Last game you finished, tell us about it

Erm… The point #7 is due to not thinking about sidequest audience, but "balancing" the major plot so it tends to get easy when a player takes a stroll frequently.
I don't think they'll change that ever - while completionists won't be amazed, mainstream reviewers who fastrun the main story will always praise such sad design.

Everything else have to agree with you. Especially point #9. RNG is cheap.

Finally finished Risen 3 after approximately 120 hours of playtime. Took me that long because I explored pretty much everything and did every single side-quest. Yes, I'm just that anal when it comes to my RPGs.

Overall a very enjoyable game and well worth the money, but with the typical Piranha Bytes flaws. Exploration was what I enjoyed the most and there's no other developer who manages to hide as much stuff behind bushes, on mountain tops, or on the roof of buildings. World-building is truly one of PB's strengths.

On the other hand, combat, balancing, and character progression are deeply flawed. At the beginning you get your ass handed to you by almost every giant rat, crab, or monkey. Then halfway through the game you turn into a demigod, and at the end you don't even have a use anymore for glory points (fancy name for experience points). Only gold seems to be a delimiting factor, but even that isn't really a problem if you steal everything that isn't nailed down. Then again, character progression and balancing were always an issue in PB games (they should hire some RPGWatch consultants for that).

Personally I didn't mind the often criticized pirate theme all that much. Yes, sometimes it was cheesy and the jokes fell flat, but at least it wasn't the typical "tolkienesque" high-fantasy fare. I rather play a foul-mouthed good-for-nothing pirate than yet another holier-than-thou elf with perfect teeth and freshly shampooed hair.

Anyhow, I didn't really want to write a lengthy review. Just wanted to say I liked Risen 3 quite a bit despite its flaws and I think some of its bad reputation is a bit unwarranted. Then again, that's just my opinion.

Finished Horizon: Zero Dawn on the PS4. I have to admit, I was skeptical going in, but this game goes on my all-time favorites list along with the likes of Dungeon Master, Witcher 3, Baldur's Gate 2, Tormentlanescape, and Gothic 2. For me, HZD had that addictive quality, some sort of "it" factor. l enjoyed it so much that I tried to take my time and savor the experience. I hated to see the game end. I've been long been jaded on games and hardly played any over the past 10 years, but the Witcher 3 and now HZD has gotten me back into the gaming mode.

Has anyone downloaded 1.30 and started the New Game+ option?

Well I finished outlast with DLC; it wasn't that long - according to steam it took 14 hours for the base game and dlc. Can't really say it was that enjoyable. It is not a bad game; just didn't particularly enjoy it. You play a reporter investigating an odd occurrence. The graphics are so so (not very high by todays standard but good enough to present the story). There is a bit of nudity and blood (full male nudity which is not that common in a game). As far as i can tell difficulty controls confrontations delicacy and not much else - i played most of the game on hard but some where near the end i reduce it to normal as some of the confrontations were annoying (similar to alien isolation). Anyway not a great description of the game and I don't intend to play again and was happy to be done with it. I think if it were another 5 hours I would not have bothered to finish - probalby depends if you find the game spooky or the story grabs you as the game play is rather basic (hide and run).

Finished ToCS, edited my impressions:
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1061466863#post1061466863

As I didn't see all bonding events (impossible in one playthrough, design crime) I'm gonna play NG+ for it.

joxer said:

Finished ToCS, edited my impressions:
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1061466863#post1061466863

As I didn't see all bonding events (impossible in one playthrough, design crime) I'm gonna play NG+ for it.

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I just went to youtube and watched the other endings I was interested in.

Youtube vids on these cutscenes are pathetic 30FPS with framedrops and almost nonexisting shadows. Unwatchable for me, feels like I'm seeing some nintendo gameboy crap.

Plus you can't hold left ctrl for turbomode and breeze through the boring dancing part.

In any case, when I'm done with NG+, I'll upload the savegame publically so anyone can get starting bonus from A0 and level 80 in ToCS2.

joxer said:

Youtube vids on these cutscenes are pathetic 30FPS with framedrops and almost nonexisting shadows. Unwatchable for me, feels like I'm seeing some nintendo gameboy crap.

Click to expand...

Man you have some serious nitpicking problems.

Me and other 30K members of framerate police group on Steam:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/frameratepolice

I resumed playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided this week and finished it yesterday.

