What games are you playing today?

[RancidHall]

lol, liked your description of "LoG" and I felt that way too... for the first 5 mins. after that, it pretty much felt lacking, compared to modern day rpg games. it's quite sad though, to be wanting, when this is as close to the spirit of what the original dungeon exploring games were like.

I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzles, and the look of certain creatures and environments. However. I find it quite odd to institute that absolute mechanical behavior of the party and the creatures. on paper, and in the player's mind, this is surely how it's like, but with the pc, it becomes more of an artistic crutch that is only there for nostalgia purposes, which unfortunately makes the game somewhat frustrating to manage in the long run.

the story wasn't that great, kind of an odd thing too in this setting. not to mention the levels just go on and on forever, to a lousy end. I suppose that's the stereotype of the indie developer, to create something unique, unfortunately it won't catch on with the young players. games like doom or hexen, are still gonna be more fun.

[Daryl Kong]

Guns of Icarus Online
currently 50% discount on steam, about USD10.
recent influx of new players due to TGS publicity.

Fly the skies onboard an airship in a 4-man crew,
3 classes, the pilot, the engineer and the gunner.
There are ranks within classes but no additional stats.
Each classes have all abilities available but need choose 5 max.

Fast matchmaking system with private games.
latency seems average, 200ms-300ms.
your airship guns need to hit the other big airship, not headshot someone.

speaking of guns, all airships are available at start, selected by pilot.
all guns available too, need to select guns for airship slots.

in-game voice comms too.

My Review

Played this over the weekend alone and it was easy to join other random people.
Communication is key and usually random people don't talk to each other.
Still, it was loads of fun. if you don't mind losing alot.

My first class is the engineer. Your airship takes damage to several areas.
The balloon, the engines, the stabilizers and the guns.
As an engineer, your main job is to run away the airship putting out fire, rebuilding broken parts, fixing those parts and buffing them.
The other 2 classes can do the same but the engineer can equip more repair tools, thus making them the best class for repairs.
When no repairs are needed, the engineer can man the guns or even pilot, but repairs will always be your priority.

My 2nd class played is the pilot.
Tired of losing, I joined low population games where the crew is filled with AI. The pilots are human players.
The AI is more intelligent than human crew and it was a blast as I pilot my airship around difficult terrain, destroying other human pilots with their AI crew.
Still, a full human crew is the most fun, as long as they can work together.
Also as a pilot, I can select and customize my airship's weapon loadout.
I chose the fastest airship with the most guns fixed at the front and named it RSS Bloodfang!

The last class is the gunner, which I didn't play much.
The gunner can load the airship guns with the most number of different ammo types.
Ammo designed to damage the ballon, the hull, disable guns, etc.

I hope more people will play this fun and casual(or maybe hardcore airship pvp) game with me.
Even with little players, we can all be the crew of an airship or each fight other as pilots of AI crews.

Do add me on steam: raptorkhan
my username is Anferno
so that we may enjoy other steam games as well!

[Richard Loh]

Finally on completion of Overlord 2. The game is a lot easier than Overlord. The initial stages are fun, but as it progresses on, doing the boss fight seems to be a formality, with no real sense of challenge. The siege sequences leading to the assault on Solarius' palace is fun though... and the BBEG is... shall I spoil it for you guys? Is... a hippy elf! Sorry, I can't resist it... Now... Wondering what to play next.

Ok, decided! Gonna play Painkiller. Never played that before. Here we go!

Edit: Well... Tried for the first level. It's built on the old Doom, Quake style where it's fighting endless hordes of monsters/demons. It's fast paced, but due to age, after going through one level, it's enough to give me a headache. Old age is catching up...

Edit: Headache is bad... I think I'm switching to a new game... and it's now...... Lego Star Wars Saga!!! Wonder if its as fun as the earlier Star Wars game. Bring your wife/girlfriend along to play with you, especially if you have two controllers as it's quite fun.

Edit: Ok, Lego Star Wars Saga is EXACTLY the same as what I bought. Damn it. It just combines Lego Star Wars I and Lego Star Wars II together and call it Lego Star Wars Saga. Feels suckered, but on the other hand... I've not played Lego Star Wars II so... oh well, at least I bought it at 50% off Steam!

