What games are you playing now?

Dragon Age with all DLC.

Tried going Rogue Archer (previously played with Dual Wielding) - but found it tremendously boring, and it's like all the goodies are meant for dual wielders. So I went back to that - and I've been having a good time.

I played on Hard last time, and found it a decent challenge. But, since I grew REALLY tired of the endless fights towards the end - I'm going with Normal to alleviate some of that. It does seem a bit easier - but I think that has more to do with my experience with building characters than anything. I say that, because I had one "key" fight dealing with the climax of a certain Urn quest - and it seems to have gotten harder. Maybe it's because I don't have two healers - but the extra damage should have helped. Took me 3-4 tries, which is surprising.

I meant to try an entirely different party, but there's only really one tank besides Shale - and that's Alistair. I had him for 50% of my last playthrough - but now I'm going to focus on him exclusively - and I know now to focus on strength right away for the armor.

I need a healer, and I had both Wynne and Morrigan last time - so I know them both, and I just went with Morrigan because she's there early.

That leaves me with just one spot for a new member, and I've chosen Leliana so I can experience the ranged powers - which I missed last time.

I could, of course, rebuild one of the other warriors as a tank - but I don't really enjoy changing their style too much, and Bioware likes to force you to play with certain characters for extended periods - and since I know Alistair is a key character - I might as well accept he's part of my game.

Pretty counterproductive to their intention of the game being very replayable with the various characters, but it's not so bad.

Maybe one day I'll play a mage and go Arcane Warrior - so I can have an entirely different party make-up, but I tend to play for the gameplay more than the story, so I'll likely be bored. Since WoW, I haven't been able to play anything non-rogue - so I've been utterly spoiled

I used to play Warriors in RPGs - but once you go stealth, you never go back.

Anyway, the game remains solid - but I find myself much less invested in the story - which is hardly surprising. But I do enjoy the new banter related to Leliana - but I have to say I find her a rather dull person overall.

I'm playing primarily because I never played Awakening. Supposed to be really good, so I'm looking forward to that. As for "new" DLC - I've only tried "Return to Ostagar" and that was sort of pointless, except for the delicious gear

So far, so good.

Gave up on FO3 already?

JDR13 said:

Gave up on FO3 already?

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No, I completed it

I could have gone on - but I figure ~50 hours is ok, and with FO:NV waiting for me - I didn't want to exhaust myself completely. Didn't actually play any of the DLC content. Saving that for a replay some day.

That said, FO3 modded is one of the best games I've played in years. Truly fantastic exploration, and with FWE - the core systems work really well and the additions are great - like the Nightvision and Timeslowing stuff. Quite well balanced, I think.

I ended up getting the game stable enough to only crash once every few hours, and I can deal with that, since it loads up so fast. Still, it pissed me off enough to take breaks now and again - but maybe that was healthy

I won't go into details regarding what I had to go through to get my sound working properly during Radio music playback, but 10-15 hours of experimenting is not an exaggeration. I used the "More Where that Came From - GNR" mod. Makes a big difference, so I had to get it working with my X-Fi card.

I disabled the Hunger/Thirst feature - because to me it was more an annoyance than anything else. It's the kind of realism I can only enjoy, if the entire game feels plausible as a "survival" experience - and Beth just can't pull that off. Too "jokey" and "gamey" for that to work to my satisfaction.

Maybe it's better in NV, but I doubt that.

Apart from the awful dialogue/NPCs and the horrid unmodded game mechanics - it really is a truly fantastic game. I'd say it's actually better (overall) than the first Fallouts in that state - but then, I was never THAT big a fan. The whole post-apocalyptic setting isn't my thing - but it works wonders as an exploration setting.

Ah ok. I'm glad you were able to get it stable enough to complete. Strange to hear about your problems with sound though. I also have an X-Fi card, and never had any issues. Were your problems exclusive to that mod?

I'm at 120 hours now, despite taking a weeklong+ break, and still enjoying it. I'm far too much of a completist with these type of games to skip much content. It can be both a blessing and a curse, but fortunately I'm not in the mood to play anything else right now anyways.

JDR13 said:

Ah ok. I'm glad you were able to get it stable enough to complete. Strange to hear about your problems with sound though. I also have an X-Fi card, and never had any issues. Were your problems exclusive to that mod?

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The mod seems to make it worse - but it's the same with vanilla (patched) version. It has something to do with how they use 3 different formats for sound in FO3. (.wav, .mp3, and something else I can't remember).

Apparently, songs on the radio use a format that causes them to stutter and sound awful on a lot of sound cards (due to a variety of factors, like wrong codecs installed etc.) - including mine. I solved it eventually by using Alchemy (giving me proper EAX sound) and tuning it until it mostly stopped acting up. Never got it working 100% - but almost.

I'm at 120 hours now, despite taking a weeklong+ break, and still enjoying it. I'm far too much of a completist with these type of games to skip much content. It can be both a blessing and a curse, but fortunately I'm not in the mood to play anything else right now anyways.

