What are you playing?

Redownloading Civ4 and its xpacs, as well as Civ5 (new xpac due out soon!). Figure they'll be a good time-waster when I don't feel like playing Diablo.
 
I saw the new expansion to Civ5 on Steam and decided I'm gonna wait until it's on sale. Civ5 didn't grab me like Civ4 did (though it's still very good) and I didn't even get any of the DLC. But still, it's slightly tempting me.

Oh, and in anticipation for the next Hitman game, I've been playing Hitman: Blood Money again. Found some new game elements I managed to miss the last few times I played it.
 
Lollipop Chainsaw! Good lord this game is on a lot of crack, but I love it!! The controls seemed really weird at first (jump/dodge is B??) but I got used to it quick enough. The comic book/arcade styling is fun, the dialogue is really raunchy, and there's lots of rainbows! XD
 
T

Tiq

I picked up the ultimate edition of new vegas for the ps3 recently, having lost my 360 copy.

Good god... this game has bugs up the wazoo.l
 
T

Tiq

More like welcome to rushed games that aren't given the time they deserve.

And people wonder why indie developers are becoming such a huge success.
 
Alrighty, when you accept my friend request I'll shoot that game on over.
Added at: 20:36
Also, Civ IV has locked me in place here at the laptop for the last unknown amount of time. Turn 254.
 
I need to play some Civ. I got it during a sale but hadn't got around to play it. I do know that I want to be Ghandi and wage a bloody war across the land...


What?
 
I need to play some Civ. I got it during a sale but hadn't got around to play it. I do know that I want to be Ghandi and wage a bloody war across the land...


What?
Remember to come up for meals every few hours. Shower occasionally too, if it occurs to you.
 
T

Tiq

I don't think showering has ever occured to me, while playing civ games...


This is not a good thing.
 
T

Tiq

Now I just need you to run around with your red haired, savage barbarian wild-men and liberate the people from the hands of those stuffy, so-called "civilized" leaders.

Go... go and liberate the SHIT out of them.
 
Aside from the clickstorm, how's the game? I've heard some good things about it, but mainly from my comic book loving friends; and some horrible things about it, like they should have spent more money on gameplay and less on voice actors.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Aside from the clickstorm, how's the game? I've heard some good things about it, but mainly from my comic book loving friends; and some horrible things about it, like they should have spent more money on gameplay and less on voice actors.
I intend to do a full write up of it for my neglected gaming blog, but here's the short version-

They tried to do something different, some of it works, some of it doesn't. The targeting is done by a reticle in the center of the screen like a FPS, and your target "persists" until the reticle passes over another enemy or the enemy goes off camera (and you can hit TAB to lock the target so it stays targeted off screen).

Forget any preconceptions you have learned from CoH/Champions. You get a power, and you get a weapon type. They will have NOTHING to do with each other. Your enjoyment of the game may very well depend on picking the "right" power and weapon combo, they often make no sense (why would a telekinetic need pistols?!) and how they interact is not intuitive. Expect to reroll several times finding what works for you. If you choose the wrong combo of power and weapon, you won't have fun. FYI - bows blow.

You start off with your "travel power" right out of the gate, and its speed gets improved at level 10.

Your "powers" are triggered by hotkeys 1 thru 0 like an MMO. Weapon combos are triggered by combinations of left and right clicks and patterns of holding and tapping those clicks. Especially in the early game, most attacks are 1 click = 1 attack. It actually does a very good job of adding an action element into the combat. However, you'll mostly be relying on these weapons because they don't use (insert synonym for mana here), and you only have enough of that stuff to fire off 4 or 5 powers before goiung empty, and it grows back sllooooow (though killing enemies often will often give you enough juice back for 1 power).

Everything. Is. Stunlock. My mind/pistols villain starts opens any given fight with an extended CC/damage power that yanks the target into the air for about 4 seconds, follows it up with a diving john wu pistol attack that has a chance at knockdown, and follows that up with a magnum pistol shot that almost guarantees a knockdown, repeat until they die. Unless I screw up a sequence of clicks, the target has no chance to retaliate. This is how most PVP goes, too. Whoever gets their first stun/juggle off usually wins, abarring errors with mouse clicks. There are also "superpowers" which take something like 30 minutes to charge and you can charge up to 2 uses in a pool (as in not 2 each, but you can hit any 2). These are generally get out of jail free cards and "I win" buttons.

Melee weapons are handled well, most have at least an opener that is a targeted charge to close distance. Ranged weapons are a mixed bag. Pistols and rifle are ok, bows stink, hand blasts (and yes that counts as a weapon) is fun on the bun.

