|
I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned this here yet, but I learned the other day from the State of Decay 2 thread that SoD 2 is coming to steam next month (March 13), with the Juggernaut Edition: a new map, new weapons, more clothes (gently caress yeah dress-up), a graphics update, and the DLC is included (Heartland, which goes back to Trumbull County from the first game; and Daybreak, a co-op wave-defense mini-game thing). Anyone who has the Microsoft XBox Live Game Pass for Windows powered by Bing or bought the game from the microsoft store (sans game pass) will get the Juggernaut Edition upgrade for free. The Steam version will be the Juggernaut Edition, to be clear.Undead Labs posted:And, if you already own Daybreak, Heartland, or purchased the Ultimate Edition of State of Decay 2, we’re sending you some exclusive in-game gifts that won’t be available anywhere else. Simply log in on launch day to collect them! more info here: https://www.stateofdecay.com/2020/02/14/state-of-decay-2-juggernaut-edition/ trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhj5phhsqC0 As for my thoughts: I loved the first game, despite (or maybe because of) the jank and obvious low budget. The second one is bigger and better and more-r. There are 3 maps (soon to be 4, plus Trumbull County from the Heartland dlc), each one seems to be about the size of the first game's map, but at least one (the Plateau) has a lot of mountains and cliffs that seem to exist mostly to get in the way when you want to go somewhere. The gameplay loop seems to take a lot from Breakdown (the endless mode from the first game). Scavenging is mostly the same. Zombies get more numerous and dangerous over time, and there are Plague Hearts around the map, which spawn red-eyed plague zombies (you can get a blood plague disease if they damage you) until you go in and destroy them (bring firecrackers and also fire). Cars require fuel now (and repair kits to get rid of damage). Crossbows are cool. Base management is about the same, and you have more control over the community itself - you can choose a leader which gives specific bonuses depending on what role they take (there are four leader roles and you know which one every character will become, so you can choose your leader accordingly). The most important thing about community management is the closet, which lets you play barbie dress-up with your survivors. You find new clothes out in the world, and those are unlocked globally (so if you start a new community, they'll have access to all the lizard hoodies and puffy vests you've already found). After you finish your community leader's main quest line, you can choose to retire the community and add some of those characters to a pool you can choose from when making a new community, so you can bring in your fully-loaded and -leveled zombie-slaying powerhouse hero to a group of absolute newbie survivors and get a little head start in the early game. Oh, and there's multiplayer, up to four. Only the host keeps progress made, but all joining players can get a bunch of gear and Influence (currency) when playing in someone else's world. When searching buildings in multiplayer, every player has their own color-coded loot boxes, so everyone can get their own set of stuff from a house. I like it, because the more people you have, the more stuff you can get from a place. I'd imagine four people can get pretty wild - I think zombie spawns scale up (not sure about that), but Infestations and Plague Hearts and Juggernauts are all a lot easier, even with just one other person. AI allies can be helpful, but they're not very smart. Overall: good game if you like zombies and some light base/community management/survival stuff. If you didn't like the first game, you probably won't like this one either, but if you did, you probably will.
|
#
¿
Feb 29, 2020 03:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 00:19 |
|
|
explosivo posted:Oh hey I actually just reinstalled SOD2 last night to see what's changed before this big patch and I think I'm back into it in a big way. I'm playing the Heartland map right now and I'm still pretty early on but really enjoying myself. I'm definitely liking the new cosmetics stuff for your survivors! I got a blue lizard hoodie the other day and it was more exciting than finding a rifle with a silencer already attached and a bunch of ammo while scavving.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 29, 2020 03:32
|
|
|
I did the Final Fantasy "mission" in AC Origins last night, without realizing it was Final Fantasy themed until the end when I got a chocobo mount. A flying robot made of swords throws magic blue swords at an anime-hair man who smiles and then jumps up to (into?) the robot and they fly off, and leave a real (not magic blue) sword and shield just sitting there. I'm not very familiar with modern FF (the last one I played was 12, when it came out for PS2, so even that's a bit fuzzy beyond "it's Star Wars with chocobos"), so I was just very confused for a few minutes. I got lucky and got to the temple just as the sun was rising, so even the puzzle was just "shoot that glowy thing right there 3 times." Then I got back to the actual game. I took drugs and killed a snake in the afterlife, talked to my dead son, then found my heart and put it back in my chest and woke back up, and Aya was outside. Whoever said it the other day was right: she's off having AC plot happen while Bayek's just tooling around Egypt. Whenever she shows up, I half-love it because Aya's cool and it's surprisingly rare to see a protagonist with a living spouse who feels like an actual character and not just a plot device (though she is that, to be fair). I also half-hate it because I know it means I'm about to get a bunch of cutscenes about a bunch of bullshit I don't care about. Cleopatra visiting Memphis wasn't too bad, though. I've been wearing nothing but the spa towel (hood down) since I unlocked it, and I'm very glad they included a good outfit like that. Also, Bayek has one of the most charming grins in videogames.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2020 15:50
|
|
|
baka kaba posted:what if they run off into a nearby pack of zombies though? that's what I'm talking about, they get mobbed and then there's the "help I'm about to die" popup and you have to go save them, and then they run into the next lot if you're unlucky, especially later in the game where there's packs of them everywhere In SoD 2, your community members will never show up out in the field needing help. It will always be folks from other Enclaves, so if they say "thanks for the rescue!" and then run off into a horde, that's not your problem. You also can't call your people to help you pick up supplies anymore, either. But, if you have a follower from your community, you can give them a rucksack to carry, and switch between characters if someone gets a full inventory. You might cancel a mission if it was for the first character, but those will come back eventually, so you're not missing anything. Also, 2 doesn't have any of the "game time progresses while you're not playing" that the first game did, either the extended pre-patch one or the 3-day limit from later in the game's life. So if that was a concern about 2, don't worry! The game stops when you stop playing it. Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Apr 9, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2020 17:02
