[HiddenOne]

Modern Warfare 3 & Bioshock 2 (got them super cheap, figured why not?)

[QuickTidal]

Finally finished ARKHAM ORIGINS (and by finished I mean the entire main storyline and MOST of the villains)...but even I'm not chauncy enough to bother with The Riddler's Enimgma's stupid radio installation bollocks (beyond unsealing them for Batwing Fast Travel). Seriously, every separate section of Gotham has these little signal turrets, probably about 8-10 in each area...and total there are probably 40-ish. These have to be taken out with a batarang. Once you'd taken them out, and then Harassed a few of Enigma's informants...those signal turrets become some other jimmy-jammy to take out 40 of. It is LITERALLY the most pointless busy work I have ever come across in a game with little to no payoff aside from 100% completion of the game. It's tedious, boring shit-work...and I can't imagine the meeting at WB Montreal where ANYONE thought it was a good idea. I say this as a guy who put 200+ hours into FINAL FANTASY X and did all the side quests for the Celestial Weapons and took Sin out with one hit per appendage. THAT was worth it....Enigma's stupid radio thingies...NOT.

Anyways, the game starts very well and I was enjoying it for about half....but then I fought Robin Anarky and Shiva one after the other. And BOTH villains basically throw ream after ream of thugs at you instead of fighting you themselves. Whatever happened to the days when fighting the boss battle was a big deal and mean you...ACTUALLY fought the boss? Anyways, both Bane and Deadshot fight you themselves...though you have to fight Bane in three incarnations...the third of which is just a big rampaging hulk that you hide on and sneak attack from behind to take out...which coincidentally is the exact same way you take out Deadshot after pummeling him a few times (oh, and finishing off a room full of random thugs)...both are REALLY weak ways of taking out such big bosses. The Joker fight is kind of non-existent and has this added portion where you control an insane Joker through a weird hallucination. Firefly doesn't REALLY fight you himself...BUT at least his fight is interesting and uses Bat gadgets.

This game could have easily been called BATMAN: ARKHAM WAVES OF RANDOM THUGS...because this is what you spend 95% of the game fighting. The Detective solving is a joke that you can't mess up and really acts more like interactive cut-scenes. The fact that the thing takes place on Christmas Eve (while adding a gothic aspect to the proceedings with the snow ect.) and that is the in-game reason no one is outside...Eh...I'm not buying it. There should be random people out and about still.

Two new outifts became available upon completion of the main story mode...one came with a download (Batman 2000 suit) and the other for completion (Batman: Noel).

[QuickTidal]

As to what I'm playing now? Old games mostly, as I'm not allowed to buy any new games so close to Christmas....but COD: GHOSTS, AC IV, and GTA V are all on my xmas list....so I'll likely have lots to play down the road.

[Loki]

Planescape: Torment. My sidekick is a floating skull.

[Silencer]

Awesome game is awesome!

Can't wait to start playing "dino d-day", which was a steam gift from a certain forum member. XD

[Gothos]

