GasBandit
Staff member
Heh, my dad is agonizing over what to do with his time if he decides to retire. That is not a problem for me. I think there will be a lot of Skyrim. A whole freakin' lot.
T
Tiq
Hmm, I dunno... I picked gadgets and rifles from the get go, and I can run down ring users like nothing.
Having said that, DCUO is the first game in a looooooooong time that I've enjoyed pvp'ing in, and I took to it like a duck to water, which surprised even me.
Suuuuuuuuuper tempted to buy Ys: Origins. I shouldn't, but damnit.
GasBandit
Staff member
Being a PVP aficionado, I can tell you what makes the PvP good.
1) It does not punish you for PvPing. You don't have to fear exp/equipment loss or feel guilty about griefing some schmo who's just trying to level.
2) It does not allow opposing factions to communicate.
3) It occurs naturally - you will run into players on the other side who have goals that contradict your own, so conflict is the logical result. There's no complex moral ambiguity - THEY ARE THE ENEMY, BEAT THEM UP!
4) Jokes about X being OP aside, it's actually pretty balanced, and is more reliant upon human performance than stats, build and dicerolling. Sure, if you get the jump on somebody and execute flawlessly, you'll probably win, but one wrong click and they have a chance to completely turn the tables on you.
5) If you're totally fed up with getting pounded on at location X, there are other completely viable locations Y and Z with missions for you to do - it's not like WoW where you're pretty much limited to one location per level bracket.
I haven't experienced it yet (because I just started as I said), but from what I see there's also larger scale objective based PVP in the endgame, which sounds interesting. It may not be as good as RvR, but what is? (not even RvR, these days... stupid EA ruining another franchise)
I was really sad to try out WAR and see how barren and boring it ended up. The game had amazing potential, but once you clear the first main Act area it slows down to a crawl.
GasBandit
Staff member
At the game's height, I still say tier 2 was the best tier. After that, it was definitely all downhill. By tier 4 it's ridiculous. A valuable take-home lesson I hope developers learn is it is possible to give characters too much button to push. Also, there should have been a separate "tier 5" just for people 40+ (and perhaps even a tier 6 for ~RR70+) to keep them separate from the poor schmoes getting bitchslapped the instant they hit 32.
Yeah, I found myself heading back to check on what I could buy with tokens and such way too often, and on top of that as the Dwarf Slayer I found even by like level 20-something my action bar was bloated as hell. I had gotten a bit into tier 2 and was still enjoying it, but this was after the game went "free" and nobody was really in the higher tiers.
T
Tiq
Well, the legends PVP is extremely simple, for anyone experienced with PVP. The high level PVP though... ooooft. You learn exactly how important blocking and rolling is, when you're in a group of max levels, facing off against a fellow group of max levels who've been grinding for high tier PVP gear for the last month. It's extremely fun. DC:UO was the first mmo I ever tried played a role other than tank, due to the DPS dual role thing and I think it's one of the main reasons I enjoy playing it so much, because it turns out I am very good at a DPS role during PVP.
http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/resonance.html
I pre-ordered this a little while ago (just before I moved, I think) and really enjoying it so far. I love how adventure games are having this kind of new resurgence. So far, there have been a lot of really clever puzzles and some really great ideas for game mechanics (like a Short-Term and Long-Term Memory options).
What I didn't realize until after I started playing it? It's by the same company that did the Blackwell adventure games. That's another series I just finished not too long ago. And honestly, even though the earlier games are a little clunky, they just get better and better along the way. The concept and characters are great throughout. So far, I can say the same with Resonance.
So yeah, if you're at all a fan of old school adventure games like me, I really recommend them.
I pre-ordered this a little while ago (just before I moved, I think) and really enjoying it so far. I love how adventure games are having this kind of new resurgence. So far, there have been a lot of really clever puzzles and some really great ideas for game mechanics (like a Short-Term and Long-Term Memory options).
What I didn't realize until after I started playing it? It's by the same company that did the Blackwell adventure games. That's another series I just finished not too long ago. And honestly, even though the earlier games are a little clunky, they just get better and better along the way. The concept and characters are great throughout. So far, I can say the same with Resonance.
So yeah, if you're at all a fan of old school adventure games like me, I really recommend them.
