🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 02 Jun 2017 01:17:35 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Well, it's been a busy month for me, although you wouldn't be able to
>tell it by my playlist. Although I only played three games this month
>- not the fewest I've ever played, but far below average - one of
>those games hogged so much of my time that it's a wonder I found any
>time to play any other games. Plus the addition of some fun new
>computer hardware and, oh yeah, real life and I'm amazed I managed to
>squeeze everything into one month.
>
>Anyway, it's the end of the month (well, slightly past but as I said,
>I've been busy) and we all know what that means. I tell you guys what
>games I have been playing, you guys tell us all what you have been
>playing. Maybe we share our thoughts on those games too, or maybe not;
>it's all good. Anyway, let's get right into things.
>
>--------------------
>Short and Sweet
>--------------------
>
>* Fallout 4 (new)
>* Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga (replay)
>* Minecraft (replay)
>
>TL; DR 
>----------
>
>* Fallout 4 (new)
>If pressed to give a final opinion on Fallout 4, I would probably
>respond by saying that - while it has excellent production values - it
>was a game I ultimately did not enjoy playing very much. But this
>statement is very much at odds with my reported play-time on Steam: I
>invested over 100 hours into the game. It's an unusual discrepancy
>that I have struggled to understand myself.
>
>Certainly Fallout 4 is not without is merits. Its large open world is
>beautifully detailed and Bethesda has well-utilized the updated
>Creation (nee Gamebryo) engine to crank out their best renderings yet.
>The texture detail in some areas is simply stunning. The game-world is
>far more open than Bethesda's earlier titles; while you still
>encounter a load-screen when entering the larger dungeons, many
>smaller areas that once would have been separate maps are now part of
>the overland map, giving the whole game a much more cohesive feel. The
>map is stuffed full of things to discover, and - like all Bethesda's
>games - the biggest thrill is walking across the world and discovering
>a new area to explore. Like a jackdaw to a shiny object, I was
>constantly distracted by the lure of some new dungeon or ruin to
>discover, and rare was it that I'd cross the wastelands on some quest
>without numerous detours because some new "unexplored area" icon
>appeared on my mini-map. 
>
>Unfortunately, this was the only real joy I received while playing the
>game. The individual quests - always a weak point of Bethesda's games
>- I found uninteresting, with particular disdain for the main quest.
>The procedurally generated "Radiant" quests were exceptionally poor,
>especially when they were auto-assigned ("Rescue the town from
>imminent attack" and saddled with a time-limit; the latter was an
>egregious sin as it took me away from the freeform wandering that was
>game's strength. The game's new mechanic - the base-building - was
>encumbered by tedium, limited options and fiddly controls and after
>establishing a few homes for my braindead followers I largely ignored
>it. Many of the older mechanics - unfulfilling combat, dry dialogue
>options, uninspired AI, and cumbersome crafting - still suffered from
>rough spots that have haunted Bethesda's games since the start.
>Individually these issues didn't harm the game too much, but the
>continued lack of improvement in this area was disheartening
>
>I think that if I had to put my finger on Fallout 4's biggest problem,
>it would be that it was such an unadventurous sequel; except for the
>addition of the base-building, it added very little new to the
>franchise.  Most disappointingly, it took absolutely no chances with
>the setting. In many ways the game felt little more than a re-skin of
>Fallout 3, both in terms of gameplay and setting. Once again I took
>the role of a bad-ass (albeit easily diverted) vault-dweller facing
>off against the same bunch of mutants and wasteland factions. Oddly
>enough, the increased level - while pleasant to look at - made the
>game actually that much less immersive, since its increased realism
>only brought into contrast many of the inconsistencies of the game's
>world (like, if the war was over 200 years ago then why are there
>still-fresh corpses from the war all over?).
>
>It was the lure of discovery that kept me playing as long as I did,
>but the payout was rarely worth the effort. Like an addict, I kept
>scouring the wastes - adding tens of hours to my overall play-time -
>in hopes of finding some redeeming and exciting set-piece but instead
>was reward with an unending sense of ennui. When I finally did come to
>the end of the main quest, I found I had little desire to keep playing
>beyond that point. This is a distinct divergence from my experience
>with other Bethesda titles, where I would happily play and re-play the
>game; with Fallout 4, I was happy to have finally come to a concluding
>moment so that I could abandon it without guilt or worry I might be
>missing something.  I'd seen enough to realize that even were I to
>play another hundred hours I still wouldn't discover anything that
>would make that investment worthwhile.
>
>
>
>* Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga (replay)
>"The Complete Saga" includes Legofied retellings of the first six Star
>Wars movies; I played through the first trilogy and considered that
>sufficient. 
>
>The most interesting part of the game for me was seeing how far the
>developers have come; these early games feel primitive both in
>presentation and gameplay when compared to their later adventures.
>They are extremely repetitive, with only a few set-pieces that offer
>any differentiation from the platforming in combat introduced at the
>very start. Geared towards a younger crowd, neither the combat nor
>puzzles were especially engaging. It was only the appeal of the source
>material that kept me playing as long as I did.
>
>I don't regret the time I spent on this game, but it's best played in
>short sessions and even after only a few short hours, I've gotten my
>fill already.
>
>
>* Minecraft (replay)
>Minecraft is one of those games that has more or less established a
>permanent foothold on my hard-drive, but it's recently not been a game
>I've played with for any length of time. In part this was because -
>after having 
>played and built in its endless realms for hundreds of hours - I had
>sort of burnt out on the game, but equally because technical issues
>kept me from even starting the program. Well, whether it was the
>installation of a new video-card, new drivers, or reinstallation of
>Java or the game program, the latter problem unexpectedly solved
>itself and now - after a two year absence - I've plunged myself back
>into the game once more.
>
>The joy of the game for me was never its survival mode or its
>multiplayer component, but rather the game's "creative mode" where I
>could build to my heart's desire. My particular fetish was always for
>reasonably realistic fantasy/medieval structures, many of which I
>would then share with the Minecraft community. I find little more
>pleasing than to meticulously build and detail a structure, working
>around the shortcomings of the Minecraft toolset. It's a pleasure that
>I expect will keep me occupied for many weeks to come.
>
>--------------------
>
>See? Only three games. I feel so ashamed. I'll try to play more games
>next month, honest.
>
>Anyway, that's me. What about you? 

I played several games, but did not spend a lot of time on any of them
(busy with work and other hobbies):

- Rising Storm: Vietnam.   I played the beta and it felt in pretty
rough shape, and I was a little worried Tripwire had screwed this one
up.  The final release is a great tactical MP shooter that rewards
teamwork and discourages "lone wolfs".

- Bit Blaster XL.   One of the things that always amazed me about old
school arcade games, is how much fun even minor variants of the
original formulas can be.  In other words take a basic game like Pong,
Space Invaders, Asteroids, PacMan, Donkey Kong, DigDug, etc. and
create something with similar mechanics but with seemingly minor
differences, and it still feels like a fresh game.  This doesn't
happen with newer, more elaborate productions, where reuse of an old
formula gets tired quickly.  Bit Blaster is just an asteroids clone at
heart, yet it feels fresh (and is a lot of fun).

