The General Gaming Thread!

[warty goblin]

Originally Posted by Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

I don't think the first game is a mess. Then again, I've only ever played it with graphics and gameplay mods, but it's still a damn good game! One of my favourite shooters, to be sure. Most likely my favourite shooter.

Yeah, I've only played the fully patched base Shadow of Chernobyl, and mess is certainly a too strong term. There's some polish issues, but that's part of the charm, as is the learning cliff the game throws you off of in the first few hours. If you can weather that you're good to go, if not, sucks to be you.

I think I need to start putting the AI difficulty up in Company of Heroes. Once I got 3 tanks running, that last skirmish was a breeze. Even after they brought 4 tanks off the edge of the map, I two of my tanks were able to bottle them up. Though those howitzer shermans were playing havoc with me, killing all my infantry from across the map without me being able to get at them. My mobile artillery wasn't as useful this time. Last game I won through crazy amounts of mortars and Priest mobile artillery. This one was just elite infantry at first, and supa amounts of heavy tanks later.

I'm currently going through the agony of installing and patching CoH up again, since I've never installed it on this computer. Holy fragage is that a miserable process. I did manage to get one skirmish in today though, after farting around with cancelling patches and failing to log in it let me play in offline, unpatched mode. It confirmed what I remember: CoH is the best tactical RTS ever made. For grand maneuvre it of course loses to Sins of a Solar Empire and the various SupCom titles, but for the nuts and bolts of using these particular units to take that position, nothing else comes close. Well, maybe Men of War, but Men of War isn't an RTS. It's pure insanity that happens to be controlled somewhat like an RTS.

Also just patched Witcher 2 up all the way. That arena mode is like crack - can't stop stabbing things!

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

The CoH modding community is great too. I'm currently playing the Normandy 44: European Theatre mod, but another mod that looks great is the Eastern Front mod.

Also worth looking forward is the Modern Combat mod, and the WW1: Great War 1918 mod, but neither has been released yet.

[warty goblin]

Originally Posted by Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

The CoH modding community is great too. I'm currently playing the Normandy 44: European Theatre mod, but another mod that looks great is the Eastern Front mod.

Also worth looking forward is the Modern Combat mod, and the WW1: Great War 1918 mod, but neither has been released yet.

Damn, I was just thinking a modern combat RTS in the CoH engine would be excellent. Thanks for that link, I'll keep an eye on that one.

[Triscuitable]

Played Chrono Cross. Ugh, what an awful excuse for a sequel to my favorite game of ALL TIME. Seriously! Dalton is the leader of Guardia (Play the DS remake of CT, he invades Guardia in 1005 A.D.)? What a load of crap!

And the unclear fates of half the original cast, Robo dies, Johnny's dead (but that's good, I hated him), Lucca was probably killed by Lynx, what the CRAP SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEENIX?!

All this crap with the combat too, it's so awful! What, I have stamina now? Is this the freaking Elder Scrolls? So attacking depletes my stamina, which powers my tech-err, ELEMENTAL ATTACKS (sheesh), and the battles have a freaking LOADING SCREEN?! I don't even get to see the baddies line up where I tapped their shoulders!

AAAAAGGH I HATE THIS GAME I SHALL FOREVER PURGE IT'S EXISTENCE FROM MY MIND AND WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT WHY AM I TYPING IN CAPS?

[Morty]

Is anyone in this thread familiar with a curious blend of third-person action and RTS game Sacrifice from 2001? I bought it from GoG since it was on sale, and it's quite interesting. Definetly unlike any other game I've played.
Right now, I'm in my fifth mission... my choices went like this: Stratos => Pyro => James => Stratos => Stratos again, in my current mission. This one looks like it'll be tough.
One thing I don't like about the game is that it's a little hard to keep track of everything. Having to control both your wizard and your units can get confusing, especially in a fight.
I'm also considering buying a new laptop, but it'll probably have to wait as I also have buying a Kindle in my plans. Once I do get a new laptop though, it'll be time to re-play Witcher 2 on a hardware that can handle it.

[Cogwheel]

Originally Posted by Morty

Is anyone in this thread familiar with a curious blend of third-person action and RTS game Sacrifice from 2001?

Yes. Excellent game. Huge fan.

Everyone should play it.

I, however, should sleep. Gonna go fall over now.




Also, Stratos alone is reason enough to buy that game. He's amazing. "Oh, let's be honest, now; in any halfway civilized world, I would be the only god."

