Octopus Overlords

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Fri Dec 28, 2018 11:06 am There's always My Summer Car instead.

My Summer Car is still in Early Access and I'm avoiding those. Actually CMS2018 has a lot more depth than CMS2015, more things to do later in the game. And it is a nice distraction that can be played in small chunks.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 1:32 pm I think I have Daehawkitis - nothing is working for me as a PC game. I've tried casual, easy, first person, third person...and nothing is grabbing me at all. Not into Shadow of War or Dishonored 2. Just Cause 3 was a meh. I finished Wolfenstein New Colossus, but I didn't want to. Same with Far Cry Primal. I think the last game I really enjoyed was Planescape Torment back in early September. I have a ton of games I've picked up over the last three months but nothing is grabbing me. Hopefully I can figure out something to get out of the gaming funk.

Heal thyself with a healthy dose of Return of the Obra Dinn.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's completely and utterly unique.

I did see that when you originally posted it and my take was that it was a bit too think-y for my needs. It definitely looked interesting though. Perhaps I'll give it another look. Thanks.

EDIT: Maybe it's time to date tanks

I keep hoping to get back to Dawn of War II. I have yet to complete any of the campaigns, even though I've been close several times for the vanilla campaign. It's a great, great game, I just never get through it for some reason. My son owns Dawn of War III and I have never even loaded it up.

I don't have much gaming time. Average of an hour or two per day. That limits the number of games I play. Hearthstone, Diablo 3, and Civ VI are my main games. The past few months I've tried a couple of new games.

Slay the Spire is an excellent game. It took me about 8 hours of play before understanding and realizing the depth. Deep games are my favorite type. I have 133 hours into it and still have not been to the fourth act. Yes, I'm slow. Really great game that can be played in short bursts or a long 2 hour session. The dev typically puts out a new patch each week. It's great to see that kind of support. It comes out of early access in January.

During holiday break I bought They are Billions. I'm in love with it so far after seven hours. This game makes me think hard on strategy which I like. I haven't come close to winning yet, but having a blast trying. I hope it has legs. I'm only playing on something like 10% difficulty and you can bump it up to something like 500% which is insane. A very unique take on a strategy game.

These two games should keep me occuppied while waiting for the Civ expansion Gathering Storm coming in Feb. Can't wait! Really hoping it adds to the end game. Civ VI has an excellent beginning and mid game. The end game (last 150 turns) is boring in about 8 of 10 games that I play.

With the ongoing debut of mods and expansions, I think I could go for years without playing anything except Fallout, X-Com, Civilization. and GalCiv. I expect to finish FO4 in the next week or so. Then I'll dive back int XCom2 with the latest expansion. Then there's FO: New California. And that Civ6 expansion (actually two, since I didn't buy the last one). And a GalCiv update that I haven't tried yet. Somewhere in there, I want to try the free Subnautica that I downloaded. By the time I finish or grow bored with those, there'll be more FO. And I'm not even counting FO76 because I have no interest in that one. Add in the occasional new iteration of Tropico, and my rut runs deep.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Fri Dec 28, 2018 2:12 pm I did see that when you originally posted it and my take was that it was a bit too think-y for my needs. It definitely looked interesting though. Perhaps I'll give it another look. Thanks.

It'll certainly flex your critical-thinking, but the pocket watch serves as a seriously cool mechanic for abstracting the notion of your character's Sherlockian "Mind Palace" deductive reasoning. And rest assured, the game eases you into learning the appropriate logical mindset.

Am I weird, or does anyone else maintain a list of all the games they have bought? I started one back in May of 1995 when I bought my first dedicated gaming PC. Before that I had done some Nintendo 64 gaming plus a smattering of games using my general purpose PC, but that year I decided to go full into computer gaming. So I started a list with the games I bought, plus any hardware/peripherals, plus a few electronics that weren't gaming but came out of the same budget bucket.

There's also console gaming on the list. In October of 2004 I got a PS2 so I could play GTA III right away and then GTA San Andreas when it released later that month. In 2005 I got an XBOX so I have some of those games in here too. And in September of 2006 I got an Xbox 360. I also listed expansions and add-ons unless they were minor. I kept the same list from May of 1995 till I retired in July of 2011, then started new lists. My original sixteen year list has 655 entries and sadly many of the early ones don't have dates. Here's a sampling of 11 to 30

The Perfect General 2/Editor 9/2/95
Empire II 9/13/95
Powerhouse
Simisle
Caesar 2 9/28/95
Legions 10/10/95
Gazillionaire 10/16/95
Machiavelli
Civilization for Windows
Colonization
Colonization for Windows 11/4/95
Jutland
Capitalism 11/9/95
Empire Deluxe 11/16/95 + Scenarios 9/14/96
Warlords II Deluxe
Yeager Air Combat
Aces Collection
Lucasfilms Air Classics
Airpower
Battleground Gettysburg

