🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 02 Oct 2016 02:26:47 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>What have you been playing... IN SEPTEMBER 2016?

Late Summer Holidays got in the way this month, so I've not had too
much time to play (poor me!)

ReCore - a somewhat buggy but reasonably enjoyable third person
shooter/action/adventure game from (some of) the makers of Metroid
Prime (my favourite ever Nintendo shooters). The game lacks polish and
at times is inexcusably buggy, but when it works it's fun enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH4W0fVy17g



Quantum Break (now also available via Steam)

I bought this game via the Windows Store. It's a really enjoyable 3rd
person shooter with a decent story and extremely high production
values throughout. I love the fluid combat and the way that the cut
scenes tell the story. I enjoy the time manipulation mechanics and
particularly appreciate that their strategic use is vital to
progressing through each level. You can't just blast your way through
this game, which is something that I really like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIsUheroYc0




No Man's Sky

Probably the most controversial game for a good many years. I have
played 154 hours so far. I have started again a number of times. I
think I have most of the game mechanics sorted out in my mind now. I
have the maximum number of slots available in my exosuit at last. I
have a nice starship that flies and fights well. 

I will continue to seek out upgrade ships with more slots. I have
several million credits to spend. This will be my last character and
this is the character that I will use to travel to the centre of the
galaxy to 'experience' what is alleged to be one of gaming's greatest
anticlimaxes.


I will visit some blue planets and look for rich environments and
interesting creatures. Both of which allegedly exist but I have yet to
find any. I will get my V1, V2, and V3 Atlas Pass recipes before
heading for that great 'meh' in the (No Man's) Sky.

That'll probably be the end of the game for me. It will probably take
me over the 200 hour mark. I paid £40 for the game so I possibly
shouldn't complain.

I will keep reading the various NMS sub reddits. They are interesting
for contrasting reasons. Some of the posts are well thought out and
intelligent, others are toxic spewings of hate that just make you
wonder what on earth the person behind the keyboard is really like.

Gamers are an odd bunch at times. One person recently posted to say
that just after the 200 hour mark he suddenly realised that he'd had
enough of the game and felt cheated by the lack of content versus the
$60 he'd paid for the game. 

I think 200 hours is a decent amount of entertainment for a video
game. I think the MMO culture has spoiled us and we now expect our
single player games to last us for years in the same way as an MMO can
sometimes do. 

I bought quite a few games in September including Planet Nomads and
Osiris: New Dawn (I suppose the latter actually belongs in October but
I bought it in September before it was released).

I really like the look of Osiris, a game (like Planet Nomads) that
appeals to me because it reminds me of No Man's Sky. I shall play it
today and see if it is as good as it looks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmzsw_Ut5kU



For the first month ever I have not played Planetside 2 (admittedly
due to lack of time). I shall have to fix that during October.

-- 
Rob

>What have you been playing... IN SEPTEMBER 2016?

    After completing Witcher2, I've put off starting another big RPG, and 
picked out a few titles from scrolling through the steam backlog:

    Tron 2.0!
This game is 13yrs old! but looks and plays beautifully on modern machines, 
thanks to the 'vector graphics' neon artstyle, that's intended to look 
retro, and also to some dedicated fans and their unofficial patch & launcher 
(refer to the steam community guide for installation). I ran it at 1440p 
with no issues, and no glitches.

Most definitely a platformer, and you'll be spamming the quicksave button --  
I'd strongly suggest playing on Easy. But the real draw here is the writing. 
So many tongue-in-cheek computer jokes and jargon wordplay, that you'll be 
chuckling repeatedly, and there's a light-hearted tone that makes coming 
back for another gameplay session a joy; it strikes me as a very young-adult 
friendly game. The musical score is also well-done. Highly recommended!

    SOMA
I'll be vague to avoid any spoilers here, but SOMA is basically a really 
good science fiction novella, put into interactive game form.  The 
underwater base environments are believable, and the several deep-sea 
excursions your character takes are immersive and visceral.  There are some 
affecting end-of-life scenes, and numerous discussions between characters on 
the nature of being. The science fiction setting and touches of dark humor 
are a good vehicle for drawing the player in to the discussion, and 
instilling empathy for others.

Memories of a world lost forever are in every found personal item, and a 
pervasive melancholy is a constant undercurrent, but still there's a touch 
of, if not hope, then wonder?  This is a title that will stay with you for a 
long time:  Highly recommended!

In progress:
    Portal 2
    Resident Evil 6

rms 

Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>Well, that's another 30 days gone. I'm already missing summer but the
>cooler weather is undeniably encouraging me to stay inside and play
>more games, so I guess there's some benefit.
>
>Anyway, here we are again with our usual monthly thread. It's been a
>while, so let's do a quick who-what-where-when for any newcomers to
>the newsgroup. The idea here is to list out any games you've played
>over the last month, for the edification and amusement of your fellow
>c.s.i.p.g.a readers. I - and a number of others - like to share a few
>thoughts on those games - but feel free just to leave the list if you
>prefer. Given the nature of this newsgroup, we've all a preference for
>PC games but should your habit have taken you to the darker corners of
>the hobby, we'll turn a blind eye... this time ;-). The main idea is
>to keep the conversation focused on the games themselves.
>
>Look, it's simple. Here, watch; I'll go first.
<snip>

>In many ways, TR: Anniversary
>played too closely to the original (it's a remake of the first Tomb
>Raider game), and it felt very rough around the edges. Tomb Raider
>Underworld had a lot of problems too, but it hewed closer to modern
>game-play esthetics, and was the more fun for it.

I felt it was exactly the opposite - they took a great game which had
been designed very well indeed, with great level design and turned it
into a shallow piece of shit by their bolting on a mechanic they'd
invented for one of the later games - the grapple gun - which of course
requires you to leap off objects and only then fire the gun, leading to
instant death if you miss.   Who would do this in real life?

Worse yet they redesigned all the levels in order to bolt this on,
fucked up the T-rex fight by introducing the "adrenaline dodge" mechanic
which was never used again and so on.
A game which was not that consolish when it came out, converted to have
damn near every bad console meme that got added to the later games.

Pretty much a true "Hollywood" remake - fucking up pretty much
everything about the original in the quest to make it new.
I could imagine a remake of the Godfather, and Hollywood of course would
give it a Hip-Hop soundtrack so it would sound "fresh", forgetting of
course that it's set decades before hip-hop existed.

The original at least tried to have level design that was plausible, the
remake just screamed "THIS IS A GAME, DON'T EXPECT ANYTHING TO MAKE
SENSE!!!!!!!"

They put a lot of work into the first game, making logical and thought
and thinking your way through levels - and with the second game they
started slipping, and making it shallower.  

Swoopy videos when you start a level, showing you exactly where to go,
with interactable points for the gimmick-de-jour flashing and strobing
so you can't miss them.  No thought required.

By the 4th game they'd started making levels that made no sense - not,
Lara has to climb up the wall and across the ceiling because the
original way is blocked and she has to go around, but Lara has to do
that because that is the only way there is to go and never was any other
way.  
Which was rather like having ropes and ledges and jumps in a shopping
mall instead of escalators. (Not the escalators have collapsed and now
you have to do this, but put in instead of escalators expecting all the
shoppers to climb ropes and jump over chasms to get up to Target for the
back to school sale.)

