Baroquen wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 10:33 pm
So that makes the latest playlist:
LOTRO
MLB:The Show
Symphony of War - The Nephilim
Trails in the Sky - SC (This has been on the back-burner a bit, but not really to abandon. About 1/2 through)
So this didn't turn out to be accurate. Currently playing -
LOTRO (though I don't have characters high enough level to take advantage of the brand new expansion)
Trails in the Sky - SC (I'm almost done chapter 5 out of 8ish)
MLB: The Show (kind of slowing down with this... not my favorite version)
And I drifted away from Symphony of War. Maybe another time. Instead I tried Dragon Quest 4, but I didn't like the DS version. Might try a different version when I try again.
I considered running through Suikoden I again, but I might just wait for the remasters and see if they get good reviews.
Instead, I D/Led the PSP version of Final Fantasy I. I like the graphics, and a relatively mindless RPG. I started this one up a couple times over the years. Maybe this is the time I get through it.
Finished Final Fantasy I. Only took 13 hours. I loved the PSP version, though I ignored the extra/bonus dungeons.
Decided to make a run at Might and Magic I. I don't have great faith that I'll soldier through the whole thing. But so far, I've been able to load it up and grind for a little while and then put it away. It's been fun so far, despite the antiquated game mechanics.
Oh. And I bought Madden. Just felt like it. Already unhappy with it. The MUT menus are convoluted, and even though I've played tons of previous versions, the interface for sets, and seasons and programs are a mess. The game is ok, but at times seems... slow and clunky. Hope I can get my money's worth, but not sure.
That makes the current rotations:
LOTRO
Fortnite
MLB:The Show
Madden
Trails in the Sky SC
and Might & Magic I
(Oh - and some Disgaea 4)
Playing:
Shardlight (pixel art adventure game)
Moons of Madness
Pathologic 2
Warcraft III: Reforged
Spoiler:
Warcraft III: Reforged is a remastered edition of the 2002 real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion The Frozen Throne. Released on January 28, 2020, it adds revamped graphics, new campaign gameplay settings as well as modern online Battle.net features.
On pause:
JA3
BGIII
Need to play before it leaves Gamepass (no idea when this will happen):
Starfield
Cities Skylines II
Dead Space (the new one)
Forza Motorsport
Return to Monkey Island
The various updated old and new (IV) Age of Empire games
Gah that's a lot. I need to just go ahead and cut some of these out right now because that is absurd.
Taking a pause in Cold Waters, have enough episodes in the current series to go all the way into March 2024, LOL.
Finished Split/Second, actually won the season championship and all that, took a while, of course. LOTS of replays, and tons of luck.
Abandoning "Deliver Us the Moon". I don't like platforming, and this segment is platforming with zero help. Basically there are these zapper drones you have no defense against, so your only choice is the RUN, avoid its vision cone, but there are not many places to hide. And you have to do this in FIRST-PERSON.
Finished Wolfenstein II (with cheat help) basically enabled infinite ammo and "easy kill" and blazed my way through, as I mainly wanted to see the story, anyway. Don't feel like playing all those freedom chronicles.
Tried Last Call BBS for a bit, it's... okay, didn't really hook me with those minigames. Maybe I didn't try the right ones yet, the initial Solitaire variation is okay, the reverse minesweeper was interesting, but I guess I haven't developed a strategy for it yet.
My game FAQs | Playing: She Will Punish Them, Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, The Outer Worlds
I am giving up on Murder By Numbers, one of the freebies I picked up earlier from Epic. It was okay, but it had a split personality. It tries to be story-rich with a female protag with issues. Her father was LAPD detective who died in line of duty. She was off in college, quit, came back to LA to become an actress, and plays a fictional detective on a popular show. Mom set her up with a guy, who was good, then turned evil and she had to divorce him. Then in case 1, her showrunner got his head bashed in right after firing her from the show, and she had to prove her innocence. Was it her ditzy co-star? The muscle-y brute handyman? The super-fanboy who snuck in? Of course, detective Cross won't let her touch the crime scene. Only her very gay makeup artist "K.C." is on her side.
The problem is every character, even herself, are caricatures, so the game's basically designed for kids, yet the characters deal with emotional trauma like adults, and some characters are LGBTQ+. So the game's basically schizophrenic.
Then in case 2, our protag found out that her mother wanted to "keep her safe", and basically teamed up with detective Cross to gaslight her... Our protag is single at 30, which clearly means she can't do ANYTHING right, everything she touches turns into crap. Detective Cross turned out to be her father's old partner. Protag, mother, and more were supposed to attend the "Starshine" awards, which includes a lifetime achievement award for "Dick Stanford", popular talkshow host forced into retirement. He was apparently poisoned during the show and expired soon after. Then her ex Ryan basically puts her on the spot by announcing to the public that she'll solve this case as well. During the course of investigation they found a LOT of dirt on EVERYBODY, people using false names, hidden identities, and more. But just like in case 1, she first accused the wrong person (not her fault, evidence did point that way), THEN she was able to find the real culprit.
