What are you playing right now

[melkathi]

Age of Barbarian

 

Action platformer with loads of gore and scantily clad protagonists.

 

Gameplay;

Been playing with X-Box Controller.  I would prefer it to be a bit more reactive. Yet it is sometimes hard to judge reactiveness as there is the "Hunger" system which worsens the players reactions as hunger increases. Sounds good on paper, in effect it is mostly a minor annoyance, as it forces you to regularly use a food consumable. Which though you'd probably do anyway for the minor healing.

Controls are pretty standard. Walk left and right. Crouch and/or pick up items with down. Enter doors with up. One jump button, one block button, one high attack and one low attack, and dodge/cartwheel/tumble left/right buttons. As you level up you unlock attack combos - so pressing forward and both attack button will do a high swing with your blade aiming to decapitate your opponent, while pressing both buttons while running will do a jumping spinning attack. You unlock one new attack per level until level 8.

As you progress through the 7 levels, enemies will also gain access to some of those moves, though the AI can get stuck resulting in tumbling like mad troglodytes in the mountains (you put some distance between yourself and the offending opponent and it stops).

QTEs:

There are a few QTEs that are easily beaten and to a certain extend avoidable: sabertooths if allowed to get close enough will throw you to the ground and try to maul you - beat the QTE and you grab your blade and chop off their head. Crocodiles will try to drag you under - beat the QTE and you manage to go crocodile dundee on them. And lastly, when resting on the world map, there is a chance you will get ambushed at night - the QTE (the only one you can fail - if you mash only one button instead of all of them) will let you wake up.

Riding mini-game:

In two places you find a mount and rush from left to right on the screen. In theory you try to outrun and avoid your pursuers, but as they are faster than you, they will always catch up. Then you slash left and right with your sword to kill them a la FFVII motorbike mini-game.

 

Graphics:

The visuals are quite good. They managed to capture the feel they were aiming for with its strong Frazetta vibe. It works, and you do forget that you are playing a game a lot of people would consider only has eye candy as a draw.

Very disappointing: hardly any options in the settings: Full Screen or Windowed, and that is pretty much it. No changing resolution?

Censorship:

The game has two settings: Just Blood and Gore OR Blood, Gore AND Nudity. So the game will always have gutting, beheading, amputation, blood splattering, limbs and heads flying, but you can choose whether nipples offend you. Nudity ON will have little effect: In the male character's intro a female NPC will not be wearing a bra. In the female character's intro some (not all) of the slave girls will not be wearing bras. On the mountains the troglodytes have full frontal male nudity. And in two instances the female character's pubic hair is visible (I expect the male char will have full frontal nudity there).

 

Story/Writing:

Ignore it. It is obvious the devs are not native English speakers and sadly they did not find a native speaker (or someone else who actually *knows* the language) to proof read. The story is nothing to write home about: Evil overlord is conquering the world. Hero who gets screwed by the overlord (literally in the female character's case) sets out to seek revenge. The End.

With the female character there are some attempts for suggestive humour to lighten the mood. So for example when the skeleton warriors tell her that they have plans for her, she complains that all men only think of one thing, even when they are dead *shrug*

 

Level Design:

The idea is that you need to explore levels and there may be more than one way through them. Sometimes you need to kick something over to open the way. Sometimes you need to smash your way through to find a secret room.

Three maidens have been captured by the various enemies for you to rescue, meaning you need to find the key, find the door it unlocks and beat the optional boss. And once you have rescued the maiden you need to escort her the rest of the way through the level. And if she falls behind, enemies may sneak up on her and try to carry her off while you are fighting. Luckily the path you escort the maiden only ever has the standard enemies for that level.

The levels can have traps, which will probably kill you the first time you encounter them. For example in the snakemen's temple, the spinning blades can be hard to spot until you have walked into them a couple of times and had your head or legs cut off.

There is no way to move the screen in a direction to get a glimpse if there is anything there. So sometimes jumping of a ledge will get you somewhere. Sometimes it will have you falling to your death. Trial and error.

 

Boss Fights:

The boss fights are not fun. Some bosses are straight forward enough: spot the attack animation, dodge out of the way, hit the boss a few times, rinse repeat. But the bosses do not follow a set pattern, have no coded in sequence or cooldowns. So it is possible for a boss to spam one attack continuously. The giant ape that does that is still manageable, as the roar deals no damage, while its normal attack is slow enough for you to interrupt with your own. The basilisk though... worst boss fight in any game ever - even knowing what to expect, if it gets caught in a gaze attack loop from the start, you may not even land a single hit before it kills you. Luckily the worst offender is an optional boss guarding the second maiden. Still, I see people online saying it is what made them quit the game. I tend to agree with the people who doubt it was playtested.

