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BEATEN: Neo Scavenger - While I didn't beat the story, it's kind of long and obtuse. I definitely got my money's worth, and I set a goal of getting into Detroit for the first time on my own, which I achieved. BEATEN: Particle Mace - Pretty fun, though some of the missions were slightly annoying. Essentially drive a spaceship around with a wrecking ball tethered to you, try not to die. NULLED: New Star Soccer 5 - Seems like it'd be right up my alley-- if I actually enjoyed soccer. It's got a lot of great RPG elements which would normally have me interested, but being that it's soccer I don't really care!
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Oct 11, 2016 19:03
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MrSlam posted:It's a very hard game to recommend. I may be talking out my butt here but I've heard the problem lies in that it was outsourced to Iron Lore Entertainment. Relic was focusing its assets on Dawn of War 2 and Company of Heroes at the time (I think) but felt like they could squeeze one last sequel from the assets. Companies do this with franchises. Assassin's Creed: Rogue for example was made using AC3 and AC4's assets while the bulk of the work at the time was being done on AC Unity. But unlike Rogue who I believe used a smaller in-house team to develop it, Relic contracted Iron Lore to make it and they'd only made Titan Quest (First Player fantasy RPG) up to that point. Who knows what wires got crossed? Was it Relic executives meddling with a product they didn't care about? Was it Iron Lore being unexperienced in the franchise's wheelhouse? Was it just a bunch of little decisions that just didn't gel well together? As I've heard it told, THQ demanded they include the air units that nobody asked for.
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Oct 11, 2016 19:49
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Fart of Presto posted:Sorry Don't apologise for recommending them. I tried HOGs for pretty much the same reasons as that guy and i love them now. The chillest games and, yeah, the puzzles actually make sense for the most part unlike traditional adventure games.
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Oct 11, 2016 20:25
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Mister Adequate posted:
Mordja posted:They are based on the same blueprint, but Grim Dawn has much better combat imo and itemization is probably more interesting? I can't remember what TQ had but a lot of items in Dawn give you all sorts of bonus skills and procs and if you're big into sperging over character builds I think you can get real in depth. Fart of Presto posted:Sorry spudsbuckley posted:Don't apologise for recommending them. I tried HOGs for pretty much the same reasons as that guy and i love them now. Mordja posted:drat, you've been on a tear! Have you played the DOW2 series yet? They're very different but the campaigns are a lot of fun. Mordja posted:If you've only played the older games I'd say jump to one of the new ones instead of playing them in order. The most well received are Shogun 2 and the newest, Warhammer. The latter really mixes things up with how differently each faction plays and the metamap has been heavily streamlined. MrSlam posted:It's a very hard game to recommend. I may be talking out my butt here but I've heard the problem lies in that it was outsourced to Iron Lore Entertainment. Relic was focusing its assets on Dawn of War 2 and Company of Heroes at the time (I think) but felt like they could squeeze one last sequel from the assets. Companies do this with franchises. Assassin's Creed: Rogue for example was made using AC3 and AC4's assets while the bulk of the work at the time was being done on AC Unity. But unlike Rogue who I believe used a smaller in-house team to develop it, Relic contracted Iron Lore to make it and they'd only made Titan Quest (First Player fantasy RPG) up to that point. Who knows what wires got crossed? Was it Relic executives meddling with a product they didn't care about? Was it Iron Lore being unexperienced in the franchise's wheelhouse? Was it just a bunch of little decisions that just didn't gel well together? John Murdoch posted:As I've heard it told, THQ demanded they include the air units that nobody asked for.
