[Tiste Simeon]

worry, on 10 March 2018 - 05:21 AM, said:

Well, bopping around Mordor killing orcs is pretty fun for a while and some of the missions are challenging in a smart way. But there's just so many samey missions too. There are good ideas scattered throughout and it's like 20 hours shorter than an AC game, so that's good, but like I said, the overarching story is just so lunkheaded. I'd give it like a C, not an F, for cool orcs.

Oh man I love that game. I love working my way through ranks and finding inventive ways of killing the captains and stuff...

[Mentalist]

Serenity, on 10 March 2018 - 11:10 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 09 March 2018 - 12:44 PM, said:

Serenity, on 09 March 2018 - 09:14 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 08 March 2018 - 02:39 PM, said:

Serenity, on 08 March 2018 - 01:43 PM, said:

I'm about 30 hours into Kingdoms of Amalur now and still finding it great fun.

I've also started replaying The Witcher with the intention of taking my save game into Assassins of Kings and then from that into my second NG+ playthrough of Wild Hunt. I expect this'll be something I just dip into every now and then, at least with the first game. It's so many years since I last played it but I'm already noticing some consequences from my decisions that are different to the ones I had before. Unfortunately I'm into the swamp in chapter 2, which is a real pain in the arse, so I'm trying hard not to let my enthusiasm wane.

2 words: Igni + Heavy attack.

Swamp becomes fun in Act 3, when there's actuual variety of enemies. Act 2 is just a drag. But you can get most stuff there done in 2-3 to visits so it's not completely terrible.

I remember really getting bogged down in chapter 2 when I played it back in the day. I can't remember how many times I went back and forth. This time I've downloaded a mod which adds a teleportation scroll for instant travel from the swamp to the city and back

Iirc, you can also teleport from Places of Power back to Kalkstein's Lab.
I did that a lot in Act 3 in order to avoid speaking to Ziegfried and Shani after making some choices they wouldn't approve of.

Yes, you can do that too. It's all going quite well at the moment. It's interesting, coming back to it having since read the books and loving Wild Hunt so much, how much more enjoyable I'm finding it this time around. I'm in the latter stages of chapter 2 now. Dealt with the golem sentry in the swamp yesterday.

TW1 is quite literally a love letter to the books.

Especially Ch 4. It appears to "interrupt" the main quest just as it ramps up, but I'd argue it was actually a prototype for TW3 in its design more than anything.

EDIT: also: YES! FINALLY beat the Fang Repeater Proving Ground yest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. All it took was a fully upgraded gun with bullets homing in on the targets.
I finished Act II of "Bastion", and only 2 vigils left un-finished (need to do another Dream-trip with the Hammer + Repeater combo), and 2 un-perfected proving grounds (The Pike + the Shield). I'm level 5, and I want to try to wrap these things up before I do what I'm presuming its the last stretch of the story.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 10 March 2018 - 07:12 PM

[Slow Ben]

Jumping into Borderlands 2 for another playthrough.

Salvador this time.

[Malankazooie]

I played through as Zer0 and then again as Zer0 in UVHM. I then played through as Salvador. Loved his duel weapon capabilities and his funny gestures and words. Salvador is great too when you are co-op playing with others.

I really wanted to play through as Krieg but never got around to it because going heavily on melee is not my favorite style. But the funny things he says may make me dust off my copy of BL2 and give it a go.

[Serenity]

Me and a mate are co-oping BL2 at the moment, me as Axton and him as Maya. Only playing it for about 4 hours a week and most of the time it's a blast. We're both lvl 19 at the moment.

[Malankazooie]

Maya is another excellent choice for co-op. I remember being in many a session where the person playing Maya saved the rest of the team's bacon.

[Aptorian]

Primateus, on 09 March 2018 - 07:25 PM, said:

yup

Been following the reception. Seems like it's much improved over the first one.

I remember us doing a couple of missions together in Vermintide 1. I bounced off the game pretty quickly because of the frustrating loot system.

worry, on 10 March 2018 - 02:43 AM, said:

Just finished Shadow of Mordor. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't a wack Assassin's Creed clone. Better and more fun than AC for a few reasons, but still repetitive w/ a truly awful protagonist/story line. Not sure I wanna bother with the sequel.

I don't think you'd like the sequel much unless you really enjoy the Nemesis system. The story in the sequel is perhaps 50% stupider and the missions are just run around and kill things.

Slow Ben, on 10 March 2018 - 09:21 PM, said:

Jumping into Borderlands 2 for another playthrough.

Salvador this time.

Funny enough I've been playing Borderlands 2 for the past couple weeks. I'm playing as the Mechromancer. She's fun. The robot minion you can summon makes soloing the game much easier. I'm also playing with an Order build. I build up Anarchy buffs that stack damage for every kill or reload I do during combat. I lose stacks if I reload. It does some really interesting things to your playstyle. 200 stacks of anarchy means you deal 400 percent weapon damage but you also have minus 200 percent accuracy. I tried gaining 400 stacks of anarchy at one point and I got so inaccurate that I would miss enemies even though I was standing a meter from them with a shotgun.

