The Gaming Den

System Shock....Rocking!!! casinos

I got Saint's Row 3 in the current what the fuck publisher sale Humble Bundle (along with a bunch of other things that I might get around to). And while I sometimes have fun with the traditional crime sandbox game... this is the first one that I've straight up enjoyed from the very start. The first 3 missions are: bank heist turned helicopter chase, an assault in a plane that ends with you skydiving through it, and a raid on a national guard outpost that leaves you in possession of a satellite guided missile system. It calms down into more traditional sandbox play after that, but it was a lot of fun being handed actual toys to start the fucking game with, and the missions keep their zaniness (at least as fasr as I've seen). I'm pleasantly surprised with it.

And in case you don't know about it, Microsoft is giving away a different game for every 15 days or so to XBox Gold subscribers. Since they're all older, any of them could be a 'new to you' game. Current title is Crackdown, and the next one up in a week is Dead Rising 2 (with some DLC). Even if you don't have a gold account, you can get a 3 month pass pretty cheaply if you wanted to pick up a few older titles with it.

I picked up Colonization for $2 off of GoG.

It's amazing, the design is deeply flawed, but Sid Meier "fixes" it with less annoying flaw, putting hard cap on the game once revolution comes...and you have to have a revolution at some point.

Doom wrote:I picked up Colonization for $2 off of GoG.

It's amazing, the design is deeply flawed, but Sid Meier "fixes" it with less annoying flaw, putting hard cap on the game once revolution comes...and you have to have a revolution at some point.

The original Colonization is still one of my favorite single-player experiences. It does have its problems (also known as "playing as the Dutch, ever"), but being able to build an economic empire off of rum and systematic exploitation at the tender age of 6 was...well...a pretty fun time.

(The sequel on the Civ4 engine wasn't particularly good, though.)

I noticed the Dutch were pretty dominating...lots of money and not having to buy a decent ship (i.e., another few thousand gold) are just so much better than extra immigrants (not even a thousand gold), happy natives (worth even less), and bonus when attacking native settlements (useless even if you intend to attack natives).

Rum? C'mon, the best is making a fortune of tobacco, at least for perverted play...though rum is easier and worth as much.

Maybe someday they'll remake this game, put in better military options, a more manageable system to so that you can colonize more than 8% of the terrain before it's revolution time, and more diplomacy. Lord knows they've smashed the Civ license into the ground.

I bought Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition during the Steam Summer Sale and just got around to playing it. So far, it's the ultimate in trial-and-error gameplay. Losing souls on death isn't a punishment for failure, getting them back is a reward for incremental improvement. This means there is no real drawback to exploring or trying new tactics between reaching your bloodstain and your next untimely demise.

I don't think I'm very far yet, but even the normal enemies are pretty fun to fight. I just ran into a few bigger skeletons, an oversized Iron Knuckle with a club, and a headless demon with a laser staff. I can beat the skeletons if I'm careful, but the others are giving me trouble.
I can't wait until I'm tough enough to take out the random black-armoured knights I've seen a few times simply because of how badly they owned me the first couple times I fought them. Every time I think I can do it I die in two hits.

YOU FOOL YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU'VE STARTED

The Black Armored Knights don't respawn when killed. There's a rare chance they'll drop their weapons.

THEY HAVE REALLY NICE WEAPONS.

Before I get off on a rant (with plenty of talk from other folks here), want some help? I'll answer questions, give advice, tell you Where Cool Stuff Is, how to Make Friends And Gain Ultimate Power, whatever.

Ed wrote:(The sequel on the Civ4 engine wasn't particularly good, though.)

The basic Civ 4 Colonization was problematic due to the retarded way the King's Army increased. There is a mod (TAC) which I'm trying that seems to fix this, letting you build an empire in the Americas without causing the Army to balloon to an impossible size.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's been modded heavily and is no doubt much better. I remember when it was first released, though, and you literally couldn't win. The game calculated Liberty Bells wrong so you could never hit 50% to declare independence, and the King's army kept getting bigger anyway so it wasn't worth even trying.

