What are you playing right now?

[Fenixp]

I loved combat in Pillars of Eternity, enjoyed the hell out of it. Regardless, it felt like a chore ~70 hours down the line. If you feel like it's a chore already, it won't get better.

[Panoramix]

Sacred 2 Gold, Circle of Eight, Demonicon, Arx Liberatis, Dungeon Rats, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Blades of Time, Neverwinter Nights 2 Mask of the Betrayer, Drakensang The River of time,  Two Worlds 2, Throne of Darkness, Divinity Original Sin 2, Arma 3 & Tom Clancy's: Blacklist + a couple of other ones.

[Hurlshort]

Again tried to get into PoE... again got bored to tears and uninstalled within the first 5 hours. I'm sure it gets interesting at some point, cba to find out when, though. Combat is such a chore.

Just play story mode.

[BruceVC]

Again tried to get into PoE... again got bored to tears and uninstalled within the first 5 hours. I'm sure it gets interesting at some point, cba to find out when, though. Combat is such a chore.

Are you sure you are understanding the combat mechanics, failure to grasp the nuances of any RPG ruleset can sometimes manifest as " chores " in  parts of the game?

[Eumaios]

PoE was very interesting. The combat is truly elegant, but the execution isn't great. I did have a lot of fun with it. However, I couldn't get into Tyranny. To be fair, I didn't give it enough of a chance. I only played just into the first camp where I could have dialogue that didn't consist of telling to run towards another fight. I think the combat in Tyranny is better, but I wouldn't play either game solely for the combat and the early story was better done in PoE.

 

PS Now that I've busted through the "OMG, the RNG KMA" phase of Darkest Dungeon, it's really smooth sailing. I'm trying to build up a good roster just for the hell of it.

Edited February 25, 2017 by Eumaios

[Fenixp]

Finished Steamworld Heist after about 14 hours of playtime.

 

I'll put it this way - I got Humble Monthly for XCOM 2, but didn't play it all that much as I found I wasn't actually enjoying it all that much, which I assume comes down to the fact I played so much of the original with the Long War. I was just... Sick of the formula and XCOM 2 didn't do enough for me to fix it. But, along with the bundle came Steamworld Heist and I'm so damn happy it did.

 

So, let's start off with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj8XRFjRng4

 

That should... Roughly put you on the right wavelength. It's charming, it's silly and most most importantly, it's a solid, well-designed turn-based strategy game, with soundtrack by Steam Powered Giraffe (there's even a whole bunch of proper songs, used sparingly and with care to not get annoying, along with ambient music. Yes, the band is totally directly in the game.). It's basically developers taking steampunk robots, XCOM tactical battles and Worms, putting them into a bag and stirring until Steamworld Heist came out on the other side and the polishing the hell out of it. The game takes character and weapon progression from games like XCOM, with all weapon classes and items behaving very differently while all being useful. It takes character progression, with individual characters getting XP, levelling up and unlocking skills - and yes, each out of 9 characters gets his own skill set with his own unique skills, stats and, by extension, slightly different role in combat. And then it adds in skill aspect of games like Worms or Scorched Earth.

 

It plays like a turn-based strategy game (yes, sidescrolling one) with each character getting 2 actions per turn. If you use both for movement, you can't shoot, if you shoot straight away, turn ends - unless you have abilities changing this. There's also a strong focus on cover and having as much of your characters hidden behind it before ending turn. So yeah, XCOM. The skill aspect of the game works by player having to manually aim each shot - basically, think Worms. Grenades bounce, bullets ricochet from walls, sniper rifles work by showing you a laser trajectory of the shot you're about to take - and it all works amazingly. You're not at the mercy of RNG deciding you hitting or missing, everything is driven by your own eye and ability to gauge trajectory of the projectiles. And when you score a good hit across half a room, it just feels so damn great. Oh and you can shoot off hats from enemy bots and put them on. Because of course you can.