I'm starting to tire of the main mission but I wanted to power through it so I could play all the DLC I never got around to finishing initially.

First time I played through the game I had a lot of fun playing as Salvador the Gunzerker.

I don't know if they patched it our or left it in, but there was a bug in Salvador's hero ability.

When dualwhielding, if you have a rocket launcher in your off hand and a weapon with explosive damage in your main hand, then each bullet from the main hand weapon would deal damage equal to a bazooka explosion. This meant that if you armed yourself with an explosive assault riffle you could be pumping out hundreds of thousands of damage point in a matter of seconds. I would absolutely melt bosses. I murdered the final boss in a split second.

[Serenity]

Malankazooie, on 11 March 2018 - 04:01 PM, said:

Maya is another excellent choice for co-op. I remember being in many a session where the person playing Maya saved the rest of the team's bacon.

Yeah, problem is I keep having to tell my mate to use phaselock, or whatever it's called, because he keeps forgetting. He just charges in, aggros everything in sight, then I have to go in and revive him

[Mentalist]

Finished Bastion That is to say, I unlocked New Game +

I'll probably come back to it in a bit, to see the second ending (I chose Restoration, since presumably the Kid had a life before Zia came along. And having heard Zulf's story, I figured the world owed him).

Gonna try to go back to "Dex". If I'll end up not feeling it, I think I'll try "Hard Reset"

[Maark Abbott]

Serenity, on 08 March 2018 - 01:43 PM, said:

I'm about 30 hours into Kingdoms of Amalur now and still finding it great fun.

I've also started replaying The Witcher with the intention of taking my save game into Assassins of Kings and then from that into my second NG+ playthrough of Wild Hunt. I expect this'll be something I just dip into every now and then, at least with the first game. It's so many years since I last played it but I'm already noticing some consequences from my decisions that are different to the ones I had before. Unfortunately I'm into the swamp in chapter 2, which is a real pain in the arse, so I'm trying hard not to let my enthusiasm wane.

KOA had some good ideas but I found that it became a bit of a drag in places as the gameplay gets grindy/repetitive. The Act 2 boss is absolutely crazy though.

[Serenity]

Maark Abbott, on 12 March 2018 - 07:30 AM, said:

Serenity, on 08 March 2018 - 01:43 PM, said:

I'm about 30 hours into Kingdoms of Amalur now and still finding it great fun.

I've also started replaying The Witcher with the intention of taking my save game into Assassins of Kings and then from that into my second NG+ playthrough of Wild Hunt. I expect this'll be something I just dip into every now and then, at least with the first game. It's so many years since I last played it but I'm already noticing some consequences from my decisions that are different to the ones I had before. Unfortunately I'm into the swamp in chapter 2, which is a real pain in the arse, so I'm trying hard not to let my enthusiasm wane.

KOA had some good ideas but I found that it became a bit of a drag in places as the gameplay gets grindy/repetitive.

Yeah, I can see why that would be. It's very much the MMO feel of it. Playing it in short bursts helps, I find.

[Mentalist]

okay, having remapped the controls so that I don't need a mouse in the "real world" 2-D platforming portion of the game, Dex is going much smoother. So far it's a typical cyberpunk story of a young protagonist unwittingly caught in a struggle between a shadowy cabal that secretly runs the world (The Complex) and a hacker resistance. There's an AI, and a dream of total access paradise, where all information will be exposed and the Complex will have nowhere to hide. I'm only just learning the ropes of cyberspace (a bullet-hell minigame), so I'm basically nowhere yet, plot-wise, not really out of the tutorial (my next task is to get augmented)

Still, I gotta say, it's looking good so far. Controls take some getting used to, but I feel I'm starting to get the hang of things.

Edit: I totally suck at the hacking bullet-hell thing.
I also got lost, because the game is not super-intuitive about trying to do multi-level paths in 2D-in particular, it takes some effort and crouching in order to keep Dex from walking straight on the same level when she encounters a forking staircase. Because of this, I initially missed the way to the aug clinic, and ended up exploring like half the city, picking up half a dozen "side-quests" in the process.

Also, guns are very expensive, and I can't loot thugs I fight for their guns, which is quite annoying.

There's definitely a learning curve to figuring things out, but I'm generally enjoying things. The soundtrack is a nice synth mix that's very pleasantly retro and fitting. I do hope I have it as a standalone somewhere.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 15 March 2018 - 01:54 PM

[Serenity]

On to Chapter 4 of The Witcher, after spending ages agonising over certain decisions. I'm sure they'll come back to haunt me, as they usually do in the Witcher games.

Also been getting back into Endless Space 2.

[Mentalist]

Serenity, on 19 March 2018 - 08:54 AM, said:

On to Chapter 4 of The Witcher, after spending ages agonising over certain decisions. I'm sure they'll come back to haunt me, as they usually do in the Witcher games.

Also been getting back into Endless Space 2.