With the 6th one they went completely off the rails and went full
console meme, and then of course added the quicktime events.

Should have had a warning sticker, "best played while stoned out of your
mind or brain damaged so you don't notice all the stupid shit we bolted
on in the name of being NEW without any thought to how it actually fit."

TR: Anniversary is the equivalent of a remake of The Godfather with a
Gangsta Rap soundtrack.   Never mind that the characters aren't black
and it's decades before that "music" would exist, it's the music of
today and what the kids want to hear, therefore it's the right music to
use even though it makes no logical sense for the setting.


>What have you been playing... IN SEPTEMBER 2016?

Pretty much just No Man's Sky.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

Mr Rob <noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>On Sun, 02 Oct 2016 02:26:47 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>What have you been playing... IN SEPTEMBER 2016?
>
>Late Summer Holidays got in the way this month, so I've not had too
>much time to play (poor me!)
>
>ReCore - a somewhat buggy but reasonably enjoyable third person
>shooter/action/adventure game from (some of) the makers of Metroid
>Prime (my favourite ever Nintendo shooters). The game lacks polish and
>at times is inexcusably buggy, but when it works it's fun enough.
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH4W0fVy17g
>
>
>
>Quantum Break (now also available via Steam)
>
>I bought this game via the Windows Store. It's a really enjoyable 3rd
>person shooter with a decent story and extremely high production
>values throughout. I love the fluid combat and the way that the cut
>scenes tell the story. I enjoy the time manipulation mechanics and
>particularly appreciate that their strategic use is vital to
>progressing through each level. You can't just blast your way through
>this game, which is something that I really like.
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIsUheroYc0
>
>
>
>
>No Man's Sky
>
>Probably the most controversial game for a good many years. I have
>played 154 hours so far. I have started again a number of times. I
>think I have most of the game mechanics sorted out in my mind now. I
>have the maximum number of slots available in my exosuit at last. I
>have a nice starship that flies and fights well. 
>
>I will continue to seek out upgrade ships with more slots. I have
>several million credits to spend. This will be my last character and
>this is the character that I will use to travel to the centre of the
>galaxy to 'experience' what is alleged to be one of gaming's greatest
>anticlimaxes.
>
>
>I will visit some blue planets and look for rich environments and
>interesting creatures. Both of which allegedly exist but I have yet to
>find any. I will get my V1, V2, and V3 Atlas Pass recipes before
>heading for that great 'meh' in the (No Man's) Sky.
>
>That'll probably be the end of the game for me. It will probably take
>me over the 200 hour mark. I paid £40 for the game so I possibly
>shouldn't complain.
>
>I will keep reading the various NMS sub reddits. They are interesting
>for contrasting reasons. Some of the posts are well thought out and
>intelligent, others are toxic spewings of hate that just make you
>wonder what on earth the person behind the keyboard is really like.
>
>Gamers are an odd bunch at times. One person recently posted to say
>that just after the 200 hour mark he suddenly realised that he'd had
>enough of the game and felt cheated by the lack of content versus the
>$60 he'd paid for the game. 
>
>I think 200 hours is a decent amount of entertainment for a video
>game. I think the MMO culture has spoiled us and we now expect our
>single player games to last us for years in the same way as an MMO can
>sometimes do. 

I don't think it's MMOs per se, as there are a few single player games
that can be played over and over for weeks or years and of course
counterstrike type games.

I think it's forgetting the number of AAA titles they bought that had
been over consolized but had lots of flashy cutscenes telling the a
story and making them forget that the game was all of 20 hours max
gameplay and had zero replay value.

Newer gamers don't want to think when they game, they want to be
handheld, and led by the nose with big "YOUR OBJECTIVE IS RIGHT HERE
EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NO WAY YOU COULD KNOW THIS" arrows on the quest
objective, and lots of cutscenes they can passively watch.
No Man's Sky doesn't do this so they feel like they got ripped off, and
combined with the reinforcing nature of social media and all the hype
people built up in expectations for the game, it could never have
satisfied what they wanted.

I read one "I was ripped off" refund seeker's rant who had expected
alien civilizations to interact with, alien cities to explore, etc -
stuff that was never even hinted at - he just assumed it would have it
because he wanted it, and in his mind "infinite game play" meant it had
every possible feature you could imagine.

I can play Solitaire infinitely too, that doesn't mean diamonds will
suddenly shower from the sky, or my desk will suddenly transmute to
solid platinum, as is the expectation of some of these overly entitled
idiots who hyped themselves into a frothing madness of expectations.

See also any and every comic book franchise movie (and others) as the
fans go batshit over casting and so on.  Remember the furor over Heath
Ledger as the Joker - that he would ruin the franchise forever and other
hyperbolic statements.

Social media, reddit etc are like a social club for conspiracy theorists
- the lone loonie in his parents tinfoil lined basement now has a bunch
of people just like him to hang with online, reinforcing all their
crackpot delusions and then spewing all over every other forum.

Combine that with trolls deliberately saying batshit stuff, claiming
features that are "guaranteed to be in the game/gaming system/movie",
etc just to get people riled up, which will have other people chiming in
that yeah they heard that too, even though they hadn't, they just want
to seem important, and the hype goes crazy.

Remember just a short while ago, the No Man's Sky refund story, which
was never true, but had hundreds of people claiming that they had gotten
refunds when they hadn't.  

Reddit is a cesspool as is most of social media, and the people that
live there are delusional in their own special, "I deserve to be handed
everything I want for nothing" way.

Hell one fuckwit on metacritic flat out said he torrented the game,
played it and wanted Hello Games to give him $60, because it wasn't what
he wanted.


Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

>* Tomb Raider Underworld (replay)
>Underworld wasn't a great game, but it was largely enjoyable and
>probably one of my favorites in the whole franchise.

    Nice!  I'd been playing through the series, and stopped at Underworld 
when the reboot appeared, so I'll have to try this.  (Looks like I also 
haven't played Revelation or Chronicles either, hmm)

>* Ghost Recon Future Soldier (replay)
>an absolutely forgettable Call of Duty clone

    Bummer, I've never played a GR game, and was hankering after a military 
shooter.

rms 

On Sun, 02 Oct 2016 02:26:47 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:


>
>* Ghost Recon Future Soldier (replay)
>It's hard to review Future Soldier because there's so little
>substantial about the game.

Except for the multiplayer, which is the entire franchises sole reason
for existence.  I cannot believe anyone would waste the wear and tear
on their keyboard to review a game like this from the singleplayer
perspective.  They throw SP modes into these games because doing so is
simple-stupid compared to creating decent online play and just to say
it's there.

This game was great fun when it first came out, though I have no idea
if anyone still plays it these days.

On Sun, 2 Oct 2016 10:30:35 -0600, "rms"
<rsqui...@MOOyossmanMOO.net> wrote:


>    Bummer, I've never played a GR game, and was hankering after a military 
>shooter.

