Starker on 4/7/2019 at 19:17
Hmm... the Zero Punctuation review also brought up some of these issues. Not that I really trust Epic Store to buy something from them anyway.
[video=youtube;W9Tt-oQfp84]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Tt-oQfp84[/video]
henke on 5/7/2019 at 19:37
Picked up Dakar 18 on a whim in the Steam sale and ended up spending 5 hours with it today.
[video=youtube;LeeG0B-0PH8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeeG0B-0PH8&feature=youtu.be[/video]
The driving physics aren't anything to write home about, but a game where you drive rallycars, trucks and dirtbikes across vast open spaces is very much my kinda thing. I'm also enjoying the unique wrinkle that Rally Raid brings to racing. I've never played a game of this type before. It's not like a regular rally game. Most of the time you don't have a road or trail to follow, instead you have to race through a series of invisible checkpoints spread out over a huge map, and often the only indication of where you should go is a compass bearing shouted by your co-driver. It's not easy, I've frequently had to turn around and backtrack for kilometers when it turns out I've missed a checkpoint. Endurance is also a big part of this. Each stage can go on for 30-60 minutes and if you're not careful your ride isn't gonna make it across the finishline.
CautiousT on 5/7/2019 at 21:29
Lately I have been playing Victoria 2. It's a fun little game by paradox that centers on the century between 1836 and 1936. I'm currently playing through as Russia and have half of Africa colonized. Fun times.
demagogue on 6/7/2019 at 04:21
I've played a lot of Vicky2 myself. It's good for history roleplaying or even just messing with history. I created a unified Japanese Africa, made a Persian empire stretch from the Mediterranean to the Pacific (this was actually one of my biggest challenges), conquered Europe as Belgium with an African army such that Europe became basically African occupied. I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say Vicky 3 would be my most anticipated game as soon as it's announced.
These days I'm playing the puzzle game Baba is You. I thought it'd just be a gimmick, and in the first dozen levels maybe it was, but now mid-game it's transforming into something deeper. There's almost a zen to it. That said, there's usually one main solution you're looking for. The best levels are the ones where there are multiple ways to solve it, and that are open-ended enough to try a lot of different clever things.
Thirith on 8/7/2019 at 07:37
The further I get in XCOM 2, the more I'm impressed by how well the various systems interact, in particular in terms of balancing successes/encouragement and failures/stressors, both on the tactical and the strategic level. There are a lot of elements in the game that make you feel like everything is just 1-2 steps away from going to hell, but at the same time you're never more than half a minute away from small things going well for you: your research into weapons or armours improves your chances of getting out of a mission without any deaths, a Covert Action gains you an engineer, you come out of a mission with some nice upgrades for your weapons, one or two of your soldiers get promoted and learn new skills. Every time I think that there's no way I can beat the aliens, something pops up telling me that if I'm smart, careful and just a little lucky, this might nudge the odds just the teensiest bit in my favour. And another thing I like is that at least so far it seems that when I make a mistake I realise pretty quickly, so there isn't that dread of doing something and then fearing that it'll bite you in the ass ten rounds down the line.
demagogue on 8/7/2019 at 11:59
After henke's first glowing review, I had to pick up Dakar 18 also. I think I've said before, I really miss driving here in Japan and cross country driving in particular. So I"m also a sucker for these kinds of games.
So you have to understand that in this game, it's not uncommon to get a command like "Next 16 kilometers on Cap. 139" where you're in the middle of a completely unmarked desert wheeling over sand dunes having no idea if you're actually moving towards your goal--since if you turned too early or too late, 139 degrees is only going to put you behind or in front of the thing, and God help you if you have to circle around a big obstacle or backtrack. I like it so far.
As for henke's main complaint that it's just too much for him -- well first let's pause to revel in the delicious karma of it. If you recall some of the vague instructions you had to go on in In Search of Paradise, and the ridiculously sparse environment you had to work with there, you can hardly say Dakar 18 is any less forgiving. But what he's really talking about is even if you execute the commands as perfectly and tightly as you can muster, you can still come in in last place by a big margin. But I think the catch to the game is you're not really supposed to be following them exactly anyway. What I think you're supposed to be doing is memorizing the layout outright and cutting corners, since it doesn't really care if you go by the book. All it really cares about is that you touch all the nodes, so you can take a beeline to the next one whatever the book says and you're good. I think you just have to do a single race like 50 times until it's all muscle memory, and the book is just there for a little reminder.
Anyway, it's got scenic driving, and it's not just purposeless but you've got something to do while you're doing it. I haven't reached henke's limit yet. But I'm the kind of person that drives the loop in GTAV and "just around" in BeamNG.drive for its own sake. So I'm not particularly representative to begin with.
henke on 8/7/2019 at 12:22
Quote Posted by demagogue
As for henke's main complaint that it's just too much for him -- well first let's pause to revel in the delicious karma of it. If you recall some of the vague instructions you had to go on in In Search of Paradise, and the ridiculously sparse environment you had to work with there, you can hardly say Dakar 18 is any less forgiving.
Oh no, I'm experiencing a come-uppance! :U
Tomi on 9/7/2019 at 18:59
Just finished
Rime. What a strange game.
Inline Image:
http://i68.tinypic.com/bhfuhx.jpgNormally I like my games a bit strange, but I can't decide whether this is good strange or bad strange. Probably something in between, I guess. I think Rime just tries too hard to be deep and meaningful and emotional. It took about seven hours from me to finish the game, and for all that time I was wondering what the heck is going on. There's no dialogue, no explanation who the main character is or where you are, you're supposed to figure everything out by yourself. Of course a lot of it is revealed in the end, in fact there's a pretty cool (but not totally unexpected) plot twist, and
some of the story makes more sense now, but I never figured out what those two-legged creatures/machines are supposed to symbolise for example, and why I was probably supposed to feel devastated when one of them sacrificed themselves so that I could get on with my adventure.
So the story was confusing until the very end, and it turned out to be quite interesting indeed, but what about the gameplay? Not so great, I'm afraid. Not that there's much to do, this is more like an interactive story than a
game, but it's a shame that the platforming bits and just basic movement in general isn't very fun. There are some simple puzzles and those I actually enjoyed a lot; together with exploring the environments those were my favourite thing about Rime. I also later found out that there are a lot of hidden places and items in the game - usually I'm pretty good at finding any secrets but this time around I missed almost every one of them! It might be interesting to replay this now that I know the story, and I'd like to find some of those secrets, but I think I'll pass for now. Maybe later.