YS: Origin. It's a lot of fun, and has some unlockables in terms of modes as well as characters with different move/power sets. Currently getting my ass handed to me by a plant boss that makes me feel like I'm in a bullet hell game.
Beat Darksiders (Wow, I'm really glad I listened to all that advice, I enjoyed the hell out of it from beginning to end, ESPECIALLY the end)
Playing Afk PvP WoW Leveling my last slot into an 85.
Decided the next game I wanted to play (single player) is going to be Deus Ex: HR. About 5hrs in and loving it.
(Tried playing Diablo, fuck that stutter non-sense. I'll try again when the SSD gets here)
Playing Afk PvP WoW Leveling my last slot into an 85.
Decided the next game I wanted to play (single player) is going to be Deus Ex: HR. About 5hrs in and loving it.
(Tried playing Diablo, fuck that stutter non-sense. I'll try again when the SSD gets here)
See, I told you
S
SeraRelm
Ooooh my god DE:HR... Have you
yet?
pinned anyone to a wall with the crossbow
Necronic
Staff member
I really wanted to like Virgil games (the dudes that did Darksiders) because they were making the 40k MMO. Then they announced that they were just going to make it single player
:THQQ:
Played a bunch of Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion this weekend. Oh wow so much fun. It may be a bit hard to justify it as a standalone expansion since it doesn't include too much explicity new content, but the game has been balanced severely from the Trinity days, and so much has been added from the original game that it's hard to recognize sometimes.
For people that are tired of all the big box shenanigans, there's pretty much no excuse for you not owning a Stardock game. They are incredibly well made (with the exception of Demigod, which wasn't bad, just "failed to launch"), they use little/no DRM, and they have very responsive developers. The fact that one of their 4X games, Galactic Civilizations II, has a CPU slider for it's difficulty setting says pretty much all I've ever needed to hear about them (even Sid Meyer doesn't do this.)
:THQQ:
Played a bunch of Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion this weekend. Oh wow so much fun. It may be a bit hard to justify it as a standalone expansion since it doesn't include too much explicity new content, but the game has been balanced severely from the Trinity days, and so much has been added from the original game that it's hard to recognize sometimes.
For people that are tired of all the big box shenanigans, there's pretty much no excuse for you not owning a Stardock game. They are incredibly well made (with the exception of Demigod, which wasn't bad, just "failed to launch"), they use little/no DRM, and they have very responsive developers. The fact that one of their 4X games, Galactic Civilizations II, has a CPU slider for it's difficulty setting says pretty much all I've ever needed to hear about them (even Sid Meyer doesn't do this.)
GasBandit
Staff member
I still like Demigod better than League of Legends or any other DOTA clone, including DOTA. I'm cheap and haven't sprung for Rebellion yet (and I think I'm getting close to having to retire my Jolly Roger to the attic because I can't be bothered to pirate when I still have tons of games I bought for like 10 dollars on steam that I haven't even played yet), but I've been teaching the little woman to play Trinity. I wish the game had a better "ping" command... rather than just make a planet pulse yellow, it needs to be way more noticeable both visually and auditorially. Hate having to say "you're being attacked at planet Paprika." "Which one's Paprika?" "The asteroid near your lava world." "... where?" (gets up, tromp tromp tromp over, point to screen) "THAT one." (tromp tromp tromp sit)... and then she says "... where did I put my colony ship?" "Sec... it's at... Jehosefat." "Which one is that?"
/headdesk
/headdesk
/headdesk
Was so much easier when we were playing supreme commander, and I could just ping the map and she couldn't miss it if she tried with the huge pulsing markers. But we soldier on, she's determined to learn.
I always rename the planets so I know where the hell to look.
Necronic
Staff member
You don't need a better Ping. You need a woman who can understand directions, or as I like to call them, a man.
GasBandit
Staff member
I think I've hit about as high on the scale as I dare to try for, with a woman that even wants to try to play at all.
Plus, with men, there are other issues. Like... no vagina.
I picked up a few games as steam sales.
MTG: 2013, Splice, The Binding of Issac, Vessel, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Finally played through skyrim again as an Argonian theif/assassin. Considering going through the main story line again, or starting over and playing a mage and going through the mage college quests.
Being playing Sup Com 2 with my bro and having a good time. Ran through DOW 2 Retribution as Chaos.
