What have you been playing recently?

[Nanor]

I'm making this thread so people can come along and say a few things on a game they've been playing recently.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

I quite enjoyed Far Cry 3. It was a visually impressive game, the guns were numerous and gun play was quite fun. My niggles were the story wasn't all that. It was passable but it didn't rope me in. What I think they really missed out on was allied NPCs; if they had brought in being able to launch an attack on an enemy camp with a few of your NPC buddies I'd probably have played it a lot more.

When Blood Dragon was released I still hadn't finished FC3 so I didn't pick it up. About a week ago it appeared on the weekend sale where I could get it and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger for a tenner so I picked it up figuring they've taken FC3 and expanded upon it. They haven't. The intro is incredibly unsatisfying. It starts with you in a blackhawk using a minigun to tear through chumps to Long Tall Sally for about a minute, then you're dropped and given a quick tutorial one the core mechanics and sent in to take out the guys in the base.

You have four weapons; machine pistol, assault rifle, sniper rifle and shotgun. When the gunplay started I elected for the assault rifle as my main weapon. It was terrible. The recoil was off the chart, bullets didn't seem to do much damage even though they seemed to be lasers and I kept thinking "I can't wait to upgrade this to something much better!". Fast forward about 20 minutes of, to it's credit, pretty witty and entertaining story and voice acting and I've lost all my weapons and all I have is a bow and arrow and I meet the namesake of the game: the Blood Dragons. Scary beasts that you can lure using hearts from your enemies to clear enemy garrisons for you. Pretty cool in fairness; a nice mechanic.

Ten minutes go past and I'm out of the intro mission and free to do as I please. I've been reacquainted with my weapons and I figure I'll start upgrading them. Upgrades work differently from FC3. In BD you get attachments from completing little side quests. A great reason for you to actually do them because in FC3 I just didn't bother. My first mission is to rescue a scientist (your allies) from a bunch of guys that have held him hostage. In return, I get a silencer. So I get up to the area and figure I'll pick a few of them off with my sniper rifle. Two are beside each other. I can take them down in a second. POW. POW. That's not the case. More like POW! Pull bolt back, chamber a round, back down the sights, oh he's gone. What the hell? I could have sworn this was a semi-auto. No matter, I'll close the distance picking them off with my laser blasting assault rifle. Ugh has this rifle gotten more inaccurate? Is it doing less damage? Maybe these guys are just more powerful. The lasers I'm firing are distinctively less laser-y. Semi-auto shotgun time! Oh, you're not semi-auto? I see what's happened here. I started with the best, fully upgraded weapons. I have to work my way back up to that wank. My god.

I stand atop the hill and decide to take in a view like I did in FC3. I look across the countryside and I get something akin to this. I can't see shit! What am I looking at here? BROWN. I open my menu to look at the new perks they have for leveling up. I'm level 5 and haven't chosen any. I open up the skills list and not only do I find that the skills are identical to the ones in FC3 but there's a linear progression through them. If you want a certain skill you're going to have to wait 'til you hit that level.

So what are you left with? A reskinned (and not for the better) version of FC3 with linear progression which would be alright if the gunplay was fun and the weapons were varied but they're not. Not a fan.

 

[Traxata]

That game was an April Fools thing, IIRC.

 

[Ronin Storm]

XCOM: Enemy Within

I'd been playing The Long War mod for the original XCOM. The additional options were great: double the number of classes, two extra team members from the start leading to a max squad size of 8 not 6, robotic units that felt actually useful (especially given troop recovery times) and generally a sense that you were in for a more epic run. But then the casualties started mounting. Squad wipes became a regular thing after Mutons arrived. Even with four starting interceptors, keeping even one on ready-5 was proving to be near impossible. And the game's "dice" felt like they loved the aliens and hated me. Sectoid firing from half way across the map with its crappy plasma pistol? Critical hit, dead marine, then chain panic leading to three other squad members being useless. Sergeant assault trooper firing his shotgun at point blank with 95% chance to hit? Miss completely, then get pwned by the same alien he should have butchered...

Anyway, I fell out with XCOM for a bit. I then happened upon The Long War mod page again and noticed they'd updated it with the dubious praise that it was one of the most brutal mods of all time. Explains a lot, which made me think that maybe I wasn't enjoying The Long War, not XCOM itself. A little experiment after removing the mod confirmed it, and then that made Enemy Within more appealing.