- NBA Playgrounds.  I used to love Dr. J vs Larry Bird One On One (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Zi6udU5BE) on the Atari 8-bit, and
this is kind of an updated version of that.  I'm not a fan of
basketball per se (I never watch NBA on TV or really give a crap about
it), but there is something about a one-on-one (or even 2 on 2) games
that makes for a good video game.  And this one is good.  My only
gripe is that its geared more toward people who are into the NBA, have
some sense of recognition for specific players, care about individual
abilities of those players, etc.   I don't want an RPG in a game like
this, I don't want to have to unlock shit, etc., I just want it to be
my skill vs the other guy, particularly in online matches.  Creating
characters based on their real life counterparts is something that
caters to actual NBA fans, but gets in the way of someone that doesn't
care about all that.  All of that said, it's actually a very well
executed game and the closest thing I've seen to my old favorite hoops
game.  Issues I had were primarily that I had to play quite a while
against the computer before I could "unlock" the ability to play
online, and when I did I was up against people who were already far
more practiced than me, which did not turn out well for me.  I'm
apparently not as good as basketball games as I am shooters, give me
an AK-47 and my opponent will think twice before yanking the ball out
of my hand.
I do wish someone would do a proper remake of Dr. J vs Larry Bird.
Just a half-court, vertical perspective, doesn't even need to support
online as long as it captures the simplistic fun factor of the
original.  Meanwhile this game is about as close as you'll get.

- Quake Champions (beta).   Fun!  It's Quake alright.  But, how
interested I can remain in an arena shooter these days is up for
debate.  Part of what made the original Quake magical was what the
modding community did with it.  This was the birth of TeamFortress and
similar spin offs, and I doubt anything like that will be possible
with this title.  I'm not sure if I will even buy it, because
apparently it's going to be a freemium offering (offering a free to
play model where it takes longer to unlock each champion), and I doubt
I would be able to carve out enough time in my schedule this day to
really play all champions or even care about their abilities.  I do
love the occasional twitch/arena game, so I may jump into it
occasionally for that.  I actually found Doom (2016) mutliplayer to be
a bit more addictive, but Quake Champions might be a good option for
the occasional twitch fix.

On 6/1/2017 10:17 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Well, it's been a busy month for me, although you wouldn't be able to
> tell it by my playlist. Although I only played three games this month
> - not the fewest I've ever played, but far below average - one of
> those games hogged so much of my time that it's a wonder I found any
> time to play any other games. Plus the addition of some fun new
> computer hardware and, oh yeah, real life and I'm amazed I managed to
> squeeze everything into one month.
> 
> Anyway, it's the end of the month (well, slightly past but as I said,
> I've been busy) and we all know what that means. I tell you guys what
> games I have been playing, you guys tell us all what you have been
> playing. Maybe we share our thoughts on those games too, or maybe not;
> it's all good. Anyway, let's get right into things.
> 
> --------------------
> Short and Sweet
> --------------------
> 
> * Fallout 4 (new)
> * Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga (replay)
> * Minecraft (replay)
> 
> 
> Anyway, that's me. What about you?
> 
> What Have You Been Playing... IN MAY 2017?
> 
Like you, I only played three games in May but unlike you that's normal 
for me.  :)

I continued my war on Japan in War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition. 
Grinding away I'm up to late November 1944 in the campaign.  Ran into my 
first stumbles in a while when I was a bit hasty invading Iwo Jima. 
Didn't recon and soften it up enough and the defenses were stronger than 
I expected.  Had to pull back off the island.  A harrowing experience 
when you're getting several kamikaze attacks a day, even with more than 
half a dozen fleet carriers and a dozen plus jeep carriers providing air 
cover.  Lost a couple cruisers, some destroyers and LSTs to them.

So while I was rebuilding the land units and bringing up more troops for 
the second attack I thought, let's whittle down those kamikazes first. 
Sent the 8 fleet carriers off to bomb Iwo and Okinawa, hoping to draw 
out some of the kamikazes from the Home Islands into my several hundred 
Hellcat CAP.  I succeeded.  Too well.  Multiple raids, each by HUNDREDS 
of suicide aircraft.  On just the first day I was in range.  Oops.  My 
CAP got whittled down and while I didn't lose any ships, four of the 
carriers are now sailing, slowly, to Pearl for dates with the drydocks.

I tried sending the B-29s in to bomb the airfields but from the Marianas 
Japan is just barely in range (in the game) of the early model, so they 
are carrying reduced bomb loads, and while the unescorted bombers shot 
down more Jap fighters than they lost, it wasn't by much and I don't 
have the numbers to replace the losses.

The second game was Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge.  The goal 
here is to play Wiz 6-7-8 in order, carrying over the party from each 
game to the next.  I'm currently on the River Styx, grinding away trying 
to raise my characters another level or two before moving on to the Isle 
of the Dead.  Not really very thrilling here right now, so haven't been 
spending much time playing this.

The final game was one I found the CD for while I was going thru some 
boxes.  Serf City: Life is Feudal!!!  :D  (AKA Settlers 1.)  A real 
blast from the past.  I remember when I first got the game thinking this 
explained why people are so fascinated with ant farms.  :)  So I spent a 
weekend getting it to run under DosBox and then my free time for a week 
or so watching my ant farm, ahem, serfs wandering around.  Still fun.

So that was my gaming month in May 2017.

-- 
"That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry."

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

    Syberia 3
I played most of the game after patch 1.2 (all-AMD system), so most of the 
performance issues & bugs in other reviews did not affect me.  Using a XB360 
controller, the abrupt camera changes on scene switches were quirky but 
easily adapted to, and I only needed a brief glance at the control diagram 
to understand what was asked of me.

Puzzles consist of finding parts for, and manipulating simple mechanical 
devices, with the 3D addition of having to rotate the camera to locate 
obstructed hotspots.  Hotspots themselves are indicated with white dots 
onscreen, which take some practice to locate.

So how is it?  None of the puzzles are intellectually difficult, nor do 
conversation choices have any effect on gameplay.  Graphics are competent, 
but uninspiring, with small levels and a limited camera that discourages 
sight-seeing.  There's little text to read for background, characters are 
very cliched (especially the 'native' youkols and the villians), the story 
as a whole is overly linear and simplified.

Basically, consolization and a limited budget are much in evidence:  A tepid 
experience with a much-muted wonder and emotional impact of the previous 
titles; not enough to warrant a thumbs down, but not good enough for 
non-diehard fans either.  Syberia 3 didn't quite kill off my interest in 
this series, but it came close :)   With plenty of dangling plot threads, 
and a still-strong mythos, hopefully a Syberia 4 will gather enough funding 
for a higher-quality production!  I'll buy it for sure.

    Next up:  Day of the Tentacle Remastered!

rms 

On 6/1/2017 10:17 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Well, it's been a busy month for me, although you wouldn't be able to
> tell it by my playlist. Although I only played three games this month
> - not the fewest I've ever played, but far below average - one of
> those games hogged so much of my time that it's a wonder I found any
> time to play any other games. Plus the addition of some fun new
> computer hardware and, oh yeah, real life and I'm amazed I managed to
> squeeze everything into one month.
> 
> Anyway, it's the end of the month (well, slightly past but as I said,
> I've been busy) and we all know what that means. I tell you guys what
> games I have been playing, you guys tell us all what you have been
> playing. Maybe we share our thoughts on those games too, or maybe not;
> it's all good. Anyway, let's get right into things.
> 

I was waiting impatiently :)

> --------------------
> Short and Sweet
> --------------------
> 
> * Fallout 4 (new)

There's some decent quests there, the first museum/deathclaw fight was 
hell, and took me a long time to get past.  The newspaper ones and the 
flying ship one were somewhat memorable.  But yeah, nothing much 
compared to the cool stuff of 3 - I reread a post of mine on when I 
first found the 3 way battle at the capital.  Seeing Harold again, etc.

> * Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga (replay)

My son hasn't been interested to actually start playing this, which is 
surprising.  I'm not sure what he's got against star wars.  He seems to 
love everything else Lego, but not star wars for some reason.  I 
remember not much caring for this when I played it years ago.

> * Minecraft (replay)

My son has this too, I've tried, but I just don't get it. Kind of like 
Dwarf Fortress.  Sounds fun, just can't get it.

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

For me:

9 this month.  I feel a bit sad I didn't complete the DLCs of Dark Souls 
2, but I'd just had enough.  I was almost tempted to jump right in DS3, 
but decided I'd better not.  You really need a breather after a DS game.

I've posted on some of these already, so I'll make those short.

Rocket League (new)
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (new)
Limbo (new)
Nyquest (new)
Star Wars Rebel Assault (new)
Star Wars The Force Unleashed II (new)
Dirt Rally (new)
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II (new)
Fallout Shelter (replay)
Fallout 2 (re-re-re-replay)
Brutal Legend (new)

* Rocket League (new PC car-soccer)
Did this on the free weekend, just seemed like it was worse than either 
playing a car game or a soccer game, found it frustrating as games went 
into overtime as neither side had scored.  Seemed a bit more sparse than 
I was expecting from the pictures I'd seen.

* Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (new PC multi-player bullet hell)
This seems like a fun game, but it's obviously made more for 
multi-player, you can do it with an in game AI, which I even hesitate to 
call AI as you have to direct them to the station to use, and they can't 
use the thrusters, so that means you're pretty much stuck doing the 
thrusters, which isn't as much fun as shooting at things.  It's a bit 
too much to direct the AI where to go and do the thrusters and whatever 
else you need at the same time.  I'd like to try this with my son, but 
it's not lego.

* Limbo (new PC Puzzle platformer)
It looked cool, but I got stuck quickly, and gave up after less than an 
hour.  I should know better than to even try a puzzle game, they aren't 
my thing.  I probably played this less than an hour

* Nyquest (new PC Platformer)
I liked this a bit better, still puzzles, but I could figure them out. 
It got a bit stale after a couple hours

* Star Wars Rebel Assault (PC new)
I probably shouldn't even mention this, as I didn't really play this for 
more than a few minutes.  I didn't give it a chance.  I just wanted to 
play something else.

* Star Wars The Force Unleashed II (PC new)
Ho hum.  I haven't played the original in ages, but after a couple hours 
I got bored with this.  Seemed like a totally uninspired sequel. I 
didn't even complete my escape.

* Dirt Rally (PC dirt car new)
I ran through a couple courses.  It's a pretty cool realistic dirt 
driving game, but I think I prefer a bit more arcade, and I missed 
actually racing against others instead of just vs. times.  I liked the 
navigator giving my directions, that was a cool feature, I'd love that 
in other racing games.  I wasn't very good at it and kept careening off 
the road.  If it had some actual racing, I'd almost definitely be into this.

* Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II (new, RPG PC)
Bleak.  The asteroid mining operation was boring and uninspired, 
definitely not feeling the Star Wars here.  The robot had more 
personality than either of the companions I did get, not a good sign for 
this game.  I did manage to get to Talos, but found the situation there 
also boring and quit before doing much there.

* Fallout shelter (replay - PC genere?)
I had gotten frustrated playing on my phone, as it just slows down once 
you have a lot of dwellers, so decided to play on the PC.  It is way 
smoother. I'm not sure what genere you would call this. It's fremium, 
but really there's no reason to spend money on it... well I could see 
buying quantum as waiting for things to finish is highly annoying.  The 
price on them is way too high for the utility though.  I tried using 
cheat engine to speed it up, but it seems to have a weird effect and 
doesn't really work.  I've read of changing your computer time, but 
don't want to mess with that.  I might try it on my old laptop to do 
that, but not sure it'll run well there.  I got my shelter to 100... and 
then felt 'now what?'  There's quests to do which is new from my last 
play, but like other things you have to wait for hours for your dwellers 
to get to them.  The combat in the quests is interesting, it's kind of 
like turn based, your guys fire at enemies every few seconds.  There's 
not really much you can do other than give stimpacks when needed though. 
I did start a survival shelter, I'm doing fine with, but the time delay 
means I stopped going back to it.

* Fallout 2 (re-re-re-replay, PC TRPG)
The near turn based nature of Fallout Shelter just made me want to go 
back to Fallout 2.  I posted quite a bit more about it on CSIPGR.  I'm 
using the Restoration Project which is awesome, it fixes a ton of bugs 
and re-adds some disabled content, and seems to include everything 
that's really necessary to play, it's all you need, it's Werner's 
quality, great stuff, I'd call it absolutely necessary if you want to 
play FO2.  It really feels like it's finally polished... for it's 
original time anyway.  I set it to 2x speed which makes it feel much 
slicker too.  I've going back and forth in a roller coaster - some times 
I'm really into it and other times I'm feeling like I'm just finally 
done forever with my favorite game of all time.  I'm trying to get 
through the game with two characters I always wanted to, but never 
could.  An unarmed specialist and a stupid character.  I'm actually 
finding the unarmed specialist far harder as stuff runs away then you 
can't use unarmed on them, and bursts are really dangerous up close. 
I've probably made over 20 characters restarting to hone their stats as 
I tried things that didn't work out well.  I still love watching the 
burst death dance :)

There's a couple other complete overhauls too I might eventually check out.

While I was digging around trying to refresh my memory of what things do 
I stumbled upon FOnline 2, which seems to be some sort of free Fallout 2 
based MMO I'd never heard of before.  I may need to check that out.

I may have to go back to FO3 after I'm done here too - I never did get 
to the DLCs, but I found going through the base game again a bit too 
much to get to the point I could do those.  I suppose I could pick up an 
already maxed out character as my originals are long gone, but that 
sounds meh.  Last time I replayed it it seemed the mods I liked 
originally were no-more and the current ones just weren't that good.

* Brutal Legend (new PC)
I started up this when I was getting frustrated with FO2, but went back 
to FO2 after a day or two of this.  Jack Black has a game where he's a 
roady for a metal band and get sucked back in time/another dimension 
where demons rule and he tries to set free the humans with ROCK!  I'm 
not really into metal, but it's a bit funny.  The game seems like it's 
an older console port, and reminds me a bit of Overlord.  The controls 
are pretty clunky and the animations aren't smooth, it plays almost well 
enough to get through to the funny bits, but not quite.  I might try 
slogging through it for all the funny once I get bored enough of FO.

