What games are you playing now?

Sir Markus said:

Right now I'm playing Temple of Elemental Evil (I've never seen it before, but this game invents its own bugs as you go), and when I get frustrated with it to the point of taking a sledge hammer to my computer, I play Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell to unwind.

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Check these guys out! They might be the sollution to your problems.

Übereil

Gallifrey said:

Last evening I re-installed CivCity: Rome and promptly lost 5 hours to the game. City builders, particularly ones based on ancient civilizations, completely and utterly suck me in every time. They're dangerous!

I'm also trying to get into Morrowind once more. I've modded the heck out of it, but it is still failing to grab me. I think right now it's the horrible combat. The game goes from being a very attractive, open-world exploration style RPG to being a mad clickfest when combat happens. It's awful, and utterly destroys any immersion.

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Two words for you - ranged combat

That might help, if the melee is too awkward for you.

Me personally, my favorite is to use a 2-handed weapon and go third person, leaping in and out of combat striking like crazy tiger. If you are going to go melee, make sure you keep moving, dont just sit there and get pounded on. And for Azura's sake, make sure you go third person for melee combat!

I think I'm going to go through Summoner, or maybe even MMVII again, until Bioshock PC comes out.

xSamhainx said:

Two words for you - ranged combat

That might help, if the melee is too awkward for you.

Me personally, my favorite is to use a 2-handed weapon and go third person, leaping in and out of combat striking like crazy tiger. If you are going to go melee, make sure you keep moving, dont just sit there and get pounded on. And for Azura's sake, make sure you go third person for melee combat!

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I've been trying ranged combat, but at the starting out levels it's not terribly efficient. Neither is melee of course.
The problem with ranged is that you have to be in first person to use it, and I find the first-person view extremely confining. Third person is much better but ranged is pretty much out for that. I wish it were possible to have the targeting reticule active in third person.
My character is a wood elf thief type, but has marksman and short blade as primary skills.

I de-installed Tropico 2 again. It was rather more ... work, than actually fun.

Instead, I installed Rayman 2. I'm looking forward to this game, since I love Jump & Run games.

I decided against another Overlord run-thru. Good game, but I need to get cracking on Tomb Raider: Anniversary!

Today I shall start it in earnest, Lost Valley here I come

@gallifrey- I dont know wht more to tell you about Morrowind, Gallifrey. It's a well-known gaming phenomena that while some of us are fanatical about it, there are well-documented cases of those who just cannot "click" with Morrowind. It's about destiny, there's nothing that you can do about that. No mod can make you the Nerevarine. either you are, or you are not.
Perhaps you simply are not, friend. Uninstalll it and move on to other worlds, there are plenty more to save elsewhere.

a feline in for a fancy feast!

man, you said it.. awesome game.

I didnt realize time was flying so fast, it's close to 2 am on a work night. I feel like calling in sick tomorrow just so I can play it! In the original you were able to cheese outta the T Rex fight by ducking in a cave, not in this one, you gotta fight it. Pretty fun battle there. Just finished Qualoteps tomb

There's some things that arent 4 stars tho, the ai on some of the creatures is pretty lamentable. Youlll hear their telltale battle cry, draw your weapon for the fight, come around a corner and the idiot is trying to run thru the wall, or stuck behind a rock or something! This happens far too much. Ive also got some annoying static-like popping going on with the sound now and then, I'm going to have to look into that. I definitely would rather play Tomb Raider on a console, but I'm getting the hang of doing it via pc.

Whatever. I'm still having a great time with it, some nice clenched-teeth jumps hundreds of feet up and lots of nice ruins and traps, that's what TR is all about. And that T Rex battle was freakin cool!!

Okay... I've given in (somewhat). I've owned a PSP for almost 2 years now and the only thing I've ever used it for is watching movies when traveling (it's great for that if you are the only one watching the movie). I haven't played any games on it because I haven't found any that interested me. You all know that I'm not a console/handheld gamer.

To date, the only handheld game I've ever played was Eye of the Beholder on my sons GBA, and I really enjoyed it (because it was basically a port of the original PC game with different combat resolution, and less game play).

So... I picked up Dungeon and Dragons: Tactics. I am, and will always be a D&D fanboy... can't help it... I've been actively playing the PnP game for almost 30 years now.

I've played about 5 adventures(missions) so far, and I'm enjoying it. But I've learned that you have to really set aside at least an hour any time you want to play, because the turn-based battles (which I love) can take forever to finish. I don't know if it will hold my interest for the estimated 40 hours of game play (as per the box), but we'll see. The battles allow for very strategic thought and they play out well (if a bit slow).

So... I'm still playing Omega Syndrome... near the end now... and it's EXTREMELY hard... but I've added D&D:Tactics as my "lay in bed and play" game.

Re: D&D Tactics - you can speed up the animations by using 'Chess Mode' which helps somewhat.

Another wonderful thing is that you can save *anywhere* ... but the downside is that since there is no map it is hard to recall whether or not you have visited certain rooms once you leave and then come back (I did a full party trek back to inspect 2 chests we'd already cleared after playing Jeanne D'Arc for a while ... )

txa1265 said:

Re: D&D Tactics - you can speed up the animations by using 'Chess Mode' which helps somewhat.

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I may try that... a big battle can take quite a long time, which makes it impossible to just get in a quick adventure during the day. The only time I have that much free time is after putting the family to bed for the evening, and I hate starting an adventure at midnight because it can take me well past 1am to finish.

Saving anywhere is nice... but you're right... I tend to forget what the heck I was doing if I save during an actual adventure... especially if more than a day passes between playing sessions.