[Richard Loh]

Borderlands 2! Completed. As usual, it's humour made this game fun though it's like D3 in FPS style. Working on it's DLCs now. Looks interesting, but the only problem is that on commencement of multiple DLCs, you'll lose track of your game very quickly as multiple DLCs will instantly open up a lot of areas and a lot of different quests to tackle.

[Septh Silver]

Dumping time into M&B: Warband, with mods, of course!
DotA 2, because I got bored of LoL :\
Finished Bastion, and I loved it.
Got Planescape: Torment, on GoG for cheap, and it came with the Witcher for free.
You can get Civ V or Mafia II for free by voting for your favourite games of the year: goldenjoysticks.greenmangaming.com
Revisited Terraria what with the update and all.
Aaaaaaaand wanting Starbound to come out so badly.

[Richard Loh]

DarkStar One! Been doing this for the past couple of weeks. Combat is relatively easy, combat sound effects are rather weak and weapons don't feel that it's hefty but the idea of upgrading your ship and having it grows kinda attracted my interest to it. Even though the storyline is linear, there are little things you can find like reading the news, getting to that system and clearing out the pirates. The initial discovery that you can actually do that kinda keeps me going for more. Just one little ship upgrade, just one little story mission, just one little.. You get that idea...

[Daryl Kong]

Oct 20, 2013 0:13:06 GMT 8 Richard Loh said:

DarkStar One! Been doing this for the past couple of weeks. Combat is relatively easy, combat sound effects are rather weak and weapons don't feel that it's hefty but the idea of upgrading your ship and having it grows kinda attracted my interest to it. Even though the storyline is linear, there are little things you can find like reading the news, getting to that system and clearing out the pirates. The initial discovery that you can actually do that kinda keeps me going for more. Just one little ship upgrade, just one little story mission, just one little.. You get that idea...

Freelancer > DarkStar One

[Richard Loh]

I'm finally done with DarkStar One. 25 hours into the game and I have one almost fully upgraded most powerful ship in the universe and explored a vast portion of the universe. On completion of the game, however, it left an empty feeling and the ending is a little anti-climatic. Seems like there is so much potential, but unfortunately, they didn't explore the potential fully.

Heck, on to the next game! Next on the list... Metro 2033! Not started yet, but will update again!

Metro 2033: A journey through the Moscow underground in a post-apocalyptic setting, with radiation on the surface of Moscow as a backdrop where mutanted humans and animals roam.

Technical: Even though the game was built in 2010, it doesn't feel as smooth as Half-Life 2 and can feel that in certain aspects that there isn't much depth in movement. Could be the sensitivity of the mouse settings are rather limited.

Atmosphere: Atmospheric wise, I must give it to them that it feels authentic, especially with the amount of people living within the tunnels itself. Maybe, if much more life is given to the characters, it would definitely immerse the player within the world even more. Voice-acting is rather good although after a while, you'll notice that you're listening to the same voices over and over again. Also, it gets engaging when you are separated. Makes it feel more alive as there is a NPC around you for the initial stages.

Combat: Bullets doesn't feel like it have an effect on the creatures shown so far, and that is only within the first 24 minutes of the game. Will update more later. Still felt the same way in that the weapons impact carries no weight. Sometimes, doesn't even feel that your weapons have done any damage to the creatures so far, which includes humans as well.

Conclusion: Game completed. Towards the end, despite the various flaws of the game, but coupled with such a great atmosphere, I am surprised that I subconciously managed to overlook its flaws. The ending felt right and it left an empty feeling in my heart, because even though you are a hero, but the destruction of the Dark Ones did nothing for you. No fanfare, no crowds congratulating you or saying you're a hero. You just did what you had to. Never had a game made me think so much. Great game!

[Richard Loh]

Metro 2033 is completed! Moving on to Metro: Last Light now!

Less than a year after the destruction of the Dark Ones, this time round, the story attempts to breach the gap between the events from Metro 2033 as well as explaining the backstory.

Technical: Great graphics, new interfaces, attempting to put new stuff in, like dirt, water on your gas mask and you gotta press a button to wipe it off. It doesn't add anything to the game unfortunately. However, the weapons felt heavier and more useful now.

