The Video Game Thread: What are you Playing?

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Billy Bones said:
Anyone played Dragon Age Inquisition? I picked it up for buttons on steam and it's a gigantic bloated mess. Still really like it though..
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I liked it. Not nearly as good as Origins but way better than the crap that was 2.
 
I liked the story of Inquisition, but hated the gameplay. I just watched my wife play it instead.

Also, some of the fan favorite characters I despise. Fuck Iron Bull.

Solas though is by far one of the best written characters in all of video games. Though you have to get into really late game spoilers to understand the whole situation.
 
Billy Bones said:
Anyone played Dragon Age Inquisition? I picked it up for buttons on steam and it's a gigantic bloated mess. Still really like it though..
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I liked the story for the most part. The gameplay however felt way too much like a single-player mmo. The only part of the gameplay I felt was cool was the fights against dragons. Even then I kept thinking how cool those fights would have been with monster climbing Dragon's Dogma style. Also many of the maps were way too big for their own good.
Companions were great for the most part. Dorian, Varric, Cassandra and Solas were the best. Absolutely didn't like Vivienne or Cole. With Cole I disliked him so much, I reloaded an earlier save and redid the choice so he disappeared forever.
The DLCs were all great, especially The Descent and Trespasser.
I don't know if I'll ever replay it though, way too much I didn't like about it.

Dragon Age: Origins is the best Dragon Age. Have replayed that one lots of times. The only CRPG I've played more times, is the Baldur's Gate games.

I'm also one of those, who really liked Dragon Age 2. Really liked that it was more character focused and centered around the city of Kirkwall.
 
You know what I think is the coolest thing about Dwarf Fortress? The world generator. Not only does it generate biomes, simulate water erosion and place rock types features based on real geology, it does it in pseudo-3d. I've yet to see anything else like it, most games that have big world generation don't have Z-levels, and those that do that I've encountered just have multilevel structures, not proper mountains, valleys or even multilevel trees.

What I would give for an engine that had just Dwarf Fortresses world generator.
 
Started playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 this week. If you liked the first one, this is more of the same. I thoroughly enjoyed the femur at one so I’m having a blast.
 
Imaginos said:
Started playing Dragon’s Dogma 2 this week. If you liked the first one, this is more of the same. I thoroughly enjoyed the femur at one so I’m having a blast.
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It looks good and I liked the first one but it was the price that put me off!
 
Very excited about the announcement that Field of Glory Kingdoms will be released in June. Love Empires and this looks even bigger and therefore , better (because thats how it works)

 
zanshin said:
Very excited about the announcement that Field of Glory Kingdoms will be released in June. Love Empires and this looks even bigger and therefore , better (because thats how it works)

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I've played the battle games in that series, and love them. I really need to give Empires a try at some point.
 
Baulderstone said:
I've played the battle games in that series, and love them. I really need to give Empires a try at some point.
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Its very good- gives context for the battles you fight in the tactical system. I maybe only fight one battle in 5 or so in the tactical game - either the ones that look competitive and fun, or the ones that might give a loss that seems inappropriate (rocky terrain generally)

The core game has some really clever mechanics to drive the strategy - randomised build choices, which mean you don't cookie cutter, and the decadence mechanic which pushes you to expand carefully and build your cultural infrastructure to avoid civil war and collapse.
 
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Playing Skul on PS+. It is a very good rougelike with a sense of humour and chaotic combat.

Lots of fun discovering new builds via new skulls and items. My favs so far include the rock star, biker, Predator and gamble skulls.

 
Following binging Fallout, I downloaded Fallout 3 'cause I never played this one much (too many glitches and crashes at the time). I played New Vegas and Fallout 4 to death so I wasn't expecting much, but I'm pleasantly surprised with the depth for a 16 year old game.
 
Stumpydave said:
Following binging Fallout, I downloaded Fallout 3 'cause I never played this one much (too many glitches and crashes at the time). I played New Vegas and Fallout 4 to death so I wasn't expecting much, but I'm pleasantly surprised with the depth for a 16 year old game.
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Its still a great game! I will always remember when you first leave the vault, its near dawn and as the sun rises, you slowly get the full effect of the destroyed city of Washington DC. Not sure if I just timed it right, or they made sure that would always happen, but it was a cinematic moment in a video game the likes I hadn't seen to that point.
 