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
<snip good stuff>
> Anyway, that's me. What about you?
>
> What Have You Been Playing... IN MAY 2017?
>

replays only for me:
1830
Adam Stevens' Monopoly
various solitaire games from SolMenu and Solitaire's Journey

TL;DR

1830 - SimTex's DOS version of the board game; I enjoy many 
of the mechanics of this game (auction, playing in the stock 
market, building train routes, buying trains, etc. (all with 
perfect info)) and have come back to it many times over the 
years.

-----------

Adam Stevens' Monopoly - I set each player's starting cash 
to $700 and play against 3 customized "AIs".  The limited 
cash tends to balance the lottery-like aspect of who lands 
on unowned properties more and who lands on them less.

I.e. if you land on too many unowned properties to quickly, 
you will soon run out of money.  At that point other players 
can often outbid you when the property is auctioned.

This pgm keeps detailed stats on which properties the 
players landed on, how much rent was paid, how much each 
player "wants" other players' properties, etc.

The "AIs" are smart enough that they sometimes engineer a 
series of trades that give sets to three players.

----------

SolMenu - Karl Meadows' suites (5 games in each) of DOS 
solitaire games; The games have an intelligently designed 
interface that allows you to play the games with just one 
finger (if you want to).

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

Solitaire's Journey - QQP's collection of 105 solitaire games


-- 
Eddie

On Fri, 2 Jun 2017 08:11:47 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 6/1/2017 10:17 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

>
>The final game was one I found the CD for while I was going thru some 
>boxes.  Serf City: Life is Feudal!!!  :D  (AKA Settlers 1.)  A real 
>blast from the past.  I remember when I first got the game thinking this 
>explained why people are so fascinated with ant farms.  :)  So I spent a 
>weekend getting it to run under DosBox and then my free time for a week 
>or so watching my ant farm, ahem, serfs wandering around.  Still fun.

I remember being very impressed with what SerfCity was trying to do.
In an era where most game abstracted its larger systems, SerfCity
aimed to create a very detailed economic simulator. You essentially
had to build your economy from the ground up, taking into
consideration each of the many steps necessary to build a medieval
economic base (lumberjacks cut logs, sawyers turn the logs into
planks, carpenters turn planks into furniture, etc.). It was an
exceptionally impressive effort, especially given the technological
limitations of the time. I also loved how the peasants' foot-traffic
created paths and roads just by their using the same route over and
over again.

But damn, unless you had an intense and abiding interest in
micromanging, the game just wasn't fun to play. The AI was brain dead
and the systems contradictorily were both too detailed and not
detailed enough to work. The former meant a huge workload for the
player, whilst the latter denied the player access to necessary
information and tools that might lessen that workload. 

As you said, fun to watch but probably just getting it to run in
DOSBox was a more entertaining challenge.

On Fri, 2 Jun 2017 09:33:57 -0700, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:


>* Star Wars Rebel Assault (PC new)
>I probably shouldn't even mention this, as I didn't really play this for 
>more than a few minutes.  I didn't give it a chance.  I just wanted to 
>play something else.

I have fond memories of Rebel Assault even though I didn't enjoy the
game at all. Released long before the prequels (and only at the start
of the Expanded Universe), new Star Wars material was rare and
exciting... especially new visuals. And it was made by the same guys
who made X-Wing! My expectations were so high for this game.

Then I played and to say I was disappointed would be a grave
understatement. The visuals were terrible; the video was so badly
pixelated that it compared very poorly to other games even in an era
where 320x200 graphics were the norm. The complex balance of simulator
and arcade shooter of the X-Wing series were gone; Rebel Assault was a
dumb shooter requiring little skill. It had terribly twitchy controls,
not helped the least by the stuttering framerate. It was a game that
was no fun to play. But we all played iy anyway, because it was the
first new Star Wars video we'd seen in nearly a decade.

Rebel Assault II significantly improved the production values (not to
mention it added a fun story that wasn't just a rehash of the original
Star Wars movie plot) but its gameplay remained too simplistic to be
much fun. It did have a great set of easter eggs, including a very
humorous MST3K homage that almost by itself made the game worth
playing.

>* Star Wars The Force Unleashed II (PC new)
>Ho hum.  I haven't played the original in ages, but after a couple hours 
>I got bored with this.  Seemed like a totally uninspired sequel. I 
>didn't even complete my escape.

Neither of the Force Unleashed games were very good, but they had
their moments. I preferred the story of the first game, but felt the
gameplay (or at least, the combat mechanics and controls) of the
second to be an improvement. The original did have the benefit of
showing off its impressive physics system, and the second was saddled
with the worst final level of any game I've played. So it's a wash as
to which game is better.


>* Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II (new, RPG PC)
>Bleak.  The asteroid mining operation was boring and uninspired, 
>definitely not feeling the Star Wars here.  The robot had more 
>personality than either of the companions I did get, not a good sign for 
>this game.  I did manage to get to Talos, but found the situation there 
>also boring and quit before doing much there.

KOTOR2 is a critically acclaimed game but, like you, I didn't much
enjoy it. While ambitious in scope, the writing just wasn't up to
snuff; the dialogue, characters and situations just were not very
interesting. I think a major problem with the game was that the
developers were trying to shoehorn a game about grey-on-grey morality
in a universe that literally has black and white morality built into
it. The game may have been better if it had not been saddled with the
baggage of the Star Wars universe.

>* Fallout shelter (replay - PC genere?)
I found Fallout Shelter to be an entertaining timewaster, but it's a
poor fit for the PC platform. It's the sort of game you pick up, play
for two or three minutes and then go do something else, and that
doesn't really fit the play style of PC gaming where you purposely sit
yourself down for an extended period of entertainment. Fallout Shelter
is a great game to play on a commute but not something I could imagine
playing anywhere else.

It also suffers from a lack of any long-term goals. It isn't very
difficult to create a stable "economy" and unlock all the room-types,
at which point there is little incentive to keep playing. Myself, I
found challenge in trying to max out the SPECIAL stats for all my
dwellers.

>* Brutal Legend (new PC)
>I started up this when I was getting frustrated with FO2, but went back 
>to FO2 after a day or two of this.  Jack Black has a game where he's a 
>roady for a metal band and get sucked back in time/another dimension 
>where demons rule and he tries to set free the humans with ROCK!  I'm 
>not really into metal, but it's a bit funny.  The game seems like it's 
>an older console port, and reminds me a bit of Overlord.  The controls 
>are pretty clunky and the animations aren't smooth, it plays almost well 
>enough to get through to the funny bits, but not quite.  I might try 
>slogging through it for all the funny once I get bored enough of FO.

Despite the fun setting and writing, I found the gameplay too
repetitive to be much fun; I couldn't finish the game because it just
didn't keep me entertained. It's a shame, because between the music
and excellent voice-acting, the game felt like it should be fun. I'll
probably hunt down a Lets Play one of these days so I can enjoy the
dialogue and world-building without having to endure the tedious
gameplay elements.

