What are you playing now

[HoonDing]

Replaying BbF with dagger build. It's ridiculous how much easier it is, enemies go down at least three times as fast compared to hitting them with a two-hander.

[Helz]

Gears of War 2 seems much better (so far) than the original.  Or maybe I'm still pissed at the final boss fight and am sour on the entire game because of that.

 

I played all the Gears games on Co-op with my wife as they were released on the xbox.  The first was our favorite.  The second wasn't bad, but we actually got in screaming fights with each other while we were playing some of the co-op parts.  "Both of you grab one end of a box and carry it around together.  Have fun spinning in circles for 5 minutes!"  Also the rail gun fights got old fast. 

 

The third one was basically one long cutscene as your AI partners ran through the level ahead of you and killed everything.  It was the only game I've come across that actually played itself.  We got bored eventually and never finished it. 

[Helz]

I downloaded Warsword Conquest, a Warhammer total conversion mod for M&B: Warband last night.  Its in beta, but its really stable and there's a ton of unique content.  The factions are all very different from one another, and so far seem pretty well balanced, something most of the conversion mods fail to achieve.  Its definitely worth checking out if you have Warband: http://www.nexusmods.com/mbwarband/mods/5890/?

Edited May 13, 2014 by Helz

[ShadySands]

Replaying BbF with dagger build. It's ridiculous how much easier it is, enemies go down at least three times as fast compared to hitting them with a two-hander.

 

Yeah, I bumped up the difficulty after a while

[Keyrock]

I'm at, what appears to be, the end game portion of Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Joint.  I'm happy to report that I managed to snag all of the Mike & Ike Hammer Candy Comics along the way, hopefully that nets me some kind of (point?) bonus at the end.  I guess I'll find out soon enough.

 

Edit:  Finished the game.  I liked it quite a bit, had me entertained throughout.  It's a Tex Murphy game through and through and it packs a ton of fan service.  If you're a Tex Murphy fan, you'll definitely enjoy it.  If you're a point & click fan you will most likely enjoy it.  If you don't like point & clicks, this game won't change your mind.

 

I'll play it again in a few months to get a different ending.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Keyrock

[IndiraLightfoot]

I got all Mike & Ike Hammer comic books but one. So great job, Keyrock! I pretty much thought I clicked on everything, but that T complex, if you know what I mean, was vast.

 

I hadn't played any Tex adventures before, but point and click adventures with puzzles and wacky humour can be great fun, so a big thumbs up for me!

[Drowsy Emperor]

I'm enjoying Dragonfall more than South Park or even Witcher 2. Its vastly improved over the original Shadowrun campaign, the writing is tight, the characters are interesting and the missions are more challenging. The game will never blow you away - its far too obvious they were working on a tight budget, but the story will keep me going right to the end, even if it is a variation of "ancient evil returns". I actually gave up on ME3 a couple of hours into the game to play Shadowrun.

 

As for ME3... Its boring. The same thing all over again. Massive ego stroking - captain this, captain that. Everything that walks and crawls is kissing your ass in that game. Pompous voice acting, cringe worthy melodramatic dialog and a massive tool of a protagonist. Bland corridor levels, with bad shooting mechanics and controls made up specifically to annoy PC users. Multiple commands bound to a single key? Really Bioware? Why don't you just let space bar do everything in the game, like making all enemies on the screen blow up as in a space shooter, cos gameplay wise - ME3's differs from it only in perspective. In my opinion, the cover shooting fad was always a bad gameplay design in any game, and when you get that out of the way ME3 is all standing and talking. A sequence of linear shooting broken up by dialog and a minigame, kept interesting only by the brevity of each individual component. It worked once, or twice, but now its time to retire it. As in permanently.

 

The second game had some interesting locations, at least a bit of exploration to keep the tedium at bay. ME3... not so much. It has one designated experience and you can't even fall off a cliff to save yourself from it.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Drowsy Emperor

[Guest Slinky]

Finished Papers. Please. My son and uncle died along the way and I was executed on christmas eve by the equivalent of KGB for dealing with revolutionals once. Glory to Arstotzka!

 

What a cheery and uplifting game

[Starwars]

The sound clip when you call in the next immigrant to your booth will never leave my mind.