 

Levels are procedurally generated with essential rooms being fixed, leading to nice replayability of individual missions. If your crew gets wiped on a mission, you lose half of your accumulated currency - but to get all the loot in each mission, you'll have to take quite a few risks. In other words, just as XCOM, a lot of this game revolves around risk and reward scenarios and improvising your way out of sticky situations. The game keeps itself fresh by shuffling around a bunch of mechanics for each of its 3 acts, which is also quite nice to see.

 

There are some downsides of course - if you want to 100% everything, you'll have to grind quite a bit (you don't have to grind at all to finish the game tho). In spite of being relatively short, the game can get a bit samey towards the end. And the challenge ramps up quite significantly in the second act, but the first one is a bit on the easy side. And... That's it, really.

 

So... Yah. Go play it. It's great.

Edited February 25, 2017 by Fenixp

[HoonDing]

Exterminatus.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

I'm trying a second play through as Corvo, but so far (early on) it just feels like I'm replaying Emily but with a different character.  Does it branch at all?

You get a different set of powers and some different lines of dialogue. That's it, really. Corvo's set of powers makes clean hands/ghost rather easy tho if you still want to do that. It also makes murderspree easier. ... Corvo's set of powers is kinda more powerful than Emily's.

 

 

It's a slog for me.  If a game doesn't branch significantly on a second play through, and if the story/game doesn't pull me in completely, I have trouble playing it a second time through.

 

I'll probably just try and finish off some achievements while waiting for Tuesday.

[213374U]

 

Again tried to get into PoE... again got bored to tears and uninstalled within the first 5 hours. I'm sure it gets interesting at some point, cba to find out when, though. Combat is such a chore.

Just play story mode.

 

I could, but I'm not sure that would be a solution for me. Does story mode reduce the amount of trash pulls? In the temple under the first town, it felt like literally in every room it was a repetition of the fight I just had in the previous one, only a toss-up between shadows or rat men-things. Forest? Wolves behind every tree, etc.

 

I enjoyed both IWDs and those games also had areas with too much trash (Dragon's Eye) that almost made me quit. But at least by the time you reached those areas there was more variety in enemies and/or abilities to mitigate the drudgery, and the narrative investment at that point was greater. Same thing with DAO and the Derp Roads. You throw that **** at me in the beginning? Not gonna bother.

 

I wasn't particularly gripped by the plot so far and the setting either, so the game clearly just isn't for me. Funny, I replayed Tyranny twice. I also have this huge backlog including D:OS and Underrail so it's not like I need to put myself through this.

Edited February 26, 2017 by 213374U

[redneckdevil]

Yes story mode severely limits the mobs and I think lowers the stats on them as well. The last one I'm not 100% sure, I do know there's a lot less trash though.

 

Also replaying thru on normal and it seems there's less trash in quite a few places as well since the last time I played. Could be my imagination though

Edited February 26, 2017 by redneckdevil

[Guard Dog]

This: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/franchise-hockey-manager/

[Keyrock]

Unfortunately, story mode in Pillars does nothing to make the story interesting.  It makes the combat much less tedious, which is a plus, and would help you enjoy the story, were there an enjoyable story there.

Edited February 26, 2017 by Keyrock

[Katphood]

Managed to find myself a second-hand Xbox Classic, so I am looking forward to playing Crimson Skies and Outrun 2. It's just a real shame that the DVD drive of the Xbox turned out to be a Thomson, those are known to fail and give you a bad time in general. Gotta see if I can find someone who can give it an overhaul or maybe replace it with another DVD drive.  

Edited February 26, 2017 by Katphood

[Wrath of Dagon]

Greatest console ever!

[Eumaios]

Swinehearted Darkest Dungeon managed to send me to get my trinkets from the bird right before Vvulf attacked the hamlet. The bird killed off one of my front liner, but the rest of them beat the crap out of tall dark and bomb throwing. A couple of them were at deaths door, but we put the barbarian bitch on the other side of it. Haven't had as much time as I might want to play, but I'm making good progress in the times I can.