|
|
|
Jimbot posted:So in Generation Zero, are there supposed to be four Hunters between Stenhaga Farm and Mortnas? You know, the bots that kill you in about 3-4 hits? This is from a few pages back, but I'm pretty sure 3-4 hunters is just a standard patrol, at least once you get up to the Farmlands. This was me trying to leave a bunker one day:  (not pictured: about 3 or 4 more hunters and robodogs off to the left a bit, and another dog behind me) I hope everyone who's been playing Gen Zero recently has also turned off the alert bar thing when you're being detected. Ideally, you're also playing with a buddy (or two or three), because multiple people lets you actually pull off guerrilla maneuvers and that's when the game shines. We attacked the airport once, and it was rough, but one person drawing fire while the others got into position with fireworks and rockets was useful. It's a very pretty hiking-through-the-woods game when you're not getting attacked by robots. It can also be kinda janky sometimes, especially after the recent inventory update. I was very surprised when I got it that it wasn't still in early access, because sometimes it feels like it should be. It's fun, especially with friends, but solo can get frustrating when you draw too many robots down on you (hunters, both types of giant walkers, basically anything Military-class) and have no good way to deal with them. Also, I found a mullet haircut and was able to turn my punk girl into a decent Lady Solid Snake: 
Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 16:37 on May 5, 2020 |
|
#
¿
May 5, 2020 16:33
|
|
|
Croccers posted:Honestly, fire up the PS3. Session has the "technical skateboard action" side of the skate. games down, but not the "hurl yourself off a dam, do a bunch of sweet flips and tricks in the air (with your body, not your skateboard), and then slam into a sewer pipe and break every bone in your body" side, and it doesn't seem like it's something they're interested in. They have been adding new areas, though, and working on bugfixes and board control. I think grab tricks are still considered an experimental feature that isn't fully implemented. I'm not great at the game yet, but I'm generally able to get around and flip up onto a sidewalk from the street and not gently caress it up. I've even managed to grind on a (long, low) stair, jump off with a flip trick, and land without falling to the ground in a heap! I'm not nearly as successful when trying to grind staircase handrails, though. I played a little SkateXL last year, and it was much more buggy and glitchy (as in, I'd just randomly fall off the board while trying to skate across flat ground, no tricks) than Session (as of a few months ago, last time I played it). Maybe SkateXL has gotten better, but between the two, I'd recommend Session right now. I'm pretty sure Session's devs (at least some of them) are former Black Box people (the skate. devs). Neither of them are a great replacement for skate. 2 or 3, but they seem to be as close as we're gonna get at the moment, minus the Hall of Meat stuff.
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2020 14:01
|
|
|
I'm a bit late for Prey chat, but I did my first run with only human powers and all the survival options, and it wasn't too bad. Early game was a bit rough until I got combat focus and a shotgun, and modded up the shotgun a bit. Before that, it was a lot of sneaking around and avoiding things because they would one-shot me. Discovering that the cystoids were weak to the nerf gun was a great moment, too. They went from pain in the rear end to joke with one dart. Of course, by the end of the game, I was rushing the nightmare with a shotgun whenever it appeared, and used up the rest of the satellite beacon charges to summon more nightmares to kill. Prey is very good. If you haven't played it yet somehow, you should.
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2020 02:04
|
|
|
Fallom posted:So is this supposed to do something? Because it doesn't save poo poo when I pick a location for the screenshot. You're not rollin' with lovable ol' Ray? Sweet baby Ray who wouldn't harm a fly? What do you have against fine upstanding citizenship? Nah, just kidding, Ray (and everyone else in Elex, Jax included) is kind of an rear end in a top hat. Also: sunglasses are the best head armor because fashion is the most important thing. Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 05:43 on May 14, 2020 |
|
#
¿
May 14, 2020 05:40
|
|
|
XCOM 2's War of the Chosen sort of does a Nemesis thing with the Chosen. There are only 3 of them, and they're always the same characters (the Hunter's a snarky jackass, the Assassin is a smug jackass, and the Warlock is just a jackass), but their strengths and weaknesses are randomly chosen at the start of the game, and they have a chance to show up during missions in their territory and It's not quite Shadow of Wardor levels, but I don't think anything will be for a while. Someone else mentioned it before, but I think for nemeses to be as good as they are in the Middle-Earth games, the game needs to be built around it the way those games are.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2020 04:32
|
|
|
Morter posted:Is there any info on this? I looked at the twitter but got no information from it. Have you looked at the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality page? Or are you just wondering what the new games are? You can read the itch.io bundle thread over here, they've been noting (some) new stuff as it gets added.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 11, 2020 15:21
|
|
|
Orv posted:Murder puzzles are the only puzzles and like and boy does Hitman have good ones. Yeah, I've described the reboot games a few times as puzzle games where the solution is always murder, and there are a bunch of ways to 'beat' every mission. Seconding/thirding/whatever-ing the recommendation to play the reboot Hitman games. I didn't mind the Elusive Targets, because you only need 5 of them to get the Blood Money suit (I think that's what the number was, it was definitely much less than the number of ETs they had), which quickly gets ignored for more fashionable choices (bathrobe, Santa Claus outfit, flamingo mascot). Also, I got to kill Gary Busey with an exploding golf ball after he argued with Gary Cole about the commercial they were filming. I don't know if Elusive Targets as they exist(ed) should come back in 3, though, because they are very divisive, as we've all seen. I would rather see more "side" missions like the nighttime Sapienza ones, or the Patient Zero mini-campaign. The Colorado mission in PZ was much better than any of the Sniper Challenge stuff, and was also a fun little callback to St. Petersburg in Hitman 2 (the second Hitman game, Hitman 2, not the seventh one, HITMAN 2).