[Bartimaeus]

Path of Exile: my hardcore character died, in the final boss fight. Everything was going swell until it suddenly wasn't and I was dead. I think I lagged for a few moments...that combined with me generally overestimating my character thanks to amazingness of those Vaal superabilities lead to a sudden and swift departure, methinks. Oh well. I almost completed my goal, which was to beat the game on normal, but you can't win all the time.

[Blarghagh]

The sound clip when you call in the next immigrant to your booth will never leave my mind.

 

The almost "heil hitler" sounding farewell to each immigrant is stuck in mine. I felt dirty playing that game, but it was damned interesting.

[Malcador]

Taking a break from murdering people in the Guild 2 to fiddle with Arma 2  a bit more.  This time in OA, making various little scenarios. Amazing how terrible the AI is at driving and dealing with ambushes while in a vehicle (poor UN troops getting slaughtered).

Edited May 14, 2014 by Malcador

[Keyrock]

Now that I'm done with Tesla Effect, I'm going to fire up some Gothic 3 w/ 1.75 patch, content mod 2.6.2, and quest pack 4.2.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Finished Shadowrun Dragonfall. Best fun I've had in ages. More fun than South Park, ME3 and the Witcher 2 combined. The story kept me engaged all the way to the end, and even though it has plenty of cliche moments, its still well written. It must have been, since these days I can hardly force myself to read RPG dialog. I tend to glance over it and choose whatever feels right, but in Dragonfall I read everything, since the game has no voice acting, and enjoyed it.

 

The thing is, I know the new generations hate anything to do with reading, but the old RPG's, which tend to be written with "book" type dialog in mind are simply more interesting to experience that then new ones that go for "movie" type dialog. I can't sit through 15 minutes of slowly voice acted dialog (yes ME3 and W2 I'm looking at you), which is by necessity shorter and generally simplistic compared to the written type. So i skip through it and the voice acting ends up being pointless. Also ,my imagination is still stoked far more with characters who are a well drawn portrait and have something to say, than uncanny valley, badly lip-synced 3D models.

*shrugs* 

 

I played a rigger, which I assume is the most overpowered class in the game. A rigger controls drones at the cost of action points. The thing is, those drones are quite competent and have more AP than characters... And you can control two at once... at the cost of your character being incapable of action. But you get triple, or even quadruple the AP of a single character to do as you please, and the drones are veritable killing machines. The two drones combined killed more enemies than any member of the team. If anyone is going to play Dragonfall as a rigger I advise using the combat drones only, the support ones aren't all that useful.

[Bartimaeus]

I never really thought of modern game dialogue like that, but I think you're right. Excessive, slow voice acting combined with poorly executed visuals and not to mention vague replies on your part (if it's an RPG) or just stupid replies (if it's not and the lines are set) tends to make me not care about what's being shown beyond quickly skimming the subtitles. Neutralizing one or two of those negative elements tends to go a long way. Valve games come to mind, where the lip-syncing is actually pretty good, especially for games that almost completely lack normal cutscenes, and where there's not actually all that much talking except for short, occasional sequences, and where you can usually keep actually doing stuff while listening to an NPC talk. It doesn't have bookish quality of some other games, like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - which, again, goes a long way towards making me more interested in even the random filler text that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has - but just those already lift the game's (visible) writing above any competitors.

[melkathi]

 

 

The thing is, I know the new generations hate anything to do with reading, but the old RPG's, which tend to be written with "book" type dialog in mind are simply more interesting to experience that then new ones that go for "movie" type dialog. I can't sit through 15 minutes of slowly voice acted dialog (yes ME3 and W2 I'm looking at you), which is by necessity shorter and generally simplistic compared to the written type. So i skip through it and the voice acting ends up being pointless. Also ,my imagination is still stoked far more with characters who are a well drawn portrait and have something to say, than uncanny valley, badly lip-synced 3D models.

*shrugs*

 

 

Add to that, that you can't read at your leasure but may have a timer to create urgency when selecting your reply, which still though creates a large enough gap of the other person just staring at you between responses, that breaks the immersion a well voiceacted dialogue is supposed to provide.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I suppose its harder to write "movie" type "all voice acted" dialog. It has to be short (because no one is going to listen to an in game character talk for ages), to the point and interesting, if its to be any good. Brevity while maintaining quality is not an easy thing for a writer. The "book" type is probably easier because people read quickly so you can stuff more information in without it being a drag.