If you're open to online play, you have a lot of options.  I'm not
sure there's such a thing as a decent single player military shooter.
Maybe the Arma series covers that ground?

All of the ones I'm aware of are online games first and foremost.  The
reason is that to provide anything remotely resembling an interesting
war-like combat scenario, you're going to need humans on the other end
of those guns firing at you.  Bots work up to a certain point, but I
think most people would find them unsatisfying.  Rainbow Six Siege
lets you play against bots, but of course it's nothing like the real
game, they are mostly just strategically placed enemies that fire on
you with varying degrees of skill, and "difficulty" is created by
things like creatively placing them in the room (such that you may
need to engage one of them in such a way that it opens you to fire
from a second bot that you wouldn't have a visual on until you were
already trading fire with the first one).

There is something about a "designed experience" that just doesn't
work in military style shooters, unless you're prepared to REALLY use
your imagination.  

Squadding up and becoming part of a real team playing against other
real teams gives the experience most people are looking for, but of
course comes with all the trade offs of real team play (like varying
levels of skill or cooperation from guys on your own team, etc).

On Sun, 02 Oct 2016 11:31:32 -0400, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:
>Reddit is a cesspool as is most of social media, and the people that
>live there are delusional in their own special, "I deserve to be handed
>everything I want for nothing" way.

It often makes for depressing reading. I do sometimes wonder what type
of person makes those bile filled posts at what seems to be every
opportunity. Are they really just "trolling"? Or are they really that
screwed up in the head?

One person on the NMS reddit wants Sean Murray to have his reputation
ruined, have any monies that he made from working on the game taken
away, and be prevented from working in the industry on anything ever
again.

I never really followed the hype that preceded the release of the
game, but I have watched some of it since to see what the "lies" were.
A few things I think I can get on board with. Many things though seem
to be down to people's interpretation, or there just does not seem to
be any tangible foundation to them at all that I can find.

>Hell one fuckwit on metacritic flat out said he torrented the game,
>played it and wanted Hello Games to give him $60, because it wasn't what
>he wanted.

I have read several posts (not about torrenting the game though) where
people seem to genuinely feel that they should be entitled to a refund
on their purchase despite admitting to playing the game for 40 or even
60 hours plus before deciding they were disappointed with how it
turned out.

Time will tell for NMS and Hello Games I guess. There is supposedly
more content coming for the game. I have already read that some people
have torches lit and pitchforks at the ready for when any content
update is released, purely out of 'revenge' for how they were "lied to
and ripped off" over the main game. 

So, even if the content improves and fixes the game to most people's
satisfaction, this subset of people are going to go ahead and
slaughter everything and anything that they can in the name of
revenge.

I'm glad I'm my idea of a normal person.



-- 
Rob

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>
> * Injustice: Gods Among Us (new)
> There are certain genres of games for which I am just not suited.
> MOBAs are one; so too are realistic driving simulators. For all that I
> can admire the craftsmanship that goes into designing such games - and
> have an earnest desire to appreciate them - I just do not find them
> that compelling to play. Punch-n-kick brawlers are another example;
> they are colorful, fantastical, and frenetic, often with rewarding and
> challenging gameplay, but I have neither the temperament to master or
> even long endure their game-play.
>
> Still, Injustice: Gods Among Us looked as if it might have been the
> sort of game to keep me playing through to the end, if only for its
> over-the-top combat and action-packed (if somewhat predictable)
> comic-book storyline. I mean, who /wouldn't/ want to play as Superman
> and punch an opponent into outer-space? I mean, that's the sort of
> thing a lot of us have probably wanted to do ever since we read our
> first issue of Action Comics!
>
> Alas, it wasn't to be, and I'm not sure I'm to say whether it was
> because of my own failure or the game's. When it comes to brawlers, I
> tend towards button-mashing anyway, but even given my primitive grasp
> of brawler mechanics, I didn't think Injustice's combat was
> particularly well done. There were just too many options and powers,
> and rather than  super-powered I felt overloaded with options. Even
> were I not, the game felt gimmicky, too overloaded with action
> cut-scenes, weird mini-games and quick-time events. I never felt as if
> I were given an opportunity to hone my skills because every other
> fight it seemed that the game changed everything on me.
>
> Ultimately, I gave up on actually playing the game and just watched a
> let's play of the cut-scenes, which was okay. It certainly didn't
> encourage me to keep playing, or try other brawlers. On the other
> hand, that got me into reading the comic prequels, which I found far
> more enjoyable than either game or video, so I guess something
> worthwhile came from the experiment.
>

I think I mentioned the control issue with it on the PC, any of the 
combos that have you going a direction (i.e. left/right etc.) after 
pressing a button, and then pressing another button don't work or are 
extremely difficult in timing especially with the xbox controller of 
kb/mouse.  I've got a logitech gamepad on order as supposedly it works 
better with that one - also wanted one I could use with MAME.  Not that 
you actually need any of the combos.

I did finish it on normal and played some of the battles with characters 
as you get to stick to one character for a bunch of fights and see their 
ending to the main campaign. You can beat it easily on very easy setting 
as my son was playing it and with just hitting punch over and over.  I'd 
suggest trying the different combos and find about 3 you like for a 
character and sticking to that.  You might also enjoy the battles more 
as you get to play one character through a bunch of battles instead of 
being constantly switched in the main campaign.

I thought it was o.k. but it did tie in with what's going on in the bat 
vs. sman movie and gave me more insight as to what was going on when I 
watched that.  I haven't read any comic books in ages, last was about 
50-100 binge on Deadpool about 7 years ago.  This hasn't given me the 
itch.  Though I did try running some marvel superheroes RPG on Play By 
Post for a bit last year.  Only got through 3 battles before the slow 
pace of PBP got me to drop it.

----------------------

What have I played this Month?  I've posted most of what I've played so 
as to keep me from bursting at the seams waiting for the monthly thread, 
but here's the recap:

Cosmochoria **** PC Indy.
It's hard to qualify what this game is, that's a good thing in this 
case.  It's 2d, the graphics aren't 8-bit, I might describe them as a 
bit Tom Wham sort of cartoon-like and whimsical.  You travel from planet 
to planet using your rocket pack and plant plants, which heal you when 
you've terraformed a planet.  Meanwhile aliens try to kill you, and you 
try to kill them/defend yourself with a combination of tower defenses 
and your hand-held blaster.  Thoguh this is not a tower defense game. 
It has rewards that become accessibly only upon your death and starting 
a new game.  Typically you're going to die a few times between each 
boss, but fortunately you can start your new game progressed after the 
last boss you killed.  I loved this game, easily the best game I've 
played since Dark Souls.  Yes that means it beats out Fallout 4.  It's a 
bit shorter though, perhaps a couple weeks to complete it.  There are a 
number of hidden artifacts which can make the game easier/harder on a 
new game when applied.  I found only about half of them by the time I'd 
finished the game, and although I loved the game I didn't feel the need 
to try to collect the rest of them.  My one complaint is that only the 
first available upgrade for your laser blaster is good.  The mostly 
costly  ones are worse than that, with two exceptions - (avoiding 
spoilers) one is about equal to it, the other becomes available only 
when you fight the last boss.  I wish they'd changed the order of the 
availablity of the weapons.  I highly recommend this game.