Civilization V: Brave New World
Having a lot of fun with this expansion. Started off, of course, as Poland - hardly used the Winged Hussars - I usually don't use Lancers (and spearmen and pikemen to upgrade from) at all, just made one of them to see how it works. Well, they're a holy terror, enemy lines break under their special ability (if they inflict more damage than they receive, the target is forced to flee; if they can't flee, they take extra damage) making for a midgame blitzkrieg. You still have to hang around for your cannons to roll up to take cities, though. All in all, with their UA (free social policy when entering a new era) Poland is very, very decent.
Assyria... holy shit they're awesomely strong. The Siege Tower just rolls over cities in classical and even medieval era, only needs support to take out enemy units. Their UB is a special library that lets you pop another +15 xp for units popped out in that city. And most of all, they take techs when capturing cities. I think this might just be the best classical era warmonger out there, you just tech up in military and build up an army and take over the lands of that cultured, peaceful neighbour and take techs you missed from them. Great stuff.
Further on, there's Portugal, but that's nothing special. Some barely noticable bonus to trade gold gain, some improvement that gives you resources from city states, and a buffed caravel that can do a one time mission for gold and 22+ xp, nothing special.
Up next, Indonesia. Well, they're pretty decent. Their UU gets a fun mechanic where it can get a random promotion from its first combat - they range from goddamn overpowered (+1 movement and Blitz?! +50% flanking bonus?! Act as Great General?! wtf.) to actually negative. The achievement is annoying. Their special ability will give you 2 of 3 unique resources, nifty for some trading but it won't win you the game. All in all, pretty fun.
And then there was Venice. Venice can't build settlers. Venice can't annex cities. Venice has a UU that can take control of a city state outright - it becomes your puppet. Venice has double trade route count. Venice can purchase shit in their puppets. So yeah, this makes for a fairly unique gameplay - you'll only ever have control of the city of Venice, you won't be able to decide where your cities will be located. You'll be drowning in money. Very fun, very refreshing.
So, Brazil... Brazil is all about them golden ages. During golden ages, Brazil gets its Tourism doubled, and great artist/musician/writer spawn rates increased by half. Their UU gives you points towards next golden age. They also get a special improvement that makes jungle tiles fucking awesome (gold, culture AND science with university, wow). The concept is interesting at first, but it just boils down to being geared towards a cultural victory.
Now, the Shoshone... lets see. An upgraded scout that is as strong as a warrior and can choose which bonus you get from ancient ruins - bloody awesome, that, having control over it. You can ignore making warriors like ever, this is your replacement for two units. Can't be upgraded, sadly. Then there's their other UU, Comanche Raiders - cavalry with +1 movement and less cost to make, pretty decent, you're likely to have a lot of them. Then there's their UA, which gives them... well, 15% combat bonus within their borders is always good (stack that with 15% Himeji Castle and 15% Order policy? And Great Wall? Unassailable.), founded cities start with extra territory. The description doesn't give this justice, it's not an extra 2 or 3 tiles. It's a LOT. Shoshone can claim land like nobody's business, it's like they're made to create wide empires. Huge, wide empires with lots of cities, spanning half a continent and defended by a horde of lightning-fast horsemen//tanks. And since you have a lot of territory at start, starting with 2 pathfinders instead of a monument is very, very viable. Great Civ to play, imo.
I haven't had time to play with the Zulus or Morocco yet, but I'm very curious.