On 6/3/2017 6:37 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Jun 2017 08:11:47 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
> <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
> 
>>
>> The final game was one I found the CD for while I was going thru some
>> boxes.  Serf City: Life is Feudal!!!  :D  (AKA Settlers 1.)  A real
>> blast from the past.  I remember when I first got the game thinking this
>> explained why people are so fascinated with ant farms.  :)  So I spent a
>> weekend getting it to run under DosBox and then my free time for a week
>> or so watching my ant farm, ahem, serfs wandering around.  Still fun.
> 
> I remember being very impressed with what SerfCity was trying to do.
> In an era where most game abstracted its larger systems, SerfCity
> aimed to create a very detailed economic simulator. You essentially
> had to build your economy from the ground up, taking into
> consideration each of the many steps necessary to build a medieval
> economic base (lumberjacks cut logs, sawyers turn the logs into
> planks, carpenters turn planks into furniture, etc.). It was an
> exceptionally impressive effort, especially given the technological
> limitations of the time. I also loved how the peasants' foot-traffic
> created paths and roads just by their using the same route over and
> over again.
> 
> But damn, unless you had an intense and abiding interest in
> micromanging, the game just wasn't fun to play. The AI was brain dead
> and the systems contradictorily were both too detailed and not
> detailed enough to work. The former meant a huge workload for the
> player, whilst the latter denied the player access to necessary
> information and tools that might lessen that workload.
> 
> As you said, fun to watch but probably just getting it to run in
> DOSBox was a more entertaining challenge.
> 
Actually the player has to lay out the paths for the serfs.  Getting 
your road net right is the most difficult part of the game IMO.  (Much 
later in the series, Settlers 4 or 5 I think, they did away with the 
player laying out roads and went with that free-form movement you mention.)

I don't find the economy all that difficult or requiring much 
micro-management.  Just build the buildings in the right ratios and it 
runs itself.  The first game has all kinds of charts built into it for 
delving into how items were flowing from step to step.  Later games in 
the series may have removed some of those tools, I can't remember at the 
moment.

-- 
"That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry."

Eddie Anderson  <yourname@net.invalid> wrote:
>1830 - SimTex's DOS version of the board game; I enjoy many 
>of the mechanics of this game (auction, playing in the stock 
>market, building train routes, buying trains, etc. (all with 
>perfect info)) and have come back to it many times over the 
>years.

I really like this game.  It has pretty good AI, good enough that it took
me several tries before I could beat it.   It's up there with Alien Legacy
as my favourite "hiddem gems" of the DOS PC game era.  I should go back
and play it sometime, as it looks it's been 9 years since the last time.
I'm also a fan of the 18xx board games, though I never never played the
1830 board game, and it's been close to two decades since I've played one.

	`				Ross Ridge

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

Thanks Spalls ;)

@ PREY 2017 (its Half Life 3)
@Elder Scrolls Online (After 3 attempts to install the latest Morrowind 
patch...14 ish GB !!)
@Dishonored 2 (3 Mission Free Trial)
@Dishonored 1st one (looks as good as D 2 to me )
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  mouse (And So I Squeak My Way To Bed ...) 

Spalls Hurgenson  <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>... Oddly
>enough, the increased level - while pleasant to look at - made the
>game actually that much less immersive, since its increased realism
>only brought into contrast many of the inconsistencies of the game's
>world (like, if the war was over 200 years ago then why are there
>still-fresh corpses from the war all over?).

That bothered me about Fallout 3 too.  There was one place that had tents
outside a high school or something, so I went an investigate to see who
had put up the tents.  Based on documents I found it turned out it was
some sort of temporary military HQ setup just before the bombs dropped,
not sometime in last week or two as I assumed.  Somehow these tents had
managed survive virtually undamaged sitting out in the open for 200 years.


Dungeon of the Endless

The first game I played last month was Dungeon of the Endless.  It's a
cross between a tower defence game and a roguelike and set in the same
universe that Endless Space and Endless Legend are in.  The goal is to
protect your generator while exploring the level looking for the exit
to the next level. You start with two characters at the bottom of the
dungeon and can recruit up to two more.  Each time you open a door to
a new room it counts as "turn".  Each turn you produce resources which
you use can use install defences and modules that produce more resources
and other things.  Each turn also has an increasing chance of causing
monsters to spawn to attack your characters, modules and generators.
That's where the tower defence part comes in.  There are two difficulty
levels, "Very Easy" and "Easy".  As it turns out "Easy" is very hard.
That, plus the dungeon exploration, is where the roguelike part comes in.

I was never able to get very far on "Easy" but I was able to eventually
beat the game on "Very Easy".  Overall, it's not a bad game, and I think
the mashup of tower-defence and roguelike works, but havng beat the game
I don't feel that much interest in replaying it.  It's not like FTL
(the closest similar game I can think of) where replaying offers the
possibility of finding things you didn't find on previous attempts or
trying with a different spaceship.  There doesn't seem to be enough
potential difference for to making replaying Dungeon of the Endless
that much fun.  Choosing different characters to start isn't going to
make much difference except at the start, you're still going to want
characters that can fill the same roles.


Civilization V

The second game I played last month was Civilization V.  After playing
a couple of 4X games not-named-Civlization earlier this year (Endless
Legend and Warlock) and rolling over their weak AIs, I decided I should
challenge myself with a game with a decent AI.  Not that Civlization V is
all that great, but I did have to restart a few games because I was doing
badly, and seldom was my victory assured even when I got a good start.
I decided I try to get the three victory acheivements I hadn't gotten
yet, space victory with an order civ, and conquest victories with order
and authoritarian civs.  The last two victories were the hardest for me
(though I only squeaked in the space victory one turn before the game
ended) since I'm kind of player who likes to build up their own cities
rather than take other cities.  The game itself makes conquest victories
harder by imposing "warmonger" diplomatic penalties for capturing cities,
and having pretty big penalities for large empires.


X2: The Threat

Finally, the third game I played last month was X2: The Threat.
This a sequel to X: Beyond the Frontier and is a fairly standard space
combat/trading simulator, like Privateer or Freelancer, though with
less emphasis on combat than trading.  I've played the original X game,
and decide to skip its expansion X-Tension.  The graphics are noticably
improved in X2 and the game interface has had big improvement, though
remapping keys still is pretty much non-existant.

I haven't gotten very far in the game so far though.  That's mostly
because one big problem I discovered with the game.  While X used a simple
constant-width font in its simple interfaces, while X2 switched to a
variable-width font.  This would be a good thing, except the numbers in
the font they choose to use are also variable width.  In a game about
trading, displaying various columns of numbers all over the place,
this a cardinal sin.  Numbers should be all the same size so they line
up digit for digit when appearing columns.  Otherwise you get problems
like 1111111 looking like a smaller number than 444444 because despite
been one digit longer it's drawn shorter on screen.

So I spent a week or so figuring out how X2 stored and displayed its
fonts so I could create my own font generator program for it.  Mostly the
exercise served to remind me how bad game programmers are, but I managed
to figure out the quirks of the game's font system and am now playing
the game with much better looking text.  There are still issues, like
the text being displayed a a half-pixel off, smudging it a bit, but
fixing that would require patching the game and probably another week
of delving into the ugly innards of the game.

					Ross Ridge

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

>@ PREY 2017, @Elder Scrolls Online, @Dishonored 2, @Dishonored 1st

    You went Full Bethesda, man!  Never go Full Bethesda!

rms

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

> * Fallout 4 (new)

I guess most of your comments on e FO4 could be applied to Fallout 3 as
well. I remember how bored I was playing FO3, especially the
combat. Then I hunted down some guns that were accurate (i.e. no drift)
and some lucky shades and some bobbleheads to improve my stats,
especially luck and things suddenly got a lot more fun. So much so I
played through all the DLCs and also played loads of New Vegas.

