Last game you finished, tell us about it

ilm said:

Thanks, you made me feel better that I removed the metro series from my steam wishlist.

Just finished batman arkham city. It was okay. The fighting mechanics were odd at the beginning but pretty fun when you get used to it (as promised). I'm really starting to hate the trophy collecting stuff in games. Some puzzle based ones are fun but there are just too bloody much of them. Extra frustrating as a completionist.

I suppose people who grew up with US comics will catch any references better than I did.

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those types of games make me soooo happy for not being a completionist. I just collect things that I see on my way, but I don't waste any time completing trophies.

ilm said:

Thanks, you made me feel better that I removed the metro series from my steam wishlist.

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I get the feeling that Toff isn't a big fan of shooters. The Metro games are actually pretty good, especially if you like games that are heavy on atmosphere. If you're a fan of the genre, I highly recommend them.

Sometimes a picture says it all (to the enlightened ). I've finally played through an entire Ironman campaign of Europa Universalis 4. During my long reign, Russia was formed, Poland & Lithuania formed a massive nation that was a thorn in my side through most of the game, but which lost its last province only a few years before the game ended, most of the Holy Roman Empire & France tried to take down Russia, and lost. The golden horde was never vanquished, but rather than getting out-paced by its neighbors, it westernized, and under the protection of the Ottoman empire, it remained a threat to Russia through most of the game. All the Nordic countries except for Denmark were wiped out, and though Denmark lacks any land in Europe, it became a major colonial power, and managed to colonize a sizable portion of what we know as USA & Canada. By the end of the game the HRE was in shambled, with only Austria actually being able to put up a fight, the Ottoman Empire had conquered most of the Muslim world and France had mostly remained within its border.

So what exactly are we looking at?

Thrasher said:

So what exactly are we looking at?

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The end stats for my empire. There are a lot of numbers that won't make any sense to anyone who has not played the game, but the parts that should make sense include my army size (That's the column with the infantry/cavalry/cannon, the 3 represent my standing army, while the number above is my reserve), next to it you have my fleet (a single ship). Under "We had the…" you can see some misc information, and next to it you can see the "score" I got (basically the sum of how powerful my empire was, this includes military strength, economic power and relationship with other nations) in comparison to how the designers of the game rated some historical kingdoms.

The "we had" stats sound impressive.

Thrasher said:

So what exactly are we looking at?

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You fool! We're obviously looking at the glorious Vasily 1!

Joking aside, I have played like 20 games of EU4 but I have never finished a game. I think the farthest I've gone is like 1650. Once I am big enough so that the major challengers are taken out, my desire to keep playing diminishes and I start thinking of some other country to play. My current Venice game almost reached that point…

I am Venice, which is big enough, but when you consider that Naples (almost all of Italy), Karaman (what separates the Anatolian section of Venice), Syria (a chunk of the middle east) and Georgia (the other area of Venice that looks separated near Crimea) are all my vassals, that means Venice is pretty big at this point. It's not game over yet because both the Commonwealth and France (both my allies at this point) are still big and dangerous.
My current plan is to wait until France goes to war against England and sends their troops over there, send my superior navy to the English Channel, break my alliance with France and declare war on them, sink their ships leaving their troops stranded on the island, and invade France with my troops (and hopefully the Commonwealth will join me).

wolfing said:

You fool! We're obviously looking at the glorious Vasily 1!

Joking aside, I have played like 20 games of EU4 but I have never finished a game. I think the farthest I've gone is like 1650. Once I am big enough so that the major challengers are taken out, my desire to keep playing diminishes and I start thinking of some other country to play.

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That's usually what happens for me as well, but this game was kept interesting by how many enemies I had. Austria, France, Saxony (who had managed to grow quite a bit at the expense of other HRE states) & the Ottoman empire all hated me, and Commonwealth had remained strong for a large portion of the game, due to their alliance with Austria. The only ones I managed to keep friendly with were the Hungarians, but I've never seen them do so badly as they did in this game, so they might as well not have been there. Also, Ming & Korea were not overly fond of me either, because I had colonized my way over there and started taking their land by force, but they were so far behind technologically that they simply could not defend myself, and about 35k men were enough to win against them both.


