are you playing now

[Drowsy Emperor]

I didn't hate the NWN2 OC, I just thought it was pretty mediocre and really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really dragged through the middle portion.  I don't think I could stomach going through it again.

 

Yes, it was one of the most boring games I've ever played without actually being bad at anything in particular. One gets used to RPG's dragging at some point or another since they're mostly very long games but NWN2 was like watching paint dry.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'm so bored with nothing to play that I'm tempted to play through the entire Gears of War series.  I'd only ever played the first game.  Never did get around to 2 and 3.

[Sarex]

Finished Child of Light. For anyone who liked Bastion this is a must play game.

[sorophx]

I tried so hard to like Bastion, but the gameplay just didn't do it for me. wonder how Transistor will fare in that department 

[Sarex]

Hmmm, well this is not the same as Bastion gameplay wise, but it has the same feel and charming atmosphere. If gameplay was the only thing that put you off from Bastion, then I recommend you try this game.

[Bryy]

I've decided that I want to make stuff in Portal 2 tonight.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I beat Witcher 2.

 

The two key things dragging this game down more than anything else are: trying to mechanically repeat the spontaneous elements of the first game and that its half a game. The first Witcher was a self contained story with some hooks left over that a sequel could use. Judging by the outcome of the Witcher 2, a third game was at that point planned and they were probably written together. As such the main arc of W2 falls flat - the outcome is less important, less relevant than it should be. Its entirely lore driven, instead of being driven by at least the main character if not the large cast of supporting characters (none of which are much more than their position in W2 politics). The only character that's developed and interesting is Letho and he shows up at the end like Morgan Freeman to explain the whole double and triple crossing everyone's been doing in the game. But the problem is that these politics are simply not interesting enough for the player - and not even for the player's character. I addressed the subtle changes Geralt has undergone for the worse, but probably the most problematic is the lack of a neutral option in this game. In the first one you could pick your side..or no side at all. It was a good idea. Now you're forced into picking a side, playing along in a conflict that's of no personal importance to you. For a series that places maturity on such a high pedestal, there are precious few mature decisions to make.

 

I suspect the game went through substantial cuts. The three principal areas are actually rather small and their length is padded by corner to corner running for quests and a lot of mobs. Many of the quests are in effect one and the same as the main quest and directly tied to it in progression which leaves few real side quests. That was the price of such a good looking game. My girlfriend who is running around Vizima currently, remarked that the quest hubs in W2 were like a backdrop (in the theatrical sense), in other words lifeless and fake, the third act one especially. 

 

I enjoyed some of it, other  parts were flat out frustrating. Some things they changed just for the sake of changing them and naturally botched it completely. From small silly things, like allowing the dice poker dice to roll out of the playing area and then not to count in your hand (Why?!), to the inventory and character screens I mentioned before. I waited them out and paid a symbolic price for the game. It was worth it overall, there is nothing like it on the market - but if I paid full price for it I'd be pretty unhappy. Not "I want my money back" unhappy, but disappointed that they succumbed so quickly to the typical mistakes sequels make. Bigger /= better, and some problems can't be solved by high production values and throwing money at them.

[melkathi]

Finished my first playthrough of Loren the Amazon Princess.

I am a bit ambivalent about the game. It is a turn based RPG meets visual novel. It took me a while to get used to either part.

 

The Bad:

Typos and other typing errors (a word typed twice) appear a bit too often for a game that focuses on story telling.

Hypersexualized (apparently that is the word to describe them) characters can get a bit on your nerves and make you wonder what eactly you are playing at times

A brainwashed player character and an unlikeable main npc (Loren - I want to slap her).

Re-used background images.

In the dlc quest, doing things out of order can lead to some dialogue triggering when it shouldn't.

 

The Good:

Romances are completly optional, mostly initiated by the PC and the romance choices are clearly labeled as such. The only flirting that is not initiated by the PC seems to be by an optional NPC, who teases the player to make them feel uncomfortable - so not romancy boohoo why don't you love me.

The game tries to build in quite a few choices. Some of them even good.

Personal quests for most party members (the 9 main ones, not the 4 dlc ones).

 

Overall I had fun, but the game isn't for everyone.

[Keyrock]

I won't likely have much time to play any games this weekend since I'm going to visit my folks for Mother's Day Weekend, but I'll pick up where I left off in my Call of Pripyat playthrough and see if I can finish that up before I head over there.  After I get back, or if I finish up CoP early (doubtful), I'm going to jump into Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Joint.  I'm also getting an itch to play Gothic 3 again, so I may have Tex split time with that.

[HoonDing]

Finished my first playthrough of Loren the Amazon Princess.