Been trying out the first Fear and Hunger and I am mind blown. It's a RPG maker game using dismemberment-based combat dungeon crawler that's also unusually grimy - by which I mean you can die from "Anal bleeding". But it also does play well, excellent soundtrack, a lot of depth to the thematics & artstyle. I almost want to say it's like FATAL but video game and also somehow good (if you're into that stuff) and rather intelligent.

Possibly the best CRPG I've played that came out in the last 15 years in terms of ambiance, challenge and gameplay. Maybe even since Torment. And for only 6 euros on steam.

Playing now on noob difficulty (still dying left and right) with Cahara the mercenary. You can even die from stepping on a rusty nail or cut the infected limb with a bone saw!

TheMercenary.jpg
 
My best-ever ADOM run came to an end yesterday, my gnome wizard was killed by a greater moloch on level 48 of the Caves of Chaos. I had all the Chaos Orbs except the Mana one. So close, yet so far!

Switching gears now and getting back into Caves of Qud, aka "Gamma World: the Roguelike." Haven't played in probably a couple of years, so it's neat to see the new features and developments.
 
stonetoflesh said:
My best-ever ADOM run came to an end yesterday, my gnome wizard was killed by a greater moloch on level 48 of the Caves of Chaos. I had all the Chaos Orbs except the Mana one. So close, yet so far!

Switching gears now and getting back into Caves of Qud, aka "Gamma World: the Roguelike." Haven't played in probably a couple of years, so it's neat to see the new features and developments.
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Oh man Caves of Qud has been burning a hole on my wishlist for awhile now.
 
bleys21 said:
Why have I never heard of this game? I've been a Gamma World wonk forever, so it should automatically show up on my radar :blah:
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It's a pretty traditional rogue-like and is still in development, so it's not talked about outside of a few circles.
It's pretty cool though, generating stuff like a semi-procedural history. Apparently you can also turn into a door, at least according to a trailer for it I saw.
Get it on GOG.
Edit: Found the aforementioned trailer:
 
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Endless Flight said:
I just started playing Wasteland 3 on my new laptop. I like it! I'm still getting used to the controls.
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I was enjoying it but ended up getting distracted by something else and when I went back I couldn't remember what was going on or what I was doing. It's one of those games where you can lose your place I think.
 
Billy Bones said:
I was enjoying it but ended up getting distracted by something else and when I went back I couldn't remember what was going on or what I was doing. It's one of those games where you can lose your place I think.
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Definitely. Had the same experience.
 
Billy Bones said:
I was enjoying it but ended up getting distracted by something else and when I went back I couldn't remember what was going on or what I was doing. It's one of those games where you can lose your place I think.
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That's how it often goes with any CRPG or indeed any game with a story, for me to. Which is why I try to only start playing such a game, if I'm sure I'll be playing it to the end. Also why I only play one such game at a time.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
That's how it often goes with any CRPG or indeed any game with a story, for me to. Which is why I try to only start playing such a game, if I'm sure I'll be playing it to the end. Also why I only play one such game at a time.
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There needs to be a recap feature for big sprawling RPGs. Like here's what you did, and here's what quests you have active.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
There needs to be a recap feature for big sprawling RPGs. Like here's what you did, and here's what quests you have active.
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That would be great. Another thing game developers could do, is simply make shorter games. Instead of having a lot of these games take 60-100 hours to complete. Something like 20-30 hours would likely be more manageable for many players to complete. Sometimes less is more and all that.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
That would be great. Another thing game developers could do, is simply make shorter games. Instead of having a lot of these games take 60-100 hours to complete. Something like 20-30 hours would likely be more manageable for many players to complete. Sometimes less is more and all that.
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There are games like that. There are also people that really get into the really long games for their money. It's a matter of choosing the ones that appeal to your sense of length, or being prepared to deal with getting lost in the game if you choose a longer game.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
That would be great. Another thing game developers could do, is simply make shorter games. Instead of having a lot of these games take 60-100 hours to complete. Something like 20-30 hours would likely be more manageable for many players to complete. Sometimes less is more and all that.
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I'm a bit torn on shorter games. As my life has gotten busier having shorter games to play in my limited free time has been nice, but I also love having the ability to do more like in Skyrim or Fallout.
I've been thinking about game design/reading and watching stuff on older games a lot lately and something that stuck out to me was in the 90's a lot of early CRPG's had ideas about basically creating a base game and then selling different adventures and modules as expansion packs. That was one of the original plans for TES:Arena after they switched to an RPG from a gladiator game.
 
