Video Games Randomness - Prioritize specific game threads!

[GreenGoo]

Played Idle Champions and a little PUBG with Frey (which was great).

Didn't even load up anything in the single player realm.

[hitbyambulance]

clearly you all need to be playing Clustertruck instead

[Skinypupy]

clearly you all need to be playing Clustertruck instead

Just watched the trailer...I think you might be right.

[Blackhawk]

Having restored my gaming drive twice in 11 days (because of hard drive failures), I can report that the Blizzard / Battlenet clients stomps the crap out of the STEAM client, in terms of how easy it is to migrate files.

For Battlenet, you load the client and then drop the game folders from your backup location into the appropriate directory. Or simply have the client find them or even easier, tell the client where to look. It took 4 seconds.

For STEAM, you can also simply drop your backups into the appropriate directories, however STEAM apparently needs to crunch through every file and verify everything. After that it randomly downloads a tiny amount (or in the case of Company of Heroes the entire game) before you can play. Took me a few hours to get up and running.

To be fair, the Blizzard client is almost exclusive to Blizzard games designed for Blizzard's client, whereas Steam needs to work with nearly every game developed for the past decade from hundreds of developers.

[Smoove_B]

That's a good point...I hadn't thought of it that way. I didn't try and restore any Valve games, so I don't know if that works faster or easier.

[Paingod]

Just 6 more days until the Steam winter sale.

I've been playing Fallout 4, but working hard to not get too far into it so I can instead wait for the DLC to go on sale and scoop it all up for 50-75% off. I have to admit to being impressed by some of the mods I'm using for settlement construction. I like snapping junk walls together seamlessly, 'scrapping' anything and everything in order to clean up the settlements, and all of my other assorted goodies. I have no real changes to the rest of the game aside from some graphics and crafting mods.

Still - I'd love to build up a robot army and get the other DLC's going. 6 more days.

Until then, I'll keep adding settlements and cleaning them up. It feels oddly pleasant to finally remove all those piles of waste, leaves, and debris from my settlements. My folks are living in nice, clean dilapidated homes instead of filthy hovels.

[GreenGoo]

Uh oh. New gaming lull after I've finished my current game and have yet to fixate on a new game.

Hmmm.

Tried playing Bayonetta on hard but my heart's just not in it.

I'm in the same place. I finished my XCOM2 campaign up last night. I have Prey, Divinity Original Sin 2, PUBG and Nioh all installed and I sat here just looking at them all last night.

12 days later and I'm no closer to a new game focus. I have been playing a lot of squad based PUBG, but that's very competitive and requires a fair amount of focus and even adrenaline. Most of the time I want something more forgiving for my solo playing efforts.

Kinda blah about my gaming library. I might take a swing at a Civilization, as I haven't played one of these in depth since #2. I believe I have 3, 4 and 5, but have not played any of them enough to learn the mechanics in detail.

If I were to play Civ, which should I play? 3, 4 or 5?

edit: Can't find 3. Maybe I never picked it up. I don't have 6 yet either.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Kinda blah about my gaming library. I might take a swing at a Civilization, as I haven't played one of these in depth since #2. I believe I have 3, 4 and 5, but have not played any of them enough to learn the mechanics in detail.

If I were to play Civ, which should I play? 3, 4 or 5?

edit: Can't find 3. Maybe I never picked it up. I don't have 6 yet either.

Civ V is more accessible and streamlined than IV. It does a better job of explaining the mechanics and easing you into things, so i'd start there if I were you.

[Daehawk]

Ive been on pain meds for 7 years. I dont remember as much about the last 7 as before those. Hell I cant tell you about yesterday or last week at all. I basically have no life so not a lot to remember. But I loaded up the original DOOM just now and played the first 3 maps and by God I knew EVERY secret room in all three maps. 100%. Its been 22 years since I last played DOOM with my friends in 1995. Yet I remember the secrets and such. The maps are pretty well known to me as well. Heck in map 2 I remembered a hidden secret room inside another hidden secret room and the monster Id find there. Damn I miss my life I once had. I let it go. It slipped away. And getting it back now that we're older and in a lot of pain is pretty much impossible.

