Video Games 2015: Pillars of Modernity

[Jasta11]

If only I was in the least bit interested in Final Fantasy. Or JRPGs in general for that matter. I suppose set protagonists in RPGs just don't ring with me unless they are gruff killer albinos.

Anyone took at look at those new Steam Machines that Valve released info for? I have no idea why you would buy those, to be quite honest. The baseline is barely better than a PS4 or Xbone and is 500$, and if you want a machine with good specs (meaning it will last you more than 2 years) you need to fork over 1K$ or more. The most expensive one is five freaking thousand dollars. Who are they marketing these for anyway?

The Steam Link gadget, which allows you to link your games to your TV wirelessly, sounds interesting however. I could see myself playing a FPS or RPG that way.

[Proudfeet]

Final Fantasy XV exists and is apparently looking quite good at the moment.

I always felt the Final Fantasy series had the prettiest games of their time. :P

[Fez]

I'm 31 hours in to Blackguards now and nearing the end. Its been a good run. The story didn't quite pick up as much as I hoped, but the combat stayed reasonably interesting throughout. Also, I think it does a really good job of making me feel considerably more powerful than I was at the start while still having many of the battles be brutally hard. Often through making a much greater use of environmental hazards than it did at the start.

Okay, since lowering the graphics requirements of Civ V, I've had a good 10 hours without crashing. I freaking love this game.

Spoilers for length

Started as the Brits in continents mode (which required me to buy an adult diaper but w/e), Marathon setting. Currently have 7 cities: London, York, Nottingham, Hastings, Edinburgh (previously Genoa before I killed them), Leicester (the first name that came to mind as this was a captured city) and Manchester (also captured, is currently a puppet).

Currently within my grasp (i.e., not across Ocean) is Babylon - who suck despite having a huge area to expand in and multiple nearby City states to destroy. Then there's the Polynesians, who I met first and used to be buds with. Then there's the Iroquios. Goddamn I hate them, they have so much space to expand into but they've chosen to hug the coast to the point where they're encroaching on me. For a period of about 20-30 turns they had about 6 units just sat around my cities, doing nothing apart from get in the way. So I took advantage of their war with the Polynesians, took the two cities they had built to piss me off and renamed them. They gave in pretty quickly, despite having given the Polynesians a thrashing.

This puts me vastly ahead of everyone else on this continent. I have no idea what to do next so I've just been building up the land I have and getting trade routes fixed. I may or may not have naval dominance, I can't see the majority of players at this stage - although it's 1000AD nearly.

Spoilers for length

Be careful about overextending yourself. Every city you have increases your technology costs by 5%. Every non-puppet city you have increases your cultural costs by 7%. Every non-puppet city you have increases the cost to build most wonders (since most wonders require every city to have a specific building; for instance you need a coliseum in every city before building the circus maximus). If you're going for a science victory, its usually recommended to not having more than 4 cities. I know that's also the case with cultural victories in the latest expansion, I can't remember for sure if that's way Gods and Kings is as well.

If you're seeking a conquest victory, obviously you need to take cities; but your rule of thumb should be to almost always raze the city, puppet it if its in a great location or has wonders you want, and only take direct control if you absolutely have to (for instance if its a foothold on a new continent and you need to be able to control its production to support the war effort).

Also, you will start to get the warmonger penalty (which mostly just means other Civs will stop agreeing to diplomatic offers, but they will start attacking you if you are weak enough) if you expand to much (particularly against city states). So make sure you have a plan for the endgame if you continue your conquests.

[Inigima]

Anyone else had a look at There Came An Echo? Entirely voice-controlled so far, really neat, works surprisingly well.

[Jasta11]

Anyone else had a look at There Came An Echo? Entirely voice-controlled so far, really neat, works surprisingly well.

I saw a video Totalbiscuit made of it. It looks neat, but I think once the novelty wears off it didn't look like a particularily engaging or deep game.

[Jack Bauer 24]

Anyone play Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1? I just downloaded on PS4.

[The Drunkard]

Been watching some of Man Bear Pig Gaming's videos (DayZ ones and the PZ Coop ones) and they're quite funny. Meeting Jack the Dog was such a strange thing.

Anyone play Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1? I just downloaded on PS4.

Good game.

[Muttering Bill]

I rented The Order: 1886 for the weekend.

