What games are you playing now?

I'm playing a bunch of games at the moment.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - lots of fun.
Monster Hunter Tri - only about 6 hours in so far, but a very cool game.
Xenoblade Chronicles - kind of put it back on the shelf for now, about 30 hours in and got sidetracked by other games.
Chrono Trigger - haven't played through this game in years so I figured I would buy it. Loving it all over again.

and soon to be playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii when it gets here from Ebay. These should all keep me busy for awhile...
 
Fluent>I have Monster Hunter Trial too :) I haven't really started it up either. I'm still on Xenoblade Chronicles.

Txa 1265> yeah, I was going to start Risen but got sidetracked :) Shoot, I had restarted the Witcher and got sidetracked on that one also. Then again, the sun is shining and I really don't want to hibernate in the basement.
 
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Monster Hunter Tri is a pretty cool game. I'm only about 6 hours in but it's been fun so far. You hunt monsters (duh) and gather resources and items. There's not much story but it's more about the gameplay and the challenge of hunting various monsters and doing the different quests that keeps you going. The various monsters are great though, they vary in size and type, there's carnivores, herbivores, insects, all types. And there's some huuuuuge monsters too. I ran across something enormous that I couldn't possibly kill yet, so I had to run away. But just seeing it in the distance was pretty awesome, until it started coming for me and the music got all gnarly. It was pretty epic. Very cool game though with a ton of potential. I would say to check it out when you don't feel like playing something story heavy and just want a change of pace. It's good in short bursts. But at the same time, it's also a pretty hardcore game from what I've read, and a long game at over 100 hours easily. But yeah, I recommend it! :) Oh, and I play with the Classic Controller Pro for that game, based on some recommendations from others. Haven't even tried it with the Wii remote to comment on that control scheme. It plays pretty well with the Classic Controller Pro though.
 
I'm messing around with a crpg called Planet Alcatraz, also known as Dungeon Cleaners.

It's fairly interesting so far, and the setting is somewhat unique. The combat plays out similar to the Infinity Engine games, and the only real negative I've experienced so far is the shoddy English translation. I'm surprised this game isn't better known.


I also tried Space Rangers 1 for a few hours. All I can say is that I now understand why people only talk about Space Rangers 2. :)
 
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I'm messing around with a crpg called Planet Alcatraz, also known as Dungeon Cleaners.

I bought Planet Alcatraz on GamersGate a while ago and I might have installed, but never played ... now to find time to check it out ...

I actually installed Risen again and got in a couple of hours last night. Reminds me why I love it so much.

I also installed Postal III (got it on the 50% off sale last week) ... and am reminded of why it got such abysmal scores ...
 
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Just finished ME2 using my FemShep imported from ME1 (paragon) and replaying ME2 as renegade. Also, started playing Battle Forge. Interesting game. It feels like mix of Pokemon Trading card game + space RTS like Starcraft.
 
I'm currently playing The Witcher 2 EE, finished the prologue and a couple of hours into chapter 1 and so far it is a bit like hot and cold showers or like an emotional rollercoaster.

Honestly, at least for me this would theoretically be 'RPG of the Decade' material if it weren't for these few annoying issues:

- No proper 16:10 support so you get a black screen on some cut scenes
- Bugs - Of all sorts, nothing really serious so far luckily but a noticeable lack of polish
- Input lag - This is really terrible in my opinion. The game seems to react with about a one second delay to key presses -or sometimes flat out ignores key presses- and the character movement kind of feels like Geralt is on skates.
- No way to customize the keymap from within the game
- Consolitis - You can tell and feel that the game was made with the idea of being controller friendly. A good interface this is not.
- Lag during conversations. This is even worse than it sounds. The game runs at ~50fps for me with everything maxed out except UberSampling. On the dialogue screen, however, i.e. where you get to pick your reply or what you want to say, the frame rate drops to ~25fps causing severe mouse lag which is really bad if you happen to have a dialogue with a timer. You need to react very quickly and use the keyboard for picking a reply because you almost have no chance to be quick and accurate enough with the mouse.
- FoV - They really need to add an option to change the field of view. Every game should have that option actually.
- Terrible targeting - This is somewhat related to the laggy input and lack of responsiveness. It can be incredibly hard to pick up an item because the "hit box" of the item seems to be very small and Geralt moves awkwardly. So sometimes you run back and forth a few times, try a different angle and still can't focus whatever you want to pick up.
- A larger font for some of the in-game text would have been nice or an option to adjust the font size.
- Same goes for a zoom option - This is almost an over the shoulder view with the very zoomed in camera. Would have been nice if you would have had the option to zoom out just a little bit further.
- Like in the first game it seems like this game does not really have a Z-axis. You can't jump even over the smallest of obstacles. You can only jump and climb in hotspots.

Ignoring these issues for a moment this game does have awesomeness written all over it. The characters are great, the dialogues and writing are top notch, the choices seem to be meaningful (that early in the game I ain't seen much consequences yet), the presentation is plain awesome in all regards from the cinematic conversations to the graphics, the atmosphere is at least as good as in good old Gothic because you have a very living, breathing world around you with believable NPCs who go about their daily (or nightly) business, you have NPCs huddled around campfires, drunk or sleeping guards, NPCs taking a piss near the walls (just like in Gothic 1 in the old camp), you name it… everything just oozes atmosphere and err… "epicness".

And then they have to go and fuck it up because they couldn't put together a decent 3rd person engine. Not fair *sigh*. Seriously, if this game had the same working, lag-free 3rd person gameplay as other 3rd person games like the Gothics or Risen or Divinity DKS then -as I said up above- 'RPG of the Decade' material. For me at least.


Finally, here's some screens to illustrate that nice atmosphere I was talking about:
 

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And screenshots continued...
 

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- Input lag - This is really terrible in my opinion. The game seems to react with about a one second delay to key presses -or sometimes flat out ignores key presses.

That's very disappointing to hear.. especially since several people here were adamant that the issue had been fixed with the EE version. I encountered it quite a bit when I played through the vanilla game and it was incredibly frustrating at times.

Still a fantastic game though. Even if it didn't quite surpass the atmosphere of TW1 for me.
 
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- No proper 16:10 support so you get a black screen on some cut scenes
Yeah I experienced those too, but some guys said that those are only for the first cinematic right after leaving the prison. I don't know personally, since I haven't gotten very far. I'm barely in Flotsam.
- Input lag - This is really terrible in my opinion. The game seems to react with about a one second delay to key presses -or sometimes flat out ignores key presses- and the character movement kind of feels like Geralt is on skates.
This is really weird. I've heard plenty of people complain about this, but the only time I got this was when I was using my old ATI 4870 card, when running in too graphics settings. I've recently upgraded to a nVidia GTX 560 Ti and the game flys with everything on max, except for Ubersampling and Cinematic Depth of Field. I'll touch on the DoF lower in the post, because it's a weird one.
- No way to customize the keymap from within the game
- Consolitis - You can tell and feel that the game was made with the idea of being controller friendly. A good interface this is not.
I personally never got the console feeling. And I love the combat system, way better than in TW1 imo. I'm playing on hard and I love how chanllenging it is.

- Lag during conversations. This is even worse than it sounds. The game runs at ~50fps for me with everything maxed out except UberSampling. On the dialogue screen, however, i.e. where you get to pick your reply or what you want to say, the frame rate drops to ~25fps causing severe mouse lag which is really bad if you happen to have a dialogue with a timer. You need to react very quickly and use the keyboard for picking a reply because you almost have no chance to be quick and accurate enough with the mouse.
I've had this issue in dialogues if I have the Cinematic Depth of Field setting on. And turning it off seems to fix the issue for me. And personally I saw no difference with it on or off.

- Terrible targeting - This is somewhat related to the laggy input and lack of responsiveness. It can be incredibly hard to pick up an item because the "hit box" of the item seems to be very small and Geralt moves awkwardly. So sometimes you run back and forth a few times, try a different angle and still can't focus whatever you want to pick up.
Agreed, I also sometimes target the wrong enemy. But it's just a slight annoyance for me.
- A larger font for some of the in-game text would have been nice or an option to adjust the font size.
Yeah, I wish that too. And for them to come up with a better solution for displaying recepies. I hate having to keep my cursor over some receipe or crafting diagram and wait until the bottom text scrolls up so I can see what ingredients I need. That's really annoying.

Ignoring these issues for a moment this game does have awesomeness written all over it. The characters are great, the dialogues and writing are top notch, the choices seem to be meaningful (that early in the game I ain't seen much consequences yet), the presentation is plain awesome in all regards from the cinematic conversations to the graphics, the atmosphere is at least as good as in good old Gothic because you have a very living, breathing world around you with believable NPCs who go about their daily (or nightly) business, you have NPCs huddled around campfires, drunk or sleeping guards, NPCs taking a piss near the walls (just like in Gothic 1 in the old camp), you name it… everything just oozes atmosphere and err… "epicness".

And then they have to go and fuck it up because they couldn't put together a decent 3rd person engine. Not fair *sigh*. Seriously, if this game had the same working, lag-free 3rd person gameplay as other 3rd person games like the Gothics or Risen or Divinity DKS then -as I said up above- 'RPG of the Decade' material. For me at least.


Finally, here's some screens to illustrate that nice atmosphere I was talking about:
Completly agree. It just reeks of awesomeness. And I love all the references to TW1. (I've imported my save) I especially liked the continuation of the quest where he tries to get his memory back.

Oh and the character faces are just beautiful. From Geralt, to Roche, to Zoltan, etc. They all just look very well done.

Oh and I was amazed at how beautiful the jungle/forest outside of Flotsam was. It was honestly one of the best forests I've seen in a game. So lush and filled with atmosphere.
 
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Was happily playing Persona 3 Portable... but my PSP just died on me. How come all your electronic devices always die on you at about the same time? You'll go years having absolutely no trouble then your computer will die, then your 360, then your car, then your computer AGAIN, then your TV, then your PSP. Un-fucking-believable
 
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And then they have to go and fuck it up because they couldn't put together a decent 3rd person engine. Not fair *sigh*. Seriously, if this game had the same working, lag-free 3rd person gameplay as other 3rd person games like the Gothics or Risen or Divinity DKS then -as I said up above- 'RPG of the Decade' material. For me at least.

I had several criticisms for the W2 despite voting it as RPG of the year. Serious problems with the engine (except for a very control specific bug and targetting as of 1.3), lag, etc were not among them though… Never had cinematic DOF on btw, It kills framerate iirc (the effect is nice although a bit ott some times)… Certainly prefer the kind of freedom of movement (and sometimes unrealistically fast animations ;) ) of other engines though...

Also I totally agree with JDR, Atmosphere was significantly inferior to #1(*) for me (and did not hold a candle to Gothic 1 imo).

Great game though.

(* Otoh I have not really played the EE yet though and I wonder if it is possible that they tweaked and improved stuff to the degree that this area was actually improved.
It is amazing what a few audio/visual enhancements and adding some ambiense to improve the liveliness of the world can do some times. Just try Stalker Shoc with and without the Complete mod to see what I mean ;) )
 
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Also I totally agree with JDR, Atmosphere was significantly inferior to #1(*) for me (and did not hold a candle to Gothic 1 imo).

For me it's the complete opposite. I liked the first game but the slow start on the outskirts of Vizima did put me off initially and I played the game in segments over a few months. It never really managed to grab me and pull me right in.
Number two does though. It started out great and is still really cool ~10 hours into the game and some way through chapter 1.

Also, as for the Gothic 1 reference, I'm not sure what they changed in the EE in Flotsam since I've only played some of the prologue of the non-EE version but I'm getting serious Gothic 1 old camp vibes from this game. More than any other game since the Gothics (including Risen) has given me.
Some quick brainstorming off the top of my head: The ambience is just plain awesome with the campfires, stray cats and dogs, dead people lying around in the woods giving an accurate impression of a warzone, ducks and geese in the villages, people having a drink and smoking a pipe at the campfire at night, guards getting drunk, vomiting and taking a piss when they've had a few too many, drunk people singing drunken songs in the street, the brothel with the prostitutes, merchants taking care of their stock during the day, carrying crates around and stuff, guards yelling at you to sheathe your weapon, guards falling asleep during their shift or realistically blocking your path if you're not supposed to trespass somewhere… and the list could go on and on.

I personally never got the console feeling. And I love the combat system, way better than in TW1 imo. I'm playing on hard and I love how chanllenging it is.
Same here as for the difficulty setting… though it makes me wonder what the other two higher options 'dark' and 'insane' are like. I mean I'm getting one-hit/shot sometimes, at the max I can take two hits usually so what's it like on 'dark' and 'insane'. Do enemies just have to look at you to kill you or what? :biggrin:
Anyway, what I meant with consolitis and interface issues was more the inventory and well, yes, the interface in general. One can tell in my opinion that this was made with controller compatibility in mind.
I actually like the combat system itself quite a lot. They've done a good job. PB (or other 3rd person RPG) developers should take a look at how it's done right and done well.

I've had this issue in dialogues if I have the Cinematic Depth of Field setting on. And turning it off seems to fix the issue for me. And personally I saw no difference with it on or off.
Thanks for the hint. I'll try that for a fix. The cinematic DoF adds some blur in the background for a more "artistic" look but it's certainly far from a "must have" feature so if turning this off fixes the lag I'll be more than happy to leave it off.
 
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I'm not sure what they changed in the EE in Flotsam since I've only played some of the prologue of the non-EE version but I'm getting serious Gothic 1 old camp vibes from this game. More than any other game since the Gothics (including Risen) has given me.
Some quick brainstorming off the top of my head: The ambience is just plain awesome with the campfires, stray cats and dogs, dead people lying around in the woods giving an accurate impression of a warzone, ducks and geese in the villages, people having a drink and smoking a pipe at the campfire at night, guards getting drunk, vomiting and taking a piss when they've had a few too many, drunk people singing drunken songs in the street, the brothel with the prostitutes

Most of these things were there already from #1. Some were missing from #2 initially but were added back (peaceful animals and other flavor touches it seems) and even tweaked apparently. The world ambiance was already there mostly, even before the EE and it seems that both games are very good at it (#2 might be better now in an incremental sort of way ?).

What I was referring to was overall game mood and atmosphere. Part 1 was more dark and Gothic, the pacing was less hectic and let you linger and steep in the tight atmosphere, the soundscape and music was also better and helped a lot. Finally it had a certain beautiful interlude chapter steeped in dark folklore and possessing of a unique character not found in any part of #2. Part 2 was more like a high powered war epic (sort of a bioware type game done right ;) ) Even Flotsam did not have the dark gothic forest vibe I would expect from the dark (balcan) folklore background of the Witcher world… Still very good and atmospheric of course…

Of course I'll have to play again see how it feels this time too. Adding back the little bits of ambiance is indeed very welcome (I smiled to see the pigeons in the Vergen save I loaded to check it out :) )

For me it's the complete opposite. I liked the first game but the slow start on the outskirts of Vizima did put me off initially and I played the game in segments over a few months. It never really managed to grab me and pull me right in.

That may have to do something with it. Playing a game in bits makes it impossible for me to get in the mood. But in the end imo Games = Art (especially for games like the witcher) so nothing is more proper and natural that each of us would experience them in different ways.
 
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I preferred the soundtrack in TW1, and music always has a significant impact on my opinion of a game's atmosphere. It's not that the music in TW2 wasn't good though. I just didn't find it as memorable as what was in TW1.

I have to say though, I was also thinking TW2 was game of the Decade in those first 2 chapters. It wasn't until I played the entire game that the euphoria wore off. :)

It was still the best RPG in 2011 for me.
 
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I have to say though, I was also thinking TW2 was game of the Decade in those first 2 chapters. It wasn't until I played the entire game that the euphoria wore off. :)

Act 3 got the most love in the EE though (all the new content is there iirc)… Perhaps we will reevaluate on the replay…
 
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I just stumbled upon an annoying thing in TW2. I've been exploring around Flotsam.
And I got to the ruined elven baths, which I've read is part of the main questline. But I'm not there yet. But what annoys me is the way they handle this. I can go down to the wall that blocks access to the baths, destroy the wall with Aard but I can't get down because of either an invisible wall or because I don't have the "jump down" prompt.

Couldn't they just not allowed me to break the wall? It really breaks immersion when you see a beautiful place, which the elven baths seems to be, and not be able to explore it because of an invisible wall. Dammit. And I was having so much fun exploring.

But besides this annoyance I'm having a blast. I just love the forest around Flotsam. Best forest in an rpg imo. I've never seen one stuffed with so much vegetation and so lush and gorgeous.
 
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I just stumbled upon an annoying thing in TW2. I've been exploring around Flotsam.
And I got to the ruined elven baths, which I've read is part of the main questline. But I'm not there yet. But what annoys me is the way they handle this. I can go down to the wall that blocks access to the baths, destroy the wall with Aard but I can't get down because of either an invisible wall or because I don't have the "jump down" prompt.

Couldn't they just not allowed me to break the wall? It really breaks immersion when you see a beautiful place, which the elven baths seems to be, and not be able to explore it because of an invisible wall. Dammit. And I was having so much fun exploring.

But besides this annoyance I'm having a blast. I just love the forest around Flotsam. Best forest in an rpg imo. I've never seen one stuffed with so much vegetation and so lush and gorgeous.

Yeah Geralt can sometimes be a pretty thick/oblivious/dumb guy at times when you find or figure out something that it's not time for him to realize/discover/notice yet. Sometimes a character can practically be wearing an "I'm going to betray you" trucker hat or a sort-of blocked off area could be screaming "there's something cool in here" and those cues will be obvious to you but not to your character because it's not time for that part yet. It's a trade-off you get when choosing a heavily plotted divergent narrative over a looser but less responsive narrative I guess.
 
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I just picked up Legend of Grimrock, and so far am enjoying it considerably. I've always been a big fan of the first person, party-based game though.

I also picked up Legacy of Cain: Soul Reaver along with it. I am unimpressed.
 
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Yeah Geralt can sometimes be a pretty thick/oblivious/dumb guy at times when you find or figure out something that it's not time for him to realize/discover/notice yet. Sometimes a character can practically be wearing an "I'm going to betray you" trucker hat or a sort-of blocked off area could be screaming "there's something cool in here" and those cues will be obvious to you but not to your character because it's not time for that part yet. It's a trade-off you get when choosing a heavily plotted divergent narrative over a looser but less responsive narrative I guess.

Yeah, I guess. But the thing for my particular issue all they had to do is not allow me to break down that wall and everything would've been great. But it's a minor issue. And it certainly cannot detract from the amount of great content it already has.
 
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