Pain doc appointment tomorrow. I miss not having those. But damn man my gaming memories are so cool.

[Kasey Chang]

Playing WH40K Deathwatch, kinda "the greatest hits" of all the imperial factions, doing the special force style "kill teams" on missions. The problem is this is very obviously a mobile port, the interface was HUGE and NOT suited for mouse. And even with the Unreal engine the line of sight and frame rate are just HORRIBLE. This is a turn-based game and the frame rate really is horrible, I'm not kidding. I can play RTS with no problems but this game sometimes drops frames to almost slideshow levels.

The enemies do get interesting, esp. when bosses came along. I'm playing on normal, and so far, I've only had TWO marines went down on ALL the missions, one is because I ran into a boss who has SIX action points, compared to us, with only 4 APs. The other time, I forgot to reserve an AP in case of oops, retreat! and my scout got whacked by a xeno hiding just behind a wall.

The big enemies do get interesting, as some enemies are armored up front against regular kinetic weapons. And I had to flank it to do maximum damage, which means put a guy in front of it as bait.

[Paingod]

12 days later and I'm no closer to a new game focus.

I hate the feeling of listlessness in gaming with nothing to latch onto. Sometimes it helps to simply unplug completely for a couple of days.

I recently spent a fair amount of time running Space games and then suddenly felt myself drawn to Fallout 4 again. I've kind of gotten into the Zen of upgrading Settlements with interspersed segments of violence. Unfortunately, I've gotten to a point where I've chewed up all my easily obtainable Wood and Steel and have started to buy it from vendors, which takes money. For money, I'm selling Chems, Water, and Excess food - as well as raiding raiders.

It's weird. The first time I played, I was playing a combat RPG with an annoying settlement mechanic. This time, I'm playing a town builder with a RPG combat mechanic and it's working better for me.

[coopasonic]

Uh oh. New gaming lull after I've finished my current game and have yet to fixate on a new game.

Hmmm.

Tried playing Bayonetta on hard but my heart's just not in it.

I'm in the same place. I finished my XCOM2 campaign up last night. I have Prey, Divinity Original Sin 2, PUBG and Nioh all installed and I sat here just looking at them all last night.

12 days later and I'm no closer to a new game focus. I have been playing a lot of squad based PUBG, but that's very competitive and requires a fair amount of focus and even adrenaline. Most of the time I want something more forgiving for my solo playing efforts.

I've basically been playing PUBG to the exclusion of all else for the past few days. I'm waiting for the steam sale and will grab the Surge plus the expansion and play that I expect, if there is a decent sale. I missed the expansion release day sale because I was feeling the gaming listlessness and couldn't convince myself to spend the money. If that doesn't go back down to $30 I guess I keep playing PUBG until I get that damn chicken dinner.

[Daehawk]

Ive been in two funks in 2 months. Sometimes I can cure it by installing a lot and playing bits of it all. Other times thats the opposite of what i need and it works to delete it all down to one or two games. Right now I have 13 games installed...anything from 1993 DOOM to the latest DOOM to TF2, Far Cry Primal ,and Mafia 3.

[Paingod]

Right now I have 13 games installed...anything from 1993 DOOM to the latest DOOM to TF2, Far Cry Primal ,and Mafia 3.

I'm guilty of "Install it all" and then I find myself staring at my games folder, looking at each icon, and recalling the general gameplay of each in turn until something sounds interesting. If I haven't played a game yet, the icon is on my desktop so I know what's a "new" experience very easily. I currently have about 400GB left from my 2TB hard drive setup. 80% of that used space is game installs. I have 80 games from GOG, 270+ games on Steam, and maybe a dozen one-off titles. All installed.

[Isgrimnur]

I'm playing Assassin's Creed. Yes, the first one. I think i tried it on console back in the day and got through the first two missions. I've now finished a third and working on the 4th. Given that I own 2, Brotherhood, 3, Liberation HD, 4: Black Flag, Unity, and the Chronicles series, I thought I should give it a try.

[Carpet_pissr]

I'm playing Assassin's Creed. Yes, the first one.

Hey, count me in on your first time playthrough. I've been meaning to get to the first one in forever, and now I have an actiony gaming itch that that should scratch nicely.