Your enjoyment of this game is directly proportional to how much you enjoy the DC universe without getting all fanboy-nitpicky about it. I did have a lot of fun beating the snot out of the Titans, causing Raven to be lost to Trigon.

Character generation isn't as robust as COH, but it's not bad. You find, buy, sell, and wear gear like an MMO. It raises stats. Once you have worn a piece of gear, you have unlocked that gear piece's appearance for that part of your body, and you can easily customize your character on the fly to wear any unlocked appearance on any part at any time, and you can "lock" appearances either completely or by section so that putting on a new piece of gear does not change your look if you don't want it to. New styles can be earned in game with a lot of ground work or bought in the DC store for about a buck a pop.

The free to play account is extremely limited for inventory space and cash. Expect to hit your money cap before you're even level 10.

The client is 18. fucking. gigs.

Play on the PVP server. Random encounters with enemies makes this game... without it, it'd be kinda boring IMO. Heroes and villains are pretty good about helping each other in open world random PVP. You do get the occasional level 30 assneck who camps out newbie grounds, but dying - excuse me, getting "knocked out" - costs you nothing but a trip to the nearest rally point. In fact, many of the missions send heroes and villains to the same place to support opposing npcs. There are also wanted posters that give you small rewards (basically health/stamina potions) for beating up 5 enemies who are no more than 5 levels below you).

Make note of any nearby barrels. Throwing barrels often will make the difference for you or your team, especially health barrels. Cause nobody I ran into ever healed.

That's the reader's digest version, I guess.
 
The game is controller-friendly, and it plays really well with one. Feels a bit more like a brawler. My roommate actually hit the level cap and raided some, he said it was alright but got stale pretty quickly. Also at some point mid-levelish you can swap out to different weapon archetypes (though you'll have to find/buy a new weapon with DPS/stats to replace the one you've been using). I had fun with the game for awhile but I gave up trying to find the right mix of power/weapon. I think the last one I tried that was kinda fun was Ice and one of the fist-based weapons or something. Ice was crazy OP for tanking/melee, as was Fire, I think.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I should also make note of the "block/dodge" mechanic, and the fact that seems to me most of the content (below level 15 at least) can be solo'd. And I ran into one blatant, unabashed cheater (he could attack anyone from anywhere regardless of distance or line of sight).
Added at: 15:44
The game is controller-friendly, and it plays really well with one. Feels a bit more like a brawler. My roommate actually hit the level cap and raided some, he said it was alright but got stale pretty quickly. Also at some point mid-levelish you can swap out to different weapon archetypes (though you'll have to find/buy a new weapon with DPS/stats to replace the one you've been using). I had fun with the game for awhile but I gave up trying to find the right mix of power/weapon. I think the last one I tried that was kinda fun was Ice and one of the fist-based weapons or something. Ice was crazy OP for tanking/melee, as was Fire, I think.
Fire/hand blasts seems to do so much damage it's stupid.

Mind/Pistols is a kiter's dream. That backwards high damage john wu dive is great... and the AE CC from mind makes you very group friendly.

Anything with bows will be frustrating.

Light powers (as in, Lantern rings) are OP IMO. And you have to pay money to get them.
 
I stopped playing a few months into the game's early life, the Lantern thing must have come with the F2P or something. And yeah, bows looked fun on paper but damn were they hard to use effectively. Gadgets were fun, though.
 
I actually like DCUO. Granted, part of that like comes from "I'm getting my missions from freakin' BATMAN", but I do also like that the quests are story driven. You always feel like you're building an arc up to a boss fight with a major DC villain.

I like the fact that you can dual role right out of the box. You can have a DPS build for soloing and a healer/tank/CC build for instances.

It is EXTREMELY apparent that this game was developed mostly for consoles, though as the controls are pretty simplified compared to most RPGs. I've found that using my Xbox 360 controller actually works best with it.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I stopped playing a few months into the game's early life, the Lantern thing must have come with the F2P or something. And yeah, bows looked fun on paper but damn were they hard to use effectively. Gadgets were fun, though.
Yeah, Gadgets is a non stop laugh riot. And I hate it when those pesky heroes use that damn tazer-lasso on me. Means I need to hit the mental bolt barrage NAOW or I'm going home in the pine box express, heh.
 
Still playing Skyrim. I decided to start over with a new character. If I didn't have more important things to do I would probably play this all the time, order in more often, and have questionable personal hygiene.
 
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