Last game you finished, tell us about it

Well, I think it depends on taste but I felt PS:T companions come with way too complex story/philosophy of their own. The game's story itself is already quite complex, dark and serious theme and NPCs adding on top of that really killed it for me.
Fair enough.
Also, TNO views the world in male's perspective (apologies for being sexist?) - for example, I don't understand the whole romantic feelings between TNO and Fall-From-Grace or Annah.
That's the male zombie part I was referring to. Understandable but for what it's worth I didn't pursue a romance with either of them, wasn't even aware it's possible with Fall-From Grace.
I usually play games to enjoy my time, not to get depressed or think of life in serious way (I do that enough in real world :p)
Alrik will love reading this :p
 
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Dear Green Place
I've been trying to play Betrayal at Krondor but it just wasn't working for me. The graphics are outdated, the text is hard to read, the action is slow and the story so ponderous and dependent on note taking - I'm just not feeling it. I've been playing it for the past 2 months and I have only gotten to chp 6. (out of 9). Today I booted up Paper Sorcerer and was having a blast. The Classic game BAK just might get abandoned.

However, the game I just finished was:

Nightmare from the Deep. (NFTD)
A hidden object game. (HOG)
HOGs are my go-to genre when I get sorta bored with gaming. And playing one of these games always works for me. They're short and easy to play and finding all the hidden objects in a particular puzzle, brings a kind of satisfaction like leveling up in an RPG.

NFTD distinguishes itself from the pack in a number of ways. For one it is cheap, I paid only 5 bucks for it on Steam. The typical HOG goes between 10 to 20 bucks.

The second thing it does well are the actual hidden objects. The developer didn't cheat. In a lot of HOG they color the hidden object the same as the surrounding area. That's fair if you're looking for a chameleon, but not a tea pot or a ski or a toy tractor. They also included a neat gimmick where you are awarded one of the hidden objects after you solve the puzzle. so that you can use that object in some kind of upcoming puzzle.

I also liked how none of the hidden object puzzles were timed. Or had the lights go out so you had to use some kind of light source to light up the scene. And it was nice that "all" the search words were available at once as opposed to giving them out piece meal.

And the graphics are crisp, which helps a lot when trying to find all the hidden objects. This might sound like a silly complement but I have played plenty of HOGs where the puzzle scenes are dark and fuzzy. Kudos to these developers for understanding what should be core concepts in these types of games.

As far as the story, well children's story Jack and Jill has more depth than a typical HOG story line. But NFTD manages to tie all it pieces together to make a compelling story. Nice music, serviceable voice acting, good graphics and some minimal character animation. Most HOGs I only play for a few minutes a day. But this game makes you want to keep playing until you win.

So what is the story of NFTD. You play a museum curator who is about to put on a big exhibit about a notorious Black Pirate (from the Pirate days arrrrrrr). For some obvious reason (you'll figure it out as soon as you are about to do deed) the pirate come to life and steals your daughter ( a worker at the museum). Your mission is to rescue your daughter. The story does have an interesting twist and I will say no more. The game lasted about 10 hours for me over 3 days.

I really liked this game and enjoyed the time I spent with it. I look forward to more HOGs from this developer.
 
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I finished Broken Age part 1.Charming game, it has nice hand drawn graphic and good humor, very enjoyable game overall.But I don't get where over $3m(that amount of money is lot for adventure game) went, game is only 4 hours long with not many interactive objects and very simple puzzles.I didn't expect game as brilliant as Monkey island or Grim fandango but I did expect lot more.
 
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I finished Broken Age part 1.Charming game, it has nice hand drawn graphic and good humor, very enjoyable game overall.But I don't get where over $3m(that amount of money is lot for adventure game) went, game is only 4 hours long with not many interactive objects and very simple puzzles.I didn't expect game as brilliant as Monkey island or Grim fandango but I did expect lot more.

I like this post :)
 
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Feb 10, 2014
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Might & Magic X

Despite the bugs, sluggish performance, and poor character balance, this was truly a gem of a fun game. I'm truly looking forward to the inevitable DLC as there was far too little content in the end upon which I could mess around with my [mostly] finalized, overpowered characters.