I started Fallout 4 at some point, made it to Sanctuary and did some
base building but then just went "meh" on it and haven't played since. I
think I'll try to find the time for playing through FO4 this summer.

> See? Only three games. I feel so ashamed. I'll try to play more games
> next month, honest.

So say we all :)

> Anyway, that's me. What about you? 
>
> What Have You Been Playing... IN MAY 2017? 

Really just Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Specifically, the other story DLC
"A Criminal Past". I haven't quite finished it even once but it's a
fairly interesting add-on. At the start you don't even have access to
your augmentations so it's a nice if short build-up to your final
form. I guess it's possible to do everything without getting
augmentations but I think it's enough if I can do a non-lethal
playthrough. I guess the other extreme would be that every is dead by
the time I leave the prison where this takes place but I doube I'll try
that alternative.

DX:MD gameplay is still as solid as ever. Too bad the franchise seems to
have gone into hibernation again.

On 2017-06-02, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
> - Quake Champions (beta).   Fun!  It's Quake alright.  But, how
> interested I can remain in an arena shooter these days is up for
> debate.  Part of what made the original Quake magical was what the
> modding community did with it.  This was the birth of TeamFortress and
> similar spin offs, and I doubt anything like that will be possible
> with this title.  I'm not sure if I will even buy it, because
> apparently it's going to be a freemium offering (offering a free to
> play model where it takes longer to unlock each champion), and I doubt
> I would be able to carve out enough time in my schedule this day to
> really play all champions or even care about their abilities.  I do
> love the occasional twitch/arena game, so I may jump into it
> occasionally for that.  I actually found Doom (2016) mutliplayer to be
> a bit more addictive, but Quake Champions might be a good option for
> the occasional twitch fix.

I'm on Quake Champions as asktoby if anyone wants to add me.

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

On 2017-06-02, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
> * Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (new PC multi-player bullet hell)
> This seems like a fun game, but it's obviously made more for 
> multi-player, you can do it with an in game AI, which I even hesitate to 
> call AI as you have to direct them to the station to use, and they can't 
> use the thrusters, so that means you're pretty much stuck doing the 
> thrusters, which isn't as much fun as shooting at things.  It's a bit 
> too much to direct the AI where to go and do the thrusters and whatever 
> else you need at the same time.  I'd like to try this with my son, but 
> it's not lego.

Playing this with my son (8) and it's creating some amazing moments.
It's even better in 3 player mode. Would love to try 4 one day!


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

On 2017-06-02, Rin Stowleigh <rstow...@nevrhadgmail.com> wrote:
> - Quake Champions (beta).   Fun!  It's Quake alright.  But, how
> interested I can remain in an arena shooter these days is up for
> debate.  Part of what made the original Quake magical was what the
> modding community did with it.  This was the birth of TeamFortress and
> similar spin offs, and I doubt anything like that will be possible
> with this title.  I'm not sure if I will even buy it, because
> apparently it's going to be a freemium offering (offering a free to
> play model where it takes longer to unlock each champion), and I doubt
> I would be able to carve out enough time in my schedule this day to
> really play all champions or even care about their abilities.  I do
> love the occasional twitch/arena game, so I may jump into it
> occasionally for that.  I actually found Doom (2016) mutliplayer to be
> a bit more addictive, but Quake Champions might be a good option for
> the occasional twitch fix.

I dipped my to into Quake Live (Q3A in a browser) a few years ago and
found I could still hold my own, landing about 3rd or 4th in a 10
player game.

Playing Quake Champions I'm consistently between last and third from
last which is disappointing! Maybe that's because it's in beta so the
only players are hardcore fans.

The main changes from Q3A are the updated graphics and the announcer
calling out when Quad Damage is about to spawn. This makes nice choke
points around the Quad which is a new dynamic.

I'm not a fan of the new Quad logo or sound, I used to really like the
fuzz guitar effect from the earlier games. 

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

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, it's been a busy month for me, although you wouldn't be able to
>tell it by my playlist. Although I only played three games this month
>- not the fewest I've ever played, but far below average - one of
>those games hogged so much of my time that it's a wonder I found any
>time to play any other games. Plus the addition of some fun new
>computer hardware and, oh yeah, real life and I'm amazed I managed to
>squeeze everything into one month.
>
>Anyway, it's the end of the month (well, slightly past but as I said,
>I've been busy) and we all know what that means. I tell you guys what
>games I have been playing, you guys tell us all what you have been
>playing. Maybe we share our thoughts on those games too, or maybe not;
>it's all good. Anyway, let's get right into things.

>* Fallout 4 (new)
>If pressed to give a final opinion on Fallout 4, I would probably
>respond by saying that - while it has excellent production values - it
>was a game I ultimately did not enjoy playing very much. But this
>statement is very much at odds with my reported play-time on Steam: I
>invested over 100 hours into the game. It's an unusual discrepancy
>that I have struggled to understand myself.
>
>Certainly Fallout 4 is not without is merits. Its large open world is
>beautifully detailed and Bethesda has well-utilized the updated
>Creation (nee Gamebryo) engine to crank out their best renderings yet.
>The texture detail in some areas is simply stunning. The game-world is
>far more open than Bethesda's earlier titles; while you still
>encounter a load-screen when entering the larger dungeons, many
>smaller areas that once would have been separate maps are now part of
>the overland map, giving the whole game a much more cohesive feel. The
>map is stuffed full of things to discover, and - like all Bethesda's
>games - the biggest thrill is walking across the world and discovering
>a new area to explore. Like a jackdaw to a shiny object, I was
>constantly distracted by the lure of some new dungeon or ruin to
>discover, and rare was it that I'd cross the wastelands on some quest
>without numerous detours because some new "unexplored area" icon
>appeared on my mini-map. 
>
>Unfortunately, this was the only real joy I received while playing the
>game. The individual quests - always a weak point of Bethesda's games
>- I found uninteresting, with particular disdain for the main quest.
>The procedurally generated "Radiant" quests were exceptionally poor,
>especially when they were auto-assigned ("Rescue the town from
>imminent attack" and saddled with a time-limit; the latter was an
>egregious sin as it took me away from the freeform wandering that was
>game's strength. The game's new mechanic - the base-building - was
>encumbered by tedium, limited options and fiddly controls and after
>establishing a few homes for my braindead followers I largely ignored
>it. Many of the older mechanics - unfulfilling combat, dry dialogue
>options, uninspired AI, and cumbersome crafting - still suffered from
>rough spots that have haunted Bethesda's games since the start.
>Individually these issues didn't harm the game too much, but the
>continued lack of improvement in this area was disheartening

I hated this nonsense to the point that on a restart I simply refused to
talk to the militia guy once he got to sanctuary.

>I think that if I had to put my finger on Fallout 4's biggest problem,
>it would be that it was such an unadventurous sequel; except for the
>addition of the base-building, it added very little new to the
>franchise.  Most disappointingly, it took absolutely no chances with
>the setting. In many ways the game felt little more than a re-skin of
>Fallout 3, both in terms of gameplay and setting. Once again I took
>the role of a bad-ass (albeit easily diverted) vault-dweller facing
>off against the same bunch of mutants and wasteland factions. Oddly
>enough, the increased level - while pleasant to look at - made the
>game actually that much less immersive, since its increased realism
>only brought into contrast many of the inconsistencies of the game's
>world (like, if the war was over 200 years ago then why are there
>still-fresh corpses from the war all over?).

