Exactly, it should have been amazing.
figmentPez
Staff member
I'd be finished with Secret of Mana by now if I hadn't decided to collect all the weapon orbs. Holy crap, I'd forgotten just how ridiculously rare these drops are. They're completely optional, but now I remember why I've never gotten a full set before. I've still got one last Glove Orb to get, and it could take a while. While trying to farm the last Axe Orb, the common drop from that enemy is a vampire cloak. I must have gotten enough of those to outfit an entire White Wolf convention. I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing this, other than I feel determined to finally do so.
Last edited:
Played about 10 hours of Ghost Recon Wildlands with some friends, coop is fun but untimately it's a pass for me.
Basically another "Ubisoft" game. Big "open world" with nothing to do other than collect garbage.
Skill system is garbage with no special specs.
Plays badly, vehicles drive as if you're drunk.
Basically another "Ubisoft" game. Big "open world" with nothing to do other than collect garbage.
Skill system is garbage with no special specs.
Plays badly, vehicles drive as if you're drunk.
GasBandit
Staff member
So I hopped into Empyrion today, after a long absence, just to maybe fiddle around and see what the last few patches have changed. I logged into my friend's server (which he, too, hasn't played in a while) and found that, for some reason, I had last been in my smallest capital ship, the Sky Bitch, on Akua - the starting world - near my old tiny base there. Our faction's main base (where I'd parked all my nice ships, and where most of our resources and manufacturing capabilities were concentrated) is over on Omicron. And for some bizarre reason, my ship's jump drive had been completely depleted of the pentaxid crystals it needed for fuel to make hyperjumps.
Well, I figured, that would only be a minor inconvenience, pentaxid is abundant on Akua's moon, so I could just swing by, get some there, process it into fuel, then jump to Omicron.
It hadn't even occurred to me other players might be on the server, and that they might attack me. The moon is a PVP playfield.
And sure enough..
As soon as I got close to the surface after spotting a cluster of pentaxid crystals, my turrets opened fire on something I couldn't see. Maybe that should have made me more cautious, but the game is still pretty buggy, and it didn't occur to me that it could be anything worse than an NPC drone, which would easily be handled by the relatively light armament of my ship.
After a cursory investigation of what the heck my turrets were shooting at, I gave a mental shrug and decided to just grab the crystals and get out of there.
No sooner did I make it back inside my ship than all my turrets suddenly went crazy again. Heading back outside, I was surprised to find a large capital ship bearing down on me, blazing away with heavy plasma cannons - weapons far more powerful than my paltry 30mm turrets and rocket defenses.
I scrambled back inside and onto the bridge, lifted off and started evasive maneuvers while I raced for orbit.
Apparently, when I was upgrading the armor on the ship, I must have neglected a small patch on the aft shuttle deck. A few shots I didn't manage to dodge hit that soft section, blew me open, and also managed to trash my jump drive. I suppose I'm lucky it didn't hit the central core - if that goes, the ship is dead in the water, and ownership is lost - Sky Bitch would have become a drifting derelict, and I would have been marooned in space with no way to effect repairs.
So, counting myself lucky, I got her back to Akua, and managed to patch up the jump drive and most of the holes in the hull. Really, just enough to get her spaceworthy again. I jumped to Omicron, parked her on the landing pad and did a more thorough inspection.
Unfortunately, I think the Bitch has tasted her last of the sky. The enemy's plasma cannons tore open the aft dorsal section of the hull and wrought havoc upon the internals, turning it into mostly a confused mess. I tried using the game's new "repair bay" blocks, but discovered another bug with them that prevented them from repairing the ship. To do the repairs by hand the old fashioned way would easily eat up 10 or 20 hours, and I don't have the patience - not when I have more capital ships already parked, and building them using the blueprint system rarely takes more than 3 hours.
So, instead, I used the afternoon putting an extra layer of heavy combat armor on the Westward Ho. Won't get caught with my pants down again.
Well, I figured, that would only be a minor inconvenience, pentaxid is abundant on Akua's moon, so I could just swing by, get some there, process it into fuel, then jump to Omicron.
It hadn't even occurred to me other players might be on the server, and that they might attack me. The moon is a PVP playfield.
And sure enough..
