What games are you playing now?

Still playing Bioshock Infinite. Setting, story, art style etc all are almost very good but I don't like the combat and that shitty overdone looting system. The gameplay is a copy+paste of Bioshock 1 with some flaws and many simplifications. There is no real penalty for dying, Vending Machines are useless, weapons are under-balanced and there is no need of pistol, bow etc any longer, that funny hacking minigame is also removed. It's like playing a repetitive Run & Gun shooter.

I actually agree with a lot of those criticisms, but I think Infinite is better than the sum of its parts.

I was really disappointed with how simple the loot system is, and the fact that it hasn't improved at all since the original Bioshock is perplexing to me.

Completely agree about no penalty for dying. As I stated before, the resurrection system felt cheap to me. I hope they include an option to disable that in a patch like they did in Bioshock.

I wouldn't say vending machines are useless especially if you're playing on Hard, but I do think there's too many of them, and their presence in the game world doesn't make much sense.

I never used the original pistol again after finding better weapons, but that's the only weapon that seemed under-powered to me. Not sure why you mention bows since there are none in the game unlesss I missed something.
 
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I gave up playing Bioshock.

After Infinite, I just couldn't stand the tiny spaces and the severe lack of detail in the environment. A lot has happened since 2007, I guess.

It reminded me of Deus Ex - Invisible War - in how there are plenty of cool features and neat toys, but the environment feels artificially cramped and does NOT feel like a city underwater. I always felt that way about Bioshock - but after Infinite, it's painfully apparent.

I know the console limitations played a large part in them having to make the environments cramped and the levels small - and Infinite definitely pushes console hardware to the very limit.

But I'm surprised at how much I've changed since first playing it - because I clearly remember feeling highly impressed by the exploration and the level of detail.

It goes to show that things can evolve very significantly in subtle ways and over a period of years.

Anyway - I've spent the past week or so playing Guild Wars 2 - of all things. I never thought I'd get back to it - but I'm actually loving it now. It seems I've changed in that way as well, because I couldn't stand how casual it felt when I first played it. Now, I greatly enjoy the accessible nature of pretty much everything - and I can appreciate the absolutely amazing artwork and the wonderful environments. The character animations are the best I've ever seen in an MMO - and combat feels extremely fluid and smooth. Big surprise.

Also got a cheap key for Defiance. Another surprise - seeing as how it's being bashed quite a lot in the media and by gamers. I had a feeling it'd be for me - because I'm a huge sci-fi fan and I love the basic gameplay of Borderlands, which it obviously imitates.

So far, it's been quite a blast - but I can see how it might become repetitive relatively soon. Not a lof of variety in the missions to put it mildly. But the story is interesting and I do enjoy having to find bits and pieces of it myself. I'm not a big fan of having stories shoved down my throat, Bioware style, and I've always liked doing the digging myself by exploring and doing side-missions. If you like Borderlands - I highly recommend trying it out, as it's not subscription based.
 
I know the console limitations played a large part in them having to make the environments cramped and the levels small - and Infinite definitely pushes console hardware to the very limit.

Well there's your problem. It's designed to run on a toaster instead of a computer. ;)
 
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I picked up deus ex human revolution. I'm not much of a stealther as that playstyle just doesn't suit me so I'm going through it guns a blazing (lots of headshots at least from around corners) with just a bit of sneaking.

I've never played any of the deus ex games before so its all new to me. The story seems pretty decent. I just got to China and am liking the game so far but not awesomely so.
 
Deus Ex (all of them) is MUCH better when played as stealth game, if you ask me.
 
I played DX:HR as basically non-stealth first time through and enjoyed it with similar head shots etc.. I then played through again as stealth as I could and to my surprise enjoyed it even more as I am not a stealth player usually.
 
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The problem with stealth games is that it's really hard to do it well. There's not only the base mechanics to work out, but it also makes level design much more difficult. Not very many games can pull this off, but it's fun when they do.

