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ToxicToast posted:I am finally thinking of getting an XCOM game. Where should I start? I was thinking of getting Enemy Unknown or is 2 better in every way and I should just play that one? The old games are still playable too, mostly UFO Defense (original) and Apocalypse. They're DOS era games, though, with all the lack of tutorialization and ridiculously granular management that implies. Choose where to build your bases. Choose how to build your bases, keeping in mind the tactical implications of possible points of incursion. Hire personnel, buy every single weapon, vehicle, and piece of ammunition manually, equip every soldier manually. If you're at all interested, get them on GOG so you can get the manuals with them, Steam doesn't include those but you'll want 'em. For UFO Defense OpenXcom is almost mandatory, it's a source port that fixes a lot of bugs like the famous one where the difficulty settings don't actually work, and if you dig into the options you can enable a lot of modern sensibilities like a movement guide that shows exactly how many of your precious time units are being used and colour codes the destination square to let you know what post-movement actions you'll have available. Also, whether new series or old, don't be afraid to play on baby difficulty. The lowest difficulty can be a bit too easy at times, but even Normal has a tendency to repeatedly beat you up and steal your lunch money with weighted RNG. There's a reason this exists: 
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Sep 6, 2020 18:10
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ToxicToast posted:I am finally thinking of getting an XCOM game. Where should I start? I was thinking of getting Enemy Unknown or is 2 better in every way and I should just play that one? I'd say XCOM Enemy Within would be the best place to start. I love XCOM2 but I feel like they added a lot of systems that can be overwhelming if you're not already comfortable with the gameplay. That and, personally, I prefer the pulpy, pseudo cold war era alien invasion setting in EU/EW to the scifi guerrilla resistance setting of the second.
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Sep 6, 2020 18:21
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Grapplejack posted:Oh is this a remake of the first one? The first one had some wild poo poo, especially the last level which absolutely would get the game banned today I was wondering why I don't see crappy little edgy games like you did 15-20 years ago. lovely columbine games, games where you play as bin laden in a broken FPS to kill Bush/floating jpeg of bush, always games that would be trash regardless of edgy intent. Surely they exist, but the media isn't upset about random crappy indie half-assed game spammed on some crap geocities or whatever as much these days. Steam does a good job keeping that crap out of my way, or it appears so to me and I ain't going to go looking and risking introducing it into some algorithm.
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Sep 6, 2020 18:24
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Black Griffon posted:Man I'll just keep playing Doom for the hundredth time while dipping into Dusk and Amid evil when the mood strikes me. As good a time as any to point out some important recent news: https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/2300/view/2885074013953862660
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Sep 6, 2020 18:46
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Khanstant posted:I was wondering why I don't see crappy little edgy games like you did 15-20 years ago. lovely columbine games, games where you play as bin laden in a broken FPS to kill Bush/floating jpeg of bush, always games that would be trash regardless of edgy intent. Surely they exist, but the media isn't upset about random crappy indie half-assed game spammed on some crap geocities or whatever as much these days. Steam does a good job keeping that crap out of my way, or it appears so to me and I ain't going to go looking and risking introducing it into some algorithm. Those games still exist and you can find some on Steam. I guess it is just something the media doesn't care about anymore.
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Sep 6, 2020 18:53
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Call Your Grandma posted:As good a time as any to point out some important recent news: oh that's cool as hell. way lower barrier for entry for people who might not want to bother with custom launchers and all that (though the joy of heavily modded Doom should not be discounted).
