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derFunkenstein wrote:

bthylafh wrote:

Finally getting around to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

I have such great love for this game. I hope you enjoy it. It does start out kind of slow, but once you unlock all the free-roaming on the high seas, it's a ton of fun. Weirdly, I don't play AC for the whole Assassins vs Templars. I just like the parkour and the stealth and the high seas adventure and even some of the trade route minigame.

I've been enjoying the naval combat. Took me three tries to capture a man-o-war with my brig but it was worth it. I wish the game made it more obvious how to use the heavy shot - I had to look that up. The stealth is more fun now that I've picked up the blowgun and can temporarily incapacitate that one sentry that won't turn away.

Back into modded Skyrim. I swear sometimes it's more fun setting up the mods than it is actually playing

Was letting myself build a little hype for Rage 2 but I'm reading reviews that compare it unfavorably to Avalanche's Mad Max game (which I love). Sounds like a steep discount buy only. Meanwhile Quake Champions staggers on... The backlog right now is Environmental Station Alpha, Atom RPG, then Ion Maiden.

derFunkenstein wrote:

bthylafh wrote:

Finally getting around to Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

I have such great love for this game. I hope you enjoy it. It does start out kind of slow, but once you unlock all the free-roaming on the high seas, it's a ton of fun. Weirdly, I don't play AC for the whole Assassins vs Templars. I just like the parkour and the stealth and the high seas adventure and even some of the trade route minigame.

I'm of the opinion that Black Flag is the best of the bunch precisely because it does mostly avoid the Abstergo/Templar foolishness in favor of a pure historical action/RPG hybrid. It's really kind of a shame that Ubisoft won't fully ditch a storyline that should have been over after the first three games; its zombie-like persistence turns what could be truly great games into merely good ones.

Anyway, on point: just wrapped up Star Wars: KOTOR 2, my first serious attempt at a full playthrough of either of the iconic RPGs. The story was great and the game was good, and it probably would have been quite a thing to behold in the mid 2000s, but it's really been upstaged by Second RPG Golden Age titles like Pillars of Eternity and Witcher 3. Still worth the efforts though, even if only for the truly fascinating deconstruction of the quasi-spiritual esotericism that drives the Star Wars universe.

I'm a blogger, game enthusiast, and a game writer. I've bought the newest Resident Evil 2 Remake, and it's awesome to say the least. Had an amazing experience with Leon, and today seems like an evening with Claire haha!

I've struggled during my first hours, as the game is really intense, and thrilling, however, my skills have increased tremendously heading towards the mid-game.

Anyway, I'm writing this because I've noticed a couple of neat tricks that have helped me to hone my skills and thus increase my experience. I've written a guide about the new game, in hopes that it'll be helpful at least to someone! Check out my Resident Evil 2 tips!

Thank you, and have a pleasant experience! With or without my tips, the game is sick, and if anyone is still wondering whether it's worth it, it totally is!

I've been playing through Detective Pikachu with my kid. It's actually a perfect game to play with a child: not so complicated that they can't follow the story, very good production values, and not so scary that they get anxious. Also, a Pikachu that talks like Detective Bullock is hilarious.

John Romero has released a new Doom WAD called SIGIL, which is meant as a 5th episode of The Ultimate Doom. Not bad so far.

Until recently, Oxygen Not Included, but now it's City of Heroes: Homecoming (SCORE servers)

I might have to stop messing with CoH soon because it's devouring all my time.

Age of Empires 2 HD.

Gotta go back to the game for nostalgia. Maybe I can actually beat the campaign this time.

dragontamer5788 wrote:

Age of Empires 2 HD.

Gotta go back to the game for nostalgia. Maybe I can actually beat the campaign this time.

My one true love. My son was obsessed for a couple years, until Jurassic Park Evolution came out.

On a new topic, I Need some recommendations to play with my new RX570.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

dragontamer5788 wrote:

Age of Empires 2 HD.

Gotta go back to the game for nostalgia. Maybe I can actually beat the campaign this time.

