What games are you playing now?

Actually it has been removed from gog….

https://www.gog.com/forum/blade_of_...ade_of_darkness_from_the_gogcom_catalog/page1

Severance_-_Blade_of_Darkness_Coverart.png


For some reason I felt nostalgic for this game from the past, which I never actually managed to finish. So I'm going to give it another go. Severance: Blade of Darkness.

I'm shocked how well this has aged, especially gameplay-wise. It's superb. And it was very much ahead of its time. You can clearly see loads of elements that have made it into current day Dark Souls. Especially the brutal combat, and the maps which sometimes wind back on themselves.

Too bad you can only get this version on GOG. It's a real gem that should be in Steam also, to get further recognition. I'm curious why the publisher isn't doing anything. Codemasters are still alive right? Doing racing games I believe? Sad that these sorts of games tend to be forgotten.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
7,758
Location
usa - no longer boston
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
Still on Blade of Darkness. Just cleared out The Gorge of Orlok, and onto The Fortress of Nemrut. Having loads of fun, but I've kind of managed to abuse the combat system by spamming attacks in most situations. I find I'm frequently just losing patience needing to use all the combos at my disposal. Though I did see some fancy sword work on youtube from some advanced players that had me a bit envious. But I don't think I'll ever have the patience for that level of skill.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
Playing Lost Lands: The Golden Curse. Another moody day and can only play puzzle games.

I dunno if you post or read much or if you just dropped in to blatantly advertise these games, but I bought the first two in the series as one was on a deep sale:

Lost Lands: Dark Overlord
Lost Lands: The Four Horsemen

And played through them both, unchecking all the boxes except the tutorial. They have a very addictive quality which I liked and they're not very long so they were both completed quite quickly, 8 hours for the first game and 13 hours for the second (including bonus game and extras) according to Steam over about a week.

While I enjoyed them both, by the end of the second one my interest in the format had waned quite considerably from the high point mid-way into the first one to the point where I don't think I'll buy any more from the series.

I really liked the variety of the first one, with various types of hidden object puzzles combined with various types of classic puzzles and lots of inventory items to collect and find an interactable for, but the first game was slightly too easy.

The second one steps up the difficulty slightly and requires a bit more thought, initially at least, but also does away with a lot of the Hidden Object variety and only really repeats the same puzzles from the first game. So I'm now not interested in repeating the same puzzles for any more instalments.

I enjoyed the fantastic fantasy they created and enjoyed the plots and story-arc cut-scenes along the way but was fairly meh about the lore collections in the second game. The Wizard looked too much like Gandalf and the Dwarf looked too much like Gimli from the films though which I found off-putting and cheapened it somewhat.

In the second game one of the dwarves has an utterly hilarious accent which could well be the worst voice acting I have ever heard in a computer game LOL:

Go to exactly 9 minutes and 30 seconds and crank you're volume up as high as you can and wait a few seconds:



Regular timestamped (watch wouldn't accept the timestamped version) link: https://youtu.be/RJLMKkTKwfU?t=570

:D

All in all a very positive experience, though not quite what I look for in a good Adventure Game/Hidden Object Game hybrid.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
It's pretty bad. But I have seen worse. :p

Play planet Alcatraz, or watch this one:

Check these timespans:
10:20-11:20
13:30-14:25
18:30-19:15
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
4,691
I'm playing the Alpha 18 (A18) build of 7 days to die (a zombie apocalypse game). I only play single-player so that's how I'll describe my play. I'll also pretend that this is brand new instead of dozens of builds.

7 days starts with you waking up in your underwear with a couple bottles of water and some food. A helpful letter will point you to some friends if you can survive. You'll start the game by creating the most basic items for survival (a bedroll, an axe made of rocks and weeds, some clothes made of those same weeds, a little campfire and enough blocks to make a crude shelter. Doing this 8 items will earn you some skill points.

Skill points can be spent on skills and/or attributes. Unlike previous versions of the game, you will need to make rpg-like decisions on how to kit out your character. There are dozens of choices to make from lockpicking, to better harvesting of plants, to getting a better deal from the scattered trader forts. You will also need to think about putting some points into strength so you can better carry your hard-earned loot or perception so you can score a critical head shot, etc.

Traitor Joel's has had an upgrade too. Now the traders will send you on random quests to find buried treasures or to find a missing courier's stash or perhaps to clear a certain area of zombies so that other scavengers can loot it. Of course, clearing said areas gives you dibs. Doing these quests will raise the amount of loot they're willing to part with and your discount for purchasing said items.

There are several modes of transportation now. You still have the mini-bike, but you can craft a plain bicycle or even more robust options as your skills progress.

The weakest aspect of the game is still the zombies. They're ugly (graphic-wise) and unrealistic in how they attack and act in general. I find myself turning them off most sessions and only turn them on to practice my new skills every so often. You need them though otherwise survival is a given.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,821
Been rummaging around with character creation in Pathfinder: Kingmaker for the past week. Finally playing (for the first time).

