What games are you playing and why?

I know back when I played it, the game was in very poor shape. I'll have to give it another shot. When I played it, there was just too many problems.

 

Well I just cleared the ship on easy, so there's that.

The biggest gameplay change is that AP for turning is optional(and defaults to off) now. There's also a few new items to loot, including new armors and guns. And it's generally a bit more polished.

 

Picked up Bionic Dues today, as it's on a large enough steam sale to make even a poor choice entertaining (2.50ish).

You control a single exo as you finish missions. Having 4 mechs (aka exos) you can swap at the cost of a turn- unless destroyed that mission- adds an interesting wrinkle to me. The loot is classic diablo-esque, with things like the Dense Slave Reactor of Sneakiness. The gfx are serviceable enough, I guess.

Did anyone here ever play it much?

 

Quite a bit. It's enjoyable, though depending on what bots you encounter in the campaign the difficulty might be higher or lower than you intended. Some bots are highly annoying (the random-direction-shooting one with the rocket launcher takes the cake for that one) whereas some of them are pretty much walking practice dummies.

All in all, it can be quite enjoyable, for as long as you play on higher difficulties, like the challenge, and don't get a completely annoying—not necessarily difficult but annoying—set of enemies.

 

It can be difficult if you pick the wrong missions too early. You just have to get a feel for which ones are easier than others. It certainly isn't a TRADITIONAL roguelike (not that that's either a good or bad thing), but it does have that roguelike feel to it, as you creep around the hallways and loot chests and so on. I know I mentioned it a while back when I was playing it. I never stuck with it though, and I can't really say why. It's yet another game that I hope to revisit, but not sure if I'll find the time with all the new stuff to also try lol.

/edit you also have to get used to the fact that there are some enemies in the game that you aren't meant to actually kill, but to avoid. Remember that you usually don't have to kill everything you encounter -- running away is a perfectly valid tactic, especially in some situations.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'm feeling a mite underpowered atm. You are essentially supposed to one shot the mobs, aren't you? (Aside from the ones with like 3x the shields of everything else on the level).

So far the most irritating mission-type is the murderbot one. (Yes, this game has murderbots.) Fleeing through a level, passing up loot, just doesn't seem that fun to me.

 

Depends on the weapon. I make sure to always have something that can one-shot stuff, but much of the time I'm simply two-shotting or three-shotting whatever comes near; mind you, my assault exo now has damage reduction of about 400 points and most of my weapons have ranges of over a dozen tiles and ammo capacity reaching silly values (the basic laser has about 220 shots, and the minigun of the science exo is even more silly in that regard).

If you know how to do that one mission and are prepared for it, it's not hard to get all the loot.

My hint is to have a ninja exo there. This one doesn't get out of invisibility when it attacks, so with enough propulsion upgrades and some planning you can clean the problematic rooms while the murderbot doesn't move (because it can't see you).
Turrets also work, because if you place them well the murderbot goes around them instead of killing them, which also gives you some time; heck, it's pretty much the only thing I use turrets for in this game.

 

If it's any help, Bionic Dues is an Arcen game, which should tell you everything

 

Still, it's less awkward than A Valley Without Wind, regardless of whether we are talking about the first one or the second one. Not a game for everyone, that is true, but at least the targeting for attacks is normal.

 

I don't know anything about "A VAlley Without Wind", but as far as "Bionic Dues" is concerned, the most complex it gets is in the decisions about how to outfit your exos, what with loot seemingly coming out of your ears eventually, and the balancing of energy and slots and the fact that some items have differences if they are slotted differently and so on (it can make your head spin at times lol). But the game itself has a very nice, clean design. and the UI, while not perfect, is certainly satisfactory.

 

Played a bit of Papers, Please for the first time tonight. It's been up for a load of awards, but I only got it in the BAFTA sale and I never tried it until now.

Whoa.

 

Papers, Please was pretty solid. It's one of those games that is much more enjoyable to actually play than you'd think by just reading a description of the game.

 

Welp, picked up Warlock II via pre-order. Price for the base game is reasonable ($30 USD), but the extra content in the other versions seems like a money grab. Especially when compared with Age of Wonder III's pricing for its premium offerings.

Some people have referred to it as Warlock 1.5, as the engine is extremely similar and the majority of the units for the old races are carried over with the same stats. At release on April 10th, it is supposed to have a rather robust editor. Oh, and they added rivers.

There are some new mechanics (units that "support" in addition to attacking/reworked spell trees/limited unit perks/unrest to prevent city spam/"free" specialist cities), new races, and a new mode with shards. They tweaked the quest system, and there is a sandbox mode for those who don't want to play with the shards.

Warlock Prime really, really, really tickled my fancy, but I'm not yet so sure about W II. More play time is required, as I haven't even tried the new races yet. Humans might have gotten a boost in the racial rankings, though (in W Prime I'd say Arethi Elves were the most powerful, late game).

No bugs to report yet, which is a first for a paradox title I've acquired near release. Anyone else given it a shot? I mean, it's been out for a WHOLE day.

 

I'm low on money, and the edition I'd want (probably the top tier) is a bit stupidly expensive. So I'll be waiting until at least a 33% sale.

 

Do you find the soundtrack and digital art collection of value? I have never seen the point in paying for such things.

While I would like to play with the extra content, there is no way "7 items" is worth 20 more USD. I mean, wow. Paradox has said there will be an option to "upgrade" you edition on release day, should people want. To me, that was code for "the Great Mage edition was a terrible bundle, but we will leave it up to see how many takers we get in the first few weeks."

I would be very surprised if the extra content isn't released separately as a dlc pack or new edition package.

 

I'm interested in the OST, yes, and I wouldn't say no to the digital novella it's sold with. More reading and what have you.

 

I've made a couple of attempts at playing an early access game called "Pixel Pirates". It's kind of a roguelike-like where you control a pirate captain, design a simple ship, hire crew, and sail from island to island, exploring and plundering ships, and leveling up and training your crew, and so on. Right now it's an alpha that feels like an alpha, with a weak ui, some balance issues, and so on, but it does show promise. Combat is kind of basically tell your crew and captain where to go and if there's an enemy there they will fight until one or the other side is defeated, or you tell them to retreat. Even though I played the tutorial, which was easy enough, I'm having some difficulty with it and I feel like I'm totally missing something (Which is turning out to be a pattern with me lately).

In any case, I bought the game when it was on sale for 30% off. The sale is over, but if anyone else is interested, I have two 25% off coupons for it.

I've slowly been working my way through Might and Magic 10 still, with some occasional breaks to play both "South Park: The Stick of Truth" and "Planet Explorers". I'm having similar issues with "South Park" in that whenever you learn a new ability, the game (ie. Cartman) talks you through using it. Unfortunately, when I try to follow the instructions quite literally, there seems to be a communication problem because It never works for me. (what is the difference anyway between mashing a key and pressing it, because apparently when the game says to mash a key it doesn't mean what I think it means lol). So, for example, the game gives you a few special attack , and I can never do them right so I never use them. And I seem to be the only one who's not quite understanding what they want me to do (maybe I just have bad reflexes). For example, one special attack involves me throwing a stone, but I always seem to hit myself in the head with it lol. That's not supposed to happen.

Why can't there be just a single key to attack anyway? Why these special finger-gymnastics? It's dumb and frustrating and pointless. If I wanted finger gymnastics I'd hire myself a finger trainer.