Blog Your Current Game

[bomberfox]

Since EU4 is currently broken(and I paid 20something bucks for them to break the game for me...), I picked up Iron Harvest since it was on sale. Neat RTS game, with the concept of being what if WW1 was fought with mechs. The designs of thee mechs is great, with a WW1 tech feeling to it. Big oil barrels with .50cal machine gun arms and stuff.

Yes! I’m playing that as well.

 

[bomberfox]

Elite Dangerous: I made it to about 140 jumps into the 200 jump trip, was in space no one had been to before, and decided I was going to go bat**** insane if I kept this up. It was not so much the exploration part, as the need so far from any base to fuel scoop every single star. Fuel scooping does not take long, nor is it hard, but it consists of watching numbers and adjusting your pitch based on them, and if you mess up you get too close to the star, get forced out of frame drive, take damage, and have to get back out. So it is boring concentration, and I had to do it every single jump, time after time. I was doing 35 to 40 jumps an hour, and almost all the time was in scooping. So I plotted a route back, and made it a little over half way. When I finish the trip back(tomorrow probably, certainly not tonight), and download my cartographic data, I will have my name listed as discovering about 45 stellar objects(stars and planets). Not alot, but I am happy.

Now off to EU4 till bed, Muscovy!

Fortunately now you can shorten the trip with frame shift boosts and pulsars now give you a boost.

 

[Mr Person]

The Stocks: you're doing it wrong

 

[PoS]

Did ya know you can get sharkquanauts in terror from the deep? If you do want to get that mod, theres an easy fix that i could give ya.

Thanks, I'll consider it if I ever get back into the game.

Disco Elysium: Final Cut- finished it after a few weeks of playing. Great atmosphere and writing. Also very original. The few drawbacks are the slow loading screens (for a low graphics game, this is inexcusable) whenever you change locations, and the utter lack of re-playability. Other than that, this is a superb dystopian detective game with great worldbuilding. Rating 8/10

Subnautica Below Zero- Just started playing this game and I'm loving it. More of the same, and that's a good thing since the first game is one of my all time favs. I've played 5 hours straight, just taking my time, building bases and discovering new things. Looks like I'll be super busy again.

 

[Redress]

Never having played any of the Mass Effect games, I picked up the legendary edition. About 6 hours in, and almost no fighting, just talking and walking. Kinda disappointed, but will try more.

 

[jmotivator]

Been batting around my old to-play list and nothing has really been grabbing me. Then, out of the blue, I was hit with an urge to play Steel Panthers 2.

I found a free copy online and have been playing it ever since.

I forgot how great this game was, and still is.

 

[jmotivator]

Still playing Steel Panthers 2, but I feel the cycle beginning again.... in the next few days I will be neck deep in modded Minecraft, I just know it.

 

[PoS]

Still playing Steel Panthers 2, but I feel the cycle beginning again.... in the next few days I will be neck deep in modded Minecraft, I just know it.

Oh I played that a lot back in the day. I remember the one thing I hated was the arbitrary turn limits of each scenario, I wish there was a way to keep on playing.

Finished Subnautica Below Zero. While I like that the protagonist has a personality this time, the story was a little strange. It starts out about your investigations into the death of your sister, but then it does a 180, and you abandon it... and go do something else? Also, while I love the open sandbox of the game there were many dead ends that lead you nowhere. Other than those issues, its great. Rating: 7.5/10

Tried to play Total War Rome Remastered and... what the heck? You can no longer go into your cities and everything is done on the map screen. Ugh, its cluttered like hell. And it crashed on me to at just the second turn. I uninstalled and might try this again sometime in the future, but its pretty disappointing so far. Rating: DNF.

Tried Crusader Kings 3 as well, but... Im not digging it. Battles are automated, and it seems all you do is spend time arranging marriages and pulling courtly intrigues? Meh. Rating: DNF.

 

[jmotivator]

Oh I played that a lot back in the day. I remember the one thing I hated was the arbitrary turn limits of each scenario, I wish there was a way to keep on playing.

Agreed. They really need to make a new game like it. A combat strategy game with the depth of SP2 and modern graphics would be pretty great.

When I burn out on modded Minecraft again I am going to start re-experiencing old great games again.

