Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Robsoie]

It seems they acknowledged that problem with Dishonored, in their following game 'Prey', the player had the choice to keep his character using only human neuromod or using typhons ones (or mix of both), with that choice not having consequences in the endings (so you could still be the good guy if you wished so), but having only consequence during the game itself (friendly turrets with their alien dna detection becoming hostile to you, typhon nightmare spawning earlier).

Most fun though is making a human neuromod only run, then on the new game plus (so you keep all your acquired neuromods and make the hostile turret a no-problem by having high enough hacking level) you start taking the typhons ones and open more options to deal with everything around.

[AzyWng]

Picked up Monolith (a bullet-hell esque shooter that's pretty fun) and Door Kickers: Action Squad. I've played the latter more so I'll tell you about it in more detail.

DK:AC is a side-scrolling shooter made by the creators of the Door Kickers series. As such, Action Squad has some of the same elements as the other Door Kickers games - hostages, kicking doors, and the fact death can come very quickly if you're careless.

It's pretty fun, though I've only started the second series of missions and still haven't been able to get very far into the Infinity Tower.

[Robsoie]

Very happy to see the gog version of WH40K Chaos Gate does not need anymore file editing and etc... to get it working somehow on window 10 , looks like they updated it sometime this year.
I had this game since its release so many years ago, unfortunately couldn't make it work anymore when updating OS until some people created some wrapper, and this gog version very likely include one straight out of the box.

Managed to complete the first mission without problems, i mean without technical problems ... as unfortunately lost 3 of my 5 space marines by forgetting how krak grenades can be really vicious at destroying their armors (similarly to the wh40k mod for openxcom, that play a lot like Chaos Gate)

Oh and avoid keeping the aimed shot enabled when you're setting a space marine on overwatch as it consume too many action points, and you really need as much shots as you need to avoid getting in range of enemy grenades, fortunately the 1st mission many cultists usually get one shott-ed (out of when you have bad luck on rolls), the main problem is from the chaos space marines that are waiting in the temple (as they are as well equipped and resilient as your marines).

Don't forget to equip manually your squads, as by default everyone has a bolter, and you very likely want at least one of your guy to carry a heavy bolter for some serious chaos bottom kicking.

Missed how good the sound environment and the musics were.

[Stench Guzman]

I played through Red Alert 2 + the expansion, for the first time in years.  Great game.  It's been so long I didn't remember most of the scenarios.

[Kagus]

Just tried out Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer's Legacy.

A game about exploration, braving the elements, exploring through old tombs and caverns in search of knowledge and treasure, deciphering old inscriptions and carefully avoiding traps... What's not to love?

...well, frankly: The execution. It's made abundantly clear that combat will not give you anything for the trouble (and will in fact be highly UNproductive, even if you do everything right), and then proceeds to shove a bunch of it in your face. While not providing a lot of satisfying alternatives to solving the problem of whatever's trying to beat you up.

Additionally, you run into some bizarre twists of fate that end up compounding failure upon failure... You cross a stream, which makes you wet, then get inevitably lost on your given trail so you become fatigued before reaching a point where you can rest.

If you rest without a fire, the "wet" effect will make you cold, applying more debuffs and interacting with your fatigue to do even worse things. If you leave that location without resting, the "fatigue" effect will hurt your character's hope, which can potentially cause them to permanently lose certain beneficial traits selected at character creation. However, the "grove" location you're at apparently doesn't count as having access to wood (despite being surrounded by trees), meaning that you are physically incapable of lighting a fire to get rid of the wet effect.

But hey, that's just RNG, right? It's a roguelite after all, not every character is meant to make it! ...except that when a character dies, a few years pass ingame and allow for the "big bad" to field more troops, take more land, and make the world overall more dangerous for your next character. ...even if you have gained absolutely none of the special treasures that can be passed down to further characters, meaning your next start will simply be meeting more adversity than the first, and the third being worse off than the second, and so forth.

I believe enough persistent failures can result in that save becoming effectively unplayable, forcing you to create a new save file and abandoning any persistent rewards you actually did manage to accrue.