Turns out it's a significant improvement on the original game. The headline changes are the addition of cybernetics and genetic modifications for the XCOM operatives. The whole cybernetics thing is fairly gruesome (involves limb amputations) but the results leave a solder able to control a full body power suit that reminds me as much of mecha anime as anything, but in the XCOM theme. The genetics are more subtle, turning operatives into something more akin to super soldiers. I'll be honest: every gene modified trooper I put in the field dies horribly, so I can't say I'm impressed with their improvements, but maybe that's just this game. However the power suits (called MECs) work wonders.

Initially I put Squaddies (the first rank after recruit and the lowest allowed for MECs and gene modifications) in for mechanisation, but after losing my second I was beginning to wonder about the effectiveness of either advancement. Fortunately, if you don't lose the mission you get to recover the power armour even if the pilot dies, albeit in need of repair. I was then wondering about putting one of my more advanced soldiers (a Major, the second highest rank) in for gene modification and accidentally sent her for mechanisation. You can't undo the choice, it turns out, so I was stuck with it. (I can imagine the look on the trooper's face when they showed up expecting injections and instead out came the bone saws...) Turns out that decent troopers translate into decent MECs as they keep their rank and thus unlock a whole series of MEC pilot upgrades immediately. World, meet Vasquez, my heavy-come-MEC who can crush with the left hand and lay waste with the right's minigun. Reminds me of a WH40K dreadnaught.

So, having more fun with those, but actually that's ignoring the aspect of the game that I appreciate most: the addition of EXALT and their associated missions. EXALT appear to be an armed faction opposed to XCOM and may or may not be alien sympathisers. In any case, they're a human enemy intent that frequently sabotages XCOMs efforts. Every so often, or if you spend monies to root them out, you can send one of your troopers on a covert mission. After a few game days, the trooper radios for extraction leading to one of the new mission types where you face EXALT in the field. The cool thing is that you get your squad entering the map as usual, but you also have your covert operative with just their equipment pouches and a pistol (no armour or primary weapon!) somewhere deep on the map and well exposed. There's a "defend the points" type of mission, and a "active the switches" mission, each with a different emphasis on the covert guy and team tactics. At times, I'd even believe these missions are more fun than the standard versus aliens missions.

Then there's the other bits: the cannisters of Meld that you need to collect from alien missions that fuel the creation of gene mod and MEC troopers; the medals awarded that act as little boosters for the receiving unit, but you choose who to award them to (and they're lost, obviously, on that trooper's death); lots more basic map types leading to very little reuse; increased emphasis on autopsies and interrogations to get more tech for your gene mods and MECs; access to better weapons from your fallen EXALT foes. I'm sure there's other stuff I've omitted to mention.

All in all, I approve. I'm playing on Normal Ironman, which is generally allowing me to win while still taking some key casualties on facing the tough enemies (Sectoid powersuits, for example, which killed both my best troopers in the same mission when we encountered them for the first time). I'd say it's a pretty obvious improvement for anyone who likes XCOM. I felt that £20 was a little much for the expansion and honestly still do. I got it for £16 from GreenManGaming with one of their near-ubiquitous money off codes. I'd say that was about right.

 

[Nanor]

I'll be picking this up come the Steam Christmas sales I reckon.

 

[BiG D]

I briefly considered writing an essay on TF2 here, but I'll spare you.

I'm also playing... Fallout 3??

 

[Haven]

I am mostly playing:
* Catch the naked toddler who escaped his nappy and doesn't want a new one putting on. Bonus points if you do it before they make a mess on the floor.
* Find the sick. Using only your nose locate the source of the smell *hint its usually on your back!*
* Sing yourself to sleep whilst the loveable cherubs bounce hyperactively around the room as you snore on the floor next to their bed.

I'm pretty sure I've levelled and there really should be some sort of "achievement unlocked" status on my steam board

 

[Nanor]

I briefly considered writing an essay on TF2 here, but I'll spare you.

I'm also playing... Fallout 3??

Are you replaying it vanilla or with mods? I was thinking of giving it another go and I've replayed New Vegas enough times.

 

[Iron_fist]

For me currently, A daily dose of Guild Wars 2 with a dash of working towards 100% completion of Borderlands and Torchlight as well as some SpaceChem, Catan or Ticket to Ride on my N7 on the bus

Next up on the list are probably a load of 2's... Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2, HL2:EP2

Should really finish Fallout 3 at some point too, got to galaxy radio, but then went exploring and got to max level

 

[BiG D]

Are you replaying it vanilla or with mods? I was thinking of giving it another go and I've replayed New Vegas enough times.

