Video Games: No Man's Pie

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 minute ago, The Drunkard said:

It's the complete opposite for me, siege battles are one of my favourite parts in Attila. I find the layouts are interesting to play, the maps are varied (more than Medieval II anyway, which is all I've played), and the enemies are reasonably smart (again compared to Medieval II). The only downside is that the AI seem unwilling to attack walled settlements so usually I'm just playing in low-tier towns, but I can't blame them for being smart I suppose. 

I haven't played Warhammer but from what I've seen they look pretty repetitive, even the ones involving large armies?

 

Well there is repetition in the Warhammer ones, but greater variety in troop types so plenty of ways of making battles different. For instance you can blow gates open with a monster, fly vampire monsters onto the walls or behind them etc. I'm saying they aren't repetitive.. I find all siege battles rather dull in every total war games. Even Med 2 which I enjoyed due to the sheer variety of castle types.

What I don't like about them is that they don't feel like battles. Ever. They are just spammy clumps of units filling up holes or forcing their way through. 

[Jasta11]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Major new Star Citizen video.

This shows someone moving seamlessly from a space station to jumping on a multi-crew starship, flying to a planet, landing randomly, getting out for a recce, and then flying into the spaceport to take up a mission. Then they fly to an asteroid belt and the guy jumps out of the ship and flies over to a wreck and then boards it. All without a single loading screen.

There is much, well-justified scepticism of what you can do in Star Citizen but this is downright incredible. And I wonder if there's a tiny bit of smugness that what Star Citizen can do is way, way, beyond what No Man's Sky is capable of.

To be absolutely fair to NMS, Star Citizen has a way, way higher budget too.

It's also not released yet. We know the limitations of NMS since it's fully available. We don't know the limitations of Star Citizen just yet, since as far as I know only small parts of the game are available on beta right now. We should learn the lesson of NMS and not be too hooked by hype-building videos, especially since Star Citizen's devs have also been shifty a few times already.

Regardless, it does look really cool. Hopefully the final product is more than a huge tech demo.

[Fez]

16 minutes ago, Jasta11 said:

To be absolutely fair to NMS, Star Citizen has a way, way higher budget too.

It's also not released yet. We know the limitations of NMS since it's fully available. We don't know the limitations of Star Citizen just yet, since as far as I know only small parts of the game are available on beta right now. We should learn the lesson of NMS and not be too hooked by hype-building videos, especially since Star Citizen's devs have also been shifty a few times already.

Regardless, it does look really cool. Hopefully the final product is more than a huge tech demo.

Also, as I recall NMS released some pretty cool videos as well; full of stuff that's apparently not actually in the game.

Honestly, at this point, unless its a launch trailer, I'd rather just see a CGI trailer than a gameplay trailer. The CGI doesn't tell you what the game will be like, but at least its not going to possibly be misleading (and if its a story heavy game, it can tell you some stuff. I'd much rather see a CGI trailer for the new Mass Effect, for instance).

[Argonath Diver]

Star Citizen sure sounds fun and looks great. I dearly loved Escape Velocity, a fantastic Ambrosia Software game for Macs back in the 90s. I've never found a game that captured that feel - especially because I'm such a grouchy old-school type that I prefer the simple isometric view over flashy first person stuff. Star Citizen might someday be that game. It seems like it's still like two years or more away, though. Part of me wants to invest a hundred bucks or so now, simply because it sounds like ships and whatnot will only get more expensive later. But, heck, maybe by release I'll have already gone all-in on some Oculus VR game, or taken up sailboating, or tricked some lady into marrying me. 

NMS I thought might be my time-killer for space exploration until SC gets some major fleshing-out. Don't think that's gonna happen, though. I should go buy EV Nova again, assuming it still runs on newer systems.

[Corvinus85]

Mount & Blade II Bannerlord siege defense battle. 

 

[Kalbear]

9 hours until dxmd!

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

9 hours until dxmd!

One of the great things about working from home is that I finish at 5, which is exactly when DXMD unlocks, so effortless transition into gaming.

Preload already complete, hopefully the D1P (I assume there'll be one) won't be too big and then away we go. And the reviews have been outstanding.

[briantw]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

9 hours until dxmd!

On Steam it says 19 hours until it unlocks.  

[Jace, Extat]

Got to go hope pretty early and am finishing up the longest battle I've ever fought in attila. The Sassanids brought their king and heir to Edessa with two full stacks against twelve units I had stationed plus the garrison. I was able to destroy both catapults and the foe was reduced to attacking 2 gates, throwing themselves against my heavy melee shield walls. They've destroyed one unit of colors and I've withdrawn 2 more. And now they've forced themselves inside the walls and my best foederati are marching out a different gate to take them in the rear and begin the slaughter.

