What video games have you been playing? ΚΔ (24)? More like ΚΔ,Ζ,ΤΞΕ!

[Arakhor]

I haven't actually played KCD2 yet. I was busy with Dysmantle and then the Oblivion remaster.

 

[Ordnael]

Lately I've been "pulling my teeth" playing the Tomb Raider 2 remaster...Feels a lot harder than when I went through it 25 years ago on my brother's Playstation. I am already over 90 save tiles. These TR games where relentless and downright unfair on trap placements that you can only spot when you get hit!

 

[Arakhor]

And that's not getting into how dark many of the levels are. We're not 20-something any more!

 

[Akka]

What of KCD2?
Finally finished it and really liked it.

I'm right in the middle of it, barely played anything else for the past week and a half.
Really impressive, about on par with The Witcher 3 I'd say (what's it with all the great medieval-themed RPG coming from Eastern Europe these days ?), absolutely huge amount of content (I've already played it more than many entire games and I've just reached the second map, which seems even more full of things than the first).

Only main criticisms I would have about it :
- The "get taken out in a cutscene and end up powerless" thing is really, REALLY, REALLY overdone. Like, really. I dearly hope they won't YET AGAIN pull this trick in the second part of the game.
- The fighting is better than in the first (due to being more fluid), but for all that it attempts to do and would be theorically interesting, it's still clunky, unresponsive garbage.

And also, some small gripes that makes me roll my eyes :
- The preachy "revenge is bad" (but slaughtering innocent guards who are just doing their job and joking about it is fine, though) tired trite.
- Katherine. I just can't stand her, it just feels like someone took the most formulaic female character from the most cliché Hollywood action movies and shoehorned it into medieval Bohemia.
- The indoor lighting is ridiculously dark. Even in a sunny day at noon with the window and door open and you need a torch to see what's in a room.

But I'm immersed enough by the rest of the quests and the absolutely gorgeous rendition of the locales (Trosky is a marvel, and the little I've seen of Kuttenberg seems downright mind-blowing) to not care too much. If anything, the main reason why I might pause the game for awhile is rather just how overwhelming the content is and how I'll need some break after so long playing only it.

 

[Yeekim]

The fighting is better than in the first (due to being more fluid), but for all that it attempts to do and would be theorically interesting, it's still clunky, unresponsive garbage.

I feel this is WAD. Fighting is clunky and unresponsive at first because Henry's skills are lacking in the beginning. It gets better as he improves. If anything, it felt too easy towards the end, making Henry a total Terminator.

And also, some small gripes that makes me roll my eyes :
- The preachy "revenge is bad" (but slaughtering innocent guards who are just doing their job and joking about it is fine, though) tired trite.
- Katherine. I just can't stand her, it just feels like someone took the most formulaic female character from the most cliché Hollywood action movies and shoehorned it into medieval Bohemia.

Neither of those bothered me much, but I see where you're coming from.

- The indoor lighting is ridiculously dark. Even in a sunny day at noon with the window and door open and you need a torch to see what's in a room.

They broke it with some patch.
There will be a quest where you'll have to blow something up in a mine - make sure to have a second torch in inventory. Thank me later.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have never played any of the TR games. They were, of course, historically important in the move to a fully 3d environment.

 

[H4run]

I'm right in the middle of it, barely played anything else for the past week and a half.
Really impressive, about on par with The Witcher 3 I'd say (what's it with all the great medieval-themed RPG coming from Eastern Europe these days ?), absolutely huge amount of content (I've already played it more than many entire games and I've just reached the second map, which seems even more full of things than the first).

Only main criticisms I would have about it :
- The "get taken out in a cutscene and end up powerless" thing is really, REALLY, REALLY overdone. Like, really. I dearly hope they won't YET AGAIN pull this trick in the second part of the game.
- The fighting is better than in the first (due to being more fluid), but for all that it attempts to do and would be theorically interesting, it's still clunky, unresponsive garbage.

And also, some small gripes that makes me roll my eyes :
- The preachy "revenge is bad" (but slaughtering innocent guards who are just doing their job and joking about it is fine, though) tired trite.
- Katherine. I just can't stand her, it just feels like someone took the most formulaic female character from the most cliché Hollywood action movies and shoehorned it into medieval Bohemia.
- The indoor lighting is ridiculously dark. Even in a sunny day at noon with the window and door open and you need a torch to see what's in a room.

But I'm immersed enough by the rest of the quests and the absolutely gorgeous rendition of the locales (Trosky is a marvel, and the little I've seen of Kuttenberg seems downright mind-blowing) to not care too much. If anything, the main reason why I might pause the game for awhile is rather just how overwhelming the content is and how I'll need some break after so long playing only it.