 

Verdict:

If you liked this kind of action platformers back in the days, then you can probably get 10 hours of fun out of this game. I ragequit from 20 odd basilisk attempts at around 8.5 hours.

Edited August 25, 2016 by melkathi

[Wrath of Dagon]

Has anyone found DX:HR boring but is having more fun with DX:MD?

[Starwars]

Playing Life is Strange sort on and off. Am a bit into Episode 3 now. It's alright. Whenever the game tries to do gameplay, like puzzles, it turns crappy pretty fast. It's the whole interactive high school drama that is the draw here. And I'm actually kinda enjoying the overdone teenage stuff in this, it's kinda refreshing.

 

So, not bad but not great so far.

 

Also picked up Conclave and newly released The Reaper's Due for Crusader Kings 2. Looks like The Reaper's Due in particular is gonna be quite a lot of fun.

[GhostofAnakin]

Has anyone found DX:HR boring but is having more fun with DX:MD?

 

I enjoyed Human Revolution quite a bit, and I'm enjoying Mankind Divided just as much.

[Hurlshort]

 

Has anyone found DX:HR boring but is having more fun with DX:MD?

 

I enjoyed Human Revolution quite a bit, and I'm enjoying Mankind Divided just as much.

 

 

Yeah, I'm in the same boat.  MD has added a lot of stuff, but it is still very much the same type of game.

[Wrath of Dagon]

It felt to me like they were trying to force me into one of pre-determined paths, very Ubisoft like, instead of letting me find my own solution, like a game of that type should. Also it felt like I was constantly sneaking around offices, reading e-mails. I do that at work, well, minus the sneaking. If I never see another office in a game again it'll be too soon.

[Hurlshort]

So far I've only snuck around a construction zone reading emails.  But I will let you know if I end up in any offices.

[Raithe]

Well, having completed the first 6 main missions and the first..5 side quests, I can say there aren't that many offices as such. But there are a lot of apartment rooms and shop basements.

 

Hm, now I seem to have the weird issue that the game crashes if I try to load a game that was saved shortly after I entered Golem city. Saves from before I left Prague are fine, but the game just hangs then crashes if I try to load Golem city saves. Tres weird.

[GhostofAnakin]

I've found there are multiple paths/ways to complete a task.  I also haven't run across all these offices that you're constantly sneaking through.

 

On the topic of hacking, my issue is I don't slow down to read the manual about hacking.  I forget to use the various programs that slow down a trace or nuke a node, and just go with the plain old click-and-wait approach to each node.

 

Loving it so far.

[Rosbjerg]

Wasn't he referring to the many office maps in the first game?

[Humanoid]

Has anyone found DX:HR boring but is having more fun with DX:MD?

 

DXHR burned me out with its main missions, which were overlong, and towards the second half of the game occurred without proper pacing due to additional city hubs being cut. These long, mostly linear story missions were happening back to back to back and I just couldn't take anymore. Tooling around in Detroit and Hengsha was fun, there just wasn't enough of it - if Montreal and maybe also Singapore were implemented like the other two cities, I might even have called it a great game.

 

Hopefully DXMD gets the balance right. My copy is in the mail so I'll find out next week most likely.

[Tale]

I'm kind of being overloaded by the game. Haven't done anything because I'm too busy save scum hacking every single computer and door in the hub.

 

Which is kind of boring, but I don't want to miss out should something big happen and parts of it get cut off.

[Humanoid]

Having a look at the features added by the new CK2 patch 2.6 which was released alongside the new DLC. Don't care about the DLC in itself, but the best new addition by far is the ability to remove new additions, finally. Most of the ill-conceived, boneheaded and sometimes outright idiotic mechanics added to the game throughout the years can now be toggled on and off as desired. No more having to rollback patches or use mods to get your own preferred gameplay experience.

 

So yeah, happy this feature is in, but I hope they learn their lesson and build this kind of functionality into every future game they release by default. Really no excuse for it to not exist.

[Katphood]

Deus Ex: MD is pretty awesome. The side-missions are great and the different NPCs you meet along your way are very well written. 

 

The gameplay is a whole lot better compared to Human Revolution. You have more options. 

[GhostofAnakin]

I have a feeling I'm missing out on some NPCs and side missions in DX:MD.  I generally just follow the main path and pick up side quests along the way that happen to be associated with said main missions.