My one true love. My son was obsessed for a couple years, until Jurassic Park Evolution came out.

On a new topic, I Need some recommendations to play with my new RX570.

My general video game patterns recently are: Factorio (Management), Puyo Puyo Tetris (Arcade Puzzle / Couch Gaming. 1 to 4-player competitive Tetris), and Cuphead (Arcade Couch Gaming 2-player Co-op sidescrolling shump. Similar to Contra but more cartoony)

Ceasar 3, Pharoah, and Age of Empires 2 have been my "nostalgia" games. But Factorio is the superior management game these days.

Is there any genre you're into?

dragontamer5788 wrote:

My general video game patterns recently are: Factorio (Management), Puyo Puyo Tetris (Arcade Puzzle / Couch Gaming. 1 to 4-player competitive Tetris), and Cuphead (Arcade Couch Gaming 2-player Co-op sidescrolling shump. Similar to Contra but more cartoony)

Ceasar 3, Pharoah, and Age of Empires 2 have been my "nostalgia" games. But Factorio is the superior management game these days.

Is there any genre you're into?

RTS has been the only games I've come back to consistently. Played alot of UT2k3/UT2k4 back in the day. I'll probably give it a play just to see how it looks with maxed settings. I enjoyed running through Doom3 and Far Cry.
Factorio looks interesting. I'll give that a shot.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

dragontamer5788 wrote:

My general video game patterns recently are: Factorio (Management), Puyo Puyo Tetris (Arcade Puzzle / Couch Gaming. 1 to 4-player competitive Tetris), and Cuphead (Arcade Couch Gaming 2-player Co-op sidescrolling shump. Similar to Contra but more cartoony)

Ceasar 3, Pharoah, and Age of Empires 2 have been my "nostalgia" games. But Factorio is the superior management game these days.

Is there any genre you're into?

RTS has been the only games I've come back to consistently. Played alot of UT2k3/UT2k4 back in the day. I'll probably give it a play just to see how it looks with maxed settings. I enjoyed running through Doom3 and Far Cry.
Factorio looks interesting. I'll give that a shot.

From the RTS Genre, Company of Heroes 2 was excellent from what I've played of it. Probably the best "modern" RTS game (where "modern" is anything published after Starcraft 2). The game could use a bit more polish, but the core gameplay was clearly well put together.

If you're going into Factorio, I suggest enabling experimental and maybe even buying directly from the developer at factorio.com. You can get Headless Linux binaries, .ZIP files for easy Windows deployment, etc. etc. https://factorio.com

If you ever wanted to do a multiplayer server, getting those packages directly from the dev is better. I mean, he'll let you in with a Steam key, but... I like to cut out the middleman (steam takes 30% revenue off as tax. The developer deserves the money instead since all those .zip files and headless linux server binaries aren't distributed through steam...). Also, just play the "experimental" build. The developer is extremely good, and the "experimental" build is stable as all heck. 0.17 has a LOT of quality-of-life upgrades: a superior toolbar, a superior train-GUI, etc. etc. 0.17 (current experimental) is strictly superior to 0.16 (current stable) in every way possible, and I've never had a crash.

What makes 0.17 "experimental" is that the developer is still doing balance changes. So your Factorio builds may stop working if you keep updating. It may not sound like much, but changing the recipes for balance can completely destroy your designs, forcing you to start over from nearly scratch. But you always have the option of just... not updating... in those cases.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, all the balance changes were done a long time ago. I'd think that 0.17 is probably going to be hitting "stable" soon, its got over 40+ patches now, so its really mature.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

On a new topic, I Need some recommendations to play with my new RX570.

I would say Dishonored / Dishonored 2 are perhaps my favorite games as of late. Not really RTS, but plenty of strategy involved.

Just finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider and it's pretty wild... gorgeous setting (South America, mostly jungle and ancient ruins) - the story is kinda wacky because they feel like they have to keep one-upping the previous episodes, but it's actually pretty interesting in a ridiculous action movie sorta way. They actually did a fairly good job translating some old Mayan and Inca folklore into a plot line.

