What are you playing at the moment? 2011 - September 2017

[Tritagonist]

If that’s because you only have the tutorial hero, you can get Raynor and Sylvanas by using someone’s referral link, provided you haven’t hit level 10 level 5 yet.

Thanks! But I think I have 20 or so Heroes unlocked, plus the free rotation. Must have been from that big 2.0 bundle that you could choose.

I have no idea how she’s seen in the wider game balance or such, but I actually like Tyrande for her combination of ranged attacks, the little Owl snipe, the heals. She seems to do well enough, too. Part of it might be those old WoW PvP Priest habits kicking in.

[Sarfrin]

I was going to be playing Little Nightmares, but I had to refund because of a fatal error apparently caused by my ageing CPU that plays literally every other game I’ve bought up to now. Instead, I’ve been playing Peregrine, which is different and quite interesting so far.

[arathain]

Tyrande’s great. Bit of a flavour of the month, actually. She’s kind of a swiss army knife of useful stuff- you got stuns, heals, vision, and you even can even do stealth ganks if you talent for it.

[Tritagonist]

Tyrande’s great. Bit of a flavour of the month, actually. She’s kind of a swiss army knife of useful stuff- you got stuns, heals, vision, and you even can even do stealth ganks if you talent for it.

Flavour of the month!

Oh well. But on a more serious note, that’s exactly what makes it an enjoyable character. Depending on the flow of the battle you can sort of specialize, or rather focus, and still make an impact.

I also had some fun with Kerrigan, but it requires a bit of a re-think in terms of how to approach hero battles.

[LTK]

I finished SOMA. I gotta say, I was getting a teensy bit tired of all the philosophising the characters do in their downtime, although I preferred that over having to run around evading monsters. But in the end, I was really impressed how they stuck to the hard, uncomfortable truths of their concept. The game exceeded my expectations pretty well.

[The_JG_Man]

Also, I very much enjoyed the Xen-parts in both Half Life and Opposing Force. They were the most atmospheric and visually appealing to me. I really enjoyed the weirdness of it.

Oh the design was largely great. It feels entirely alien, greatly pitched against the completely artificial Black Mesa complex, but the actual content of it is not something I found enjoyable.

Hmm, I wonder if rather than being strictly imprecise, it’s just counterintuitive?

Jumping off a ladder is fine. Jumping off a ladder when there’s a death pit around it is not. Walking up to a ladder that is on a sheer cliff face is fine. Walking up to it when you don’t believe there is enough space to get in front of it without falling is not. Whilst I do have mechanical issues with the movement, a lot of the problems could be remedied with revised level design. Unless the very act of moving around should be intentionally difficult - and I’d like a good implementation of that if that were the case - movement should be one of the most basic mechanics of any game is that flawless. It is your main interaction with the game and if it’s not working properly, there is a big problem. Practising the long jump isn’t counter-intuitive, it’s just poorly established, for example.

A lot of this is down to the refinement of movement in first-person, so I’m not strictly speaking harping on the game itself as most (all?) of these problems have been fixed in time, but that’s sort of the problem, HL is a product and exclamation against its time, for better and worse.

[Gus_Smedstad]

movement should be one of the most basic mechanics of any game is that flawless.

Movement in shooters of the era was notoriously bad, at least when it came to things like ladders. I think it was Return to Wolfenstein that had signs posted about the number of employee deaths from falling off ladders.

The movement bit in Half Life that sticks in my memory is a hatch. Specifically, at the end of Surface Tension you’re being chased by a helicopter, and the game hasn’t given you a rocket launcher yet, and you run across open ground and jump down a hatch. I think I died a dozen times because I squirmed around the edges of the hatch instead of jumping down.

[arathain]

Tyrande’s great. Bit of a flavour of the month, actually. She’s kind of a swiss army knife of useful stuff- you got stuns, heals, vision, and you even can even do stealth ganks if you talent for it.

Flavour of the month!

Oh well. But on a more serious note, that’s exactly what makes it an enjoyable character. Depending on the flow of the battle you can sort of specialize, or rather focus, and still make an impact.

I also had some fun with Kerrigan, but it requires a bit of a re-think in terms of how to approach hero battles.

FotM is not a bad thing. She’s a fun, versatile, powerful character. It just means if you get good she’s good for climbing the ladder.

I’d like to be good at Kerrigan, but I can’t make her click. I can do the combo (sometimes!), but if you dive wrong you just get melted. She’s got that ability reset thing going, though, and all those characters are fun when momentum is on your side.