*edit* I just noticed something about your screenshot: Why did France invade Scotland? Usually those two remain friendly for most of the game.

Fnord said:

That's usually what happens for me as well, but this game was kept interesting by how many enemies I had. Austria, France, Saxony (who had managed to grow quite a bit at the expense of other HRE states) & the Ottoman empire all hated me, and Commonwealth had remained strong for a large portion of the game, due to their alliance with Austria. The only ones I managed to keep friendly with were the Hungarians, but I've never seen them do so badly as they did in this game, so they might as well not have been there. Also, Ming & Korea were not overly fond of me either, because I had colonized my way over there and started taking their land by force, but they were so far behind technologically that they simply could not defend myself, and about 35k men were enough to win against them both.


*edit* I just noticed something about your screenshot: Why did France invade Scotland? Usually those two remain friendly for most of the game.

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Not sure, my guess is that they got into a Personal Union and eventually absorbed them.

Just finished Fallout New Vegas. Hmm… I can say with conviction that Fallout games are just not my style. Maybe it's the setting (post-apocalyptic), but at the end I just wanted to finish the game, just clicked on a quest, insta-travelled, did what I had to do, insta-travelled back, next quest. Went with NCR. I hated Hoover Dam with a passion, multi-leveled multi-section place where it's almost impossible to find out where you're supposed to go, with respawning legionnaires.

Now I'm thinking either continuing Lords of Xulima (not feeling like it, it's sooooo long!), or starting Blackguards.

I finally got around to finishing Wolfenstein: The New Order a few days ago.

I was ultimately disappointed overall. It has great production values, but it never grabbed me the same way that past Wolfenstein titles did. I didn't like how they completely discarded the occult themes that were a big part of the previous games.

I also didn't care for the soundtrack. The rock/metal music they played at times was jarring to me and seemed out of place. I won't rant about the save system again as I've already done that in other threads. Suffice to say, it's a joke.

It's not a terrible game by any means. There are some levels that I thought were pretty cool, like the lunar base and the flooded catacombs, and the antagonists are well written and voice acted. It's definitely my least favorite of the modern Wolfenstein games though. 7/10 for me.

JDR13 said:

I finally got around to finishing Wolfenstein: The New Order a few days ago.

I was ultimately disappointed overall. It has great production values, but it never grabbed me the same way that past Wolfenstein titles did. I didn't like how they completely discarded the occult themes that were a big part of the previous games.

I also didn't care for the soundtrack. The rock/metal music they played at times was jarring to me and seemed out of place. I won't rant about the save system again as I've already done that in other threads. Suffice to say, it's a joke.

It's not a terrible game by any means. There are some levels that I thought were pretty cool, like the lunar base and the flooded catacombs, and the antagonists are well written and voice acted. It's definitely my least favorite of the modern Wolfenstein games though. 7/10 for me.

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Interesting feedback, thanks.

I played the first few hours of it and I liked it, though I'm not a big shooter fan anymore. I got sidetracked and was meaning to get back to it.

I'm a fan of Return to Castle Wolfenstein - and I thought the last one by Raven was pretty good too, for what it was.

Your opinion seems to suggest it's worth playing through, as I suspected, but I'll adjust my expectations and set them slightly lower - which will make it easier to enjoy.

JDR13 said:

I finally got around to finishing Wolfenstein: The New Order a few days ago.

I was ultimately disappointed overall. It has great production values, but it never grabbed me the same way that past Wolfenstein titles did. I didn't like how they completely discarded the occult themes that were a big part of the previous games.

I also didn't care for the soundtrack. The rock/metal music they played at times was jarring to me and seemed out of place. I won't rant about the save system again as I've already done that in other threads. Suffice to say, it's a joke.

It's not a terrible game by any means. There are some levels that I thought were pretty cool, like the lunar base and the flooded catacombs, and the antagonists are well written and voice acted. It's definitely my least favorite of the modern Wolfenstein games though. 7/10 for me.

