I never really had the bad school dreams described in this thread and I just came up with a theory as to why. You see, I skipped a lot of classes back in highschool so walking into a test completely unprepared just seemed like a chance for free marks. See a question, find a formula related to the question, start mathing until the units look about right, and that's an easy 3.5/5. When I got to college, the classes were actually interesting so showing up wasn't a problem. Add in the sweet, sweet curve and a blindly educated guessed 3/5 becomes an A level answer.
This weekend, I had the chance to sink my teeth a little deeper into Gal Civ 2. As best I can tell, it's really, really good if you're into that sort of thing, but I'm going to have to turn in my gamer card and say that I would have appreciated more streamlining. The 4X I spent the most time with was Alpha Centauri. While you could design your own vehicles, it offered new designs based on the latest research and offered to upgrade existing vehicles for a cost based on the new tech, among other aids. Some of that would have been nice. While GC2 definitely does some hand holding, such as automatically upgrading to more advanced facilities unless interrupted, it's still pretty easy to get lost in the many details.
If I had GC2 back when I was in school, I probably would have loved spending hundreds of hours learning all the details and trying various approaches. Now I feel bad that I can't give the game the time and attention it deserves.
If you're playing gold, there are severe differences between the races.
There is also a race to cap space resources and upgrade space stations.
You can also get space stations to auto upgrade by clicking its menu. You can then set a rally point from a planet to always send your constructors to take off from your planets and fly straight away to your stations. You finally can set your planets on auto to build constructors only.
My research heavy games were a race to xeno ethics and the three moral techs good (defense), neutral (influence and spy powers), and evil (offense). This was mainly because neutral ethics upgrades colored tiles on your planet to green tiles for free as long as you have the tech.
Finally, every construction pod you put on a cargo hull increases the number of upgrades per station. Every troop pod you attach increases the number of troops that ship carries into battle.
Honestly, that's skimming the surface, there's so many more systems underneath that, plus joyous random events. I hope GC2 is better at this.
Oh, and trade routes, you send a trade ship, only one trade pod needed, and the further away it is, the more credits you make. A real target for improving relations and making money in the early game.
The game also starts for some reason with your economy at 70%, with 30% going towards tax breaks. Not a big deal, but something to inhibit your early game expansions.
Part of me wants to play ME again at some point, but part of me loves the unblemished headcanon of my singular playthrough (all 3 back to back two years ago).
Contrasted with KOTOR where I've played light and dark and male and female multiple times and all the stories just kind of form one big clump of a narative. Whereas ME is a single experience that I shaped with my choices and it exists (in my head) as only that. There is something special about that.
Part of me wants to play ME again at some point, but part of me loves the unblemished headcanon of my singular playthrough (all 3 back to back two years ago).
Contrasted with KOTOR where I've played light and dark and male and female multiple times and all the stories just kind of form one big clump of a narative. Whereas ME is a single experience that I shaped with my choices and it exists (in my head) as only that. There is something special about that.
My ME experience is similar. I playthrough once doing whatever catches my fancy, and then do a "canon" playthrough that carries to the next game. Considering the limited game time I have, replays are rare for me, so to replay a whole trilogy was certainly out of character and indicative of the series quality as a whole.
I finished a videogame today! Rise of the tomb raider. It was pretty damn good. I got a little frustrated with the climax, but eh. it wasn't nearly as bad as the climax of the first one. I'll have to wait for a sale on the DLC and hopefully pick it up. Until then, onto the next game.....Of which I'm not sure what it will be just yet.
The two main things holding be back from starting ME again are the load times and the overly long start on the Citadel. A PC remaster with all three games and all the DLC in one package is going to happen at some point. When it does, I'm pretty sure I'll still have it loaded on my main drive when I'm running an n2550k CPU with Windows 17.
Eventually, I'll have to make an MShep run if just to avoid the momentary confusion when somebody refers to Shepard as 'he.'
I think that the internet has been for years on the path to creating what is essentially an electronic Necronomicon: A collection of blasphemous unrealities so perverse that to even glimpse at its contents, if but for a moment, is to irrevocably forfeit a portion of your sanity.
Xbox - PearlBlueS0ul, Steam
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Four games down. I don't honestly know how long it's been since I made this kind of progress on the old backlog. Before long, I won't be left with anything to play but MMOs again. But anyways...