[GreenGoo]

I have between 2.5 and 3 terabytes worth of games installed right now, between me and my son.

tried playing

Templar Battleforce

And it's pretty good. It's just not what I'm looking for right now.

[Isgrimnur]

I'm playing Assassin's Creed. Yes, the first one.

Hey, count me in on your first time playthrough. I've been meaning to get to the first one in forever, and now I have an actiony gaming itch that that should scratch nicely.

They give you all the toys for the opening sequence without telling you what they all do. Which is fine, because they then take them all back and stagger their introduction. You aren't as squishy as you would be in a Thief game, but you are not Batman, either.

[KDH]

... ... Blizzard ... first-person game ... drivable vehicles

according to THIS job listing:

“Blizzard Entertainment is looking for a talented gameplay engineer to help create vehicles and build vehicle handling features in a robust first-person engine for an unannounced project. The ideal candidate has proven experience in vehicle handling, with exposure to other game systems like physics, animation, and cameras.”

[Isgrimnur]

They should look at Rockstar. Not likely to need those guys for RDR2.

[Kraken]

Right now I have 13 games installed...anything from 1993 DOOM to the latest DOOM to TF2, Far Cry Primal ,and Mafia 3.

I'm guilty of "Install it all" and then I find myself staring at my games folder, looking at each icon, and recalling the general gameplay of each in turn until something sounds interesting. If I haven't played a game yet, the icon is on my desktop so I know what's a "new" experience very easily. I currently have about 400GB left from my 2TB hard drive setup. 80% of that used space is game installs. I have 80 games from GOG, 270+ games on Steam, and maybe a dozen one-off titles. All installed.

Ha. I just uninstalled a few games that I have no intention of ever playing again (actually, Steam reinstalled everything after an especially hard crash, but that's a different story). Now I'm down to six installed games. Only three of those get active play.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, there's nothing like two hard drive failures in two weeks to really force you to take account of your gaming habits.

[jztemple2]

12 days later and I'm no closer to a new game focus.

I hate the feeling of listlessness in gaming with nothing to latch onto. Sometimes it helps to simply unplug completely for a couple of days.

I've gone through that a lot in the past few years, ironically when I have a lot more time to play since I'm retired. And come January I'll have even more time when my wife is gone all day for four days a week teaching tax preparation.

Probably my biggest hangup is that I can't get excited about replaying games I've played before. It's one of the reasons I don't do season passes any more, since once I've played a game a few dozen hours, I just can't get the energy to go back to it some weeks or months later.

I also like AAA titles and those are few and far between. My last three biggies have been Watch_Dogs 2, Ghost Recon Wildlands and Assassin's Creed Origins. I'm disappointed that Far Cry 5 has been pushed out a month, I'm really looking forward to that.

[GreenGoo]

When we first were getting crazy steam sales, I bought a lot of junk that was cheap. But I was ok with that. Later, when things started to creep up in price, anything with a good reputation I bought when it hit the typical low price (which is about 10 bucks these days). I did that for awhile (years), and my library grew, but then I started to notice an odd thing. Despite owning games with great reputations, they just weren't as interesting to me as the latest hotness. Somehow a triple A title that I've owned for 6 months but never played is not nearly as appealing as another triple A title that was released recently and I don't own yet.

On the surface that seems to be the standard appeal of the next new shiny, but it feels different. For one, I can wait years for the price to drop on a game I really want. We're talking 15 bucks is too much, 10 bucks is a good price and worth waiting a year for. So it's pretty rare for me to crave something so much that I spend full price on it. My kids come and tell me when something is 50% and I explain that 50% off a really high price is still a really high price, and what matters is the actual cost. This has helped them spend their steam gift money more wisely and get it to last longer and go farther.

I have a TON of really good games, and plenty of decent games. I just can't figure out what type of game I'm in the mood to play. I tried GalCiv III multiple times, but the learning curve makes it unappealing. Even when I start to learn the basic mechanics, the ship builder is too daunting to my limited focus/interest right now.

As the Christmas sale approaches I realize I have nothing on my christmas list. I am not looking forward to anything, and even my wishlist is mostly filled with "nice to haves" rather than "must haves".

