[Colonol Dekker]

Aye it's a bit rolleyes when you get put on a team with teh noobs because your score is still low.  Still, berthas call and cans will fall.

[Mongoose]

Not me, but Scott Manley playing TIE Fighter for your viewing pleasure:

[0rph3u5]

Finished The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel last weekend and I am still reeling for that ending (i.e. still its carving at my productivity that "the feels" are coming back) ... the PC port of the sequel and can't come fast enough and let's hope the third installment makes it out of Japan...

It is far from a technical masterpiece and more than enough "played straight" tropes to feel overly familiar but it does some genuinely interesting stuff - esspecially with regards temporal progression > spacial progression - I really liked for an esemble RPG.


To get it out of my system I've returned to Mafia III to finally finish it, after leaving it at the 50 percent mark last time.
Here is to hoping I get it done before Destiny 2 is upon me and my brother and I make a mad coop-dash through the story

[0rph3u5]

Officially sick at home, so pushed Mafia 3 to its end (verdict: too much padding) and made a mad single player dash through Destiny 2`s campaign...

Verdict on Destiny 2: the vagueness about the world feels more deliberate now and the story itself works on its own terms ... it is good but not outstanding.

Special shout-out to the new public events - which were source of much of my leveling speed and equipment progression (during the final mission lvl 20 with llvl 215); being able to plan them via timers on the map and do them on-the-fly during adventures is really really good (also helps that there enough players there at all times)

[Scourge of Ages]

Psychonauts is FREE from HumbleBundle for a day or so.
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/psychonauts

[Mongoose]

"Oh my God...let's make out!"

[Wet Orange Ostrich Toilet]

Recently bought Stellaris and the Utopia DLC for it. I've been playing it for 10... uh... 100 hours since then...
Take Heart of Iron IV, a bit of Crusader Kings 2, Civ 5 and put it into space.  That's basically Stellaris.

[Kobrar44]

Shadow of Mordor, since humble bundle.  It isn't pretty, it is "streamlined" to the point where you find yourself holding down two keys most of the time and waiting, combat system is dull, shallow and not challenging in any way, but the nemesis system saves everything.  Best of all, you can get it now without giving WB a penny.

EDIT: I've finished it now, within 18 hours. It is pretty damn fun once it picks up. There is a 50000 keys nVidia giveaway now. Downside: GeForce Experience.

[Novachen]

Finished Call of Duty: Ghosts yesterday.

Well.. that was a complete mess. Did not like it. Too much of an action movie and too less shooter game.

I never get a bonding to my character i am mainly playing in this game. He does not say anything and does not get any profile or character.
Also i never get a clue who the others characters are which i am playing during the campaign, even mostly for only one mission... or why i am playing them in the first place.

Sure, there are some good missions which are actually fun and well designed. I liked the Stealth mission in the jungle or the mission where you are diving unterwater. Also the snow mission was most impressive.

Some missions where like from several catastrophic- and action movies. Unfortunately they were very bad in design. This game is full of scripts that are too strictly player-based. In one mission a city is flooded by the enemy forces because they destroy the Dam... but well.. things get only washed away if you reach specific locations on your escape... before that, you can look around as you want. Nothing happens.

And you have countless situations like this one in this game. I am a game-designer myself... in my eyes this is pure ******** and an absolute nightmare in design.

And well.. because of the invulnerable squadmates, you can win most missions without a shot fired, because you have only to get from one cover to the next, because your following squadmates eliminates all hostiles.


This was released as a complete wrong media. As an actual movie this one would work much better and would be much more enjoyable.

[Colonol Dekker]

It's modern COD.   What did you expect? 
Infinite although non linear is still a bit samey.

[Novachen]

It's modern COD.   What did you expect? 
Infinite although non linear is still a bit samey.

I did not play many Call of Dutys before. Only Call of Duty 2 (aborted that after the first missions, because it has too much wartime glorification IMO, my friend, now husband, finished it for me to get the 1000 GS on 360), World at War (that was much more of my taste, because it has many many anti war game elements, where Treyarch was unfortunately forced to cut out much more of that things on behalf of Activision) and Infinite Warfare, which was somewhat better in design. At least not so obvious than this one.