Like the first one, is the game also contain lots of detective like quest? I want to play a simple man with a sword in my hand not some Agatha Christy novel in medieval settings.

In the first one, the progression of character strength and equipment is so bad, in the first town I found a cheap yet powerful sword called Duelist, and I used it to chop everyone till the very end (I don't bother to look any other sword), every gold and every tourney trophies pretty much fastly become meaningless, I also use a very simple combo and rely on timing to beat literally everyone, the only way I have fun with my money is to play card at night and finish every townsman money. Is it still the same?

 

[Akka]

Like the first one, is the game also contain lots of detective like quest? I want to play a simple man with a sword in my hand not some Agatha Christy novel in medieval settings.

In the first one, the progression of character strength and equipment is so bad, in the first town I found a cheap yet powerful sword called Duelist, and I used it to chop everyone till the very end (I don't bother to look any other sword), every gold and every tourney trophies pretty much fastly become meaningless, I also use a very simple combo and rely on timing to beat literally everyone, the only way I have fun with my money is to play card at night and finish every townsman money. Is it still the same?

There are a few detective quest (you can either use your optional dog to sniff the path or follow the pretty obvious hints left on the ground). I do enjoy the "searching all clues" though so I didn't had any problem with them even in KCD1 ^^
I found the progression to be slightly better, but it's still mainly the same thing (as for gear, you can forge yourself some pretty insane bladed weapons rather quickly, though it seems armor are a bit more paced).
The main draw is still in the exploration, authenticity and grounded feeling, don't expect the mechanisms to have significantly changed, it's just some fine-tuning.

I feel this is WAD. Fighting is clunky and unresponsive at first because Henry's skills are lacking in the beginning. It gets better as he improves. If anything, it felt too easy towards the end, making Henry a total Terminator.

No, the problem I have with the unresponsiveness wasn't due to Henry's skills, but to how sluggish the animations are and how they lock you out of action (one especially annoying example : after dodging, you need to wait at least one or two seconds before clicking the attack button does anything, making for extremely grating feeling of the game not registering your commands).

Neither of those bothered me much, but I see where you're coming from.

They broke it with some patch.
There will be a quest where you'll have to blow something up in a mine - make sure to have a second torch in inventory. Thank me later.

That's certainly one advice that will come in handy !
As for the lighting, it's a problem that is sadly very common in many games (KCD1 wasn't as bad but already had it too). I just use the console commands and use "e_svoTI_DiffuseAmplifier = 2.5" as a workaround.

 

[FredLC]

I can't promise you my recommendations will be adequate (Ghost of Tsushima, for me, isn't really more predictable nor less story-heavy than Mass Effect 3 for example), and it also depends if you are more interested by the quality of the plot itself, the delivery/pacing and/or the characters, but I can at least list some of them :

In that i`d have to disagree; both are narrative-focused, I`ll agree to that, but even with mass effect 3 being the, well, weaker story of the trilogy, it`s still a more involved plot than Tsushima.

Anyway, sorry for the slow response. I don't always have time for my online personae since my kid came.

I was pretty impressed by the Bioshock Infinite story (though I found the game mechanics somewhat boring). Definitely a "play mainly for the plot" game for me.

Played all Bioshock games. 1 is great for the setting and it's unorthodox central thesis. 2 is a bit clicheç after criticism for laisser-faire capitalism, time to criticize communism. Infinite went to a more interesting social commentary by targeting nationalism, and it's, er, more high-concept shenanigans are indeed very interesting, though loops in time is not that wholly original for some time. That said, I always thought Bioshock one is a bit bloated, and was never interested in a second playthrough. I feel the same with infinite.

Those might have made a hell of a TV series, though, if they had been produced during the small screen golden age a decade and a half ago...

I heard that Kevin Lavine is cooking something of his own, but it's been a while...

If you feel adventurous, Spellforce 3 is a weird but rather remarkable RTS-RPG with excellent writing - the plot itself might be just above-average, but I found the characters and the execution really interesting (notice : I'm strictly speaking of Spellforce 3 here, NOT the previous entries of the series, which were made by a different studio and have absolutely NOT the same style).

Never heard of it. I'll take a look.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a bit of a genre-definer as a movie-like adventure with cinematics dialogues and action.

I played everything CD Project ever made, except Phantom Liberty, which I'll buy in an eventual promotion. After Bioware nosedived, I considered them the gold standard in storytelling in games. Heard the studio is struggling nowadays and witcher 4 might be subpar. I hope that is not the case...

The Owlcat games (Kingmaker, Wrath of the Righteous and Rogue Trader) are all typical Baldur's Gate heirs (isometric squad-based story-heavy RPG). If you loved BG2, you are liable to love them. Notice that they are pretty sweaty in the min-max department if that's your thing.

