What are you playing right now?

[Cespenar]

I think you just rush the terminals in that fight, like mentioned above.

[Resileaf]

I've finished Just Cause 3 and have moved to a different game on my list: Disgaea PC.
I am going to be crazy and try to beat Baal.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think you just rush the terminals in that fight, like mentioned above.

No, that's how I got TPK'ed - by rushing the terminals and/or the valves.

Instead, what I have done that worked is say "I have ten turns, I can't remember ever having a fight that lasted more than seven, don't worry about it and don't waste units pursuing the things". I did have my decker jack in for a couple of turns (although I'm not entirely clear what it accomplished) and then I concentrated in killing enemies every turn instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

I have now started Hong Kong, but bloody hell this one desperately needs an editor. So much faff. After the concise writing of Dragonfall I'm not sure I have the patience for 20 pages per character per mission. I was warned above and I steeled myself for it. I was hoping that the sheer amount would be reduced after a few missions, but I am not seeing it - I have completed the first three (murder investigation, qi sabotage and museum theft), and I'm still having to waddle through pages and pages of the stuff.

Grey Wolf

[Anteros]

It does get better once you get through the first few hours. I almost gave up on Hong Kong as well, but it ended up being my favorite in the series.

There's just waaaay too much exposition at the start of that one, but if you can trudge through it there's a very good game.

A warning:Hong Kong has multiple endings and the best one requires you to talk to everyone.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

A warning:Hong Kong has multiple endings and the best one requires you to talk to everyone.

Speaking of multiple endings, when I finished dragonfall, the ending scroll text told me of the death of a president in some foreign country due to blood magic... despite me having refused to give away the information when I stole it earlier (and blew up the building where it was stored). I'm still wondering if it was a bug or a subtle message that nothing I did made any difference. The latter does seem to be an underlying theme of the series, although as realistic as that is, I would prefer then if they restricted plots to ones were my activities do make a difference.

Grey Wolf

[ufo]

I enjoyed Shadowrun: Hong Kong but it was waaay more dense and it was hard for me to keep up with the plot towards the end. I think you said it well in that Dragonfall is very concise and I personally find the themes so much more interesting, but obviously that's down to personal taste.

[rooster707]

Speaking of multiple endings, when I finished dragonfall, the ending scroll text told me of the death of a president in some foreign country due to blood magic... despite me having refused to give away the information when I stole it earlier (and blew up the building where it was stored). I'm still wondering if it was a bug or a subtle message that nothing I did made any difference. The latter does seem to be an underlying theme of the series, although as realistic as that is, I would prefer then if they restricted plots to ones were my activities do make a difference.

Grey Wolf

I don't remember anything about blood magic, but I'm fairly sure certain things go to **** no matter what you do.

My main problem with Hong Kong wasn't the massive amounts of text (although that was annoying), it was the DLC that overrides your happy(ish) ending and forces you to pick one of two significantly worse options instead.

[factotum]

I'm onto Banner Saga 2 now. They didn't really add much to combat--there are now sometimes inert barriers in the field that the enemy will attack if they have nothing better to do, but the actual mechanisms are largely the same. Level cap for characters has been raised and the amount of Renown it takes to level up reduced, which is nice. Oh, and the training tent in the camp gives you "combat puzzles" you can do to boost your Renown, which is handy, since there weren't many ways of doing that outside of real fights in the first game.

Overall, I'm hoping these changes make it less likely I'll be having to decide between buying desperately-needed supplies with my renown or levelling up a character to make the fights easier, but it's early days yet!

[Cristo Meyers]

Speaking of multiple endings, when I finished dragonfall, the ending scroll text told me of the death of a president in some foreign country due to blood magic... despite me having refused to give away the information when I stole it earlier (and blew up the building where it was stored). I'm still wondering if it was a bug or a subtle message that nothing I did made any difference. The latter does seem to be an underlying theme of the series, although as realistic as that is, I would prefer then if they restricted plots to ones were my activities do make a difference.

Grey Wolf

That reference is basically little more than fanservice. It's a big event in the tabletop game timeline and is the devs showing off their Shadowrun cred.

It's nice if you get the reference, but if you don't you're basically left going 'and this has to do with me how, exactly?'

Hong Kong, if you can get through both the base and bonus campaign (I had the exact same problem you are, damn they're talkative), is a little better about that. The ending I got focused almost exclusively on my character rather than waxing about the major events going on at the time.

