What games are you playing now?

Still ploughing through Fallout 3. Man is this game buggy. I have crashes when I quickload (almost always), crashes when I transition areas (fairly often) and crashes when I'm just wandering around (rarely). I'm fully patched (with unofficial patch and a fixes mod which is supposed to help stability), did the dual core thing in the ini…but it is still pretty unstable.

Level 10 now with Arwen's extreme experience reduction mod, feel like this is the right pace. Still lots of content to see/do - am currently rescuing Reilly's Rangers.
 
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Pretty chaotic time for me these days, so I don't get to play much - and when I do, I don't really have the surplus mental energy required.

Still, I pre-ordered X-Com a while ago, and tried it for the first time the other day. It's actually very good and I think they've captured most of the essence of X-Com. Some things are better (production values, most obviously) and some things are somewhat worse. It seems the maps are a bit small - and I'm worried it will be over too soon.

Other than that, I got Dishonored - and I've played through the first real mission. It seems absolutely excellent, and I can't wait to get to a point where I can enjoy it fully. The only thing I don't like is the art direction with the somewhat cartoony textures/character design - oddly resembling Team Fortress 2. I hate that sort of "artistic" license - but I can certainly live with it when everything else seems so well done. It also performs very, very well - so that's an added bonus.

Both games seem quite fantastic at this early point.
 
Other than that, I got Dishonored - and I've played through the first real mission. It seems absolutely excellent, and I can't wait to get to a point where I can enjoy it fully. The only thing I don't like is the art direction with the somewhat cartoony textures/character design - oddly resembling Team Fortress 2. I hate that sort of "artistic" license - but I can certainly live with it when everything else seems so well done. It also performs very, very well - so that's an added bonus.

Both games seem quite fantastic at this early point.

Good to hear. I got Dishonored, but I haven't installed it yet. I recently started a new job, and my gaming time has been somewhat limited of late.

Funny to see your comment about the art direction though, because I was just thinking the same thing after watching some YouTube videos. Although it's not actually the art I dislike so much as the color pallete and the "plastic" look the game has. I would have preferred a more realistic overall look for a game like Dishonored.

I plan on starting either XCOM or Dishonored this Sunday. Still haven't decided which one I'm going to play first…
 
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Still playing Mas Effect 1. I have explored maybe 20 worlds, done most of the side quests, and only one of the main quest missions (where you get Liara). Why does Bioware have this obsession with 3? 3 research stations, 3 mercenary planets, 3 sets of turrets, etc...
 
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Really enjoying Dishonored!

Great game, especially playing on Very Hard, with no objective or contextual markers anywhere. This makes it a sort of free roam sandbox game, because I have no idea where to go in each map. I simply try to explore, find every rune, bone charm and Sokolov painting possible, eavesdropping to learn what I can about the various missions and side missions.

I try to sneak past everyone, but I frequently get caught and killed. As a result I'm 18 hours in and just completed the second mission (Golden Cat). I'm guessing this playthrough is going to last a lot longer than the average playing time for the Normal difficulty setting.
 
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Finished Xcom for now, I'll certainly be replaying it again at some point. I've never played Divinity 2 DKS, so I just started that yesterday. Liking it already, seems like it has a really deep story, I've met several interesting characters already.


-Carn
 
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The only thing I don't like is the art direction with the somewhat cartoony textures/character design - oddly resembling Team Fortress 2. I hate that sort of "artistic" license - but I can certainly live with it when everything else seems so well done.

Funny to see your comment about the art direction though, because I was just thinking the same thing after watching some YouTube videos. Although it's not actually the art I dislike so much as the color pallete and the "plastic" look the game has. I would have preferred a more realistic overall look for a game like Dishonored.

I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In my case, I've found Dishonored to be perhaps the most beautiful game I've ever played. Haven't finished the game yet, but I'm already completely in love with the art direction, the environments, lighting, character models.

I have played other games shooting for a bit more realistic approach, like Crysis, or Witcher2 for example, which had some very detailed environments, but the visual appeal of Dishonored is head and shoulders above anything else I've played. Looking forward to Bioshock Infinite next year, however.
 
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And this is why I groan out load when I hear complaints of Obsidian's QA for New Vegas; a shoddy engine is difficult to work with :)

Except New Vegas is much, much worse than Fallout 3 - and that's not counting the absolutely ridiculous amount of visual bugs related to SHODDY level design and not the engine.
 
DArtagnan said:
Except New Vegas is much, much worse than Fallout 3 - and that's not counting the absolutely ridiculous amount of visual bugs related to SHODDY level design and not the engine.

Oh god really? I don't mind the odd crash, but once every 20 mins gets tedious. The only plus is that the game fires up quickly again after each CTD.
 
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I must have been lucky because I experienced very few problems when I played FO3. There were times when I'd get a crash or lockup after 20 minutes, but more often than not I could play for 3-4 hours without any issues, and that was with multiple mods.
 
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My system crashed more with FO3 compared to FNV, but it was a different system. :p

The PC I played FO3 on was a dual core laptop with 2GB RAM and a very crappy graphics card, could barely run the game at 1024x800 or so resolution, sometimes it would crash, but still enjoyed the game tremendously.

By the time I bought New Vegas, I had a much better laptop that could run the game at 1920x1080. New Vegas was a day one purchase and never experienced any crashes, just some really minor cosmetic stuff like a radscorpion melting into the terrain, or having to toggle clipping to retrieve a skill book, etc.
 
