🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 01:44:53 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?

1.  Homefront: The Revolution

There is another active thread on this game, and what a winner it is
when purchased at a deep discount, despite the brutal reviews it
received upon release.  I haven't even tried co-op yet.

I've come to realize how important setting is to me in a game.  The
setting here is dystopian Philadelphia and North Korean baddies are
our daddies.  But, the city design, while not perfect, has this feel
that reminds me in some ways of the movie "Escape From New York".  It
also has what I would call a reasonable blend of combat and stealth,
where most of the time you're avoiding and/or hiding from the enemy,
but every now and then you are either forced to fight or you just
don't feel like fleeing, so you open fire.

It definitely still has bugs, but the bugs in this game can be kind of
endearing when viewed from the right perspective.  I gave one example
in the other thread where I was blocked from entering a window (only
way in to an apartment) because some of the boards that were blocking
it were invisible due to a bug.  NPC pathfinding is stupid at times;
you can invite armed resistance fighters to join you, yet whether or
not they can actually figure out how to keep up with you is a
different story.  In one area, I got stuck in a narrow doorway with a
small crowd of NPCs jammed up in front of and behind me.  I felt like
a Walmart shopper trying to wedge myself through doors to try to be
the first in line on Playstation release day or something.  It could
have been frustrating if I let it, but I just kind of laughed through
it, jumped up and down a lot and fortunately the NPCs blocking me in
finally figured out how to unlodge themselves and make it through the
door, and I was able to continue.  I will be more careful approaching
narrow doors if there are NPCs around, because these people are not
geniuses.  Maybe something in the air in Philly. lol

Bottom line, at 75% off, don't think, just get it.  At 50% off? Maybe.
Above that, use your own judgement.   Overall, it's not the horrible
game that the release reviews would make it out to be.


2.  911 Operator

Interesting simulation/RTS game.  Innovation like this is always
welcome IMHO.  

Your job is to answer 911 calls, and you have to figure out the most
efficient way to dispatch police/fire/ambulance (not always as easy as
it sounds, to do it well at least).

What caught my attention and prompted me to get this game was that you
can download a map of your city and play the game on familiar
territory (or any other city for that matter), and it turned out to be
everything I had hoped it would be.  It's nice when you get a call
with an address that you know approximately where it is without
looking at the map (especially once the map contains a lot of plotted
active incidents already).

Either by design or incredible coincidence, I found that, in cities
I'm familiar with, the type and frequency of emergency calls that come
in was completely accurate with crime patterns of that city.  It seems
as though they might be using real crime heat maps as a basis for
procedurally generating incidents.  For example, the places that
robberies or beatings were frequently reported were in the parts of
the city where that is more common, and I never saw something
rediculous like a gang related shootout in a part of town where it
just doesn't happen.  I have not spent dozens of hours playing, but I
have to believe this wasn't occurring by accident, at least in the
maps I played.

You can view Mack's review here for more, if interested:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbGUXB3OUeE

On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 07:42:54 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
<rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 01:44:53 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?

>2.  911 Operator
>
>Interesting simulation/RTS game.  Innovation like this is always
>welcome IMHO.  

>Your job is to answer 911 calls, and you have to figure out the most
>efficient way to dispatch police/fire/ambulance (not always as easy as
>it sounds, to do it well at least).

>What caught my attention and prompted me to get this game was that you
>can download a map of your city and play the game on familiar
>territory (or any other city for that matter), and it turned out to be
>everything I had hoped it would be.  It's nice when you get a call
>with an address that you know approximately where it is without
>looking at the map (especially once the map contains a lot of plotted
>active incidents already).