[Equilibrium]

Playing This is the Police, fucking brilliant, great management game with awesome story and narration.

Managing the police station, while dealing with corrupt and amoral mayor, mob bosses, businessman, unions, Church, prosecutors, FBI, serial killer and shit criminals and policeman do on regular basis, all the while great personal story of the chief of police plays out.

Give it a try it;s peanuts on Steam.

[Kalbear]

17 hours ago, briantw said:

On Steam it says 19 hours until it unlocks.  

DAMNIT YOU WERE RIGHT AND I WAS WROOOOOOONG

[Fez]

I finally beat Salt and Sanctuary. There was one big roadblock boss, the Witch of the Lake, that I just couldn't beat for the longest time; she hits like a truck and is completely random in her attacks (which are all ranged) and movements. She's a completely random RNG nightmare, especially for melee players. After that things were pretty straight forward until the end, with the appropriately difficult final boss. Considering just how much the game is Dark Souls in 2D, right down to having backstory in place of plot, I was surprisingly satisfied with the ending I got. Good game, I recommend it. 

All told it took me 28 hours, but about 5 of those hours were failed attempts against the Witch, level grinding to prep for the Witch (needed to be able to use a greatshield with 100% arcane resist), and doing optional stuff to avoid dealing with the Witch. I went and looked at guide after I finished the game, and there was a decent amount of optional stuff I missed. A lot of it was platforming and exploration leading to items that wouldn't have helped my particular build anyway; but I also ending up missing four bosses. Three of them were clearly optional, but I'm not sure how I missed the fourth one. I think I survived a fall that I shouldn't have and ended up sequence-breaking that part.

It would be interesting to go back and try again as a magic user, but I have too many other games right now to go back to one I've beaten. Also, as I feared, WoW is taking a lot of my gaming time.

 

[briantw]

Downloading this Deus Ex day one patch has taken the better part of an hour.  Ugh.

[Werthead]

Worth it though, if it's what's made the game run with no problems at all.

Pretty good opening section. I spent 4 hours playing the game and haven't even gone to Interpol HQ yet. I've explored a large chunk of the city, I've got my augs reset, I even bust up a really weird hippy cult living in the sewers completely by random chance, and I've broken into a lot of people's flats in Prague for no real reason.

The opening isn't as good Human Revolution's and the new characters are a bit meh so far, but the actual city hub of Prague is much more interesting than Detroit's. There's a lot more detail that makes the world feel lived in.

They've seriously dialled back on the lunacy of the some of the design though. Nothing like Shanghai getting roofed over and another city built on top of it less than 15 years in the future, for example. Dubai and Prague look pretty much like they do now. Well, Prague actually looks a lot like City 17 from Half-Life 2, but anyway.

Also, this freaked me out.

Something that is annoying:

Your choices from the first game seem to be completey ignored, which is annoying. They should have made it canon that Malik lived, given those people who went nuts and somehow saved her without killing anyone.

[Corvinus85]

Disaster struck in my XCOM2 campaign. I didn't realize that pressing the backspace key would end my turn, I kinda hoped it would stop a soldier's move for some reason. In a retaliation mission which should have been manageable with 6 guys, half of them high rank, I ended my first turn after moving only one guy in the range of enemies, which alerted five enemies to my presence, and left the rest of the squad exposed. And I'm playing the ironman mode, so no backsies. I left the game in disgust before I could watch my entire squad get decimated, and essentially end my campaign. Now I have to start all over again. For the... fourth, fifth time. I lost count 

[Pliskin]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Something that is annoying:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Your choices from the first game seem to be completey ignored, which is annoying. They should have made it canon that Malik lived, given those people who went nuts and somehow saved her without killing anyone.

 

I'm one of those nuts. Are you saying that

Spoiler

Malik is still considered dead anyway? That would seriously piss me off, given that I spent a day or more trying to save her with no kill...