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Sep 6, 2020 19:20
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it's been said since its release that the "prose" in alan wake is real lousy for something that's ostensibly about and starring a writer, but it hurts even more in a post-disco elysium world give me manuscript pages that have reptilian brain crooning in my ear about going to work in the poo poo factory still kind of neat how much remedy managed to do with limited assets, i know the game's scope got chopped down badly during production
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Sep 6, 2020 20:00
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Oxxidation posted:it's been said since its release that the "prose" in alan wake is real lousy for something that's ostensibly about and starring a writer, but it hurts even more in a post-disco elysium world
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Sep 6, 2020 20:04
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Turning everything into Disco Elysium would be exhausting
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Sep 6, 2020 20:06
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Mordja posted:People who say that must be dense because that's the entire point. Wake's a banal mass-market paperback writer, a pastiche of John Grisham and Stephen King. see, if the writing was king-quality (even bad king! "lisey's story" king, for god's sake!) i wouldn't be nearly as down on it his books are ostensibly meant to imitate the narrative form of the max payne games, which are also way better than this. it's just unsalted mashed-potato bland e: tbh if you close your eyes and pretend that Quantum Break never happened then a lot of the writing in Control can be taken as an example of turning AW's weaknesses into strengths. giving everything generic Proper Noun titles ties into the Jungian angle of the altered items and phenomena, polaris gives jesse a more organic excuse than alan to constantly monologue to herself, and the stuffy spc-esque memo style of the found files is a much better stylistic fit than trying to cram something like actual prose into messages that aren't meant to be longer than a paragraph or two at most Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Sep 6, 2020 |
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Sep 6, 2020 20:06
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Oxxidation posted:see, if the writing was king-quality (even bad king! "lisey's story" king, for god's sake!) i wouldn't be nearly as down on it I think that’s more fair. Alan Wake only touches on the kind of decaying small town material that King would write about at length, so the game ends up coming across as more of a generic supernatural thriller.
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Sep 6, 2020 20:15
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MMF Freeway posted:Hexen, but good, is definitely something I want Medieval? Maybe e.f.b
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Sep 6, 2020 20:22
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StrixNebulosa posted:e: Enemy Unknown/Within is so good that it basically invented the modern XCOM genre by showing everyone that turn based squad tactics could be good. quote:Yeah, you heard me. X-COM, the game to end all games, is finally getting its long-rumoured remake/sequel. Wahoo, basically. Yes, it is indeed a first-person shooter – it is extraordinarily sad to wave away X-COM’s traditional genre, but c’mon, did you really think a AAA title in 2010 was going to be a turn-based strategy game?
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Sep 6, 2020 20:34
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Oxxidation posted:it's been said since its release that the "prose" in alan wake is real lousy for something that's ostensibly about and starring a writer, but it hurts even more in a post-disco elysium world i think the thing that really made disco elysium sing is that it had multiple very good writers working on it who were all given a solid benchmark to work off of AND the ability to flex their own specific styles. The whole reptilian brain monlogues left me kinda flat (hunter s thompson is overrated imo) but I loved the "two birds on a wire" sequence that happens when you sit on the swingset with kim.
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Sep 6, 2020 20:35
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unrelated note. one day i'm going to find the people who horrendously misapply tags on steam (like tagging gloomhaven as "Grand strategy") and break their computers. the dynamic collections are basically impossible to use without massive pruning because of this.
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Sep 6, 2020 20:53
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HopperUK posted:I have actually managed to make a DA:I character look half-decent and now I can never uninstall again. I think my dude came out alright:  Questionable fashion sense, but he's good-looking enough to get away with it e: I know it's 2020 and guys can use it, but he really needs to lay off the lip balm
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Sep 6, 2020 21:02
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Kennel posted:It's amusing to read old FPS XCOM (which later became Bureau) reveal articles now after the Turn-based Renaissance: Kinda wish The Bureau was a better game or they had made a sequel, there are flashes of something interesting buried in that cobbled together mess.
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Sep 6, 2020 21:10
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Da:I has two good romances. Josephine because it's super campy and Harding because female dwarf romances are, for some reason, insanely rare I assume game devs fear they'd be called pedos or w/e if they had a gnome / halfling / goblin for you to romance so they don't do it and dwarves are sort of in that wheelhouse so they stay clear
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Sep 6, 2020 21:10
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Oxxidation posted:it's been said since its release that the "prose" in alan wake is real lousy for something that's ostensibly about and starring a writer, but it hurts even more in a post-disco elysium world it was actually bad enough that it stopped me playing, some people have said it's deliberately bad because he's meant to be a terrible hack but i didn't get that impression from the bit that I played
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Sep 6, 2020 21:14
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sebmojo posted:it was actually bad enough that it stopped me playing, some people have said it's deliberately bad because he's meant to be a terrible hack but i didn't get that impression from the bit that I played Wake is definitely deliberately a bad writer but well "we made it bad on purpose" is kind of a dumb design decision maybe? and not a great defense for a game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn1ToQVf32c Alan Wake doesn't really know what it wants to be stretches what worked in MP to the breaking point, a lot of segments run on too long, and the hacky writing joke isn't as sharp as it needed to be and can only hold together so long. I like Alan Wake but only just. Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Sep 9, 2020 |
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Sep 6, 2020 21:15
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sebmojo posted:it was actually bad enough that it stopped me playing, some people have said it's deliberately bad because he's meant to be a terrible hack but i didn't get that impression from the bit that I played yeah it's not supported by the script, everyone wake meets sings paeans to his writing (other than himself, occasionally, and that's just meant to be seen as typical artiste self-loathing) and the villain wants to sink its claws into him because of his ferocious creative spirit. it's just a game about a writer that lacks any sort of authorial voice. not a great combination!