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Oct 11, 2016 22:05
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Well, good to know you all enjoyed being bitten by the HOG bug. Here are a few games I just finished: Finished: Al Emmo's Postcards from Anozira The hidden Object companion game to Al Emmo and the Dutchman's mine, a classic point and click adventure. This poo poo sucked! 800*600, all hand-drawn comic style HOG. 30 levels that goes from very easy to frustrating pixel hunting with 5 different puzzles rotated in between each HO scene. You get to pick one out of five characters from the adventure game, that will write a postcard and tell their side of the story between each scene. Everything is voiced. It's just too bad it's the same lovely voice actors from the adventure game. Finished: The Beast of Lycan Isle - Collector's Edition For once, it made sense to make a CE version of a HO game, as this one is not available on Steam anymore, so I really feel like a true collector now. Gonna sell my account and live the good life in a couple of years, and this game will be the jewel that will really get me the big bux. The game itself was OK. It used some really bad renders and there was a lot of adventure-lite puzzles going on. HO scenes were OK too. The extra game you got when you finished the main game, was a chase through all the locations to find 9 items. No fast travel, but at least there was a built in walkthrough that would tell you were to look. Finished: Enigmatis: The Ghost of Maple Creek This is more like it! Pretty drat good HOG with plenty of HO scenes and the puzzles present were easy and far between. Good graphics, crazy story and lots of backtracking with no fast travel. It was OK though, as it then "forced" you into new HO scenes on your way to where you had to go. After this trifecta of HOGs, I really need to play an action game. Mafia III is pretty good so far.
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Oct 11, 2016 23:16
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There needs to be a Witcher hidden object game. (Or Mass Effect, pick out all the parts Garrus has to calibrate.)
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Oct 12, 2016 00:20
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So, I guess I forgot or didn't realize that you can do flips, rolls and such with the right analog stick in Sonic & Sega All Stars. I was missing out on a huge part of the game apparently. I'm definitely going to give it another shot. e: Beat: Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed - Well, actually learning how the game worked on YouTube ended up being the magic bullet. Was there a tutorial in-game? I don't remember. Anyway, this game was WAY more fun when I figured out how to do tricks, and it became quite a bit easier when I started taking advantage of all the speed boosts they provided. Played a bunch of this tonight. Got to the credits of World Tour, played a few of the bonus levels until I reached a point where I would have to really grind the stars. Beat a couple of the Grand Prix as well but wasn't as interested in the last few. World Tour definitely feels like a Dreamcast era Sonic game. Lots of characters and game modes, and a not-too-challenging main game made much more difficult for completionists. A few of the characters seemed out of place, but for the most part I was sold on the Sega nostalgia. The Skies of Arcadia crap especially. Still, some of the World Tour stages were pretty frustrating, especially when the need for stars eggs you on to play stages a higher difficulty than you're comfortable with. When I got over a few of my initial misconceptions about the "transform" mechanic I ended up liking it a lot better. After giving it a second chance, I'd say it's a solid improvement over the first game. If I were to go back to it I'd probably stick to the race or grand prix modes, though. Maybe the "battle race" levels as well. 
dhamster fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Oct 12, 2016 |
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Oct 12, 2016 01:04
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Another lil batch BEATEN: Defy Gravity - The game everyone bought for 19 cents so they could get card drops, it's actually not a terrible little gravity-based puzzle platformer. Beating it will only set you back a little less than an hour. BEATEN: Blueberry Garden - Older game that I think came in a Potato Pack?? or something. You walk around a weird world and find large objects that you build a tower with. At some point water filled the world and I got "THE END?" so I got a bad ending or something but that's as far as I care to play it. BEATEN: The Joylancer - Early Access game that might never get completed, has really fast and fluid DRILL-based combat. You might want to do your ears a favor and replace the OGGs in the game with something else (they even let you do it in-game, acknowledging I guess that the music in the game is terrible). As of now the game only goes up to Stage 4-2, although there are also some bonus levels scattered around the "adventure mode". i'm now at the magic number on Steamcompletionist (69%), if you want to watch my progress I have been recording each game i play and posting them to youtube, its just a side channel so dont expect much other than exactly what you see in that link: playthroughs playthroughs playthroughs, with my mic on. right now i'm posting 5 30-minute videos a day monday-friday with HOGs on Saturdays, and will probably expand to 7 videos really soon cause i'm way ahead now (videos queued through the end of October)
