What Video Games have you been playing I: My Muffintop Expands!

[Zack]

It was like, I would clear your five minions... then suddenly there were five more. Repeat.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Something something about old age and treachery.

Nah, I think I got lucky on a lot of those draws. I'll have to get some Icy Hot ready for myself on the rematches.

Icy Hot doesn't remedy butthurt very well. Friendly advice: try KY instead.

 

[Farm Boy]

That sounds like a far less exciting lubricant. But I suppose you could ditch the protective goggles then. It was getting a bit steampunky.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I got punched out 5 times in the first fight after a chase in Sleeping Dogs. Well, that's what I get for not playing fighting or rhythm games.

 

[Zack]

I got punched out 5 times in the first fight after a chase in Sleeping Dogs. Well, that's what I get for not playing fighting or rhythm games.

I played it right after finishing the Arkham games, so I thought the combat was pretty easy. Counter, counter, counter.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I was messing up the timing on the counters. It's not like Assassin's Creed where there's no penalty to spamming the counter button. And besides, I wanted to immediately do the environmental kills and bash people's heads in with combos.

 

[Takhisis]

Holy crap is Hearthstone addicting.

Is it anything like Card Wars, as played by Finn and Jake?

Game Dev Tycoon is surprisingly addictive, although I'm disappointed by the failure of my military action-RPG MMO titled simply VIETNAM. The expansion packs VIETNAM: Agent Orange and VIETNAM: Linebacker did significantly better than the core game, though. Game ended before I could finish my other two planned expansions, Tonkin and PTSD.

Would you recommend it? I'm interested, but I've heard mixed things about it.

Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe is best Tycoon! I play it.
Ma-ar-ten! Ma-ar-ten!

 

[Zack]

Is it anything like Card Wars, as played by Finn and Jake?

I don't know, but it's free. Try it.

 

[Takhisis]

So you don't watch Adventure Time.

Fallout 2… Hai-yaah! No, Mr. President, I expect you to die.

 

[Mise]

I just started playing Hearthstone yesterday. It's pretty addicting! At the moment it doesn't seem very pay-to-win, but being a Blizzard game, I expect they'll squeeze as much out of me for as long as possible.

So, yeah, how pay-to-win is it?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Tiny Death Star (smartphone game) is super addictive.
Plague Inc is pretty good and is basically a complete rip-off of the flash game Pandemic 2 (which is not a bad thing to be).

However, both games are freemiums, which is fine except the prices they charge to unlock content or sell bonuses is outrageous!

Star Trek Online is still providing me a lot of fun but unfortunately things just got really busy for me so I don't get to play as much and won't for a while.

 

[Zack]

I just started playing Hearthstone yesterday. It's pretty addicting! At the moment it doesn't seem very pay-to-win, but being a Blizzard game, I expect they'll squeeze as much out of me for as long as possible.

So, yeah, how pay-to-win is it?

There are enough fairly easy one-time quests for you to go through that give packs or 100 gold, that you can go through a few arena runs and build a pretty decent deck for constructed play. I'd also highly recommend reading through here, though I will give some of my own brief advice (spoilered for size).

Spoiler :

• The two most important things in Hearthstone are board control and card advantage, NOT the health of the respective heroes.

- Board Control: You want to ensure you have the advantage on the board. Your highest priority is to clear your opponent's minions off of the board, while preserving your own minions, for as little cost (mana and cards) as possible. This is more important than either hero's health. This is also why cards that don't affect the board are not good cards. For example, Mind Blast might seem like a good card - 5 damage to the enemy hero for only 2 mana! - but because it does nothing to affect the card, it is actually a pretty poor card. Likewise, Healing Touch seems like a good card - restore 8 health for only 3 mana! - but because it will almost never affect the board, it isn't very useful. Same goes for the Hunter's hero power. On a related note, Sen'jin Shieldmasta is better than Booty Bay Bodyguard, and it costs one mana less. This is because at Turn 4, when you ideally play Shieldmasta, it's very unlikely that your opponent can deal five damage with only one card (unless they use fireball/assassinate/hex/polymorph/etc. or something, which would be wasteful to use on a 4-mana card with 3 attack, and thus would still be a win). On the other hand, by Turn 5, your opponent will probably be able to take deal 4 damage with only one card, often with a minion with lower-mana (in other words, Booty Bay Bodyguard often "trades down"). Area-of-effect (AOE) cards can be extremely useful in maintaining board control for little cost, although be careful not to use them when you don't need to. Note: If you have lethal (you can kill the hero this turn), just go straight for the hero's face. Board control doesn't matter if you can straight-up win the game.