It was... pretty good. It took only 7 hours to beat (that's with getting stuck on a stealth mission for a bit) and about half of it was cutscenes. The QTE's didn't really bother me. The story was rather cliché and predictable, but I did enjoy the way it was presented. And it looks incredible.

Overall I liked it, but I didn't $60 liked it.

Also picked up Helldivers and Freedom Wars. Have only sampled them, but so far they are both good.

[KiDisaster]

I've reinstalled and restarted The Witcher 2. I'm going to fucking finish it this time.

I will not allow myself to play 3 until I finish 2.

Game ADD will not hold me back this time. Must not get distracted by other games.

I rented The Order: 1886 for the weekend.

That's what I'm hoping to eventually do but none of the Redbox machines around here have started stocking PS4/XBone games yet and all the Blockbusters are gone. Never thought I'd be wishing for a Blockbuster again :lol:

Oh well, I can wait until it hits the bargain bin if nothing else. Not exactly dying to play it.

[Fez]

Finished Blackguards. Fun game. I recommend it to anyone in the mood for a tactical RPG, next time its on sale. Be warned though, the ending completely falls apart. The point of no return starts off great. There's 5 battles in a row (there's time to rest in between, but no merchants or trainers) that get progessively harder; followed by 13 more battles in groups of 3 or 4 (which you can't rest between, but at least there's a merchant/trainer after each group) that, in a twist from the rest of the game, all have two different win conditions and you choose which to do. And most of them are hard. Then there's a battle where

one party member may or may not betray you, depending on your choices throughout the game

which actually isn't that hard but that graphically is a cut above everything else (those backgrounds are crazy). Then there's the final battle, which feels a little mundane but is incredibly hard. And then, I have no idea.

There's very little plot during those 20 (!!) battles after the point of no return, except for that spoiler. But that's fine, at this point the plot is clear and you're just in 'reach the final boss at the end of this place' mode. The thing is, after the final battle is done, I have literally no idea what happened.

I think the main character may have had a heroic sacrifice, which is boring and completely out of character (over the course of the main story and side quests you become a thief, false-accuser, torturer, assassin, and slaver; the 'Blackguard' title is quite appropriate, and you aren't the self-sacrifice type of person), but whatever, lots of games like that kind of ending.

However, I actually don't know for sure if that's what happened, the final cutscene is so short and confusing that it doesn't explain anything. It is considerably worse then Mass Effect 3's original ending, although I don't care quite as much because the story was never as important in this one.

[jurble]

If anyone playing WoW in the US wants to raid, my guild is currently in desperate need of some DPS. We're on US-Burning Legion which is attached to Agamaggan, Archimonde, Jaedenar and TheUnderbog and raid Monday/Tuesday at 8 Central time. Raids are hard-capped at 3 hours. Currently 8/10 Normal BRF and 4/10 HBRF. Can contact me at Condottiere#1870 or visit our site and make a post on our forum.

[Werthead]

Shadows of Mordor was a huge disappointment. The Nemesis System was a great idea, but the rest of the game was far too thin to really support it. And you can't call it an open world game when the open world is far smaller than most action game linear levels. Some really bizarre choices. Fun in parts, but far too much QTE-overloaded waffle to wade through to get to the good bits.

Back to Wasteland 2. Had gotten massively stuck trying to make peace with the Red Skorpions in the prison. This time went straight through it, made peace with them and was in LA (into the second half of the game) five minutes later. That was more straightforward than expected. Hope I can complete the game now before GTA5 and Pillars of Eternity hit.

[The Anti-Targ]

Shadows of Mordor was a huge disappointment. The Nemesis System was a great idea, but the rest of the game was far too thin to really support it. And you can't call it an open world game when the open world is far smaller than most action game linear levels. Some really bizarre choices. Fun in parts, but far too much QTE-overloaded waffle to wade through to get to the good bits.

Back to Wasteland 2. Had gotten massively stuck trying to make peace with the Red Skorpions in the prison. This time went straight through it, made peace with them and was in LA (into the second half of the game) five minutes later. That was more straightforward than expected. Hope I can complete the game now before GTA5 and Pillars of Eternity hit.

I somewhat agree with your SoM analysis, but I liked the game a lot more than you did. But I don't mind QTE's having grown up with God of War.