 

[MerenthaClone]

1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

Disaster struck in my XCOM2 campaign. I didn't realize that pressing the backspace key would end my turn, I kinda hoped it would stop a soldier's move for some reason. In a retaliation mission which should have been manageable with 6 guys, half of them high rank, I ended my first turn after moving only one guy in the range of enemies, which alerted five enemies to my presence, and left the rest of the squad exposed. And I'm playing the ironman mode, so no backsies. I left the game in disgust before I could watch my entire squad get decimated, and essentially end my campaign. Now I have to start all over again. For the... fourth, fifth time. I lost count 

You can still probably pull this out.  Seriously.  Go back and evac what members survive that onslaught (grabbing as much gear from dead guys as you can, too).  You'll lose the mission, but that's okay:  unlike XCOM1, you can re-establish contact with the region and get it back.  It'll just cost you some intel.  Save your soldiers and use them as a core to rebuild your a-team, then (if you haven't been already) make sure to train up at least a B- and maybe C-teams.  XCOM2 is totally salvageable after a squadwipe especially if you planned ahead for one, and if you're good about evac-ing, you won't even have a squadwipe.  I evac'd on my first retaliation mission about half of my legendary runs because the soldier levels were worth more to me than the mission success. It might take you some time to fully rebuild, but that's okay too, especially if you're out of the difficult early game.   

Seriously, XCOM2's pretty resilient to losing missions and squadwipes.  How far into the game are you, tech-tree wise?  If you have at least t2 armor/weapons, you're probably fine.  Hire some experienced guys from the base every month, conserve your resources, and you'll be back on your feet in no time.  

[The Anti-Targ]

PSNow coming to  / on PC http://www.pcgamer.com/ps-now-on-pc-leak/

Are you interested?

List of games on PSNow https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/psnow/games/

Every PS3 Ratchet and Clank game, The Last of Us, Uncharted 1-3, all the God of War games (including the PSP and PS2 games), Resistance 3, Infamous, Killzone. 

For people with an interest in playing these who never had access to a PS3 it seems like subbing for at least one month might be worth it. The Last of Us and Uncharted 1-3 would be worth the price of admission alone.

Not for me ofc since I own / have already played all the games on that list I would want to play.

[Corvinus85]

11 hours ago, MerenthaClone said:

You can still probably pull this out.  Seriously.  Go back and evac what members survive that onslaught (grabbing as much gear from dead guys as you can, too).  You'll lose the mission, but that's okay:  unlike XCOM1, you can re-establish contact with the region and get it back.  It'll just cost you some intel.  Save your soldiers and use them as a core to rebuild your a-team, then (if you haven't been already) make sure to train up at least a B- and maybe C-teams.  XCOM2 is totally salvageable after a squadwipe especially if you planned ahead for one, and if you're good about evac-ing, you won't even have a squadwipe.  I evac'd on my first retaliation mission about half of my legendary runs because the soldier levels were worth more to me than the mission success. It might take you some time to fully rebuild, but that's okay too, especially if you're out of the difficult early game.   

Seriously, XCOM2's pretty resilient to losing missions and squadwipes.  How far into the game are you, tech-tree wise?  If you have at least t2 armor/weapons, you're probably fine.  Hire some experienced guys from the base every month, conserve your resources, and you'll be back on your feet in no time.  

Too late, I deleted the campaign, and will start over. But I seriously doubt I will try ironman again. In my experience, the game is not that salvageable. In this particular case I lost 2 soldiers (one of them the SPARK) within two turns, and the rest were in serious trouble. I highly doubt I could have saved many of them. And the few left at the base were already wounded, too. That's what annoys me about the game, the healing process takes too long, and sometimes a soldier takes 3 point damage and is gravely wounded, other times they are only wounded.

I was also two points away from the Avatar project being complete. I was planning to hit a black site after this mission, but I would not have had the manpower to do that mission after this disaster.

And I seldom have resources to buy new recruits. I generally have to save my supplies for equipment upgrades, and occasionally a new facility built. Things were going ok, until I hit the backspace key.  

[Fez]

Been having a lot of fun with my DK in WoW, enough fun that I decided to buy the Legion expansion. Since I'm leveling the old fashioned way (though I did do a few invasions to get some gear chests that I'll open when I hit 100), and in fact I'm staying in Northrend for now even though I hit 80 because I want to go through all the Icecrown content, I used the free 100 boost on a new character so that I could have a Horde alt and be able to see all the pre-launch content  while it was still current. Went Shadow Priest, which is what I played way back when. The class is very different now, not sure I fully understand how it works yet, but I really like the class lore.

And I also created a Demon Hunter just to see what they're like. And jeez, they feel like something out of a completely different game. Between the double jump, gliding, and the dash attack they have so much more mobility than the other characters. I wonder if that's a direction Blizzard will eventually take all the classes. I kind of think they have to. I know Blizzard never really gets balancing right, except the original Starcraft, but I have to think that DHs are just dominating the other melee classes in PvP. Also, old news, but DHs can talk cross-faction to each other, which definitely seems like something that should get opened up to everybody.