What game are you wasting time on?

[Ivan]

Unreal
some of the best enemy AI I've ever played against. Enemies will dodge, roll, shoot projectiles at where they think you will strafe to, exceptionally done. some of the levels feature needlessly labyrinthine layouts, weird since I enjoy the gunplay so much it kinda gets put on pause on some levels. sure, I wish the weapon cycling were faster, a lot of the guns feel underpowered, but this is a very enjoyable shooter. oh and the music is fantastic. the game just made me want to keep playing it, it's that fun. I'd love to see a modern version of this: unique weapons, alien world, intense enemy AI/

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Wasn't there some talk a while back about a new Unreal title? And I am not talking about Unreal Tournament but a Single Player Unreal.
Sadly if I remember correctly it was CliffyB suggesting it and I think he wanted Unreal to be more like Skyrim (one big continuous world) and that it would be some kind of reboot.

But if that just turns out to be my brain screwing with me (which it sometimes does) I would love to see a new Unreal title taking place on a distant alien world.


Unreal Na Pali was nice but it lacked some of the imagination of Unreal 1, Unreal 2 was a major disappointment though I liked some of the alien worlds shown in the game.

 

[Dux]

Finished Torchlight yesterday. Took me about seven hours in total and that's only because I "accidentally" missed a large portion of the game, i.e. the randomly generated quests. To be honest, I don't really know how to grade this game, so I simply won't. What I can say is that it suffers from the same problems of its sequel: weak story, WoW graphics and boring locales. The cartoonish WoW graphics might appeal to some people but I'm definately not one of them, I think they just detract from the experience. What Torchlight does well, however, is core gameplay. Simply put, it's a decent hack-n-slash, just like Torchlight 2. There is better hack-n-slash out there, though, as many are probably aware. Torchlight fails partly because it lacks punch. Having good hack-n-slash gameplay is just not enough - at least not for me. Path of Exile did it all better. The music was pretty damn good though and it only made me wonder what Torchlight (what a stupid title btw) COULD have been.

I also finished Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. It was enjoyable, as I remembered. Lots of lightsaber duels to be had. The characters - except for Kyle Katarn - are all pretty retarded though. At times it seemed like Kyle was in charge of a "special" group or something. The game is not as good as its predecessor, which benefitted of having a player character that was actually likable. Jaden is such a dork. Luke too, for that matter. Rosh Penis is just a blight on two legs.

I rate it a

I've just started playing Gothic and I'm having some fun, for sure. I've already had one classic Gothic moment and it made me grin quite widely. I had gone around killing scavengers with my shitty sword, feeling somewhat confident and then I spied a wolf blocking my path. I thought to myself: "I got this".

I was killed in one hit. :D

 

[octavius]

Still playing Strife: Veteran Edition, and getting pretty tired of it.
I'm out of money, armour and getting low on healling and ammo (playing on one above default difficulty).
Stealth is a joke; you can kill enemes if plain sight of cameras and robots. All that matter is that you use poison bolts.
Levels are large and mostly doesn't really look like real places.
But I've got 180 out of 200 in Accuracy and Stamina, so I guess I'm nearing the end.

 

[Ivan]

Sin
going through the classic FPS games and this was next. the gunplay is really fun. It's using the Quake 2 engine, there is a lot of blood and what really makes the game for me is that there is some really funny dialogue to back everything up. IMO this protagonist is up there with Lo Wang and Duke. The aiming reticle is a little floaty, ammo is pretty scarce at times, but the game is very solid fun. Levels are straightforward, with some difficulty spikes here and there. It has much more character than Quake 2 and is worth a look, especially since it's pretty short.


Wages of Sin
sewer level, check, warehouse level, check, recycled boss fights, spongy final boss w/2 phases check.
same gunplay, solid levels, fewer bullshit snipers, more office environs make npcs getting stuck behind/essentially blocking you, much more common and infuriating. I was hoping for better.

 

[Ivan]

Unreal: Return To Na Pali

holy shit, I had low expectations for this considering it wasn't developed fully by Epic but goddamn this good. this is the definitive Unreal experience. it totally fixes my main gripes with the main game: uneedless labyrinthine levels+infinitely respawning enemy gauntlets (usually until you reach a room or pull a switch). This expansion focuses solely on the gunplay making it an absolute blast. The soundtrack is still fantastic. This is easily one of the finest campaigns I've played.




why don't we do a Codex 50 Best FPS? this would surely be high up there

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Finished yesterday:

Will probably start tonight:

 

[Cadmus]

Played Medal of Honor Allied Assault because I always were curious to play this game and got reminded of it by Ivan's post, game is linear and have some pretty BS difficulty moments but the gameplay is fast, the variety of missions is great and the shooting is pretty fun with enemies bodies reacting to being shot on different parts on different ways. Medal of Honor is a second world war FPS but it still isn't enterely on the corridor shooter bandwagon, the levels while being linear, they don't feel constricting like artificial stages for explosions and "awesome" shit for you to watch while "playing" like most single player FPS games are today. The focus was mostly still on the shooting and the Dudebro demographic armageddon was still on the infancy.