The puzzle (challenge tomb) areas were the main letdown to be honest... most of the puzzles in the previous games at least required some thought - these were mostly just jumping and timing and were pretty obvious. This is nitpicking of course, but for me it kinda breaks immersion when they have these massive and elaborate puzzle machines made of wood and stone that a) still work after 400 years, and b) are apparently designed to fall apart once solved. Kinda like the stone floors that fall away into a pit full of spikes that appear (to be fair they're overused in many of these games) - just seems like an awfully ineffective way to keep people out if it only works the one time :b

Combat is pretty standard Tomb Raider fare, thought I was happy to see that they improved stealth a bit. The most challenging fights are against critters you come up against in the jungle.

Other gripe is kinda nitpicking as well but there are a couple of scenes where you're able to interact with different factions of a village based on wearing corresponding outfits... and somehow the factions are completely fooled despite Lara being the only white chick around with a pony tail and a British accent... and is speaking English to them. But again that's pretty typical for the genre...

All in all good game. I don't like it as much as the first two in the series, but it's solid and worth a look. I found it for $20 and that seems about right.

Just started on AC: Odyssey and so far it's pretty cool... not really far along enough to even say much... it's pretty, and it looks like combat is a bit more involved than the button mashing that worked in Origins.

DPete27 wrote:

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

On a new topic, I Need some recommendations to play with my new RX570.

I would say Dishonored / Dishonored 2 are perhaps my favorite games as of late. Not really RTS, but plenty of strategy involved.

I really enjoyed both of those. They did an excellent job building the world.

Steam's got TIS-100 on sale for $1.75 today. Haven't gotten far but I'm enjoying the thinky so far.

I just remembered I have AC:Unity that was free awhile back. I should give that a go.

Installed Afterburner. What a great utility. The GPU held at ~70C when playing JW:E and power draw showed I think 65W. I'm pretty sure the CPU was holding it back as it was pegged. I was hoping disabling the onboard GPU would free up some thermal room for the CPU, but an A8 can only go so far.
AC:Unity crashed on me when trying it got to the actual gameplay. Not sure if that was power related. I went and hunted down Afterburner and then got distracted playing with dinosaur's. I need to go in and check again with the power. The PSU is a 3YO Corsair CX 430W, and I have the 6+2 plugged into the card, so I don't think there's a problem, but I need to do some more troubleshooting if that persists. Is there an easy way to get to free-roam mode without going through any of the stories? That's what I'd be interested in doing anyway for now.

Apparently I was on 18.3 drivers. Updated to 19.5 and everything is hunky-Dory.

Going back and forth.

Finished - Tales from the Borderlands (bought before Telltale Games titles could disappear, from GoG)
In Progress, playing regularly:

Rise of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Fallout 4 (early)

Playing periodically (going back to)
Alan Wake (bought before the music was removed for copyright)
Borderlands 2
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
Grim Dawn

There's probably a few more I want to go back to, considering I can play everything with max detail. On my wish list:

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Just bought Xcom: Enemy Unknown. Seems so cool right from the start. Will gladly give 200+ hours of my life to this one and then to Xcom 2

Just downloaded SIGIL. What a disappointment... I don't mean the difficulty, but the level design itself is pretty broken. The only cool thing here is the soundtrack by Buckethead.

Assassins Creed: Odyssey

First thing... this game is HUGE. And the landscape is absolutely stunning in some places... seriously, this might be the nicest looking game in the series. The world is nicely laid out - it's obviously not "real world" scale, but it's absolutely enormous and what's really impressive is just how far you can see - and how good it looks - when you find a nice scenic overlook.

The story is really cool and, what I really like is that choices seem to matter more than in previous games. You can choose to kill or spare someone and it matters way, way down the line, often in unexpected ways. In some ways there is almost too much going on... you're in the middle of a war where you can support either side - or both sides. You're hunting a cult, and how you deal with them affects the story. I really dig the bounty hunter system... they're basically special opponents that get sent against you when you piss off the wrong people, and how you deal with them affects your reputation; which affects how shopkeepers treat you, etc.