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I actually wanted to go on, but I had so many games waiting for me - and I had a hard time getting back into it after extended breaks. It's the kind of game I feel I should really have a full gaming week to focus on entirely - and I don't have that option, and likely won't for a long time.

One day, though, I intend to exhaust it

With that said, the whole "broken building" atmos got a bit much, and I don't think I could play it for 120 hours without tiring of it.

It'll take a while before I play NV, and I'm not sure it's "better" in the right ways for me. It sounds more linear and directed than I would prefer, but time will tell.

The freedom to explore at will, is something Beth are actually good at providing. Obsidian games tend to be more linear, since they're so story oriented. Not a bad thing for fans of that sort of thing - to be sure, but for explorer/gameplay dudes, it might not be ideal.

I had a lot of fun with X:COM UFO Defense for the first time over the weekend! My copy is a download I got from GamersGate that came pre-packaged inside of DosBox. The GUI is a little laggy and irritating. I tried a tweak to the config file similar to what I did for MoM and MoO, but it made it worse, so I think I need to try something different.

I've only gotten through 3 months of sim time, but already the crash site investigations are getting a bit too repetitive. If I could speed up the GUI, it would be a lot less tedious. I've investigated 27 UFOS total, put down 2 terrorist sites, and defended my base against a UFO attack. I've barely been able to take large supply ships using 3 interceptors, but the very large UFO battleship squashed my interceptors with ease. I won't be trying that again.

I am amazed at how many classic great games MicroProse created back in the day: Master of Orion, Master of Magic, and XCOM. Were these guys brilliant? And why do so few modern games have a similar depth of gameplay?

Because the sheer amount of customrs was smaller then.
Nowadays, everyone's aiming at the mass market - which is mich, much bigger in sheer sales numbers.

Plus, the people could then spend less time on the graphics - simply there was no 3D, then. So this spared was spared there and could be directed into the mechanics …

Nowadays, it is imho quite the opposite …

Thrasher said:

I am amazed at how many classic great games MicroProse created back in the day: Master of Orion, Master of Magic, and XCOM. Were these guys brilliant? And why do so few modern games have a similar depth of gameplay?

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MicroProse was also the early home to Sid Meier, of Pirates and Civ fame. You talk about a winning brand... Back in the day, they were the undisputed king of TBS (which was the dominant genre back then), and the only other brand that had that sort of clout was Sierra with all their adventure games. The only modern-day equivalent of the golden brand is Blizzard, and maybe Valve.

Like you say, the games weren't necessarily pretty, but they were just plain fun to play for hours on end. While I'm sure there's a nostalgia factor involved, I agree with you that most modern games have lost track of that magical gameplay formula in favor of pretty graphics and multi-platform compatibility. King's Bounty did very well with it (although that was a remake of a game from the Microprose era) and Puzzle Quest nailed it (but was on its face a casual puzzle game, causing it to get passed over by many old skool gamers). Beyond those, I can't really think of any other games that captured the magic since Wiz8 many years ago.

The bottom line? Marketing and sales trump actual gameplay fun.

To be honest, it was the appearance of 3D graphics that made me pay attention to PC gaming. But now that I've been sold, going back to the less pretty classics has been just as exciting as playing quake or NWN for the first time.

Thrasher said:

But now that I've been sold, going back to the less pretty classics has been just as exciting as playing quake or NWN for the first time.

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I remember my first time playing NWN. I thought it was terrible.

Of course I was expecting so much more after playing the Infinity Engine games.

Those came later, so I didn't know better gameplay, etc... In fact, they were rather ugly and set me off, initially, that is...

The Infinity Engine games came before, not after.

You misunderstand. Those came later to me to play.

Mind numbing shooters for me these days. Something to do with work being so hectic I suppose. I just have no appetite for complexity right now. Gibbing numbathon du jour of the week: Quake 4.

Definitely not as interesting as FEAR, but fun nonetheless.

Thrasher said:

You misunderstand. Those came later to me to play.

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Ah, you'd just written it so it read as if you thought the Infinity Engine games came after. Whoops

Just started on the original "Two Worlds" a couple of days ago. Can't start playing 2 before finishing the prequel, now can I? Now, it's been a long time since a game made such a BAD first impression on me... But they must have done something right, because once, or rather IF, you get over the über ugly character models, the whole "Forsooth, the game's pseudo-Shakespearean script verily doth annoyeth", and the atrocious voice-acting... Well, the game becomes quite addictive.

Thrasher said:

I've only gotten through 3 months of sim time, but already the crash site investigations are getting a bit too repetitive.

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You can tell what kind of UFO it is by how it moves on the world map and how if fights, just target each type a couple of times unless you are desperate for money/score. As far as I can recall there is little or no penalty for leaving a show down ufo.

Just started playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I played the demo a few months ago and wasn't really impressed, but after reading some very positive reviews I've decided to give it another try.

Now, in my second play-through (this time to the end, I hope !) of Drakensang, the Great Inquisitor is now toast.

Now that I know what to expect within this game, I focus more and more on combat (in character development) - and suddenly things become much easier !