As for the new features since Gods and Kings, there's the revamped Trade, there's the World Congress, there's Tourism, and there's Ideology.
Trade now isn't something passive along roads, now you have to build caravans and cargo ships to create trade routes. This trading is completely separate from trades you do over the diplomacy screen. Trade passes along gold, science and religious pressure, depending on the linked cities. Trade routes generate revenue on both ends, and facilitate tourism as well; played right this shit here can win you the game. In an extreme case, as Venice once I hit 20 trade routes over sea, with Colossus and East India Company and exploration and commerce policies I was clearing way over 1000gp per turn on Standard speed from just trade routes, and that buys a lot of goodwill from city states! You can also do internal trade - transport food (with granary in source city) or production (with workshop) to another city - which may not be profitable but aids your early expansions a lot.
World Congress - once a civ has met every other civ in the game and has researched Printing Press, the WC is formed. That civ becomes the host. The host and the civ with the most delegates (or 2nd one if host has most) can propose a motion once every 30 turns (later eras is 25 and 10 or something like that) and among those is stuff like Embargo on a civ, Embargo on city states, special worldwide projects (World Fair - culture-focused rewards; International Games - tourism-focused rewards; International Space Station - research-focused rewards) that give rewards depending on how much production you put in that (you build those in cities). Banning luxury resources so they no longer give happiness, extra culture from this and that, research bonus for the backward rednecks, nuclear non-proliferation, world ideology / world religion which give bonus to a certain ideology or religion, duh... And World Leader once Information Era comes 'round. Time to play those city states and protect them! All in all, I like this feature.
Tourism - now this is for the completely revamped Culture victory. No longer do you spam policies to get some project you build and gg. Now there's Tourism. Think of Tourism as your cultural offense, while Culture is your defense. You generate Tourism through great works of art, music, writing, artifacts, some wonders even. What works of art, what artifacts, you may ask? Why, Great People like writers, artists and musicians now give you a choise of what to do with them. They can all create a work for +2 culture and tourism if you have a slot (more on that in a moment) available, and on top of that a writer can give you a big culture boost towards your next policy, an artist can trigger a golden age, and a musician can go on tour in another civ to give a big one time boost to tourism with that civ. To house great works, you have to have slots available for that type - given by buildings like opera houses, wonders, national wonders, and so on - no longer do culture buildings passively boost you, you have to work for your culture! So now you have some works of art, got some tourism going, but it's so little so slow - where else can I get tourism, Mr Gothos? Why, glad you asked, there's a whole new branch in archaeology now. Once you research the archaeology tech, antique culture sites are revealed across the world. You can then build archaeologists to dig 'em up; once they're done you can choose to either make a monument that gives a lot of culture when worked, or create an artifact to boost tourism. This gets more exciting once you start digging in other players' empires, as they tend to get angry! Still not enough tourism? Well, you can get percentage boosts for your tourism towards a civ, and factors are: open borders, trading, shared religion, ambassadors/shared ideology, and all of those can be increased by the aesthetics policy tree. So, your tourism slowly creeps up over time to overtake the victim's culture, which means trade with them gives you more science, there's less unrest once you capture their homes and you're one step closer towards victory through pop music and blue jeans. Fun stuff.
Last but not least, Ideology. Oh boy, Ideologies. Now, for a start let's talk about changes to existing policy trees - piety is now ancient era, commerce got split into commerce and exploration, liberty and honor still suck, it still pays to save up your policy points after maxing tradition until you access rationalism, and Order, Autocracy and Freedom are now Ideologies.
Now, these get unlocked once you build 3 factories or enter the modern era, whichever comes first. They each focus on a slightly different approach to the game - Freedom is more about specialists, great people and tall empires, Autocracy caters to militarists among us, but not neccesarily warmongers! Order has the greatest potential in sprawling wide empires. That much you already knew from the time these were policies - but now they're structured differently. Each of those has 3 "tiers" of stuff, and a lot of stuff to fill them. To unlock a tier 3 concept you need 2 tier 2 ones, and so it goes, pyramid shaped. The lower tiers are pretty standard shit you'd expect from each ideology, like bonus strength for wounded units, happiness from barracks etc, happiness from castles etc, reduced unit upkeep, extra 15xp for new units - for autocracy tier 1 and 2 talents, as examples. In tier 3 you have your game winners, 3 for each ideology, where each is focused on a certain victory type (for autocracy it's 25% combat bonus for 50 turns, bonus tourism towards civs fighting a common foe and a great influence boost with city states you could demand tribute from - Gunboat Diplomacy, my favourite thing in the game right now!). Autocracy aids domination, diplomatic and culture victories; Order aids culture, science and domination, while Freedom boosts culture, science and diplomacy.
Within the game itself, international relations will depend a lot on various players' ideology choice and you can probably tell there will be several blocks forming. Very nifty.


Hoookay, so. TL;DR version: expansion is awesome, go and play it.

[Morgoth]

Definitly improved the game substansially.

Morocco can compete with Venice for highest income in a game. In addition, if you push for Petra as Morocco you about guarantee yourself victory. Especially, as pushing that Tech route should mean you get Hanging Gardens before anyone else too. Your Capital will now be the greatest city the world has ever known.

If you can manage to get +1 faith for desert tiles too it all becomes a little embarassing.

The Zulus are... absurd. You want to conquer the world, og Zulu. The Assyrians are strong, but the Zulus get the strongest UU in the game, and their barracks provide unique and exceptionally powerfull upgrades for your spearmen. Upgrades you will receive aplenty as the Zulus get bonus to experience, and a reduced upkeep cost for military units.

The Spearmen Upgrade to the Impi, which then upgrade down the gunpowder route rather than the innefectual lancer. The Impi is awesome. It's almost absurd how destructive they are, and how long they remain strong.

[Primateus]

I'm pretty sure I've steamrolled both Syria and the Zulus several times, so I'm not sure about their strength.

Anyway, the addition of ideology and trade routes has just about made this game one of my favourite games ever.

[Morgoth]

Primateus, on 16 December 2013 - 08:21 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure I've steamrolled both Syria and the Zulus several times, so I'm not sure about their strength.

Anyway, the addition of ideology and trade routes has just about made this game one of my favourite games ever.

That's because the AI suck at warfare. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to win a military victory as any civilization. It doesn't mean much.

[Aptorian]

Just finished Arkham Origins.