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2020 01:42
|
|
|
I thought we stopped doing this? I think I might enjoy an indie Big Pharma without all the "you're part of the pharmaceutical industrial complex and that's so cool!" bullshit, and would like to know the name of the thing I'm buying next so that I may purchase it. edit: I'm an rear end in a top hat who didn't scroll up, sorry. it's shapez.io, and that screenshot sold me on it better than the earlier description did, so thanks! Also, everyone and everything is saying it's a knockoff Factorio (which is very good if you like these sorts of things and somehow haven't gotten it yet), but the splitters and combinators make me think of Big Pharma instead. I guess my brain is just not on yet this morning. Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Jun 15, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2020 13:49
|
|
|
Oldstench posted:Sorry about that. I'm not very good at descriptive writing. Game good. Buy game. I already did!  Your description was fine; I've been brain-dead the last day or two, so I didn't pay much attention when I first skimmed past it.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2020 14:54
|
|
|
Hey, steam thread. I like The Surge, despite the rough edges it has. I like the dual-linked and single-handed weapons, because everything else feels too slow, takes too much stamina, and doesn't let me dodge out of the way as quickly (because of recovery time, not any inherent dodge boost with those weapons, because that isn't a thing). I will probably get either Surge 2 or Jedi Fallen Order in this sale. Does anyone have any strong arguments for/against one of those games? I have a tolerance for jank (piranha bytes 4 lyfe), so that isn't a discouragement. I also like fashion barbie dress-ups, so bonus points for whatever game lets me dress my videogame swordfighter in bright pink whatever.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2020 00:50
|
|
|
explosivo posted:Yeah I was gonna say Surge 2 is a gamepass/rental for sure. It's fun for a while but I got sick of it pretty quickly. Although to be honest the same thing happened to me with Fallen Order but almost everybody loves that game so ymmv. I often end up liking games that other people think are mediocre, like Alpha Protocol, Gothic 2 (and 3 with the community patch), and even Underrail (the not-Fallout that was mostly ignored). (edit: I know goons loved AP, but come on, you're not *people* (just kidding)) But from chatting with a couple other friends, Fallen Order looks like the way to go. I can always check out Surge 2 on gamepass (along with like a hundred other things if i want to).
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2020 01:16
|
|
|
I ended up getting Fallen Order (along with Islanders thanks to this thread, and the Fell Seal and Gen Zero DLCs). I played as far as getting across the gap to the tower, then went back to try Oggdo Boggdo again, and I did worse than when I stumbled into him the first time while exploring. I'll come back at it after some sleep, but so far I'm enjoying it (not that there's been much 'it' yet). BD-1 is cool and I have a white poncho already, so the Jedi fashion show is off to a good start.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2020 07:37
|
|
|
I've put a few hours into Jedi: Fallen Order, and I can see why people have complaints about it, but I'm still enjoying it. Most of the things that annoyed me early on turned out to be not having the player skill and/or character abilities to deal with the problem effectively. I was chatting with my manager today at work, of all people (small grocery store, we were open for a few hours this morning), and he told me about force-pushing rockets back at the guy who fired them, which the game never told me I could do (he said that the game doesn't tell you). Last night, I quit after a couple attempts at dealing with 3 rocket troopers on a ledge with a chasm between us (the rest of the encounter wasn't too bad other than those 3), and when I played today, they were the easiest thing to deal with. More short impressions: I think I hate the bounty hunters the most, because they can dual-flashbang and don't stick around for me to get revenge (at least they leave my xp behind, thanks for just rubbing it in). Oggdo Boggdo was tough, but then I discovered you could start the fight from above (even then, it took a few tries, but that made it a lot easier - I beat him before I left the planet for the first time). I like fighting Second Sister and other human(oid) single-opponent bosses (like that bounty hunter before the arena fight, until he cheated). Also, the arena fight felt like there was supposed to be more there. Flamethrower troopers are almost worse than purge troopers when they come in groups (haven't had more than one purge trooper yet). I tried going to Dathomir first thing, because it was an option, and quickly realized my mistake. BD-1 and Greez are cool, but Cere gave me major Kreia vibes from the very first conversation and I still don't trust her (not that I believe Second Sister either) (spoilered because that might be a thing later, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone else who plays games a year or more later like I do; please don't spoil it for me either way - I want to see how right/wrong I am at the end). I like the screen wipe scene transitions. Second Sister is a good villain. Killing groups of stormtroopers with their own blaster bolts never gets old. Same with force-pushing Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jul 4, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2020 23:17
|
|
|
SirSamVimes posted:The two most satisfying things in Fallen Order are mowing down hordes of Stormtroopers and lightsaber duels. Aw gently caress. I typed up all that bullshit and this is pretty much what it boils down to. Oh, also, I forgot to mention: I've only found one poncho with the fringed edges and the woven strap and the rest are the other style that sucks, so I've been ignoring them. I hope there are more cool ponchos.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2020 23:27
|
|
|
I picked up Outward because it hits a bunch of buttons for me (survival! choices and consequences! cool hats!), and had a rough start because I didn't fully explore the first couple areas before going somewhere that got me killed (I know death isn't an end, but I restarted anyway because of the "not fully exploring" thing). My second (actually, third) run has gone much better: I have armor and a machete now, I got to the shipwreck to get my buddy's stash, and sold enough stuff to a Soroborean I met in a field that I can pay my neighbors to not kick me out of my house. Now I just have to get back in one piece, within a couple of days. It feels like a Gothic fan-game, for lack of a better term, without any of Gothic's user-friendliness (that's a joke). I was almost surprised when I saw a giant bird enemy that didn't use Piranha Bytes' giant bird animations. So far, I'm enjoying it and also getting frustrated with it. I'm expecting things will get (somewhat) more manageable when I'm not wearing rags and using sticks to fight (I'm running away from most fights).