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Oct 12, 2016 13:48
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Quell Series – Realized that I owned this on IOS forever ago, and had already beaten it. I played halfway through the first one, and put them in the done pile. I'll probably come back to them when I start going for achievements. Gun Metal – Was interested to try this one. I successfully launched it the first time, but when I restarted the software to have it recognize my controller, it no longer launched, due to “Unsupported graphics card”. Platypus – Nulled for crap resolution I couldn’t change. Darkout – Left unfinished by developer. It’s bad to have a crafting/building game with bad building controls. It frustrated me enough to quit. Bedlam- I really enjoyed this one. A throwback to early FPS games. Picked it up for $0.10 in a bundle, and got a good 5 hours of gameplay, and only had a couple parts that were monotonous. Story was decent. I feel like the buildup missed the mark by the last quarter of the game, though. Fly in the House – I killed the fly once, and that was enough for me. Locosoccer – Played the tutorial, and a quick match. Controls are fine up until you’re players are out of order. It would make for good local co-op, but that’s about it. Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor – Played for about an hour. Not a bad game, but there wasn’t much incentive to keep going after the first area for me. It’s one of those local co-op gems. Fist of Jesus – Funny little game. Obviously a mobile port. Had some bugs but I had some good fun with it. Colours of Magic: Aqua Teeter – Didn’t really have much interest in this, so I wasn’t really disappointed when it didn’t launch. Edit: Games Left On Playlist: 773 InevitableCheese fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Oct 12, 2016 |
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Oct 12, 2016 13:57
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Quest For Glory II posted:i'm now at the magic number on Steamcompletionist (69%), if you want to watch my progress I have been recording each game i play and posting them to youtube, its just a side channel so dont expect much other than exactly what you see in that link: playthroughs playthroughs playthroughs, with my mic on. right now i'm posting 5 30-minute videos a day monday-friday with HOGs on Saturdays, and will probably expand to 7 videos really soon cause i'm way ahead now (videos queued through the end of October) I should check these out when I get home. I also had been trying to stream and upload videos of my backlog games as I finished them, but I ended up getting a backlog of VODs to edit alongside my games backlog and I kind of... stopped making gaming videos for awhile. I might pick it up again, though. 30 minute chunks seems a better idea than what I was doing (arbitrarily long videos from each session)
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Oct 12, 2016 15:49
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Here's some more BEATEN: One Way Heroics - Took me about 2 hours from first ever run to winning run. Played it on easiest difficulty of course, because I had no idea what the hell was going on right off the bat. I ended up not recruiting anyone until the final battle, but I also didnt see anyone to recruit, so??? I got some badass armor (Terra Armor) and the final boss was only doing 10-15 damage at a time to me BEATEN: Shuriken (.5 hr) - Free game on itch.io made for the 5th Gameboy Game Jam BEATEN: Ballpoint Universe (2 hr) - Weird combination of shmup and platformer. I liked it, but I don't know that it was a good game. It's certainly no Cave shooter that's for sure. BEATEN: Supreme League of Patriots Eps 1 & 2 (4 hr combined) - Treated as separate games by Steamcompletionist for some reason? Man these games are bad, but I still have a third episode to go. The only good thing about them is the funk/superhero music by Jake Kaufman/virt, that's about it.
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Oct 14, 2016 11:39
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Right, time to try a few more of those freebie games. They're all free for a reason of course... NULLED: Beast Blaster - Some sort of variation on Angry Birds. NULLED: They Came From the Moon - Some sort of variation on Lemmings. From the same dudes who did Beast Blaster. You have to re-do the entire puzzle when you make a small mistake though, gets frustrating quick. NULLED: Heli Heroes - Game's from 2002, and so is the control scheme. Press the F1-F12 keys to do stuff, accidentally take a screenshot if in Steam. NULLED: Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West - No singleplayer and only four servers available on-line, all of them empty. I can't even try this game to see if it's any fun. NULLED: Normality - Point and Click adventure with a first person perspective. It's actually in 3d with some 2d props. However it's from 1996 so it controls like a brick. I would've played this 20 years ago, but not today. NULLED: Overcast: Walden and the Werewolf - Not the Walden from living alone in the woods, but cowboy shooty man Walden. Super low budget. Intro "cinematic" is just characters in the debug pose (both arms at 45 degrees) with a camera panning over them, and some visual effects. The game itself is a (badly lit) fps but I got stuck on some props before I encountered any enemies. It plays loud noises at random to scare you. You also have three arms, which is never really explained. Here's a picture where I'm holding something in each hand, including a fourth arm I found on the ground.