[late for dinner]

Well, one of my favorite games...flash game none the less...(also nothing political about it except the name and the presidential anthem they play in the start up screen) George Bush Hot Dog stand. It is a time management game. Kind of like Diner Dash where someone comes up and orders a hot dog with or without ketchup and you grill it and make sure not to burn it, bun it, top it, and serve it then pick the money up off the register. You have daily goals to hit and every day, something new gets added...fries, drinks, grilled onions, burgers...it just gets harder and harder til you are serving like 6 people at a time and grilling 6 more burgers/dogs in the meantime. It's nuts and pretty soon thieves try to walk away without paying, so on top of your multitasking cooking, you have to watch people as they get the food to make sure they pay too. If you are looking for a challenging, casual game, just check out the googles for this one.

[Morty]

Originally Posted by Cogwheel

Yes. Excellent game. Huge fan.

Everyone should play it.

I, however, should sleep. Gonna go fall over now.




Also, Stratos alone is reason enough to buy that game. He's amazing. "Oh, let's be honest, now; in any halfway civilized world, I would be the only god."

Yeah, I'm liking it so far. However, the mission I'm in right now appears really tough - I'm facing two allied wizards and I have to make sure neither of them manages to built four Manalyths before I defeat them. However, attempts to attack any of them result in me being ganged upon by the forces of both of them.

[Cogwheel]

Originally Posted by Morty

Yeah, I'm liking it so far. However, the mission I'm in right now appears really tough - I'm facing two allied wizards and I have to make sure neither of them manages to built four Manalyths before I defeat them. However, attempts to attack any of them result in me being ganged upon by the forces of both of them.

Correct: Just about every level 5 mission is very, very hard, unless you happen to be playing James or Persephone with Sirocco on your side.

Been a while, so I don't actually have any advice. Sorry.

[Triscuitable]

So... Nobody feels the rage, hate, anger, and rageatenger I feel for Chrono Cross?

[Cogwheel]

This is just amazing.

[warty goblin]

Whee, busy day today. Wrapped up finals, finished the Duke Nukem Forever DLC, and launched into Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon as a post finals week brain relaxer.

The DNF DLC campaign was quite good for the most part, and contained some genuinely funny - and occasionally very good - writing. The final boss was rather bleh unfortunately, and a few of the early levels drug on a bit longer than they should have. I wouldn't have minded but they were very long on the dark grey corridor, and those grow monotonous quite rapidly. On the other hand there were a couple of new and rather inventive guns that were actually useful and common enough to be usable as something other than a gimmick. Overall I'd rate it at just ahead of the base game, which is to say a good time if you like your humor exceedingly bad and don't mind some less than wonderful graphics.

EDF: Insect Armageddon is, finally, a game that actually is crazy insane over the top and not just pretending it is. There may be more enemies in the first thirty minutes than many games manage in three hours. There's always about thirteen things blowing up at all times, and if you're not constantly shooting you're doing it wrong. Seriously, my right index finger hasn't ached like this since my last Sacred II binge. Nicely enough the story stays very far out of the way while playing things pretty straight. There's humor, but its usually fairly gallows in nature, and it never seems to go self-referential, which is a good thing. Something as ridiculous as this would go from amusing to painful if it started pointing its own ridiculousness out.

[Morty]

Originally Posted by Cogwheel

Correct: Just about every level 5 mission is very, very hard, unless you happen to be playing James or Persephone with Sirocco on your side.

Been a while, so I don't actually have any advice. Sorry.

Hm, yes... the author of a Sacrifice Let's Play I found picked Stratos for that mission as well and he seems to concur that this mission is hard like several kinds of punitive afterlives. Oh, well. I'll see what I can do.

[warty goblin]

And Steel Armor: Blaze of War is out in the US today. Damn but that's tempting, I've been hunting for a good tank sim that wasn't embarrassingly ugly, and as a bonus this one's not even set in WWII.

[Cogwheel]

Originally Posted by Morty

Hm, yes... the author of a Sacrifice Let's Play I found picked Stratos for that mission as well and he seems to concur that this mission is hard like several kinds of punitive afterlives. Oh, well. I'll see what I can do.

Backpedal a bit and take Persephone for level 5 or something, I guess? No one really has anything that great to offer at level 5 anyway, so it's not a big deal. Well, Charnel has some truly amazing handouts (Deadeye, but mostly Demonic Rift), but you do not want to subject yourself to that mission.

Halo of Stone's alright, I guess, but that's really about it.