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2020 15:48
|
|
|
MMF Freeway posted:Isn't there an option to turn it off anyways I'm pretty sure the toggle was added in soon after the update that introduced corpses (like a patch or two later). I got the game right around that point, and I wondered why having corpses after you kill something was such a big deal. It makes sense for the game. Then I learned that it "ruined the meta" or whatever, and decided that anyone complaining about how they ruined the game by adding corpses could just be ignored.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2020 04:32
|
|
|
A Sometimes Food posted:I'm 20 hrs into Wasteland 3 and I kinda love it, but it is really busted and I seem to be running into more problems the deeper I go. Gonna shelve it and come back after it's got a few patches. Huge improvement over WL2 and I really want to stress it has a lot going for it, just maybe hold off a few months. Yeah, it's much better than Wasteland 2 so far, but that isn't a particularly high bar to clear. The consolidating of skills is a good move, as is removing the progress bar and random chance. The combat was the best part of WL2 and that's true in 3 as well. I've only had a few minor problems so far - sometimes sub-buttons don't stay visible when I click the parent button (like for the Overwatch/Defend/Save AP stuff), and occasionally I can see mouseover popups on the loading screen (as in, I move my mouse on the loading screen, and a popup will occur when I mouse over where an ability or character is when the loading screen finally goes away). The facial hair options are terrible. But like I said, those are pretty minor. I haven't had any crashes or weird bugs or anything yet, but I'm still pretty early (dealing with some poo poo involving Faran Brygo, who looks basically unchanged from Wasteland, and the game specifically draws attention to this lack of aging when you meet him for the first time).
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2020 04:30
|
|
|
I've been waiting for this game for a while, so I played the demo for Coffee Noir: Business Detective Game. The title is a bit of a mouthful, but it accurately describes the game. You play as a detective who's trying to solve the case of a missing coffee magnate in an alternate-reality 2021 Neo-London where the 1920s/30s became the dominant cultural and fashion peak (kind of a similar style to Outer Worlds, but not as futuristic), and coffee became the dominant consumer good. The demo is pretty limited in what you can do - you only get 2 weeks/turns of game time, and only the opening parts of the investigation are available, and the cutscenes are mandatory before you can go to the next week. I saw a post on the steam forum from a dev saying that in the final version, they won't be as tied together*. Gameplay is a mix of investigation (watch a comic book cutscene, then get a bunch of new clues for the case to put together and try and find connections between them; you can access the investigation board at any time) and coffee business sim. You have to find new clients, figure out what kind of coffee they're most interested in, meet with them and negotiate the contract (you set an initial offer, then there are a couple rounds of counter-offers), and finally come to an agreement (with a satisfying signature on the contract). Most of this is done in conversations with the client (the contract comes up when necessary), where you can take different approaches to try and raise their attitude towards you. A better attitude will allow you to set higher prices and get better counter-offers. You can dig up information about the client to determine the best approach - will they want to get right to business, or engage in small-talk first? Do they take compliments well or will they see through you trying to flatter them? The demo is limited, so there's not much of that to go on, but it seems like a neat idea. There's also the production and employee-management side of things. Production seems pretty straightforward - get a client who needs coffee, set your production for the week to meet or exceed that amount, and make sure you have enough warehouse space. One thing I thought was pretty neat was the way you use your employees. Everyone has 40 hours available for the week, and you set them to work different tasks throughout the week, trying not to exceed their capacity. You want to keep them busy so they don't get bored and less efficient at their jobs (when they have to do them). Each employee has an area of expertise, and if you have them doing a job related to that expertise, they'll be able to get their work done in a few less hours, which makes multitasking more useful. It's a little more involved than the usual method of "assign person to task, now that task is green instead of red." There are also advertising campaigns to drive up interest in your various coffees and probably make clients willing to pay more, but that's disabled in the demo so I don't know much about it other than the overview description the tutorial gives you. Downsides: I noticed quite a few spelling errors in the text, and the voice acting is... okay. The main character, Arthur, is probably the best of the bunch (there are only 3 or 4 other voiced characters in the demo). He does a decent "noir voice" when he's narrating, and in conversations with clients, he switches to a much more jovial salesman-y tone. I was hoping he'd sound more like Nick Valentine from Fallout 4, and I was disappointed, but that's entirely on me. Overall impressions: I like the "retro-future but with COFFEE everywhere" setting. It's a weird niche game that's actually 2 weird niche games in one, but the demo is way too short to really get into either the business or investigation side of things. Limiting you to two turns/weeks of making and selling coffee makes the investigation stuff feel crammed in, but the full version sounds like it'll let you go more at your own pace. Also, I'm assuming the spelling and subtitling mistakes will be fixed for the full version. Business sims usually don't have a main character or story other than "you're the person running this company, make it profitable," so it's interesting to pair a business game with an investigation/detective game. They lean pretty hard into the "detective who has to become a salesman to crack the case" thing, in a good way. The demo gave me a very small taste of what I hope will be a cool little game when it eventually releases. * DOJI Games on steam posted:1. You're right! In the full version of the game there will be a digital textbook/tablet in which you can check out how a particular negotiation technique works. Right now, in the demo version it is blocked. edit: loading screen from the store page: 
Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Oct 12, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2020 06:39
|
|
|
Fallout 4 sets up a bunch of neat ideas and never does anything with them. There's a bar that's set up as a fighting arena, and when you arrive, a fight is going on/has just concluded. However, as soon as anyone notices you're there, it turns into a shooting gallery. There's a track with robots racing and raiders supposedly placing bets (and one of them is calling the race over a loudspeaker). However, as soon as anyone notices you're there, it turns into a shooting gallery. Along a road, there's a raider sitting quietly in front of a grave, mourning a dead friend. However... you get the idea. As someone else mentioned, your options in dialogue generally consist of "Yes, I will do that thing," "Yes, but I have a question about something inane," "Yes, but I have a snarky comment," or "No, but I'll be back later to say yes." There is a small bit of reactivity with the various raider bosses and their computer terminals - when you find the raiders and kill them (the only option you have), there will be messages on other terminals talking about what you did to <other named raider and their crew>. It's such a minor thing that I don't think very many people even noticed it. The whole game is like that - just full of stuff that seems like it could go somewhere interesting, and then never follows through. Far Harbor, one of the expansions, is probably the high point of the game, imo. It's kinda creepy and atmospheric, and the story is significantly less stupid than the main game. You have to be a certain level, and also have to rescue Nick Valentine first (who you should definitely bring along with you), but it's worth doing that to get to Far Harbor. It's the Point Lookout of Fallout 4, which isn't exactly high praise, but I can't compare it to Dead Money because I'm pretty sure a bunch of people wouldn't take that as a compliment (it's even got the death fog, but not nearly as severe as it was in DM).