What, again? Huh.

If this works like last time, you get the scaling discount even if you already own the games.

Maxus wrote:Before I get off on a rant (with plenty of talk from other folks here), want some help? I'll answer questions, give advice, tell you Where Cool Stuff Is, how to Make Friends And Gain Ultimate Power, whatever.

Thanks, but I think I'm good. I'm having a blast exploring. I killed the Moonlight Butterfly (or whatever its name was) last night, and I'm saving up souls for the crest to pass through that door in the forest. I'll probably backtrack a bit and see if any of the keys I found fit doors near the merchant that sells the orange soapstone. Thanks for the tip about the armoured knights though. I'll definitely wait awhile before picking a fight with one of them again, and I'll stock up on Humanity for the extra drop chance before the fight.

Doom wrote:I noticed the Dutch were pretty dominating...lots of money and not having to buy a decent ship (i.e., another few thousand gold) are just so much better than extra immigrants (not even a thousand gold), happy natives (worth even less), and bonus when attacking native settlements (useless even if you intend to attack natives).

The Spanish bonus actually can be really useful and on Viceroy I think it's actually the best bonus. The Dutch ship is better in lower level and America games because there's so much easily accessible cash crop terrain, but in higher level games everybody and their mother is going to invent reasons to punch you in the head. So being able to clear out Indians a lot faster helps there. You can also pretty quickly burn through the Aztecs and take all their crap (though at the cost of some score points at the end), and then use Mexico and a Customs House for ridiculous amounts of exports.

Rum? C'mon, the best is making a fortune of tobacco, at least for perverted play...though rum is easier and worth as much.

Rum, tobacco, whatever--one gives cirrhosis, the other cancer, I'm pretty shitty either way, right?

The most efficient I've found, at least for early play, is to get at least one asskicking silver mine plus building cash-crop infrastructure. There are a couple spots on the America map where you can pretty easily get a silver deposit as well as at least one good crop spot, at which point you will have slightly less money than the Pope and everything gets stomped. Even on Viceroy it just becomes silly.

The random maps are even more ridiculous. If you build an archipelago map it becomes really easy to isolate and pound on the natives to get the space you need to start improving to ludicrous levels.

Maybe someday they'll remake this game, put in better military options, a more manageable system to so that you can colonize more than 8% of the terrain before it's revolution time, and more diplomacy. Lord knows they've smashed the Civ license into the ground.

It's on my list of games I desperately want to make for me, but intuitively I don't think it'd go anywhere. Right now I'm arguing with myself between a Kickstarter-friendly JRPG and a thin-SR4-ripoff isometric RPG (closer to Baldur's Gate than to Shadowrun Returns), but this is one of the games I would make if I was only trying to sell to a legion of me's.

Currently running, jumping, swearing, and sword swinging my way through UnEpic. Started out straight away on Hard mode and, to be perfectly honest, it's only been pretty rough a couple times, though I'm only about halfway through. I'm working my way through the Library at the moment, for the curious.

I haven't even tried the America map--I figure too much of an unfair advantage there.

The Spanish 50% bonus is just so "meh". If I'm in conquering mode, I get some dragoons, which already have an excellent chance of winning any battle in the early game (str 4.5 vs str 1, and that's without the bonus). Once I have a some decent money, I buy a cannon (which Indians can do nothing against, bonus or no). After that, it's all over, and the 50% bonus is meaningless....2 dragoons and a cannon can take any Indian city, and you can get that for 1000 gold or less. Dutch gets you that money earlier, the Spanish means you can try to get away with 1 dragoon and a cannon (say 200 gold savings).

The Dutch bonus helps me out on turn 1, helps me out on the last turn of the game, helps me out every turn in between. Spanish? Only helps on turns I attack Indian cities, and then only when I wouldn't have won anyway. And it somewhat relies on getting that "galleons transport for free" dude to come up right away.

