What games are you playing and why?

Playing:
Dredmor - Duh
Just Cause 2 - Well, I'm just dipping in and out of it to pass time, really. Collecting collectables, destroying stuff, you get the idea. In the past week or so I've gone from about 30% to 35% completion. I've done all the main story missions and I think all the stronghold ones, so it's faction missions, collectables and destruction to go.
Dragon Age 2 - Re-run but this time with all the DLC. Not really played much yet, though.
Civ V w/ Gods & Kings - I'm Boudica, mothertruckers! Might try and finish this match tomorrow. Currently me vs Genghis Khan, Attilla the Hun and Harun al-Rashid, but I defeated Genghis Khan by about 300AD and it's now... uh... 1800AD or something. Oops. Going to take down Attilla next, then I'm not sure what I'll do.

 

I know how you feel. It took considerable strength for me to finish the Baldur's Gate games, And I have also not, somehow, not finished Planescape, Torment. And thats something that's wrong with me, not the game. I don't get it either, I love playing Planescape: Torment. Ah, well.

I'll mention TL2 too, its a fantastic game, alone, or doubly (triply? Sixsly ?), so if you get a friend or more along to play some co-op. Far as I'm concerned its the proper step onwards from Diablo II, and its one third of the price of Diablo III.

 

Civ V+ G+K is fantastic stuff. <3

 

It is, but I still find the game to fall apart in the later eras. It just gets boring after about 1800AD.

 

I've also been playing Civ V + G&K, killing time before the XCom release (which is now in about 14 hours or so -- no I'm not obssessive much).

I disagree that the game falls apart in later eras. If you are playing on a hard enough difficulty, then later eras start to incite panic (like in my last-night's game when India, my bestest (tm) Ally in the game up until that point, out of nowhere, produced an Apollo project). I thought I was doing well, but that was the beginning of the end, as I rushed towards a Manhattan project and declared war and got my ass handed to me. Very exciting stuff, except that I realized too late that I should have been more worried about my own ally than anyone else. My downfall was like watching a house of cards collapse.

 

If you want to get a Civilization-esque game that incites panic later, Haldurson, I recommend "Galactic Civilizations 2". Here the late-game can be really frantic because the random event generator tends to not be really random but rather to draw effects that would change as much as possible, for both sides, and the "AI" of computer players is kind of good so you really have to think.

 

Avernum: Escape from the pit (which I picked up for next to nothing during the steam summer sale). Nice old-school RPG.
FTL: Faster than light. Roguelike, not as good as Dungeons of Dredmor, but I need a break so I can return fresh.

I grabbed a beta key for Loadout(and activated it on steam), but can't play it on my operating system *head desk* no win xp support.
I'm also waiting for Path of Exile to get into open beta(it's a Diablo 2 style game, but what attracted me is the humongous skill tree, lots of freedom), and for Card Hunter to get into beta(this game is giving me nerdgasm, it looks amazing)... both should happen soonish.

 

That's weird. In all my time of playing Gal Civ 2 I've never had issues with the random event generator being bad. That and I always picked the Evil option, because the good ones are worthless, because they give you penalties too high.
And for the AI, it's good, but if you play on the easier difficulties, they're not exactly smart.
"Let's just put it this way, you could say to them, "These are not the droids you are looking for." and they would repeat it." And I can't remember the last part of that.

 

It isn't "bad" as much as it is weighted so that events which change things are more likely to happen. You need to take over that planet that is defenceless? How about a speed limit or over-breeding event. One side is getting much more powerful than the rest? Spawn the Dread Lords and let the fun begin. And so on, and so on; personally I think it made the game somewhat more interesting.

That is because on earlier difficulties the AI has its economy gimped too. There is only one "fair" difficulty level in Gal Civ 2.
Not that it matters since everyone plays on the level he likes to play.

 

I don't know what it is about Civ V end-game, but I do just get bored. I guess it's partially because at that point your Civ largely loses its defining features - or they become trivial - but I just get kinda bored at that point.

Mind you, might just try a new technique this time. Hm. Possibly a good idea.

 

Dwarf Fortress. Purely to up my tolerance for "Fun" in the lead-up to CE...

 

I played the original Exile game beginning to end. It was excellent. But each and every game they made since then was a fucking carbon copy of the very first Exile game. Avernum is just a new name on the title and a few characters, they make it surface world rather than underground, and everything else is CC'ed and renamed.

The second Exile game was also a CC, but not as noticeable as the third, and then they started remaking the whole "Exile Trilogy" as the "Avernum Trilogy" followed by the *SECOND* "Avernum Trilogy.

The only thing they ever made that was not a CC of Exile was Geneforge. And I hated that game.

They desperately need to do something besides CCs. (I used to love Spiderweb Software, But they totally lost me by repeatedly reinventing an identical wheel with a new name...)

 

Omni, have you played Eschalon? it has the same old school rpg feel as Avernum, but since it isn't the same developer it's not a carbon copy

 

Nope. I have yet to try it. It does look good. I may give the demo a try and see if I enjoy it. But that will have to wait a while. I have too many games at the moment.

http://basiliskgames.com/

 

Ah, I see, Kazeto,
I guess I've just been really lucky with the random events not throwing crap like speed limits at me.

 

Blackwell Legacy. May try to finish it in the morning before I leave for work. I originally didn't take to it. Nor the second time. Probably not the third either. Picked it up again tonight on a whim and wooooooooosh. It's not even *that* moon logic-y for an adventure/point & click game.

Unlike one of the later Wadjet Eye releases, Resonance, which is stuffed up the backside like a Thanksgiving Turkey with moon logic.

Oh, and in GOG's magical sale of win I picked up Trine (rebuy), Torchlight (rebuy), SpaceChem (ohgodsmybrainalready), GeneForge 1-5 (y u no have windowed option????) and Botanicula (I dunno. I only installed it. Ain't looked at it yet). And in GamersGate's sale I got Secret Files: Tunguska and Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis. My brain is going to hate me by the end of the year.

 

Honestly, I've been bored so I've been revisiting some old games.

I've been playing some Endless Space again. There's been some updates since I previously played it. I like the game, but don't 'love' it.

Also, I revisited Civ 5, and loaded up a few mods. The most recent update, though, broke some things in the game, so I may put this aside again until they fix things.

I got a notice about Rift, an MMO which I liked a lot, and saw that I had some free time coming to me. So I dipped my head in again, and felt completely lost and intimidated. Turns out that some of the changes were so recent that I wasn't the only one who felt that way. I somehow accidentally overwrote one of my character builds and at that point, I just quit the game. I can't explain it, but I have no desire to spend any time in the game right now. I think it would have been easier coming back had I not left so long ago. I felt completely inept in the game. That wouldn't be so bad if I were just starting the game, although the newbie zones seem empty, which is not good for a game with so much dynamic content. Content like that is not really so much fun only one or two people (invasions and rifts are only really fun when you have a crowd).

So short answer is that I'm kinda bored. I've considered also going back to Lotro but I may have the same feeling I had with Rift.