Renzatic on 9/10/2020 at 04:17
Quote Posted by Sulphur
There you go. That's all that was needed - and for that, buddy, take a look at who took it personally, in public, to begin with.
I pose this question to all of you: are you in the 2nd grade? Are you all 7 years old? Do I need to take measures, or can you all handle this maturely?
Who gives a shit who started it. Little snips like this show it's still ongoing. Stop it.
Sulphur on 9/10/2020 at 04:36
I've moved on, long-suffering parent, but if you want to keep talking about this in excruciating detail, feel free to PM me. And yeah, half of the problem is with how this was handled.
Renzatic on 9/10/2020 at 04:49
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I've moved on, long-suffering parent, but if you want to keep talking about this in excruciating detail, feel free to PM me. And yeah, half of the problem is with how this was handled.
You've put me into this interesting situation where if I respond to the bait you've posted for me, I'm exacerbating the whole situation by continuing it. But if I don't, I'll look like I'm playing favorites, and giving you too much leeway.
So I guess I'll just ban you for a week, and let the thread resume its natural course in the meanwhile.
Tomi on 9/10/2020 at 07:05
Now let's actually play and discuss some games before Renz gets even angrier! :eek:
I finally finished Witcher 2. It's a pretty good game, but it's showing its age in many ways, and just like in the first Witcher, any kind of balance in gameplay flies out the window about halfway through the game. The latter half was a bit of a chore with a couple of grindy quests, tedious combat, and frustrating inventory management. I also gotta say that the "mini-games" of Witcher 2 - dice poker and arm wrestling - are some of the most awful things that I've ever seen in any game. I really enjoyed the story though, but I'm glad that I'm done with the game at last - now I can finally play the third game. :D Right now I'm all witchered out for a while though, so that'll have to wait until next year at least...
Meanwhile my "one chapter a day" playthrough of the Mafia remake continues. It's a lot of fun, this is a great example of a successful remake. :) They've changed a lot of things, but still managed to retain the feel of the original game. Some of the changes I really like; obviously the graphics are just amazing and the city is oozing with 1930's atmosphere, but I love the improvements for driving and gunfights too. Of course there are changes that I don't like as well. The soundtrack of the remake isn't at all bad, but it feels very generic and rather forgettable, whereas I still remember most of the annoyingly catchy (in a good way) tunes from the original after nearly twenty years. The changes for the story are quite small, but it occasionally feels a bit more rushed and I could swear that the missions used to be a bit longer. The original Tommy (the protagonist) always felt like an ordinary guy who ended up a gangster because he didn't have much choice - the NuTommy (oh dear!) is like born to be a gangster - he's much more macho and cocky. Still likable enough though. Great game!
Starker on 9/10/2020 at 12:08
Did you play both branches of Witcher 2? What did you think of it as a storytelling device?
henke on 9/10/2020 at 13:38
Been playing a bit of Kernmantle, which just came out.
[video=youtube;jSDVRX0rB_M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDVRX0rB_M[/video]
You know I love a good physics-based climbing game. This one is a bit too punishing tho. The individual sections aren't too tough, but the checkpoints are waaay too far apart, so when you mess up, which you'll inevitably do, there's a lot of progress lost. The game looks great and the core gameplay is solid tho, so I'm a bit split on it.
WingedKagouti on 9/10/2020 at 14:13
I bought Asterix & Obelix XXL 2 earlier this week since it's on sale on GOG and have been playing a couple of sections every day. It's a fun little brawler with platforming and puzzles that gets progressively harder sections but still easy enough that a relatively young kid (or an adult) could play through it with some trial and error. I've died in combat once so far, and that was because I was too focused on a specific enemy and didn't pay attention to anything else, the rest of my deaths have been to me messing up some jumps around the (somewhat rare) bottomless pits. Checkpoints are relatively frequent and so far a missed jump rarely sets you back much further than 4 or so platforms, the main difference between bottomless pits and normal platforming is that bottomless pits make you reload the checkpoint.
Despite me enjoying it, I would not recommend it to people who aren't already fans of the Gauls and their exploits.
qolelis on 9/10/2020 at 17:45
I took a long break from video games, but now I'm getting back into it again, starting with going through my backlog. First thing I did was finishing Argonus and the Gods of Stone, which started a little underwhelming -- not bad, but not overly exciting either -- but, once I dedicated my time to it, it slowly built up to a crescendo that lasted quite a bit once it started. The exploration picked up as well. As you can probably guess, it's based on Greek mythology, something I loved to read about as a kid during all those quiet days I spent at the local library. The puzzles were either not that hard or happened to fit me perfectly as I never got stuck for long and finished it in one sitting (except for the usual trial run where I just initially fire it up and quickly run through it to get a quick feel for it). The exploration was a big part of why I liked it.