I'm sure I'll spend some money because now is the time to buy stuff at a good price, and maybe I will be in the mood for it in 6 months, or next year even. That actually works pretty well for me. It's just these rare times when NOTHING can hold my attention where things get weird.

[Kraken]

I tried GalCiv III multiple times, but the learning curve makes it unappealing. Even when I start to learn the basic mechanics, the ship builder is too daunting to my limited focus/interest right now.

You can ignore the ship designer entirely. The pre-made ships cover basic rock-paper-scissors just fine.

I opened the shipbuilder once, flailed around for a few minutes, said F- that, and never went back. All I really wanted to do was rename some of the standard designs and change their tactical roles. Supposedly that loosely influences battle tactics. Couldn't easily figure it out, but it doesn't matter on normal difficulty levels anyway.

That said, I've scaled the GC3 learning curve and the game still doesn't really grab me after 7 or 8 play-throughs. I can't say exactly why. Once I get past the exploring and settling phase, it gradually becomes more chore than fun. I think it's because combat is just crashing stacks of doom into each other. Maybe I'd feel more invested in them if I bothered with the ship builder.

[Rumpy]

So, a bit more on Tempest. I've got quite a few hours in on this lately and I'm having a blast! As far as I can see, there are several different type of missions:

• Battle - where you battle mission-specific opponents

• Delivery - where you have to collect a certain amount of merchandise, sometimes along with a specific amount of money, and deliver them to a particular location, can be city or other target

Some also require you to just visit a port for updates, and some require you to wait a couple of in-game days for progress.

The fun in the game are the battles. At first, they can be quite brutal when first starting off. But there are a wealth of customizing options available, to the point that it's easy to feel overwhelmed. There's a lot of loot drops that you'll get over the course of the game, sometimes just from sailing around or from ships you've sunk. I've outfitted my ship with what appears to be the best hull-strength, although that might change if I discover something better, and I've also outfitted my ship with turtle shells adding yet more strength to the hull and I'm able to go toe-to-toe with some of the bigger ships even though mine is not one of the biggest ones.

An interesting twist to this game comes in the form of artifacts that you equip your ship with. These seem to come in two categories:
- Nature Based - allowing you to call on nature to help you out in battles. These can be an extra boost of wind, shields, or even a Kraken to hold a ship in place. Yes, a Kraken!
- Technology based - Gadgets to help gain an advantage in different areas, such as a magnetic canonball holder which will grab oncoming canonballs and store them in your reserves, and a minigun.

Oh yes, behold the Kraken!

[Skinypupy]

12 days later and I'm no closer to a new game focus.

I hate the feeling of listlessness in gaming with nothing to latch onto. Sometimes it helps to simply unplug completely for a couple of days.

I'm really struggling with this right now as well. There's simply nothing out there that is really scratching the itch...and it's awful for my wallet. I end up buying a ton of stuff I might have a little interest in, hoping that it'll click. In addition to everything in this post from a couple weeks ago, I've tried a few RTS (SW: Empire at War, AOE 3), a couple 4X (Age of Wonders, Gal Civ III, Civ V), a few action games (Grim Dawn, the new Styx, Doom), some RPG's (Divinity OS 2, Star Ocean Last Hope, Neverwinter Nights 2, Tyranny, FF XII), some casual/weird games (Magic Circle, Clustertruck, Idle Dungeons of the Forgotten Realms), but absolutely nothing seems to connect with me right now.

I have landed on going back to KOTOR 2, as I never did play through that with the Restoration mod. I'm about 5 hours in and while it's OK, I can feel my interest already starting to wane. I played through it twice back in the Xbox days, so there aren't many surprises.

I'm really hoping there's something that comes out of the blue and connects with me during the holiday sale. Valley did that recently and was a wonderful experience, but it was super short. Not having a primary game to focus on actually puts me in kind of a bad mood, and I hate that feeling.

[Daehawk]

Ive been considering a replay of Fallout 3. I finished it new no mods but like 2 and that was that. I didn't like it a huge amount either and just sitting here I cant think of much I remember about it.

[Smoove_B]

Ive been considering a replay of Fallout 3.