[Helz]

I used to rant about full voiceacting back in the days when it first started to become mandatory.  I still get riled up about it.  It costs lots of money, and makes games worse.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Helz

[melkathi]

Played some Violett.

I love the art style and the game could be really fun. But, it is one of those adventure games that has you wondering what the hell the devs want you to do. The fact that it follows the machinarium logic of only some sketches as dialogue and has no feedback from the protagonist other than shaking her head, can lead to quite a bit of frustration. Especially when you then check the hint feature and see that exactly what you had tried to do is what you should have done, just that you did not swipe the mouse the right way. But mostly you are left wondering what the f! you are doing.

I'll be trying to play it in small bouts. I want to like the game.

[Keyrock]

I used to rant about full voiceacting back in the days when it first started to become mandatory.  I still get riled up about it.  It costs lots of money, and makes games worse.

In many cases, you are correct, but, as a blanket statement, I disagree.  There are cases where voice acting can add a lot to the gaming experience.  There are cases where simple text on the screen would have been a much better choice.

[Amentep]

Added Bound By Flame to my playing list. So far it makes me think of a Budget Dragon Age title, but it has enough of its own charms to keep me interested.

 

Glad I figured out how to skip dialogues as I read more faster than the VO actors act.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

I used to rant about full voiceacting back in the days when it first started to become mandatory.  I still get riled up about it.  It costs lots of money, and makes games worse.

In many cases, you are correct, but, as a blanket statement, I disagree.  There are cases where voice acting can add a lot to the gaming experience.  There are cases where simple text on the screen would have been a much better choice.

 

 

I like the infinity engine deal - important characters get occasional voice acting to set themselves out from the rest of the NPC's in the game.

[Nordicus]

Metal Gear Solid 2 HD

 

Okay, first parts with Raiden, and this is basically a second tutorial right now because people are allowed to skip the Snake portion at the beginning.

 

I've only met Rose for 5 minutes and I already see why people dislike her.

 

Colonel: "Rose, call him Raiden during this mission alright?"

Rose: "Okay, got it"

*30 seconds later*

Rose: "Hey Jack, do you know what day April 30th is?"

Raiden: "Err no, is it something important?"

Rose: "It is important enough. But I won't tell you why if you're not going to figure it yourself" *pout*

 

Goddamnit Rose!

[Keyrock]

I'm in the beginning stages of Gothic 3.  My ultimate plan is to side with the orcs and mercenaries against the rebels, but I'll play both sides as long as I can (I'm doing this playthrough pure greedy, cares for no one but himself Nameless Hero style).  I know once you either liberate a town or wipe out a rebel encampment there's no going back and you're locked out from working for the other side, however, I don't remember if there is a reputation level threshold that locks you out of working for the other side too.  It's been a long time.  I've helped the rebels at Reddock to the point where they trust me, including getting them a blacksmith, now I'm going to start working Cape Dun for the orcs (got me some slaves to catch).

 

As for combat, I'm mostly going to specialize in large weapons.  To me, reach is king in this game, and being able to use a polearm is about as good as it gets.

Edited May 15, 2014 by Keyrock

[Humanoid]

 

 

I used to rant about full voiceacting back in the days when it first started to become mandatory.  I still get riled up about it.  It costs lots of money, and makes games worse.

In many cases, you are correct, but, as a blanket statement, I disagree.  There are cases where voice acting can add a lot to the gaming experience.  There are cases where simple text on the screen would have been a much better choice.

 

 

I like the infinity engine deal - important characters get occasional voice acting to set themselves out from the rest of the NPC's in the game.

 

Giving the player a broad idea of what an NPC sounds like is a useful tool for the writer, yeah, but I found the cutting out of the voice acting mid-dialogue to be somewhat jarring. If there's going to be a full paragraph of initial text presented in one block, then the whole thing should be voiced, not just the first sentence or two. Maybe then cut any voice after the player character's first response.

 

Minor complaint, mind.