Injustice Gods among us ** PC DC Comics Fighting
Steam says I played this this month, but it probably wasn't more than 15 
minutes.  As I spoke enough about this above no more here.  Other than 
to say I'll leave a final verdict for when I try it with another 
controller.  If it wasn't DC heroes and the somewhat interesting story 
I'd probably give this a stinking one * for a fighting game so far.

Singularity *** PC FPS time manipulation
Best FPS I've played in a long time.  I'd probably give this higher 
rating if they'd included subtitles, combined with the directional 
speech makes it difficult to follow.  (Un?)fortunately they repeat 
themselves enough that you get the idea anyway.  I was wary of the time 
manipulation, figuring it was going to be some sort of time puzzle game, 
but it was more like having a time weapon (age/freeze enemies).  There 
are some puzzles, but they are for the most part well marked and 
ridiculously easy.  I never had to look up any spoilers for them, and 
was never stuck - other than early in the game when I chose the wrong 
weapons and ran out of ammo for them, I almost gave up there, but 
preserved and was able to eventually get through that spot after about 
20 tries.  Which brings up my other complaint - you can only carry 2 
weapons of your arsenal and if you choose poorly you would have to start 
the whole game over due to the console type saving, to help others avoid 
this, DO NOT TAKE THE PISTOL if you have any other weapons available. 
Unlike most of these types of games the time manipulation device is so 
powerful that the game actually gets easier as you go along and get it 
upgraded, by the end of the game you start feeling like a super-hero or 
god.  This game has been compared to Half-Life, and it does have a 
somewhat similar feel, if perhaps a bit shorter and more linear.  It's a 
pretty good game and I'd recommend it if you can get past it's 
shortcomings (console type single auto-save, limited weapon loadout & 
ammo, and no subtitles).

Darkmaus *** PC Indy, 2d, Dark Souls inspired.
If you liked Dark Souls I'd recommend this, it was giving me flashbacks. 
  Though 2d the shadowy graphics are very atmospheric and feel artistic. 
  You play an undead mouse with weapons similar to what you'd find in DS 
(bow, sword, spear, fire spells) fighting zombie animals.  I didn't 
finish this, not because I wasn't able to progress, I just think I 
wasn't quite ready for the level of difficulty and pulse-pounding this 
game gives.  I will probably go back and finish this next time the DS 
bug hits me.

Ubermosh Black * PC Indy.
POS, horrible graphics & gameplay, should've returned it on Steam, but 
it was on sale for $1 and I didn't bother.  Don't check this out.  Read 
my full post on it if you give a damn.

Mini Ninjas ? PC Indy?
I've only played this a little bit, just through the tutorial, I think 
it might be aimed at kids and I wasn't quite in the mood yet.  It 
reminds me of some of the 3d adventure Nintendo games so far.

Gas Guzzlers eXtreme *** PC Indy Weaponized Car Racing
This is exactly what it sounds like.  It looks really good for an indy 
game, fully 3d racing.  You race or destruction derby cars with weapons 
- there are some races you can do that don't have weapons and only 
powerups.  It's pretty good for what it is.  I haven't beat the campaign 
yet, but I have the top car you can buy.  Read my post on it.  All I've 
to add to that is that some of the more expensive weapons I thought were 
crap are actually quite good in the destruction derby events, although 
you don't need to buy them for those as they're in there as power-ups. 
I've played a couple other of these types of indy games (Zombie Driver, 
Wasteland Angel), but this is by far better than any of the others.

The Crew *** PC Driving
Free on Uplay.  I've mixed feelings on this,  On the one hand it's a 
great driving game.  On the other it's online only and my lag is 
horrendous, and the lag does affect your car's speed and acceleration 
(seems really stupid, can't it just assume you're doing whatever you 
were doing the last input it got and jump you ahead?).  I've noticed 
it's far worse when doing PVP, and far worse in cities, this makes the 
PVP almost unplayable - fortunately you get rewards even if you're last 
which I always am if it's not in the wilderness.  I think it might have 
something to do with my older CPU as it's a (unoptomized) console port 
and it chews up my CPU and doesn't seem to impact my smoking new 
graphics card at all. But it also seems to have something to do with the 
online nature.  I've been trying to mostly play on the weekdays as it 
works better then.  Well it was free, can't complain too much, though it 
does have micro-transactions, which seem to be completely unnecessary so 
that doesn't really hurt so much.  I keep coming back to this, I've 
found I love tooling around in my raid (offroad) car, and the fact it 
has a bunch of semi-real locations in it, including my home city (not 
that there's much to see there).  If this actually ran well on my 
system/network I would've bought the DLC Wild Run which includes 
Motorcyles, as I loved motorcycles in GTA III VC, which still stands as 
my favorite car-based game of all time.

- Justisaur

rms wrote:
>> What have you been playing... IN SEPTEMBER 2016?
>
>     After completing Witcher2, I've put off starting another big RPG,
> and picked out a few titles from scrolling through the steam backlog:
>
>     Tron 2.0!
> This game is 13yrs old! but looks and plays beautifully on modern
> machines, thanks to the 'vector graphics' neon artstyle, that's intended
> to look retro, and also to some dedicated fans and their unofficial
> patch & launcher (refer to the steam community guide for installation).
> I ran it at 1440p with no issues, and no glitches.
>
> Most definitely a platformer, and you'll be spamming the quicksave
> button -- I'd strongly suggest playing on Easy. But the real draw here
> is the writing. So many tongue-in-cheek computer jokes and jargon
> wordplay, that you'll be chuckling repeatedly, and there's a
> light-hearted tone that makes coming back for another gameplay session a
> joy; it strikes me as a very young-adult friendly game. The musical
> score is also well-done. Highly recommended!

I gave this a try a couple years ago. I don't remember the platforming, 
but I remember collecting stuff, and blocked off points you had to come 
back to after collecting something else, and I just wasn't in the mood 
for it at the time.  I'll have to give this another try.  I see it's 
still installed.

Now that I've got kids I appreciate the more kid friendly stuff, I keep 
having to put headphones on so the kids don't hear all the swearing in 
the usual games I play, and I don't like doing that either as I have to 
keep an ear out for misbehavior and headphones cover that up.

>     SOMA
> I'll be vague to avoid any spoilers here, but SOMA is basically a really
> good science fiction novella, put into interactive game form.  The
> underwater base environments are believable, and the several deep-sea
> excursions your character takes are immersive and visceral.  There are
> some affecting end-of-life scenes, and numerous discussions between
> characters on the nature of being. The science fiction setting and
> touches of dark humor are a good vehicle for drawing the player in to
> the discussion, and instilling empathy for others.
>
> Memories of a world lost forever are in every found personal item, and a
> pervasive melancholy is a constant undercurrent, but still there's a
> touch of, if not hope, then wonder?  This is a title that will stay with
> you for a long time:  Highly recommended!
>

I've wondered about these 'interactive story' games, There's an awful 
lot of highly rated ones on Steam, though mostly Anime (which I haven't 
had more than a passing interest in, which left me a long time ago) but 
I'm usually trying to figure out how to get out of cut-scenes and into 
the action.