I’m going to try to at least get through my placement games this season, just to see where the game puts me. I’m 3-1 up, all games with Valla.

[Det.Bullock]

I played a bit of Quake using quakespasm on my laptop, vanilla modless experience with the only concession being playing at the same resolution of my laptop screen.
I just finished episode III, I got to a secret level that I never played before and rushed the last level thatnks to the invisibility ring at the start and the fact that my health and arsenal would be reset anyway once returned to the main HUB.

Other than that I used my laptop to try ou the old Metroid II: The Return of Samus for Gameboy, and I’m really tempted to get the cartridge, at least to have an action platformer less reliant on twitch reflexes than Mario Deluxe (I tried it again recently and I sincerely wonder how I menaged to beat it a few years ago).

Also played a bit of Privateer and X-wing when I managed to get some time on my desktop PC, with Privateer I managed to make a throttle script for my HOTAS that includes the afterburner, if anything because every time I needed to escape keeping the afterburner button pressed was stressing my pinky finger with the story missions for now being mostly about smuggling.

On my Mega Drive I somewhat moved on with Phantasy Star IV but very slowly, it’s still quite incredible how much more refined than the first three games it is in every aspect.

[alms]

@mrpier @qazinsky @Viral_Frog @Kiril since Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a new game and we have a thread for it, I’ve moved the relevant posts to that thread.

[The_JG_Man]

I dunno, whilst some games are definitely deserving of their own thread, especially something like D:OS2 that has a lot of detail to it, it can be nice to see that discussion as part of this thread. I imagine more than a few purchases have been made from people browsing this thread and being encouraged by the discussion, something that likely wouldn’t happen if that automatically went into its own thread.

Movement in shooters of the era was notoriously bad, at least when it came to things like ladders.

For sure and like I said, this is more of a criticism with games of that era. I’m certain I mentioned a few movement issues with System Shock 2, but given that movement isn’t emphasised in that, it’s less of a problem.

The hatch you mentioned is definitely a good example of not knowing how to do something that should be possible without damage but seemingly can’t be done without taking any. It gives the impression of being not properly play-tested. The ladder on the cliff facing I referred to is not too long after that hatch and gave me the distinct impression that no-one had really checked over it.

[ToomuchFluffy]

…but the actual content of it is not something I found enjoyable.

It has been 15 years or something like that, so I barely remember any specifics, but I think it got quite challenging towards the end. And you playing on Hard of course… Not surprising that the gameplay wasn’t particularly enjoyable.

[alms]

8 posts were split to a new topic: Heat Signature, from the maker of Gunpoint

[Pink_Gregory]

1753 passengers on Paris on a Mini Metro daily challenge.

I’m close to punching the air, such is my pride. But It’s not even a good score, really.

[BillButNotBen]

I keep trying to play Kentucky Route Zero and I keep falling asleep. Literally.
I don’t mean this as a diss on the game, it might be just playing it when tired, but 10 minutes after starting it up… zzzzz.

[theclockworkrat]

I never get far on it either. It’s so damn slow that I barely play 15-20 minutes before packing it in. If I want a good story then I can just pick up a book and go at my own pace.

[Spacewalk]

I went back to La-Mulana where I left off eighteen months ago and finally beat the motherfucker. It wasn’t the game in its original form, it was the remake, but that doesn’t mean it was less of an undertaking.

[Shadoko]

1753 passengers on Paris on a Mini Metro daily challenge.

I’m close to punching the air, such is my pride. But It’s not even a good score, really.

At least you’re probably more effective than the real Paris subway system.

[BillButNotBen]

I never get far on it either. It’s so damn slow that I barely play 15-20 minutes before packing it in. If I want a good story then I can just pick up a book and go at my own pace.

It’s weird, because I don’t actually dislike it.
The first episode didn’t really grab me at all, because I was trying to play it like an adventure game and it’s not an adventure game at all. So I was rushing around trying to achieve/solve things… which wasn’t satisfying at all.

Then a few episodes in I kind of clicked with it and realised it’s basically a collaborative narrative experience… you’re building your own story - but the makers also share a lot of authorship.
But the best way to enjoy that seems to be to relax and take it at a sedate pace… and then zzzz.

It’s almost meditative… but that’s not great for actually making progress.

Though I do like it now (when I can stay awake) I can’t really understand why it’s as highly rated as it is.

[Danielx64]

Well I been playing neon drive. It sure does make your brain melt.