Overall, I thought it was great and that it's a criminally underrated game. I also thought it was better than DX: Human Revolution in most aspects.

I really don't get some of the common complaints about the game or why it's not rated higher by the general population. It seems a lot of people were put off by extras like the triangle codes and the phone app, but that stuff has zero impact on the game, and you don't miss out on anything significant by ignoring it.

I've also seen some people claim the game felt unfinished to them. I didn't feel that way at all. I thought it was incredibly well polished, and the endgame was completely satisfying to me. I appreciate that it actually has more C&C than just "push button 1, 2, or 3" like the other games in the series.

As of now, I have to say it's my favorite DX game. That could change in the near future though as I plan on replaying the original Deus Ex with the GMDX mod.

8.5/10

Did you play Ghost/Pacifist?

Yes, and I completed the game with zero fatalities. I think it's the only game in the series where you can do that. (I don't remember if it's possible in Invisible War)

I tried it a bit when it came out but I was into something else. I plan on giving it a real play-through at some point and I like trying Ghost/Pacifist.

It's Mankind Divided that I dropped in the now playing thread. I do need to pick it up again. It may be that I simply need something less drab and more escapist in a sci-fi or fantasy setting.

Done with Shadowrun Dragonfall, really enjoyable surprise.
Good writing&characters, interesting setting, involving plot, solid gameplay ( best at escape/on time scenarios).
Best about game is how, "compact" it feels...pacing is great, no filler, pointless crafting/busywork, most missions/narrative explore concept of "freedom" in this setting, there are plenty of ways of dealing with problems, economy ties well into progression.
Gameplay/progression could be better, also felt like it needed some voice acting.
Didn't like at first mix of DnD fantasy and cyberpunk, but it kind of grew on me in the end.
Overall, out of all modern crpgs this is easily best I've played, I'd rank it right next to classics.

Good to hear about Deus Ex MD, I quit about 1/4 through. One boss fight almost felt like a QTE (the one in the tower where you fight off the mercs). After that I just kinda lost interest. I plan on picking it up again because I loved Human Rev. One thing about Mankind Divided is the game world seem a lot more compressed with a lot less opportunities of explore stuff.

BoboTheMighty said:

Done with Shadowrun Dragonfall, really enjoyable surprise.
Good writing&characters, interesting setting, involving plot, solid gameplay ( best at escape/on time scenarios).
Best about game is how, "compact" it feels…pacing is great, no filler, pointless crafting/busywork, most missions/narrative explore concept of "freedom" in this setting, there are plenty of ways of dealing with problems, economy ties well into progression.
Gameplay/progression could be better, also felt like it needed some voice acting.
Didn't like at first mix of DnD fantasy and cyberpunk, but it kind of grew on me in the end.
Overall, out of all modern crpgs this is easily best I've played, I'd rank it right next to classics.

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I also enjoyed how the character portraits were brought to life in the text and dialogues, which made them very memorable.

Dajjer said:

Good to hear about Deus Ex MD, I quit about 1/4 through. One boss fight almost felt like a QTE (the one in the tower where you fight off the mercs). After that I just kinda lost interest. I plan on picking it up again because I loved Human Rev. One thing about Mankind Divided is the game world seem a lot more compressed with a lot less opportunities of explore stuff.

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Are you sure you're thinking of Mankind Divided and not a different game? There aren't any boss fights in the first 1/4 of the game. Also, the world is larger and more explorable than the hubs in DX:HR.

JDR13 said:

Are you sure you're thinking of Mankind Divided and not a different game? There aren't any boss fights in the first 1/4 of the game. Also, the world is larger and more explorable than the hubs in DX:HR.

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It wasn't really a boss fight. It just felt like a battle you had to win. You basically had to save this guy that was by a helicopter(?) and there were a lot of mercs to fight off. You started off in an upper floor of a skyscraper and then had to jump down and save some guy from getting killed. I think the game would go on even if you didn't save the day, but I am not a fan of that type of scripted battle.

As far as the game world being larger and more explorable, that's great. Gives me more resolve to resume my game.

Ah ok, yeah, that's actually just the end of the prologue.

You don't have to save that guy, but you can talk to him later if you do, and it changes some minor dialogue from other NPCs. It's also pretty easy once you know what to do.