Next up will either be Combat Mission or Final Liberation... undecided on which. Last I looked, Combat Mission is still for sale but the cost is ridiculous.

Edit: Apparently in 2018 I went a bit loony and purchased the entire Combat Mission bundle from Battlefront for the low low price of $110.00.

But at least I can still download it!

 

[jmotivator]

I was unaware until a few minutes ago that Battlefront has continued developing their Combat Mission games. They are now making games for various modern conflicts, having just released one for the Crimean region.

Unfortunately they seem to have abandoned the WeGo system of the original Combat Mission games, but looks like fun!

 

[KevinKohler]

Never having played any of the Mass Effect games, I picked up the legendary edition. About 6 hours in, and almost no fighting, just talking and walking. Kinda disappointed, but will try more.

Beginning sucks. Keep going.

 

[KevinKohler]

Currently playing Divinity Original Sin 2. Finished the first one, it was pretty good, so...onto the 2nd.


All ill say is...inventory management.

 

[SayMyName]

I can not say I know much about games. I do know a lot of people that work in games. Few years back I went to Hong Kong and met up with friends for drinks. They asked for some help, seeing that I work these days in marketing and advertising. I knew some friends and relatives that played this game they wanted some advertising help with, so I said I would see what I could do. I story boarded a bit, talked to people that played the game, got some of their video, found the person to put up the music, and gave my two cents. Even suggested a new tag line...."This is Eve." Hell, never thought they would buy it. What do you know. I hear tell this is one popular game. Does bring a tear to my eye. Still do not understand much about games and gamers, but...it is all rather beautiful to watch.

 

[jmotivator]

Ran across Tainted Grail in a Youtube channel I frequent and it sparked a re-interest in card-based rogue-likes.

Full disclosure: I an TERRIBLE at card based rogue-likes.

On-brand I am pretty terrible at Tainted Grail as well, but played long enough to unlock one of the many classes they have available. I'm not sure if the unlocks are preset or random, but I unlocked the Summoner that is about a million times easier to play than the starting Hunter class. Where as the Hunter only really works with good card synergy and deck building, the summoner is more like a plate spinning exercise like Monster Train.

Really the game is more like Slay the Spire than it is Monster Train, but so far the quests and adventures are much shorter and you unlock some pseudo permanent character bonuses. Like the other games, once you die you start back at square 1, but you have more options to set up your starting character before you begin the trials.

The difference in play style between the Hunter and Summoner are so different that, for now, I am enthusiastic to unlock all the different classes to try them out. It remains to be seen if my enthusiasm will continue after I unlock everything, but so far so good!

It's $20 on Steam, and here is the video that sold me on the game:

 

[jmotivator]

So after playing a more last night, I discovered that Tainted Grail has, essentially 3 Classes and each class has three subclasses. The play style of each subclass kind of dictates the cards that you will want to play and collect within that class' card list.

It's still mostly a mystery how people get such great card sets in this game, though, since I tend to hit a wall repeatedly and get curb stomped.

The one interesting thing that makes the game a bit different is that the story mode is that there is a story that progresses, and isn't reset when you die, so there is always an overarching progression you are working on apart from the normal unlocks.

 

[Jetboogieman]

Prodeus friends, Prodeus...



Yes, it takes a lot from Doom, the music and general retro design choices, but I love the way it handled graphics, by having sprites and older graphics in general, but with a more modern flare, it is just fun.

 

[jmotivator]

Planets aligned today, got a bit of a cash windfall the day before a 12 day staycation and the Micro Center in my area got a massive restock of PCs (at least as far as they can be massive right now) and a PC I have been eyeing actually came in...

Now the happy owner of a new gaming PC: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10900K, RTX3080, 32 GB of 3600 RAM

I'll be stress testing the hell out of this thing over the next week and a half.

(While the Integrator PowerSpec has some issues, I do this for a living so I wasn't afraid of PowerSpec throwing me some config curveballs that I couldn't handle)

EDIT: Huh, I apparently was one of a bazillion people to descend of the store today, they are now sold out....

 

[jmotivator]

I might have been too harsh on PowerSpec, the Micro Center house-brand. PowerSpec is an interesting integrator in that they build their systems entirely from Micro Center stock name brand equipment. They are so efficient in their integration that when you receive the PC it has been repackaged in the box the case came in.

