What Video Games Have You Been Playing VII: The Real Ending is Locked Behind a Paywall

[FriendlyFire]

Mechcommader was insanely hard but it was only because resources were so tight and you could just randomly lose your best mech in a mission if it exploded from an unlucky hit.

Salvage the Mad Cat on Mission 2 ?

 

[Ajidica]

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is on sale for $6 on Steam. Is it worth getting? I liked Human Revolution but I heard some poor things about Mankind Divided, like Square Enix insisting on a terrible DLC/Microtransaction aspect to the game and basically chopping the game in half, leaving the game ending on an unresolved cliffhanger.

 

[Arakhor]

For $6, nearly any game is worthwhile.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is on sale for $6 on Steam. Is it worth getting? I liked Human Revolution but I heard some poor things about Mankind Divided, like Square Enix insisting on a terrible DLC/Microtransaction aspect to the game and basically chopping the game in half, leaving the game ending on an unresolved cliffhanger.

I asked myself that very same question during the last sale when it was the same price.
Then I saw the Digital Deluxe edition is only a tenner.
Then I remembered the microtransaction chicanery and that the "deluxe" edition includes additional in-game money and praxis kits.
I concluded that all this stuff would probably destroy game balance. Otoh, it was balanced to sell you all this stuff.
But then again, it might be too easy because they should have balanced it to be enjoyable without it...
So, after spending some minutes in this ridiculous feedback loop of rationalization I decided to not buy it.
Another factor in that decision was that the game doesn't have a proper ending. Squenix decided partway in development to make the planned game into a trilogy. A trilogy that will never be finished because after disappointing sales the whole franchise is now "on ice".
Good job Square Enix. You ruined a great game with your infinite greed.

Also a shout-out to EA and Mass Effect.
Good job EA and Squenix. Between the two of you you murdered two of my favourite franchises last year.

 

[cardgame]

Some games aren't even worth the time invested into them if they were free. [looks at uninstalled BundleDealSpecialCheapIncludes13Games steam backlog]

 

[Ajidica]

Apart from a handful of indie developers, the only two developers I have any sort of faith in are CD Project and Firaxis.
CA has handled the Total War franchise terribly, Bioware seems to have no idea what they were doing with Inquisition and the last two Mass Effects are questionable at best, and Bethesda is taking forever to even announce a new TES game. (Seriously, Skyrim was release six years ago. Get a move on it Bethesda!)

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Firaxis games tend to be poorly polished at launch. Civ 6 was pretty good from the start, but I still haven't forgiven them for the desastrous launch of of Civ 4 and 5. Still, they fix their games eventually (unless that game is Beyond Earth). Their DLC policy is also pretty questionable.
I have more faith in Obsidian and Larian. Pillars of Eternity 2 is the only game I'm looking forward to this year.

 

[Ajidica]

Firaxis games tend to be poorly polished at launch. Civ 6 was pretty good from the start, but I still haven't forgiven them for the desastrous launch of of Civ 4 and 5. Still, they fix their games eventually (unless that game is Beyond Earth). Their DLC policy is also pretty questionable.
I have more faith in Obsidian and Larian. Pillars of Eternity 2 is the only game I'm looking forward to this year.

Oh yeah, forgot about Larian.
I have to disagree with you on Obsidian though. They have no idea how to either balance a game or keep to a schedule. Fallout New Vegas was launched in a barely playable mess with hours of cut content and unused assets*; Pillars of Eternity has absurdly long loading times, pretentious writing in a bland story, and bad companion design**; and Tyranny continues the pattern of bad companion design and railroading of "choices".

*I mean, southwest of New Vegas these is an entire custom designed model of a gravel quarry with absolutely nothing there. No enemies, no terminals, and as far as I know, no quests. What a waste of time and resources.
**You get a grand total of one and a half tanks in PoE. God help you if you choose a squish class as your player character and want to have companions instead of empty hirelings. Companions apart from Eder, the bard, and the dwarf ranger all feel like they belong in a mental asylum instead of an adventuring party.

 

[PhroX]

Mechcommader was insanely hard but it was only because resources were so tight and you could just randomly lose your best mech in a mission if it exploded from an unlucky hit.

Really? I always found it a pretty easy game. In fact, I'd say the lack of difficulty is my only real complaint about it. While salvaging the mission 2 Mad Cat utterly trivialises the game, even without it, it's not much of a challenge - I've done playthroughs using nothing but stock (i.e. no changing loadout) IS mechs and gotten through fine.

That said, the overall difficulty does suffer from the fact that your units and resources are persistent. If you have a really bad mission, losing several mechs or good pilots, the subsequent missions will be harder, meaning you'll lose even more, and so on. The difficulty snowballs in both directions - if you're doing well, it gets easier and easier. If you do poorly, it gets harder and harder. It's just that doing well in the first place isn't that hard.

 

[Snerk]

I have a pretty strong feeling that mounted combat in m&b fashion will leave you motion sick.

Yeah for those prone to motion sickness in VR a m&b game might well be unplayable. I'm lucky as I seem to immune to motion sickness in games. I can get a little dizzy but never unwell or nauseous.

Skyrim questions for those who've played the DLCs:

Can you play Dawnguard and/or Dragonborn at lower levels without having played through the main quest? And which DLC is the best to start with?