So i thought about.. play through the other titles of the series that topics are more of your taste.. so not historic or present-era, instead of the near/far future with Ghosts and Advanced Warfare.

I did not have anything against script-based shooters, but Ghosts' mission scripts are too obvious player based sometimes, because you can break them easily if you want to look around. I do not know why most of the scripts are not executed independently from the players location. It would force the reaction the developer has in mind, much more, because you would not have the time to look around in some level segments then.
Because of its collectibles, Ghosts is encouraging the player to exactly that... to look around much more.

[Col.Hornet]

Actually playing some Planetside 2 from time to time (yeah, quite a discovery for 2017). Mainly as VS or NC (I like the TR's ideals but I'm also a man of aesthetics, and their aesthetics are an abomination to my taste ). As for weapons... when I first tried the Gauss SAW i hated it dearly. Once I got used to it.... I'm not going to trade it for any other anytime soon, even the NS-15.

[Det. Bullock]

It's modern COD.   What did you expect? 
Infinite although non linear is still a bit samey.

I did not play many Call of Dutys before. Only Call of Duty 2 (aborted that after the first missions, because it has too much wartime glorification IMO, my friend, now husband, finished it for me to get the 1000 GS on 360), World at War (that was much more of my taste, because it has many many anti war game elements, where Treyarch was unfortunately forced to cut out much more of that things on behalf of Activision) and Infinite Warfare, which was somewhat better in design. At least not so obvious than this one.

So i thought about.. play through the other titles of the series that topics are more of your taste.. so not historic or present-era, instead of the near/far future with Ghosts and Advanced Warfare.

I did not have anything against script-based shooters, but Ghosts' mission scripts are too obvious player based sometimes, because you can break them easily if you want to look around. I do not know why most of the scripts are not executed independently from the players location. It would force the reaction the developer has in mind, much more, because you would not have the time to look around in some level segments then.
Because of its collectibles, Ghosts is encouraging the player to exactly that... to look around much more.

I had the exact reverse impression playing the games one after the other, CoD 2 had always an aura of basic respect for the people who fought and was understated enough to avoid jingoistic glorification while for WaW I'll just self-quote:

Since I had it bundled with the other WWII installments I've been playing Call of Duty World at War (PC)

It's almost like someone took the first two Call of Duty games (and expansion) and focus tested the **** out of them.

The american sergeant is a generic badass that doesn't wear a helmet because he's badass, the russian one has a Lenin-style goatee and talks bombastically of revenge against the fascists and praises you, the player, because you are an unstoppable killing machine and a badass.
They put actual hard rock music in a world war 2 shooter, because, you know, the orchestral music is lame bro and metal is badass.
Also the documentary-style cutscenes have been swapped with frantic animation justapoxed with the badass sergeant talking in the most badass way how dark everything is and how they'll continue fighting because it's badass.
Also there is a badass quick time event every time some asian enemy soldier tries to stab you, but of course they are so sudden that most of the times you will miss the prompts, no problem with the non-asian enemies since it seems they never used their bayonettes at all, perhaps stabbing them isn't badass enough?
Then there is some gratuitous gore that adds to the badassitude, because the understated violence of the first games in the series wasn't badass enough, especially without the hard rock electric guitar which makes everything more badass!

And to the inappropriate tone choices (*) I can say that the difficulty was weird, often you couldn't get up because you went too close to a wall that had something sticking out of it for a few centimetres, which usually happens when the bloody grenade danger indicator appears.
There were a few parts that were rage inducing, the reichstag was me reloading always the same checkpoints over and over again, especially the last one.
I sincerely wonder if there were so many nazis using panzerschrecks inside a building in real life.

* and the thing is that even games like the Wolfenstein series never gave me that impression even if they have Zombies and Jetpacks in it. Yes, they are absurd, but in a way that somehow fits something that could have been done at the time in a Captain America story, here there is just the idea of war of some teenager edgelord that listens to too many heavy metal albums and thinks ultra-violence is the coolest thing ever.

[Turambar]

Totalwarhammer 2 may be the best Total War game of all time.

[Det. Bullock]

So, since it was only three Euros I bought the first Dragon Quest for my smartphone.
Mostly I wanted to test if the touch interface was playable since the google appstore prices are far less steep for the first three games int he series compared to the cost of the Gameboy Color cartridges (III is damn expensive, I and II are cheaper but they have to be imported from the US which makes them expensive).
Until now it's not the most comfortable thing in the world but it isn't that bad either, if after some more time playing I'll find the controls bearable I might get them after I finish Phantasy Star IV on my Mega Drive.
For the games from IV to VI I have a DS but it seems the western DS version of IV lacks a lot of dialogues between the party members which instead are present in the android version so I sincerely don't know which one I'll pick when the time comes, the more complete version or the one with more comfortable controls?

Wolfenstein The New Order on PC
I could give it only a quick try.
I bought it with the recent star deal on bundlestars in a bit of an impulse buy and I was fearing the performance problems many lamented, but at default settings (all on medium it seems) it looks gorgeous and fluid even on my old video card. At the moment I'm the trenches right after the first commander assassination, does it get heavuer afterwards or are the performances in line with the rest of the game?

[General Battuta]

Ghosts bad, but Black Ops 3 remains one of the best multiplayer shooters on console or PC

[Colonol Dekker]

I feel the same about battlefield 4.

[Firesteel]

After building a new PC after my old Z77 motherboard really started to look like it was biting it and strange system crashes tied apparently to my graphics drivers all caused by Titanfall 1 and 2 I once again played a bit more and who do I see in a couple games but Battuta. GGs my friend.

Wolfenstein The New Order on PC
I could give it only a quick try.
I bought it with the recent star deal on bundlestars in a bit of an impulse buy and I was fearing the performance problems many lamented, but at default settings (all on medium it seems) it looks gorgeous and fluid even on my old video card. At the moment I'm the trenches right after the first commander assassination, does it get heavuer afterwards or are the performances in line with the rest of the game?

The opening (before the Wolfenstein logo shows up) is one of the toughest to run parts of the game. If you're using an nvidia card I would expect it to work well since they still like OpenGL enough to do it well in their drivers. My time with an AMD card rendered it barely playable. Mission 6 is a good one to see the limit of the draw distance on whatever driver/card you have since it opens with a car ride to the rest of the level.

[Det. Bullock]

After building a new PC after my old Z77 motherboard really started to look like it was biting it and strange system crashes tied apparently to my graphics drivers all caused by Titanfall 1 and 2 I once again played a bit more and who do I see in a couple games but Battuta. GGs my friend.

Wolfenstein The New Order on PC
I could give it only a quick try.
I bought it with the recent star deal on bundlestars in a bit of an impulse buy and I was fearing the performance problems many lamented, but at default settings (all on medium it seems) it looks gorgeous and fluid even on my old video card. At the moment I'm the trenches right after the first commander assassination, does it get heavuer afterwards or are the performances in line with the rest of the game?

The opening (before the Wolfenstein logo shows up) is one of the toughest to run parts of the game. If you're using an nvidia card I would expect it to work well since they still like OpenGL enough to do it well in their drivers. My time with an AMD card rendered it barely playable. Mission 6 is a good one to see the limit of the draw distance on whatever driver/card you have since it opens with a car ride to the rest of the level.

Nope, AMD Radeon HD 7770 1gb.
Never had any particular problems with openGL, the DOOM demo ran slow with everything turned down but that was expected.

[Firesteel]

Nope, AMD Radeon HD 7770 1gb.
Never had any particular problems with openGL, the DOOM demo ran slow with everything turned down but that was expected.

All of my experiments with the year I had my R9 Fury pointed to AMD's crimson release as messing with Wolfenstein specifically and having mediocre OpenGL performance at best in anything modern (post Doom 3 era). Something else could have been the problem but who knows. It ran FSOpen decently enough which was what I really cared about.