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2020 05:36
|
|
|
HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I see that one come up all the time, but I think it’s pretty funny and a much more interesting perk than simple percentage bonuses and poo poo, it gives you the ability to make smelling like poo poo viable. The race poo poo and some of the writing, sure. But that perk is great. I remember reading something (possibly on this very forum, back when the game first came out) about how that dirty-charisma perk was just a troll by the devs and didn't actually do anything in-game. It was all in the character's head, thinking they're hot poo poo when they just smelled like, well, you know. I thought it was a neat little thing if it's true, which I doubt, since I've never seen anything else corroborating that story.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2020 06:48
|
|
|
Karma Tornado posted:Breakpoint has the dumb AI buddies from Wildlands now, basically the same general game loop, doesn't need a disclaimer at the beginning apologizing to an actual country because it's set on libertarian fantasy island, and lets you kill the Punisher To add to this, Breakpoint is in a pretty good place now, especially for a solo player. The AI squad is useful (because they stack with the sync shot drone). The map is smaller but still huge, and "libertarian fantasy island" is a pretty accurate description. One of the latest big patches added a toggle for friendly rebels as well as the overhead drones that call enemies to your location if they spot you. Ghost Mode or whatever it's called lets you disable the gear score and the difficulty options are really good and customizable, even in multiplayer. I played with a couple buddies who had the gear score and all the map highlights and everything turned on, while I have most of that turned off or at minimal settings. Nobody had to be annoyed that things were too easy/difficult for them; it's a pretty good setup. That said, Breakpoint is definitely a lot buggier than I remember Wildlands being. Sometimes I just can't use my items (grenades, sync shot) or fire my weapon. It works one minute, and then it doesn't. Loading the last checkpoint will usually fix it (until it happens again), and there's very little mention of it on the official bug report forum (and when it is, it's from at least a year ago, and I'm pretty sure the answer was "load the last checkpoint"). Other times, I'm able to play the game for hours without any problems. I'd recommend Breakpoint over Wildlands. When/if you finish it and are aching for more Modern-Day Ubisoft Collect-A-Thon-ing (and way more usage of the term "shitballs"), then go ahead and pick up Wildlands later. I know some people think it's some sort of heresy to play games in anything but sequential order, but you're honestly not missing much by jumping directly to Breakpoint. I don't think anyone is playing the modern Ghost Recon games for the story (and there's barely a connection between the games anyway). It's all about the tacticool Barbie dress-ups and clearing out bases without being spotted.
Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Dec 21, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2020 03:10
|
|
|
Cool bird. Strix pointed out Mainframe Defenders last week when it was on sale, and I got it and I'm enjoying it in short bursts. The item/weapon synergies are fun to play around with. I'm only at tier 2, but my team has some cool gear. Mechanic passively heals everything around it and can actively heal as an action. Synapse does bonus damage if it has moves left and an item that gives it an extra move action. Brigandine has an extra shot per burst, and every shot does armor damage (so -4 armor every burst). Viper does a bunch of Corrosion damage each hit - it's not quite enough to one-shot an enemy with corrosion stacks yet, but that's the goal. It's also got some neat little visual filters (VHS, CRT monitor, and a couple others) and 2 font options. The core gameplay is pretty familiar and basic - you get a move action and 2 action points (both can be improved with gear/upgrades), and can take them in any order (like shooting with 1 ap, moving, then shooting again). Missions are chosen from a list of about 10 at a time, and seem pretty basic so far (destroy specific items, kill x enemies, survive for x rounds), and once you complete the main objective for a mission, you have to clean up any remaining enemies. You can see what rewards you'll get before choosing a mission. The rogue-lite part comes in if you abandon your run (or win, probably) - you get a bunch of extra Matter (upgrade material/currency) for your next team to use. There might be more to it, but like I said, I'm only on tier 2 (not even sure how many tiers there are).