- Card Advantage: You always want to try and have more cards (whether they are in your hand or on the board) than your opponent. This is why cards that draw another card (Gnomish Inventor, Loot Hoarder, Power Word: Shield, Cult Master, etc.) are so valuable. Having more cards in your hand means you have more options to deal with the opponent, both in this turn and in future turns. Always try to hold at least three cards in your hand - if you only have 1 or 2 cards in your hand at the start of each turn, you have already lost the game (unless your opponent is in a similar situation). Note: If your opponent has lethal or near-lethal, obviously you shouldn't be worrying about maintaining card advantage as much as making sure you don't die.​

• Before you play arena, do these things first:

- Watch and Learn: Watch the arena runs of superior players. Notice how they construct their deck in the draft, and how they play their deck in games. Occasionally pause and think what you would do, then resume and see what the player that's better than you actually doe. Trump has a lot of good videos to choose from (choose one of the longer ones, as those will be more successful runes).

- Arenavalue.com: Download this client to use for your first few arena runs. It will assign values to the cards presented to you in the draft (which change base on the cards you've already drafted), and help you draft a good deck. It can also be useful to just look up a card to get a good idea of how good it is, and if you hover over the "i" in the top-right corner of each card, you'll sometimes see Trump's commentary on the card. Also, don't feel too pressured during your first arena run, as it's completely free.​

• Most importantly, PLAY. It's easy to read theory and watch great players, it is another thing to play well yourself. Look at me, for example - I know all of this stuff about how to play and how to build a deck, but I still make mistakes and I'm consistently slightly above-average in arena and ranked play. This is also really the only way to learn what to expect from different heroes, and how to play against them (i.e. don't leave a bunch of 4-health minions on the board before a Mage's Turn 7, play lots of 4-attack minions against priests, and so on).

 

[Red Door]

I've been re-addicted to Football Manager 2010 in the last month. I started out with Tottenham Hotspur, finished 6th (won the FA Cup) and made Peter Crouch into a 30 goal scorer. My next season, I finished 5th (typical Spurs, am I right?) while making the UEFA Cup quarter-finals.

Then, I guess virtual Sir Alex Ferguson retired and I got offered the Manager position at Man United. I was going to say no, but they offered a Transfer budget of $110 million (I bought some promising 16 year olds, Sulley Muntari, Christian Eriksen, Mesut Ozil, and Manuel Neuer). I couldn't say no. I have 4 league games left, but it looks like I'll finish 2nd to City (who I also lost to in the Champions League quarterfinals.) I got knocked out in the FA Cup quarterfinals but I did win the League Cup. So I guess I'm doing better than SAF's actual replacement.

 

[Mise]

Thanks Zack!!

 

[Farm Boy]

Thanks Zack!!

Yea, I think I'm to the point where I'm happy to do my daily, then every 2 or 3 days that give you enough free gold to do an arena run, which is a pack of cards. So more FTP than some things, if you can manage to not buy packs or arena runs, but less FTP than say, league of legends.

My problem at the moment is I would like to screw around with different decks, but I don't really have the cards to build much variety. Which is why it's so insanely smart and more than a shade evil of them to have paygated the draft play mode.

Zack's rundown is better.

Edit: hehehe! Just read that calculator in Zack's post. Am remembering why I never pay for Blizzard games anymore. After a short while your WoW guild wasn't raiding the dungeon, they were all interfacing and playing the macros that somebody had written for them. Just like with this you eventually aren't going to be playing arena runs against players, you are going to be playing arena runs against Trump's card selection macro, and unless you don't want to lose a bunch as a casual you are going to be playing your Trump's card selction macro back. This sounds like it's going to degenerate into the boredom that was WoW(where you weren't actually playing, your were just another account drone playing as instructed). Just enjoying it a bit until it gets that stale.

 

[Takhisis]

Fallout 2… Hai-yaah! No, Mr. President, I expect you to die.

Take that, Horrigan, you mass-murderer!

And take that, Sgt. Granite! I don't need your help. All it takes is a mound of stimpacks, some energy weapons, and a turret.


So, does anyone know how to play this Fallout: Tactics game? It's a weird game.

 

[Zack]

If anyone wants to play me in Hearthstone, PM me and I'll shoot you my name.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

I have mostly been playing:

Baldur's Gate, in which I am constantly confused by the ruleset having been accustomed to D&D 3.5 onwards. What on earth is a THACO?

Birth of the Federation with the Ultimate Dominion Mod, in which I am blowing up an awful lot of starships. The Romulan Star Empire shall rule the galaxy.

 

[Takhisis]

N 2.0 is where it's at, baby!

If anyone wants to play me in Hearthstone, PM me and I'll shoot you my name.

Z4ccinoDab34ast666, right?

I have mostly been playing:

Baldur's Gate, in which I am constantly confused by the ruleset having been accustomed to D&D 3.5 onwards. What on earth is a THACO?

Oh, you poor ignorant sod.

 

[Farm Boy]

If anyone wants to play me in Hearthstone, PM me and I'll shoot you my name.

Same here! Still amused with it for now, and maybe ya'll can convince me it's not as bad as it looks.


Oh, unrelated note. THAC0 was a sublime system that was undermined by unwillingness to do basic mental addition and subtraction, then replaced by an inferior dumbed down solution. <.< >.> <.<