The other powers are much more aggressive on higher skill levels, but I've yet to lose a city I've put a cannon in. Guess I should give Viceroy a try as the Spanish and see.

Bottom line is I just hate the endgame. The REF cavalry is just a mess to deal with (mostly by setting up the REF to land in bad terrain), and I hate that I play the whole game with the endgame in mind: "put all cities within 12 road moves of each other." That alone really chokes off what I can do elsewhere. Past that, have 9 Cont. Cavalry ready at the Revolution, and it's game over.

The Spanish are best on Viceroy only if you are going to try to bootstrap off the backs of helpless Indians and then turtle for approximately forever. The bonus does really matter there; two dragoons and a cannon will get mauled by most Indian cities. Europeans will come to fuck with you pretty much any time you get into a protracted conflict anywhere, at least until Ben Franklin joins your Continental Congress; IMO he's pretty much essential on Viceroy because of the "always offers peace" thing.

This is making me think pretty hard about Colonization again. I don't think a turn-based strategy game would go over too well without multiplayer, though...

So I just killed three zombies in Planescape: Torment, having taken advantage of that GoG sale.

I'm kinda digging the old vibes--like being able to examine random environmental objects and get a description.

That always was one of my favorite bits of Quest for Glory.

So, anyway, yeah. I'll see if I dig the game as hard as everyone else, ever, did.

Maxus wrote:So I just killed three zombies in Planescape: Torment, having taken advantage of that GoG sale.

I'm kinda digging the old vibes--like being able to examine random environmental objects and get a description.

That always was one of my favorite bits of Quest for Glory.

So, anyway, yeah. I'll see if I dig the game as hard as everyone else, ever, did.

It's really a game that rewards you for exploring everything and talking to everyone, so I'd suggest that you keep that in mind.

Which is what I do anyway. I grew up on RPGs which encouraged such behavior. Because sometimes they give you free swag and other such things.

So, sweet.

I picked up Demons' Souls as well as a bundle of D&D games from the GoG sale. Still need to try out the latter, but I got the first boss killed on the former.

nockermensch wrote:Do we talk about mobile games in this thread too?

Because this shit is hilarious, and addicting, to boot.

Haha I love that game. xD

As for the mention about game dev tycoon, I liked that too. It's a bit frustrating once you upgrade out of your garage though.

TarkisFlux wrote:I got Saint's Row 3 in the current what the fuck publisher sale Humble Bundle (along with a bunch of other things that I might get around to). And while I sometimes have fun with the traditional crime sandbox game... this is the first one that I've straight up enjoyed from the very start. The first 3 missions are: bank heist turned helicopter chase, an assault in a plane that ends with you skydiving through it, and a raid on a national guard outpost that leaves you in possession of a satellite guided missile system. It calms down into more traditional sandbox play after that, but it was a lot of fun being handed actual toys to start the fucking game with, and the missions keep their zaniness (at least as fasr as I've seen). I'm pleasantly surprised with it.

Have you gotten to the Tiger Escort missions yet?

codeGlaze wrote:

nockermensch wrote:Do we talk about mobile games in this thread too?

Because this shit is hilarious, and addicting, to boot.

Haha I love that game. xD

As for the mention about game dev tycoon, I liked that too. It's a bit frustrating once you upgrade out of your garage though.

Hey, I have that on my PC, surprisingly fun, though they didn't do nearly enough with the premise.

THIS IS A BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.

When you have to go get the disruptor from Gotham Police Department, a door will not unlock unless you let the sequencer go through its full error message. For some ungodly reason.

So be warned, when Batman decides he needs the disruptor from the evidence room, go in that door to the side.

I spent two hours trying to find the way to the evidence room until I finally broke down and looked it up, in case it's a glitch.

So, yeah. There's a very important door which won't unlock unless you watch the whole "I can't open the door because the signal jammer" thing. And if you leave the room, you have to watch it again because the door relocks.

THIS CONCLUDE THE ARKHAM ORIGINS PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT