What games are you playing now?

I'm STILL playing Avernum 4... I can see the end in sight (which for me could mean 2 more weeks of playing for about 2 hours every night).

I have to say this has been a great game. I have loved every minute of it. It has never bored me, and for a game that has taken up months of my gaming life (over 100 hours now), that's pretty impressive.

Hopefully in a week or two I will be able to post that I'm playing a new game

fatBastard() said:

Damn, Really? I was kind of starting to get interested in this one. Keep in mind that I hadn't heard about this game at all until I got a JoWood newsletter dumped on me a few weeks ago, but still. Bugger

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Unfortunately, yes. The basis of the game - organic ships with genetic-based alterations, with multiple endings and dialog - seems so great. I hadn't heard of it at all before my review copy came but quickly got excited just reading the manual and PR stuff. The reality is that the game falls between squad-based strategy and large-scale RTS, but in the worst possible way. You simply don't get enough units to make them expendable and don't get enough control to keep them alive. You are actually expected to manually move ships to avoid incoming missiles, yet the pacing means that by doing that you allow another ship to take a pounding.

Try another RTS instead ...

If you're looking for a great RTS then try C&C 3 or Supreme Commander, just be aware of the system requirements for SC.

My girlfriend finally finished Gothic II:NoTR after almost 8 months of playing it on and off, so I have access to my computer again! Whoo-hoo! We sort of mutually agreed to hold off on either of us playing Gothic III until the Big Patch finally makes it's appearance, though she insisted on watching/playing the intro. She was a little taken aback by how very different G3 looks and feels. I can't find my copy of Planescape: Torment, which was what I was planning to play when she finished G2 as I STILL have never played Torment beyond a little bit at the very beginning; I think one of my brothers borrowed it. I fortuitously found a copy of Divine Divinity by chance at the local Target for $9.00, so I bought it and started playing a survivor... what a fun RPG! I know it's old news for most folks here. I've also been playing Castlevania: Circle of the Moon during work breaks. (Suddenly feeling sorry for myself) There's so many games to catch up on and I have so little spare time! When am I going to find the time to play Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines or Neverwinter Nights or even Baldur's Gate or all these old Wizardry games and so on that are just sitting here taunting me?!? Maybe when I'm retired in 35+ years

Currently playing Football manager 2006 and Morrowind (restarting this game makes me realise that some of the changes in Oblivion were huge improvements, too bad that many fundamentals are flawed).

Another World: 15th Anniversary Edition

Fun!

Decided I needed a break from the world of power gaming and hideously buggy tho graphically splendid new games and am enjoying building intricate cities in the ancient Orient with Sierra's old city builder, Emperor. What a great game! Well--except for the abomination which they call "combat"--that should just have been an optional form of torture for the more masochistic RTS fugitives.

I've reinstalled Medieval 2: Total war and am having fun with it Patch 1.2 is a HUGE improvement as far as I can tell.

Playing Oblivion with both official addons installed, and when getting bored enough, i play Pray(yet unfinshed it) which i recently managed to activate via steam, while it's a retail DVD game. Reason for this, is that i have gone finally to Vista(32bit) home premium, and formatted all drives, bought 2 more sata drives. I was scared about how many games i must throw away, but so far all is working fine.

I'd be interested to hear your further comments on Vista and old games. I'm considering buying the 64 bit version, but I'm holding off till I learn more about compatability issues etc, since I enjoy replaying my old games!!

Okay... there are only two games installed on my Vista partition right now. While the Doomsday engine (jDoom/jHeretic/jHexen) and regular WinDoom do run, I can't get the Puzzle Quest demo to run.

playing Battle for Middle Earth lately.

awesome game, but a little easy at times. Rushing the pc is a surefire( albeit boring as hell) tactic anyway with rts, but you can just build quickly and catch the pc in this game with it's pants down.