Chapter 4 is great. The quests are interesting and feel self-contained, the hermit is hilarious, and after you do all the nice fuzzy things, reality hits back so hard.

Me, I played a bunch more "Dex" . I've avoided the main quest at all so far, ticking off all the side-content to level up and make money. It falls roughly into 2 categories: either you chase down a gang in their hideout for reasons, or you do an "investigation" , and endup talking a lot, to eventually use the "convince" dialogue option (due to having invested a skill point into Charisma) to get the "best" outcome.

Still, I like the world. It's tropey, and the combat is less pleasure than a chore, but there's cool stuff here- and I can do stuff out of order- I completed a major side quest and retrieved what I was supposed to before I ever talked to the person who assigns me that task, which was nice.

The implants are bog-standard cyberpunk, and all of a sudden I find myself with a bunch of implant slots (like 7), once I started putting skill points into Body.

Hacking still sucks, but that's probably cuz I didn't put any points into it. I can deal with hacking computers okay, but hacking cameras and turrets in AR is just tedious.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 19 March 2018 - 02:32 PM

[Gothos]

Chapter 4 (it's the farming village, right?) is easily my favourite part of TW1. I just love the atmosphere there and what it does to the pacing of the story. It also somehow feels like an ancestral home
It's also an excellent contrast to the village in Chapter 1. These two give you outlanders (ha. ha.) insights into the worst and the best the polish countryside can be. It's excellent.

[Mentalist]

Gothos, on 19 March 2018 - 03:01 PM, said:

Chapter 4 (it's the farming village, right?) is easily my favourite part of TW1. I just love the atmosphere there and what it does to the pacing of the story. It also somehow feels like an ancestral home
It's also an excellent contrast to the village in Chapter 1. These two give you outlanders (ha. ha.) insights into the worst and the best the polish countryside can be. It's excellent.

Yeah, Dark Water or w/e it translates to. The one with the fields and the noon/night wtraiths.

Fields at night are spectacular-looking, with Yagas lurking across the mini-ravines.

That game is sooo good at creating amazing atmospheric moments

[Mentalist]

Since I've been sick this week, I didn't try to get further through Dex b/c 2-D platforming and shooting requires too much focus.

Instead I tried out Magrunner: Dark Pulse since I found out that

1) Frogwares is actually a Uki dev
2) they are currently working on a cool-looking Lovecraft-inspired investigation game "The Sinking City" (that started out as a Call of Cthulhu game)

So, anyway. "Magrunner" starts off being a physics puzzler. It's the 2040s, and a social network billionaire came up with a new energy source- "magnetic energy" . He plans to use it to explore space, so there's a contest/competition to select humanity's best and brightest to wield the new energy and become the first space explorers.

The player is one of the 7 finalists. You enter the testing facility, where you solve physics puzzles by using a techno-glove to give objects magnetic charges so they either attract or repel (and, contrary to Grade 9 science, opposites repel) making platforms move, activating switches, etc.

Things start out fine, but the head engineer who designed the facility for the billionaire CEO starts off sounding a tad... unhinged.

Then he goes "Ftagh... Cthulhu... R'lyeh... Ftagh..." and soon the lights go out and
the carnivorous fishmen show up. And then you get the Portal-esque facility breakdown and scrambling through the dank, rusty underside of the facility, solving more puzzles.

The puzzling is pretty logical so far. The Lovecraft stuff is... definitely NOT subtle. Which isn't really encouraging for "The Sinking City" unfortunately.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 22 March 2018 - 01:42 PM

[Obdigore]

Sea of Thieves.

Having a great time.

[Slow Ben]

Alternative Goose, on 11 March 2018 - 06:30 PM, said:

I'm starting to tire of the main mission but I wanted to power through it so I could play all the DLC I never got around to finishing initially.

Yeah, thats why i started again as well. I've only done Torques Campaign of Carnage and Assault on Dragon Keep once.

This post has been edited by Slow Ben: 22 March 2018 - 05:51 PM

[Malankazooie]

Slow Ben, on 22 March 2018 - 05:50 PM, said:

Alternative Goose, on 11 March 2018 - 06:30 PM, said:

I'm starting to tire of the main mission but I wanted to power through it so I could play all the DLC I never got around to finishing initially.

Yeah, thats why i started again as well. I've only done Torques Campaign of Carnage and Assault on Dragon Keep once.

I played through all the DLC. I found them all worth it. Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon's Keep being the best.

I even liked the smaller, holiday themed DLC.

T.K. Baha's Bloody Harvest.

The Horrible Hunger of the Ravenous Wattle Gobbler.

How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day.

Mad Moxxi and the Wedding Day Massacre.

These are known as "Headhunter Packs" and are smaller and cost less. I enjoyed them and played them during the time of their release, which coincided with a specific holiday > Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day. Playing them outside the period for each of these holidays might be kind of weird though, but still fun. That cock gobbling Wattle Gobbler was a bitch to kill. The final boss for the Christmas themed one (How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day) was a bitch to defeat too.