I am a bit ambivalent about the game. It is a turn based RPG meets visual novel. It took me a while to get used to either part.

 

The Bad:

Typos and other typing errors (a word typed twice) appear a bit too often for a game that focuses on story telling.

Hypersexualized (apparently that is the word to describe them) characters can get a bit on your nerves and make you wonder what eactly you are playing at times

A brainwashed player character and an unlikeable main npc (Loren - I want to slap her).

Re-used background images.

In the dlc quest, doing things out of order can lead to some dialogue triggering when it shouldn't.

 

The Good:

Romances are completly optional, mostly initiated by the PC and the romance choices are clearly labeled as such. The only flirting that is not initiated by the PC seems to be by an optional NPC, who teases the player to make them feel uncomfortable - so not romancy boohoo why don't you love me.

The game tries to build in quite a few choices. Some of them even good.

Personal quests for most party members (the 9 main ones, not the 4 dlc ones).

 

Overall I had fun, but the game isn't for everyone.

Just googled that.

 

...

 

It looks like a game that exists only to troll our Bruce.

[Labadal]

Fought my way through the first 25 stages of the Crucible in Darksiders 2. Don't know if I have it in me to go at it for another 75 levels.

[melkathi]

 

It looks like a game that exists only to troll our Bruce.

 

 

 

Not many games have such a good justification for their existence

[melkathi]

On an unrelated note.

For people who play Endless Space, Endless Legend or Dungeon of the Endless:

if you have an amplitude studios forum account, could I ask you for your vote in this poll:

http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?28733-Poll-Faction-Creation-Competition-Quest-1-the-Biography

The Flayers would appreciate your support

Thank you for your time

[Humanoid]

Urgh, the development path of XCOM's Long War mod continues to be simultaneously one of the most fascinating but most frustrating things around. Their technical accomplishments are incredible, by this point the changes far dwarf that of anything Firaxis themselves have been able to come up with. But it's also heavy with design decisions that are very questionable balancewise and often sacrifice gameplay for some contrived flavour. It's the standard armchair designing scenario, and it's disappointing because for the most part it's completely non-modular, like it or lump it.

 

Since we've been discussing the Bloodlines modding scene lately, I think it's somewhat comparable here. Yes, Long War always promised to be a complete overhaul rather than a bugfix release, but I just don't think there's been enough consideration given to each individual feature as they are implemented. I wish there was a more restrained and balance-tested approach to this.

 

A particularly glaring example is that regular sectoids have been granted psionic abilities - both mind fray and psi panic - which they don't hesitate to abuse. Sure, in terms of the setting, giving them psionic abilities sounds completely reasonable. But gameplay-wise it is extremely problematic at early levels, where success rates for the attacks are very high against your low-ranking troopers (and the new fatigue mechanic, which I love by the way, ensures you're carrying low-ranking guys for a lot longer), who have absolutely no defense against it. The result is each and every sectoid now has a spammable on-demand near-guaranteed panic attack, which inevitably leads to unmitigated chain panic. Yeah, gamebreaking balance change there.

 

Another issue is that alien pod locations have been completely unrestricted, instead of specific predetermined points on the map where static groups may be placed, every tile outside your initial line of sight is a valid location. Sounds interesting until you realise this will result in placement in potentially nonsensical places, and indeed place them in silly proximity to each other.

 

Ah well, any final release is still a bit off, so hopefully the final result is a fair bit more sensible. Unfortunate that the present builds are problematic to the extent of turning me off from any desire to try and playtest them.

 

 

 

EDIT: And giving drones passive damage resistance so you can shoot them and do zero, ZERO, damage. Bloody hell. And they've made the interceptor game *worse* by giving it much greater prominence. Yeah, it sucked before, but making it harder but no more responsive just makes it all the more suckier. Grrrrrr.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Humanoid

[Serrano]

The result is each and every sectoid now has a spammable on-demand near-guaranteed panic attack, which inevitably leads to unmitigated chain panic. Yeah, gamebreaking balance change there.

 

Ugh, Terror from the Deep all over again.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Serrano

[Drowsy Emperor]

Tried a bit of Counter Strike Global Offensive. The movement feels floaty and the mouse has some software smoothing that can't be turned off. No me gusta. 

 

How hard can it be to remake a fourteen year old game without screwing up the basic FPS mouse settings?

Edited May 9, 2014 by Drowsy Emperor

[Keyrock]

Back to Call of Pripyat for me.  I've done a lot of the things to get the "good" endings:  Cleared out the bloodsucker lair, Hunted down the chimera (both times), made sure everyone survived the trip through the underground.  Any other things folks can think of that contribute toward the "good" endings as I approach the finish line?