chuckdee said:
There are games like that. There are also people that really get into the really long games for their money. It's a matter of choosing the ones that appeal to your sense of length, or being prepared to deal with getting lost in the game if you choose a longer game.
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I'm not a believer of the length of a game equals value. I think that a lot of videogames today don't value a player's time. Especially open-world games of the Ubisoft model and even a game I like such as Witcher 3. These kind of games often amount to 20 hours of actual fun out of 100. Hence why I tend to avoid open-world games. The only weird exception is Bethesda games, but that is mostly because of modding and because I find the story in these games easily avoidable.
I do enjoy long games especially CRPGS. My most replayed game is Baldur's Gate 1+2 which takes a long time to play through.
All the games on my favorite games of all time list, also generally have taken me from 30-50 hours to beat so there's that.
Some examples include; Alpha Protocol, Deus Ex, Vampire: Bloodlines and Witcher 2.
But I have a couple of friends who also like to play videogames. They avoid long games because they know they'll never have time to complete them. One of them enjoyed the first two Witcher games, but he'll never play Witcher 3 because of it's length, which I think is kind of sad.
 
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The Mad Hatter said:
I'm not a believer of the length of a game equals value. I think that a lot of videogames today don't value a player's time. Especially open-world games of the Ubisoft model and even a game I like such as Witcher 3. These kind of games often amount to 20 hours of actual fun out of 100. Hence why I tend to avoid open-world games. The only weird exception is Bethesda games, but that is mostly because of modding and because I find the story in these games easily avoidable.
I do enjoy long games especially CRPGS. My most replayed game is Baldur's Gate 1+2 which takes a long time to play through.
All the games on my favorite games of all time list, also generally have taken me from 30-50 hours to beat so there's that.
Some examples include; Alpha Protocol, Deus Ex, Vampire: Bloodlines and Witcher 2.
But I have a couple of friends who also like to play videogames. They avoid long games because they know they'll never have time to complete them. One of them enjoyed the first two Witcher games, but he'll never play Witcher 3 because of it's length, which I think is kind of sad.
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The length of the game doesn't necessarily equal value. However, a longer game with intrinsic value of that additional play rather than it being a time sink (travel or extra mobs for instance) does give a larger amount of quality play to those that want to invest more time into the game.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
That would be great. Another thing game developers could do, is simply make shorter games. Instead of having a lot of these games take 60-100 hours to complete. Something like 20-30 hours would likely be more manageable for many players to complete. Sometimes less is more and all that.
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I recall one game designer discussing game completion rates in a presentation and they are not high. One need only look at the trophy completion rates for many games to see it.

Many games are long simply to be long, so people feel okay about dropping $80+ (CAD) for overstuffed but underdeveloped AAA games.
 
I don't really spend a lot of time reading dialogue boxes. I skim them and basically go from quest to quest as fast as possible. Is it as immersive as it could be? No. But I might have a chance to finish the game most of the time.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
I've been thinking about game design/reading and watching stuff on older games a lot lately and something that stuck out to me was in the 90's a lot of early CRPG's had ideas about basically creating a base game and then selling different adventures and modules as expansion packs. That was one of the original plans for TES:Arena after they switched to an RPG from a gladiator game.
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Neverwinter Nights 1 was basically made like this, although it was because of the toolkit that was reasonable easy to use. I've played lots of player made modules for that game. I wish a similar game could be made today.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
Neverwinter Nights 1 was basically made like this, although it was because of the toolkit that was reasonable easy to use. I've played lots of player made modules for that game. I wish a similar game could be made today.
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NWN also had the DM Client that was really interesting. They were really on to something that just got abandoned imo.
 
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