Another thing that's kinda neat is the exploration mode... basically, it gets rid of the icons that tell you where the next goal is. Instead, you see messages telling you that the person (or place) you're looking for is north of someplace, east of some other place, near the statue of so and so... you actually have to go find it yourself. Which can be difficult at times because the world is freaking massive, and often the thing you're supposed to go find is way on the other side of it...

I like the new(ish) combat system. I like that you can choose your fighting style, at least to a degree; and while the game doesn't make it intuitive, you can use gear to really enhance how you'd prefer to fight. Combat is very strongly tied to level - someone just a level or two above you is very difficult.

Some nitpicky things... you can climb basically anything. It's actually hard to find something you cannot climb, which kinda kills the immersion. Also, at some point around level 20 my character effectively became immune to gravity... I can jump from the highest cliff and basically just roll with it taking no damage.

All in all, this is probably my favorite in the entire series outside of the Ezio trilogy; and it's not far behind those.

Jumping back and forth between Axiom Verge and BattleTech. Enjoying both.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It was absolutely worth the wait from when I kickstarted this back in 2015. IGA has made an excellent game and gave me those SotN vibes back from when I first played that. Anyone that likes Castlevania or metroidvania games should check it out for sure.

Starfalcon wrote:

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It was absolutely worth the wait from when I kickstarted this back in 2015. IGA has made an excellent game and gave me those SotN vibes back from when I first played that. Anyone that likes Castlevania or metroidvania games should check it out for sure.

Speaking of Castlevania, I found a Doom PWAD that's an amazing love letter to Castlevania. It's called "Castlevania - Simon's Destiny":

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=57800

FAQ says you don't even need DOOM2.WAD, just the GZDoom sourceport. There are optional downloads linked that will give you different music tracks; I chose the chiptunes one.

Starfalcon wrote:

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It was absolutely worth the wait from when I kickstarted this back in 2015. IGA has made an excellent game and gave me those SotN vibes back from when I first played that. Anyone that likes Castlevania or metroidvania games should check it out for sure.

Yes. Very much this. I'm a little over 50% map exploration right now, and everything has been excellent. They nailed much of the tone from SotN, but with better graphics and a bit more humor.

It might be a little easy for me, but I believe there are two higher difficulty settings, and that's literally the only semi-negative thing I can say right now.

Playing the RTX'd Quake II and lovin' it! I can just about get 60fps at 1080P with my RTX2060 with global illumination set to low.

Hello, currently I'm rocking two games. One on my Nintendo Switch, and the other on my PS4. Both titles have just been released, and I couldn't have been happier with how excellent they turned out to be. <3

On my Nintendo Switch, I'm rocking Super Mario Maker 2. The title is an absolute blast if you're Mario fan. The game's campaign is splendind and entertaining, there's no level system (at least the one we're used to having in Mario games) and each level is more delicate and innovative than the last. Honestly, if the game was to only have a 100+ level campaign, I'd still be quite satisfied with the purchase. But oh God it has more, and more it can offer plenty!

The Online connectivity, course sharing system, and the ability to traverse the maddening trials together with your buddies is absolute beast, and don't even get me started on the Course Maker part. Because it exceeded even my highest expectations, and don't get me wrong - I was already expecting ALOT!

The second game which I bought just yesterday (blasting with 40% discount on a release day xD) is the newest Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers (expansion). It's an MMORPG which I parted ways with almost half a year ago, however, the newest DLC forced me to come back and take a glance. And it's good that I did... The expansion changed a bunch of stuff within the in-game world, and, honestly, I love it!

So yeah, these two are in my head constantly, work, friends, spouse, shower - all I think of is Super Mario Maker 2 and Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers!xD

Oh, btw - if you click on the two titles you'll see the place where I acquired both. Eneba offered the very best price on both pieces, haven't checked it since yesterday, so not quite sure what's the situation now.