One of the most overused ideas in manga is the plot that has the hero ending up accidentally enrolled in an all-girls high school. Most of them have him dressing up to play the part, and oftentimes he either gets outed by accident or falls for one of the girls and confesses, and everything turns out well in the end. But how well does that translate into a visual novel? It turns out... actually quite well. But just what would happen if your mother made a mistake on the application sheet and not only ended up sending you to an all-girls boarding school- but that some of the staff actually supported the idea of a boy going "undercover" at an all-girls boarding school? Find out in Highschool Romance.
You get to play Shoji- the guy at the center of all this mess. Your mom checked the wrong box on your application, and you're stuck here for the entire year, meaning that if you decide not to go through with this, then you're going to end up missing this entire year and ending up a year behind. So you end up going through with it with some degree of hesitation. Various hijinks end up happening through the year, and at the end of it, you'll end up falling for somebody... in other words, it's pretty par for the course.
The controls are actually really responsive, even if all they are is just a choice between two selections. The buttons for each are clear and positioned center in the screen, and always easy to read. I also like the art- it's actually pretty decent, and while there are the requisite few number of sprites for each character, there are also a number of CGs to find that are just as well-drawn as anything else. The music is actually very well done- and maybe we could get a soundtrack in the future? It's not ear-numbingly bad, but it's pleasant to listen to.
The writing itself is actually very nice- I haven't seen much of any errors in spelling or grammar. The only thing writing-wise I do have a gripe with is that it's awfully hard to tell when Shoji is thinking something versus thinking something. I know that one is italic and the other is plain text, but it can be hard to remember. Maybe a simple cloud-border or another pose of Shoji where he's obviously thinking- something to make it more obvious and easier to tell so the story just reads better- but I don't really have that many complaints about the story other than those. Once you get through it, well, the story is on the sweet side- and yes, there is a bit of content in it- nothing really explicit, but it does get kind of close on one of the routes- and there is cheesecake, as you might expect (it's all over the store page, too).
There's a save system in it, but the game is short enough that you might not need it- but the endings are worth a save just so you can relive them.
As far as the downsides... I wish a lot of the scenes had some kind of transition- oftentimes the only idea you'll get of the day changing is that a character shows up in Shoji's room, or it gets briefly mentioned in the text. But for the week of break, you get the days broken up into each one. Why the inconsistency? The story gets hard to understand because of it in places, and anything that hampers the story in a VN usually isn't something you want to have to deal with.
Steam wants ten for it, and while part of me says the game might just be worth ten bucks, I'd recommend picking it up on a sale- but even a 25% would be justifiable to buy this. There's a lot of visible work that went into it, and it's certainly much better than something like "The Sword of Asumi".
TL;DR - A fun little racy VN that might actually be worth the money. 7/10.
I am literally on a platform at Inverness, before heading into deepest darkest Orkney, hammering my way into the Origin site on my phone on a barely available cellular connection.
Then I found you can only do this via the client, and not the site.
I am literally on a platform at Inverness, before heading into deepest darkest Orkney, hammering my way into the Origin site on my phone on a barely available cellular connection.
Then I found you can only do this via the client, and not the site.
Well, damn.
Still, awesome news if you can use it!
Inverness? Tell me if all the women there look like Karen Gillan, will you?
LutExIVThieves Guild ChairmanIn the ShadowsRegistered Userregular
Even though I own DA:I I'm tempted to spring for the GoY (or whatever they call it) for all the DLC cause it's cheaper. I wish they'd just put it all on sale!
Steam/PSN/XBox Live:LutExIV
0
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
So uh, I had no idea Bundle Stars was a thing. Got the F.E.A.R bundle for 5 whole dollars but I already had the first game.
Someone please have the original with its DLC
Loading...?
One of the best deals on Bundlestars right now is the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor bundle. You get the base game + all DLC for $12.49. It plays a lot like a cross between the Batman Arkham games (combat) and Assassin's Creed (parkour and traversal). And there's the fun system of dealing with an ever-replenishing orc hierarchy.
ME is a weird beast for me. I think ME1 was one of my favourite games of all time, I loved ME2 for different reasons, but ME3 just lost me so quickly. I got like 1-2 hours in and just hated it. I felt like they tried to make the RPG series I loved into Call of Duty: Space Macho or something. That experience has now tarnished my memories of ME 1 and 2 and I haven't played either since.
Maybe I should give ME 3 another shot. Once I'm done with the incredibly addictive and fun Warhammer Total War
Resisting the urge to replay Mass Effect is pretty much a weekly battle for me.
I've been feeling the itch lately, and I never played ME3, but 30% isn't enough to get me to bite. How much is all of the DLC at that discount?
The DLCs are some of the best content (especially The Citadel) and 30% off is 30% more than the 0% that it's discounted the other 99% of the time.