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Oct 15, 2016 16:03
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You're not missing that much re: Lead and Gold. If you want to try a good wild west shooter, I thought Call of Juarez Gunslinger was great (albeit short). Not sure if it has multiplayer, either.
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Oct 15, 2016 17:35
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Guess I should report some games I've managed to beat. BEATEN- Featherpunk Prime - Side scrolling Abuse-style run 'n' gun shooter where you are a cyborg flamingo ascending a tower with randomly generated floors. Excellent controls, awesome soundtrack, and good boss battles. My only complaint is that the randomized levels are very samey and the game gets very repetitive quickly. BEATEN- Gas Guzzlers Extreme - Had a blast playing this Death Rally/Flatout inspired game. One of the driver's voice options is the guy on Lazy Game Reviews doing his Duke Nukem voice! BEATEN AND GOT ALL ACHEVOS - Super Star Path - Shmup with a match three puzzle element. I actually managed to get all the achievements on this one! BEATEN - Axiom Verge - Basically a love letter to Metroid and NES era games in the best way. Found only 66% of the items, not sure if I'm willing to go back and hunt them all down, it's way too easy to get lost. wafflemoose fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Oct 15, 2016 |
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Oct 15, 2016 20:09
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Starhawk64 posted:BEATEN- Featherpunk Prime - Side scrolling Abuse-style run 'n' gun shooter where you are a cyborg flamingo ascending a tower with randomly generated floors. Excellent controls, awesome soundtrack, and good boss battles. My only complaint is that the randomized levels are very samey and the game gets very repetitive quickly. That's two games that sound wicked cool added to my wishlist, thank you! Super Star Path looks extremely up my alley. 
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Oct 15, 2016 20:16
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dhamster posted:So, I guess I forgot or didn't realize that you can do flips, rolls and such with the right analog stick in Sonic & Sega All Stars. I was missing out on a huge part of the game apparently. I'm definitely going to give it another shot. The worst part about SART is that the coolest character by leaps and bounds is kinda way too far into World Tour for all but the most hardcore people to get. Everyone should want to play as the teamup of the Daytona car, Afterburner jet and Dreamcast controller, but gently caress unlocking it.
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Oct 15, 2016 23:35
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I finally beat a game again. I really enjoy never-ending time sinks (Stardew Valley and Heroes of the Storm) that can't be beaten. Beat: Saints Row IV - Co-oped this through. Pretty fun if you're playing with a friend and just goofing around most of the time. The fact you get crazy super powers almost immediately helps with that, too. 
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Oct 16, 2016 19:52
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Quest For Glory II posted:BEATEN: Ballpoint Universe (2 hr) - Weird combination of shmup and platformer. I liked it, but I don't know that it was a good game. It's certainly no Cave shooter that's for sure. I tried this a while back and just didnt know where i was supposed to go. It didnt seem to provide enough direction. But it's been a while. My update: BEATEN: SOMA - 10 hours - Holy crap this game was good. An amazing mix of storytelling and psychological horror. Frictional's best game by far. Playing: Divinity: Original Sin (PS4) Got this for 15 bucks at Walmart. About 5 hours in. Really fantastic. Recent Purchases - $14 Company of Heroes (Humble Bundle) - I didnnt own any of the COH2 addons, so i got this for those. Game is tough, so its going to take a while. Catlateral Damage (PS4)- Because I always dreamed of being an rear end in a top hat cat. Do you even cat, bruh? (Probably will get) Battlefield 1 - Ive put in over 500 hours into 4, so this just seems like a must 
strategery fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Oct 17, 2016 |
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Oct 17, 2016 17:24
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I have beaten quite a lot, and have many more to beat, but I was watching one of the No Mans Sky streamers and he went off and played a different game which really caught my interest. So, I bought it last night and am probably only a short way in but spent a good 2-3 hours playing VALLEY
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Oct 18, 2016 08:40