Medal of Honor had alot of levels but what it is interesting is that one of the worst, the D Day landing level got praised, The D Day level on Medal of Honor is a nightmare of scripting and trying "playing" the designers little movie, it got so much praised on how "cinematic" it was that all FPS that came afterwards were made by people which only dream was to make more grandiose scripted sequences than the D Day landing to the point of the modern FPS games where there isn't a single mission that doesn't try to out do the last one on how scripted and "cinematic" it is. Yeah, people are dumb.

I played MoH and CoD back to back when they came out and CoD felt shitty while MoH felt great. It was the dawn of the cinematix shit games but MoH was still a shooter. The worst thing they did was have your body twitch upon getting hit, I hate this fucking mechanic. That D-Day level was great, you just couldn't have seen something like this at that time. Now of course it's annoying as shit and called the harbinger of decline, which it was, but back then...
I should replay it some day to see if it's really good. I remember the M1 Garand rifle being really awesome in this game.

 

[Mustawd]

Playing Voidspire tactics and breaking it up with a bit of FTL when I wabt to kill some time.

Also, felt like a bit of RTS, so I fired up Z for the first time. After two missions the gameplay and interface seem pretty awful. But the game has some personality, so I'll probably finish it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Picked Star Wars Galaxies, currently sitting in a med center healing wounds that would take me seconds to heal if I could afford it.

This must have been enormously group/guild dependent back then.

 

[J_C]

Played Medal of Honor Allied Assault because I always were curious to play this game and got reminded of it by Ivan's post, game is linear and have some pretty BS difficulty moments but the gameplay is fast, the variety of missions is great and the shooting is pretty fun with enemies bodies reacting to being shot on different parts on different ways. Medal of Honor is a second world war FPS but it still isn't enterely on the corridor shooter bandwagon, the levels while being linear, they don't feel constricting like artificial stages for explosions and "awesome" shit for you to watch while "playing" like most single player FPS games are today. The focus was mostly still on the shooting and the Dudebro demographic armageddon was still on the infancy.

Medal of Honor had alot of levels but what it is interesting is that one of the worst, the D Day landing level got praised, The D Day level on Medal of Honor is a nightmare of scripting and trying "playing" the designers little movie, it got so much praised on how "cinematic" it was that all FPS that came afterwards were made by people which only dream was to make more grandiose scripted sequences than the D Day landing to the point of the modern FPS games where there isn't a single mission that doesn't try to out do the last one on how scripted and "cinematic" it is. Yeah, people are dumb.

I played MoH and CoD back to back when they came out and CoD felt shitty while MoH felt great. It was the dawn of the cinematix shit games but MoH was still a shooter. The worst thing they did was have your body twitch upon getting hit, I hate this fucking mechanic. That D-Day level was great, you just couldn't have seen something like this at that time. Now of course it's annoying as shit and called the harbinger of decline, which it was, but back then...
I should replay it some day to see if it's really good. I remember the M1 Garand rifle being really awesome in this game.

No, no no, CoD's Stalingrad level puts the whole MoH to shame. CoD1>>>>MoH1.

 

[DeepOcean]

No, no no, CoD's Stalingrad level puts the whole MoH to shame. CoD1>>>>MoH1.

I don't remember CoD 1 that well, maybe I should replay it but wasn't it like MoH minus the fun shooting and level design + Michael Bay explosiums like the modern ones?

 

[Rabbid]

CoD's Stalingrad copies the film "Enemy at the Gates". It felt really nice and cinematic up to the point were the player gets a sniper (right after the charge in the beginning of the second level). After that you can keep killing the (endlessly respawning) germans that defend the bunker because you refuse to progress to the next checkpoint. Zaitsev has got nothing on mt. doritos anyway.

 

[Cadmus]

No, no no, CoD's Stalingrad level puts the whole MoH to shame. CoD1>>>>MoH1.

Nooo, it was a bad attempt at the D-Day scene coupled with the worse shooting of CoD. Plus there was that fucking annoying part where you're in the house with infinite hordes of enemies. Come to think of it, there was lots of places with infinite waves of enemies until you passed a trigger, I don't remember it being so bad in MoH. It was really transparent and annoying.

 

[DeepOcean]

No, no no, CoD's Stalingrad level puts the whole MoH to shame. CoD1>>>>MoH1.

Nooo, it was a bad attempt at the D-Day scene coupled with the worse shooting of CoD. Plus there was that fucking annoying part where you're in the house with infinite hordes of enemies. Come to think of it, there was lots of places with infinite waves of enemies until you passed a trigger, I don't remember it being so bad in MoH. It was really transparent and annoying.

