What are you playing currently?

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
Ok, I'm having too much fun with the combat to actually wait for the Precint update.

I've also figured out why I couldn't see my second Speakeasy in the consumption tab(it's by neighborhood not by racket)

I THINK Shotgun Angle controls how wide the Shotgun AoE with Shotgun Blast is.
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Ok, I'm having too much fun with the combat to actually wait for the Precint update.
I recall playing some Empire of Sin on a friends computer...three or four months back? Maybe more? And yeah the combat still stands out for how fun and addicting it was.

That said, also seemed really easy to cheese and exploit with the character I was--Mabel Reilly? I forget exact name, but her special was bouncing a bullet between three people with a rifle for critical damage...And doing the same to anyone the bullet passed by while bouncing between those enemies. I recall making some really fast progression early-game and winning real tough combats early-on thanks to that since it made the combat almost 100% about proper positioning and most mooks would be one-shot by the move. Still very satisfying to take out the majority of the opponents teams in a single round, though :p

Game had a neat atmosphere, and some of the character stuff/story actually seemed pretty intriguing. Which seems pretty unique for what amounts to a strategy game. Neat element to it. That said, also seemed to suffer from a bit of...not-quite-being-done when I played it? It was very obviously in that 'Paradox' niche of games where constant updates and tweaking and expansion was the order of the day instead of an initially finished game--which is a development style that has always just kind've bugged me on principle.
 

ShadowsOfParadox

Well-known member
That said, also seemed really easy to cheese and exploit with the character I was--Mabel Reilly? I forget exact name, but her special was bouncing a bullet between three people with a rifle for critical damage...
She was the first boss I tried... I very quickly went "why is everyone so sure she killed her husband as she keeps saying she didn't?"

I think the only story character who hadn't either outright accused her or strongly implied it was Sal...

that said, also seemed to suffer from a bit of...not-quite-being-done when I played it?

I absolutely got a similar feeling, a lot of the mechanics feel very "This hasn't quite been polished all the way", but... I mean, I get that feel from a lot of game and still have tons of fun with them and then they usually just get better over time. I suspect, that, assuming the preplanned DLC don't get cancelled, there'll be a surge in appreciation at some point.

Just, as an example, the Alcohol Economy is kind of weird to me... I very quickly find myself struggling to not build up huge surplusses of Alcohol, and some of that is good because it's nice to have extra Top Shelf, Premium, and Whiskey for when neighbourhoods shift what they like. But when I'm producing twice what I'm using I find myself somewhat at a loss for what to do with it.

I think there MIGHT be a way to sell surplus production to other gangs but I haven't figured it out yet.

Also I'm not quite sure why Sniper Rifles exist...
 

CockyVampire67

Climate change denier
I recall playing some Empire of Sin on a friends computer...three or four months back? Maybe more? And yeah the combat still stands out for how fun and addicting it was.

That said, also seemed really easy to cheese and exploit with the character I was--Mabel Reilly? I forget exact name, but her special was bouncing a bullet between three people with a rifle for critical damage...

I remember doing the same thing when i played last time, my only nemesis then were enemies possessing high level armour...
 

LTR

Don't Look Back In Anger
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Next up on the unplayed Steam Library list is Bulletstorm.

Keep in mind, this is the original Bulletstorm, not the Full Clip Gearbox edition which apparently was a thing that I didn't hear about until playing the original. Supposedly the newer Gearbox version looks pretty, but then again, Bulletstorm already looks beautiful.

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Even more importantly then the graphics, the shooting and combat mechanics are top notch. This game was just FUN to play. When I first started it though I was worried that I was actually getting dizzy playing the game, but later on I was able to roll with it. Chances are it was just my maternally addled brain trying to cope with the beautiful death and destruction I was a first person party to partaking combined with the fact I was coming over a Cold.

In short the beautiful vistas were complimented by beautiful gun battles and just as beautiful kills and a skillshot system which allowed me to gain points for creatively murdering my enemies. I could set them on fire, then put them out, then blow their heads off and get points. I could use my energy leash to whip them towards me and then punt them into giant cacti or the maw of a waiting Venus Maneater. I could kick a giant mutant cannibal minigunner in the butt and then use my energy leash to emasculate him... wonderful family friendly fun for the whole family... much like the setting of this game. Then I use these points to buy everything from ammunition to cool new special attacks.