The combat system they throw you into is also just... Weird. And seems deeply weighted against you in most circumstances, unless you have a bunch of super high-tier loot that then turns everything into a mindless cakewalk instead.

I dunno, it... I really wanted to like it. But after getting repeatedly pushed over by complete bullshit, my interest in the exploration and survival mechanics was firmly outweighed by my desire to do anything else but continue playing the game.

[Robsoie]

After toying a bit with the latest demo of Hero's Hour (looks like they removed some previously available content from the past demos i played) , it made me want to play again Heroes of Might&Magic 3 as i still had it installed.
I googled a bit to see if there was some new good maps or even check if there was some new mods when i ran into some bit of warning in some board that may prove usefull to someone that wants to buy the game :

There's Heroes of Might&Magic 3 - HD Edition" on steam but, and it's a big but ( ) , this version does not include any of its expansions (and so all the contents and features they add) , it's really only the basic HoMM3 only .

If you want the full game, you should instead go buy Heroes of Might&Magic3 Complete on gog that not only is cheaper in price, but will feature everything, and apply the HD Mod (that does not only allow better resolutions, but adds tons of options and a great compatibility with modern OS) .
Oh and about HD Mod , be sure in the tweaks section of its launcher to change

Code: [Select]

<Sys.CPU.ReduceUsage> = 0from 0 to 1 or 2 ( 2 is beta apparently but should work better according to the changelogs) to avoid that old game to take too much CPU that it does not need.

[Robsoie]

Looks like Sanitarium has some intriguing story but has the same mechanics as with every kind of point&click games : until you have the correct item to use on the correct location on the screen, you're stuck, and in some games the combination of item/place does not always make sense.

The main problem you'll have in Sanitarium then is to find said correct item and the place to use it (sometime that place is only a few pixel big), don't expect items or locations to use them to be highlighted though and after a while you'll start getting mad

By example on Chapter 2 (the village with "Mother" and all the children) at some point you will understand you need to get a fish rod to fetch an item (despite the item is in water very close to your path you wonder why the hell your guy can't pick it up himself and need a fish rod) as your character hint at needing to fish the item out of water. 

Convenientely there's a kid that is fishing in the small beach, and of course the game does not give you a way to simply ask him to kindly let you use the fish rod temporarly before giving it back to him.
So after clearing all the available discussions subject you can with him (you will need to talk about everything to every npc you see, as it's what gives you hint on what to do and what sometime allow you to pick an item you'll need later, as some items can be unpickable without such thing), one of them hints at him loving to go for the mass in the church to pray.

But due to *spoiler* he can't do that because none can ring the church bell anymore ... well don't wonder why he needs that bell to pray but whatever, you know your goal is then to find a way to ring that bell so he stops fishing (so you can probably get his fish rod then).

The bell is of course on the top of the church, as the normal way to ring it has been destroyed it looks like the only way is to throw something at it to make noise.
Except that you can't throw anything, there's nothing to pick up that the character will accept to throw at that bell. 

Then you start getting really annoyed and remember the old and very boring point&click trick  : click every pixel around the screen.
Oh you just picked a "rock" ? That's odd considering there are so many rocks around and you clicked already on so many of them without result.

And that's the problem i have with this genre... find the correct group of pixels.

[Robsoie]

For those interested in Sanitorium, you may have noticed it does not run very smoothly, sometime (especially in save/load menu) there's some kind of "hickup" with the mouse that can be annoying.

Fortunately ScummVM support that game now, it's a good idea to use it for Sanitarium, as it run very smoothly and does not have those annoyances.
You need (at the time) the latest 2.6 preview release ( ScummVM 2.6.0pre Release Candidate Build - Windows Installer (recommended) ) :
https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#daily

Install it, you will also need of course to have Sanitorium installed.

Launch ScummVM and click on "Add Game"
Browse to ...\yourSanitariumdirectory\Data\  folder 
by default on a gog install it's C:\GOG Games\Sanitarium\Data\ 
Click OK and ScummVM will detect the game.
From then you can then launch the game by having the game selected and clicking on the "Start" button.