- Justisaur

On Mon, 3 Oct 2016 09:36:22 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
>>
>> * Injustice: Gods Among Us (new)
>> There are certain genres of games for which I am just not suited.
>> MOBAs are one; so too are realistic driving simulators. For all that I
>> can admire the craftsmanship that goes into designing such games - and
>> have an earnest desire to appreciate them - I just do not find them
>> that compelling to play. Punch-n-kick brawlers are another example;
>> they are colorful, fantastical, and frenetic, often with rewarding and
>> challenging gameplay, but I have neither the temperament to master or
>> even long endure their game-play.
>>
>> Still, Injustice: Gods Among Us looked as if it might have been the
>> sort of game to keep me playing through to the end, if only for its
>> over-the-top combat and action-packed (if somewhat predictable)
>> comic-book storyline. I mean, who /wouldn't/ want to play as Superman
>> and punch an opponent into outer-space? I mean, that's the sort of
>> thing a lot of us have probably wanted to do ever since we read our
>> first issue of Action Comics!
>>
>> Alas, it wasn't to be, and I'm not sure I'm to say whether it was
>> because of my own failure or the game's. When it comes to brawlers, I
>> tend towards button-mashing anyway, but even given my primitive grasp
>> of brawler mechanics, I didn't think Injustice's combat was
>> particularly well done. There were just too many options and powers,
>> and rather than  super-powered I felt overloaded with options. Even
>> were I not, the game felt gimmicky, too overloaded with action
>> cut-scenes, weird mini-games and quick-time events. I never felt as if
>> I were given an opportunity to hone my skills because every other
>> fight it seemed that the game changed everything on me.
>>
>> Ultimately, I gave up on actually playing the game and just watched a
>> let's play of the cut-scenes, which was okay. It certainly didn't
>> encourage me to keep playing, or try other brawlers. On the other
>> hand, that got me into reading the comic prequels, which I found far
>> more enjoyable than either game or video, so I guess something
>> worthwhile came from the experiment.
>>
>
>I think I mentioned the control issue with it on the PC, any of the 
>combos that have you going a direction (i.e. left/right etc.) after 
>pressing a button, and then pressing another button don't work or are 
>extremely difficult in timing especially with the xbox controller of 
>kb/mouse.  I've got a logitech gamepad on order as supposedly it works 
>better with that one - also wanted one I could use with MAME.  Not that 
>you actually need any of the combos.

These games are mostly designed for folks with fight sticks (they can
be played with gamepads up to a point, but it's a little like
participating in a sport with one leg in a cast).

The reason is these exist not because of the button mashing punching
and kicking, but because the learning and tactical execution of the
combos (i.e. executing the right combo in the right situation is the
key to winning when playing against skilled players).

Combos are nearly impossible to execute consistently with an analog
control of any type, because for example if the move you need is:

D, D, L, U, L while pressing some buttons, (d=down, l=left etc), the
actual analog x and y coordinates must be mapped to zones to determine
what is down or left.  This can be fine in certain games but not so
much for the speed and timing requirement of some moves in fighting
games.  Yes the D-Pad can be used for true digital inputs, but I doubt
many fighting games are even QA tested for use with a D-Pad, since
most folks with any interest in fighting games will use a proper
stick.  And, of course to try to match the speed of input with a D-Pad
to an arcade stick is impossible, unless the game has a built in way
to dumb-down the timing for single players who don't care about
competing online and don't have a stick.

Years back, I had a D-Pad controller (I think it was made by Gravis)
that let you screw a tiny (and unfortunately too fragile) plastic
joystick down into the middle of the D-Pad.  You could then rest your
thumb on the top and flick it in the direction you wanted to go with
minimal thumb movement (compared to regular D-Pads).  That was
probably the closest thing I've seen to providing a D-Pad that was
suitably responsive for fighting games.

I don't know to what extent more recent fighting games have addressed
this -- it could be done by allowing redefining of the specific stick
+ button movements required for a given combo, but I think if they
made that user-definable it would basically be considered cheating.

Speaking of which, if anyone really wanted to do that on the PC, it
could potentially be done with a macro programmable keyboard.  I'm
using a Razer Blackwidow Chroma TE (mechanical keyboard) these days,
and it will allow programmable shortcut keys complete with specified
delays between keypresses if needed, although being a reduced size
keyboard (no number pad on the right), there are not dedicated macro
keys like on the Logitech I replaced with it.  Same could be done with
something like the Logitech G13 though, which I still have.

>Combos are nearly impossible to execute consistently with an analog
>control of any type, because for example if the move you need is:
>...And, of course to try to match the speed of input with a D-Pad
>to an arcade stick is impossible

    All good points

rms

On 2016-10-02, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> * Ghost Recon Future Soldier (replay)
> It's hard to review Future Soldier because there's so little
> substantial about the game. It's an absolutely forgettable Call of
> Duty clone that suffers all the problems of its better-known
> inspiration, and a number of its own problems besides. It has the same
> dull story-line, with cliched and idealized super-hero soldiers,
> ultra-linear levels, brain-dead AI and brown-is-real graphics. You
> can't open a door on your own, and dare not stray far from the
> expected mission path lest you get an automatic game-over. It
> fetishizes guns to an obnoxious degree, even for a military
> first-person shooter. Nominally a co-operative shooter, its levels do
> little to encourage teamwork. It gameplay is full of unrealistic
> gimmicks and annoying gameplay restrictions (most apparent in the
> enforced stealth sections). It is unexciting, trite and predictable
> and so unremarkable that its barely worth writing a review for it. 

I co-opped the single player campaign and found it to be enjoyable
fluff, but my friends and I got really into the Guerrilla Mode. You
have to survive 50 waves of enemies while moving between locations in
a level. I think we played nothing else for about a year, until we'd
managed to hit 50 on all the arenas. It was wonderfully tense and
varied throughout.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On Sun, 02 Oct 2016 02:26:47 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote: 

>Well, that's another 30 days gone. I'm already missing summer but the
>cooler weather is undeniably encouraging me to stay inside and play
>more games, so I guess there's some benefit.
>

Games played in September:

Fallout Shelter

This is a freebie from the Bethesda.net Launcher app. I started on my
phone, but the phone is really too tiny to make it workable, so I started
building my vault over again on the desktop, which is a much better
experience. It's a fortress building game, with side missions and quests
you can send your dwellers on. It's mostly very easy and very casual. It
hits the grindy sweet spot for me, although it takes over a week to craft
legendary outfits and weapons. I suspect this is so that you will buy
cases of "Nuka Cola Quantum" from Bethsoft to get quick builds (you can
use Nuka to short circuit a variety of timers). On the bright side, the
game rewards you with enough Nuka on quests to do a creditable job just
playing for free. Good fun.