Keep in mind my highest rated kill was worth like two thousand points, and a basic enemy kill (you just boringly shoot them to death) is worth a mere ten points.

It takes place on Stygia, a beautiful resort world that has been overrun with rebellious slave convicts, giant kaiju, mutant tourists and so much more! It's hero-protaganists are overly masculine and badass Gears of War types, the setting is like Mad Max and Borderlands and the game almost never becomes boring. There's always new manic stuff to do and slay.

One would think a game like this would be pretty basic in plot but it's actually remarkably interesting. There's nice worldbuilding that did honestly have me want to know more about this Deathworlds backstory and how it all turned to shit, and a lot of character development and moments. Each of the characters major and minor are fun to learn about and see them interact with each other in cutscenes and dialogue and the voicework is absolutely amazing. There are characters here I love and love to hate to the point its almost too much. Gray, your protagonist, is a wise cracking, musclebound badass but actually has a lot of depth to him and pathos over expressions of war guilt and vengeance and atonement that never seems to get wishy washy (what a relief).

It's almost a perfect shooter for what it is. It's a true tragedy to learn after the fact that this game was a commercial failure because it amazed me even a decade after its release.

Also there are racial slurs!

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Okay this last one isn't particular racial but I had to include it nonetheless.

Overall great game. If kids were playing Bulletstorm instead of Fortnite we wouldn't have to work at Making America Great Again. Thanks alot Epic Games and thank you 2011 consumers for not buying the hell out of this modern computer masterpiece.

Next up in the Steam Library. Conflict: Denied Ops? Crysis 2? We'll see.

According to Steam I gave Conflict: Denied Ops about three minutes of game time before uninstalling the game. It just did not look or feel like an interesting game for me to play after the roller coaster of shooting quality that was Bulletstorm. The dated graphics, the blah story and characters and introduction and then realizing this was meant to be a coop game but I was likely compelled to control two characters, that was a big enough NOPE for me to even give it more of a try.

But again... technically I did play the game so that's nice.

Put about two hours into Crysis 2 since my last post. The graphics are beautiful (yes this is the old edition, not the recently released remastered edition). The shooting/gameplay seems fine. The Ceph Grunts aren't scary but are intimidating to engage with my current weaponry. The story... it is not interesting me that much. I hadn't played Crysis in ages but I remember not being Prophet in the original game but actually Nomad and we were going to go back to rescue him or whatever at the end of the game because he was acting weird or whatever.

But now its assumedly years later and I'm some random Marine (or am I) that Prophet rescued from a CELL Kill Team that is killing Marines for some reason and Prophet blew his brains out and bequeathed his suit upon me and the Ceph are invading a cordoned off city and there's a virus and things are going on and alien tissue boosts my suit capabilities and... and... and... yeah I am trying really hard to be interested enough in continuing this game but so far it's the decent gameplay, not the weird as heck storyline that is keeping me going.
 

Culsu

Agent of the Central Plasma
Founder
I've again picked up Ultimate General: Civil War lately, which I suppose is the graphical and spiritual successor to games like Sid Meier's Gettysburg. By and large I love the game (I prefer playing the Union, by the way). It has a decent variety of units, a large variety of weapons, good mechanics for exhaustion and morale, and a really useful cover system.

The only thing it doesn't have, sadly, is mission reactivity. Now, I since I tried my hand at even basic scripting a few times I understand how hard that must be to program. Sadly, it takes away from some of the better aspects of the game as it undermines your own accomplishments in campaign mode since it railroads you to follow the historical campaign.

Example: The Battle of Stones River.
As the Union, you start of the battle in a defensive posture along a series of forests in a broad north-south axis. Here's an example image taken from Wargamer.com to show the setup (only here shown from the Rebel side).
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In my case, I also had enough brigades (2500 soldiers each) to cover the complete fish "hook" at the lower end of the blue line, end with companies of skirmishers detached from my brigades, I could also mount a dynamic defense of the open fields to the "fish hook's" west to guard my cannons and my ammo train.

