Video Games: Shadow of the Rise of the Live Madden War III- HD Remaster

[Ran]

There's a name I've not heard in a long time. I used to admire how much people got into it ... until I took an arrow to the knee.

[Werthead]

It was a solid game, although perhaps just a tad overrated at the time. Never had a massive urge to go back and replay it. I see I put 150 hours into it (which is about a tenth of some people) and saw pretty much every single thing it could do.

I have been developing a hankering to replay Fallout 3 recently though, so maybe it'll just take a few more years.

What is remarkable is that seven years after Skyrim, one of the biggest-selling individual games of all time, Bethesda are still not really close to releasing a sequel. Elder Scrolls VI, on their current schedule, will be lucky to be out before 2023 at the earliest.

[Ran]

The one genre I pretty much never cared for were CRPGs (and this despite doing a bit of tabletop RP, and of course on-line). I played a bit of Wizardy VII, I recall, and there was some sort of dungeon crawl on NES(!) but other than that... I tend to find them all too fiddly, too much in the way of mechanics or hack-and-slash that gets in the way of the story part of things. The Quest for Glory games, which were hybrid adventure and CRPG, were about as far as I could go.

[Altherion]

11 hours ago, Werthead said:

Another issue was that if you're making a Baldur's Gate-style game, it helps if your game is actually better from at least a UI and gameplay perspective than Baldur's Gate (a 20-year-old game!). Instead these games were fiddly, less intuitive and less reactive. Since you had Beamdog coming along and simply remastering and releasing the BG, Icewind Dale and Planescape games, and those games are still simply vastly superior to Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland and Tides of Numenera, it did leave the whole exercise feel pointless, if well-intentioned.

Yes, this was pretty strange. I can understand that elements such as story, characters and humor are difficult to do better simply by looking at what came before, but they screwed up quite a few things either by trying to fix something that clearly wasn't broken or by learning entirely the wrong lesson from the old games. I followed their forums for a while and they had rationales for what they did, but the new games had to be better than the old ones and, though there are some people who dispute this, they weren't even as good.

[Wolfgang I]

I'm playing the original dungeon keeper right now. Got it for free from EA(origin) at some point.

It uses DOSbox and runs flawlessly on Windows 10 which was a surprise(I can't run the GOG version of a lot of games without downloading extra stuff for example). 

Still a fun game and surprisingly good UI/controls for such an old game.

[Rhom]

I bought Diablo 3 for the Switch.  My 8 year old and I killed the Skeleton King last night together playing couch co-op.

Moments like this are why I had kids...

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, Wolfgang I said:

I'm playing the original dungeon keeper right now. Got it for free from EA(origin) at some point.

It uses DOSbox and runs flawlessly on Windows 10 which was a surprise(I can't run the GOG version of a lot of games without downloading extra stuff for example). 

Still a fun game and surprisingly good UI/controls for such an old game.

Bullfrog may be the greatest development studio of the 1990s (alongside LucasArts) for this. Their games stand up brilliantly now, even the older Syndicate. Dungeon Keeper II is also excellent. Have you played Two Point Hospital? It's made by veteran Bullfroggers and is a modern version of Theme Hospital. Fantastic game.

 

Quote

 

The one genre I pretty much never cared for were CRPGs (and this despite doing a bit of tabletop RP, and of course on-line). I played a bit of Wizardy VII, I recall, and there was some sort of dungeon crawl on NES(!) but other than that... I tend to find them all too fiddly, too much in the way of mechanics or hack-and-slash that gets in the way of the story part of things. The Quest for Glory games, which were hybrid adventure and CRPG, were about as far as I could go.

 

 

 

It's a bit of a stretch to call the Fallout or Elder Scrolls games "CRPGs" (at least past Morrowind and Fallout 2). They're action games with dialogue choices and some stats, which have become less relevant with each game. The highwater mark for CRPGs were games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Anachronox, Final Fantasy VII-IX and Knights of the Old Republic. Probably the best recent one, although it's still an action-CRPG hybrid, is The Witcher 3 (brilliant, brilliant storytelling though, particularly the Robert Baratheon-esque story of the Bloody Baron).

[Ramsay B.]

I finally killed off the Queen Valkyrie in God of War. I tried to kill her like 15 times(on hard mode)when I was an 8 and just couldn’t so I had to level up all my gear and get to a 9... then beat her on like the 3rd try. This game really lived up to the hype and was lots of fun. I’ll probably give the new game plus mode a go one day.

Now it’s on to RDR2. 

[The Anti-Targ]

On 11/13/2018 at 11:18 AM, Ramsay B. said:

I finally killed off the Queen Valkyrie in God of War. I tried to kill her like 15 times(on hard mode)when I was an 8 and just couldn’t so I had to level up all my gear and get to a 9... then beat her on like the 3rd try. This game really lived up to the hype and was lots of fun. I’ll probably give the new game plus mode a go one day.