Fallout 4 (re-run)

Well, I started this up again, this time with a female dweller, and an
Nvidia 1080 under the hood. The game is gorgeous, though framerates do
inexplicably drop in Diamond City. Mostly, I'm pulling 60 fps, and
everything is much smoother than my first run. This time I'm using the
unofficial patch mod, too, since I already have all the base game
achievements. I think I'm gonna give Vault 1080 (by Nvidia) a shot. I'll
probably buy Far Harbor and Nuka World when the prices drop a bit. A
season pass if that's cheaper.

Overall, I'm doing a VATS build this time, so it's a totally different
play from my run-n-gun rifleman build previously. I've already got the
Mysterious Stranger involved, and I'm putting tons of points into
perception and luck. I think I may leave my intelligence low and try
"idiot savant" too. I want to grab the cryolator this time too.

Decent replay value here, so long as you play it differently, and it
*can* be played differently.


DOOM (2016)

Okay, so here, with Vulkan, my new 1080 just screams. It's a beautiful,
fluid exciting game experience that manages to capture the original
DOOM's flavor very nicely. Good maps and lots of spawning enemies to
kill. The only problem I have with it is it encourages lots of "glory
kills" because that gives you small health bonuses. In order to keep my
health up, I'm glory killing *everything*, and the animations get a
little tedious after a while. It's cool the first couple of times you
glory kill, it gets tired and stale when you glory kill ten demons
back-to-back in succession. I wish it would drop health for headshots and
other *shooter* skills, rather than just constantly running up and
meleeing to get a bit of health back. So too much emphasis on melee (or I
have to get better at dodging attacks.) 

Otherwise, spot on. Bleeding edge eye candy and nice maps.


Endless Legend (vanilla)

I keep putting turns into this turn-based, fantasy themed 4x. The
tactical options in the combats and the vast tech trees keep me coming
back. It's pretty, and it's got my attention more than Civ V at this
point, since I put hundreds of hours into Civ V and played myself out. So
this is my 4x for the time being. I'm looking at the DLC add-ons,
especially espionage, but I haven't bit on anything but the vanilla game
at this point.

That was my September. That and school work. I don't know how I find all
this time to game, but I still do.

-- 
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

On 2016-10-04, Zaghadka <zagh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> DOOM (2016)
> Okay, so here, with Vulkan, my new 1080 just screams. It's a beautiful,
> fluid exciting game experience that manages to capture the original
> DOOM's flavor very nicely. Good maps and lots of spawning enemies to
> kill. The only problem I have with it is it encourages lots of "glory
> kills" because that gives you small health bonuses. In order to keep my
> health up, I'm glory killing *everything*, and the animations get a
> little tedious after a while. It's cool the first couple of times you
> glory kill, it gets tired and stale when you glory kill ten demons
> back-to-back in succession. I wish it would drop health for headshots and
> other *shooter* skills, rather than just constantly running up and
> meleeing to get a bit of health back. So too much emphasis on melee (or I
> have to get better at dodging attacks.) 

With the runes you can change your build to deemphasise glory kills
and focus on other aspects.

Or, again with runes, you can speed up the glory kill animations.

-- 
-Toby
Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.

On Sunday, October 2, 2016 at 7:26:53 AM UTC+1, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Well, that's another 30 days gone.

This year has gone by so darned quickly. But at least I finally got my gaming machine up to my mother's house. As her dementia deteriorates I'm not able to earn much, but at least I can catch up on some of my Steam backlog. All that sale stockpiling is finally useful.

Except I'm currently ignoring Steam completely. I did get most of the way through Metro Last Light at the start of the month, but I hate fighting the monsters in those games so much I eventually gave up.

Instead I bought Diablo3. Sigh. I've had problems with it's 'always online' play including crashes and lagging gameplay and... And I'm still addicted to the sodding thing! Endlessly chasing my tail looking for slightly better loot. It's depressing how easily pleased the human brain can be!

Right, now Mum's asleep I have to go run round a dungeon looking for a slightly better pixel sword. When I was young I never dreamed life as a grown up could be this exciting! ;-)

Andrew McP

On Thu, 6 Oct 2016 12:59:15 -0700 (PDT), Andrew McP
<mcp.a...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Instead I bought Diablo3. Sigh. I've had problems with it's 'always online' play including crashes and lagging gameplay and... And I'm still addicted to the sodding thing! Endlessly chasing my tail looking for slightly better loot. It's depressing how easily pleased the human brain can be!
>
>Right, now Mum's asleep I have to go run round a dungeon looking for a slightly better pixel sword. When I was young I never dreamed life as a grown up could be this exciting! ;-)
>
>Andrew McP


I have both the PC and the console version of Diablo 3 (and Reaper of
Souls)

It is an incredibly addictive game. I deliberately uninstalled the PC
version in the summer because I was constantly wanting to play it. I
have level 70 characters of all classes on both versions and have also
run out of character slots for both formats as well.

Any loot based game hooks me. You might want to take a look at Grim
Dawn at some point the future.  Be prepared to lose many hours of your
life to it though.

http://www.grimdawn.com/




Then there's the Van Helsing games as well. The "Final Cut" version
gives you all 3 games in the series plus all DLC's

http://store.steampowered.com/app/215530/
-- 
Rob

On Fri, 07 Oct 2016 19:03:53 +0100, Mr Rob
<noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 6 Oct 2016 12:59:15 -0700 (PDT), Andrew McP
><mcp.a...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Instead I bought Diablo3. Sigh. I've had problems with it's 'always online' play including crashes and lagging gameplay and... And I'm still addicted to the sodding thing! Endlessly chasing my tail looking for slightly better loot. It's depressing how easily pleased the human brain can be!
>>
>>Right, now Mum's asleep I have to go run round a dungeon looking for a slightly better pixel sword. When I was young I never dreamed life as a grown up could be this exciting! ;-)
>>
>>Andrew McP
>
>
>I have both the PC and the console version of Diablo 3 (and Reaper of
>Souls)
>
>It is an incredibly addictive game. I deliberately uninstalled the PC
>version in the summer because I was constantly wanting to play it. I
>have level 70 characters of all classes on both versions and have also
>run out of character slots for both formats as well.
>
>Any loot based game hooks me. You might want to take a look at Grim
>Dawn at some point the future.  Be prepared to lose many hours of your
>life to it though.
>
>http://www.grimdawn.com/
>
>
>Then there's the Van Helsing games as well. The "Final Cut" version
>gives you all 3 games in the series plus all DLC's
>
>http://store.steampowered.com/app/215530/

Also Torchlight 1 & 2  (I haven't tried the second one but there are
demos of both on Steam).

Mr Rob <noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>On Sun, 02 Oct 2016 11:31:32 -0400, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:
>>Reddit is a cesspool as is most of social media, and the people that
>>live there are delusional in their own special, "I deserve to be handed
>>everything I want for nothing" way.
>
>It often makes for depressing reading. I do sometimes wonder what type
>of person makes those bile filled posts at what seems to be every
>opportunity. Are they really just "trolling"? Or are they really that
>screwed up in the head?

I think it's about 50:50, nutters and people trolling because they
*know* they can get a rise out of the nutters.

>One person on the NMS reddit wants Sean Murray to have his reputation
>ruined, have any monies that he made from working on the game taken
>away, and be prevented from working in the industry on anything ever
>again.