I am happy to see Wasteland 2 coming to PS4. My PC would probably be able to handle the game at lowest settings, but the PS4 version will probably play much better. Though I wonder if KB+M is a much more satisfying UI. So I am somewhat in the fence about PC or PS4 for this. Also price will be a factor. But it is good to have the choice of platforms.

[The Anti-Targ]

Anyone play Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1? I just downloaded on PS4.

Yeah, I really liked Season 1. It pretty much turned me into a Tell Tale fan. I've now got GoT and Tales from the Borderlands, and I bought the Season pass for both, while they were at a significant PSN+ discount a few weeks back. So glad to see Episode 2 for TftB will be out next week.

Here is a small semi-spoiler. It doesn't tell you anything of the who or how or why, but you will feel a bit spoiled when you reach the relevant point in the game, so I am putting it in spoiler tags:

there are 2 friendly characters who's deaths you cannot avoid, so don't try replaying certain scenes to try to change the outcome.

[Maithanet]

This is only sort of on topic, but on a recent visit to NYC one of my friends broke out his N64 and we had a great time playing mariokart and Super Smash Brothers. I looked into just buying these for myself, but the price of these has skyrocketed. I'm willing to pay for it, but that is just ridiculous. Is there a legal way to play these games without having to shell out hundreds of bucks? Do Wii emulators work (and are they ever legal?)

[Stalker]

This is only sort of on topic, but on a recent visit to NYC one of my friends broke out his N64 and we had a great time playing mariokart and Super Smash Brothers. I looked into just buying these for myself, but the price of these has skyrocketed. I'm willing to pay for it, but that is just ridiculous. Is there a legal way to play these games without having to shell out hundreds of bucks? Do Wii emulators work (and are they ever legal?)

Emulators are obviously legal. In some cases they require data from an original consoles, often called BIOS or such, in which case you need to own a copy of the console in order to legally obtain that data. However, this doesn't solve your problem: you still have to pay for the games. I believe those titles have releases on every generation, so I guess the wii versions should be readily available.

[Maithanet]

Emulators are obviously legal. In some cases they require data from an original consoles, often called BIOS or such, in which case you need to own a copy of the console in order to legally obtain that data. However, this doesn't solve your problem: you still have to pay for the games. I believe those titles have releases on every generation, so I guess the wii versions should be readily available.

When you say that they have releases in every generation, do you mean that I can play MarioKart 64 or that I can play something like MarioKart Wii? Because I've played the newer games and maybe I'm just turning into an old fogey, but they are not as appealing to me.

[Stalker]

When you say that they have releases in every generation, do you mean that I can play MarioKart 64 or that I can play something like MarioKart Wii? Because I've played the newer games and maybe I'm just turning into an old fogey, but they are not as appealing to me.

The latter. But I'm really not the person to ask about mariokart. There are emulators for everything from the wii and back to the NES. Seems like you should be able to find a version you both like and are willing to pay for.

[Jack Bauer 24]

Yeah, I really liked Season 1. It pretty much turned me into a Tell Tale fan. I've now got GoT and Tales from the Borderlands, and I bought the Season pass for both, while they were at a significant PSN+ discount a few weeks back. So glad to see Episode 2 for TftB will be out next week.

Here is a small semi-spoiler. It doesn't tell you anything of the who or how or why, but you will feel a bit spoiled when you reach the relevant point in the game, so I am putting it in spoiler tags:

there are 2 friendly characters who's deaths you cannot avoid, so don't try replaying certain scenes to try to change the outcome.

I haven't opened that spoiler, but I finished Episode 2 last night and I'm really enjoying it. I've also played the 2 episodes so far for GoT. How does TWD Season 2 compare to the first season? I'll probably get it after I finish Season 1.

[RumHam]

This is only sort of on topic, but on a recent visit to NYC one of my friends broke out his N64 and we had a great time playing mariokart and Super Smash Brothers. I looked into just buying these for myself, but the price of these has skyrocketed. I'm willing to pay for it, but that is just ridiculous. Is there a legal way to play these games without having to shell out hundreds of bucks? Do Wii emulators work (and are they ever legal?)

I don't think a Wii emulator would work very well because how would you handle the motion control? It seems like you want an N64 emulator anyway. One legal option could be to get a used Wii or a Wii U and download the virtual console version of the N64 game.