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Beat: Dragon Age: Origins - Well, I bought this for $10 over 5 years ago, and have tried picking it up a few times, shelving it a few times. Had some time to kill in the evenings lately, so managed to finish the last half of the game or so, clocking 70 combined hours and finishing pretty much all the side quests. Picked the Human Noble Rogue origin, let Alistair execute Loghain, married the Queen, did the ritual with Morrigan, who my character romanced earlier in the game. Earlier I pretty much did the "good" options: I sided with Bhelen and didn't restore the Anvil, lifted the werewolf curse, saved Conner and Isolde, didn't massacre the mages, and saved Redcliffe. My Warden's name was Buck Cousland and I gave him a weird porn stache, which made the sex scenes especially ridiculous.   Overall, I liked it quite a bit. The story managed to keep me interested, once I started to buy into the world they built up for this game. Characters usually had clear motivations and were pretty believable, and many of the bad guys weren't totally irrational, either. The game did a good job of implementing choices: your actions seemed to have a reasonable impact on how the story played out, and they were usually more nuanced than "good guy choice / flagrant dick choice." Not everything had to be solved with violence, but there was still a huge amount of combat. The fighting was alright. The controls made me think of a single-player World of Warcraft. Assigning tactics seemed like a drag so I usually let the computer do it. Level-up choices usually boiled down to putting nearly anything into the character's primary damage stat. Some talents were interesting, but leveling up takes a long time--it took quite awhile into the game until I had a decent number of buttons to press in combat. In fact, most types of progression are really slow in this game. Gold is hard to come by at first, and the vast majority of loot is pretty bad. Even looting enemies is an annoying experience (it takes a few clicks, and a bit of delay). Most main-story dungeons have a tendency to drag on for a very long time through multiple zones, while most sidequests are quite stubby in comparison. In fact, most sidequests can be finished while clearing out the story dungeons, making them a bit of an afterthought in most cases. This game was REALLY ambitious, but it seemed to accomplish what it set out to do without taking a bunch of shortcuts or being a completely broken game. The ending was pretty satisfying as well--the last zone and the events leading up to it were suitably dramatic, and felt like an suitable capstone on the rest of the game. Will probably do the DLC modules sooner or later... but might need a break first, honestly. I don't own the newer games, and I am not in a hurry to get them... they don't seem to be as good.
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Oct 18, 2016 14:40
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BEATEN: Supreme League of Patriots Ep. 3 - Why did I loving play this, this was bad as gently caress BEATEN: Super Killer Hornet Resurrection - After that game, anything would seem better, but SKHR wasn't much better either, a low budget janky shmup that has math problems while you're dodging bullets. honestly awful. I got to the final boss, didn't beat him but that was good enough for me. BEATEN: New York Mysteries: Secrets of the Mafia COLLECTORS EDITION - With a title that long you know what it is, a HOG baby!! way better than those last two trash games I just typed about BEATEN: RUSH - Each tier was unlocked after solving 10 puzzles, so once I did that for each tier, I counted it as done. The game is not a bad Chu Chu Rocket Puzzle Mode clone, it just hurts my brain too much to 100%. BEATEN: A Quiver of Crows - This isn't out yet so I don't think I can review it BEATEN: The Marvellous Miss Take - I don't know why the game misspells marvelous but whatever, it's a fun lite stealth game with great music that Youtube will flag with ContentID so dont do a LP of it BEATEN: Face Noir - Humble little noir adventure game that suddenly goes in a bizarre supernatural direction right near the end and then suddenly goes "BUY FACE NOIR 2" except there is no face noir 2 and there won't ever be one
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Oct 18, 2016 14:57
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Quest For Glory II posted:BEATEN: The Marvellous Miss Take - I don't know why the game misspells marvelous but whatever, it's a fun lite stealth game with great music that Youtube will flag with ContentID so dont do a LP of it It's the British spelling, just like "tranquillity"
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Oct 18, 2016 16:19
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Quest For Glory II posted:
IF you like this try Volume, which is more or less the same game but with a level maker (I liked MMT a lot too)
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Oct 18, 2016 17:03
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dhamster posted:long but good post about DA:O I'm glad you stuck with it. DA:O is definitely one of those games that you have to put some time into before it suddenly hits you over the head and sucks you in like an addict. At least, that's how it went for me and most of the people I know who like it a lot. Re: the other games - it honestly depends on what kind of style of game you like. If you're into older style RPGs like Baldur's Gate then no, the other two games won't scratch the itch like DA:O does. But if you prefer more modern-styled games then Inquisition has a lot going for it, and 2 is... well, it's a love-it-or-hate-it type of game, myself I had a lot of fun with it but that's a controversial opinion to say the least. Most of the Origins DLCs are worth a playthrough if you ever pick them up. Awakening has a good cast.