Gameplay: A+
Performance: C
Character balance & game progression: B
 
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Finished the replay of Drakensang, this time with Ergo's fixpack.

You run a party of max 4 members, but can have one additional temporary summoned creature and in some areas one more NPC will join the club to make things easier so it's max of 6 members. The combat is realtime but mostly you should use pause to issue spells/pots/skillshots or simply to tell a certain party member where to move or who to attack.

The base of the game is TDE ruleset and in this game it got a very rich representation. Not only many combat skills are in the game, but also noncombat ones have their purpose. However, only partially and only to a certain limit.
The limit example? There is no use of getting arcane lore over 18 as you'll be able to identify everything with 18, also there is no point of getting superhigh pickpocket as you can buy a ring of pp+2 and pickpocket everyone with 18 (except, well, demigods :D). Partially means you honestly don't have to up some skills at all, FastTalk on one hero and Haggle on another will be more than enough to get max experience in all dialogues, although to get some fun and humorous responses it's still nice to have high seductive skill. Crafting skills, and there are three of those, are pretty much pointwasters as have no use while exploring and thus you should up those only on recruitable NPCs you don't plan to have in your party ever. Till the end I never used alchemy and bowyer at all, simply had enough of pots from loot and shops, and didn't want a bows/xbows party member master. But did have to use smith - there are some nice weapons you can get from it, for example an OP sabre you can craft in the second half of the game (attack and dodge values incerased, 5% chance of wounds, high damage).

Exploring the game is fun, story and substories are nice although somewhat cliche, there are many items to loot but rarely worth picking up (you'll very soon have so much cash you don't need to pickup/sell every mousetrap or apple), you can't but adore many different quests and I have to add a few pretty good puzzles.

Ergo fixed a few things, one I have to mention is faster "skinning" and now it's not an annoying feature unlike the first time I've played the game. However some things are still unchanged, a few barrels you cannot loot (not that it matters, as I said most of the loot you really don't want to pick like cheap pipes and handkerchiefs) and a couple of fights won't stop when you kill every hostile unless you walk away from dead enemies. But those are things practically not worth mentioning and only a nitpicker will notice them - the game is polished.

Visually, although "old", the game is IMO eyecandy and can ashame all those today's nicelooking wannabees. Can't believe that recent german RPGs didn't (want to) use this engine. Music is not some masterpiece, but fits nicely into the game, especially the dwarven areas score.

Fights are sometimes easy, sometimes hard. Sometimes you have to walk away and return when you grab a few levels more. It's by design. And design is something you can't see usually.
An example. You have a dwarf in the party and you push only two-handed axes on him just like you should in TDE (never make jack-of-all trades, d&d's f/m/t wouldn't survive here). You have points to up it, however you're capped not only by the combined value of combat attributes (courage/strength/agility) but also your overall level prevents you to be a master in one weapon as early as possible. Not only that, but derivation based skills, like armor use for example, depend on your strength, and thus your party NPC who is a sort of a thief/mage and can have max strength 13, simply can't max the armor use.
Not that it matters, but I'm just trying to say, you can't make godlike characters in this game and I can't but adore the ruleset implementation here. It's somewhat tricky, on the other hand it's enjoyable to decide where you'll invest points into.

There are plently of different mobs and bosses that need different strategy to nail (for example marshes evil tree is best dealth with from a distance) and the game also contains respawns. Endless respawns. OMG. Still the game is not a classic grinder with annoying respawns, ofc if it was like that, I'd spit on it and instauninstall.
Yes, there are endless respawns - until you do something to stop them. For example, to stop undead constantly appearing in marshes, you find and kill the necromancer responsible and respawns are done with. Some grindlovers will be very disappointed if are trying to grab experience from killing respawns - once your level is much higher than those, you get 0 XP for killing. ;) I adore that scheme!