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2021 03:43
|
|
|
Fallen Order chat: I liked the game, but the combat (specifically the parrying) felt just a little bit off. Also, you have a lightsaber so there shouldn't have been any "this door is locked, gonna have to find a way to open it" bullshit. Second Sister's actress was having a blast being the villain, and it's great to watch any time she's on screen. Someone already posted the "Outstanding." clip, but it gets even better when she drops the helmet and you can see her face, especially the big crazy eyes. She really chewed the hell out of every scene she was in, in the best way. BD-1 was also pretty great. Greez, Cal, Cere, and the rest of the cast are fine, but Second Sister is a Vaas-in-Far-Cry-3 situation; she's so much more entertaining than everyone else that they just pale in comparison (but in FC3, there wasn't a whole lot there to begin with - I hated everybody in that game, but Vaas was somewhat less annoying than everyone else, entirely because the actor was charismatic). Somewhat related to Fallen Order, gameplay-wise at least, I picked up Nioh a few weeks ago (the first one) and I'm enjoying it. It's tough, and I die a lot, but less than I did at the beginning. The most recent boss was the Giant Toad (pronounced "Giant Toad") and he was the most fun so far (as in, the most entertaining character). Bat Lady sucked because it felt way too early for how fast she was. Spider Lady would have worked better as an early-game boss, I think, especially because the level preceding her readies you for that boss fight, with all of the other spiders and their glowing asses. I've started practicing parrying against humanoid enemies and it's gotten me killed a few times, but feels so satisfying to pull off (mostly using single sword). I had to go back to the Warrior of the West duel when I outleveled him by like 30 or so, and had gotten better gear and more skills, and he STILL kicked my rear end a few times. "Greatest samurai in western Japan" is not just a fancy description of the guy. Sloth talismans and blinding powder grenades have been my emergency buttons for bosses (or anyone else) that gives me too much trouble, but I've been using them less and less lately, which I think means I'm getting better at the game. I also grabbed Wasteland 3 recently on sale (played it through once just after release on GamePass), and it still has some of the same stupid bugs that were there at launch, but it loads faster (maybe just removed the frame limit from the loading screen, if that's a thing, because the icon spins a lot faster than it used to). They added respeccing (it costs money, scales up every time, no matter what character), they added a cost for making new characters (also scales up every time, it might actually share the cost/scaling with respeccing), and the Kodiak doesn't trivialize encounters anymore (apparently it doesn't one-shot the golden scorpitron anymore, and presumably same with the final boss - my first run through the game was hilarious but a bit anticlimatic when I beat the boss in the first round by running them over with a tractor-truck). The next big patch is supposed to have a fix for animal companions disappearing into the ether if you change your party's order, because that still has to be done in a convoluted annoying way (animal companions or no): go back to Ranger HQ, talk to Greatsky, remove all but 2 rangers from your party, leave that screen, (possible additional step that may not be needed but I did it just in case: trigger a loading screen either by saving and reloading or leaving HQ and returning), talk to Greatsky again to get back to that screen, add the rest of your team in the order you want them, leave the party management screen, go back to playing the game. There's a "manage squad" option in the escape menu (which still doesn't pause the game), but it only "works" until the next time you hit a loading screen, so it doesn't really do anything. It's still a good game, but it still feels like a $30-40 game, not a $60 one. Even with all the bugs, it's an improvement over Wasteland 2 in pretty much every way (except for Angie, PTSD sucks  ).
Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 16:00 on May 24, 2021 |
|
#
¿
May 24, 2021 15:57
|
|
|
I think it must be a joke for someone at Ubisoft to see how often they can get away with using the phrase "not trying to be political" when discussing games that are clearly being political. See also: Corporate-facist post-Brexit London (W_D Legion), the US Government's failed attempt to deal with a pandemic that kills a significant portion of the population (Division 2). Okay, that game did come out before the COVID-19 pandemic, so them predicting the future shouldn't really count. Instead, what about the "press release" they put out that said Mexico was stationing troops at the border and building a wall to keep American refugees out of their country? Or pretty much anything about the Division itself - the Secure Homeland Division are a bunch of sleeper agents who pick up guns and start shooting "bad guys" (other Americans) when they get activated.
|
|
#
¿
May 29, 2021 00:58
|
|
|
Play posted:How often do you get to read the word obfuscate, much less three times in a row? It's quite a treat It's not unusual to see if you're familiar with Vampire: the Masquerade, because that's the name of the stealth power tree. Vampire is also where I learned the words "aegis," "chicanery," and "puissance", plus many other old-timey words, though I mangled the pronunciation of most of them for years.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2021 01:23
|
|
|
Instead of sitting down and digging into Horizon yesterday (I finally made it to Meridian, doing some exploring and side-questing around there), I spent most of my morning playing Mini Metro and listening to podcasts while doing laundry. It's really good and chill and totally worth getting the bundle for. Count of Monte Carlo is a blackjack game with NES-style graphics and kind of an rpg/adventure element to it, sort of. You play against opponents and chips represent hp. Your first opponent is a mouse in a hat, and the second one is a dude with a speed metal soundtrack. You have a limited number of cards (not sure what happens when you run out, probably game over) and in between matches, you can buy bonuses/abilities with your chips (one I got was "if both players bust, it's considered a push instead"). I think Forgetful Loop was mentioned in the thread. It's a puzzle game about trying to fix an unstable time machine. I haven't played much of it, because during the 3rd level, the game froze up (just as the text "Whoops..." appeared on screen, so I wasn't sure if it was part of the game at first) and I had to kill it from the task manager. Haven't gone back yet since I have so many other games to try first, but it seemed neat. 8 Links is another simple chill puzzle game. Place tiles to link them together in a 4x4 grid, trying to get as big a combo as possible before banking your points, clearing your tiles, and repeating. It's simple and relaxing. Like Mini Metro, it would be great for a quick-break phone game. Beacon might have been from the BLM bundle but it's kinda like a budget SYNTHETIK. You kill enemies in randomized-but-similar-looking levels, kinda like SYNTHETIK. The big quirk of the game is the DNA mods, which are used between levels (or between deaths) to upgrade your character. Each DNA mod (you can "install" up to 5, at least at the start) can also get a random mutation, which can be good or bad (or both). My first run, I got a mutation where my body rejected one of my cyber-arms so I could only use one-handed weapons (no visual change to the character that I noticed, though), and another one that turned the dodge-roll into a dash move with a smaller range but sets enemies on fire if they're caught in the path. It seems like there will be a few side-grades like that, but I haven't gotten too far yet so I haven't seen much yet. Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jun 8, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2021 17:12
|
|
|
StrixNebulosa posted:Weird game rec: Thanks for this! The corkboard intel minigame in Phantom Doctrine was pretty fun and I wanted more of that sort of thing (and less dossiers with identical info except for the names).