Vanilla. I never finished it the first time because it was terrible. I'm almost having fun this time, though it may be Stockholm Syndrome.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Vanilla. I never finished it the first time because it was terrible. I'm almost having fun this time, though it may be Stockholm Syndrome.

Given that prior experience, what on earth possessed you to play it again?!

 

[BiG D]

Given that prior experience, what on earth possessed you to play it again?!

Chatting about it with a friend, combined with some sort of naive hope Bethesda patched out all the technical problems.

 

[Nanor]

Chatting about it with a friend, combined with some sort of naive hope Bethesda patched out all the technical problems.

Have they? Are you enjoying it?

This is the worst first date I've ever had.

 

[BiG D]

No and meh, respectively.

 

[Nanor]

Ronin, I need you to do that thing where you ring me at dinner and tell me there's an emergency so I can leave this dinner.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Something like "OMG my pants are on fire!" kinda thing?

Returning to the topic...

Cook, Serve, Delicious!

I think of it as a blend between Diner Dash and Pizza Tycoon. There's the between days planning bit where you have as much time as you want to figure out what you'll have on your menu and what equipment or new recipes to buy in. Then there's the working day bit where people come in and ask for foods and you've got a limited time to prepare and serve the dishes. The working day is something of a blend between a typing game -- hit the right keys, sometimes in the right order, based on the recipe and what variation the customer wants -- a rhythm game -- knowing that a salad with ranch dressing and everything on it is RBOMG helps the flow -- and a crisis management game -- the first person in may have an easy order, where the last person in may need serving first.

It's chaos and amusing for stretches of 15-20 minutes at a run, or an hour or more if you get in your flow with the meal prep. There's some real pressure in the days, especially during the two rush hours, as customers pile in five at once and their orders may all vary or, sometimes worse, all be exactly the same and screwing your keys up might serve customer 3 their meal underdone and customer 5's order might then burn...

Also, there's chores to do, which vary in frequency based on your menu (salads use a lot of bowls, so you need to do more washing up, where fish attracts rodents, so you need to keep the traps primed). Doing a chore takes up a serving slot and thus earns you no money, but failing to do it lowers your restaurants "buzz" for the following day, thus reducing customers. Doing everything really well increases buzz, increasing customers. It's a neatly self-balancing system; if you constantly screw up, you get less customers, which gives you more time, which helps you screw up less.

It's certainly a game this crowd would call "casual" but the pseudo-rhythm and crisis blend combine neatly and compellingly. Worth a look if this sort of thing can amuse you.

 

[BiG D]

Second a recommendation for CSD. The iPad version is pretty great.

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

I bought and played Farcry 3 Blood Dragon, I have to say I had a very different experience, other than the end where you become * ****, the game was a lot of fun for me. I would say the story was very short, and I reached a high level before doing it. In total the game took 6 hours, like a throw back to 10 years ago. I don't know how many hours Nanor played of Farcry 3, but I suspect that is why some of the features irked you?

I have not played Farcry 3, I read on FPS there were/are issues with the way saving works, and it has gathering ugh. So given how short Blood Dragon is, I am glad I played it first.

 

[Ronin Storm]

I played quite a lot of FC3 and enjoyed it, but I often felt like I didn't much care for the story. It has the "save everyone" schtick that I should like, but then it also has dislikeable characters throughout and that's probably what dampened that for me. After making it to the second island I stopped. Just ran out of steam.

Honestly, the gathering can be treated as an afterthought. I think that, for the most partly, I only had to put effort into hunting sharks for some expanded holster or something. The rest of the wildlife and plants I either stumbled across, or ended up murdering as they tried to eat me. It wasn't any more onerous than any other collect-the-things optional quests and certainly not a good reason to put the game aside.

I guess my main criticism of Far Cry, in general, is that the games are as much about marvelling at the wonderful scenery (and the CryEngine tech behind that) as they are about game, and that means when you've seen your fifth cool sunrise and your fifth camp of enemies they start to feel the same as the ones before. They were certainly cool to start with, but it's the exact same thrill each time.

 

[Ki!ler-Mk1]

Actually FC2 and 3 only use cryengine derivatives.

Given that fc2 took me 96 hours of repetitive bug ridden but not un-entertaining gameplay, if fc3 is anything like that, improved graphics cants save it for me, I may never play it.

 

[Cookalarcha]

I'll be picking this up come the Steam Christmas sales I reckon.

Same here, my cousin has it and it looks sweet. Took me about 4 restarts to get the hang of Vanilla XCOM.
Other than that just playing DOTA 2 and by the end of next week I will have a PS4 to play with.