What are you playing?

[shadowblade34]

Metro 2033. I'm loving it, scary and intense. I think I'm about halfway through now.

[Dragon]

Metro 2033. I'm loving it, scary and intense. I think I'm about halfway through now.

Then be happy as it gets shittier the longer it goes with the ending totally sucking balls. Hopefully in the sequel they deliver what they planed. The graphics is good and the setting engaging but the rail-shooter approach, the QTEs thrown in randomly (especially towards the end) and the nearly non-existent story kills it. If they take the design crap out of it in the sequel and keep what is good I'm on it. In the mean time go play Stalker SoC or CoP. Graphic wise no where near M2033 but story wise and gameplay wise beats it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the save system is the biggest abomination I've seen since a long time. Whoever did that deserves to die (or never allowed to ever make a game again).

[AEmer]

I bought evil genius for steams midweek 75% off sale.

2,5€ for a game that's really cool. It's really well made, excellent product quality, great feel.

It's also alternative and relatively hard....but f'in great.

I bought that dirt cheap awhile ago on GOG. I like that game, I never did wrap it!

Can't remember what I paid for it on GOG, it was on sale.

More times then not Steam can beat GOG sales...

It can be hard yo!

I've been slowly figuring things out, but I didn't _quite_ get how powerful a mechanic the heat system is...as it turns out, get too much heat and you'll get a squad of exceptional soldiers to come by for a visit, and _my god_ do they mess you up. Which is fair, but seriously...you need to really watch the heat.

Also, it looks like I've made a few poor base design decisions...oh well.

But its a really fun game. Very creative.

[Jane_Denton]

Metro 2033. I'm loving it, scary and intense. I think I'm about halfway through now.

Love that game!!! Wrapped it a couple of months back. So looking forward 2 coming out!

I love the STALKER series, and how Metro has the feel of that series but with the straight forward shooter design.

Also, it looks like I've made a few poor base design decisions...oh well.

But its a really fun game. Very creative.

Made those mistakes as well. But it is fun!

I suppose if I checked a walkthrough of it, or used cheats I'd wrap it. I hate using cheats though with games because I don't feel like I accomplished anything...

[shadowblade34]

Metro 2033. I'm loving it, scary and intense. I think I'm about halfway through now.

Then be happy as it gets shittier the longer it goes with the ending totally sucking balls. Hopefully in the sequel they deliver what they planed. The graphics is good and the setting engaging but the rail-shooter approach, the QTEs thrown in randomly (especially towards the end) and the nearly non-existent story kills it. If they take the design crap out of it in the sequel and keep what is good I'm on it. In the mean time go play Stalker SoC or CoP. Graphic wise no where near M2033 but story wise and gameplay wise beats it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the save system is the biggest abomination I've seen since a long time. Whoever did that deserves to die (or never allowed to ever make a game again).

Well, the thing is, the story is fine with me as I've already read the book, so I kinda know what's happening. I've been playing it quite stealthily, so it doesn't feel like a rail-shooter to me. It's more about the atmosphere and feeling I get when playing it, that I also got in the STALKER games.

[Dragon]

Metro 2033. I'm loving it, scary and intense. I think I'm about halfway through now.

Then be happy as it gets shittier the longer it goes with the ending totally sucking balls. Hopefully in the sequel they deliver what they planed. The graphics is good and the setting engaging but the rail-shooter approach, the QTEs thrown in randomly (especially towards the end) and the nearly non-existent story kills it. If they take the design crap out of it in the sequel and keep what is good I'm on it. In the mean time go play Stalker SoC or CoP. Graphic wise no where near M2033 but story wise and gameplay wise beats it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the save system is the biggest abomination I've seen since a long time. Whoever did that deserves to die (or never allowed to ever make a game again).

Well, the thing is, the story is fine with me as I've already read the book, so I kinda know what's happening. I've been playing it quite stealthily, so it doesn't feel like a rail-shooter to me. It's more about the atmosphere and feeling I get when playing it, that I also got in the STALKER games.

Where is the stealth in this game? There are two map places with explicit "don't walk over glass or they hear you" places but otherwise stealth boils down to you using the air gun or "not". For stealth you need more than one corridor to walk through like pulled by a string. And in the tons of monster-wave situations there exists no stealth at all. That's the major problem with 2033. It's an awful narrow rail-shooter. Besides if you don't know the book one inch the story is non-existent and atmosphere is zero because there is no word nowhere about the world, situation, people, whatever. It's bland and generic with you having no clue what the hell this is all supposed to be or why the hell people are doing the nonsense they are doing.

[AEmer]

Made those mistakes as well. But it is fun!

I suppose if I checked a walkthrough of it, or used cheats I'd wrap it. I hate using cheats though with games because I don't feel like I accomplished anything...

Well, you can use various strategies. By now, it's clear to me that building up some immense wealth before your notoriety becomes too high is key. Simply put, you'll want money in the bank for contingencies. A good way to do this is to steal a little bit from each of the major factions....you put in some social minons and som military minions and you go nuts with the stealing. Mercernaries and spindoctors are really good for this. Just put like 3 of each in each of the wealthies regions, and you'll generate so little heat that you'll be fine. You'll want to push some cash towards replenishing your minions, and you'll want to be able to keep educating 3 mercernaries and 3 spin doctors at the same time, and the same for valets and guards...that way, you get a steady trickle of cash, and a steady trickle of robbers, and you can replenish your robbers as they get killed every 5-10 minutes or so.

Then you can spend your time messing around with base and trap design. It costs some money, but traps can be stored in corridors, so you can make a little trap supply closset (or just put 'em in your hallways) while you mess around so you don't have to buy and sell all the time.