I'm also going through quite a number of demos -- partly because of the current Steam festival.
What I'm actually playing right now, though, is Else Heart.Break(). The name is a bit of a mouthful, but says a bit what the game's about: coding and dating. It starts with you getting a job as a soda salesperson and you're supposed to go around selling lemonade to anyone you happen to meet. This is not going very well, because so far, already four hours in, I've sold zero lemonade. I haven't even met my boss yet nor any of my colleagues and the office I have yet to find. It's almost as if this isn't what the game is really about... What it actually is about is hard to say, though -- as is pin-pointing the genre: it's like an immersive sim with almost everything being open to interaction, even if not everything will be of direct benefit, and everyone can be talked to, although not everyone will have anything useful to say. As a player you're the main character only in your own life, with everyone else having their own life and motivations and things happen without you always being around. It's also a bit of a social sim and you can make friends, fall in love, piss people off etc and they will remember you later and how you interacted with them. I find it easy to get distracted from the main quest -- whether that is selling lemonade or... something else. It's a game to really sink into and allow being swallowed by as you go around talking to everyone, visit every location, and interact with everything, trying to uncover what is really going on in this new and mostly unknown city you arrive in at the start of the game -- and also what's really going on with the game itself.
There is a programming feature that will allegedly let you control everything around you, changing it to your own behoof or simply to your own liking -- even to the point of "breaking" the game (if this is part of the game or not is hard to say). Discovering this feature takes a couple of hours, though, and I haven't been able to do anything with it yet; My character is only starting to learn about it and what he can do with it.
After talking to someone I met in a club, I did get invited to something that felt like an important event, but unfortunately I missed it, because I got drunk instead, after having had too many a free beer, and passed out in a café, while stealing all their sandwiches, and later woke up on someone's couch, the same someone I met in the club and apparently have sort of a crush on. They had to go to work in the morning, but let me stay and serve myself some breakfast before leaving. So, anyway, anything you drink or eat will have an effect, like alcohol getting you drunk or coffee allowing you to stay awake all night; there is a day/night cycle, so some things are better done or start at specific times (I think an in-game minute is like a second long). It's all up to you to find the right people and locations.
I've talked to performing street poets; bums, half-promising them a beer, but am yet to fullfil that promise, because I can't seem to find them again; flirted with people at the official nightclub; done drugs; drunk too much; forgotten to sleep, because I couldn't find a bed and then forgot what time it was; left the stove on, although surprisingly no fires yet (as far as I know). You can buy stuff, pick it up for free, or steal it. Sleeping can be done just about anywhere, so long it's in a bed and it's not already occupied. I am yet to figure out if there's any real fail-state; things only get harder if you do stupid things and people around you might react negatively, but I don't think death is a thing and the game is never over -- it just changes.
Edit:
Some of the time I feel like I'm just waiting, needing to kill some time, which often ends up with me missing the thing I was waiting for -- although sometimes instead finding something else.
EvaUnit02 on 9/10/2020 at 23:18
Finished
Bionic Commando 2009, very fun overall. Story is basic and utterly unremarkable, it ends on a whimper (after an annoying QTE segment). It's a Capcom game, nobody should expect anything amazing.
My biggest complaint is that the HUD only displays Xbox controller prompts, making certain things like the tutorial and ending QTE section, a trial and error affair of having to refer to the key binding menu. Minor complaint in the scheme of things, really. Once you've got the controls down you won't have to worry about it until probably the ending QTE section.
Inline Image:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1656720554454854120/CDFE7E26C3FB075807EBD7DE50A66F7653516F0B/[video=youtube;1ppTezxJlNc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ppTezxJlNc[/video]
[video=youtube;lJTFHY6ySAo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJTFHY6ySAo[/video]
Tomi on 10/10/2020 at 19:23
Quote Posted by Starker
Did you play both branches of Witcher 2? What did you think of it as a storytelling device?
No, I only played Roche's path and ignored the elven guy. It's an interesting way to deliver the story; it certainly gives the play some replay value, but I rarely play games more than once these days. Perhaps things would have been different if I had played the game ten years ago, then I might have replayed it later and chosen the different path. However, the gameplay feels a bit outdated for me now, so I don't think I'll play it again, even though I'm curious to see what the other branch has to offer. Maybe I'll watch some gameplay video or something. I think I would have preferred a bunch of smaller choices over one huge choice.