For me it was the architecture - just another example of stupid
programmers/designers.

Sure the ramshackle hut with gaping openings is fine when you've set the
game in California, or Nevada or such, but FO4 is set in Boston, where
it gets damn cold and gets loads of snow - that kind of living quarters
= everybody dies the first winter.

For fucks sakes they were building better than that in the Bronze Age
and worst of all, there was often building materials right there beside
the crappy hut.

Worst of all is to find that the settlement building options you have
are full of this kind of non-protective walls, ceilings and floors to
build with.

What's next, Fallout 5, set in Barrow, Alaska and with the same useless
"walls" to build with?
What's a little thing like being north of the Arctic Circle compared to
keeping that signature Fallout style, no matter how little sense it
makes?

>It was the lure of discovery that kept me playing as long as I did,
>but the payout was rarely worth the effort. Like an addict, I kept
>scouring the wastes - adding tens of hours to my overall play-time -
>in hopes of finding some redeeming and exciting set-piece but instead
>was reward with an unending sense of ennui. When I finally did come to
>the end of the main quest, I found I had little desire to keep playing
>beyond that point. This is a distinct divergence from my experience
>with other Bethesda titles, where I would happily play and re-play the
>game; with Fallout 4, I was happy to have finally come to a concluding
>moment so that I could abandon it without guilt or worry I might be
>missing something.  I'd seen enough to realize that even were I to
>play another hundred hours I still wouldn't discover anything that
>would make that investment worthwhile.

It was fun to explore, but once you've found it, there's nothing more to
discover and the replay value is minimal since you know where everything
is since the randomized stuff is basically just the "same the people at
X" and all the rest is set pieces.

I actually started a new game and started walking south and was deep in
the crater before long, and shortly had the best power armor in the
game.

There's no real exploration when the game specifically TELLS you to go
to Concord and then sets you up with the militia after which you're on
the "save the settlement" treadmill for life.

Don't get me started on the absolutely arbitrary building sites, the
arbitrary decision of what you're allowed to tear down, recycle or
build.   Oh look, a broken building is in the middle of the site, but
you cannot tear down or repair it's walls, so it's just in the way.
And what the fuck is up with not being able to repair roofs?

The artificial materials limit really bugs me - you can salvage this
car, but not those 300 just 5 feet outside the green zone.
Oh you can't plant there.   The why did you send me to a PAVED drive in
theatre lot to build a community on?

Where's the friggen PLANTERS - made worse by the fact that you actually
find settlements and some random buildings where planters are being
used, but you can't use them.

It's worst offense is it feels like a game because of all these
nonsensical decisions;   You can't grab "unapproved" materials, you
can't remove obstacles even in power armor, you can't tell Mr Militia
"I'm busy, go do it yourself", you have to have arbitrary points in
arbitrary skills before you can do the community building thing or
transfer materials (but they're quite happy to instantly make you their
leader 15.2 seconds after meeting you.)

There's just no immersion possible when you're being slapped in the face
by one of these idiocies every couple minutes.

Bethesda has forgotten how to build worlds.

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 

rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Ross Ridge) looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>X2: The Threat
>
>Finally, the third game I played last month was X2: The Threat.
>This a sequel to X: Beyond the Frontier and is a fairly standard space
>combat/trading simulator, like Privateer or Freelancer, though with
>less emphasis on combat than trading.  I've played the original X game,
>and decide to skip its expansion X-Tension.  The graphics are noticably
>improved in X2 and the game interface has had big improvement, though
>remapping keys still is pretty much non-existant.

I do hope that your copy is legit and is fully recognized as such.

X2 had a very sneaky anti-piracy routine I read about back in the day
(you had to register for their website in order to download apps for the
game (in game routines for automation etc) and people would get caught
out for having pirated copies by their complaints.)

You see instead of simply disabling a pirated copy, they were cruel,
they let the people play, get invested, build up their manufacturing
empire, but after a certain amount of time the game economy would go
horribly and irretrievably wrong and since the only way to get anywhere
in the game is by building and manufacture ...

You want that great gun, you have to build it, and the factory to build
it and the mines to get the materials to make the factories to make the
parts to make the ...

Unfortunately if you have a legit copy but had used any kind of crack or
cheat program you tended to trigger this and as I recall (maybe
incorrectly) once it's triggered that save game is well and truly
fucked.

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 Tue, 06 Jun 2017 04:26:09 -0400, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:

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

>> Oddly
>>enough, the increased level - while pleasant to look at - made the
>>game actually that much less immersive, since its increased realism
>>only brought into contrast many of the inconsistencies of the game's
>>world (like, if the war was over 200 years ago then why are there
>>still-fresh corpses from the war all over?).


>For me it was the architecture - just another example of stupid
>programmers/designers.

>Sure the ramshackle hut with gaping openings is fine when you've set the
>game in California, or Nevada or such, but FO4 is set in Boston, where
>it gets damn cold and gets loads of snow - that kind of living quarters
>= everybody dies the first winter.


Oh man, that annoyed me too. It was one of the reasons I stopped
engaging with the base-building mechanics; the structures I was
allowed to construct were so flimsy they offered no protection from
the environment. Forget Bostonian winters; it gets cool enough in
summer there that you sometimes want four solid walls around you, and
not something made of rusty plate metal with gaps large enough to
shove your head through. 

I suppose the developers could argue that the nuclear holocaust
altered the climate enough that the world is significantly warmer than
it is today; certainly, the highly-radioactive "Glowing Sea" must
provide an immense heat-island that warms the nearby area (we'll leave
aside its probable other effects). A warmer clime isn't evident in any
other part of the game, though; if it is that warm then you expect
people to wear less heavy clothing (and not, for instance, everyone
wearing heavy leather armor over thermal underwear long-johns).

The real problem of course is that the Fallout universe has a certain
look to it, and Bethesda did not want to stray too far from the
visuals introduced in the earlier games. This ties in to what I had
said about how the game felt very much like a rehash of the older
titles. Arguably had they developers changed the appearance of the
game too much they would have alienated the fans. The lack of variety
probably had more to do with marketing and finance than it did with
the imagination and ability of the developers.

Xocyll  <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:
>I do hope that your copy is legit and is fully recognized as such.
>
>X2 had a very sneaky anti-piracy routine I read about back in the day
>(you had to register for their website in order to download apps for the
>game (in game routines for automation etc) and people would get caught
>out for having pirated copies by their complaints.)

Ah, I wasn't aware of that.  I'm playing the Steam version of the game.
I don't think this should be an issue any more as Egosoft removed the
copy protection completely in their 1.4 patch.  Even the Steam version
I'm playing doesn't seem to use Steam's copy protection.