There are only two big complaints I have. The first one is I'm spoiled by movement speed in Blood Dragon. And running in Drakensang, compared to that, is very slow. Second one is that the game didn't get an addon/DLC. As you'll discover, some things are impossible to do/explore. For example, you can't find a quality spade that should be an object of an unmarked sidequest. You can't open a certain door in Praios temple. You can't enter the dwarf quarter. Etc.
And I wish there was an addon because I'd love to play this game more. Instead, I'm now off to play Drakensang 2.

Oh, the score? Epic RPG with some useless loot/skills, slow movement, visually great, exploration on high level, a few bugs, humor, etc… This simply can't go under:
9/10



[EDIT]

Completely forgot to write as planned about inventory system. As you know, encumbrance due to weight affects your heroes' combat performance and lowers attack and dodge value.

In Drakensang each person has it's separate inventory as greater strength means more weight to carry without getting overcumbered. Sounds easy to manage? Not quite. Encumbrance depends also on items your party member equips. More weight on NPC's shoulders, bigger encumbrance number you want to avoid at all costs. You can train armor use skill to level 3 which automatically lowers encumbrance by -3.
For more than that there is a solution. Some armors protect not only chest, but also back and hands or even feet. So you'll equip just that armor and unequp gloves for example. Unless of course those gloves are imbued with, again an example, +1 dexterity. Then you'll mix something else. Awsome system if you ask me and again, not "dumbplayer" friendly.
Still I liked the Blackguards shared inventory system more as you don't need to open separate inventories. Perhaps I'm just too lazy. :)
Excess stuff you can sell or store in numerous containers in your house.

Items don't stack automatically in inventory if pickpocketed, now that's a bit of annoying, not much though as you really won't go pickpocketing everything, just things worth using or selling, and money of course. Cash, whatta surprise ;), does stack when pickpocketed.

Also forgot to mention that unlike Bioware games not all NPCs have their own quest. It's such a shame as the amazon sidequest one of your party members will get was fun. Very hard one as you get attacked by 4 amazons which are better equipped than you and your amazon (only 2 of you will take that fight).

I said very hard? Third thing forgot to mention is that there is no easy/normal/hard difficulty. The game is as it is. And is not easy. There are very hard fights, but with a bit of thinking, strategy and luck, you'll manage to pull through - don't even think about finishing this game without either heavy use of pots or not having a summoned creature under your control.
 
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Finished Batman: Arkham City + Harley Quinn's revenge DLC.

A very enjoyable experience. Combat seemed much more natural and easier to flow in this incarnation over Asylum. As I've said in the other thread, the exploration and graphic design, attention to detail is superb, while performing wonderfully on my laptop.

My only complaint is that some of the controls I couldn't get to work: grapple boost / takedown being the most difficult. Also, some of the physical challenges and ONE remaining joker trophy were too hard (or too tedious) for me to get. It really hurts my inner OCD, but I must let it go… Great game nonetheless.

The voice acting and animations and atmosphere are wonderful. The Riddler's puzzles were really well done and creative. Probably my favorite parts.

Definitely a must play, especially if you like hitting thugs. ;)

Oh, and playing Catwoman is a total hoot. Cracking a whip has never been so pleasurable. :)
 
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Silly me I asked what game to play after TRoT while waiting for RoA patch... And I have two batmans rotting on gamersgate for ages. Trasher ty for reminding me.
 
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Yea, bought those when JDR noted they're on sale on amazon and described as not bad at all without giving details on it. I couldn't buy them on amazon for whatever reason but luckily GG discounted both of them a few days after. ;)

Remember Dishonored? That game was also on sale, again JDR brought the news and said that game is not bad at all without giving details on it. And what happened? I got a bloody GOTY! Couldn't believe how great that game is.

If I'll be blown away by Batman too, next time he says something is not bad without giving details on it, that means instabuy!
 
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Oops, you should be warned mobs respawn and usually stronger and larger, BTW. To have enough XP to get all the upgrades you should clear them all every respawn cycle. It wasn't until the finale that I was maxed, and was tired of them, thankfully this occurred at about the same time. Too many creative ways to take them out kept me entertained.

