Video Games 2015: The Death of the MMO

[TrueMetis]

Decided to pick up the Squeenix Humble Bundle for New Thief, Sleeping Dogs and the two Hitman games. Either already have or have no interest in the others, so if anyone wants Supreme Commander 2, Deus Ex HR Director's Cut, Tomb Raider or Murdered: Soul Suspect let me know. Figured I'd offer here first before posting the keys on Reddit or something.

Wouldn't mind getting the Deus Ex key.

[KiDisaster]

Wouldn't mind getting the Deus Ex key.

PM'd you the gift link.

[Maia]

if anyone wants Supreme Commander 2, Deus Ex HR Director's Cut, Tomb Raider or Murdered: Soul Suspect let me know.

Tomb Raider would be lovely, TIA.

[Alex.]

I'd say yes. The only bugs I've had are random fires appearing in one area (no negative effects besides appearance), and a body thrown out a window floated in the air until I left the house.

Paris is an awesome setting, and visually it can offer some pretty amazing views. It felt nice to have a proper city to mess around in again. I didn't hate either 3 or IV but missed having a real impressive city to explore. That's definitely back.

The story is okay so far. It again casts a lot of doubt about whether your actions are right or wrong.

For cheap I'd get it just to roam Paris.

That's the sort of thing I was hoping to hear. For £20 I can put up with the odd bug/slowdown and Paris sounds fantastic. Think I'll take the plunge. Thanks for the advice!

[Tony Soprano]

Speaking of Deus Ex, I just wanted to chime in for a second and say that it's probably the best stealth game I've ever played. I installed both Blacklist and Absolution, but neither can really fill the shoes of DE:HR. I am so looking forward to hearing some info about Universe at GDC.

Also, Hugh Darrow did nothing wrong.

[MerenthaClone]

Speaking of Deus Ex, I just wanted to chime in for a second and say that it's probably the best stealth game I've ever played

Go back and play Thief 1 and Thief 2, especially 2.

[KiDisaster]

Tomb Raider would be lovely, TIA.

Done :)

[Jack Bauer 24]

Can't wait for Bloodborne.

[Maia]

Done :)

Thank you very much!

Now, folks, do I need a gamepad for the best experience with this latest Tomb Raider or are kbm controls good? And would any old 360 pad do, or do I need one of the "for Windows" variety? Also, are there any counter-indications against buying it used?

Oh, and another thing - can anybody from Germany or another non-anglophone country which still has retail PC games tell me if games which are touted as "completely in German (or whatever language), but have Steam requirement can be patched into English via Steam? Because I can chose to download in English from Steam directly and as far as I understand it such retail game will be just added to my library as normal, no? Or are there any complications?

Guy Kilmore:

I am a new Android user myself, so I am making do with a GBA emulator with Advance Wars (which I have never played previously) and 80 Days, which is as great as advertized, but not an RPG or a turn-based tactical game ;).

I know Mangobile games from iOS and can vouch for their quality. Give the free trial part of Tactics Maiden a chance.

You are probably thinking about picking up the Squeenix games, but they don't work with Lollipop, IIRC, and the older titles may have some other compatibility problems. Also, some of them have weird on-line check requirements, which are not mentioned in the descriptions, so you need to read the reviews carefully. To my knowledge Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest 4 and Dragon Quest 8 have them. Dragon Quests 1 - 3 appear not to, but I didn't play them myself yet, though I intend to buy them at some point.

[KiDisaster]

Thank you very much!

Now, folks, do I need a gamepad for the best experience with this latest Tomb Raider or are kbm controls good? And would any old 360 pad do, or do I need one of the "for Windows" variety? Also, are there any counter-indications against buying it used?

No problem :)

I played it with kb+m and had no issues at all.

[Fez]

I finished Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Holy hell, that was good, even better than Dead Man Switch. I still strongly disagree with their decision to use Kickstarter to fund their new Hong Kong game, but I'll definitely buy it once its out.

The ending took me for quite a ride. I end up killing Firewing, but I had to think about it for a long time. And then in that conversation with Lowfyr on the train, I was really conflicted about every bit of the conversation. By contrast, the only other event that I know impacts the ending, APEX, was easy; I killed that thing with no qualms whatsoever. But those other parts, I love it when a game can make me so uneasy about the choices I made.

From the conversation in the magic shop right before heading to Hadfeld, I knew that killing all the dragons was very bad (never great when you can unleash something called "the horrors"), so I refused to side with Vauclair. In fact, I managed to convince him to back down (which apparently is new to the DC version, as is joining him), but Audran than killed him. The final fights were easy, I was super OP by this point. But then that conversation with Firewing, and learning how she's Gaia's protector, and thinking about just how shitty the shadowrun world really is and how the 7th cycle really needs to better, I almost let her free. I only didn't because she seemed to want to die and a semi-insane dragon on the loose isn't the best thing, even if she did promise to just go to sleep until the next cycle.