There are two more cases, and the puzzles just get more and more obscure. Basically you're sort of playing extended minesweeper... You get a count of how many "series" of marked squares are there in that row or column. If there's a single block of 7, you're given 7, but if that column's 10 long, you're not told where it would start. You start with a 10x10 grid, but in case 2 it went up to 40x20 or larger. By case 3 I can imagine the size of board keep expanding. And even with hint mode on it's TEDIOUS to solve. I just end up using "fill random squares" (you only lose the "no assist bonus" when you use it, whether it's one time or 100 times)
My game FAQs | Playing: She Will Punish Them, Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, The Outer Worlds
Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 3:19 am
I am giving up on Murder By Numbers, one of the freebies I picked up earlier from Epic. It was okay, but it had a split personality. It tries to be story-rich with a female protag with issues.
When I read this, I thought "Hey, I played that game too!" But turns out I was confusing it with Fate By Numbers, a short, free FMV game from long ago, also featuring a female detective.
Okay, I lied a little. I went ahead and did case 3 or "Murder by Numbers", and that took... 7+ hours just to click through and keep using hint system. And in the end I had to use CheatEngine to freeze the clock since the speed portion is impossible do in normal time. This convinced me there's no reason to play the 4th case.
Playing the 3rd case did not improve my opinion of the game. The characters are just as annoying. At least that ex-hubby Ryan got what's coming to him, finally. But the plot points are incredibly stupid.
Spoiler:
When Detective Cross was pinned down outside a suspect's apartment who was shooting out the window at the cop below, somehow his radio malfunctioned. Yet instead of whipping out the cell phone and call 911, like any normal person would do, or order our protag to call 911 with HER cellphone, Cross ordered our protag to run back to Precinct 13, somehow get on the police radio, and call for backup. (which goes into ANOTHER picture/recognition puzzle)
And I saw the plot twist a mile away.
ARGH.
My game FAQs | Playing: She Will Punish Them, Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, The Outer Worlds
I have a humble suggestion for next year's thread:
1) The person who started the current thread decides by mid-December whether to do so next year. If they prefer not to, they choose another person to start next year's thread.
2) Whoever's doing next year's thread, they post it a week before New Year's Day, and only open it to those who want to reserve places for their lists. That way, the list-makers can have all their lists together and at the start of the thread, uninterrupted by discussion.
3) On New Year's Day, the thread-poster opens the thread up to everyone. All the lists are in place, and discussion can begin.
They limit who it's open to by putting in the subject line "Reserve spots for lists only" or something like that, and hopefully people will courteously comply.
This way, people wouldn't have to wait at the beginning of the year for listers to reserve their spots. The listers will have already done so, and discussion can start right away without pushing down anyone's list.
EDIT: More importantly, we listers won't have to interrupt our New Year's drinking and debauchery to rush to the forum to reserve our spot in the thread. Our spot will already have been reserved, allowing us to continue our extremely depraved revelry (or our recovery from it) with peace of mind.
Finished Styx: Shards of Darkness. A follow up to the original Styx game, you play as Styx the thieving, murderous goblin. Other than that, though, he's a pretty nice guy. it's a stealth game, and I mostly played it as such. There was one level where I killed everything alive (by sneak attacks - I'm terrible at combat), but for the most part I tried to minimize the body count. it really didn't play much different from the first game, but that's not a bad thing. I had fun.
One maddening design decision, though. When you go to face the final big bad guy, you exit the penultimate level, then load screen, then cutscene, then load screen, then action. The game doesn't let you save during combat, so during the final encounter you have to hit save points. Of course, the first save point comes after your first major obstacle, and it took me a bit to figure it out. So I'd die, but instead of just starting the level over again, it would put you back to the penultimate level so you had to exit there, load screen, cutscene (skippable, fortunately), load screen. Pain in the ass. Should have put the respawn after the cutscene so there was just one load screen.
I almost finished Trails in the Sky SC. I've gotten as far as the Finale. But I got distracted the last couple days playing co-op For the King with my kids. I forgot how much I enjoy that game, more so with the kids.
It looks like I finished a game in 2023. I played quite a few, and a some of them weren't the 'finish' type of game, but I only finished one. I looked back through the previous lists, and that's the least I have for any year since we started this on Gone Gold.
Damn, my brain really has been sideways this year.