As soon as I got close to the surface after spotting a cluster of pentaxid crystals, my turrets opened fire on something I couldn't see. Maybe that should have made me more cautious, but the game is still pretty buggy, and it didn't occur to me that it could be anything worse than an NPC drone, which would easily be handled by the relatively light armament of my ship.
After a cursory investigation of what the heck my turrets were shooting at, I gave a mental shrug and decided to just grab the crystals and get out of there.
No sooner did I make it back inside my ship than all my turrets suddenly went crazy again. Heading back outside, I was surprised to find a large capital ship bearing down on me, blazing away with heavy plasma cannons - weapons far more powerful than my paltry 30mm turrets and rocket defenses.
I scrambled back inside and onto the bridge, lifted off and started evasive maneuvers while I raced for orbit.
Apparently, when I was upgrading the armor on the ship, I must have neglected a small patch on the aft shuttle deck. A few shots I didn't manage to dodge hit that soft section, blew me open, and also managed to trash my jump drive. I suppose I'm lucky it didn't hit the central core - if that goes, the ship is dead in the water, and ownership is lost - Sky Bitch would have become a drifting derelict, and I would have been marooned in space with no way to effect repairs.
So, counting myself lucky, I got her back to Akua, and managed to patch up the jump drive and most of the holes in the hull. Really, just enough to get her spaceworthy again. I jumped to Omicron, parked her on the landing pad and did a more thorough inspection.
Unfortunately, I think the Bitch has tasted her last of the sky. The enemy's plasma cannons tore open the aft dorsal section of the hull and wrought havoc upon the internals, turning it into mostly a confused mess. I tried using the game's new "repair bay" blocks, but discovered another bug with them that prevented them from repairing the ship. To do the repairs by hand the old fashioned way would easily eat up 10 or 20 hours, and I don't have the patience - not when I have more capital ships already parked, and building them using the blueprint system rarely takes more than 3 hours.
So, instead, I used the afternoon putting an extra layer of heavy combat armor on the Westward Ho. Won't get caught with my pants down again.
Last edited:
Genuinely the worst part of a great game.
The only QTE in that game which I forgive is when the Spanish Napoleon guy's statue is chasing Leon.
I also dig the knife fight QTE... if only for cluing you into the fact that your knife is the best weapon to use against that boss.
Yeah, the knife fucks him up BAD. Otherwise he's a fast, hard hitting bullet sponge.
It's more than that: your knife goes through his shield. Without that, he can't even avoid getting hit.
My nose is itchy and I'm on this mine cart. I've cleared it of Ganados, there shouldn't be any issue with me taking A SINGLE MOMENT to scratch.
"YOU ARE DEAD. START THIS GOD DAMN MINE CART AGAIN IDIOT!"
Fuck.
Leon's knife, by the way, seems to be based on a Mercworx Sniper, but modified with serrations near the base of the blade, and a vastly different grip.
After deleting Ghost recon and laughing how bad Ubisoft is, I started (FINALLY), to play a backed game of mine, Pillars of Eternity.
I'm about 15 hours in now.
It's a lot like Baldur's Gate albeit with new lore and mechanics. It's a nice game and I like the changes I'm seeing.
One of my major pet peeves are most of these skills are pure rubbish. When you level up, it reminds me of another game, can quite place it. The new skills though... ugh.
Some are clearly OP and the rest is like "use this skills when someone is about to die so they're only knocked out". What.
Another huge pet peeve (which I fully am a backer) is the fucking deluge of backer NPCs sprinkled fucking everywhere. In every cave there's tombstone or three with 50 names of backers. I find this very anti-immersive.
I see a named NPC with a normal and click him and boom, watcher graphics and FLASHBACK of said NPC cooking dinner with wife. Why would I care? I don't know.
It just makes it seem amateurish.
It's a good game, not great... good. Hope the next one is better.
I'm about 15 hours in now.
It's a lot like Baldur's Gate albeit with new lore and mechanics. It's a nice game and I like the changes I'm seeing.
One of my major pet peeves are most of these skills are pure rubbish. When you level up, it reminds me of another game, can quite place it. The new skills though... ugh.
Some are clearly OP and the rest is like "use this skills when someone is about to die so they're only knocked out". What.
Another huge pet peeve (which I fully am a backer) is the fucking deluge of backer NPCs sprinkled fucking everywhere. In every cave there's tombstone or three with 50 names of backers. I find this very anti-immersive.