Now what the game does for each engagement, it runs a battle timer, usually between 2-3 hours, after which the battle is decided based on achieved goals. And each of the "large" battles consists of three engagements. With the "Battle of Stones River", no matter what you do, you have to withdraw until you're holed up in the most northwestern corner. Thing is, I could have held out in my initial defensive position indefinately! Even with the reserves being freed up in each consecutive phase of the engagement (especially with the reserves) I could have held the line and eventually counter attacked. But nooo, the game railroads you into an eventual retreat. It's... frustrating. :/
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
The old Telltale Jurassic Park game is definitely underrated.
Personally, my favorite Jurassic Park game was the Ocean Games version. It did survival horror really well, in that you were trying to solve puzzles and use your head while having to dodge dinosaurs at the same time.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Personally, my favorite Jurassic Park game was the Ocean Games version. It did survival horror really well, in that you were trying to solve puzzles and use your head while having to dodge dinosaurs at the same time.
Tresspaser?
 

Urabrask Revealed

Let them go.
Founder
Alright, been playing Starlink lately.

For those who don't know: It's a genre-buster sci-fi game where you can build a starfighter out of a variety of cockpits, up to three wing-parts per side, and a weapon for each wing, and then you pick a pilot to fly it. The pilots have each their own special skill, ranging from:

"Equinox, see these enemies?"
"Yes, sir?"
"I don't want to."
"Understood, sir. Fire the Orbital Cannon!",

over to:
"I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLE!",

all the way to: "Ayo, why am I the only pilot out here?! Back me up here!"

There's two kind of ways you pilot your ship: Space-based or land-based. Honestly, so far planet gameplay has been more fun than the space combat, mostly because something about flying the fighters there feels floaty. Either way, you collect resources and use these to buy stuff and upgrate things.

The plot is... ehhh, servicable, but it has holes you could fly a Boeing 747 through. For starters, the mothership Equinox was supposedly build by one man within a year with only the help of a singular alien. Said man then took it for a space-tour to uncover the origin of said alien, only to fail for lack of trails. After that, he upgrates the Equinox and assembles a team of... i dunno, the "best", or at least what he considered the best. Of all people present, only the narrative lead has really earned his spot with his Starlink invention, a system that allows pilots to dis- and reassemble their ships via teleportation within seconds. The others are a military dropout who pursued a career as a rock-drummer, a former racer who got crippled, a samoan who left the military to join a monastry, the alien mentioned above, and a... sighs influencer who snuck on board for more views.

The crew is joined by a marauder chick who got hired to retrieve an artifact, a bounty hunter-turned-prospector, an alien scientist, another alien fashionista, and a bunch of other aliens I can't be arsed to remember right now.
Not helping is that none of them act like the supposed experts have the credentials they were claimed to have. They refer to new minerals and biological matter as "stuff" and pull info seemingly out of their arse.
Really, the only reason I even care about the cast is because the Nintendo Switch version had the Star Fox and Star Wolf team available.

What are the positives?

Well, it has an unique mix of third person shooter and strategy. After a certain point in-game, the planets get attacked by the big bad cult army and you have to defend the prospectors and scientists from them. This is one of the things I like: Rather than relying on you, the npcs arm themselves up and do their best to defend their homes from the enemy, forming militias and getting training which you provide by building infracstructure.

Difficulty is fairly easy, even on the highest setting. Only the landmarks are defended by dangerous enemies and even those can be killed with patience and some dodging-skills. However, once you have a militia base upgrated to Lvl 3 and outfitted the militias with the research upgrades, they can pretty much free any given planet on their own as long as you manage to build one there.

It's an ok game, sucks you in if you're not careful, but pretty ok. Story is not terrible, but not good either.

Anoter issue is the pricing: The base game costs something like 70 euros, then you need to cough up another 12 euros to get the star fox dlc, and another 40 euros for both expansion packs which has new pilots and weapons. If you want the game, you should wait until they get a discount and then buy like I did.
 

Culsu

Agent of the Central Plasma
Founder
Yes, loved that game back in the day. It would have done a lot better commercially if it hadn't been an Xbox exclusive first.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
Yikes, this past week was crazy and this next week is gonna be so crazy I'll be playing way less video games.

What I am doing though is playing Tokyo Xanadu Ex+.

@Val the Moofia Boss

I'm currently in Chapter 5 (about 70% done I'd guess). The plot finally feels like its really going in earnest. Currently 23.4 hours in.
 

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