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You're saying it's above average game as a game?
7/10 is not just on above average size that takes 48 hours to download on 4kbps link?
I hope the time needed to finish it is also above average compared to other wolfenstein games...

joxer said:

You're saying it's above average game as a game?
7/10 is not just on above average size that takes 48 hours to download on 4kbps link?
I hope the time needed to finish it is also above average compared to other wolfenstein games…

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I'd say it's about average length for a modern shooter. It took me longer than usual to finish because I haven't had much free time the last few weeks, and there were a few days where I didn't play it at all.

Someone who hasn't been a fan of the series since Return to Castle Wolfenstein might rate it higher. I don't think it's a bad game, it's just not as good as RtCW or even Wolfenstein. That's just my opinion though.

And yeah… that download size is a negative. Especially considering it's just a shooter.

@DArtagnan - Let me know what you think when you get around to playing it more. Fwiw, I thought those first few hours, when the game was still taking place in the 1940s, were some of the best. It's hit or miss after that.

Lords Of Xulima
finished after 205 hours

First off I want to say kudos to the games music composer Nicholas De Ferran. He created an absolutely wonderful soundtrack that is up there with Soule (Elder Scrolls) and Rosenkranz (Gothic). Just some superior ear candy for my gaming pleasure. I got the deluxe game edition with the soundtrack and I'm listening to it right now on Winamp.

The game is basically all about combat. It is rather hard but not complicated. But damn, with so much character leveling going on in the game world, I spent a lot of time fiddling with my character stats. As I tend to do, my characters are typically jacks of all trades. Since I usually don't replay a game I try to test out everything. And this game did accommodate me. However I did put in a little over 200 hours so my ending character stats and my tremendous inventory of rings and potions and spells was just a bunch of overkill in the end. Yeah, I'm the guy that brings a nuke to a knife fight. Just how I like it.

The game had an interesting story but the ending was clearly telegraphed early on and there was nothing I could do about the fate I knew was before me. Still, it's all about the journey and it was fun.

But there is some frustration with this game. The random monster occurrences were frustrating at first but as you know, you can eventually clear out an area. Store merchandise is ridiculously expensive well till the mid game. And the way the set piece monsters just stand there waiting for you to attack was off putting for me.

And that is one way where you can exploit the game. Near the end game when you are looking to level up to get more spells, I would go to one of the easier areas and just fight monsters until I cleared out the area, it was good for levels and money.

Another late game exploit I used was to buy a bunch of teleporter stones in the late game. I would camp out in the first town for cheap for 3 days then I would teleport to the five cities looking for the King and Hero indicated items plus I would pick up some shurikens (the best weapon in the game). In the last fight my thief had 70 shurikens and she was level 30 in that weapon. Giving out about 150 per turn with around 20-40 in stackable bleed damage. I just loved how they implemented the stackable damage. I can't recall a game doing a better job in that area.

I also loved the Bard character in this game. The best implemented Bard ever. But it does need some work. The battle spell music is mostly worthless about 2/3 of the way in and all he is good for is buff stuff. But my bard had an awesome bow in the end so he was a contributor.

I had a lot of fun with this game. Some of the elements in the game felt like a first time designer but the overall presentation was totally professional. I would be curious about their next game but I'm not so sure I want to play a sequel. The game doesn't have enough stuff to warrant a long play through. Maybe add more cities and more city quest and some crafting. But as this game stands now, I'll give it between and 8.8 and 9.1

So… my Assassin's Creed marathon has (almost) come to a (preliminary) end as I was able to finish quite a completionist run of Black Flag this weekend. Took me 65 hours. I did all of the side content and collectibles except for some of the community challenges. As far as single player… I did it all, even the 200 animus fragments that are kind of like the equivalent of the feathers in previous games.
Now just need to play the Freedom Cry DLC and then it's a wrap.

All in all I really enjoyed this installment in the series the most by far. It's a huge step up in quality compared to previous entries in the series. I loved the Caribbean pirate setting with Captain Kidd and Captain Blackbeard and lots of other memorable characters that were portrayed extremely well. Digital and facial animation in this game is definitely getting close to live acting. It's amazing.
The environments are absolutely beautiful, too. From the high seas to all the bigger and smaller islands and lagoons. It's fun exploring the nearly seamless open world and there is so much attention to detail all over the place including diverse NPC behavior and activities.