Dishonoured needs my attention too. But I am a bit burned out on third person parkour simulations for a while… ;)
 
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If respawns come as a cycle and not from a thin air like in repopulating cleared dungeons Skyrim, I'm good.

And weren't we talking about some TV? Find and watch Banlieue 13:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414852/
That kind of parkour you can't see anywhere, not even in a game. Skip the sequel, watch just B13.
 
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Yeah, the whole world can repopulate (or revive) after each step in the main quest (and maybe for some of the side quests). You never kill a spawn, you just make it unconscious… That's part of the attraction of the game for me, too.
 
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Yeah, the Batman games have been in my queue for awhile now. I was impressed by the first few hours of AA, but I haven't had time to get back to them yet.

My only complaint is how cluttered the HUD is in those titles. I wish they had made it more configurable. The constant button prompts are particularly annoying to me.
 
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I finished Batman AA a while ago and loved it but for some reason only play a couple hours of AC and then never went back. Not sure why.

I then bought AO and haven't even downloaded it yet. Too many games, it's a disease I tell ya.
 
Finished Drakensang: The River of Time.
With Ergo's mod installed.

Won't write much. Everything I said above for the first Drakensang is again here - with at least a dozen of improvements. Even richer character creation, quicktravel between key spots on the map, shuffle the party by moving avatars up/down so anyone can lead not just your squishy, new abilities like tank ability of taunting enemies, etc. Oh and I have to mention even more humor than in the first game!

I still can't believe the publisher decided not to put this game on Steam and to restrict sales over gamersgate. Because of that stupidity, Radon Labs was bought by Bigpoint and there will be no more Drakensang games. Masterpieces.

If you didn't buy it yet, I don't know what are you waiting for.
10/10

——

Yup with the game I finally got it's DLC Phileasson's Secret.
It adds a few more maps, two quest chains, a temporary recruitable NPC fighter (who can't be trained), a few new items. And it's crap.
What were they thinking. The whole main DLC quest is hours of clearing waves and waves of enemies (no, not endless respawns, thank god) with just one reason - save the princess. The DLC sidequest is (re)visiting three areas from the base game, kill some mobs and find a "treasure". New items? Okay I admit, the armor set where some parts you'll loot and some you'll buy is perfect for your mage who doesn't have to wear crappy robes any more. In the end you get a book that ups +1 mostly on your social skills so you'll probably use it by your thief to get barter +1. From treasure hunt chain you get a stupid nature ring with picking flowers and skinning animals +3. Useless.

Just because all those hostiles don't spawn endlessly, just because I didn't spot any bug and just because of the new nice armor set I'll put:
2/10

And I still feel it's too much to give.
 
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I completed Eschalon book 3.Got to say I am bit dissapointed.First it's shortest game in series, it took me little less than 14 hours with all side quest cleared.Second overall design is not as good as in Book 2.
It's still good game that I would recommend, but book 2 was better.
 
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I completed Eschalon book 3.Got to say I am bit dissapointed.First it's shortest game in series, it took me little less than 14 hours with all side quest cleared.Second overall design is not as good as in Book 2.
It's still good game that I would recommend, but book 2 was better.

Hmm... doesn't sound too good. I was actually expecting it to be significantly better than the previous games.

Oh well... Will get it down the line.
 
I completed Eschalon book 3.Got to say I am bit dissapointed. First it's shortest game in series, it took me little less than 14 hours with all side quest cleared.Second overall design is not as good as in Book 2.
It's still good game that I would recommend, but book 2 was better.

Sounds like Book 2 when it first came out. A lotta complaints about it being too short and somehow they released a free expansion pack a few months later.
 
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Sounds like Book 2 when it first came out. A lotta complaints about it being too short and somehow they released a free expansion pack a few months later.

Book II was short but still it took me around between 18 to 20 hours(I don't remember exact time) to complete it without expansion.According to in game stats it took me 13.8 hours to beat book 3 that is 1/3 shorter even with expansion or 2 I doubt game will be as long as already short book 2.
 
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