I am sort of split between whether I think it is worse or better than the other games.

In terms of gameplay I agree with the reviews that it is a lesser game. There is something off about the whole thing. The open world itself feels to cramped and most of the environment doesn't seem to have a point besides serving as obstacles for your passage through the city and that is probably my main complaint. The obstacles. I don't recall how they did it in Arkham City but I am sure I was able to grapple on to a lot more buildings and ledges in City. It feels frustrating to not be able to catch every ledge that you want. It's not like there has to be some kind of locked off sky box so I don't understand why I am not allowed to grapple to the top of the highest building and use it as a launch point to glide across everything. Is it because they so desperately want you to use the annoying quick travel points?

Regarding the story however, in terms of character development and depth, it is probably the best of the games. Asylum had a better crafted over arching plot, but I think Origins is just the more interesting game overall when you look at what they do with the characters.

Spoilers for all 3 Arkham games:

Spoiler

I'd heard that the Joker has a central role in this game even though it wasn't part of the promotional stuff, so I wasn't surprised when you learned of this new criminal called the Joker. I was pleasently surprised by the way they portrayed him, all the old characters in fact. Everyone felt a lot more raw. Batman was obviously not as cold and hardened. Alfred was worried about his wards well being. The Joker was less insane and somehow this made him even more scary. This is probably the game where he was the ugliest and most intimidating. Something about the way they kept focusing upon his face, the giant feral grin, the mad eyes. There was less of the "clown prince" in this game and more of the psychopath.

I guess this series was really a trilogy about the Batman and the Joker. When seen that way, if I was ever going to recommend somebody to play the series, I think I would recommend that a person play Asylum first, then Origins and finally City. I think the first meeting between the two in Origins, culminating in the final fight between them in City, would have been a much better story arch when reversed. It would have given the ending of City a much better punch.

[Gothos]

Briar King, on 16 December 2013 - 08:16 PM, said:

And I didn't understand a thing in those last two post lmao.

However it's a fact I suck at RTS games.

Civ isn't an RTS

Yesterday evening I've won a domination victory as Order Morocco. Anything is possible in this game.

Primateus - it's less about how strong the AI gets with a civ, and more about how strong it can be in human hands. e.g., a traditional defensive civ with strong walled cities, comp bowmen and little standing army won't be able to do shit to stop Assyria in Classical and start of Medieval era, siege towers shrug off missiles and devour cities. In my Assyria game I found I kept the last civ - Mongols - just because I wanted the assyrian achievement, once I built up 2 siege towers and a couple horsemen and swordsmen and archers, teracotta army and BAM I rolled over everyone without stopping for breath (well, the terrain stopped me for a bit, damn forested and jungle hills and mountains!).
Protip - when warmongering, you need a lot of workers to keep up with building roads towards your destination/victim/new lands. Keep patrols on the way so you don't run into a barbarian encampment siege towers first in a one tile wide mountain pass.

[Gothos]

haven't found the end turn button yet?

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Should I buy Just Cause 2 for £2?

[Silencer]

Yes.

[Aptorian]

Oh god yes. It's one of the most fun sandbox games ever. And it's HUGE. I think I put a hundred hours into just trying to destroy everything in every village and only got half way before I gave up.

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Right. Buying now!

[Tarthenal Theloman Toblakai]

i have just upgraded my PC to an 8core cpu with a nice shiny new graphics card and mother board so I am looking for epic games with graphics to show off my new machine, mainly to myself haha. I bought LOTR Battle for Middle Earth 2 and the addon which I can't wait to play on the weekend, also bought Elder Scrolls Anthology which was a bargain at £23! So i have a lot of fun and challenge ahead! waiting to see if the Fallouts come on sales in the Steam Sale....Game I am looking forward to most.....Watch Dogs! then Final Fantasy X HD for the PS3, spent 150hours on that as a child

[Aptorian]

Great looking games would include:

Witcher 2
Tomb Raider
Bioshock Infinite
Crysis 2 and 3.
Battlefield 3 and 4
Max Payne 3

[Obdigore]

Not Brent Weeks, on 18 December 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

Battlefield 3 and 4

The fact that you have those two on there with those others makes me snicker into my coffee.

[Aptorian]

Are you really going to argue that the newer Battlefield games don't look amazing?

Or are you playing on a laptop?