 

[Arakhor]

I think that the DLCs are level-locked, so you might as well deal with them as they come. Dawnguard is still based in Skyrim, but Dragonborn takes you to Solstheim, so clearly, one's less intrusive than the other.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I got such a great start position in They Are Billions last night that I'm almost afraid to play it. Command center out on a peninsula, water on three sides. A +11 wood, a +3 stone and a +3 iron (the stone and the iron must be "+3.5", because when I put down a warehouse they both became +7s). Then my first Mayor brought a Great Ballista with him. That early in the game, one ballista is like the Death Star. After failing more times than I can count to defeat the Peaceful Lowlands at 60%, it's practically handing it to me on a platter. It'll be interesting to see how I screw it up.

 

[Broken_Erika]

For $6, nearly any game is worthwhile.

*cough *cough Daikatana *cough

 

[EgonSpengler]

I didn't finish Mankind Divided, but it's definitely worth $6. It's got some good scenes.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Oh yeah, forgot about Larian.
I have to disagree with you on Obsidian though. They have no idea how to either balance a game or keep to a schedule. Fallout New Vegas was launched in a barely playable mess with hours of cut content and unused assets*; Pillars of Eternity has absurdly long loading times, pretentious writing in a bland story, and bad companion design**; and Tyranny continues the pattern of bad companion design and railroading of "choices".

It's a matter of taste. I'm willing to forgive some jankiness and gameplay weaknesses if I enjoy the writing, the characters and the story gives me a reasonably convicing illusion of choice.
PoE was a bit weak in that regard, but I did like the characters. Alpha Protocol is one of my favorite games of all time. It showed up in a few worst game of the year lists, but I thought it was the best game of 2010. Combat was a major weakness, but I basically played it as a stealth game. The only thing I hated about it was that it allowed you go the non-combat route for most of the game but included some frustrating boss fights.

I didn't finish Mankind Divided, but it's definitely worth $6. It's got some good scenes.

It's more about time for me and I don't want to get invested in a story that's unlikely to get an ending.

On topic: Damn, is Into the Breach tough. I'm already much better at it than yesterday, but sometimes I start a mission and now after the first turn that I'll have to start over. Feels a lot fairer and less RNG based than many other RTS games though.

*cough *cough Daikatana *cough

A physical copy might have some value to collectors.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Do you know if Skyrim VR has been updated and improved since launch? I noticed it's on sale. I'm still undecided on whether to jump in or not.
I already own Battlefront and I noticed it has some VR content and it was pretty sweet. Piloting an X-wing was all that and a bag of chips!
I'll probably get Superhot soon. It's looks really cool and has been getting a lot of highly positive reviews.

There's been at least one update, which fixed a really annoying bug (which turned out to be a "feature") where you sword was constantly drawing on its own, and another bug where blocking with swords wouldn't work. It changed some other stuff too, but really those were the only significant issues I found with it anyway. The view can drift somewhat during play and the Move controllers can get a bit misaligned, but I suspect that's just an issue with how the PSVR works with a single camera, so tracking isn't always that amazing. But really I've found it pretty stable and enjoyable.

 

[civvver]

Really? I always found it a pretty easy game. In fact, I'd say the lack of difficulty is my only real complaint about it. While salvaging the mission 2 Mad Cat utterly trivialises the game, even without it, it's not much of a challenge - I've done playthroughs using nothing but stock (i.e. no changing loadout) IS mechs and gotten through fine.

That said, the overall difficulty does suffer from the fact that your units and resources are persistent. If you have a really bad mission, losing several mechs or good pilots, the subsequent missions will be harder, meaning you'll lose even more, and so on. The difficulty snowballs in both directions - if you're doing well, it gets easier and easier. If you do poorly, it gets harder and harder. It's just that doing well in the first place isn't that hard.

It's 20 years old and I haven't played it in at least 15 so my memory is foggy. You may be right, I just remember getting stuck sometimes on the first one and having pretty much infinite money in the second due to the salvage feature where you could salvage almost any mech destroyed and sell it off for a profit without repairing anything on it.



Steam is running a final fantasy series sale this weekend. They have every one except 1 and 2. Any recommendations? I played 1, 3 and 5 on emulators and 1 on blackberry (lol). I really like them though they are super grindy. I'm looking at 7, 6 and 9 probably though 8 gets a lot of praise as well. I could just get em all but my backlog... ugh.

 

[Groff]

It's 20 years old and I haven't played it in at least 15 so my memory is foggy. You may be right, I just remember getting stuck sometimes on the first one and having pretty much infinite money in the second due to the salvage feature where you could salvage almost any mech destroyed and sell it off for a profit without repairing anything on it.



Steam is running a final fantasy series sale this weekend. They have every one except 1 and 2. Any recommendations? I played 1, 3 and 5 on emulators and 1 on blackberry (lol). I really like them though they are super grindy. I'm looking at 7, 6 and 9 probably though 8 gets a lot of praise as well. I could just get em all but my backlog... ugh.

I haven't played much of 8, but you won't go wrong in getting any of them. FF9 is more back to the roots in both the world and the story, while FF7 was a great relief, at least for me, from the medieval setting that quite a few RPGs follow.

EDIT: If you're into JRPGS, might I recommend Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. Though I'm guessing you've probably played them already if you like JRPGs.

 

[shadowplay]

I've been splitting my time between the new Civ6 expansion, and Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Switch. I'm about 3/4 of the way through Zelda, and I can safely declare it to be among my favourite games. I'm reluctant to declare it better than Ocarina of Time, though, which I feel was still the better game for it's time.

 

[Kozmos]

My new zoning out game is the Crew, where you drive ridiculously overpowered sports cars in a scaled down recreation of the USA.