Video Games: Now with a Chance to Win a Complimentary Membership to Gambler's Anonymous

[Slurktan]

On 8/5/2018 at 10:21 AM, GallowKnight said:

I just finished Banner Saga 3, I got what I assume is the good ending (or at least one of the better endings). It was very good, just like the two previous ones, although really fucking bleak at times. I wans't too big of the new wave battles and seldom did more than one or tow waves, but otherwise it was good stuff. The whole trilogy is great and Stoic has managed to build a fantasy world that I really like and wouldn't mind visiting again. Plus the games are all just gorgeous as fuck.

I also re-installed Shadowrun Hong Kong again in order to play the mod CalFree In Chains, the concluding chapter to a loose trilogy of mods (also including The Caldecott Caper for Hong Kong and Antumbra Saga for Dragonfall). It was very good and a really impressive showing for a mod. The dialogue and characters could be a bit quirky and iffy at times but the story was really solid and the overall writing surprisingly good. It all feels appropriately Shadowrun. And I love the Shadowrun games so it was just fun to dive back in.

I did not get a "good" ending but I loved it all the same.

Everybody in Aberrang died but Ivar and some of the Ravens lived in a bleak destroyed world.  A lot of that was due to some evidently poor choices but holy the Abeerrang story was awesome. 

[briantw]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Unavowed came out today and got a glowing RPS review, which has put it on my radar.

Thanks for that.  Game looks awesome, and it's been a while since I've played a good point and click.

[Toth]

I didn't play much, but the map surely has changed over the last few years in my Stellaris New Horizons run.

First, the war of the Klingons against the Suliban and Yridians ended the way I expected it to end: With terrible border gore and the Klingon Empire that is but a shell of its former glory: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/180809/a63yiltb.jpg

This is just sad to watch. Though beware, there may be hope: The Klingons recovered astonishingly quickly, forming a coalition with the Husnock Ascendency. Never heard of those? Me neither. I had to look them up and discovered that they were a throwaway empire mentioned in a single early TNG episode that was wiped out by a severely pissed off energy being. Unsurprisingly, I noticed them first when some of their slaving shenanigans caused a refugee crises of three different races seeking asylum in the Federation, now populating two of my colonies. Right now the Husnock are surprisingly powerful, dragged the Klingons back onto their feet and declared war on the Suliban. While Husnock and Suliban duke it out somewhere in the east, the Klingons somehow managed to cobble together a ragtag bunch of Birds of Prey and started to take back their old territories. No matter how this ends, the Federation sits back and grabs the popcorn.

Unfortunately, another possible Federation member is in deep trouble: The Caitians. The Orions and Son'a had formed a defense pact against the Federation, but soon enough it transformed into a standing coalition. Really, it seems to be the time of bad guy coalitions popping up everywhere, the same thing is currently happening in what I am able to see of the Delta quadrant. In any case, because my Federation is too strong to challenge directly, they went after my Federation associates first, among those the Caitians initially seemed the strongest: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/180809/3da6wlms.jpg

But as you can see, the Son'a crushed them rather effortlessly: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/180809/qk35dogj.jpg

This is bad. Really bad. With that, the Orion/Son'a alliance, oddly enough, became the biggest threat to the Federation. With the Klingons broken, Romulans currently embarrassing themselves being unable to capture a single-planet empire because their warbirds are too crappy to take down a starbase, the Cardassians being boxed in on all sides, the Tzenkethi being pitifully weak and the Suliban currently beleaguered by the Husnock... yes, the Son'a are currently in the best position to mess up my pacifist run. That's why I am now very careful in deploying Starfleet against pirates and keep pushing towards my current fleet cap, so that they don't get any dumb ideas.

There are still a bunch of possible Federation members out there, after all. I now gobbled up the Tellarites, with the Bynars being the only ones of my current coalition left. I also now have three protectorates, most notably being the Xindi among them. I'm glad I did, because there are major rifts in technology levels opening u, which causes many small single-planet empires to become protectorates virtually everywhere. Like for example Bajor, that now indeed got swallowed by the Cardassians. History repeats itself, apparently...