At that time there will be a warning as Sanitorium support is recent it may not be fully stable
But so far i reached the chapter 4 without any problem (well problem with the game, as i got mad enough from some of the puzzles)

[Robsoie]

Gave a try to current gog freebie, "Venetica" that i never heard about before, and it's not bad at all.
Visually it reminds a bit of the semi cartoony artstyle used in Fable but more "janky" in control and overall feel.
No idea if it's a combination of the game engine age and window 10 , but i noticed a lot of flickering with the shadows so i had to turn the details low enough to disable them as they were an annoyance for the eyes. I noticed some people mentionning turning the "screen effects" to off may also help, but the details on the lowest to disable shadow did the job anyways.

That said, while so far (i'm still very early ingame) the story is something that i feel have already saw in many games, the whole atmosphere still has some kind of charm around it, the heroine is likable so that is probably helping.
Looks like there are a lot of techniques and power branches to discover and learn with the xp you'll get so there may be some interesting leveling choices to do.

No idea how big or small the world is, as i'm still in the village at the beginning with some people giving me some tasks to do.
Combat is simple, there's key to roll to dodge attacks but don't expect anything close to a soul-like or a monster hunter as the controls are much less precise.
But for now i feel there's some potential with this game, i'll see how it turns out.

[Iduno]

Just tried out Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer's Legacy.

A game about exploration, braving the elements, exploring through old tombs and caverns in search of knowledge and treasure, deciphering old inscriptions and carefully avoiding traps... What's not to love?

...well, frankly: The execution. It's made abundantly clear that combat will not give you anything for the trouble (and will in fact be highly UNproductive, even if you do everything right), and then proceeds to shove a bunch of it in your face. While not providing a lot of satisfying alternatives to solving the problem of whatever's trying to beat you up.

Additionally, you run into some bizarre twists of fate that end up compounding failure upon failure... You cross a stream, which makes you wet, then get inevitably lost on your given trail so you become fatigued before reaching a point where you can rest.

If you rest without a fire, the "wet" effect will make you cold, applying more debuffs and interacting with your fatigue to do even worse things. If you leave that location without resting, the "fatigue" effect will hurt your character's hope, which can potentially cause them to permanently lose certain beneficial traits selected at character creation. However, the "grove" location you're at apparently doesn't count as having access to wood (despite being surrounded by trees), meaning that you are physically incapable of lighting a fire to get rid of the wet effect.

But hey, that's just RNG, right? It's a roguelite after all, not every character is meant to make it! ...except that when a character dies, a few years pass ingame and allow for the "big bad" to field more troops, take more land, and make the world overall more dangerous for your next character. ...even if you have gained absolutely none of the special treasures that can be passed down to further characters, meaning your next start will simply be meeting more adversity than the first, and the third being worse off than the second, and so forth.

I believe enough persistent failures can result in that save becoming effectively unplayable, forcing you to create a new save file and abandoning any persistent rewards you actually did manage to accrue.

The combat system they throw you into is also just... Weird. And seems deeply weighted against you in most circumstances, unless you have a bunch of super high-tier loot that then turns everything into a mindless cakewalk instead.

I dunno, it... I really wanted to like it. But after getting repeatedly pushed over by complete bullshit, my interest in the exploration and survival mechanics was firmly outweighed by my desire to do anything else but continue playing the game.

That's hilariously bad game design.

[MCreeper]

Random rant on Dishonored:
Most jarring thing to me about overseers with music boxes is that they really don't behave like they ought to - and i wouldn't pay it any mind, if not for NPC banter on that same missions. Say, the one at Boyle party. He (and neither anyone else) doesn't react if you jump three meters into the air, teleport right in front of him, or, if my memory serves me, fire a pistol beside his ear. And that's sort of okay, but you can overhear guards outside the mansion speaking about how pair of those overseers arrested street performer because she lost voice at inopportune moment. But no reaction to an obvious sorcerer, no. 