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Sep 6, 2020 21:17
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dragon age romances are kinda bodice-ripper YA lit trope-y the most well drawn in the world but they're still considerably better than the writing of the majority of video games - they're just focused on a subject that makes goons uncomfortable.
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Sep 6, 2020 21:17
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Grapplejack posted:Da:I has two good romances. Josephine because it's super campy and Harding because female dwarf romances are, for some reason, insanely rare Dwarves, regardless of gender, don't have body types that are considered appealing by the general population. For me it's slim pickings so far, Cassandra is the Strong Woman archetype, which ehhhh, and Leliana isn't even a party member
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Sep 6, 2020 21:34
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Don't worry, it's gonna get worse.
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Sep 6, 2020 21:35
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steinrokkan posted:Don't worry, it's gonna get worse. I don't even think they're horribly written, just nothing that my PC is going to fall for head over heels. lol could be worse, imagine being only attracted to men (or roleplaying that) and at this stage of the game your choices are the bald, stoned elf and the dwarf
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Sep 6, 2020 21:42
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Phlegmish posted:I don't even think they're horribly written, just nothing that my PC is going to fall for head over heels. You get a bunch of other male romance candidates down the road, but only one woman one, iirc.
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Sep 6, 2020 21:52
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Phlegmish posted:I think my dude came out alright: Mine turned out quite alright too, after a few trips to the mirror. Before that it was just... bad.  In any case, I'm probably just gonna go volcel.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:22
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The "Realms Deep" expo thing is still going on and a billion indie shooter games are announced every second. Most importantly though is an expansion to Amid Evil: The Black Labyrinth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2--kql5YFww Also the aptly named Hellscreen: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1410090/Hellscreen/ 
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Sep 6, 2020 22:27
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is that a goddamn rear view mirror
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Sep 6, 2020 22:30
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sure is
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Sep 6, 2020 22:31
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incredible
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Sep 6, 2020 22:33
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*adding a lot of indie retro FPSes to my wishlist* yesss bring them all to meeee
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Sep 6, 2020 22:36
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Flimf posted:Also the aptly named Hellscreen: especially in motion this looks awful. like they're legitimately going to lose a large portion of their potential audience to motion sickness/migraines if they don't tweak the look.
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Sep 6, 2020 22:45
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i enjoyed alan wake but definitely not for the plot or the manuscripts lmao. all the actually fun writing was for side characters like the old rocker guys, or stuff like the radio show and the discount twilight zone episodes but alan wake himself isn’t even interesting enough to be unlikable and 90% of his monologues amount to him restating the thing that just happened in front of you
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Sep 6, 2020 23:17
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big standouts are the 3 or 4 indie "immersive sims" coming up.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:22
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Arcanum dwarf women were canonically kept secreted away from non-dwarf society
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Sep 6, 2020 23:27
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I enjoyed finding ways to walk on people's heads in Alan Wake or killing himself by bumping into things. Something you are not allowed to do in American Nightmare. It was also good when the game was insulting him for being a hack writer. What you can do in American Nightmare was fill in the important garage with every physics object on the map and cutscene launch dozens of objects out the building when it blows up and seeing a bucket fly into the camera.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:28
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Still a ways away, but Everspace 2 hits EA in December. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXWhvF-EEbs
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Sep 6, 2020 23:32
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Flimf posted:The "Realms Deep" expo thing is still going on and a billion indie shooter games are announced every second. could not be more hype for more Amid Evil, I beat it on the ~secret difficulty~ but have been mulling a replay. also I don't know when it was added but playtimes in your library now show fractions of an hour played and i'm way into that
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Sep 7, 2020 00:45
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I just, JUST realised "Amid Evil" is a pun on medieval
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Sep 7, 2020 00:49
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