In any case, I soon learned that instead of the usual subject integration mechanic of Stellaris, I also have the option to give them Federation membership like with my coalition partners. I'm still in awe just how powerful that mechanic is. You get all their colonies, starbases and mining/research stations, but their home world remains self-governed, therefore not giving you the usual research penalty for having many planets. You still get taxes from them though and can use their starbases. With this the Federation is allowed to have a vast empire, without getting much in terms of research penalties.

Also one frustrating thing: I lost the Enterprise. Already. In 2230. It's still 15 years until she is supposed to launch, but I already lost her in battle against freaking Nausicaan pirates in a cleaning action after taking over the Tellarite worlds. This is more than a little frustrating and I hope they give you an option to rebuild it. Or get a new one. After all I already researched the Constitution Refit. And the Excelsior class. And the Ambassador class...

Yeah, I think I broke the era system.

[GallowKnight]

12 hours ago, Slurktan said:

I did not get a "good" ending but I loved it all the same.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Everybody in Aberrang died but Ivar and some of the Ravens lived in a bleak destroyed world.  A lot of that was due to some evidently poor choices but holy the Abeerrang story was awesome. 

 

Yeah, It think I might have gotten the best ending. It also seems like a missed quite some stuff by doing to well and not needing to return to Aberrang more than once.

[RumHam]

Red Dead Redemption 2 gameplay trailer

I liked the first game but twice now I've tried to replay it and lost interest real quick. It's pretty and plays great but there aren't many ways to interact with the world beyond killing things. 

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, GallowKnight said:

Yeah, It think I might have gotten the best ending. It also seems like a missed quite some stuff by doing to well and not needing to return to Aberrang more than once.

Up to the final battle in Banner Saga 2, and yeah, the difficulty drops off massively from the first game to the second, allowing you to level up massively in comparison (I could only get Alette to Level 3 in the first game but she's coming out of the second at Level 8, on Medium difficulty).

As far as I can tell, you need to get back to Aberran 3-4 times (at least) to get events there to the best outcome, which sounds like I'm going to need to deliberately lose some battles.

Quote

 

 I liked the first game but twice now I've tried to replay it and lost interest real quick. It's pretty and plays great but there aren't many ways to interact with the world beyond killing things. 

 

Alas, this seems to be Rockstar's thing. Making games that almost RPGs but shying away from the number of side-questions, optional missions, variable outcomes and other things you'd expect from an RPG. They do make awesome, huge, single-player focused games though, and this seems to be an endangered species, so I'll take that, especially with GTA6 likely 3-5 years away still.

It would be nice if they confirmed RDR2 for PC though. The inside skinny is that, like GTA5, it will come out 18 months after console release, but pretending it isn't is kind of boring at this stage.

[Mark Antony]

8 hours ago, RumHam said:

Red Dead Redemption 2 gameplay trailer. 

Looks incredible. 

[Slurktan]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Up to the final battle in Banner Saga 2, and yeah, the difficulty drops off massively from the first game to the second, allowing you to level up massively in comparison (I could only get Alette to Level 3 in the first game but she's coming out of the second at Level 8, on Medium difficulty).

As far as I can tell, you need to get back to Aberran 3-4 times (at least) to get events there to the best outcome, which sounds like I'm going to need to deliberately lose some battles.

Weird about how people think different things are difficult.  Like I easily had Rook and Alette level 5 by Einortoft (The place with the bridge) my last playthrough of 1 and didn't find that one hard at all.  And yet I had lots of problems with the Ravens chapters in Saga 2 and problems in 3.  Maybe it's cause I play very aggressive and play all the extra battles?  I have no idea.

[Werthead]

Creative Assembly released the Rise of the Republic expansion for Total War: Rome II today and it's getting pretty good reviews.

Will probably check this one out. Had a lot of issues with Rome II on release (like everyone else) but certainly the core of the game was strong and it'd be interesting to come back to it 5 years on to see how it's holding up.

[The Anti-Targ]

17 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Looks incredible. 

What's really impressive is that looks like the PS4 build, which should technically be the weakest build for the game as the other platforms will have higher max specs (X1X, PC).