Yep, I forgot, CoD had infinite spawn until you pass a trigger, that is shitty design right there. I remember now there was a moment on United Offensive, the expansion, where you defend an abandoned french house, I wasn't understanding why there was no end to the germans that wave after wave commited suicide trying to storm it, the whole floor was full of bodies and I wasn't understanding why they didn't stop, until I discovered you needed to destroy a tank that I didn't notice for them to stop spawning.

 

[Rabbid]

The UO expansion was indeed terrible in that respect. The level you mention was really fun for that reason though. I remember camping in the entrance of the house and after some time there were so many bodies that I couldn't see the new enemies entering the room.

And the house was probably in Belgium cause the campaign is about the battle of the Bulge and the events during the siege of Bastogne iirc

 

[Sranchammer]

I...I don't know.

 

[pippin]

I'm now ready to play 1337 hours of Darkest Dungeon!

 

[Mustawd]

 

[Ivan]

Heretic

it's a doom clone with very little character and charm of its own. the enemies, the guns, mostly everything is underwhelming, though it does introduce an inventory system where you can hold onto powerups or healing potions. My favorite one is a projectile that turns enemies to chickens (not unlike Duke's shrink gun). Level are your typical find key to progress, or hit a switch and good luck figuring out what it did. It's very fun to play nonetheless. I'm at Episode 5 and seeing as how it was released after the original game, I can see how they got lazy and upped the challenge by throwing Serious Sam numbers of enemies at you. Solid but nothing remarkable.


onto Hexen!

 

[Trash]

Finally finished Wolfenstein: The New Order. Had it sitting in my steam library after some forgotten sale and decided I could use a simple shooter. And hey, I actually enjoyed it. Some great levels, fun gameplay and decent mechanics gave me a surprisingly decent experience. Didn't really enjoy the final boss fight, but I got to admit that it was a challenge. Must be my fading reflexes or something. Anyway, recommended for an fps. Am certainly going to pick up Wolfenstein: The Old Breed if I ever see it on a sale. Looks like they really went for the b-movie vibe with that one.

Am now going to make another dent in The Witcher 3. Game is massive and I still haven't played through the main story. Not to mention the two expansions that have been released. On the other hand, that scummvm playlist is also waiting.

 

[MediantSamuel]

Took a bit of a break from life for a few months and ended up burning precious time on shit like League of Legends, dark days those were..

Recently found time to play Dark Messiah of Might and Magic again, though (third playthrough.)

I still enjoy this game despite the fact it's starting to show its age. I completely forgot how much of the game you spend on that island scurrying through tunnels though (70%?), a segment I thought was shorter.

Bad:

• The two blatant "love" interests that casually "flirt" with the player character are blatantly shoe-horned in and vexing. Leanna is probably one of the most annoying basic bitches of video gaming. "Oh Sareth, you came back for me desu senpai!" Kill me.
• Enemy variety is lacking.
• Combat is pretty lackluster when fighting some of the various boss type enemies the game has to offer (i.e. liches.. well, pretty much just liches, yeah.)
• Those fucking floating beholder-wannabe things.
• Level design is serviceable for the most part. Straight up bad in certain areas.
• Ugly in places.

Good:

• That kick, tho.
• Combat against other humanoid enemies is good and usually pretty fast paced.
• Decent amount of interesting-ish loot.
• Reasonably interesting set pieces.
• Rope-arrows.
• Isn't Skyrim.

Currently trying to play Witcher 3 on and off as well as starting my third playthrough of Underrail tonight. Smatterings of Total War: Warhammer also.

 

[Ivan]

Star Wars: Dark Forces

an excellent FPS feauting satisfying death animations, awesome guns, realistic environments, and great music. difficulty done right: mainly affects enemy placement (though surprise mines+turrets are bullshit).


ran it with XL mod and ran into 2 bugs: i couldn't pick up energy weapons, and the final boss wouldn't spawn so I had to watch the ending.

 

[octavius]

Star Wars: Dark Forces

ran it with XL mod and ran into 2 bugs: i couldn't pick up energy weapons, and the final boss wouldn't spawn so I had to watch the ending.

What about the lack of alternate fire?

 

[Soulcucker]

Star Wars: Dark Forces

ran it with XL mod and ran into 2 bugs: i couldn't pick up energy weapons, and the final boss wouldn't spawn so I had to watch the ending.

What about the lack of alternate fire?

The 'r' key works as alt fire for most weapons, thermal detonators are bugged though. From what I read the guy working on the XL engine will have that bug fixed (along with altfire mapable to the mouse) with the next release along with having the game render in true 3D. True 3D rendering will make the turrets less bullshity since you will not have to vertically compensate your shots so much.