I begun kingmaker a couple of times, but always found the progression system too dense. I know it's a design choice, but my lack of familiarity with the system is an obstacle. I felt a bit like that first time I played pillars.

Heard that Wrath of the Writeous is more intuitive, but this one I never tried, yet anyway.

I'm wondering if you'd like Kingdom Come Deliverance 1 & 2. Their schtick is that they are extremely grounded and realistic, including the main story, and focused on being authentic and detailed relative to the setting. So depending on your sensibilities, it might make them boring and pedestrian, or it might make them refreshing and original. They are gorgeous and very immersive in any case (though they suffer from a pretty clunky if interesting combat system).

Yeah... I gave up because I couldn't get interested in the combat system. So the story didn't progress enough for me to really have an opinion.

And, of course, I guess you already know about Planescape : Torment ? Pretty much the heaviest narrative-based game, like, ever (or at least close, it's often amusingly described as a video game novel), and has been among my absolute favourite since I played it.

I have Baldur's gate 1 and 2, and Planescape Torment. Always heard great things for all of them, but I'll admit that I never really placed them on a priority list. They seem pretty dated.

Ah yeah, you won't get a strong typical story from them, that's for sure. Though what you'll get is a very strong "experience" and "indirect story" - a bit like living a myth.
I absolutely can't say if you'll like them or not, but there IS some heavy narrative in these game, but it's a "background narrative" rather than a story with a plot. It's more like "discovering the setting" through tons of hints and little bits of partial information (and reading on the Internet the fans who link all that together and offer insight you would never have had). You'll never get complete and clear answers, but it definitely gets the imagination running.
(Sekiro is a bit of an exception here, it has a comparatively clear story, but it still kinda is mostly a background event you just happen to go through and the fighting is the overwhelming majority of the reason to play it)

I know, thus "low key". Maybe Demon's souls will grow on me. That said, my TV is getting a few issues, and until I get my new one, next week, I can't really start playing games that you can't pause....

Have you tried Path of Exile? It is free to play (no DLCs) and has a pretty deep lore side that you can engage with or ignore. It is an ARPG that only has one level of difficulty: gets harder as you progress! There are a few CFCers who play. If you like ARPGs it is the best. It is a complex game that can appear daunting to beginners. It begins with 10 Acts followed by an endgame of enhanced difficulty. If you take a look and have questions, feel free to message me or post them here.

Never tried. PoE for me always stood for Pillars of Eternity. But truth be told, I usually prefer Crpgs to Arpgs. Never was a "diablo" kid, though a few close friends are into the genre since Diablo 1....

Regards .

 

[Akka]

Never heard of it. I'll take a look.

You're in luck, there is a -75 % promotional offer right now !
The main game is here, and the follow-up expansion is here.
(there is also a second expansion, but I've never played it)

I played everything CD Project ever made, except Phantom Liberty, which I'll buy in an eventual promotion. After Bioware nosedived, I considered them the gold standard in storytelling in games. Heard the studio is struggling nowadays and witcher 4 might be subpar. I hope that is not the case...

Phantom Liberty is a marvel of movie-like storytelling, definitely try it. In fact, a bit like the Citadel DLC, it gives better "ending" feelings than the actual game ending (I remember my gf was a slightly bit disappointed by the latter after being so wowed by the former).

I begun kingmaker a couple of times, but always found the progression system too dense. I know it's a design choice, but my lack of familiarity with the system is an obstacle. I felt a bit like that first time I played pillars.

Heard that Wrath of the Writeous is more intuitive, but this one I never tried, yet anyway.

I haven't really felt any significant difference between both, honestly, and Rogue Trader is about the same though (when I played it, heard they "rebalanced" it in some patches) it was easy enough and easy enough to break, for it to not really matter (while I found that Kingmaker/WotR were hard enough to be annoying if you didn't paid attention to the builds).

Yeah... I gave up because I couldn't get interested in the combat system. So the story didn't progress enough for me to really have an opinion.

Can't blame you. I love the games in spite of the combat system, certainly not because of it. But they are one of a kind in the immersion/authenticity department.

I have Baldur's gate 1 and 2, and Planescape Torment. Always heard great things for all of them, but I'll admit that I never really placed them on a priority list. They seem pretty dated.

