Video Games: A Far Cry From E3

[briantw]

27 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

It's really fantastic overall. 

Thankfully the story of the previous games isn't anything that can't be easily summed up. Just read the wikipedia pages or watch one of the many recap videos on YouTube and you'll know all you need to know. Or don't, this game doesn't rely on you knowing what happened before but I do think it helps with context to have at least a basic idea.

Did God of War 3 even have a story?  I basically remember it as Kratos just going around killing a string of gods in hilarious ways for dubious reasons. 

[KiDisaster]

49 minutes ago, briantw said:

Did God of War 3 even have a story?  I basically remember it as Kratos just going around killing a string of gods in hilarious ways for dubious reasons. 

Heh, it's been so long I don't even remember specifically what happens in which game, just the bare bones of what happened. 

[Red Tiger]

I give GOW a 8/10. Great, but game of the generation? Nah.

[Fez]

Played a game of Frostpunk, a fantastic, city-building survival game. Its tense and exciting and looks and sounds great. The only downside is that if you know what you're doing it's really not that hard to be in a good enough position that you never need to engage with all the dark moral choices that really make the game unique.

So, sure, I implemented child labor, the ability to order emergency work shifts, work foremen, guard towers and watchposts, a prison, and a propaganda center, etc. (there's a religious route you can go instead of 'order')

But I never implemented brothels or duels, didn't require medical centers to triage the sick, didn't use the dead for any purposes (they had nice funerals in fact), didn't implement prison beatings, didn't require loyalty oaths, and I never even got close enough to "the line" to see what it was, much less cross it. And I always had enough of the various supplies that I never needed to cut off food or heat to anyone, and I accepted all refugee groups that I encountered (though sometimes only the healthy were allowed in).

And this was my first game; I'm sure someone who really knows what they're doing could've beaten it without even needing to do the few things that I did have to do.

[Werthead]

28 minutes ago, Fez said:

Played a game of Frostpunk, a fantastic, city-building survival game. Its tense and exciting and looks and sounds great. The only downside is that if you know what you're doing it's really not that hard to be in a good enough position that you never need to engage with all the dark moral choices that really make the game unique.

It's from the same team who made This War of Mine, a fantastic but utterly bleak survival game. I think they got the memo to turn down the unyielding darkness and bleakness for this game because so many people stopped playing This War of Mine as they found it really too much.

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, Werthead said:

It's from the same team who made This War of Mine, a fantastic but utterly bleak survival game. I think they got the memo to turn down the unyielding darkness and bleakness for this game because so many people stopped playing This War of Mine as they found it really too much.

Lil' bitches.

People need to read more. They're so fucking sensitive to emotional trauma, even the vicarious sort.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Conan Exiles (survival game) is releases on console tomorrow after a year or so on PC early access.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 5/4/2018 at 11:36 PM, Pony Empress Jace said:

First, you crazy. I love watching the animations (when I'm shooting, mostly).

Second, because it was on sale on Steam I bought this damn Xcom2 and all its expansions you keep moaning on about. And I swear if one pixel of this game doesn't make my eyeballs sigh then you're going to look back fondly on the days when @Tywin et al. 's ass was the only one you were eating out.

 

Hey now, don't go spilling seakwets about me! I've got them on you too, but I would never tell people that you like wearing a tight, zippered leather suit between the sheets. I'd never do it. 

[Jace, Extat]

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hey now, don't go spilling seakwets about me! I've got them on you too, but I would never tell people that you like wearing a tight, zippered leather suit between the sheets. I'd never do it. 

For the last time.

IT'S FUCKING LYCRA!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 minutes ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

For the last time.

IT'S FUCKING LYCRA!

You wore it well though! 

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hey now, don't go spilling seakwets about me! I've got them on you too, but I would never tell people that you like wearing a tight, zippered leather suit between the sheets. I'd never do it. 

Bring out the gimp.

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

You wore it well though! 

Thank you! I didn't think you had a good view, all chained up in the closet and whatnot.

[The Drunkard]

I started playing CK2 again, this time as a custom doux of Sicily at the 769 starting date, using a steam mod that makes Africa more detailed. Within this initial ruler's lifetime I've stolen all the counties within Sicily and added them to my demesne, seceded from the ERE, taken the nearby African duchies in holy wars and taken enough counties from the Lombards in southern Italy to create the Kingdom of Sicily. I've married into the Lombard ruling dynasty so my plan is to put my wife (or possibly mother at that point) on the throne when an opportunity arises, at which point my king will control the entire peninsula and much of Africa. 

My long-term goal is to worm my way into the Byzantine ruling dynasty, get a claim on the empire and then take over. With my western holdings and the byzantine lands in the east I shouldn't be far off recreating the complete Roman Empire at that point.