911 Operator  is one of those games I've considered getting. It - like
"Papers Please", has a really interesting concept and the gameplay
seems sound. But at the same time, these games also edge a bit too
close to seeming like work. 911 Operator also seems like the game that
would depress me, as inevitably I'd start to fail the (virtual) people
I'm supposed to protect due to lack of resources and the game ramping
up in speed. I like my escapism to end on a high note, not utter
failure; real life is depressing enough as it is ;-)

 

On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 09:14:18 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 07:42:54 -0400, Rin Stowleigh
><rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 02 Apr 2017 01:44:53 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
>><spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?
>
>>2.  911 Operator
>>
>>Interesting simulation/RTS game.  Innovation like this is always
>>welcome IMHO.  
>
>>Your job is to answer 911 calls, and you have to figure out the most
>>efficient way to dispatch police/fire/ambulance (not always as easy as
>>it sounds, to do it well at least).
>
>>What caught my attention and prompted me to get this game was that you
>>can download a map of your city and play the game on familiar
>>territory (or any other city for that matter), and it turned out to be
>>everything I had hoped it would be.  It's nice when you get a call
>>with an address that you know approximately where it is without
>>looking at the map (especially once the map contains a lot of plotted
>>active incidents already).
>
>
>
>911 Operator  is one of those games I've considered getting. It - like
>"Papers Please", has a really interesting concept and the gameplay
>seems sound. But at the same time, these games also edge a bit too
>close to seeming like work. 911 Operator also seems like the game that
>would depress me, as inevitably I'd start to fail the (virtual) people
>I'm supposed to protect due to lack of resources and the game ramping
>up in speed. I like my escapism to end on a high note, not utter
>failure; real life is depressing enough as it is ;-)

Once you get enough calls from annoying citizens, you start to not be
too concerned about how many of them you might have failed :)

It's sort of a weird sim in the sense that you're both the 911
operator, and apparently overseeing all operations for all types of
first response.  So, your goal is to accumulate money by working
efficiently, so that you can upgrade and add stuff and serve the
citizens better.

What I don't like about that idea is that I'd have to guess that like
most games, once you have better/faster/more of everything and have
become a more proficient operator, the difficulty is likely going to
move progressively up, so that you just have more incidents in the
city to deal with (thus working toward an unattainable goal).  I
suppose that is how it works in cities with rapid population growth
anyway, but often this dilemma is present in titles that find their
identities lodged somewhere between being sim and being a game.

Also see Mack's comments at the video link I posted about the DLC,
something else to consider.

>Spalls Hurgenson  <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Replaying the games, I found the levels a mixed bunch. Some of them
>were as dull and endless as I remembered - especially the later ones
>in the ruined Jedi temple - and far too reliant on platforming puzzles
>(over bottomless pits, naturally) to be fun. Others, however,
>adequately captured the scale and feel of the movies well enough,
>especially considering the limitations of the technology of the day.

I really like the verticality of the Jedi Knights, few games, before
or since, bother to make use of that third dimension.  It was cool
playing the game back in the day in some high resolution like 1024x786
and sniping at some three pixel high storm troopers that would've been
almost impossible to spot at 640x480 or lower.  The platforming elements
I would have done away with, but at least it was save everywhere so you
didn't have repeat a sequence of jumps over and over.

>The game remained as ugly as I remembered; even the original Dark
>Forces, with its blocky 320x200 graphics and sprites looked far
>better.

Using software rendering instead of hardware rendering makes the game look
more like what was intended.  A big problem with hardware rendering is it
can't handle all the lights in the walls that are a big thing in Imperial
bases and ships.  They're rendered as part of a wall texture which when
the basic hardware accelerated lighting of the time is applied to it
means that the lights on the wall look dimmed in darker areas instead
of remaining bright.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

>What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?

    Life is Strange EP1
Coming off the massive undertaking that was playing through FO:NV, I felt 
like trying an adventure game, and the highly rated LIS seemed a good 
choice.  In this game you're a teenager walking around, interacting with and 
observing your acquaintances; listening to (or eavesdropping on) 
conversations and choosing your response is engaging -- just as The Walking 
Dead was initially -- but there's more:  The hook, if you will, is that 
should you notice something you'd like to change -- say a poor bird hitting 
a window, or an errant football causing an accident, or, perhaps you make a 
disappointing response to an interlocutor -- you *can* change it and rewind 
your action for another choice.  Very intriguing, and the plot makes you 
feel involved in this gameworld.  I've only played the first episode, but 
look forward to starting the next asap!

    The Division
Sense of place, atmosphere, immersion:  The Division has these in spades, 
you really feel like you're in post-apocalyptic New York in this game.  The 
wintry setting, realistic volumetric fog, east coast accents, masterfully 
mixed audio, real buildings and places all modeled on the real metropolis. 
The gameplay consists of lots and lots of skirmishes, sometimes quite 
intense, picking up the loot left behind by fallen enemies, similar to 
Borderlands e.g., and using it upgrade your own weapons and skills to deal 
with the next group who level up right along with you.

