What games are you playing now?

Okay… so I was playing World of Xeen and Dungeon Lords again…

I really enjoyed DL the first time through, but there's too much of a "been there, done that" feel so I'm abandoning it.

I know I said I was going to take a break from Jeff Vogel's games after finishing Avernum 5… but I just can't help myself. So I am now playing Nethergate: Resurrection. And, as usual with Spiderweb games… I'm really enjoying it. It's a nice change of pace from his Avernum and Geneforge worlds… and I never played the original Nethergate… so this rewrite is my first foray into the Nethergate world. I have to say that even though it hasn't captured me like Avernum and Geneforge so far… it is quite fun… and I really like the psuedo historical feel to it.

So… I continue on with World of Xeen and I'm loving Nethergate: Resurrection.

Finally made it to FF XII. I'm roughly 4 hours into the game; not sure if I like the way they handled the camera (Heretic II is still unchallenged in this regard IMO), but so far it's pleasant enough.

Playing the heck out of 1701AD. I really should be finishing my D2 run, but I can't seem to pry that 1701AD disc out of the drive.

Originally Posted by Jaz
Finally made it to FF XII. I'm roughly 4 hours into the game; not sure if I like the way they handled the camera (Heretic II is still unchallenged in this regard IMO), but so far it's pleasant enough.

Bought the CE version off Ebay a while back, but haven't played it yet. Keep me informed on what you think of it. I haven't really enjoyed a FF game since FF VII.

I haven't played the first four games, and I'm not sure if we like the same aspects of a game. So I don't think my tour through FF XII could indicate if you might like it or not, especially if you didn't enjoy FF IX - that game just dethroned FF VII (my favorite part so far, just slightly ahead of FF VI). But I'll still try to help .
For one thing, I *think* I like what they did to combat in FF XII: no wandering monsters, no battle arena. Fine… now let's play on!

Originally Posted by Jaz
I haven't played the first four games, and I'm not sure if we like the same aspects of a game. So I don't think my tour through FF XII could indicate if you might like it or not, especially if you didn't enjoy FF IX - that game just dethroned FF VII (my favorite part so far, just slightly ahead of FF VI). But I'll still try to help .
For one thing, I *think* I like what they did to combat in FF XII: no wandering monsters, no battle arena. Fine… now let's play on!

The gameplay in FFXII is one of the best yet for the FF series IMO and I would recommend it to anyone who like western RPG's because it's far more western in it's gameplay than Japanese.
The story… not so. It's still better than average, with a very strong Star Wars theme over it. It's just a bit disappointing when compared to the other FF games.

Yep, noticed the Star Wars look-and-feel to this one, too. As for the story… we'll see, I'm not too far into the game yet.

Originally Posted by Jaz
I haven't played the first four games, and I'm not sure if we like the same aspects of a game. So I don't think my tour through FF XII could indicate if you might like it or not, especially if you didn't enjoy FF IX - that game just dethroned FF VII (my favorite part so far, just slightly ahead of FF VI). But I'll still try to help .
For one thing, I *think* I like what they did to combat in FF XII: no wandering monsters, no battle arena. Fine… now let's play on!

Well from what I know, FF XII is nothing like FF IX at all (Thank God!). I played all the way through FF IX back when it came out, but it felt like a chore. I just didn't like the ultra cutesy art style of the characters in the game, it felt like they had combined FF with Disney. I was also disappointed because Squaresoft had hyped the game to be a return to the series' roots, in which I felt it was way off.

How do you like the combat system so far? I find the colored target lines to be an odd sight.

FF XII *is* nothing like FF IX, that's for sure. The cute character design was the FF IX feature I liked best, and I loved the Kingdom Hearts games just because they combined Disney and FF, so the return to 'realistic' looking characters is the biggest turn-off for me so far.
The combat system: I'm not too happy with the chaotic Tomb Raider-style camera, but if you go phased it doesn't matter if you actually see anything or not - you can easily direct battles/follow what's going via the menus. The RTS-ish target lines can be switched off, though I don't mind them (they tend blend into the visual combat chaos quite naturally, anyway).