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2021 01:23
|
|
|
Master_Odin posted:From the description, it sounds like the game would scratch a similar itch as Obra Dinn did in putting combinations of info together. How true is that? I haven't played Obra Dinn (planning on fixing that soon) but I would say yes, it scratches a similar itch. I don't want to spoil anything, but I pieced together someone's identity and had it confirmed a few boxes of intel later. There are also missing files, but there are also locked doors so I'm assuming some things are being hidden away. I like the corkboard (though I need another one, been having to stick small notes along the border of the map) and the way the boxes pile up as you get further into the investigation.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2021 03:43
|
|
|
I finished A Hand With Many Fingers this morning (I was closer to the end last night than I thought). Someone else mentioned it's only about an hour or two, and that's about right (and I'm usually much slower than the "how long to beat this game" time). It's good but the ending feels a bit abrupt. I had just reorganized my corkboard (putting all the pictures in the middle), assuming I was going to be digging for another name to connect to the conspiracy, but then it faded to black after I got the next (and last) document. I'm hoping the dev is working on a sequel, because I am here for cross-referencing investigative action. My "Investigation" category in Steam currently has: The Council, Disco Elysium, Hand With Many Fingers, Heaven's Vault, Kathy Rain, Painscreek Killings, and Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments. Other than those games and Obra Dinn (which I'm planning on getting soon), any good recommendations I've missed out on? I've got a pretty high tolerance for weird/janky games, so don't let that stop you.
Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jun 13, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2021 16:41
|
|
|
HopperUK posted:Have you looked at Contradiction? Thanks, but I don't know how much I'd enjoy having to tell someone's lying by their expressions, and also the video part (unless each scene is infinitely repeatable). I prefer being able to read and take notes. I also have Sethian, which probably should be in the "Investigation" category. It's about finding an alien computer and trying to learn an alien language so you can use the computer to figure out what happened to the race that built it. I liked it well enough but then I put it down for a while and kind of forgot everything I'd learned (and my notes were only so helpful). edit: thanks, everyone else who responded while I was typing this the first time. Rivals and Elsinore look neat, but Gnosia doesn't seem like my thing. edit 2: vvvvvv drat it, stop responding to me while I'm editing! (j/k) I'll re-think my stance on Contradiction ("campy weirdness" was a deciding factor) and Outer Wilds (though I am kinda looking for more of a crime-investigation thing at the moment). Thanks again, everyone! I've got a few more things on the wishlist now. I'll stop editing this post to respond to everyone, but I'll check stuff out if people keep suggesting.
Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jun 13, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2021 17:00
|
|
|
Fort Triumph is pretty fun and the story is comedic and dumb (the inciting incident is the mage wanting to make money because she needs tuition for her next semester at magic college and dragging her friends along for the ride). The big gimmick in combat is physics-based damage from knocking over trees and columns, or kicking rocks into enemies (or enemies into rocks, or trees, or whatever). If there's a stonehenge-style arch, you can knock out the supports and the top will fall to the ground, killing (or at least doing a lot of damage to) anyone underneath it. Company of Crime is another XCOM-but-gangsters game that I haven't seen anyone else mention. It's not super deep, but the abilities are neat (there's some crossover of abilities between the 4 classes). Combat is mostly melee-based, with a bunch of abilities that work well together, like the various grapple moves that keep an enemy from doing anything on their turn, or kicking a guy into (or out of) one of your other characters' zone of control to trigger (or prevent) an opportunity attack. Fort Triumph also has some of this - ranged characters get an overwatch ability that triggers on any enemy movement and melee characters get a kick that damages and pushes enemies back (and everyone gets a minor "move an enemy" ability that doesn't do any damage, but will get an enemy out of melee range, and that also counts as movement for overwatch attacks). Both of them are fun variations on the "move action, then attack action, try to flank from full cover" turn-based formula that nu-XCOM standardized (both games let you move after you attack; CoC even lets you move into position and attack with the same action point, for most attacks/abilities), and both games have more emphasis on moving your enemies around. Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jun 15, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2021 02:51
|
|
|
SimonChris posted:https://twitter.com/mxSophieH/status/1405178723343777793 Thanks for this, it looks right up my alley. I'll report back after I've played for a bit. edit: played for a bit, still in the tutorial (though near the end), not entirely sure what I'm doing and there's road construction going on outside, so it's probably not the best time to be playing a game that has such an emphasis on tiny changes in sound. So far, it seems neat, definitely check it out if you like Thief Simulator. It's not the same dev or anything, they just both fit in a similar niche: "unlocking things" games. ---- Lately, I've been playing Clandestine, a neat-but-kinda-janky little co-op game where one player is the field agent, Katya, and the other is her hacker support, Martin. There's also a solo mode where you can switch between the two at will. Martin can hack computers to read emails and find intel, find door codes, take over cameras so Katya can move through the room undetected, and sometimes hit certain nodes on the network in tandem with Katya bluffing someone (like answering a phone and pretending to be the guy that Katya has a "job interview" with, using her cover identity). It's a bit rough in some places (animations mostly), but it's a pretty fun time. Katya is a pretty great character - young Russian spy with bright red hair ("I liked the black hair, but it's good to see you back to your natural color." "This is nobody's natural color, but it's better than being blonde."), dressed like a typical 90s slacker (game is set in 