Go and play No Man's Sky, now that it's been patched and updated. Let me know if it's worth it to try again.

[Daehawk]

Thats one I dont own. Ive thought about removing it from my list Ive heard so much bad about it.

[jztemple2]

Ive been considering a replay of Fallout 3.

Go and play No Man's Sky, now that it's been patched and updated. Let me know if it's worth it to try again.

I bought it recently and played it for awhile (18 hours) but it didn't do anything for me. I spent a lot of time collecting resources, building things and unlocking technologies and upgrades and had reached the point where I was going to other planets to look for certain resources that only existed elsewhere. And I ran into some bad creatures I had to overcome. And then I realized that I was just going to end up going back and building things which would mean more resource gathering, more upgrades, etc. And while a few years ago I might have been willing to put more effort into proceeding, I just can't see spending dozens of more hours doing the same tasks over and over. Going to a different planet was a change, but ultimately I ended up doing mostly the same resource gathering. I needed more of a story I guess.

[Pyperkub]

I'm playing Assassin's Creed. Yes, the first one. I think i tried it on console back in the day and got through the first two missions. I've now finished a third and working on the 4th. Given that I own 2, Brotherhood, 3, Liberation HD, 4: Black Flag, Unity, and the Chronicles series, I thought I should give it a try.

Got to about mission 7 on the 360 before stopping and not picking it up again. Just got far too mobby for me

[coopasonic]

I needed more of a story I guess.

Yeah, No Man's Sky is ok as a sandbox game, but if you don't like sandbox, there's not much to it. I went back recently after playing through at release and it just didn't do it for me. There was more to do, but not much more reason to do it.

[GreenGoo]

What's the word on seasonal sales and their start dates?

[coopasonic]

Steam sale starts tomorrow.

[GreenGoo]

Ive been considering a replay of Fallout 3. I finished it new no mods but like 2 and that was that. I didn't like it a huge amount either and just sitting here I cant think of much I remember about it.

Isn't that interesting. Coincidentally, I just tried to get it to run. There are some issues that I'm working through. We'll see if it works when I'm finished.

I have never played it. Maybe I'll play it. If recent experience is any indication, probably not. I'll load it up, look at the title screen, maybe start a new game, but then quit out within 5 minutes or so.

[Skinypupy]

I'll load it up, look at the title screen, maybe start a new game, but then quit out within 5 minutes or so.

It's somewhat comforting to know I'm not the only one who does that.

[GreenGoo]

I'll load it up, look at the title screen, maybe start a new game, but then quit out within 5 minutes or so.

It's somewhat comforting to know I'm not the only one who does that.

Just tried Anno 2070. Huge mistake. No hand holding from the game and I had no idea where to start. Exit.

[Skinypupy]

I'll load it up, look at the title screen, maybe start a new game, but then quit out within 5 minutes or so.

It's somewhat comforting to know I'm not the only one who does that.

Just tried Anno 2070. Huge mistake. No hand holding from the game and I had no idea where to start. Exit.

I did something similar with Endless Legend last weekend. Got 10 minutes into the tutorial, realized I would never be able to wrap my head around the levels of complexity, and simply uninstalled it. I literally spent more time watching a "beginner's guide" on YouTube than I did playing the game.

[jztemple2]

I picked up Opus Magnum a few days ago. The Steam reviews have been very positive and I have liked, in various degrees, all the Zachtronics puzzle games. However, after nine hours of gameplay, I'm rather disappointed. While I realize I haven't gotten to the most difficult puzzles, the methodology is rather repetitive. Each puzzle uses the same 2D level, the tools are pretty much the same, and since there are no constraints to size, number of cycles or cost, after a while there is little motivation to strive for efficiency other than in comparison to what others have done. If you are the creative type (I'm not) and/or the type that is driven to make things just that much more efficient (again, not me) then you might find this game appealing. However, for me it feels like work.

So I've tinkered around with Field of Glory II again for a while, and even played some Prison Architect, but nothing has clicked. Maybe I'll drop a sawbuck and pick up Bridge Constructor Portal if I don't get excited by anything I see on the Steam Holiday Sale tomorrow.