You never played them ?
Paint me shocked.
Yep, they are pretty dated on a technical PoV (and the fighting is VERY, VERY basic, definitely don't play them for the fighting), but considering the genre, they still hold up pretty well (if you weren't put off by Kingmaker/Pillars of Eternity graphics, they are pretty close).
BG1 is famous for being at the origin of the revival of medieval-fantasy RPG in the 90s, but honestly it's pretty mediocre. BG2 is a massive classic and genre-defining heroic saga (if you see romances in all RPG today, that's because of it ^^) and Torment is a cult classic that feels a lot like the more verbose parts of Pillar of Eternity (if you liked Durance and Grieving Mother, it's exactly this kind of vibe, as it's written by the same guy). Can't stress enough just how I love this one. It's the first (and so far only) game I just played twice back-to-back. Sure I was much younger by then, so I was more easily impressed, but it still was one of the best experience in video games I had.
All are right now at -50 % if you follow the links ^^

I know, thus "low key". Maybe Demon's souls will grow on me. That said, my TV is getting a few issues, and until I get my new one, next week, I can't really start playing games that you can't pause....

You can pause Sekiro at least (not the others) ^^

 

[FredLC]

The old infinite games came at a time when I was not interested in games at all. I haven't even heard of them until 2008 when I restarted my gaming habit by buying a Xbox 360 and picking 3 games at random: Gears of War, Halo 3 and Mass Effect.

3 lucky random picks, I'd say...

 

[Arakhor]

I have Baldur's gate 1 and 2, and Planescape Torment. Always heard great things for all of them, but I'll admit that I never really placed them on a priority list. They seem pretty dated.

Well, of course they're dated - they're 20-25 years old! You'd play Planescape Torment for the wild setting, genuine role-playing (your alignment will shift in-game according to your actions and dialogue choices) and one of the best stories ever committed to a video game.

 

[PhroX]

To be fair, the first two Baldur's Gate games don't play that badly for their age. They're a bit clunky, but I feel much of that is an issue with being an adaptation of a pen-and-paper game than rather than just their age (as I find some modern RPGs like BG3 or particularly Pathfinder suffer somewhat of the the same compared to those built from the ground up as computer games e.g. Pillars of Eternity, especially Deadfire).

Torment, on the other hand, never had good gameplay. Still worth playing for the story though.

 

[Akka]

You'd play Planescape Torment for the wild setting, genuine role-playing (your alignment will shift in-game according to your actions and dialogue choices) and one of the best stories ever committed to a video game.

Have to concur with Torment being really good in the "roleplay" aspect. It's rare to be able to fine-tune that much how you respond (down to being able to chose if you say something honestly or just for the appearance) while all of it feeling natural, and the dialogues taking into account so many parameters (though wisdom was really king as far as stat go).
And the depth of (not-dumb)evil you can reach are really disturbing.

To be fair, the first two Baldur's Gate games don't play that badly for their age. They're a bit clunky, but I feel much of that is an issue with being an adaptation of a pen-and-paper game than rather than just their age (as I find some modern RPGs like BG3 or particularly Pathfinder suffer somewhat of the the same compared to those built from the ground up as computer games e.g. Pillars of Eternity, especially Deadfire).

Torment, on the other hand, never had good gameplay. Still worth playing for the story though.

Considering Torment has the exact same gameplay that the BG, I'm a surprised that you set it apart like that.

 

[PhroX]

Considering Torment has the exact same gameplay that the BG, I'm a surprised that you set it apart like that.

It has the same underlying system, but stuff like skills and encounter design are much less fun.

 

[Arakhor]

The fighting in Torment is almost superfluous. There's only three or four (boss) fights that you can't bypass, and most of the others you can simply run away from.

 

[Akka]

It has the same underlying system, but stuff like skills and encounter design are much less fun.

True for BG2, with the sheer amount of content, high-level bosses and spells and the whole "pierce all the layers of defensive magic" meta. BG1, though, is on the same level as Torment (minus the fun spell cinematics).
Though anyway, yeah, fighting in Torment is really secondary and more as an enhancement of the storytelling than a real challenge (especially considering how grossly overpowered TNO can become).

In fact, I'd say that Dragon Age Origins is probably the only squad-based RPG that I found having an actually engaging combat system (and also somehow PoE, which has a very elegant and comprehensive one, but I found it more fun in theory than in practice).

 

[dusters]

Been playing Diablo Immortal past 3 weeks. Titan quest 2 or Olden era had short demos, but no early access yet.

 

[Clubber Lang]

Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them. But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida — forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive. Explore Vice City and beyond at https://www.rockstargames.com/VIThis trailer was captured entirely in-game from a PlayStation 5, comprised of equal parts gameplay and cutscenes.Song: Hot TogetherArtist: The Pointer Sisters

 

[Kyriakos]

I think we are allowed (?) to discuss the new Civ7 promotional ad here? (what do you command, @The_J ? ^^)
Asking also because there is a thread for it, just not in OT.
I should note that this is just a general ad for the game, not a trailer or otherwise part of the game.

Brienne of Pudding is in it.
Personally I didn't like it - too childish (but maybe that is the target audience?)