[Zevox]

In the wake of Evo, it's the week of fighting game DLC it seems. Street Fighter 5 added the last two characters of its season 3 DLC today, G and Sagat. In a couple of days Dragon Ball FighterZ will be dropping base form Goku and Vegeta. And also today, BlazBlue Cross Tag dropped all of its remaining nine known DLC characters at once.

Yeah, while I spent a little time with SF5 in some single-player modes to build fight money in case I decide to get G (need to see some footage of what he actually does beyond the paltry trailer), it's that last that really had my attention today. Not playing all of those characters, but five out of nine isn't bad, and while I didn't play online today, I spent a lot of time in training mode. Already picked out Izayoi as probably a good one to play alongside my favorite character, Yang. I will definitely have to play some Nine as well - thinking maybe team her up with Ruby, they seem to go well together, and I haven't actually used Ruby since Yang was added. Still need to figure out who to play with Mitsuru, Labrys, and possibly Mai, but I definitely want to play at least the former two as well.

Ah, the curse of a crossover fighting game with three franchises I like - too many characters to play, even for a team game.

[Cespenar]

Overall, I'm hoping these changes make it less likely I'll be having to decide between buying desperately-needed supplies with my renown or levelling up a character to make the fights easier, but it's early days yet!

I think that's a main design concept, so I wouldn't expect that to change. Pitting the classic desire of "growing in power" against not letting your clansmen starve.

[rooster707]

So I just restarted Dark Souls II, because apparently replaying games is a thing I do now, even though I have like three summer sale games I haven’t tried yet. Going for a dual wielding build this time, since I never really touched that mechanic on my first playthrough.

[Zombimode]

Just finished Elex. Probably my favorite PB game after Gothic 2.


Now, I'm probably looking at Age of Empires 2 HD.

[GloatingSwine]

Current projects are Battletech, Kingdom Hearts, and Samus Returns. There's an impressive number of new Metroidvanias about, with Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Iconoclasts all lurking around the Switch eshop, so I'm going to clear out some backlog.

[tonberrian]

Got pulled down the EU4 rabbit hole myself, in preparation for the new patch which should be dropping in a few weeks. Also got off my butt and started the process for repairing my broken gaming laptop so i can stop using this toaster, because EU4 barely runs on this.

[Starbuck_II]

Replaying Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. This time using the sol engine to maximize gold, gear, and party xp.

Doing a dragon run, makes combat a breeze, but fills up D-bar so fast.

Up to part where you get attacked by Rangers.

[Zevox]

So, I accumulated enough of Street Fighter 5's in-game currency to pick up the newest DLC fighter, G, and give him a whirl. And I want to like him, but boy, there's a seriously frustration for me. Which is that it feels like I'm fighting the game's controls just to do basic stuff with him.

Essentially, it seems to be caused by G relying a lot on his moves that use the shoryuken motion, and his basic hitconfirm being stand medium into crouch medium, canceled into a special if you hit. Whenever I try to cancel a crouching move into an srk special like that, it either reads it as a quarter circle, giving me the wrong move - or worse, a double quarter circle, giving me his super if my meter is full. I recall this coming up a little bit when I tried playing Juri previously, but it's far worse with G, whose quarter-circle special is not the one you want to be using 99% of the time. (Plus there's also an annoying negative edge thing going on that's causing it to sometimes do a punch special when I try to cancel into a kick special, and I see no option to turn that off...) It wasn't an issue with the other characters I've played in SF5 because they didn't use srk moves (Karin, Rashid, Laura), but trying to use one that makes heavy use of them, oh boy is it a big problem.

So SF5 might just be losing my interest due to that. Pity, I like G's goofy character design and personality, and wanted to put some time into him. But I guess it's probably better to stick to games whose controls actually work right for me.

Edit: And yeah, going back to BB Tag was a nice pallet cleanser. I will never tire of punishing people with Yang's not-Bionic Arm.

[Anteros]

I just finished up Subnautica, which was excellent. Definitely the most immersive game I've played in a long time. I do wish that predators were a bit more dangerous in the game though (and wandered a bit more. It takes a lot of tension out of the game when much of the map is completely safe.) They're something of a joke after you've seen them once and know how they behave. I also wanted a few more upgrade/building options. Hopefully the sequel they're releasing next year is a bit better in these areas, but overall it's just a fantastic game.