[A True Kaniggit]

Aaaaaaaah! For like the tenth time in a row I've gotten the Ghost Signal in Stellaris. How am I supposed to defeat the Prethoryns if they never spawn?

33%, 33%, 33% should be the name of the game. Balance that shit Paradox. 

[Fez]

3 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Aaaaaaaah! For like the tenth time in a row I've gotten the Ghost Signal in Stellaris. How am I supposed to defeat the Prethoryns if they never spawn?

33%, 33%, 33% should be the name of the game. Balance that shit Paradox. 

They may have changed it, but last time I played, the Prethoryns were in the game as the back-up crisis if the AI or Unbidden didn't trigger. Those two have various triggers to get them to happen, while the only trigger for the Prethoryns is that enough time has passed and no other crisis has happened. Which makes them extremely rare, especially since the AI (and most players) love researching the dangerous techs that dramatically increase the changes for the other two.

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

They may have changed it, but last time I played, the Prethoryns were in the game as the back-up crisis if the AI or Unbidden didn't trigger. Those two have various triggers to get them to happen, while the only trigger for the Prethoryns is that enough time has passed and no other crisis has happened. Which makes them extremely rare, especially since the AI (and most players) love researching the dangerous techs that dramatically increase the changes for the other two.

It's still the same. Which make's it a b''''' and a half to get the achievement. Especially since you have to wait until the tail end of a game to find out what the crisis is.

I've considered moving up the start date of the end game to make it less likely the Contingency or Unbidden will spawn, but this runs the risk of not having a strong enough empire to defeat the Prethoryns.

[Luzifer's right hand]

7 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

It's still the same. Which make's it a b''''' and a half to get the achievement. Especially since you have to wait until the tail end of a game to find out what the crisis is.

I've considered moving up the start date of the end game to make it less likely the Contingency or Unbidden will spawn, but this runs the risk of not having a strong enough empire to defeat the Prethoryns.

The best approach is to play devouring swarm.  If you devour the entire galaxy before the endgame date there will be no Contingency/Unbidden triggers.

I would play one of the smaller maps for that.

Edit: Don't research jump drive and avoid scanning debris with it. The safest approach is to scan only enough FE debris to unlock the dark matter tech options. You can scan more than once but in that case you have to keep track of jump drive research and stop before you finish researching it. 

[Meera of Tarth]

I've just started playing Star Trek Online. So far I love the surroundings but I'm not a good gamer so I guess I'll have to struggle a little bit.

[Rhom]

3 hours ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I've just started playing Star Trek Online. So far I love the surroundings but I'm not a good gamer so I guess I'll have to struggle a little bit.

I have played that game off and on for ten years.  Never extensively.  Always fun to get on and mess around.

[Inkdaub]

I just bought Elder Scrolls Online Collection at the XBox store.  This set has Tamriel, Morrowind and Summerset plus some DLCs.  I have played Skyrim but not ESO so thought I would check it out.  Now I'm sitting here watching all this download.  I should have started earlier than midnight I expect.

[Jace, Extat]

13 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

I just bought Elder Scrolls Online Collection at the XBox store.  This set has Tamriel, Morrowind and Summerset plus some DLCs.  I have played Skyrim but not ESO so thought I would check it out.  Now I'm sitting here watching all this download.  I should have started earlier than midnight I expect.

You should beg for a refund. I'm sorry you did this.

[A True Kaniggit]

17 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

I just bought Elder Scrolls Online Collection at the XBox store.  This set has Tamriel, Morrowind and Summerset plus some DLCs.  I have played Skyrim but not ESO so thought I would check it out.  Now I'm sitting here watching all this download.  I should have started earlier than midnight I expect.

Have you watched any gameplay of it? Don't expect it to be anything like Skyrim.

[Inkdaub]

Too late for refunds I'm afraid, I do appreciate the condolences though.  Bright side is I may never even play it.  I have several games in my stack that I bought and never played. 

I'm not comparing it too much to Skyrim.  Skyrim is just my only Elder Scrolls experience is all.  I have a co-worker who loves ESO so we'll see.

I tried to buy a PS4 Pro today but they are apparently sold out everywhere.  Sony stopped sending shipments the guy at Best Buy said.