And here's right around when I was approaching three hundred entries. Note the upgrades to 384MB of RAM plus a new GeForce 2 MX 400 64MB RAM video card

Max Payne by 3D Realms/Remedy 7/28/01
World at War by Talonsoft 7/31/01
*** 7/31/01 RAM memory upgrade from 128 to 384MB ***
Divided Ground:Middle East by Talonsoft 8/2/01
Traffic Giant by JoWood 8/7/01
Shogun Total War: Warlord Edition by Dreamtime/EA Games 8/8/01
Madden 2002 by EA Sports (bought gamepad too) 8/23/01
Operation Flashpoint by Bohemia Interactive /Codemasters 8/29/01
Rails Across America by Flying Lab/Strategy First 9/20/01
*** 9/25/01 GeForce 2 MX 400 64MB RAM video card ***
Fast Food Tycoon 2 by Software 2000 9/29/01
Patrician 2 by Ascaron/Strategy First 10/12/01

Thats very cool. I wish I had a list like that. I do still own almost all my games startingfrom my start in 94 . But I unfortunately did not think to keep reciepts until around 2005 or so...I think.

I remember the first 3 games I bought, the rest are a blur.

(Spare Change, SubLOGIC flight sim II, Stellar 7, on the Apple II)

I definitely remember my first game, bought at the same time as my first computer. Sundog: Frozen Legacy on an Apple IIc. Never made a list, though.

got Gauntlet with the first DOS computer in 1987, along with some detective game from Mastertronic that was immediately returned for some reason (and i can't remember the name of it) - it was exchanged for another Mastertronic budget title, Shogun (as based on the James Clavell novel). that one was actually pretty memorable. PC gaming on IBM compatibles at that time could be kind of a utter horrorshow if you were into action or arcade titles.

before that, since my mom volunteered at my school, she had permission to borrow an Apple ][e for some vacation weekends. and since we lived in Minnesota, there were a lot of MECC titles...played Odell Lake, Odell Woods, Oregon Trail (the 1979 version programmed in BASIC), Grandma Nomad, Lemonade Stand, a bunch of others. i was really into Turtle LOGO... and there was some kind of rudimentary drawing program i spent hours with.

My first 'any' game would have been on the Atari 2600. My first PC game was Lords of the Realm II. I picked it up in 1998 at Wal-Mart right after I got my first-ever PC, a 486 with a 500MB hard drive and 8MB of RAM. I justified getting it by saying it was for writing. Then I got Lords of the Realm 2, and the rest was history.

I do keep a list of every game I own, including all digital platforms, consoles, handhelds, and disks. They're labeled with genre and setting, but I don't record when I got them.

I used to have a list of every video game I ever played. It only counted if it was original hardware, so no emulators allowed. I got rid of it in my teenage years. I can't imagine what that list would look like now.

I haven't kept a list, but I wish I had.

The first 2 games I bought were Dungeon Master and Empire: Wargame of the Century on my Atari 1040ST. That was either 1987 or early 88.

When I used to look at the Home of the Underdogs website, I would see many games that I had completely forgotten about. I owned many games, but since I worked at Software, Etc., I would return them if I didn't like them. That kind of blurs the line for me since I don't remember if I bought all of them or just borrowed them for a few days. Those were the days.

Pong, bitches.

Had a drawer of floppies for my Commodore 64.

I remember buying Breach 3 and a god game for my first PC.

we had a Pong+two other game console picked up from a garage sale - one with two paddles directly on the device. mom got rid of that at a garage sale, which is too bad, since that would be worth some $$$ now.

Wasn't counting Pong... which of course we had. And then later an Intellivision, which was all kinds of awesome back then. My little brother had a Commodore later but I never invested in anything of the sort until the IIc after my divorce, when I could spend money on me things again.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:55 am Then I got Lords of the Realm 2, and the rest was history.

Besides being the lead tester, I wrote the dialog for one of the characters (the Baron? was there a Baron?) and designed some of the battlefield maps. I'm gratified to have had a small part in a game that affected your life.

I don't buy very many games anymore, but I did back in the day when Electronic Arts and Sierra and SSI and Microprose ruled the world.

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 2:46 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:55 am Then I got Lords of the Realm 2, and the rest was history.

Besides being the lead tester, I wrote the dialog for one of the characters (the Baron? was there a Baron?) and designed some of the battlefield maps. I'm gratified to have had a small part in a game that affected your life.

I don't buy very many games anymore, but I did back in the day when Electronic Arts and Sierra and SSI and Microprose ruled the world.