But yeah, keep 20 spin doctors and 20 mercs for stealing and education, and you can still have 60 other minions to mess around with.

Of course, the front base design is like, the biggest deal, biggest part of your defenses. If you can make sure that investigators very rarely make it far enough in that they see anything suspicious, you won't really need insane traps.

[Jane_Denton]

Metro 2033. I'm loving it, scary and intense. I think I'm about halfway through now.

Then be happy as it gets shittier the longer it goes with the ending totally sucking balls. Hopefully in the sequel they deliver what they planed. The graphics is good and the setting engaging but the rail-shooter approach, the QTEs thrown in randomly (especially towards the end) and the nearly non-existent story kills it. If they take the design crap out of it in the sequel and keep what is good I'm on it. In the mean time go play Stalker SoC or CoP. Graphic wise no where near M2033 but story wise and gameplay wise beats it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the save system is the biggest abomination I've seen since a long time. Whoever did that deserves to die (or never allowed to ever make a game again).

Well, the thing is, the story is fine with me as I've already read the book, so I kinda know what's happening. I've been playing it quite stealthily, so it doesn't feel like a rail-shooter to me. It's more about the atmosphere and feeling I get when playing it, that I also got in the STALKER games.

Where is the stealth in this game? There are two map places with explicit "don't walk over glass or they hear you" places but otherwise stealth boils down to you using the air gun or "not". For stealth you need more than one corridor to walk through like pulled by a string. And in the tons of monster-wave situations there exists no stealth at all. That's the major problem with 2033. It's an awful narrow rail-shooter. Besides if you don't know the book one inch the story is non-existent and atmosphere is zero because there is no word nowhere about the world, situation, people, whatever. It's bland and generic with you having no clue what the hell this is all supposed to be or why the hell people are doing the nonsense they are doing.

Plenty of stealth tactics I used in Metro... one main one is keeping the silenced pistol in my inventory. I'd hide in a dark shadow and start shooting out the light bulbs at a distance. Then I could easily crouch and get closer to take out groups at a time with the pipe bombs with nails in it or something similar...

[Jonas]

I'm playing Arkham City. It's not as tight as Asylum, I'm typically a total sucker for open world games, but Arkham City doesn't feel like one, it feels like a regular hub-based game where the hub is just really big. The problem is, every level in Arkham Asylum was really meticulously designed, with all sorts of interesting movement paths, enemy patrol patterns, stealth opportunities, etc. etc. Everything felt extremely carefully designed, and that was really nice, every time you were in a fight, even if it was just a random brawl on your way to somewhere else, it felt like some designer had sat there and taken the time to plan out an interesting fight.

Now, most of the levels in Arkham City are the same, but the city itself isn't - rather than Arkham Asylum's 3 (I think it was?) separate hub maps that felt like genuine game levels, we get a big slightly haphazardly structured city with random fights more or less carelessly thrown in. Some of them are still fun and distinct, make no mistake, but most of the fights in the city just seem like filler, and when the enemies respawn it seems like it's just the exact same enemies as before (though I've noticed it isn't always).

I'm enjoying the game, just not as much as I enjoyed Asylum. Arkham City lacks... focus. But it's still a very kinetic game with mostly excellent level design, beautiful art direction, and solid acting. And now that I'm starting to unlock more of the different movement-related gadgets, it's picking up speed

[Dragon]

Plenty of stealth tactics I used in Metro... one main one is keeping the silenced pistol in my inventory. I'd hide in a dark shadow and start shooting out the light bulbs at a distance. Then I could easily crouch and get closer to take out groups at a time with the pipe bombs with nails in it or something similar...

I guess it can be debated if a pipe bomb fits in with stealth but I certainly used the light-bulb trick myself. I just learned soon though that the AI is totally brain-dead and that shooting light-bulbs has no real effect. They see/hear you as well with light as without (hence no Thief-effect). It's quite random. In my tests I could hide in plain sight or in shadows and the AI passed by me so close I could caught at them without me seeing or being miles away but spot me. If they fix the AI and make it actually respond to visuals properly in the sequel then I assume we've got a top notch game at our hands. Right now though there is very little information about the sequel. Or at least not enough for me to predict correctly how it turns out yet.

[Jaedar]

To the Moon: Despite not really being what I'd call a game, this was very good.

Atom Zombie Smasher: Decent enough, but massively unbalanced to the point where crushing defeat and utter victory can depend solely on the first mercenary you get randomed is. It also has huuuuuuge snowball problems.

Anno 2070 demo: Like anno 1404 with some interface changes and retexturing. Preordered it, which I'll probably wind up regretting after I find out what horrible DRM measures ubishit put into it.

[bobby 55]

With the crap going on in RL I hadn't felt like playing games much. On Friday I was tidying up and came across my STALKER: SoC disc. I decided to install it and in my search for patches I came across a mod, STALKER Complete 2009 (2012), which also was to have fixed some bugs among other things. Well, I fired up the game after patching and adding the mod Friday evening and I've been playing it ever since. I still get a crash, but certainly not nearly as many as I did when first trying to play it some time ago. It was a pretty challenging game early but now that I can afford a decent weapon, and found merc armor, things are looking up. It's an entertaining experience, and at times, chilling.

[Dragon]

Never heard of that mod. What does it change/add?

[bobby 55]

Never heard of that mod. What does it change/add?

It adds stuff like barmen can do repairs, fixes a few things mission wise (I think). It also improves the graphics but the game still has that bleak look about it.

This is from mod db: http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009

[Dragon]

Ah okay, that one. Remember playing it. Yeah, back then their game engine could not handle large amounts of objects and such so it all went a bit bleak. Fitted in though with the intended mood. Will be interesting to see what direction they take with this new Stalker game.