So much BG Nostalgia! Enjoying it greatly, not the least because of the Turn-Based mod that really adds to the PnP feel of the entire game. Looking forward to progressing with the story… and hoping the bugs have been fixed in the latter half of the game.
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
5,979
Location
Florida, USA
Started Victor Vran, I always wanted to try this out, so I was happy to find it cheaply at Black Friday.

Fun fact : The same person who speaks the Clones in the Star Wars Clone wars series - German language - also speaks Victor Vran in the German-language version of the game.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Atom RPG

Kind of an odd one this one. It's partially quite well made for an indie. But unfortunately with terrible and very lazy writing. The RPG mechanics is a mixed bag, for the most part great, but it also doesn't always make a lot of sense. I made a character with 5 Strength, the game thinks he's a bit too weak to use a small pistol efficiently, but at the same time swinging a large spiked club is totally fine, no penalty. Really fucking dumb.

The world is of course more similar to STALKER than FO, which i find is pretty cool, it's one of the more interesting game worlds for this type of scenario imo. It even has STALKERs as a faction (how… imaginative!) I don't mind this lazy crap writing too much though, it's still decent fun. With a real writer (preferably not a young person like here, i can guarantee, without looking, that he's in his early 20's, perhaps even younger) it could have become an indie classic.
 
Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
3,263
Location
The land of rape and honey
But isn't the english version the same as witcher 3 english ;)
-
fun game one of the better arpg.

Started Victor Vran, I always wanted to try this out, so I was happy to find it cheaply at Black Friday.

Fun fact : The same person who speaks the Clones in the Star Wars Clone wars series - German language - also speaks Victor Vran in the German-language version of the game.
 
Joined
Oct 20, 2006
Messages
7,758
Location
usa - no longer boston
Legends of Heroes Trails in the Sky Second Chapter. And I have to say, @joxer; was spot-on. It basically retreads the first game almost identically only without any kind of similar plot engagement. Where the first game was great but occasionally bordered on just ok, this one is just ok occasionally bordering on tedious.

It's ok enough to complete I think, I'm on chapter 5 now and at that point where I might as well finish it unless it becomes permanently tedious, which it shouldn't do. It's certainly a come-down, but I guess there's people out there who might have played it without coming from the first game and as such have no sense of repetition clouding their run.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
Interesting. I never got that sense of repetition from TitS SC. Yes, it reuses the same game world, and a lot of the bracer activity is the same, but I felt like the plot was moving forward in a way it didn't in FC. I definitely preferred SC to FC, personally. Then again, I think I've turned into a Falcom fanboi, so my judgement may be suspect.
 
Joined
Nov 30, 2009
Messages
421
Location
California
I just couldn't finish it. Stopped probably after half done, can't know but it was a decent number of hours. It felt like a low effort expansion where only the text was new and everything else the same.
So I watched the anime instead, which, apart from the music, wasn't good enough to recommend to anyone who didn't play tits games. But I do recommend it to all who did! :)

Intro instead of the trailer:
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Dinking around with Age of Wonders: Planetfall. I haven't gotten into any kind of must-play-one-more-turn groove as yet, maybe because it throws so much stuff at you. Units, buildings, exploitations, doctrines, quests. Speaking of quests, there's a lot more of that going on than I expected, more than I've encountered in similar games (like Heroes of M&M).

I'm also playing a fully DLC'ed Battletech and that's still fun for me, 80+ hours later (not this campaign, but overall play time)

Also also have two EU4 games going: one in 1640 ish as Date -> Japan, and another early one as Castille.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2013
Messages
4,881
Location
Portland, OR
Dinking around with Age of Wonders: Planetfall. I haven't gotten into any kind of must-play-one-more-turn groove as yet, maybe because it throws so much stuff at you. Units, buildings, exploitations, doctrines, quests. Speaking of quests, there's a lot more of that going on than I expected, more than I've encountered in similar games (like Heroes of M&M).

I'm also playing a fully DLC'ed Battletech and that's still fun for me, 80+ hours later (not this campaign, but overall play time)

Also also have two EU4 games going: one in 1640 ish as Date -> Japan, and another early one as Castille.

Don't let the game confuse you too much though. In combat keep your troops spread out with one tile distance and then just focus on getting high power troops.
Planetfall is pretending a lot of depth which it doesnt really have.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
4,691
Don't let the game confuse you too much though. In combat keep your troops spread out with one tile distance and then just focus on getting high power troops.
Planetfall is pretending a lot of depth which it doesnt really have.

Oh, it's not complex or anything. I'm doing fine in combat. It's just a lot of stuff, period. I feel like I should stop and read every description so I'm making good tech choices, etc. but it bogs the pace down quite a bit.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2013
Messages
4,881
Location
Portland, OR
Back
Top Bottom