It was the game that got me into PC gaming. Coming from SNES/Playstation 1 to that kind of depth awed me.

There are a number of OO members (current and past) who were involved in the gaming industry in various ways. Obviously Tiny Ogre, but I'm pretty sure Zaxxon did a lot of work on a number of strategy guides I read, and I think YK did some work on a 1 or 2 kids games that my daughter loved. While I can't remember which, I think I remember enjoying them when I played with her. Possibly a My Little Pony game? Not sure.

The industry is pretty old now and the teams are larger, but it was an amazing thing watching it grow from nearly nothing to the multi-zillion dollar industry it is today.

My brother-in-law worked for Sierra Online. He wasn't a programmer nor a designer, he was an English major who was hired to help them write comprehensible manuals and help files.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:03 pm There are a number of OO members (current and past) who were involved in the gaming industry in various ways. Obviously Tiny Ogre, but I'm pretty sure Zaxxon did a lot of work on a number of strategy guides I read, and I think YK did some work on a 1 or 2 kids games that my daughter loved. While I can't remember which, I think I remember enjoying them when I played with her. Possibly a My Little Pony game? Not sure.

The industry is pretty old now and the teams are larger, but it was an amazing thing watching it grow from nearly nothing to the multi-zillion dollar industry it is today.

I recall Kasey Chang and guides for the original XCOM...

MonkeyFinger wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 4:10 pm I recall Kasey Chang and guides for the original XCOM...

Definitely. His Xcom guide was amazing. I recall the day I recognized that he was in fact a Gone Gold member. Sorta. I was very excited.

But now look what's happened to him. He's just one of us.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:03 pm There are a number of OO members (current and past) who were involved in the gaming industry in various ways. Obviously Tiny Ogre, but I'm pretty sure Zaxxon did a lot of work on a number of strategy guides I read, and I think YK did some work on a 1 or 2 kids games that my daughter loved. While I can't remember which, I think I remember enjoying them when I played with her. Possibly a My Little Pony game? Not sure.

The industry is pretty old now and the teams are larger, but it was an amazing thing watching it grow from nearly nothing to the multi-zillion dollar industry it is today.

Ironically, that maturation process killed Impressions Games. I still remember the day Sierra declared that henceforth it was only going to make AAA titles, because the historical strategy wargames and citybuilders that we made were profitable, but on too small a scale. The days when you could succeed by selling 100,000 units were over. Before digital distribution studios were entirely dependent on publishers and there was no path to go it alone. (Of course, Sierra itself soon became a pawn of big corporate players and ultimately died for the same reasons -- there just wasn't enough money in their brands.) Niche players with B-list games can carve out a living again in our age of digital distribution, but from the late 90s to the mid 00s the AAA dinosaurs that ruled the earth starved out everyone else. There were only blockbusters and failures.

That's why it's gratifying to run across people who still remember work from that bygone era.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:03 pm I'm pretty sure Zaxxon did a lot of work on a number of strategy guides I read

He did, both print and digital. I worked with him for a few years there, and while I never did any print guides, I did do a huge stack of unofficial guides with him for Gamespot. He and I also worked together on a number of official manuals for games, he more than I. I personally worked on the manuals for Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, Hidden & Dangerous 2, Axis & Allies, and Kohan 2.

Well, my FAQs were only UNofficial. I did work a summer at Spectrum HoloByte (which is "kinda" MicroProse), but that's my only REAL working experience in the games industry. EVERYTHING else was unofficial. I worked on games that were forgotten in the history of games. Flight of the Intruder, Stunt Driver, Faces: Tris III, and so on. It's hard to even find my credits on any games.

Playing "Codex of Victory", which is not a bad mix of XCOM (the new one) and Advance Wars (the turn-based combat) with actually a decent story.

The story was basically war became the fight between the augments (transhumans who hacks PCs and "kills" regular humans to upload them to hardware, not necessarily android bodies) and the regular humans. It's expensive that only the nobles have the giant battle mechs and ogre tanks and such. There are smaller units, but they are AI driven. Some are even flyers. You have scout, fighter drones, artillery, medium tank, heavy tank, and so on. The nobles have special battle armor that are basically mechs. You do have a support chopper that can heal/repair. Each craft can also be "upgraded" via research up to 10 levels, and enhanced with modules which adds even more capabilities, but swappable. But the modules have to be captured or built in laboratories and installed in workshop.