Now it’s on to RDR2. 

There's youtubes of a guy beating every Valkyrie with level 1 gear (weapons and abilities at end game power though), taking zero damage (of course, because at level 1 every Valkyrie will one shot you). Impressive stuff, but each Valkyrie takes ages because Kratos does so little damage to them with Lvl 1 gear.

[Meera of Tarth]

On 11/12/2018 at 10:33 PM, Werthead said:

Bullfrog may be the greatest development studio of the 1990s (alongside LucasArts) for this. Their games stand up brilliantly now, even the older Syndicate. Dungeon Keeper II is also excellent. Have you played Two Point Hospital? It's made by veteran Bullfroggers and is a modern version of Theme Hospital. Fantastic game.

 

Is there a new version of Theme Hospital?
Oh...I have vivid memories of that onee

[Ramsay B.]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

There's youtubes of a guy beating every Valkyrie with level 1 gear (weapons and abilities at end game power though), taking zero damage (of course, because at level 1 every Valkyrie will one shot you). Impressive stuff, but each Valkyrie takes ages because Kratos does so little damage to them with Lvl 1 gear.

Jeez, I gotta look that up. My friends and I joke about how the internet, and mainly YouTube, has shown us just how incredibly average we are at video games. 

[The Grey Wolf]

On 11/12/2018 at 4:18 PM, Ramsay B. said:

Text 

I beat her on normal but oh was it satisfying. Honestly, I haven't fought a series of bosses as rewarding as the Valkyries in a while, which reminds me that I still need to beat DS2: SOTFS on my PS3.

[The Anti-Targ]

12 minutes ago, Ramsay B. said:

Jeez, I gotta look that up. My friends and I joke about how the internet, and mainly YouTube, has shown us just how incredibly average we are at video games. 

Also he did it on ultra hard mode.

I only beat 2 Valkyries (the easy ones I imagine), and then went to Muspelheim and got my arse handed to me multiple times. So I gave it up as too much like hard work. My son beat all the Valkyries, I think on normal mode, but I don't want to denigrate his skills, so I will say that I think he might have played on hard.

Also kind of old news (2 weeks old). But the MediEvil remake looks brilliant. I can't think of a game I'm anticipating more, and that includes TLOU2.

[A True Kaniggit]

Decided to play some Crusader Kings II for the first time in half a year since the new update came out yesterday.

150 years in and we won the crusade for Greece. The Picts set up a petty kingdom based around Epirus and my Frisian king put one of his grandsons on the Greek throne. That'll teach those Pagan Greeks.

Edit: Well that was depressing.

Around 370 years in my current character was 70 . His son died of sickness at 49 and a few months later the 70 y/o dies of old age. So his grandson inherits but is killed in battle within 3 months. So then his 14 year old son inherits but is murdered before the year is out. 

4 generations of rulers dead in about a year and game over.

Edited November 15, 2018 by A True Kaniggit

[Corvinus]

I've been playing TW: Warhammer II again, since they've added yet another faction pack, The Vampire Coast. Unlike the Vampire Counts, these undead use a lot of artillery and gunpowder units, but they sacrifice mobility, with only a few aerial units that can move about quickly, and no cavalry. But they have some powerful monster units. While the campaign mechanics are really interesting - you can unlock regiments of renown by defeating rogue fleets, search for buried treasure hoards, instead of conquering cities you have the option to establish pirate coves and profit from other factions' output, and you have to find the verses of an old shanty to then fight these huge sea beast - the faction suffers from the lack of naval battles. They did introduce "island battles" - instead of auto-resolving sea engagements, you can have a land battle on a small island. It's not the same, and the terrain on those small islands doesn't always do the Vampire Coast any favors.

[Rhom]

Got a class action settlement check for $10.07 for the PS3 operating system snafu.

Man... don’t know what I will do with this windfall!!!

[Simon Steele]

So my son wants a Switch for Christmas. I'm fairly strapped this year, so I am wondering--what do I need to buy with it that doesn't come with the console. I'm guessing the console bundle game it gets this Black Friday won't be of the most interest to him, so here is what I know:

Console

Game

SD card (I hear?)

Travel case

Am I missing anything? Anything on this list not necessary? I didn't think of the case until I read about the portability of the Switch.

[Kalbear]

You dont need a travel case. 

[Rhom]

I didn’t need a Micro SD card until I downloaded Diablo 3.  I have a handful of games downloaded and the rest are physical copies.  I managed to get a 128 GB one for $20 at Best Buy the other night.  It was a crazy bargain for some reason.

I would recommend an extra pair of Joycons.  If the budget allows, there is a charger that doubles as a controller grip.

[The Grey Wolf]

5 hours ago, Rhom said:

Got a class action settlement check for $10.07 for the PS3 operating system snafu.

Man... don’t know what I will do with this windfall!!!

What PS3 operating snafu?!