... Okay, I must be dumb, but I cannot for the life of me find the ME3 DLC in the store. All I can see is the "Digitial Deluxe Upgrade" which I already have.
I would like to take advantage of this sale, so, uh, help?
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Honestly, I could understand if the ending and some of the plot elements of ME3 put you off, they so badly used their throw away cerberus villain (who was so forgettable, other than his mary-stu levels of plot armor, that I can't even remember his name) that it's was actually really laughable for example. But the combat? The combat is more or less an expansion on what they were already doing in ME2.
Resisting the urge to replay Mass Effect is pretty much a weekly battle for me.
I've been feeling the itch lately, and I never played ME3, but 30% isn't enough to get me to bite. How much is all of the DLC at that discount?
The DLCs are some of the best content (especially The Citadel) and 30% off is 30% more than the 0% that it's discounted the other 99% of the time.
... Okay, I must be dumb, but I cannot for the life of me find the ME3 DLC in the store. All I can see is the "Digitial Deluxe Upgrade" which I already have.
I would like to take advantage of this sale, so, uh, help?
No it's Origin that is dumb.
You have to accesses it in the Origin client. Then my games. Then the ME game itself. Then at the bottom of the games page the dlc is there.
The Reddit post pixie share explains it in better detail.
Honestly, I could understand if the ending and some of the plot elements of ME3 put you off, they so badly used their throw away cerberus villain (who was so forgettable, other than his mary-stu levels of plot armor, that I can't even remember his name)
Kai Leng, cereal ninja
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Honestly, I could understand if the ending and some of the plot elements of ME3 put you off, they so badly used their throw away cerberus villain (who was so forgettable, other than his mary-stu levels of plot armor, that I can't even remember his name)
Resisting the urge to replay Mass Effect is pretty much a weekly battle for me.
I've been feeling the itch lately, and I never played ME3, but 30% isn't enough to get me to bite. How much is all of the DLC at that discount?
The DLCs are some of the best content (especially The Citadel) and 30% off is 30% more than the 0% that it's discounted the other 99% of the time.
... Okay, I must be dumb, but I cannot for the life of me find the ME3 DLC in the store. All I can see is the "Digitial Deluxe Upgrade" which I already have.
I would like to take advantage of this sale, so, uh, help?
No it's Origin that is dumb.
You have to accesses it in the Origin client. Then my games. Then the ME game itself. Then at the bottom of the games page the dlc is there.
The Reddit post pixie share explains it in better detail.
Oh, thank goodness. I thought I'd finally gotten old.
From the Reddit post:
You can't add all the DLC to a "cart" and check out all at once,
Honestly, I could understand if the ending and some of the plot elements of ME3 put you off, they so badly used their throw away cerberus villain (who was so forgettable, other than his mary-stu levels of plot armor, that I can't even remember his name) that it's was actually really laughable for example. But the combat? The combat is more or less an expansion on what they were already doing in ME2.
I had no problem with the combat. It was fine. Was this a reply to my comment?
Alright let's get into this. I still haven't played ME2. I lost me ME1 save somewhere between computers. What is the must have DLC for ME2 and 3 if I was going to buy only 1 or 2 for each?
Honestly, I could understand if the ending and some of the plot elements of ME3 put you off, they so badly used their throw away cerberus villain (who was so forgettable, other than his mary-stu levels of plot armor, that I can't even remember his name) that it's was actually really laughable for example. But the combat? The combat is more or less an expansion on what they were already doing in ME2.
I had no problem with the combat. It was fine. Was this a reply to my comment?
I'm a bit confused, you did like the combat in ME3 but just not the objectives and general warfare feeling that the game had?
I won Rocket League from @Pimsy - It ended 15 hours ago. Sorry it took me so long to acknowledge/reply. Looking forward to this one, so thanks a lot! Marked as received on Steamgifts. Super stoked.
Honestly, I could understand if the ending and some of the plot elements of ME3 put you off, they so badly used their throw away cerberus villain (who was so forgettable, other than his mary-stu levels of plot armor, that I can't even remember his name) that it's was actually really laughable for example. But the combat? The combat is more or less an expansion on what they were already doing in ME2.
I had no problem with the combat. It was fine. Was this a reply to my comment?
I'm a bit confused, you did like the combat in ME3 but just not the objectives and general warfare feeling that the game had?
It was more the atmosphere and the direction. It felt like I no longer had direction of the character I was trying to role play the way I did in ME 1 and ME 2. Admittedly I didn't get far enough into the game to give it much of a chance as it had turned me off so quickly in the first hour or two.