I stuck with the solo campaign, and luckily for me it's well-done, with full 
mo-capped voice-acting by quality actors with a pretty well-written script. 
By deliberately refusing to engage in the MP aspect I tossed out a good 
amount of gameplay mechanics and cooperation that the developers were aiming 
for, but for me that was a good choice.  Without a mic and a group of known 
players, the one or two coop MP missions I played didn't offer anything of 
worth beyond the enjoyment I got from the SP campaign.  Once the main 
campaign is over, all of the present DLC is fairly repetitive random 
mission-based with no story content, so no loss in never entering the Dark 
Zone from my perspective.  But sharp as a tack shooting in a fully-realized 
gameworld make The Division a big winner for me!

    Homeworld Revolution
I'm not quite done with this title, but whoa, this is a way, way under-rated 
run&gun FPS shooter, that I am enjoying the heck out of.  From a somewhat 
slow start that at first had me thinking the plot would dribble to a tired 
boring ending, I've become steadily more engaged with the world, the 
gameplay mechanics and parkour movement, the fun weapons and missions, and 
the excellent pacing.  This is great stuff, and I'll make sure to praise the 
devs that in whatever forums I can.  Fuck the Norks!  KPA out, USA in!

rms 

On Sun, 2 Apr 2017 18:44:11 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

>>Spalls Hurgenson  <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Replaying the games, I found the levels a mixed bunch. Some of them
>>were as dull and endless as I remembered - especially the later ones
>>in the ruined Jedi temple - and far too reliant on platforming puzzles
>>(over bottomless pits, naturally) to be fun. Others, however,
>>adequately captured the scale and feel of the movies well enough,
>>especially considering the limitations of the technology of the day.
>
>I really like the verticality of the Jedi Knights, few games, before
>or since, bother to make use of that third dimension.  It was cool
>playing the game back in the day in some high resolution like 1024x786
>and sniping at some three pixel high storm troopers that would've been
>almost impossible to spot at 640x480 or lower.  The platforming elements
>I would have done away with, but at least it was save everywhere so you
>didn't have repeat a sequence of jumps over and over.
>
>>The game remained as ugly as I remembered; even the original Dark
>>Forces, with its blocky 320x200 graphics and sprites looked far
>>better.
>
>Using software rendering instead of hardware rendering makes the game look
>more like what was intended.  A big problem with hardware rendering is it
>can't handle all the lights in the walls that are a big thing in Imperial
>bases and ships.  They're rendered as part of a wall texture which when
>the basic hardware accelerated lighting of the time is applied to it
>means that the lights on the wall look dimmed in darker areas instead
>of remaining bright.

No, it wasn't that - at least not for me. It was the awful, awful,
/awful/ character models (the Stormtroopers in particular). The level
design - the flow, the textures, the furnishings, etc. - looked fine
(given the game's age). And - as you pointed out - they did have an
interesting verticality to them, although as I pointed out, too often
this meant you were dancing around bottomless pits were a misjump
meant instant death. No, it was the character models that really
pulled me out of the experience; even against its contemporaries they
looked terrible, and two decades on they have truely become an
eyesore.

Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes:

> Well, the days are definitely longer but they certainly
> aren't warmer...

My thoughts exactly. The problem up here at least is that March is
cold. So are April and May and June often isn't that warm either... Oh
well.

> The gameplay, as mentioned, remains a solid re-creation of that
> introduced in "Human Revolution", albeit with a few new powers.

I have to agree on the gameplay. I actually started on the Desperate
Measures mini-DLC last night. It was great, I was really enjoying
sneaking around like a ghost and thumbing my nose at the bumbling
opposition that never saw anything. Then again, sneaking is kind of
mandatory in this since you start out with a stun gun and five rounds...

Also this features my favorite in the whole series, messing up a bot's
targeting parameters and then you can just sit back and wait for the bot
to make things very loud and then rather quiet :)

> What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?

* Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
- Finally finished. I was a little hesitant to do the last part of it,
  dreading some three hour slugfest but no. Just killed some more
  orcs, two simple boss fights and that was that. In fact, the final
  "boss fight" was just a few QT events. Something of a disappointment
  although I don't mind QTEs.
- It’s hard to believe I put almost 60 hours into this. When I started
  playing in January I had already 20 hours according to Steam and pretty much
  all I had done was running around and killing random orcs and filling out
  maybe a third of the skill tree.
- In the end, I have to agree with Rock, Paper, Shotgun and their
  recent article about solid 7/10 action games, Shadow of Mordor was
  pretty much exacly that. Good solid action, not much else going for it.

* Shadows of Mordor
- This came up in a Google search for Shadow of Mordor so on a lark I
  tried it. It’s a 1987 text adventure game for (some of) the usual
  machines of the time and also MS-DOS and Mac OS. Aussie devs actually.
- Graphical text adventure. You can play as either Frodo or Sam and the
  object is, of course, to get the One Ring to Mount Doom.
- Didn't really get much anywhere in it but maybe I'll give it another
  try. 

* Life is Strange
- I actually played this some time in 2016, since the first chapter
  was free. Started again now and then stopped again. I guess I'll try
  to get into it again.
- I had no preconception as to what it actually is but it goes
  pretty fast from teen school drama in an academy for photographers
  to somewhat weird fantasy stuff.

* Code 7
- I played a demo for this some time ago, it seemed interesting then. An
  attempt at a modern text adventure. They released an
  "Episode 0" last year and the full game (or maybe next episode?) is
  supposedly coming out this year. 
- I'm not sure this is so much fun anymore. There are some timed
  sequences and some action sequences. But something to be said for
  using the old Commodore 64 font and character set.
  

On 2017-04-02, Ross Ridge <rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>Spalls Hurgenson  <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Replaying the games, I found the levels a mixed bunch. Some of them
>>were as dull and endless as I remembered - especially the later ones
>>in the ruined Jedi temple - and far too reliant on platforming puzzles
>>(over bottomless pits, naturally) to be fun. Others, however,
>>adequately captured the scale and feel of the movies well enough,
>>especially considering the limitations of the technology of the day.
>
> I really like the verticality of the Jedi Knights, few games, before
> or since, bother to make use of that third dimension.  

Metroid Prime springs to mind.


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

On 4/1/2017 10:44 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>
>
> It's March, and they say that Winter is over. That means that I should
> be spending more time outdoors, enjoying the longer days and warmer
> weather. Well, the days are definitely longer but they certainly
> aren't warmer - this month has been rainier (and snowier) and far
> colder than all the rest of this Winter combined. But at least that
> means I have an excuse to huddle indoors staring at a computer screen;
> better that than muddling about outside in the icy rain and wind.
>

I'm suffering my 4th cold since the cold season started for me at 
Thanksgiving.  I think I've had a total of 4 weeks where I was feeling 
well since then. One of the joys of having spawn in the virus exchange 
program they call school.

> Now, I know "ARMA 3" was intended to be played in multiplayer, with
> large groups of like-minded people role-playing war-game fantasies in
> player-made battles. Its single-player mode feels like a technology
> demo; a sampling of what the mission-creator - and game-engine - can
> do rather than a real attempt to craft a strong story or gameplay. But
> that campaign was so rough and unfulfilling that it did more to turn
> me off the series than want to further explore the game's
> capabilities.

The explosion of multiplayer - with almost no single player games. 
Always hated that, it always turned me off.

> * Neverwinter Nights 2 w/ Pool of Radiance Remastered mod (replay/new)
> I consider the old "gold box" "Pool of Radiance" game to be one of the
> great classics of computer role-playing and, in fact, one of the few
> CRPGs that is a real RPG rather than a glorified
> adventure-game-with-stats. In an era where games came on 360KB floppy
> disks, it presented a surprisingly detailed open world where you could
> make your own way to fame and fortune. Although there was an
> over-arching plot with requisite evil nemesis, it wasn't until the
> very end that the game started to railroad you towards the inevitable
> final conflict and until that point, "Pool of Radiance" offered an
> amazing amount of freedom to the player. Unfortunately, I find it very
> hard to replay the original game due to both its technical and
> mechanical limitations; the graphics are an eyesore, the controls are
> awful and the game relies far, far too much on pitting you against
> hordes of enemies in slow and cumbersome combat.