I don't think I'd ever be playing that:
http://www.deleicht.dk/acornyvoyage/

Replaying Baldurs Gate 2 with the unfinished business mod. Having fun, but some of my old grievances with 2nd edition AD&D (extremely limited character building where characters are defined by their equipment) and BG2 mage battles (tin can opening gaming) resurface. Still it is so long since I played it that the story keeps me going, and I get to try some underused NPCs such as Valygar.

There are some very annoying bugs with my current setup though. A few enemies are unkillable. The trolls in the Boo kidnapping quests could be taken care of by shadowkeeping in Crom Fayr, but I havent yet figured out how to deal with the unkillable Githyanki captain in the boarding action after leaving Spellhold so I stopped playing last night. Can Giths be killed by mind flayer type brain sucking?

Originally Posted by Zaleukos
There are some very annoying bugs with my current setup though. A few enemies are unkillable. The trolls in the Boo kidnapping quests could be taken care of by shadowkeeping in Crom Fayr, but I havent yet figured out how to deal with the unkillable Githyanki captain in the boarding action after leaving Spellhold so I stopped playing last night. Can Giths be killed by mind flayer type brain sucking?

The bug isn't that you're unable to kill the Githyanki captain, but that a certain script that interrupts the action doesn't fire. I had that bug last time I played through BG2, and it took a couple of reloads before it played out correctly.

Switching between Fable and NWN2. Fable: Lost Chapters is a very pretty game; but don't particularly like the linear aspect of it. I like the free roaming games like Gothic and the Elder Scrolls

Originally Posted by KazikluBey
The bug isn't that you're unable to kill the Githyanki captain, but that a certain script that interrupts the action doesn't fire. I had that bug last time I played through BG2, and it took a couple of reloads before it played out correctly.

Interesting I assumed it was another case of unkillable enemies introduced by Unfinished Business since the trolls were confirmed as such.

I "won" Star Wars Battlegrounds via ebay.

"Won" because the game's quality is terriffic.

The package is worn out, and the CDs have unbelievably many scratches.

Now, does anyone know whether I can make an image of the play CD so I can play without adding even more scratches to it ? It's a multitrack CD with data & music, and seemingly can't be concverted into an CD image because of that.

Well, aside from everything else, I just got the Mac version of Call of Duty 4 … hadn't replayed since the original release. Really great game, looks and performs fantastic!

This is the first time I'm playing a *recent* game with an image file: Star Wars Galactic "Babblegrounds" from above.

The local distributor of this game, Electronic Arts, replied me on an official answer that they had no CDs of this game anymore.

They even said there had been a patch for it, for the German-language version of the game, although the patch is NOT listed at EA's - and NOT at LucasArts as well !
It is only available via Filefront.

after some hassle I was able to make an CD image of the "play disc". i tried to make an backup copy (which I'm allowed to do by law, normally, at least), but the burned CD wasn't readable anymore - a thing I can't understand.

The image file I made for Nero, however, is "playing" fine, once loaded.

This is - all in all - the exact case which I had been forseeing in the "A Thought" thread: A game is dying out, no replacement discs available, the gamer stands alone (in the rain).

And now, there are games which don't allow to make and detect CD images - in several years these games might be forgotten, because no-one has replacement discs anymore, and the original ones are too scratchy or too valuable to even be used.

I still have a weird feeling towards this: I nearly feel as if I was a criminal. Well done, gameing companies ! You make harmless gameres feel like Criminals !

But on the other hand this is sort of revence in my case - a) towards the one who sold such a scratchy game (so to say) at ebay, and b) towards the companies who run out of replacement discs and care not to actually help gamers.

Producing no-CD patches - even if a game is nearly forgotten - is seemingly like fearing holy water to them.

Edit: The try with the CD image wasn't successful.

Of course.

Damn pirates!!

Playing King's Bounty: The Legend.

I'm about 6 hours in, and so far the game definitely lives up to the hype. In fact, this game is underhyped. I seriously hope enough word gets out about how good this game really is.

Dunno where to put it (if someone knows a better place, please remove to there):

Not uninteresting interview with Steve Ince, mostly on his adventure "So Blonde".
He is one of the people standing behind the "Broken Sword" games, and he also contributed to The Witcher, I read.