Yep another teen living in mommies basement, never done anything and has
no idea how hard it is to actually create something.

>I never really followed the hype that preceded the release of the
>game, but I have watched some of it since to see what the "lies" were.
>A few things I think I can get on board with. Many things though seem
>to be down to people's interpretation, or there just does not seem to
>be any tangible foundation to them at all that I can find.

The first I even noticed it was when he appeared on the Late Show, and
then, upon finding out it was still months away, I promptly forgot about
it.

I don't understand this whole "work myself into frothing madness over
hype and expectations about what the game will be like, when it will
come out, hopes for what might be in it, etc" attitude people have
today.

And with the extreme short attention span all it takes is someone saying
they *hope* feature X will be in the game and someone will misread it as
confirmed that that feature is in, whereupon the trolls leap in and
agree they too heard it was in the game.
End result dozens, hundreds or thousands of gullible, hopefully idiots
who take it all at face value, don't do the most basic checks, and then
go ballistic when these "promised features" aren't in the game.

>>Hell one fuckwit on metacritic flat out said he torrented the game,
>>played it and wanted Hello Games to give him $60, because it wasn't what
>>he wanted.
>
>I have read several posts (not about torrenting the game though) where
>people seem to genuinely feel that they should be entitled to a refund
>on their purchase despite admitting to playing the game for 40 or even
>60 hours plus before deciding they were disappointed with how it
>turned out.

I look forward to seeing what will come in the future, but if they
decide to make it paid DLC, then they will earn every bit of enmity
they've gotten.

>Time will tell for NMS and Hello Games I guess. There is supposedly
>more content coming for the game. I have already read that some people
>have torches lit and pitchforks at the ready for when any content
>update is released, purely out of 'revenge' for how they were "lied to
>and ripped off" over the main game. 
>
>So, even if the content improves and fixes the game to most people's
>satisfaction, this subset of people are going to go ahead and
>slaughter everything and anything that they can in the name of
>revenge.

>I'm glad I'm my idea of a normal person.

I'm just glad I'm not their idea of normal, nor do I know anyone like
that.   I wonder if it's a side effect of the always-connected, never
more than 3 seconds from a phone, must text incessantly about nothing
really, etc attitudes.

The whole must pass on info immediately, must comment on info
immediately doesn't leave a whole lot of time for them to actually think
about what they're reading or writing, or fact check anything.
The Lie is halfway around the world before the Truth gets it's boots on.

Twitter is, IMHO one of the 4 horseman - Pestilence probably, although a
case could be made for War (or perhaps that's reddit.)

It certainly does far more harm than good.

Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr 

On Fri, 07 Oct 2016 19:03:53 +0100, Mr Rob
<noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> wrote:

>It is an incredibly addictive game. I deliberately uninstalled the PC
>version in the summer because I was constantly wanting to play it. I
>have level 70 characters of all classes on both versions and have also
>run out of character slots for both formats as well.

Couldn't agree with you more about Diablo 3's addictiveness. I played
it for a over a year. I never did that before with any other game. I
am so glad I bought it after the expansion pack and not when it was
still broken in 2012 or my opinion of this game might be very very
different.

>Any loot based game hooks me. You might want to take a look at Grim
>Dawn at some point the future.  Be prepared to lose many hours of your
>life to it though.
>
>http://www.grimdawn.com/

 I got Grim Dawn on Steam when it was on sale thanks to a post from
Rin. Can't wait to play this one. I loved Titan Quest. I am playing
the Anniversary Edition of Titan Quest now as it was added to my Steam
account for free.

On Fri, 07 Oct 2016 15:20:12 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:

>Also Torchlight 1 & 2  (I haven't tried the second one but there are
>demos of both on Steam).

I had some kind of graphical issue with Torchlight 2 when I tried this
one but I have since replaced that video card. I really need to get
around to trying out Torchlight 2. I liked the first one well enough.

On Sat, 08 Oct 2016 03:51:39 -0400, Mike S. <Mik...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

> I got Grim Dawn on Steam when it was on sale thanks to a post from
>Rin. Can't wait to play this one. I loved Titan Quest. I am playing
>the Anniversary Edition of Titan Quest now as it was added to my Steam
>account for free.

I have also started the Anniversary Edition of TQ. What a great game
that was (and still is).

Another game that I picked up a few months ago is Wolcen: Lords of
Mayhem. It was a pretty buggy alpha when I first played it so I
uninstalled it, although it was quite an enjoyable game. I must
reinstall it and take another look.

It's still in early access but I can see that it has had a number of
updates since I last played it.


 https://umbragame.com/about-the-game/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/424370/
-- 
Rob

Actually I bought a cheap second hand PS3 for myself in August
and ramped up my PS3 library. My original plan was to replay Okami in HD 
and started with it in August still playing it.
And now I have a backlog of Shame of about 20 PS3 games all bought for 
around 5 Euros per game.
The PC at the moment has to wait until I buy an NVidia 1070 card in end 
of December I am to busy with the PS3 atm.
I guess once Okami is done I will start with one of the Yakuza games 
next, never played any of those.