[Morty]

I don't think that's an option at this point. My only save is right at the beginning of this mission. I guess if it comes to the worst, I'll use cheat codes.

[Cogwheel]

Originally Posted by Morty

I don't think that's an option at this point. My only save is right at the beginning of this mission. I guess if it comes to the worst, I'll use cheat codes.

I'm fairly sure you can backtrack somehow. I forget how.

...Ah, wait. No. I just saved before every mission in case I reconsidered. My bad.

But yeah, cheats would do it. Good luck

[Morty]

They would or they wouldn't... the cheats certainly help in a fight, but the problem with this mission is that you have to be lightning-fast and prevent those two guys from building manaliths, and there's no cheat for that. It's going to take a few tries...

[Cogwheel]

Originally Posted by Morty

They would or they wouldn't... the cheats certainly help in a fight, but the problem with this mission is that you have to be lightning-fast and prevent those two guys from building manaliths, and there's no cheat for that. It's going to take a few tries...

The correct cheat under these circumstances is "BOOM I HAVE FIVE DRAGONS".

Suddenly their manaliths don't help much.


No that is not the actual cheat code.

[Morty]

Even if I could easily crush them, when one of them gets 4 manaliths it's over, because not letting them do so is the mission's objective. This is why it's so frustrating.
Another frustrating thing is Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I bought it on the GoG sale along with Sacrifice, but for some reason, it slows down every once in a while, and everything moves as though in slo-mo, even after I reduced the resolution to 800x600 and the details to medium. I have no idea why this happens.

[Volatar]

Originally Posted by Morty

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

everything moves as though in slo-mo

Isn't that, like, what that game is supposed to do?

[Morty]

I wanted to specify that it moves in slo-mo without me using the Sands, but I thought it went without saying.

[Triscuitable]

Sands wasn't that great (to me). I'm still invested in Chrono Trigger and GTA3, so I'll wait.

[Eakin]

Originally Posted by Triscuitable

So... Nobody feels the rage, hate, anger, and rageatenger I feel for Chrono Cross?

To be fair, it DID have an awesome soundtrack

But was it a worthy follow up to THE GREATEST SNES RPG IN THE HISTORY OF RPGS? No it was not.

If you disregard it's heritage and terribly confusing story it's pretty good, but not great

EDIT: Tonight is Ret-faux night on my computer, with Breath of Death and Cthullu Saves The World Downloading from Steam as we speak.

[Dublock]

Originally Posted by Eakin

THE GREATEST SNES RPG IN THE HISTORY OF RPGS?

But...but...but...Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars for the SNES is the best RPG for the SNES.

Yes I know many people disagree with that statement and no you can't convince me otherwise. I just wanted to let you know I respectively disagree with you :P (And I hate Paper Mario too)

[Seerow]

Originally Posted by Dublock

But...but...but...Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars for the SNES is the best RPG for the SNES.

Yes I know many people disagree with that statement and no you can't convince me otherwise. I just wanted to let you know I respectively disagree with you :P (And I hate Paper Mario too)

Yo dawg, I'm gonna let you finish, but Chrono Trigger is the best RPG of ALL TIME

[Starwulf]

Originally Posted by Dublock

But...but...but...Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars for the SNES is the best RPG for the SNES.

Yes I know many people disagree with that statement and no you can't convince me otherwise. I just wanted to let you know I respectively disagree with you :P (And I hate Paper Mario too)

No No No No No No NO! You BOTH have it ALL WRONG! Secret of Mana is the greatest SNES RPG Of all time! OF ALL TIME! ALL TIME! TIME! !

[Eakin]

Originally Posted by Seerow

Yo dawg, I'm gonna let you finish, but Chrono Trigger is the best RPG of ALL TIME

Secret of Mana is great (if broken, the magic system is COMPLETELY imbalanced), 7 Stars is great too, and nobody here has even mentioned FF 4 or 6 yet. The SNES was truly a golden age for RPGs. But only one game dragged me to the video store, where I spent 45 minutes BEGGING the clerk to sell me their used copy of Chrono Trigger for $20. Successfully. Even if they only gave it to me to get rid of me, it remains the best game EVER.

The DS remake was also awesome, even if the added content wasn't so hot.

[Cogwheel]

Going by gameplay? Dunno which the best was, though I have a soft spot for Treasure of the Rudras.


In terms of story? Terranigma. Best by far.

[Triscuitable]

So, installing the OnLive app on my mom's Kindle Fire got me Defense Grid: Gold free! Sweet deal!