The enemies have special units you simply don't have. "Hacker" unit can reprogram your AI units to serve their side. "Support" unit can shield adjacent units and electroshock enemy units, as well as repair. "Shocker" unit chain lightning strikes nearby units. Sniper units have range 5, even further than artillery. And the boss character has 60 HP, while your best guys, upgraded, only have like... 22 max upgraded (more like 14-17)

You have to occupy points on the map to gain "action points" (AP) with which you can deploy more units as well as move units. But You do NOT get infinite units. Instead, you have to pre-build the units back at your base. And bring the right "mix" of units to tackle the enemy, many of which is procedurally and randomly generated. If you managed to kill all 4 scouts you brought, you don't get any more.

You are a single ship that has to zip around 2 planets and 1 moon to control the mines and fight back Augment attacks, and even reconquer lost territories. Between the fights, you have to upgrade your base, dig down additional levels, dig sideways to excavate rooms, add foundries, refineries, and build units to replace those lost in the mission (i.e. ant hill mode in XCOM) Eventually you get to build special rooms to build something that can defeat the Augment cloaked battleship hiding in space, which leads to an even bigger fight.

Facing is not an issue. It's the careful allocation and spending of AP that will lead you to victory. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice smaller units to knock down enemy shields so heavier units can kill the target. It's pretty good.

I've been mostly unplugged from the internet for more than a week. Without the forum effect in play, I managed to find my way to games I hadn't touched but should have. One I'm really into right now is Mordor: Shadow of War.

I spent the first couple evenings of play on Nightmare difficulty - getting my ass completely kicked up and down by orcs. Advancement into the story was pretty much all I could do. Hunting Captains was brutal - often I'd jump one and get ambushed by one or two others. Tips on movement and combat were almost non-existant.

After floundering hard for that time, I started over in Normal. I only realized I didn't need to do this later when I found the difficulty adjustment in the game settings... but didn't feel hurt by it. I was glad to leave behind the trail of self-immolation the game must have recorded for me.

Switching to normal, I felt like Superman. There were only about 1/3 of the Orcs around, and Captains didn't travel in small packs. After being brutalized for hours, it was nice to feel like I was a demigod of destruction. I'm sure my time spent dying in Nightmare honed my combat skills, too.

I've now collected a small pile of Epic gear and three Legendary parts, two from the same set, and am really enjoying the Orc Murder Simulator.

My only complaint for this game is the 122GB install. WTF?! I've got 2TB of drive space, but only had 110GB free. For the first time since building my PC, I had to offload some Steam installs to an external drive for archive.

I had an unofficial role with FreeSpace, doing mission reviews and FRED design feedback for the user community site. One mission I wrote was very popular in the FreeSpace mission contest. Two missions of mine were on the Space Sim of the Year edition of FreeSpace 2. I wrote more than I designed and wasn't part of the design teams that made the community campaigns. Ended up practicing law instead of joining Volition.

You know what gets me down about gaming, especially as I get old? Numbers.


Is the dagger more pointy? Sharper? No, it has more DPS


Is that shotgun going to put a bigger hole in my enemy?


In real world terms, how much better is a 77% clutch plate than a 76% one?


Really????


Numbers... ugh

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 12:43 am You know what gets me down about gaming, especially as I get old? Numbers.
<snip>
Numbers... ugh

Sometimes the numbers make sense, and I can rationalize it in my head.

Does that shotgun make bigger holes in enemies? Maybe it does. Maybe the barrel is teflon coated for less friction, the rounds are a different material, the powder load is higher. Is that dagger sharper? Maybe. Maybe the craftsman used a better alloy, a smoother whetstone, a better build technique.

Sometimes the numbers can't be rationalized and I have to relent and accept it a complete fiction. Why would a Level 2 9mm handgun do 5 damage where a level 40 9mm handgun does 73 damage? I can't figure a way to cross the gap there.

I do like incrementing power and scaling damage, though, as a means of rewarding progress. It's just no fun to go from level 1 to 50 and still be doing 10 damage with each hit.

Why can Superman fly?

Some aspects of entertainment aren't meant to be translated into real-world logic.

Now for a complete derail... How many versions of Space Hulk can there be?

Right now, there's Space Hulk, Space Hulk Ascension, and coming soon, Space Hulk Tactics. And we're not even talking about clones and indirect descendants like Steam Marines, Legions of Steel, and so on.

(Not counting Space Hulk Deathwing as that's an FPS)

I like a good Adam West Batman reference as well as anyone, and better than most, but...

Lol.

I don't like Hearthstone or Fortnite (shut up about my 150 hours of PUBG. That's how long you play when you don't like it!)... that means there are a LOT of games coming out these days that do nothing for me. It was the same when every new game was a DOTA too. My lawn. Get off it.

At this point I think even my mother-in-law knows DC from Marvel.

JetFred wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 3:24 pm At this point I think even my mother-in-law knows DC from Marvel.

Until you said that, I didn't even notice.