I see a named NPC with a normal and click him and boom, watcher graphics and FLASHBACK of said NPC cooking dinner with wife. Why would I care? I don't know.
It just makes it seem amateurish.
It's a good game, not great... good. Hope the next one is better.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is pretty damn good so far. Admittedly I'm only just past the bulk of the tutorials at this point and have only just opened up the main world proper. I found an incredibly robust screenshot mode that I've been messing with a bit too.
It takes a lot from different games in terms of mechanics but has yet to falter on much I've seen implemented. Except humans facial animation if you're not a main character. There is some weird twitchy stuff going on with most npcs that makes me think Parkinsons was especially prevalent before this world's collapse.
It takes a lot from different games in terms of mechanics but has yet to falter on much I've seen implemented. Except humans facial animation if you're not a main character. There is some weird twitchy stuff going on with most npcs that makes me think Parkinsons was especially prevalent before this world's collapse.
Finished a run-through of the primary storyline of GTA5. Good game, very good game. The gameplay is top notch, with a huge world to explore and so much to do. The writing is great, all three protagonists are the perfect combination of likeable and unlikeable, as they should be. The side characters are also memorable and well written. The plot was interesting and flowed naturally, and I always wanted to know what happened next.
If I had to make some complaints, I think money is way too hard to come by in this game. You only get significant payouts from heists, of which there are a limited number, and not even all of them give you money. The final heist gives you a huge wad of cash, but it's also the penultimate mission of the game, and after that you don't have any situations where you'd need a huge gun or an awesome car, so what's the point of having all that money? I found myself grinding street races as Franklin and drug drops as Trevor just to be able to have some cash in my pocket. Secondly, for some reason I couldn't get the game to run lag-free. I looked up some tweaks online and implemented them, and they helped, but in certain environments such as tunnels and the seaside I'd still get stuttering. My rig should be kicking the shit out of a game from 2015, so I don't know what the problem is there.
All in all, this was a great experience. Going on another run-through now, to do the side quests I missed.
If I had to make some complaints, I think money is way too hard to come by in this game. You only get significant payouts from heists, of which there are a limited number, and not even all of them give you money. The final heist gives you a huge wad of cash, but it's also the penultimate mission of the game, and after that you don't have any situations where you'd need a huge gun or an awesome car, so what's the point of having all that money? I found myself grinding street races as Franklin and drug drops as Trevor just to be able to have some cash in my pocket. Secondly, for some reason I couldn't get the game to run lag-free. I looked up some tweaks online and implemented them, and they helped, but in certain environments such as tunnels and the seaside I'd still get stuttering. My rig should be kicking the shit out of a game from 2015, so I don't know what the problem is there.
All in all, this was a great experience. Going on another run-through now, to do the side quests I missed.
GasBandit
Staff member
So for some reason, today I got the itch to create a chart to compare and contrast the features of the various open world survival sandbox games I'm most familiar with - Space Engineers, Empyrion, Subnautica, and Minecraft.
It's been an interesting mental exercise, but I don't know how useful it would be to anybody. Still... attached.
I didn't feel familiar enough with 7 days to die to put it on the chart... but trust me, it would not have scored well.
It's been an interesting mental exercise, but I don't know how useful it would be to anybody. Still... attached.
I didn't feel familiar enough with 7 days to die to put it on the chart... but trust me, it would not have scored well.
I, for one, appreciate this thing very much, because I've been thinking of picking up another survival game, and was wavering between Space Engineers and Empyrion, and now thanks to your chart it looks like Empyrion is more for me.
GasBandit
Staff member
Empyrion definitely has a better single player experience than Space Engineers, IMO.
Speaking of Subnautica, I decided to play it again when I saw a new update released today. This was me earlier:
"All right, new game. Gather stuff, build stuff, business as usual. Build a floating storage and now I'll go off on an adventure.
Okay, back from the adventure and I need some stuff from the storage and...it's all gone. I know I filled that storage container to full, but now there's nothing here.
*sigh* Guess I'll stick with the original promise to myself to wait until the game is fully finished."
"All right, new game. Gather stuff, build stuff, business as usual. Build a floating storage and now I'll go off on an adventure.