And then at the end, I decided to work for Lowfyr, because I figured the status quo was untenable and I needed some friends somewhere. I wasn't expecting the end slide to say that he conquered the Flux State, but apparently that's a set event from PnP setting, and the only way to stop it in the game is freeing APEX and giving Firewing to it as a weapon, which I definitely wouldn't do. At least the eastern half of the city stayed free, which apparently doesn't happen in all endings; I'm not sure how that happened, maybe because I joined him?

All in all, a really good game. The other party members weren't quite as interesting as the writers clearly thought they were, but that's my only real complaint. Well, that and the bugs. There were multiple fights I had to redo because the game crashed when I was trying to save after finishing them.

[The Anti-Targ]

Can't wait for Bloodborne.

One of the later trailers sounded like in game narration by the Maiden in Black from Demon's Souls, and I think I may have caught mention of the Old One. Do we have an actual sequel to Demon's Souls, or at least a game set in the same world, albeit at a much later time? Or have I heard wrong?

[Corvinus85]

So I cracked and got TW: Attila. Just played a bit of the prologue so far.

Main menu music is probably the best from all TW games. Really chilling. There are some improvements but that prologue campaign is kinda annoying. I wished to learn about the migration system, and instead I kept having to do normal TW stuff. And the battle speed is still too damn fast.

So far my favorite improvement has been the unit cards. Not that I hated those from Rome 2, but the worst about Rome 2 unit cards was the general card. Now there's no way I will confuse the general with another unit.

[Crom Dubh]

People play the prologue campaigns? Honestly, never did one. The mechanics between the TW games remain pretty consistent, don't they? The migration system is pretty easy anyways: you have a horde, it goes about doing horde stuff. It can raze cities, loot them, etc. You can create an encampment, wherein you recruit horde units and upgrade your encampment. As a horde, you can settle in places you destroy, but obviously that can get hazardous as your horde is often larger than your new homeland can support. From what I understand, the Huns cannot settle (and are the only faction who possess that trait) but gain some special horde traits to make up for it. Oh, also your horde can subjugate factions once you take their last settlement (any faction can do this, but its a bit more important for hordes) which means they retain their nominal independence and become your tributary state. They pay you tribute each turn, and count as a military ally that cannot refuse engaging in wars alongside you. However, they do not enjoy being tributary states, and if they think they can break out of it (usually by betraying you in the middle of a war, or if your horde moves far away from their lands) then they will. The AI is quite good at shitting on you like that.

[Werthead]

Homeworld Remastered 4K cinematics trailer.

Story trailer.

Gameplay trailer (with corny voiceover).

Impressed that Gearbox are putting a lot of marketing firepower behind this re-release.

[Aerys Blackfyre]

games that I've played lately:

- the Evil Within = crap

- Dark Souls 1 = O V E R R A T E D

- dragon age: Inquisition = awesome, but short (if compared to, let's say, Skyrim)

[Alex.]

That's the sort of thing I was hoping to hear. For £20 I can put up with the odd bug/slowdown and Paris sounds fantastic. Think I'll take the plunge. Thanks for the advice!

Quick update. I bought Unity and it is great. If you don't like Assassins Creed games you'll obviously hate it, but if you do then it's really good. Paris is out of this world good. The music especially is fantastic. Creates a vibe which I've never come across in a game before. Only finished the first memory sequence but at the moment I'm really enjoying it. £20 well spent.

ETA: Also worth noting that I'm playing with the latest updates which make it run better and have removed a few things which understandably irritate people - i.e. I can now open all the chests without having to download some fucking app on my phone.

[Fez]

Started playing Rage, which is one of the many games that I bought cheap during the Steam sale that I hadn't gotten to yet. Its pretty good, but nothing special. Feels like a complete ripoff of Borderlands and Fallout, but without most of the RPG gameplay elements. Actual gameplay is solid enough, although kinda easy (to be fair, i'm not playing the very hardest difficulty, but I never do and this seems easier than most). Story is barely there, and I hate that they went with a silent protagonist. What is impressive is the graphics, the game looks fantastic, especially considering this is a last-gen game.

[Muttering Bill]

Finished Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. It had a dull start, but I ended up liking it even more than the first.

Playing lots of Dead or Alive 5: Last Round now, and wrapping up my Danganronpa trophies as I wait for Bloodborne.

One of the later trailers sounded like in game narration by the Maiden in Black from Demon's Souls, and I think I may have caught mention of the Old One. Do we have an actual sequel to Demon's Souls, or at least a game set in the same world, albeit at a much later time? Or have I heard wrong?

Yeah, that does sound like the Maiden's voice, but I didn't hear any mention of the Old One. Probably just them reusing the voice actor.

[Guy Kilmore]

Fez,

Dragonfall was awesome and I agree with everything you said about it. Have you tried any of the user made campaigns that people have done? I've been thinking about picking up one.

Oh and on my choices

I went the other direction. APEX and Firewing both got to live, with Firewing free. Lowfyr ended up taking control, but it was uneasy because of APEX wandering around. I ended up going my own way. It was a good time. I have been thinking about replaying it. (I got sucked into APEX's bullshit.)