1996), and she's pretty entertaining. On one mission, she has to wear a dress and her cover identity is a call girl, accompanying an NPC agent (who you rescued during the first mission). Katya: "Okay, so security will be light, but I can't just walk in there wearing a kevlar vest with a holster strapped to my thigh." Sarah (one of your bosses): "Oh, not to worry, we've procured a lovely dress for you to wear." *briefing slides show a fancy red cocktail dress and high heels* Katya, in Russian: "You have got to be loving kidding me." Martin: "Oh, come on, Kat, it's not that bad. It'll be just like in the movies!" Katya: *glares at Martin* Then, during the mission's opening cutscene: "You may not feel like it, but you look amazing in that dress." "I have to admit, Sarah does have good taste. But these drat heels are killing me." "Maybe if you tried not walking like you're wearing combat boots..." "It's just not fair - if you want to dress fancy as hell, you can still run without breaking your ankles." The actual mission felt almost like old-school Hitman (Contracts and earlier, not 2016 and later): you infiltrate a party to find and interrogate a spy working for the enemy, but he's good enough that your organization has yet to confirm his appearance, so you have to walk around and listen to people and find the "opportunity" (as the new Hitman games call it). There's only one way to do things (unlike Hitman), but eventually you get the target alone in a bedroom and interrogate him, then have an option to kill him or knock him out (he gets arrested and turned over to Scotland Yard for other crimes he did). Also, attempting to sprint just gives the message "You cannot run in high heels." The game seems to be keeping cumulative track of the "footprint" I leave during missions (knocking people out is actually a bigger footprint than killing them, because dead people can't talk), and so far, at least one briefing has mentioned that my previous stealthy ways resulted in less guards for the upcoming mission. Between missions, you can wander around HQ and talk to your fellow agents (Martin and Mansoor, the guy you rescued in the first mission) and your handlers. Of course, one of the first keypad codes is 0451, and if you walk into the men's bathroom, your boss later tells you to stay out of there in the future. Other than that, it doesn't really have a lot of DX in it. It feels more like a low-budget combination of Splinter Cell and old-Hitman, but with the neat feature of being able to play as the hacker, too (or have a friend do it). Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jun 21, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2021 14:08
|
|
|
explosivo posted:New update for State of Decay 2 looks pretty incredible. Upgradeable outposts and SIDEARMS Not just sidearms, you can switch between any two guns. The example in the video was an LMG for a plague heart and a shotgun for when you get jumped by a feral. I saw the stream when they were first talking about plague hearts, maybe a month or so back, and I think this will be a good reason to start another new game. Undead Labs have been doing a good job keeping SoD 2 shambling along (pun partially intended ). There have been some pretty major gameplay additions/changes in the last few big patches. I can't wait for 3, but I'm certainly not complaining about 2 still getting new stuff.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2021 04:57
|
|
|
Mordja posted:I feel like Generation Zero is a game where someone will tell you "oh it's got a lot better" and then another will say "actually it still sucks." I'll be both of those guys at the same time. It's definitely gotten better since release, because more 80s clothes, makeup, and hairstyles = better. More seriously: it does actually run better for me than it did back then. But on the other hand, they've also added unnecessary crafting, and playing solo is frustrating, to say the least. I haven't played in a few months though, and I don't know if they've done anything big since the start of the year. When I did play, though, it felt like an early-access game that hadn't quite gotten everything in yet, and this was after it had been out for a year or two. I'd say avoid it unless you have a couple of buddies and can appreciate jank and also a good videogame hike (because you'll be doing it a lot). Fifty Farts fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Jun 26, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2021 04:43
|
|
|
Triarii posted:Oxygen Not Included and Factorio were in EA for 2 and 4 years respectively, but I guess they're out of it now so technically they don't count Besides those two, Rimworld and Star Traders: Frontiers are good exceptions. ST:F hasn't even slowed down with updates and new content since 1.0. It's just a huge labor of love for the devs and they keep making it bigger and better (imo). But for every Trese Brothers, there are half a dozen dev teams who have either absconded with the money and abandoned their game, or are stuck in perpetual early access where they keep spinning their wheels and "reworking" mechanics and introducing new things while not fixing old things and all the big pie-in-the-sky features they've been talking about for years still haven't shown up in any form. *coughcough7daystodiecough*
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2021 00:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 00:19 |
|
|
Encased people: have you talked to Crump after building up rep with him? It's a fun bit of character-building for him, do it if you haven't. If you have (or don't care): his passionate defense of Mark Rothko came out of nowhere and was funny as heck to me, a person who is too young for 1970s pop culture stuff (born in '79), mostly because the rest of the game doesn't have much of it. Yoko's kind of boring but very useful in combat. Katarzyna is a whiny loser who sucks. Cheerful Jack seems okay (and he's the only one Crump likes). I haven't used Sparrow very much so I don't have an opinion on them yet. I still don't have the fox-mask weirdo, but I read they were at the basement fighting ring, which is the one sidequest in Junktown I didn't pursue at all because my character is a non-combat-solutions expert (highest skills are Influence and Criminal, though I do have Psionics as my 3rd tagged skill). How do you get a car? I just finished Act 1 and got to the City to talk to Nakamura. I thought helping that dude out with his (in the parking lot at Magellan) would have something to do with it, but nope, he just drove off (and then stood around in the parking lot until yesterday's patch, which apparently fixed him). I'd like a vehicle before I head down to Carmine Heights.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2021 15:09
|
|