Okay, back from the adventure and I need some stuff from the storage and...it's all gone. I know I filled that storage container to full, but now there's nothing here.
*sigh* Guess I'll stick with the original promise to myself to wait until the game is fully finished."
GasBandit
Staff member
Have you tried starting over, yet?
Trust me, it goes a lot faster the second time (and even faster the third), especially since all the stuff you gotta scan to build the good stuff is more or less in the same place it was, so it's not a random search.
That said... yeah, I wouldn't get invested in any given playthrough until it's a lot farther along in the dev cycle.
GasBandit
Staff member
Muh bad.
I've not had stuff disappear from inside containers, but I've had entire vessels disappear. Sucks.
My last playthrough, though, as a side note, had a rather hilarious moment where I went back to the Aurora to pick up the (now functional) duffel bags.
"Oh man, they're huge" I lamented, seeing that each one took up a giant 3x3 grid in inventory.
But wait... they each also carry 3x3...
One nesting doll sequence and a trip back to base later, I walked into an empty room and slowly built a pyramid of duffel bags by pulling a duffel bag out of a duffel bag, putting the now empty duffel bag on the pile, then pulling a duffel bag out of the next duffel bag... and so on.
I, too, have started a new Subnautica game to see the new features.
One thing I've noticed is that the game now gives you a practical reason to visit wrecked lifepods. Where previously the lifepods only gave background information in the form of PDAs, now I've found lifepods have equipment blueprints near them. This means players have a tangible reason to follow the lifepod signals now, instead of ignoring them like they would before.
I've also noticed a few new bugs though. Equipping then unequipping the seaglide in a base will result in your hands staying in the "hold seaglide" position, making all subsequent hand movements quite wonky. For example, you will now hold your tools at a 90 degree angle away from where they're supposed to be pointing. Also, I took a journey down to the Jelly Shroom Caves, and a Crabsnake decided to follow me home, so now I have a gigantic pink predator hanging around outside my base.
One thing I've noticed is that the game now gives you a practical reason to visit wrecked lifepods. Where previously the lifepods only gave background information in the form of PDAs, now I've found lifepods have equipment blueprints near them. This means players have a tangible reason to follow the lifepod signals now, instead of ignoring them like they would before.
I've also noticed a few new bugs though. Equipping then unequipping the seaglide in a base will result in your hands staying in the "hold seaglide" position, making all subsequent hand movements quite wonky. For example, you will now hold your tools at a 90 degree angle away from where they're supposed to be pointing. Also, I took a journey down to the Jelly Shroom Caves, and a Crabsnake decided to follow me home, so now I have a gigantic pink predator hanging around outside my base.
GasBandit
Staff member
Hah, I hatched some ghost rays in my 2-story tank in my base, but decided they were too big and looked funny, so I collected them and released them outside.
They've spent every waking moment trying to batter their way back through the hull of my base to get back into the aquarium they were born in.
One of them managed to glitch through the outer wall, so now he's stuck "swimming" through the air in the hallway/module walkspace between the outer wall and the glass of the tank.
LOL! I did the EXACT same thing. They just wound up as a useless stack in my base. I honestly don't see the point of the duffle bags at all. Also had my lifepod suddenly floating over 1000 meters away from where it was, in very dangerous territory.
From what I've read on the forums, that's a very common glitch since the new update.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yeah, the lifepod can easily drift or be pushed by Design from what I understand. I think it's supposed to be part of the motivation for building a self-sufficient base that does not rely on the lifepod.
As for the duffle bags comma I think they're just meant to be free bonus portable storage, like the waterproof storage containers you can build, but even those I can't think of a situation in which I would want to use them instead of traveling all the way back to my base.
Duke Nukem Forever
I bought this (along with The Darkness II) ages ago for $1 on a Humble Bundle. For whatever reason, I finally decided to give it a try.
Wow, it sucks.
Mind-numbingly slow paced action with all the worst FPS cliches. I was so sick of forcing open doors early in. To say nothing that the game takes FOREVER (lol forever) to get to the damn action. I couldn't stomach playing the game for long. I made it as far as where Duke is suddenly shrunk down for basically no reason and you're suddenly in an RC level driving up ramps.
The sad thing is, there are some good ideas in the game. That he has an Ego meter instead of Health totally suits the character. Making fun of the fact that the game took 12 years to make is funny. But the game is so horribly slow-paced and badly designed, to say nothing of feeling rushed, there's little enjoyment out of it.