I dont like the "send soldiers to their death by the legions to get upgrades" mechanic, but overall it does lead to a rather relentless type of gameplay that can be quite fun. Once the ball gets rolling, that is

On the PC I'm having a hard time getting into Hot Dog King ... but have to get the review done by next week ( ). Anyway, I have finished Titan Quest Immortal Throne and restarted Silverfall ... for keeps this time

On the PSP I'm playing Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos, again for review - I had decided I'd not pay for this one after how much I disliked the original. This one is *much* better - still not great, and very niche - it will be in my handheld article this month, as will Valhalla Knights another review game.

The DS is all about Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, which I got back to after completing Scooby-Doo: Who's Watching Who?, which was pretty darn fun for a licensed game! Izuna is really tough ... just finished a 11 level trap-fest dungeon and have a 21 level maze in front of me ... and *still* only 20 inventory slots (items don't stack, either!)

Trackmania Nations doesn't run under Vista, either.

EDIT
Thief: Deadly Shadows does run under Vista.

On the PC I just finished Silverfall and will be writing up review(s) for that. Not sure what is next on the PC ... hoping for review copies of Two Worlds or Dawn of Magic but nothing yet. Shivering Isles isn't running right on either of my PC's so that is shelved as well.

On the PSP I finished Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos, and have gotten into Valhalla Knights. When I finish that I have Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon on tap.

On the DS I finished the mandatory part of Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, and started Etrian Odyssey. If you wonder where classic PC-style RPG's are, they are on the DS! Izuna is a classic roguelike and Etrian Odyssey is a classic dungeon-crawler where you have to - get this - DRAW YOUR OWN MAPS on the touch screen! Freakin great - oh, and unforgivingly hard (wipe your whole party out in the first 10 minutes hard).

Playing through System Shock 2 as a tech based character with no combat skills apart from laser weapons level 1 (so I can use the rechargeable laser) and absolutely no PSI skills.

EDIT: Also working my way through Puzzle Quest on the NDS, I was frustrated with the random nature of it for awhile i.e. it's possible to sometimes die before even getting a move, but I slogged my way through and now it seems a lot more fun with a higher level character - I have a level 30 knight. The combat is a bit more tactical once your character has more options open to them.

txa1265 said:

On the DS I finished the mandatory part of Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, and started Etrian Odyssey. If you wonder where classic PC-style RPG's are, they are on the DS! Izuna is a classic roguelike and Etrian Odyssey is a classic dungeon-crawler where you have to - get this - DRAW YOUR OWN MAPS on the touch screen! Freakin great - oh, and unforgivingly hard (wipe your whole party out in the first 10 minutes hard).

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Just had a look at Etrian Odyssey site. I'm a sucker for Wizardry-style games. This and Mazes of Fate really look to be my sort of thing.
After reading stuff like this from you (and your articles about hand-helds), owning a DS is looking more and more appealing. I've never owned any sort of hand held, and the only consoles I've owned have been a PS1 and PS2 (which pretty much only gets used for party games!), but now....hmmmm...

I'm such a n00b - I assumed a 'DS Lite' was sort of light/cut-down version of the DS until recently!
(btw, a DS will play all GBA games, right?)

Oh - back on topic - at the moment I'm playing Styrateg (for review purposes). Not much of an opinion yet...

Shagnak said:

(btw, a DS will play all GBA games, right?)

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That's correct.

Okay... with the amazing feat of finishing Avernum 4 now in my past I have to choose my next game. I only play one CRPG at a time (sometimes while concurrently playing a shooter or strategy game), and I have many to choose from. The most likely candidates waiting on my shelf are The Shivering Isles - Oblivion expansion, Jade Empire, and Gothic 3. Since I really want to wait for that long fabled big patch for Gothic 3, I really only have to choose between the other two.

I figure that since I've already finished Oblivion months ago I might as well get the rest of its ilk out of the way. So Jade Empire will have to wait.

So, starting the Shivering Isles.

Gothic, the best game ever made!