Set aside my Dominions game for a day and tried to play the Bioshock demo, which I imagine I am far from alone in doing. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get very far into it before I had some pretty violent motion sickness. (That mouselook camera and the wobbly instant shifts of perspective had me dizzy pretty fast.)

Before I got out of the demo, though, I did get something of a look at it and I have to admit that it has every appearance of a ground-breaking game. Even though it is heavily influenced by Fallout, Bladerunner, etc it still is obviously a perfect gem of a realized world. The shooter mechanics(which I was quite leery of, not playing shooters ever) were actually very easy to master, and the atmosphere was really superb. Unless they get some kind of camera lock or alternate 3rd person view hak, though, I won't be able to play it--those of you who can, I'm sure, will find it pretty cool, though I think it's really being hyped to death at the moment.

PC is Bioshock, which I think is pretty darn good.

On the PSP I'm just playing D&D Tactics now, and enjoying the flawed game.

DS is .. High School Musical: Making the Cut - sort of Elite Beat Agents for HSM and much better than I expected.

Enjoying Tomb Raider Anniversary still, but kinda stuck!

The Damocles part of Greece is a total pain, who would have thought getting to it would be as simple as just jumping down at that angle? Then, once I get to the front gate, I pull the block down and it "lands wrong", and Lara cannot make the jump with a block that landed wrong. This is just poor programming there, glad I finally gave up and looked around to discover it was a flaw in the program. After doing every possible thing I could imagine.

Then I get inside, and the key is laying out in the open on a platform, with a huge mess of swords above it. Hmm, wonder what's going to happen if I was to grab that key? I'll tell you what's gonna happen, a cut scene is going to play and the room's devices are going to be "set up". You are supposed to just grab it to move the game forward. Of course, I ran around and scoured the entire room looking for some other solution for a while. Again, I get nailed for not assuming the simple!

And that final grapple jump backwards onto that pillar, ugh... I (used to) consider myself fairly adept at maneuvering Lara around, but sheees I must have tried this 15 times last night before I had to give up and go to bed! I jump, grapple, wall-walk, and she jumps FORWARD every time! ArgH!

Maybe I was just tired, I'm going to get it down tonight

txa1265 said:

PC is Bioshock, which I think is pretty darn good.

On the PSP I'm just playing D&D Tactics now, and enjoying the flawed game.

DS is .. High School Musical: Making the Cut - sort of Elite Beat Agents for HSM and much better than I expected.

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So what's the story with Tactics? I was looking at the box the other day and the description said "Over 40 hours of play in 30+ levels and side quests".

Does this mean the game takes place through a linear progression of levels rather than exploring a free world?

JDR13 said:

So what's the story with Tactics? I was looking at the box the other day and the description said "Over 40 hours of play in 30+ levels and side quests".

Does this mean the game takes place through a linear progression of levels rather than exploring a free world?

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It is very much a 'tactics' style game. You have ~30-40 maps, each called an 'adventure' with background and a main quest and plenty of enemies to kill and items to find. Completing these is usually related to forwarding the main quest, and typically open up more possible quest areas. There is a 'world map' with locations, and at each one you have some sort of merchant, can save/load and can do party management. I think 'side quest' means that you sometimes get told there are 2 ways to do something. You only need chose one, but can do both.

Hand of Fate.

I finally started playing Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines for the first time (I did install that "true" patch). It's almost as fun as Gothic! However I don't seem to have a lot of time at home to play it.

I own a gp2x and someone recently ported Cave Story (which is an amazing and totally free game by a guy named Pixel) to it, so I've been playing through Cave Story again when I'm on breaks at work. It's like a combination of Metroid/Castlevania gameplay and a shoot 'em up with a clever, well done story. And it's appealingly cute! And free! And it looks very nice on a small screen! I played the PC version a couple of years ago.

@Alrik: the adventure, or is there another Hand of Fate? Just reading these three words made me itch to reinstall it . But it will have to wait until I finish my PS2 games (which - due to sheer mass - probably means never).

Now that I'm done with my current tour of Morrowind GotY (PC), I'm continuing FF X (PS2), nearing the fourth quarter now. Sonny forces me to play a daily round of Project Gotham 2 (Xbox) because he loves to see me crash my car, and once in a while I go to Popcap games to play a round of Zuma or Insaniquarium (PC, online, casual games). While the latter is extremely funny, it's also quite rough on my fingers...

JDR13 said:

Just curious, what does suggest a 10\10 in your book?

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10. I can recommend this game to just anyone, even thoose who are not used to the genré. (KOTOR)
9. For a fan of the genré it's a must-play but I probably wouldnt recommend it as a primer to someone who are new to the genré since it might be too hardcore. (Baldur's Gate II)
8. While the game have no flaws the game have no real qualities either, or it's flaws balance out the qualities. For fans with special interest only. (Final Fantasy X-2)
7. The game is good but feels cheap/rushed in having noteable flaws that would have been fixed with proper QA, flaws such as obvious bugs, but still the game is at least playable. (Dark Messiah of Might & Magic)
6. There is something which makes me enjoy the game even if the game contains so obvious holes and bugs that it's difficult to even get through the game. (Gothic 3)
5. While the game had potential, and I finished the game in hope it would be better, the game is a painful experience all the way through. (Codename Iceman)
1-4. I did not even finish it. 1-4 is a scale on just how much I hated myself for even trying the game and how insulted it made me feel (Leisure Suit Larry 8: Magna Cum Laude, Lula 3d).