Gameplay: Also, the stealth sections are a lot easier with an easy transition between stealth and combat. Combat isn't too hard and the AI does not have a hivemind now, but atmosphere wise, it's still great, but the Artyom's voice actor felt like an American voice actor with a fake Russian accent and it is just awful. Having said that, graphics are better and won't cause as much a headache to me as the previous game. With the destruction of the Dark Ones, most of the fear factor involving tunnels seems to be gone. I don't feel as dangerous trudging in to the tunnels alone as I did the first game. Could also be attributed to the psychological fact that my weapons seems to work now.

[Daryl Kong]

[Richard Loh]

Medal of Honour.

What is wrong with it? Plenty. Since its creation in the 1999, Medal of Honour impressed me with its slow pace and tactical combat. You gotta carefully take your shots, conserve ammo, watch where the enemy is coming from by the flash from their muzzle.

The same name Medal of Honour from 2010? Well, granted that both of it involves being railroaded, but in comparison? 11 years and not only they didn't improve, the quality of the game went down tremendously. Everything is scripted, you run into invisible walls, they tell you to look at things without guiding you when the landscape is massive, THEN they ham you in with controlling your range of camera view until the mission objective slaps you in the face and say: LOOK HERE! I'M HERE! SHOOT ME!

Taking shots, heck, I think it's probably ported directly from the console because my cursor doesn't need to accurately pinpoint the target. As long as it's in that 'general direction', my bullets will hit. Every. Single. Time.

Ammo? Heck, you run out, you just turn to your squad mates and voila, instant ammo replenishment! In that case, why do you even bother putting the number of rounds when your ammo is effectively unlimited?

Sniper? In 1999, every corner, I got to creep out, risk a shot. The moment I step out, a familar zing as a bullet whizz past, I'll run quickly to another corner and try to hide and get a lock-on to where the flash comes from. The 2010 version? Ooo, look! Sniper glare! Shoot me! How dumb can a game get?

This is probably one of the worst FPS I've ever played in my entire life. I find that they attempted to replicate the feel of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, but even though both are scripted, Modern Warfare did the story justice by a more interesting storyline, better gameplay and better scripts.

I hate it when developers neglect the core which made them what they are in the first place. Yes, Ubisoft, I'm referring to you too. Don't bother getting this. Medal of Honour, the one which was created in 1999? You'll find that it is much, much more enjoyable.

Edit: The entire campaign took a grand total of 4 hours and I was not even trying hard. Maybe I should join Daryl in driving Euro Trucks.

[Richard Loh]

Done with Medal of Honour in 4 hours. Hah! Oh well, Capsized, here I come! It's quite fun surprisingly for a 2D platformer developed by a 2 men crew.

[Lord Julian (Sully)]

At least I know I'm home when someone's ranting out at Mainstream gaming AAA industry and their coporate conspiracy to dumb down gaming for the sake of earning riches from the casual masses, inciting an ethical drain in the gaming industry where passion fuels the pinnacle of the purpose of gaming.

Now after my usual terrible misanthropic rant is over, I suggest that those of you turn based fanatics wanting more from pathfinder's TBS style & a fan of PC games should check out these following ones:

Expeditions: Conquistador(Part Oregon Trail, Part X-COM, All-round Story-driven Tactical RPG of 2013)
Shadowrun Returns (cyberpunk meets fantasy)
Silent Storm (rather old & ugly ww2 game, but best destruction physics ever built on the engine)
Jagged Alliance (Best economical sim slash TBS, but horrible graphics at its time)

Considering that we're sort of a niche gaming group base, I'll bet that you people are more tolerable towards the other niche genres like Tactical Shooters, here's a few oldies and a somewhat failed new one to check out.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2(Surprisingly tactical but somewhat lack in content and a handful of flaws)
SWAT 4 (Room Clearing Classic)
Takedown: Red Sabre(New 2013 failure that disappointed fans, but has slowly been patched up to its potential)

Last but not least, a freeware game that was created in 2003, in one of the most underground genres ever, top-down survival

Notrium from Instantkingdom.com

Well, hope that gets all your head noggin for hunting those good games that actually matters.