What games are you playing and why?

Played and finished Legend of Grimrock 2. If you liked the first LoG, you should like LoG 2- where things were expanded, they expanded the original in superior ways. Extremely high polish, to boot. Ice magic is no longer the automatic choice, the world was made non-linear, and the character building systems was improved.

Some of the puzzles were, of course, utter horseshit imo, because they required out of game knowledge. But since forums with hints/solutions exist, and the vast vast VAST majority of puzzles were perfectly fine, I view this as an insignificant quibble. I'd much rather play a game where devs try a variety of puzzle approaches than one where they stick to the straight and narrow.

Did anyone else play LoG or its sequel?

 

I've tried "Legend of Grimrock", and I swear to god, I played it for about an hour and a half, set it aside, and never had any desire to come back to it. I don't have the kind of patience I used to with games, and (certain kinds of) puzzles in games. But I do remember back when I did have the patience, even then, I'd only spend so long trying to solve puzzles before I finally resorted to cheats. Then I'd eventually feel disgusted with myself, and eventually gave up on the game anyway, simply because I was 'cheating'. It's kind of why I never finished the first few Might and Magic games (later ones were easier), some of the Ultimas, the 2 earliest Elder Scrolls games, and so on. And let's not forget that I have the most horrible sense of direction, both in and out of games (I almost flunked a geology class that involved an incredible amount of mapping, and I even had a really expensive compass then). When tasked with keeping a map in a weekly PnP roleplaying game, I would invariably screw it up in ways that the DM could hardly believe.

 

Heh. LoG has a very useful automapping function, but there is a mode that disables it for people who want to play oldschool. The suggestion being that using graph paper to track yourself is fun for some people.

I wish them well, but NO WAY would I want to do that.

 

I enjoyed LoG for a few hours until I came across an area that kept killing me no matter what I tried. Like Haldurson, I don't have near the patience I used to have for games...guess we're both just grumpy old men, eh?

I think I'll give LoG2 a shot if/when I ever have money (after I get GalCiv III, Civ:BE, EUIV: Art of War, and...I think there's three or four other 'must-owns' on my list but can't think of them at the moment...)

 

Since I've spent so much in the past on games that I've never played, I've been a bit more timid lately about spending money. So my latest habit is to add games to my wish list, without actually ever buying them (I do occasionally, but not often anymore). Least 'wishing' (adding something to a wishlist) is free... Maybe I'll add LoG 2 to the wishlist. Not sure if I'll ever buy it, but we'll see.

 

That's essentially how I use my Steam Wishlist as well. "I'm at least a little bit interested, and don't want to forget this game exists, for now." And then Steam will alert me when it goes on sale. If it's on sale and it turns out I still don't want to actually buy it, I remove it from the list.

 

I am the same, except that for me it's 'a tiny bit of interest is conceivable in the future in certain circumstances' and I tend not to remove them ever

 

Grabbed Super Sanctum TD on Steam (sale ends Nov 3) for 60 cents. Sanctum 1 was ok, the reviews for this one were good, and it cost less than a taco, so worth a shot

Beat it this evening, just have some hard mode challenges to go. It has some issues; UI is a little clunky, had one random crash and 2 minor achievement glitches, a few balance problems...but for the price, quite a deal. Decent tower/spell variety, couple of nice nailbiter finishes, mazing is encouraged (without the janky place/sell mechanic found in some other tds), and equipping 4 active spells at a time keeps fingers busy.

Final verdict: It's better than the average free Kongregate TD.

 

I got Super Sanctum TD on Monday (Today is Thursday for future reference) and I have played it a bit and it has crashed on me twice losing my progress both times. I didn't lose all of my progress, just the progress from that level and since I was playing on survival mode I lost levels in some cases. A fun little game so far but the crashes are frustrating.

EDIT: One thing I do not like about it is that flying units don't follow the path you lay out. They make almost a straight end run to the core meaning you don't get as many shots at them as you do the grounders.

 

This is one thing tower defences usually choose to, so flying units are different from ground ones for the path other than resistances and speed.

 

Many tower defense games I have played may not follow the same path for the grounders but the fliers tend to have their own circuitous routes so you have a chance to hit them nearly as much as you do the grounders. Field Runners has the straight path to the goal as well and I like that game. Likely I haven't found the combination of towers to really handle them yet but at the moment, they are a pain.

 

Yeah and the flyer paths seemed inconsistent. In some levels, they'll fly over canyons, but in others they fly around them. You also aren't allowed to "block" their path with towers, but if you block off a different path they'll fly over it anyway. :/

It's not a huge deal, but it does mean levels with flyers are hard to 3-star on the first attempt, because it's hard to tell if they'll go around your anti-air towers or not until you watch them actually fly.

 

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. If you liked the gameplay of the original, you will REALLY like Rebirth. So many new things! And having a constant 60fps has helped my gameplay considerably, so there is that.

PSA: A small number of people can't currently play it, and the dev team has been surprisingly silent about the eta of fixes.

 

My wife and I are huge fans of Sanctum, but haven't given any thought to Super Sanctum TD. Thanks for reminding me to take a gander. In Sanctum, the Flyers take some pretty weird paths to the Core, which is why I always have some scatter lasers and anti-air turrets in the back row, plus I usually sniper the Flyers before they even get close.

I never got into this game, it just never seemed to appeal to me. Anyone care to elaborate as to why they like it??

 

It's a really solid Roguelite/Shmup. When it first released there wasn't much to it, but since the Wrath of the Lamb expansion (and now Rebirth), it's surprisingly well-balanced and fun. It's actually up there with DoD and Don't Starve as my favourite games of all.

I find myself in the weird position where I hate the theme and aesthetic, but love the gameplay. I ahte the aesthetic in Rebirth even more (jaggy edges don't appeal to me). And, tbh, I'm finding some balance issues that didn't exist in the other game, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm not used to it or some things are actually broken (For example, Soy Milk bullets don't seem to do enough damage to defeat the special resurrecting mooks.

 

And I'm back in Morrowind, this time with some great graphical mods that add distant lands! I will often sit and listen to the soundtrack as a way to relax, and that sucked me right back in. Time for my Argonian Spearsman to explore the little island all around Vvardenfell again.

 

Got an Arcen bundle (oddly without AI War) and started playing A Valley Without Wind. It's unconventional as heck and I love it. Still no idea what I'm doing but hey that's Arcen.

 

I've been playing Endless Legend, and enjoying it quite a bit (which is a bit weird, because I bounced off of Age of Wonders III). I really like the aesthetic, and the interface is really slick. I particularly like how the game looks looks a bit like a cardboard model of another world, thanks to right-angle cliffs, blocky, colourful world design, and novel use of short focal distance (the same technique that tilt-shift photography uses to make aerial photos of real-world cities look like someone's model train diorama).

 

My partner brought Smash Up home today. I can't wait to play it tonight after I get my work done!!