[username1]

Sea of Thieves, a very well made game for xbox

[halfeye]

Go, aka Wei-Chi, aka Baduk on KGS:

https://www.gokgs.com/

You need Java and their client, which is free as in beer, and if you want you can subscribe for extra features (I haven't).

A Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)

[Cespenar]

Picked up Dead Cells. On first impression, it looks like a good game that I won't be able to finish because of the roguelite angle, but we'll see.

[rooster707]

Picked up Dead Cells. On first impression, it looks like a good game that I won't be able to finish because of the roguelite angle, but we'll see.

I’ve heard it described as “like Dark Souls.” Is that accurate?

(I’ll probably play it eventually either way, because roguelites and metroidvanias are both things that I like. But the Dark Souls thing would definitely be a bonus.)

[Cespenar]

I’ve heard it described as “like Dark Souls.” Is that accurate?

(I’ll probably play it eventually either way, because roguelites and metroidvanias are both things that I like. But the Dark Souls thing would definitely be a bonus.)

Is anything not described as "like Dark Souls" nowadays?

Something like Hollow Knight or Salt and Sanctuary is much closer to Dark Souls, both in gameplay and theme. This one's theme... somewhat resembles Dark Souls, but the system is more similar to a more combat-based 20XX or Spelunky. You die a lot, and start from the top.

[GloatingSwine]

It's not a lot like Dark Souls at all. We're in a world where anything vaguely difficult will be described as being "like Dark Souls" or "the Dark Souls of...."

It's a 2D action platformer with incredibly satisfying combat and a wide range of items and equipment. It's more like Rogue Legacy than anything else, except much much more satisfying moment to moment.

About the only thing it has in common with Dark Souls is that it has a gloomy but well designed aesthetic.

[Jama7301]

I've been playing Dead Cells too, and the movement feels great. It's got a kind of weight that lends itself well to it's speed. It is very 20XX in that you spend the Cells you find off enemies to unlock permanent upgrades, such as adding every bow you unlock to the potential starting bow you can choose. I ended up rushing that one, because the bow you can choose as part of your early loadout isn't great, but one that shoots two stronger arrows at once is a nice thing to have from the beginning.

So far, I'm really enjoying it.

[Cristo Meyers]

Finished Life is Strange: Before the Storm. My impressions are... mixed at best and negative at worst. I enjoyed Life is Strange quite a bit, but this never quite rose above okay and took a full-on nosedive in episode 3. I quit the farewell episode 10 minutes in because I just didn't care anymore.

Also did The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit because, hey, it's free. That was light, cute, pretty enjoyable two hours. If I didn't know it was a lead-in to Life is Strange 2 I probably wouldn't have even noticed it. I also discovered I have the mind of a 9-year-old boy, apparently:

35-year-old Me, about to use the kid's 'powers' on a log in the fireplace: Burn... Buuurrrrnnn...

The kid, in the exact same tone of voice not a second later: Burn... Buuurrnnn...

Guess some of us never quite grow up.

I'm kinda looking around for Nintendo DS games at the moment, but it's been so long since I paid Nintendo much attention that I've no idea where to start so all I have is various Pokémon games at the moment. If anyone has any recommendations I'd be glad to hear them.

[Cespenar]

I've been playing Dead Cells too, and the movement feels great. It's got a kind of weight that lends itself well to it's speed. It is very 20XX in that you spend the Cells you find off enemies to unlock permanent upgrades, such as adding every bow you unlock to the potential starting bow you can choose. I ended up rushing that one, because the bow you can choose as part of your early loadout isn't great, but one that shoots two stronger arrows at once is a nice thing to have from the beginning.

So far, I'm really enjoying it.

I pick the shield at the beginning, because those blinky swordsman in the first area can mess you up pretty bad otherwise, if they see you.

Though the trap skill really cheeses them something nice. Along with 90% of the other enemies.

[Yora]

I've been playing Dark Souls Remastered for the last week. It's exactly like Dark Souls with improvements toimage quality. The only difference I found so far is that you now get half your health potions when going into the game of another player instead of none.

[Jama7301]

I pick the shield at the beginning, because those blinky swordsman in the first area can mess you up pretty bad otherwise, if they see you.

Though the trap skill really cheeses them something nice. Along with 90% of the other enemies.

The Wolf Trap + Turret + Ranged Weapon combo is so silly.

[Sian]

Been poking at Blood Bowl 2 again lately ... for all that I'm aware that the AI suck balls and the RNG is hilariously unbalanced, I still like having a match every now and again