The obvious upside to this is both lower cost, and all the parts are name brand. The only real downside is that, because of how the systems are built, it can sometimes be hard to nail down your build from the model number. For instance, the PowerSpec website has a listing for the G467, but not the G468 that I purchased. It turns out the reason is that they had to switch the ASUS motherboard they were using, and the swap out incremented the model number... which is good, I guess, since many integrators aren't so transparent.

Anyway, of all the parts that went into the G468 the only two that I will swap out some day are the AIO and the power supply. The AIO is adequate, but the Motherboard, GPU and CPU were made to be overclocked, and the existing AIO will struggle.... well, once I have a power supply that can handle an overclocked RTX 3080, that is. I'm getting 600+ watts pulled on standard config on a 750 watt Bronze rated PSU.

All that being said, it sure does make games pretty. Probably the prettiest game I have taken through the paces so far is The Division 2... that game just looks great on ultra @1440 and 100+ FPS.

Cyberpunk 2077 is still absurdly taxing, managing 80 FPS with Ultra @ 1440. And for all the bells and whistles in that game at max settings it isn't appreciably better looking than running on high settings at 1080p @60 fps on my old rig with a GTX 1080. There's a lesson to be learned there.

The only real downside now is that I will feel bad when I play Minecraft on it.

 

[Redress]

I picked up Mechwarrior 5 for my annual Steam summer sale binge. I suck at it, but I have a bad case of Just One More Mission. It is obscenely fun.

 

[jmotivator]

I picked up Mechwarrior 5 for my annual Steam summer sale binge. I suck at it, but I have a bad case of Just One More Mission. It is obscenely fun.

I enjoyed it, but the number of randomly appearing non-mechs got rather frustrating after a while.

 

[Jredbaron96]

I've been in a real Battletech fix lately.

I rummaged around the internet and found guides on how to install Mechwarrior 4 Vengeance/Black Knight/ Mercenaries (the series of my childhood) and promptly wasted several hours trying to get a virtual machine to work and run it, only to end up following a Youtube tutorial. Managed to get them working though sadly I had to disable joystick usage; I still have my old Sidewinder Force and was hoping to use it since it was excellent for Mechwarrior.

Blew through Mechwarrior 4, remembered why I hated the Argus (too varied and limited weaponry on a weak chassis), and realized how bad the acting was. Still, I love the game; it's a bad Scyfi original movie when it comes to plot, but I appreciate the effort. Battletech isn't really a series known for being light hearted and I appreciate the effort to take the setting seriously.

Mech 4 Black Knight was pretty forgettable. I didn't like basically invalidating everything I did in MW4 Vengeance and it seems the developers only real way idea about making missions was to just throw tons of mechs at you. The default encounter I had was 6+ enemy mechs versus me and 2-3 lancemates. At one point I was restarting missions purely because my Mechs were being too damaged and the repair function didn't let me use in time for the next mission.

I haven't started Mechwarrior 4 Mercs, but I did play a game of MW5 with my buddy. It was better than I remembered, which makes me think I should get back into that too. MW4 Mercs I've heard is probably among the best of the series, behind only MW2, and I liked how the finally balanced out the campaign's relevance to the metaplot (versus Vengeance and MW1 where you were a forgettable and insignificant pilot that didn't matter in the grand scheme).

Battletech is probably my favorite fictional universe after Star Trek and with the setting finally out of the Dark Ages I'm curious to see where the franchise will go. I still don't think the series has recovered to its heyday in the 90s but at least the mid-2000s early 2010s draught seems to have passed a bit.

 

[jmotivator]

I've been in a real Battletech fix lately.

I rummaged around the internet and found guides on how to install Mechwarrior 4 Vengeance/Black Knight/ Mercenaries (the series of my childhood) and promptly wasted several hours trying to get a virtual machine to work and run it, only to end up following a Youtube tutorial. Managed to get them working though sadly I had to disable joystick usage; I still have my old Sidewinder Force and was hoping to use it since it was excellent for Mechwarrior.