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NV was quite crash-prone even on consoles. But that's not really the biggest problem for me - it's the vast amount of visual bugs and glitches. If you don't mind that sort of thing (some people don't even notice them) - then it's not a problem.

Fallout 3 was much more polished in terms of world design and the aesthetics. FNV looks like an amateur mod with the drab colors and shoddy level design.

Of course, that's just my opinion - but I have to say I'm surprised to see so few around here who agree. I thought it was painfully obvious - but I guess I could have been dreaming each time I tried to play it :)
 
Played F:NV few months after release and after the last patch and never had a single crash with my reasonable dual core 2.8GHz and HD4670. I thought that the graphics and the world were very suiting and excellent. Played FO3 for less than an hour few months after release and still suffered the terrible corridor bug crash which required restarting the game. Within an hour of play I have had about 3 crashes with FO3 and that was when I decided to leave it alone as I did not want to go over the introductory part again.
 
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Played F:NV few months after release and after the last patch and never had a single crash with my reasonable dual core 2.8GHz and HD4670. I thought that the graphics and the world were very suiting and excellent. Played FO3 for less than an hour few months after release and still suffered the terrible corridor bug crash which required restarting the game. Within an hour of play I have had about 3 crashes with FO3 and that was when I decided to leave it alone as I did not want to go over the introductory part again.

How would you compare the FO3 world design/aesthetics to FO:NV?
 
I've just started a little journey into Eschalon's book I. It's a few years now after the initial release when quite a few RPGwatch players were into it (from reading the newsbits and impressions threads) and whilst I did play the demo, I never did get around to buying and playing the full game until recently.

There's an unforgiving quality to the difficulty at times which I like and I can see that building my mage character effectively is going to take some fun experimentation. I'm wondering at this stage if a full mage build is really feasible; I may have to look at another skill for when monsters get too close and mana is gone.
The mood and sense of tension within the darkness of dungeons so far is great and I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Fallout 3 was much more polished in terms of world design and the aesthetics. FNV looks like an amateur mod with the drab colors and shoddy level design.
Of course, that's just my opinion - but I have to say I'm surprised to see so few around here who agree. I thought it was painfully obvious - but I guess I could have been dreaming each time I tried to play it :)

I think one of the reasons that people don't mention it so much is that perhaps maybe it doesn't matter to them as much as it does to you?

Maybe people are more interested in gee, I don't know….actual role-playing games, their stories and their mechanics? (To which FNV is clearly superior, but that's just my opinion…)

Polish and prettiness is all very well, but in some cases it's merely the icing on the cake and not the cake itself, which is heartier and more filling.
 
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Except New Vegas is much, much worse than Fallout 3 - and that's not counting the absolutely ridiculous amount of visual bugs related to SHODDY level design and not the engine.

Beats the tunnels under Capital City though. God, I don't ever want to set my foot in there again, ever. Those are a major reason for why I've not returned to Fallout 3, I found the whole Capital City area to be a pain. New Vegas though, I've played through that game twice.

New Vegas was flawed, but the dialogue was better written, the factions were more interesting and the choices you made were far less black or white. Also, ditching the karma system (well, it is still there in New Vegas, but it does not do anything) in favour of faction specific reputation was a huge step in the right direction.
 
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I think one of the reasons that people don't mention it so much is that perhaps maybe it doesn't matter to them as much as it does to you?

Maybe people are more interested in gee, I don't know….actual role-playing games, their stories and their mechanics? (To which FNV is clearly superior, but that's just my opinion…)

Polish and prettiness is all very well, but in some cases it's merely the icing on the cake and not the cake itself, which is heartier and more filling.

I have no interest in how much it matters to people - but I'd like people to recognise the flaws I'm bringing up - as it would help people to understand that some gamers care about these things and that they're not imagining them.

By accomplishing that, we wouldn't have to argue. It will be a simple matter of agreeing to disagree about how important it is to polish games.

I care about quests/mechanics a lot - but I happen to care about visual aesthetics as well. One doesn't exclude the other, though I suppose for some of you it does.
 
Beats the tunnels under Capital City though. God, I don't ever want to set my foot in there again, ever. Those are a major reason for why I've not returned to Fallout 3, I found the whole Capital City area to be a pain. New Vegas though, I've played through that game twice.

Fair enough. I'm none too fond of the tunnels myself. I do think Fallout 3 had more variety in terms of the "random" locations scattered about.

That said, I never got more than 15-20 hours in a row with NV. It would always start crashing too much.

I've tried getting heavy into it at least 4 times - and no matter what I've done, it always starts crashing every 1-2 hours at some point. This is with or without mods.

Now, FO3 was also crash heavy (as was Oblivion to an extent) - but NV has been the worst by far. But I realise this is my personal experience. That said, it has happened with 3-4 rigs by now - and I have a very hard time accepting that FO3 is worse for anyone - but it doesn't matter. What I mean by poor polish is specifically the shoddy level design and subpar aesthetics by Obsidian. In my opinion, of course.

New Vegas was flawed, but the dialogue was better written, the factions were more interesting and the choices you made were far less black or white. Also, ditching the karma system (well, it is still there in New Vegas, but it does not do anything) in favour of faction specific reputation was a huge step in the right direction.

Agree on all counts.
 
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