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Oct 18, 2016 18:40
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 that Buck Cousland pic is right out of a cheap porno shot in 1979
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Oct 18, 2016 18:48
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Do it again as a dwarf called Buck Jr. Personally, I've been sucked deep into Kerbal Space Program which is unfinishable and open ended, and my ambitions in that game will probably take forever. However I have completed the first two of the three Just Cause 3 DLCs and I'll be doing the Sea one soon probably. My ambition to do a full play through of the Witcher 3 with both DLCs is also on hold more or less because there's just not enough hours and I'm trying to just stick with what I'm having fun with instead of treating every game I've got as an obligation.
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Oct 18, 2016 19:06
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Chief Savage Man posted:and I'm trying to just stick with what I'm having fun with instead of treating every game I've got as an obligation. This right here is why I'm still playing RE4 
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Oct 18, 2016 19:09
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Pikestaff posted:I'm glad you stuck with it. DA:O is definitely one of those games that you have to put some time into before it suddenly hits you over the head and sucks you in like an addict. At least, that's how it went for me and most of the people I know who like it a lot. I can definitely attest to that.. it took a little while to grow on me, but I was eventually hooked. Thanks for the recommendations-- I might end up getting the sequels on sale someday. I remember liking the change in gameplay from ME1 to ME2's more action-based engine, so Inquisition might surprise me. I have Ultimate edition (and it's a good thing that I do, because drat this game had a lot of DLC), so I am probably going to give Awakening a try soon. Mister Adequate posted:
"The name's Buck, and I like to party." I honestly forget how I came up with that name, I made that character so long ago. The combination of the name and goofy moustache kept me chuckling, though. I think it was King of the Hill reference (Buck Strickland).
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Oct 18, 2016 19:31
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Guacamelee! Gold Edition: I avoided this one for ages because I don't have a gamepad and I'd read that using a keyboard makes this apparently hard game extremely frustrating. Either the difficulty of this game was greatly exaggerated or I'm a better player than I think I am, because this wasn't that hard at all, even on a keyboard. Or maybe people only ever said that about Hard Mode or getting 100%, neither of which I did. I dreaded the infamous Javier Jaguar boss fight but even that wasn't so bad. Took a few tries, sure, but nothing egregious. I wish I'd played this sooner, it was excellent. System Shock 2: Another one that I should've played ages ago. When I first tried it years ago I was paralyzed by the choice of class at the beginning. This almost happened again, but I was able to force myself to choose and went with Navy. For some reason the way the game presents this choice makes it feel incredibly important. It takes care to stress that it's permanent, but also doesn't really give you much information about the classes (the tutorials are pretty thin). It turns out it's not a big deal, of course, it just affects your starting stats. Anyway this game is very good. It's nice to recognize so many things from the games I've played that it inspired. It's in many ways dated for sure (progression is very keycard-based, for example), but the quality is still there. The hacking minigame is poo poo, but it's almost twenty years later and still no one's been able to make a good one (why do they even try?), so it gets a pass. On Normal it was a bit easy, though, and I suspect Hard is the way to go for future playthroughs. I also didn't bother with psi powers at all because the UI for that seemed like a hassle. I will say it doesn't have much variety in its locales, and there are no standout setpieces, but in a way that only makes it a tighter, more consistent experience, and it fits with the setting. Two actual gripes: the whole sequence inside The Many was a big step down, and the boss battle with the brain was proper garbage. I had run out of bullets and using melee to impotently swipe at the crystals with three rumblers on my rear end was poo poo. And in the final cutscene, the soldier smugly going "Nah" was such an unexpected and unwelcome shift in tone. I was kind of stunned that made the cut. I guess it was the 90s and they thought it was cool or something. I'm glad I finally played this. It's weird that when Bioshock came out people were angry about the resurrection chambers when SS2 has them as well, though. Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal: This is a very, very good game, but I also found it kind of exhausting. By virtue of its basic design every level feels like an uphill battle and a big struggle, and it can be draining. Not one to marathon over a weekend. The campaign was enough for me, although it's really just the preamble to countless custom levels. There's a ton of content here. Company of Heroes (New Steam Version): First of all, "Mortain Counterattack" can go gently caress itself. With that out of the way... This is unquestionably a superb game, but I got off on the wrong foot with it because frankly I wasn't in the mood for an RTS but wanted it off the backlog. And I suck at this genre so forcing myself through the campaign was hard-going. Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it - it's too good a game for that - but I was kind of nervous every time before starting a mission. I'm calling this beaten even though I didn't bother with the expansions, as those are extra content for people who want more, and I don't. Original campaign is good enough as a bare minimum. Also played but ultimately abandoned: Strategic War in Europe: I just can't get interested in this. It's supposedly an entry-level grand strategy game, which is good because I've never played any. But it's just too dry. There's no personality to it, or any hook or anything. Just dumps you into WW2 with dozens of units on the map and obtuse mechanics. Eh. I think I might just prefer my turn-based strategy on the 4X side rather than the grand strategy side.
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Oct 22, 2016 10:41
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Yeah, Bioshock is so much like System Shock 2 that they share the same story beats right down to "game is great aside from the mediocre combat until the climax where they run out of ideas and don't know how to end it." I still think SS2 is stronger because it's snappier and the level design more organic. Rapture is a bit too cordoned off which I feel is a result of it being made for consoles in mind.
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Oct 22, 2016 11:27
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One of the things I liked about the level design in SS2 was that you can - and do - travel between decks freely, back and forth, as necessary. Some would say that's needless backtracking, but I think it lends the Von Braun a strong sense of place. Instead of milking dry every location, then discarding it, you sometimes have to go back (for a specific chemical, or because the plot calls for it). That lends each location a lot more weight in a way, and makes it feel like you're going through an actual place rather than a series of standalone levels. I don't know if SS2 reaches the peak that Bioshock does in its level design (Fort Frolic is what comes to mind, but it's been years since I played that game so that's based on distant memory), but it's probably more consistent throughout, and its late-game dip comes later and doesn't last as long (it reminded me a lot of Xen in that sense).
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Oct 22, 2016 12:59
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BEATEN: Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island - Another Bill Tiller monkey island knockoff adventure game, but an earlier one. The cutscenes didn't work so when I finished the game it just went right to the menu, lol BEATEN: Stealth Bastard Deluxe - I finally came back to this one and beat it. I like it still, but I think each chapter had a couple levels too many and maybe should've moved them over into the unlockables. The new ideas presented each chapter don't maintain their novelty over an entire 8 levels. 5 levels per chapter would've been better IMO, with the other 3 unlocking after game completion and then leaving the S-Rank and Helix level unlocks as they are. BEATEN: Galak-Z - Hmm, I like the presentation and banter of the characters (the art style is a little odd, like late 2000s Flash era cartoons), the controls aren't as bad as people claim they are, but like most people, it's disappointing that the game just ends with season 4, because they copped out and called their The Void endless mode 'season 5'. A mode that has no ending and is just for leaderboard bragging. Bleh
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Oct 22, 2016 14:34
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Oh season 5 isn't a proper actual season? Argh dammit. I really liked Galak-Z but I thought it was a bit too easy for a roguelike so that's kind of a bummer, might as well return to it though. And yeah the animation is WAY more Flash and less the anime they were going for.
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Oct 22, 2016 14:50
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Whoever is complaining about the controls in Galak-Z is wrong, it controls amazingly well. In the later levels when it's constantly zoomed out and big enemies are all over the place I didn't even need to look at my ship, I could mentally track the facing and relative positioning of everything.
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Oct 22, 2016 15:41
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Playing: 20XX Awesome Megaman-inspired game. Feels like a modern SNES Megaman X. Highly recommended for MM fans. Playing: FTL Played this a bunch a year ago but never beat it, even on easy! This time around I want to finish it at least a few times and unlock a few ships. Playing: Aerannis This game is ok. It's pretty weird, and I'm not sure what the developer's agenda is, as it has some gender politics message that's not quite clear. Anyway I'm pretty far in already so I'm going to try to finish it at least.