 

I need to do a better job of surveying the area before tackling missions.  One mission I wanted to sneak in to a place, but couldn't see an obvious "back door".  So I snuck in through the front door, having to knock a couple of guards out along the way.  Only when I completed the objective and was about to leave did I notice there's a vent that leads straight to the street from the room I had to get to.  If I had taken that route in the first place, I wouldn't have had to knock anyone out.

[Raithe]

From what I've gathered, there are five or six side quests available during your first visit to the Prague Hub.

 

If you notice, in your quest log, the missions are all numbered, so "SM00"  SM01" etc. But a couple are tucked away and you don't start them up unless you wander into the right areas and talk to the right people, and they aren't all hung out on the route of the main mission quests.

I think its about mission 6 on the main quest line that you first leave Prague and head to Utulak (Golem city).

[Rosbjerg]

Having a look at the features added by the new CK2 patch 2.6 which was released alongside the new DLC. Don't care about the DLC in itself, but the best new addition by far is the ability to remove new additions, finally. Most of the ill-conceived, boneheaded and sometimes outright idiotic mechanics added to the game throughout the years can now be toggled on and off as desired. No more having to rollback patches or use mods to get your own preferred gameplay experience.

 

So yeah, happy this feature is in, but I hope they learn their lesson and build this kind of functionality into every future game they release by default. Really no excuse for it to not exist.

 

Yeah I think I'll finally get a round to actually play a full game now as well - and now stop around midgame due to frustrations with the stupid retreat system and lag.

[Bartimaeus]

Having a look at the features added by the new CK2 patch 2.6 which was released alongside the new DLC. Don't care about the DLC in itself, but the best new addition by far is the ability to remove new additions, finally. Most of the ill-conceived, boneheaded and sometimes outright idiotic mechanics added to the game throughout the years can now be toggled on and off as desired. No more having to rollback patches or use mods to get your own preferred gameplay experience.

 

So yeah, happy this feature is in, but I hope they learn their lesson and build this kind of functionality into every future game they release by default. Really no excuse for it to not exist.

 

Hm, if they bring that to EU4, I might actually play it again...

[Majek]

roflmao, still playing Nioh. But i had to download the beta from my US account where i play most of ym games i i want the "dlc" that you get for completing the missions. Because the other was from my EU account i cannot get anything from the store. And i've just gotten my character to lvl 30 with good stuff, so i could try out the twilight mode properly. )

 

So i start again. Maybe it'll go faster now that i know what i'm doing. :D Still, i'll miss all my good weapons and SAmurai points i got from them.

[ShadySands]

Madden 17

 

My QB just won the Super Bowl with the Cardinals and Larry Fitzgerald retired on me. Considering demanding a release and seeing if I can get on a team with some better receivers but most likely I'll finish the last two years on my contract and see what free agency offers

[LittleRose]

Drakensang, but I'm getting tired of it. I can't leave the area I'm in until I've completed it. So I've spent hours dragging my party from boss to boss. One more and I can go back to civilization, but I'm really sick of fighting. It's so tedious. So, I can't find any motivation for this last one at all. I think I need a break from this game. Again.

[GhostofAnakin]

More Deus Ex.  Well, there goes my non-lethal play through. 

 

I came across one of those exo-suit police officers and had to take him down, but found out the hard way that stealth takedowns don't work on him.  Since the only thing I had in my inventory that seemed to stop him were frag grenades, I had to finish him off like that.

 

I read online after that an EMP pistol shot can stun him and then allow me to do a stealth takedown.  Too bad I didn't have any EMP ammo prior to that mission. :/

[teknoman2]

i had stopped playing Last Remnant in favor of other games and i got back to it today... this time i think i will give up on it for good and play something with tactical combat made right like D:OS that i left unfinished

[melkathi]

Drakensang, but I'm getting tired of it. I can't leave the area I'm in until I've completed it. So I've spent hours dragging my party from boss to boss. One more and I can go back to civilization, but I'm really sick of fighting. It's so tedious. So, I can't find any motivation for this last one at all. I think I need a break from this game. Again.

 

I know the feeling

[Keyrock]

I started up Champions of Krynn.  I played the Pools series of Gold Box games set in the Forgotten Realms setting way back in the day, but I never played any of the Dragonlance games before, so this is completely new to me.  I'll tell you one thing, all the nostalgia goggles in the world couldn't get me to not hate the tedium of resting in these games; memorize healing spells, rest, cast healing spells, lather, rinse, repeat until all characters are at 100% and all spells memorized.  When games 10 years later introduced having your healers automatically cast and rememorize healing spells until the party was fully healed with a single click, that was a godsend.