All in all, good times.
MTG: 2013, Splice, The Binding of Issac, Vessel, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Finally played through skyrim again as an Argonian theif/assassin. Considering going through the main story line again, or starting over and playing a mage and going through the mage college quests.
Being playing Sup Com 2 with my bro and having a good time. Ran through DOW 2 Retribution as Chaos.
All in all, good times.
Finished God of War on hard tonight. Ares is such a bitch.
I only played this because my wife wanted me too. After the pain of ME3's ending again tomorrow, I'm onto sweet sweet God of War 2.
I only played this because my wife wanted me too. After the pain of ME3's ending again tomorrow, I'm onto sweet sweet God of War 2.
Playing the free 7-day Tera trial. It's not bad, feels a bit like an action game with the way combat works. It can be played with a controller, but the camera moves so slowly (turning to put an enemy in your line of fire) that it's not worth it. Combat, all in all, is fun, but the hit detection is weird, at least for melee.
I actually disagree, I found Tera played on an Xbox controller amazing. The camera doesn't need to move that fast in actual combat and when you go into inventory screens, it still moves quickly. Granted, I still use my mouse/keyboard for other shortcuts and play within a foot from the keyboard when using the controller.
Beat Quantum Conundrum last night, pretty fun little game. Reminded me a lot of Portal in the overall style, just replacing portals with dimensional shifting puzzles.
The Amazing Spider-Man
I have been waiting years for another decent sandbox Spidey game and this game provides. There were times I wasn't even doing any missions or anything, just webslinging around. Fortunately, even just randomly webslinging around is rewarding because there are hundreds of comic book pages to collect. So I could just be slinging around and then suddenly see a glint of gold and badda boom. Comic page.
Is it perfect? Nah. The fighting tries to be like Arkham Asylum/City and winds up being a bit confusing and clunky. If you websling above the city-line, you can still websling on...clouds, I guess? And the boss fights (so far) are kind of ho-hum.
But goddamn, is it fun.
I have been waiting years for another decent sandbox Spidey game and this game provides. There were times I wasn't even doing any missions or anything, just webslinging around. Fortunately, even just randomly webslinging around is rewarding because there are hundreds of comic book pages to collect. So I could just be slinging around and then suddenly see a glint of gold and badda boom. Comic page.
Is it perfect? Nah. The fighting tries to be like Arkham Asylum/City and winds up being a bit confusing and clunky. If you websling above the city-line, you can still websling on...clouds, I guess? And the boss fights (so far) are kind of ho-hum.
But goddamn, is it fun.
Arma 2.
This game seems pretty damn realistic to me and it punishes the run and gun that most first person shooters reward nowadays. Of course, you can easily spend 10-20 minutes pinned down by one enemy machine gunner while frantically trying to get a shot in without getting killed... but that seems like how it would be in real life. (I like calling in airstrikes and gunship runs).
Definitely not for those with little patience.
And man does it ever have a robust mission editor. I'm already having a blast doing crazy stuff with it.
This game seems pretty damn realistic to me and it punishes the run and gun that most first person shooters reward nowadays. Of course, you can easily spend 10-20 minutes pinned down by one enemy machine gunner while frantically trying to get a shot in without getting killed... but that seems like how it would be in real life. (I like calling in airstrikes and gunship runs).
Definitely not for those with little patience.
And man does it ever have a robust mission editor. I'm already having a blast doing crazy stuff with it.
Once I get more familiar with the game (and suck a lot less) I think it would be pretty damn fun multiplayer. I really have to learn proper radio communications though (and how to navigate with maps and headings and stuff). I've watched videos and successful squads have very tight communications.
Hell, just jumping into one of the open ended sandbox missions can be hilarious with the stuff that occurs. Once I only lasted about 30 seconds as my squad got bombed by two enemy fighters as we were running across an open field... ouch. Another game I completed my 1.5 hour patrol and accomplished about 4 random objectives (which I think is fairly decent).
This is the main reason people are buying Arma 2. Apparently it's one of the best zombie-based survival mods ever.
Yeah, that mod is what brought my attention to the Arma series in the first place... but that mod has a lot of work to do before I'll consider playing it. We actually had a big discussion about this in this thread.
I'm enjoying the actual game at the moment.