Blew through Mechwarrior 4, remembered why I hated the Argus (too varied and limited weaponry on a weak chassis), and realized how bad the acting was. Still, I love the game; it's a bad Scyfi original movie when it comes to plot, but I appreciate the effort. Battletech isn't really a series known for being light hearted and I appreciate the effort to take the setting seriously.

Mech 4 Black Knight was pretty forgettable. I didn't like basically invalidating everything I did in MW4 Vengeance and it seems the developers only real way idea about making missions was to just throw tons of mechs at you. The default encounter I had was 6+ enemy mechs versus me and 2-3 lancemates. At one point I was restarting missions purely because my Mechs were being too damaged and the repair function didn't let me use in time for the next mission.

I haven't started Mechwarrior 4 Mercs, but I did play a game of MW5 with my buddy. It was better than I remembered, which makes me think I should get back into that too. MW4 Mercs I've heard is probably among the best of the series, behind only MW2, and I liked how the finally balanced out the campaign's relevance to the metaplot (versus Vengeance and MW1 where you were a forgettable and insignificant pilot that didn't matter in the grand scheme).

Battletech is probably my favorite fictional universe after Star Trek and with the setting finally out of the Dark Ages I'm curious to see where the franchise will go. I still don't think the series has recovered to its heyday in the 90s but at least the mid-2000s early 2010s draught seems to have passed a bit.

If you think Mechwarrior 4 acting was bad, have you experienced Mechwarrior 5? I am starting to think that bad acting is kind of a staple in that series.

 

[jmotivator]

I'm back to between games, having exhausted yet another modded Minecraft interlude. I'm back to looking for games.

I have a weird thing that happens more and more often where I look through my hundreds of steam games, find one that I think I might like to pick up again, install it and literally I'm flooded with all the reasons I burnt out on it. I seem to be consuming games faster than they can make good ones.

The one game that keeps jumping back to mind is The Division 2... but I think I'm close to the end of the solo content which is why I stopped the last time.

The other realization is that, unless there is a major innovation in game mechanics, I might be over looter RPGs... never thought the day would come.

I now spend more time thinking of the cool and different games I would create if I had the ability to actually be a game developer...

Man I have a really cool game that I would make. Alas.

 

[jmotivator]

Finally picked up a new game after trying and failing to get back into old games in my library. I picked up The Ascent, a sort of Dual-stick Cyberpunk Diablo. I've only played long enough to get to the opening credits (I guess long intros is a Cyberpunk thing...)

So far it is a fun game, but while it is technically a dual-stick ARPG (one thumbstick moves, other thumbstick points the weapon), I had to abandon the joystick for mouse and keyboard because the controller was WAY to sensitive and I couldn't find anywhere to tone it down.

M&KB makes movement harder, lowering you from 360 degree freedom to 8-point directional, but aiming is WAY easier... and shooting is more important than running.

Not going to give it a full recommendation at this point, but it doesn't suck after 30 minutes of play... which is more than I can say about a lot of my impulse buys lately.

 

[jmotivator]

So far I have found that The Ascent is pretty descent. I haven't looked up what the max level cap is, but the mechanics point me in both the "very high" direction and the "very low" direction... spoiler at the end because I'll look it up after my guesses.

"Very High" because the first 10 levels went by VERY fast from basic grinding.

"Very low" because the power rank up of skills is also VERY fast... at this rate I'll be unstoppable in another 3 to 4 levels.

You see, every level you get 3 points to spend between 8 base skills, two skills each relate to 4 basic attributes. A point in either skill for an attribute raises the attribute 1 point.

There are two base skills that combined are OP as hell: Aim and Crit chance. Aim increases the rate you recovery from bullet spread (each shot widens the cone of your weapon, and while not shooting it shrinks), Crit does what you think, but at an alarming rate. With 12 points in Crit I had 15% Crit chance, there is a cap of 20 points, sure... but at this point I am mowing down level 24 enemies at level 10, overmatching their damage mitigation by increasing the Crit, and increasing the number of bullets that hit the target.

Add to that the choice to make ammo infinite and they convinced me to be an SMG guy...

The one down side of the game is that, even for a Cyberpunk game, it's too busy... it takes a while to get a handle on navigation, but I'm already in the "screw the story, I'll just grind" stage of involvement in the game, so that is a good sign, for now.