You know, Shadow of Mordor came out like 20 months ago. I wonder if we'll see a sequel at E3? Especially with WB no longer having that sweet, sweet Arkham money to rely on.
Everytime I read news about North Korea threatening South Korea, I want to play Wargame: Red Dragon again.
I wanted to buy one of those but read patches had turned the ai into a cheating asshole
Hm, I've honestly only played a bit of one of the campaigns, and haven't done any skirmish battles. I found the AI was challenging, but not cheating. This was a while ago, though.
0
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
I've been working on a specific portion of my backlog lately: games that have been gifted to me on here. I just loaded up Antichamber.
This game is making a mess of my mind. Supposedly it only takes 5-6 hours to finish, but I strongly suspect it'll take me twice as long because I can be pretty terrible at puzzle games.
Honestly, I could understand if the ending and some of the plot elements of ME3 put you off, they so badly used their throw away cerberus villain (who was so forgettable, other than his mary-stu levels of plot armor, that I can't even remember his name) that it's was actually really laughable for example. But the combat? The combat is more or less an expansion on what they were already doing in ME2.
I had no problem with the combat. It was fine. Was this a reply to my comment?
I'm a bit confused, you did like the combat in ME3 but just not the objectives and general warfare feeling that the game had?
It was more the atmosphere and the direction. It felt like I no longer had direction of the character I was trying to role play the way I did in ME 1 and ME 2. Admittedly I didn't get far enough into the game to give it much of a chance as it had turned me off so quickly in the first hour or two.
I can understand that, but the game does remove the directed nature after a while and goes back to allowing you to mess about, doing whatever you want after a certain point. It also has some of the best and most meaningful choices in the entire series (ignoring the ending that is).
Posts
If you're playing gold, there are severe differences between the races.
There is also a race to cap space resources and upgrade space stations.
You can also get space stations to auto upgrade by clicking its menu. You can then set a rally point from a planet to always send your constructors to take off from your planets and fly straight away to your stations. You finally can set your planets on auto to build constructors only.
My research heavy games were a race to xeno ethics and the three moral techs good (defense), neutral (influence and spy powers), and evil (offense). This was mainly because neutral ethics upgrades colored tiles on your planet to green tiles for free as long as you have the tech.
Finally, every construction pod you put on a cargo hull increases the number of upgrades per station. Every troop pod you attach increases the number of troops that ship carries into battle.
Honestly, that's skimming the surface, there's so many more systems underneath that, plus joyous random events. I hope GC2 is better at this.
Oh, and trade routes, you send a trade ship, only one trade pod needed, and the further away it is, the more credits you make. A real target for improving relations and making money in the early game.
The game also starts for some reason with your economy at 70%, with 30% going towards tax breaks. Not a big deal, but something to inhibit your early game expansions.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Contrasted with KOTOR where I've played light and dark and male and female multiple times and all the stories just kind of form one big clump of a narative. Whereas ME is a single experience that I shaped with my choices and it exists (in my head) as only that. There is something special about that.
Steam ID: Good Life
My ME experience is similar. I playthrough once doing whatever catches my fancy, and then do a "canon" playthrough that carries to the next game. Considering the limited game time I have, replays are rare for me, so to replay a whole trilogy was certainly out of character and indicative of the series quality as a whole.
Steam/PSN/XBox Live:LutExIV
Dark Force 1
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Eventually, I'll have to make an MShep run if just to avoid the momentary confusion when somebody refers to Shepard as 'he.'
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
One of the most overused ideas in manga is the plot that has the hero ending up accidentally enrolled in an all-girls high school. Most of them have him dressing up to play the part, and oftentimes he either gets outed by accident or falls for one of the girls and confesses, and everything turns out well in the end. But how well does that translate into a visual novel? It turns out... actually quite well. But just what would happen if your mother made a mistake on the application sheet and not only ended up sending you to an all-girls boarding school- but that some of the staff actually supported the idea of a boy going "undercover" at an all-girls boarding school? Find out in Highschool Romance.
You get to play Shoji- the guy at the center of all this mess. Your mom checked the wrong box on your application, and you're stuck here for the entire year, meaning that if you decide not to go through with this, then you're going to end up missing this entire year and ending up a year behind. So you end up going through with it with some degree of hesitation. Various hijinks end up happening through the year, and at the end of it, you'll end up falling for somebody... in other words, it's pretty par for the course.