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Oct 22, 2016 17:48
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n4 posted:Playing: Aerannis
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Oct 22, 2016 17:58
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Glare Seethe posted:Anyway this game is very good. It's nice to recognize so many things from the games I've played that it inspired. It's in many ways dated for sure (progression is very keycard-based, for example), but the quality is still there. The hacking minigame is poo poo, but it's almost twenty years later and still no one's been able to make a good one (why do they even try?), so it gets a pass. System Shock 1 had you do hacking by jacking into a separate cyberspace level and hunting down the controls for the thing you were hacking while dodging security programs and collecting clues from damaged files. It has yet to be surpassed.  quote:I also didn't bother with psi powers at all because the UI for that seemed like a hassle. It's not very well documented, but: - the "change fire mode" and "change ammo type" keys will cycle through psi powers while you have the psi-amp out - shift+F# will assign that F-key as a hotkey for the currently selected power This lets you hotkey up to 12 powers, which is generally more than enough. quote:Two actual gripes: the whole sequence inside The Many was a big step down, and the boss battle with the brain was proper garbage. I had run out of bullets and using melee to impotently swipe at the crystals with three rumblers on my rear end was poo poo. And in the final cutscene, the soldier smugly going "Nah" was such an unexpected and unwelcome shift in tone. I was kind of stunned that made the cut. I guess it was the 90s and they thought it was cool or something. I think it's part "the 90s" and part "they ran short of money and the end is pretty rushed as a result". Like Thief 2, I think SS2 contains some of LGS's best work, but also some of their worst; Thief 1 and System Shock 1 don't reach the same heights but are much more consistent in quality and finish much stronger. quote:I'm glad I finally played this. It's weird that when Bioshock came out people were angry about the resurrection chambers when SS2 has them as well, though. There at least a few differences; the chambers in bioshock: - are free to use, rather than costing resources every time you die - are very densely spaced, rather than being one (or zero!) per level - activate automatically as soon as you're in range, rather than needing to be manually activated (and leaving you at risk of true death until you do) At a guess, this is enough to push it into the "optimal but boring way to play" bucket for a bunch of people.
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Oct 23, 2016 14:01
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People who complained about the resurrection chambers probably hadn't played SS2. The main complaints I remember about Bioshock (other than the awful DRM, the technical issues, few graphic options and subtitles out of synch), was that it was both a dumbed down version of what they had been showing in previews and saying in interviews, and a dumbed down version of SS2's everything. Original Bioshock had great visuals and quite a few nice set pieces and it was fun to play (for a while at least, new powers were fun), but it felt uninspired after SS2.
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Oct 23, 2016 14:53
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Glare Seethe posted:Guacamelee! Gold Edition: I avoided this one for ages because I don't have a gamepad and I'd read that using a keyboard makes this apparently hard game extremely frustrating. Either the difficulty of this game was greatly exaggerated or I'm a better player than I think I am, because this wasn't that hard at all, even on a keyboard. Or maybe people only ever said that about Hard Mode or getting 100%, neither of which I did. I dreaded the infamous Javier Jaguar boss fight but even that wasn't so bad. Took a few tries, sure, but nothing egregious. I wish I'd played this sooner, it was excellent. They were probably talking about getting the secret ending, which requires lots of pretty tough platforming.
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Oct 23, 2016 16:58
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ToxicFrog posted:It's not very well documented, but: That's good to know, if I play it again I'll probably do a psi power run since I ignored that whole aspect of the gameplay completely. AbstractNapper posted:People who complained about the resurrection chambers probably hadn't played SS2. I remember that complaint being one of the "dumbed down!" gameplay complaints, alongside the objective arrow and flashing items, and Irrational quickly patched in options to turn all three of those off. Which I used, and will use again if I replay Bioshock. Actually now I do kind of want to play Bioshock again, but better wait until the remasters are up to scratch first and my backlog's taken care of.
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Oct 24, 2016 07:12
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