I've moved back to Skyrim to carry on with my sneaky illusion necromancer, and yesterday I got attacked by a were-civet in Dwarf Fortress. Wacky!
 
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Menigal, I hated stealth games before I picked up Deus Ex: HR. It turned out that to play stealthily is surprisingly easy and enjoyable. Maybe only in that game, I don't know. Others that I've tried led me to believe that I was a total failure as a stealth player, but not this one.

As for the topic, I couldn't play Bioshock for more than ten minutes, but for reasons that might be strange to others. I didn't like the world, its politics seemed like amateurish political philosophy from the first glance, and then I dropped it when the player seemed to need to get boosts from syringes. That was so disgusting. It's so far the only game that I found too disgusting to play. Not scary, just repulsive.

Currenly playing The Witcher 2, finally. Strangely, it's not as free-roaming as TW1, the plot is fine but so far I haven't gotted to a moment where it would stop to feel railroaded. And their faces… I swear Triss had such a unique face, now she's indistinguishable from other women. Geralt has also lost his distinguished look. Dandelion I wouldn't even recognize, he looks just like anybody in the street instead of a unique look he used to have. I don't know, it looks like they couldn't port old looks to a new engine, which is sad. Noone resembles themselves and their looks are very bland. Other than that, everything is great, the combat is more difficult and I haven't decided whether it means I should turn down the difficulty. I used to rarely use magic (in the books witchers couldn't do it at all), but now I have to cast it during combat or lose.
 
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I gave up on it because it was so linear. If the second one's less open then it's definitely staying off my to-buy list.

The second one is much more open to "roaming free" - but the areas might feel somewhat smaller I suppose.

Anyway, I guess it depends on how you define free roaming - but in my opinion The Witcher had very rigid paths and didn't feel very open at all.
 
In TW1 you could go around the first village (Outskirts), then the city, etc. In TW2 they keep forcing you to go to predefined locations all the time. It was the idea of prologue, and I agree it couldn't be done without it, but afterwards it repeated again three times. I couldn't choose where to go.

But I think it's finally over, Geralt is now free to go around. Maybe that was just a trade-off for telling the story in the correct order.
 
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In TW1 you could go around the first village (Outskirts), then the city, etc. In TW2 they keep forcing you to go to predefined locations all the time. It was the idea of prologue, and I agree it couldn't be done without it, but afterwards it repeated again three times. I couldn't choose where to go.

But I think it's finally over, Geralt is now free to go around. Maybe that was just a trade-off for telling the story in the correct order.


TW1 was divided into chapters (as was TW2). You couldn't go to the city until chapter 2 - and then you couldn't go back to the outskirts. Beyond that, the areas had rigid paths that you had to follow - and you couldn't cross a field or anything like that.

In TW2 - you could pretty much go anywhere at any time in three large areas.

So, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
 
TW1 was divided into chapters (as was TW2). You couldn't go to the city until chapter 2 - and then you couldn't go back to the outskirts. Beyond that, the areas had rigid paths that you had to follow - and you couldn't cross a field or anything like that.

In TW2 - you could pretty much go anywhere at any time in three large areas.

So, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

That was my thought - even more restrictive than NWN which it was based on ... but something we dealt with for the story. The 'book report' as Prime Junta called his review. :)
 
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Well at this point of game it isn't as expansive as TW1. Maybe it gets better with time.
 
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OK, so I have restarted playing Star Wars: The Old Republic - I had only played the beta before release and not for that long. Not a bad game, really.

Also playing the indie RTS Machines at War 3, as well as noodling in KotOR / Grimrock / Bioshock / etc ...
 
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Which server are you on ?
 
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Ah, okay. I'm on "Vanjervalis Chain".

You can see the servers here : http://www.swtor.com/server-status

Since 2.0 you must expect a bit lag as well, since so many people seemingly decided to get back as well. ;)
 
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