Werner



Am 02.10.16 um 08:26 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
> Well, that's another 30 days gone. I'm already missing summer but the
> cooler weather is undeniably encouraging me to stay inside and play
> more games, so I guess there's some benefit.
>
> Anyway, here we are again with our usual monthly thread. It's been a
> while, so let's do a quick who-what-where-when for any newcomers to
> the newsgroup. The idea here is to list out any games you've played
> over the last month, for the edification and amusement of your fellow
> c.s.i.p.g.a readers. I - and a number of others - like to share a few
> thoughts on those games - but feel free just to leave the list if you
> prefer. Given the nature of this newsgroup, we've all a preference for
> PC games but should your habit have taken you to the darker corners of
> the hobby, we'll turn a blind eye... this time ;-). The main idea is
> to keep the conversation focused on the games themselves.
>
> Look, it's simple. Here, watch; I'll go first.
>
> --------------------
> Short and Sweet
> --------------------
> * Hunted: The Demon Forge (new)
> * Tomb Raider Underworld (replay)
> * Civiliztion: Beyond Earth (new)
> * Injustice: Gods Among Us (new)
> * Ghost Recon Future Soldier (replay)
>
>
> TL; DR
> ----------
>
> * Hunted: The Demon Forge (new)
> I can't remember when I bought this game, but I hope I didn't pay that
> much for the privilege. At best I can say it's an unexceptional
> brawler. It lacks any and all flair; it's all characterless and
> generic grimdark fantasy, with a 'roid-pumped hero and unnaturally
> buxom heroine as the leads whose main goals in life seems to be taking
> all the obviously wrong and bad choices that life throws at them. The
> combat is unexciting, with a lack of interesting combos and sluggish
> movement that drains all the energy from the fights. Fortunately, the
> enemy AI is equally as moribund. Unfortunately, your AI partner isn't
> any better, rarely backing you up and far more often just getting in
> your way. Simply navigating the level is a chore because your
> team-mate is constantly in your way. The game was obviously intended
> to be played as in co-op (a feature that has apparently been
> discontinued) and little was done to make the single-player more
> entertaining. Even taking into consideration its age - the game was
> released in 2011 - Hunted fails to impress with its graphics either;
> it looks like a game from 2005. It's a dull, unexciting game in every
> respect and not in the least bit fun.
>
>
>
> * Tomb Raider Underworld (replay)
> I actually started with Tomb Raider: Anniversary but various technical
> issues and a lack of polish frustrated me enough that I decided to
> skip ahead to the sequel, Underworld. In many ways, TR: Anniversary
> played too closely to the original (it's a remake of the first Tomb
> Raider game), and it felt very rough around the edges. Tomb Raider
> Underworld had a lot of problems too, but it hewed closer to modern
> game-play esthetics, and was the more fun for it.
>
> I was surprised at how good the game looked, despite being almost ten
> years old. Lara still looks too much like a sex-doll but the
> environments were very pretty, and Underworld featured a number of
> impressive set-pieces. I rather enjoyed how the developers managed to
> wrap together the divergent storylines of the previous games into a
> cohesive whole, although the ending did feel a bit rushed and
> unsatisfying.
>
> Not surprisingly, the major problem I had with the game was an issue
> that has dogged the franchise from the start: its awful camera. Too
> often I was forced to make blind leaps of faith because the camera -
> rigidly locked on Lara - refused to allow me a better view of my
> surrounds. It was often difficult just figuring out where I needed to
> go next because the camera was so stiff. Having played so many other
> third-person games with far better cameras, this old-school
> methodology seemed quaint at best and ludicrously unfair at other
> times. Still, I found the puzzles and platforming rather enjoyable,
> even if them both fairly simplistic and linear. I was less endeared by
> the combat, but fortunately it plays a less prominent part than in the
> earlier games. There's also almost an entire dearth of quick-time
> events, a well-received improvement over the earlier titles and it was
> disappointing to see them return in the later series.
>
> Underworld wasn't a great game, but it was largely enjoyable and
> probably one of my favorites in the whole franchise.
>
>
>
> * Civilization: Beyond Earth (new)
> In many ways, Beyond Earth is a disappointing game.
>
> That's an unusual thing to say, given that - like all the other games
> in the franchise - Beyond Earth was so additively engrossing that it
> has since been banished from my hard-drive. It is too dangerous a game
> to leave installed, since its "just-one-more-turn" gameplay speaks to
> my compulsive side; if I am not careful then before I know it, it is 4
> AM and I've been playing non-stop for 8 hours. One might - quite
> correctly - assume that this is a hallmark of a good game.
>
> But for all that Beyond Earth shares its brethren's habit-forming
> qualities, it does not go beyond them. It feels all too familiar in
> all the important areas, and the few changes it boasts are superficial
> and unappealing. The units and factions might all have new names, but
> it still doesn't stray the least from the tried-and-true formula. Were
> this a simple remake of the series - where you build up eponymous
> civilization from the stone ages -  this might not be so noticeable
> but set in a high-tech 22nd century interstellar future, it's hard to
> rectify this with building up your entire society - again - from a
> single city.
>
> That is not to say the developers did not attempt to shake things up,
> but the new features aren't particularly well done. They feel more
> like they've re-skinned the old game, renaming the old familiar
> options with confusing new - and poorly explained - terminology. I
> have a good idea what a catapult or cruiser does in classic
> Civilization, but Beyond Earth has units with names like AEGIS,
> CARVR, and Throne, and I've no idea what those do? Instead, I'm
> constantly forced to resort to the badly designed (white text on a
> dark background? Whose idea was that?) glossary just to figure out
> what unit does what. It's tech-web is similarly over-designed,
> offering little sense of progression. Is my civilization truly more
> advanced now that I have figured out "Transcendental Math" or
> "Mechatronics", or does it just offer some generic stats upgrade? Too
> often I can't tell. Its factions and affinities, and its marvels and
> virtues are likewise a mess of confusing ideas that never quite gel
> together well.
>
> So while it was a welcome return to the Civilization's gameplay loop,
> ultimately Beyond Earth felt more like a hacked-together mod than a
> refinement or advancement of the franchise; a conglomeration of new
> ideas tossed into the mix simply for the sake of adding something new
> rather than because it made for a better game. The compelling nature
> of its gameplay remains solid, but ultimately I think I'd have been
> better off just playing Civilization 4.
>
>
> * Injustice: Gods Among Us (new)
> There are certain genres of games for which I am just not suited.
> MOBAs are one; so too are realistic driving simulators. For all that I
> can admire the craftsmanship that goes into designing such games - and
> have an earnest desire to appreciate them - I just do not find them
> that compelling to play. Punch-n-kick brawlers are another example;
> they are colorful, fantastical, and frenetic, often with rewarding and
> challenging gameplay, but I have neither the temperament to master or
> even long endure their game-play.
>
> Still, Injustice: Gods Among Us looked as if it might have been the
> sort of game to keep me playing through to the end, if only for its
> over-the-top combat and action-packed (if somewhat predictable)
> comic-book storyline. I mean, who /wouldn't/ want to play as Superman
> and punch an opponent into outer-space? I mean, that's the sort of
> thing a lot of us have probably wanted to do ever since we read our
> first issue of Action Comics!
>
> Alas, it wasn't to be, and I'm not sure I'm to say whether it was
> because of my own failure or the game's. When it comes to brawlers, I
> tend towards button-mashing anyway, but even given my primitive grasp
> of brawler mechanics, I didn't think Injustice's combat was
> particularly well done. There were just too many options and powers,
> and rather than  super-powered I felt overloaded with options. Even
> were I not, the game felt gimmicky, too overloaded with action
> cut-scenes, weird mini-games and quick-time events. I never felt as if
> I were given an opportunity to hone my skills because every other
> fight it seemed that the game changed everything on me.
>
> Ultimately, I gave up on actually playing the game and just watched a
> let's play of the cut-scenes, which was okay. It certainly didn't
> encourage me to keep playing, or try other brawlers. On the other
> hand, that got me into reading the comic prequels, which I found far
> more enjoyable than either game or video, so I guess something
> worthwhile came from the experiment.
>
>
>
> * Ghost Recon Future Soldier (replay)
> It's hard to review Future Soldier because there's so little
> substantial about the game. It's an absolutely forgettable Call of
> Duty clone that suffers all the problems of its better-known
> inspiration, and a number of its own problems besides. It has the same
> dull story-line, with cliched and idealized super-hero soldiers,
> ultra-linear levels, brain-dead AI and brown-is-real graphics. You
> can't open a door on your own, and dare not stray far from the
> expected mission path lest you get an automatic game-over. It
> fetishizes guns to an obnoxious degree, even for a military
> first-person shooter. Nominally a co-operative shooter, its levels do
> little to encourage teamwork. It gameplay is full of unrealistic
> gimmicks and annoying gameplay restrictions (most apparent in the
> enforced stealth sections). It is unexciting, trite and predictable
> and so unremarkable that its barely worth writing a review for it.
>
>
> --------------------
> And that's how it's done! See, not hard at all. Now you try. Tell us
> all:
>
> What have you been playing... IN SEPTEMBER 2016?
>