If they did a new Duke Nukem, here's what I'd do:
1) Ridiculously over-the-top action like Bulletstorm and the new Doom. Have all kinds of crazy moves that Duke does to tear apart enemies.
2) Duke really IS completely out of touch. People around him treat him like a child because he's a walking, talking 90s throwback spouting dated pop culture references. Instead of worshiping him, they roll their eyes at him.
3) The story, teased in DNF, is that Duke really DOES provoke an alien invasion.
4) This might be going too far, but maybe have the enemies or bosses be references to other FPS games. Fighting a Big Daddy-like character from Bioshock. A crazed, goatee'd mute with a crowbar.
5) Keep the Ego meter, but make it the core element of the game. You need to constantly do things to maintain Duke's ego (nothing too arduous; just quick little things like DNF had).
Not sure what else, off the top of my head, but it's a thought. Not a game we'll probably ever see, of course.
I bought this (along with The Darkness II) ages ago for $1 on a Humble Bundle. For whatever reason, I finally decided to give it a try.
Wow, it sucks.
Mind-numbingly slow paced action with all the worst FPS cliches. I was so sick of forcing open doors early in. To say nothing that the game takes FOREVER (lol forever) to get to the damn action. I couldn't stomach playing the game for long. I made it as far as where Duke is suddenly shrunk down for basically no reason and you're suddenly in an RC level driving up ramps.
The sad thing is, there are some good ideas in the game. That he has an Ego meter instead of Health totally suits the character. Making fun of the fact that the game took 12 years to make is funny. But the game is so horribly slow-paced and badly designed, to say nothing of feeling rushed, there's little enjoyment out of it.
If they did a new Duke Nukem, here's what I'd do:
1) Ridiculously over-the-top action like Bulletstorm and the new Doom. Have all kinds of crazy moves that Duke does to tear apart enemies.
2) Duke really IS completely out of touch. People around him treat him like a child because he's a walking, talking 90s throwback spouting dated pop culture references. Instead of worshiping him, they roll their eyes at him.
3) The story, teased in DNF, is that Duke really DOES provoke an alien invasion.
4) This might be going too far, but maybe have the enemies or bosses be references to other FPS games. Fighting a Big Daddy-like character from Bioshock. A crazed, goatee'd mute with a crowbar.
5) Keep the Ego meter, but make it the core element of the game. You need to constantly do things to maintain Duke's ego (nothing too arduous; just quick little things like DNF had).
Not sure what else, off the top of my head, but it's a thought. Not a game we'll probably ever see, of course.
GasBandit
Staff member
Empyrion -
Been working on this since monday night. It's slow going, I've bitten off a whole lot more than I thought I did here. There's a million little details that I'm obsessive about getting right, and a lot of the source materials contradict each other on things like color, size and shape. So I'm only maybe about 1/3rd done.
But I'm going to perservere and see this one all the way through to the end.
'Cause chicks dig giant robots.
[DOUBLEPOST=1489119202,1489118819][/DOUBLEPOST](in case it's not super obvious what it will be when it is finished)
Been working on this since monday night. It's slow going, I've bitten off a whole lot more than I thought I did here. There's a million little details that I'm obsessive about getting right, and a lot of the source materials contradict each other on things like color, size and shape. So I'm only maybe about 1/3rd done.
But I'm going to perservere and see this one all the way through to the end.
'Cause chicks dig giant robots.
Ahh... Megas XLR: a show so clever and interesting that Cartoon Network dumped the show in such a way that NO ONE knows who owns the rights anymore. Which is why it'll never be on DVD or digital release.
They did this Symbionic Titan too.
They did this Symbionic Titan too.
GasBandit
Staff member
Which is ultra frustrating, because all the TV rips are SD of not-great quality. I mean, they knew it was good. The final episode aired in 2005 but CN still used Megas XLR assets in their Fusionfall MMO which came out in 2009. GAGH
I feel the same way about Metalocalypse. "Hey, Brendon Small wants to finish up the series! He's got everybody else on board and the funding, he just needs the rights!" "Nah, we think we've got enough of this. And we'd make more writing it off in our taxes than selling it to you so..."
Insert Symbionic Titan in there as well.