The controls are actually really responsive, even if all they are is just a choice between two selections. The buttons for each are clear and positioned center in the screen, and always easy to read. I also like the art- it's actually pretty decent, and while there are the requisite few number of sprites for each character, there are also a number of CGs to find that are just as well-drawn as anything else. The music is actually very well done- and maybe we could get a soundtrack in the future? It's not ear-numbingly bad, but it's pleasant to listen to.
The writing itself is actually very nice- I haven't seen much of any errors in spelling or grammar. The only thing writing-wise I do have a gripe with is that it's awfully hard to tell when Shoji is thinking something versus thinking something. I know that one is italic and the other is plain text, but it can be hard to remember. Maybe a simple cloud-border or another pose of Shoji where he's obviously thinking- something to make it more obvious and easier to tell so the story just reads better- but I don't really have that many complaints about the story other than those. Once you get through it, well, the story is on the sweet side- and yes, there is a bit of content in it- nothing really explicit, but it does get kind of close on one of the routes- and there is cheesecake, as you might expect (it's all over the store page, too).
There's a save system in it, but the game is short enough that you might not need it- but the endings are worth a save just so you can relive them.
As far as the downsides... I wish a lot of the scenes had some kind of transition- oftentimes the only idea you'll get of the day changing is that a character shows up in Shoji's room, or it gets briefly mentioned in the text. But for the week of break, you get the days broken up into each one. Why the inconsistency? The story gets hard to understand because of it in places, and anything that hampers the story in a VN usually isn't something you want to have to deal with.
Steam wants ten for it, and while part of me says the game might just be worth ten bucks, I'd recommend picking it up on a sale- but even a 25% would be justifiable to buy this. There's a lot of visible work that went into it, and it's certainly much better than something like "The Sword of Asumi".
TL;DR - A fun little racy VN that might actually be worth the money. 7/10.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
I am literally on a platform at Inverness, before heading into deepest darkest Orkney, hammering my way into the Origin site on my phone on a barely available cellular connection.
Then I found you can only do this via the client, and not the site.
Well, damn.
Still, awesome news if you can use it!
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
Inverness? Tell me if all the women there look like Karen Gillan, will you?
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Someone please have the original with its DLC
Loading...?
I've been feeling the itch lately, and I never played ME3, but 30% isn't enough to get me to bite. How much is all of the DLC at that discount?
The DLCs are some of the best content (especially The Citadel) and 30% off is 30% more than the 0% that it's discounted the other 99% of the time.
Steam/PSN/XBox Live:LutExIV
One of the best deals on Bundlestars right now is the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor bundle. You get the base game + all DLC for $12.49. It plays a lot like a cross between the Batman Arkham games (combat) and Assassin's Creed (parkour and traversal). And there's the fun system of dealing with an ever-replenishing orc hierarchy.
I remember this (hour-long) quick look on Giant Bomb really selling me on the game:
Maybe I should give ME 3 another shot. Once I'm done with the incredibly addictive and fun Warhammer Total War
... Okay, I must be dumb, but I cannot for the life of me find the ME3 DLC in the store. All I can see is the "Digitial Deluxe Upgrade" which I already have.
I would like to take advantage of this sale, so, uh, help?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
You have to accesses it in the Origin client. Then my games. Then the ME game itself. Then at the bottom of the games page the dlc is there.
The Reddit post pixie share explains it in better detail.
Steam ID: Good Life
Oh gods, you had to remind me of that as well.
Oh, thank goodness. I thought I'd finally gotten old.
From the Reddit post:
*farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt*
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I had no problem with the combat. It was fine. Was this a reply to my comment?
EA is on record as having no plans for any ME remasters, sadly.
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
WTF is this bullshit ...
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Urge to play falling....
I'm a bit confused, you did like the combat in ME3 but just not the objectives and general warfare feeling that the game had?
It was more the atmosphere and the direction. It felt like I no longer had direction of the character I was trying to role play the way I did in ME 1 and ME 2. Admittedly I didn't get far enough into the game to give it much of a chance as it had turned me off so quickly in the first hour or two.
I wanted to buy one of those but read patches had turned the ai into a cheating asshole
Hm, I've honestly only played a bit of one of the campaigns, and haven't done any skirmish battles. I found the AI was challenging, but not cheating. This was a while ago, though.
This game is making a mess of my mind. Supposedly it only takes 5-6 hours to finish, but I strongly suspect it'll take me twice as long because I can be pretty terrible at puzzle games.
I can understand that, but the game does remove the directed nature after a while and goes back to allowing you to mess about, doing whatever you want after a certain point. It also has some of the best and most meaningful choices in the entire series (ignoring the ending that is).