Even worse in Knife of the Dunwall DLC. Overseers attacked a hideout of teleporting magic ninjas and won thanks to music boxes. Now they bunched up and wait for head teleporting magic ninja, who is the magicest of them all, to kill him. So why, for the love of god, they spin the handle only when they see you directly? (Because devs didn't want to program new behavior just for DLC  ) They can spin it constantly, but only in set pieces with captive ninjas. Sort of applies to main game overseers too, but there it is just bonklers.

And there is just a surreally idiotic thing in Boyle party. One of the ways to second floor is blocked by a massive wall of light. It's power room is a forbidden zone - but nobody can react to you entering it because they can't see you inside. Nobody reacts in the slightest when you disable the wall either. But if you tiptoe your way past the line where the wall was (What? I didn't know i can't go there!), guests immidiately start running and screaming and guards start shooting you.

Another jarring lack of reaction is Masochist Geezer's in Golden Cat mission. Pendlton in the top suite gives off a hilarious monologue if he hears you raising a ruckus, but this dude is on rails and won't react any diffirently no matter what you do. Even if you walk in to him as the very courtesan that was supposed to go to him. Even if she them vomits right at his knees. NOTHING. Of course, you can't predict everything players would come up with, but seeing those two side by side is a tad odd.

I'd like to see someone helpfully collating and hilariously narrating all the silly stuff you can do in this game in the manner of it-he.org guy. I strongly suspect there must be some way in the whole game to put a conscious guard into a closed garbage bin or simillarily unorthodox place, but have never got around to properly searching for it. 

Dishonored 2 is bad in an odd way. I replayed first Dishonored many times, but 2 is just bo-o-o-ori-ing. And i can't put a finger on why. I tried to start it three times, thinking how the hell is this possible, shouldn't there be at least some fun? but never got past mission 2. And Death of the Outsider is so bad that i didn't even hear anything about it except that it exists.

[Rolan7]

I'd like to see someone helpfully collating and hilariously narrating all the silly stuff you can do in this game

Ooh, like-

in the manner of it-he.org guy.

YEAH!!
Hehe I exclaimed out loud, it's great I'm not the only one still appreciating his screenshot wrong-plays in current year.  The only one I haven't read is Arx Fatalis because I keep meaning to play it myself first.  (I never played the Ultimas either but I don't think I'd enjoy them myself).

[Egan_BW]

Given that over the whole game nobody seems to notice that Corvo has magic powers, I tend to just handwave it as those powers having some kinda perception warping effect which just makes everyone assume they're hallucinating. :p

[Robsoie]

Note about Venetica, at some point in Venice you'll join a guild probably (i don't know if there is an alternative, but i joined one anyways), after more story progression and quests completed, Leon will pop up at your guild.

Don't talk to him.

In theory if you talk to him at that point, he will offer you to pay him so he goes and spread some good word about you around town to help increase your reputation.
But in actual gameplay talking to Leon will crashes to desktop after he starts to explain what he will do for you.

There's no fix and that CTD bug will happen to every player.

The only way to continue to play is simply to not talk to Leon, fortunately it does not prevent anything to happen so you can continue playing and your reputation will progress nicely anyways if you do quests (something you should do anyways for more XP and money).

[Kagus]

Note about Venetica, at some point in Venice you'll join a guild probably (i don't know if there is an alternative, but i joined one anyways), after more story progression and quests completed, Leon will pop up at your guild.

Don't talk to him.

In theory if you talk to him at that point, he will offer you to pay him so he goes and spread some good word about you around town to help increase your reputation.
But in actual gameplay talking to Leon will crashes to desktop after he starts to explain what he will do for you.

There's no fix and that CTD bug will happen to every player.

The only way to continue to play is simply to not talk to Leon, fortunately it does not prevent anything to happen so you can continue playing and your reputation will progress nicely anyways if you do quests (something you should do anyways for more XP and money).

Goddammit, Leon.


As an aside; Source of Madness, the roguelite with procedurally generated enemies, is on sale for 25% off for the next 30 hours or so. I'm kinda considering picking it up despite it apparently being a little bit jank, if only to support the exploration of wacky game concepts like that.