[Raithe]

Finished off Mirror's Edge Catalyst over the weekend. The combat was a bit unfun, but I did like the whole city design and the movement / running elements. Apart from a few annoyances over context sensitive controls, it worked pretty well.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Started Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Really like it so far. I got Hong Kong earlier on Steam but it wouldn't run at all, don't know if that was Steam or because I had a different video card then. Dragonfall from GOG runs fine. One thing I'm not sure about though, should I invest points into decking and the other hacking, whatever it's called, or can I recruit someone before I miss anything major?

[Starwars]

You do get a Decker (if you choose to take him) after the first few story-missions if you don't want to be a Decker yourself.

[Keyrock]

I finished story mission 5 in HITMAN, just missing silent assassin status because they found a body. I didn't get any cool screenshots because it was kind of a dull looking level. I then started mission 6, which is the final story mission, though there is plenty more to do in the game. I'm hoping to get that finished tonight to wrap up the story before TToN comes out tomorrow.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Keyrock

[Panoramix]

I finished story mission 5 in HITMAN, just missing silent assassin status because they found a body. I didn't get any cool screenshots because it was kind of a dull looking level. I then started mission 6, which is the final story mission, though there is plenty more to do in the game. I'm hoping to get that finished tonight to wrap up the story before TToN comes out tomorrow.

 

Do you still have to be online for getting all the perks while playing?

[213374U]

Started Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Really like it so far. I got Hong Kong earlier on Steam but it wouldn't run at all, don't know if that was Steam or because I had a different video card then. Dragonfall from GOG runs fine. One thing I'm not sure about though, should I invest points into decking and the other hacking, whatever it's called, or can I recruit someone before I miss anything major?

 

As Starwars said, you do get a decker, but he's kind of annoying and weak. And by taking him on runs, you miss out on the other (IMO better) characters, which are beasts at their respective roles.

 

I felt the game nudged you a bit too hard into rolling a decker/rigger yourself. Which is a kickass combo, btw.

Edited February 27, 2017 by 213374U

[Keyrock]

 

I finished story mission 5 in HITMAN, just missing silent assassin status because they found a body. I didn't get any cool screenshots because it was kind of a dull looking level. I then started mission 6, which is the final story mission, though there is plenty more to do in the game. I'm hoping to get that finished tonight to wrap up the story before TToN comes out tomorrow.

Do you still have to be online for getting all the perks while playing?

I'm not sure. I got disconnected once during a story mission and it let me keep playing in offline mode, but that was as I was getting ready to wrap up my gaming session anyway, so I didn't play offline for long. I have no idea what features you lose in offline mode.

[Wrath of Dagon]

 

Started Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Really like it so far. I got Hong Kong earlier on Steam but it wouldn't run at all, don't know if that was Steam or because I had a different video card then. Dragonfall from GOG runs fine. One thing I'm not sure about though, should I invest points into decking and the other hacking, whatever it's called, or can I recruit someone before I miss anything major?

 

As Starwars said, you do get a decker, but he's kind of annoying and weak. And by taking him on runs, you miss out on the other (IMO better) characters, which are beasts at their respective roles.

 

I felt the game nudged you a bit too hard into rolling a decker/rigger yourself. Which is a kickass combo, btw.

 

Well, that sucks, I really wanted to concentrate on rifles, like I do in every game. This is where POE shines, you can just create whatever party member you're missing.

[213374U]

Well, that sucks, I really wanted to concentrate on rifles, like I do in every game. This is where POE shines, you can just create whatever party member you're missing.

A decker with focus on rifles is actually not a bad choice at all. You're already getting the datajack and smartlink guns are better than their vanilla counterparts. It's just that you won't be able to make an excellent decker/rigger *with* focus on rifles because there's just not enough XP to go around. Ditch the rigging then, it's a support skill and I don't think there were many instances where you could use it on runs. While a rigger is totally optional, a decker for the most part isn't.

 

That being said, you'll have a hard time being as handy in a firefight as Eiger. They made their NPCs that way, they just rule at what they do... except the decker, heh.

Edited February 27, 2017 by 213374U

[Keyrock]

It's not like you absolutely have to have a decker to get through Dragonfall, though it does help in some parts.  I played a Shaman (I usually do) and I got through the game just fine, and I usually didn't bother bringing the decker companion along.