I replayed it again not long ago, with liberal use of time-speeding-up 
f12's in dos box I found it pretty playable, and I was whipping through 
menus in amazing speed with the arrow keys compared to modern games. The 
only bit I found really annoying was having to choose all the spells 
every time I wanted to memorize.  The later games fix this at least and 
you can make a set load-out.

I found myself having a hard time not making an all 18's party, and I 
kept trying to play it in hardcore mode (no reloading saves) which 
probably made it a bit too hard and I never finished re-playing.  I gave 
up after getting level drained by wights.  Still pretty enjoyable.

> So when I learned there was a fan-made "Pool of Radiance Remastered"
> mod for the "Neverwinter Nights 2" game, it is no surprise I
> downloaded it immediately; I mean, a chance to re-experience the
> classic game with modern(ish) graphics and controls - how could I say
> no to that?

Hmm. I think I heard something about that, but didn't think it could be 
done properly in NWN2, which from your review seems about right.

I think there's some recreations of some of the AD&D modules in 
Minecraft too, but I just couldn't get the hang of that game either.

> What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?

Dark Souls 2.  Yes that's still pretty much all I've been playing.  I 
finally finished the base game with my Sorcerer/Hexer and am on the the 
DLCs with him.  I've got 4 active characters (Sorcer/Hexer, Str/Faith, 
Quality Rob/Flynn, & Mundane) and am thinking of making a 5th Heavy 
Tank.  I'm playing with a rule that if i lose my souls I switch 
characters, and my Sorcerer Hexer won that race to the end.  It was my 
first character, but I got stalled a bit at the beginning and got behind 
my other characters, with my str/faith looking best for awhile.  I 
haven't been able to beat the Darklurker with any of my other 
characters, so the rest are stuck there.  I'm still finding it 
impossible to complete the sun covenant, but did complete the dark with 
my sorecerer/hexer, and bell brothers & champions with my quality.  I 
think I'm starting to want a change of pace and might try something else.

Dugeon Robber.  Still playing this web OD&D game off and on.  I'm up to 
level 8 Advanced on this replay. I've got to level 10 advanced with 
cleric last time.  I plan to keep playing until I've got all the classes 
retired at level 10 advanced, which might be impossible in a human lifetime.

- Justisaur

On Wed, 5 Apr 2017 10:53:50 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 4/1/2017 10:44 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>>
>>
>> It's March, and they say that Winter is over. That means that I should
>> be spending more time outdoors, enjoying the longer days and warmer
>> weather. Well, the days are definitely longer but they certainly
>> aren't warmer - this month has been rainier (and snowier) and far
>> colder than all the rest of this Winter combined. But at least that
>> means I have an excuse to huddle indoors staring at a computer screen;
>> better that than muddling about outside in the icy rain and wind.

>
>> So when I learned there was a fan-made "Pool of Radiance Remastered"
>> mod for the "Neverwinter Nights 2" game

>Hmm. I think I heard something about that, but didn't think it could be 
>done properly in NWN2, which from your review seems about right.

There was a Pool of Radiance mod made for the first Neverwinter Nights
(well, first made by Bioware; damn this constant reuse of titles in
games!) that was a closer match to the Gold Box game. In fact, in many
cases you could actually use the hint book from the 1986 game to help
you through the remake (I had to do that for the damn maze on
Sorceror's Isle). The biggest difference was that  - rather than
guiding 6 PCs through the game - you were limited to a single player
character (and optionally one follower), due to the limitations of the
underlying NWN engine.

I expected the same when I downloaded the version for NWN2, except
with nicer graphics. What I got wasn't bad - in fact, it was a very
commendable effort - but it at a cost to what made the original so
memorable. 


>> What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?


>Dugeon Robber.  Still playing this web OD&D game off and on.  I'm up to 
>level 8 Advanced on this replay. I've got to level 10 advanced with 
>cleric last time.  I plan to keep playing until I've got all the classes 
>retired at level 10 advanced, which might be impossible in a human lifetime.

Alas, it still utilizes Flash. Like many, I junked Flash years ago and
while, overall, I'm the happier for it, Dungeon Robber is one of the
things I miss.