Basically the entirety of western and central Europe is being run by a battle-hardened hunchback dwarf, incidentally. The vassals of King Karloman of East Francia rebelled in order to put King Karl of West Francia on the throne, and they won. Karl legitimised his son, Pepin, and then died soon after without leaving any male heir. Throughout Pepin's rule he finished Karl's invasion of Saxony and Denmark, took some land in Spain via holy war, helped an Umayyad vassal secede and put down Widukind's rebellion, so his vassals mostly love him (other than the pagan ones). 

[Kalbear]

Starting playing around with Phoenix Point. The UI is a bit clunky, but the targeting is pretty awesome, as is blowing things apart accidentally (and occasionally accidentally shooting my own guys). 

[Corvinus85]

31 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Starting playing around with Phoenix Point. The UI is a bit clunky, but the targeting is pretty awesome, as is blowing things apart accidentally (and occasionally accidentally shooting my own guys). 

You have the beta?

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

You have the beta?

It's, like, a pre-alpha, but yeah. Haven't gotten a lot of time to play with it, but from what I've done it's really solid. It's interesting being able to target like a tiny bit of a thing and have cover actually really matter as far as being able to hit things. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Starting playing around with Phoenix Point. The UI is a bit clunky, but the targeting is pretty awesome, as is blowing things apart accidentally (and occasionally accidentally shooting my own guys). 

This is my #1 game I'm interested in playing this year. It looks a really strong evolution of the XCOM formula from the guy who created it.

I'm also interested in Phantom Doctrine, which is a stealth-focused XCOM-'em-up from the makers of Hard West (which was XCOM in the Weird West and pretty good, although a bit rough around the edges).

With BattleTech borrowing a lot from XCOM, this is clearly the year for lovers of turn-based tactical games.

[Corvinus85]

I am definitely willing to give Phoenix Point a try when it's released. 

Right now I am alternating between BattleTech and Thrones of Britannia, with more time on BattleTech.

Also, has anyone tried Spellforce 3? The game was reported to be really buggy at release, but there have been several patches since. I am considering getting it whenever the summer steam sale begins.

[Werthead]

On 5/8/2018 at 10:30 PM, Corvinus said:

I am definitely willing to give Phoenix Point a try when it's released. 

Right now I am alternating between BattleTech and Thrones of Britannia, with more time on BattleTech.

Also, has anyone tried Spellforce 3? The game was reported to be really buggy at release, but there have been several patches since. I am considering getting it whenever the summer steam sale begins.

How are you finding Thrones of Britannia? I've bounced hard off the recent Total Wars as everything seems dumbed down and streamlined to the point where the game refuses to let me play the game logically, to the point where I went back to where I left off following the series religiously (with Medieval II) and have been playing catch-up because it's easier to track the changes game-to-game then when I jumped into Warhammer and found the rules almost impenetrable by comparison. I completed Empire and am planning a Napoleon campaign next.

[Corvinus85]

14 minutes ago, Werthead said:

How are you finding Thrones of Britannia? I've bounced hard off the recent Total Wars as everything seems dumbed down and streamlined to the point where the game refuses to let me play the game logically, to the point where I went back to where I left off following the series religiously (with Medieval II) and have been playing catch-up because it's easier to track the changes game-to-game then when I jumped into Warhammer and found the rules almost impenetrable by comparison. I completed Empire and am planning a Napoleon campaign next.

I haven't played that much to fully form an opinion, however a few things I can say:

    There is noticeable effort to be faithful to the era and cultures presented. Of course, that means that you don't have much diversity on the battlefield, and cavalry is there mainly to outflank and mop up; expect the battles to be largely the same as in Attila, since this a spinoff of that game; siege battles may be improved, but don't quote me on that, that's only what I've seen from reviewers. On the other hand, I don't expect much from naval battles, because there are no naval units. Everyone just has longships, and the land units fight on the sea; of course, there are some culture differences here - everyone, but the Vikings, suffer from sea sickness, so the Vikings probably have advantages

     The campaign is where the biggest changes are from Rome 2/Attila, and I believe it makes the game more challenging overall. 

• Each culture has some unique mechanics, agents have been removed entirely, thus no more agent spam.
• Recruiting is done in a manner to simulate a call to arms, meaning you are limited by how many units of a certain type you can recruit by different factors, and the units raised start depleted, gaining full numbers over time, so you really have to plan out how and when you raise an army
• each province has a major settlement and several minor settlements that are borderline villages, without garrisons. Only the main settlement has an automatic garrison, the rest have to be defended with the raised armies. Furthermore, armies now are dependent on food, not just money, so losing villages that produce food can really hurt a faction.
• The family/nobility system is more complex, with intrigue actions playing a bigger role, making this the closest TW to Crusader Kings II.
• Diplomacy still sucks in general.

There are other changes that I haven't fully explored yet.