[GhostofAnakin]

I must not have paid much attention the first time I played Gears of Wars.  Everything apart from the tutorial seems new to me.

[sorophx]

played Wildstar for a couple of hours, until I got kicked off the server. didn't like it much, but it has a few interesting moments that could transform into something cool (by MMO standards) in the future. the controls are awful, though. and it's not optimized, on my rig I have terrible FPS and freezes from time to time. and during cutscenes my PC sounds as if it's about to blow up

[Guest Slinky]

Tried a bit of Counter Strike Global Offensive. The movement feels floaty and the mouse has some software smoothing that can't be turned off. No me gusta. 

 

How hard can it be to remake a fourteen year old game without screwing up the basic FPS mouse settings?

 

Apparently very very hard, they just keep shoving that bs in most first person perspective games out there and often won't even place a setting for it in options. I just don't get it, it's like they don't understand the differences between mouse and controller. I always check does games force mouse accelerations/smoothings on and won't buy the ones that do as a silent **** you to the devs, even if I would like the game otherwise. Far Cry 3 was the last one I skipped because of that.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

GAAAAH...why won't the secret seller appear in my FIRE EMBLEM: AWAKENING game?  I'm in desperate need of some Master Seals...  ;_______________;

 

 

I've run into that quite a bit as well. I believe killing random risen can trigger an encounter, but if you're currently weak that won't end well.

 

My sympathies is you're playing on Insanity+.

 

 

After trying—and failing—to get into TW1, I'm trying to set up a BGT installation with ~30 mods. The Big World compatibility document is more than 300 pages, and they apparently recommend using an automatic installer because it's such a headache and chances are good that doing it manually will break something. I checked the EE forums to see if the mod scene has picked up the slack, but some of the best pieces are still not compatible (Spell and Item Revisions, for instance), so it's still a no-buy for me. It's funny because it's almost as if this was a Bethesda game.

 

If it doesn't work or I get bored while trying to sort it out, I'll probably go for a second playthrough of NWN2. The good thing about a forgettable OC is that it'll be like playing it for the first time again.

I don't know if you're still doing it, but if you're using IR's main component you can save a lot of time by skipping most item mods. They aren't incompatible, but the design decisions behind a lot of the revisions makes mod-added items stick out quite a bit.

 

Most companion mods can be skipped, as they aren't very good. The only I can really recommend are Varshoon, Soulafern, and Valen.

 

If you play NWN2OC, I recommend drinking copious amounts of strong alcohol before each session.

[Bartimaeus]

I checked the EE forums to see if the mod scene has picked up the slack, but some of the best pieces are still not compatible (Spell and Item Revisions, for instance), so it's still a no-buy for me. It's funny because it's almost as if this was a Bethesda game.

 

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like most BG modding paused when BG1:EE announced, as if people realized that they should probably wait to continue modding until the EEs are out, otherwise it could very well be wasted effort if the EEs require it to be done differently. Since the EEs have actually arrived...and to a mostly positive response for the more occasional players, but much more mixed for the hardcorer/modding community, it's been like a graveyard around the regular modding sites. Kind of sad.

[Keyrock]

Time for me to head to Lab X-8.  Considering my armor (fully upgraded CS-3a and Sphere M-12) amd armament (fully upgraded Strelok's SIG 550 and Predator, no need to bring Lynx along since there's nowhere good to use it), this should be a piece of cake as long as I play it smart.  No mutant or Monolith can withstand my sheer firepower.

Edited May 10, 2014 by Keyrock

[ManifestedISO]

God, well I tried to get Bound by Flame at retail, but it was nowhere, at two places. So I came home and read two more reviews and felt some relief for not buying it. I have a feeling the game will be free for PS Plus members at some point anyway, so, I'll wait. 

 

Back now to waiting for The Last of Us: Remastered in summer, which I learned today will use high-resolution character models found previously only in cut-scenes for PS3. 

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

Tried a bit of Counter Strike Global Offensive. The movement feels floaty and the mouse has some software smoothing that can't be turned off. No me gusta. 

 

How hard can it be to remake a fourteen year old game without screwing up the basic FPS mouse settings?

 

Apparently very very hard, they just keep shoving that bs in most first person perspective games out there and often won't even place a setting for it in options. I just don't get it, it's like they don't understand the differences between mouse and controller. I always check does games force mouse accelerations/smoothings on and won't buy the ones that do as a silent **** you to the devs, even if I would like the game otherwise. Far Cry 3 was the last one I skipped because of that.

 

 

Maybe I'm not doing something right, there are a ton of people playing it online. I can switch of mouse accel in the game options but the raw input option is bugged - whichever option I pick the mouse feels sluggish, like you're trying to move the cross-hairs through water.