						Ross Ridge

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

On 6/6/2017 6:37 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 04:26:09 -0400, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:
> 
>> Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
>> entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
>> say:
> 
>>> Oddly
>>> enough, the increased level - while pleasant to look at - made the
>>> game actually that much less immersive, since its increased realism
>>> only brought into contrast many of the inconsistencies of the game's
>>> world (like, if the war was over 200 years ago then why are there
>>> still-fresh corpses from the war all over?).
> 
> 
>> For me it was the architecture - just another example of stupid
>> programmers/designers.
> 
>> Sure the ramshackle hut with gaping openings is fine when you've set the
>> game in California, or Nevada or such, but FO4 is set in Boston, where
>> it gets damn cold and gets loads of snow - that kind of living quarters
>> = everybody dies the first winter.
> 
> 
> Oh man, that annoyed me too. It was one of the reasons I stopped
> engaging with the base-building mechanics; the structures I was
> allowed to construct were so flimsy they offered no protection from
> the environment. Forget Bostonian winters; it gets cool enough in
> summer there that you sometimes want four solid walls around you, and
> not something made of rusty plate metal with gaps large enough to
> shove your head through.
> 
> I suppose the developers could argue that the nuclear holocaust
> altered the climate enough that the world is significantly warmer than
> it is today; certainly, the highly-radioactive "Glowing Sea" must
> provide an immense heat-island that warms the nearby area (we'll leave
> aside its probable other effects). A warmer clime isn't evident in any
> other part of the game, though; if it is that warm then you expect
> people to wear less heavy clothing (and not, for instance, everyone
> wearing heavy leather armor over thermal underwear long-johns).
> 
> The real problem of course is that the Fallout universe has a certain
> look to it, and Bethesda did not want to stray too far from the
> visuals introduced in the earlier games. This ties in to what I had
> said about how the game felt very much like a rehash of the older
> titles. Arguably had they developers changed the appearance of the
> game too much they would have alienated the fans. The lack of variety
> probably had more to do with marketing and finance than it did with
> the imagination and ability of the developers.

I just went with the silly and built a 4 story high mile long walkway 
coming off my flop house in town with no supports filled with 
auto-turrets over the river where I had my industrial water purification 
operation.

Fallout is more hot desert than nuclear winter.  It's all totally 
ridiculous anyway.  That's part of it's charm.

- Justisaur

"rms"  wrote;
<<<">@ PREY 2017, @Elder Scrolls Online, @Dishonored 2, @Dishonored 1st
    You went Full Bethesda, man!  Never go Full Bethesda!">>>
@@@@

Mein gott im himmel ???!! 
rms your right...Dare I mention I played some Fallout 4 as well.
My gaming is in a bad way !
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")  mouse (His Root Is So Mean Its Squared !)

Ross Ridge wrote:
> Eddie Anderson<yourname@net.invalid>  wrote:
>> 1830 - SimTex's DOS version of the board game; I enjoy many
>> of the mechanics of this game (auction, playing in the stock
>> market, building train routes, buying trains, etc. (all with
>> perfect info)) and have come back to it many times over the
>> years.
>
> I really like this game.  It has pretty good AI,

Agreed

> It's up there with Alien Legacy
> as my favourite "hiddem gems" of the DOS PC game era.

I don't remember`that game.  I'll look for it.  Thanks.

> I never never played the
> 1830 board game,

Me neither.  From what I've read, many players prefer other 
18xx games to 1830.

> and it's been close to two decades since I've played one.

I've never played any other 18xx games.  I wish that I'd had 
the opportunity while I was still relatively young.


-- 
Eddie

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

>On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 04:26:09 -0400, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:
>
>>Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
>>entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
>>say:
>
>>> Oddly
>>>enough, the increased level - while pleasant to look at - made the
>>>game actually that much less immersive, since its increased realism
>>>only brought into contrast many of the inconsistencies of the game's
>>>world (like, if the war was over 200 years ago then why are there
>>>still-fresh corpses from the war all over?).
>
>
>>For me it was the architecture - just another example of stupid
>>programmers/designers.
>
>>Sure the ramshackle hut with gaping openings is fine when you've set the
>>game in California, or Nevada or such, but FO4 is set in Boston, where
>>it gets damn cold and gets loads of snow - that kind of living quarters
>>= everybody dies the first winter.
>
>
>Oh man, that annoyed me too. It was one of the reasons I stopped
>engaging with the base-building mechanics; the structures I was
>allowed to construct were so flimsy they offered no protection from
>the environment. Forget Bostonian winters; it gets cool enough in
>summer there that you sometimes want four solid walls around you, and
>not something made of rusty plate metal with gaps large enough to
>shove your head through. 

There is that, but the other annoying thing is that the flimsy plywood
structure is also an impenetrable barrier you can't shoot through or
break through even in power armor.

Really _destroys_ immersion.

>I suppose the developers could argue that the nuclear holocaust
>altered the climate enough that the world is significantly warmer than
>it is today; certainly, the highly-radioactive "Glowing Sea" must
>provide an immense heat-island that warms the nearby area (we'll leave
>aside its probable other effects). A warmer clime isn't evident in any
>other part of the game, though; if it is that warm then you expect
>people to wear less heavy clothing (and not, for instance, everyone
>wearing heavy leather armor over thermal underwear long-johns).

Bingo, and there's still the Atlantic Ocean right there cooling things
off.

>The real problem of course is that the Fallout universe has a certain
>look to it, and Bethesda did not want to stray too far from the
>visuals introduced in the earlier games. This ties in to what I had
>said about how the game felt very much like a rehash of the older
>titles. Arguably had they developers changed the appearance of the
>game too much they would have alienated the fans. The lack of variety
>probably had more to do with marketing and finance than it did with
>the imagination and ability of the developers.

I think they just got lazy, and reused art from previous games and never
thought through that they were setting the game much farther north than
before.
And possibly that the developers live in a nice warm climate and it
never occurred to them that other climates even exist.

They made power armor a bigger part of the game this time around and
that would have been enhanced by a more malevolent environment that made
it harder to not use it.

Heavy snow, freezing temperatures, etc as well as radiation, raiders and
so on.


Maybe FO5 can be set in Florida so they don't have to bother with real
architecture again.

Mmmm, giant mutant Alligators - yep, gonna want power armor.
Oh wait, power armor in the swamps - if they can get you stuck that
could be a detriment, but not if it's like FO4 where you don't even get
slowed.


Power armor also bugs me - who designs _ARMOR_ with the power
supply/engine hanging out the back totally exposed to enemy fire?

Remember all those tanks throughout history where they hung the engine
out in the open to be easily destroyed?   Yeah, me neither.

I suppose this stuff makes sense to console players, but damn if I can
make any sense of it.

Oh, maybe it's the male equivalent of the female fantasy ARMOR that
shows cleavage and midriff and provides essentially zero actual
protection.

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 

Ross Ridge wrote:
> It's up there with Alien Legacy
> as my favourite "hiddem gems" of the DOS PC game era.

Eddie Anderson  <yourname@net.invalid> wrote:
>I don't remember`that game.  I'll look for it.  Thanks.

It's made by the same people who made Starflight, and is sort of a
cross between that game and a space colony management sim.  There's a
mystery to figure out while colonizing a new solar system.  The ability
of colonize multiple planets makes it pretty unique.  It's not a perfect
game, the first time I played it some bug, or just something I missed
doing, prevented me from completing it, but I finished it on a couple
of other playthroughs.

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