The sea combat is great and it's very motivating to upgrade your ship since every change is visible and tangible. I spent a good part of those 65 hours "grinding" cash for upgrades, plundering one ship and one fort after another because it was simply fun to do.
Ground combat is the same as always in the series so not exactly stellar but the game is supposed to be played more like a stealth game with sneaky kills instead of open combat so I guess that's forgivable.
Still, the addition of some of the darts you can shoot was pretty nice to use on certain occasions. Not bad.

Are there any negatives? Sure. There is still quite a bit of consolitis with regard to the controls and the camera. The game also has a few pretty weak and a few very annoying story missions and there are some conflicts with the open world design.
For example, say you just cleared an island before going to your story trigger waypoint, and then, when you hit the trigger, the entire island respawns since the story mission requires it. That's always kind of awkward and unnecessarily drags down the quality of the game.
Some missions also require trial&error so you unnecessarily waste time. For example, you're supposed to follow a dude, eavesdrop on him and finally kill him at the destination. I might have done something horribly wrong but the only way, at least as far as I could see, to successfully complete the mission was that you had to know where he was going, pass him and arrive at the destination to hide for the kill before him. So you have to do the mission at least twice because you can't know the destination on the first try.
Wish the mission design would have generally allowed for more leeway.

Now I'm looking forward to Rogue and Unity which I will probably play in that order (Rogue is set after Black Flag AFAIK). It will be quite a while since Rogue isn't even out yet (on PC) and I'll certainly wait for the price to drop below €20.
Going by the reviews, I'll probably do pure story runs (little to no side content) of Rogue and Unity as I did with AC1 + 2, Revelations, Brotherhood and AC3.
This series needs more Black Flags!

Finished The Witcher 2, much shorter than the first game which I finished last week. 3 "weeks" versus 1 to be precise. I replayed to refresh my memory before the 3rd game.

It's interesting to compare both games.

The second one was more linear and the maps are much smaller with even more loading screen…if that was possible. It's prettier though and the voice acting is much better. Too many use of plough, ploughing and friend in the second one though. It's like the translation failed at finding insults and vulgar idioms, the first one was kind of better in that regard.

I did the Flaming Rose path in the first game and followed the Roche's path in the second (I've done a Iorveth's path a long time ago) and I think that while the other path has more information about certain things, the Roche's path is more satisfying in term of screwing everyone over...err, in the "chaos" and "die scums" sense...while staying "neutral".

Combat wise, I hate how the bomb targeting works in the second game, but I didn't even bother with them in the first one. The "slow down to target" thing do not trigger fast enough to make the feature that much usable outside of an opening. Traps were worst, never used them. I much prefer spells and the swords. Potions were also too short in the same game. Actually, the alchemy/mediation thing worked better in the first game to me. More immersive and less spammy. The second game was also way more dreadful when it comes to respawning.

Hopefully the 3rd game is more like the first one.

Bravo, Dajjer, for playing Xulima for 205 hours. That's an impressive amount of time for that game. Not sure I would even last for half of that these days, but it's cool to see others really savoring their play time.

Although, I did recently play Baldur's Gate for 100 hours even. I guess if the game is good enough and the passion is intense enough, I can get through it for long hours while having a lot of fun.

Thanks Fluent. Some RPGs are so hard you simply rage quit. This game had enough going for it that I just had to play until I started winning some hard battles. It was the teleports that got me going however, there are about 5 of them in the land and they are each somewhat hidden and guarded by a tough monster(s). I just had to find them all in order to fast travel. And by the time I got that mission going I was well on my way to completing the game.

BTW, stuck home with asthma and the flu tends to give one more intense gaming time. I'm okay now, but its weird how when I'm sick I don't feel that bad. (see my avatar).

Sorry to hear you're feeling sick, Dajjer, but at least you're not feeling too bad to game.

I've been suffering with sickness from allergies a lot lately. They not only affect me like a sort of cold or flu, but I get anxiety bouts and struggle through sometimes. Staying positive helps a lot, though, and when you can focus on something you're passionate about, like a good game, it makes it a whole lot easier to deal with.

We just have to be very thankful that there's some brilliant people making these games we love called RPGs.