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PC Games - Afterparty & Quest for Conquest out today!

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  • Der Waffle MousDer Waffle Mous Blame this on the misfortune of your birth. New Yark, New Yark.Registered User regular
    I'm enjoying Gears 5.

    which I was not expecting.

    also it was really weird to get some sort of loyalty reward skin thru xbl because I played another game in the series over a decade ago on a platform I haven't owned since mine red ringed.

    Steam PSN: DerWaffleMous Origin: DerWaffleMous Bnet: DerWaffle#1682
  • Dee KaeDee Kae Registered User regular
    D3's story compared to PoE's is like my cooking skills to that of Gordon Ramsay's.


    And after playing D3 the first time it came out with a friend, the expansions made the game so much easier that it was an insult to even run it again. And whose great idea was it that if you play on a single console with a friend or two YOU CAN ONLY SEE ONE PERSON'S INVENTORY AT A TIME?!

  • ShabootyShabooty Registered User regular
    does pillar of eternity's story get interesting? i got to the big city and it hasn't hooked me yet.

  • Dee KaeDee Kae Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Eh, it's serviceable, but I totally enjoy the effort their VA's put into everything, and this whole god war thing is pretty rad. A lot of the characters you get in your hideout are just adorable too. Things get NUTS once you deal with Piety.

    Einhar is a homeboy and I am seriously considering cosplayin' him some time just to be a huge goofball. <3

    Dee Kae on
  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    Pillar of Eternity is a pretty perfect encapsulation of the RTWP RPGs it draws inspiration from, which means that it's writing has the exact same strengths and flaws. The "big ideas" about the setting and the final conflict are pretty cool, and the individual characters can be absolutely amazing, but the actual plot getting you there and motivations for your character just sort of exist.

    I ate an engineer
  • AtheraalAtheraal Registered User regular
    Dee Kae wrote: »
    D3's story compared to PoE's is like my cooking skills to that of Gordon Ramsay's.


    And after playing D3 the first time it came out with a friend, the expansions made the game so much easier that it was an insult to even run it again. And whose great idea was it that if you play on a single console with a friend or two YOU CAN ONLY SEE ONE PERSON'S INVENTORY AT A TIME?!

    Ahahahah are you serious? That's some Secret of Mana style bullshit right there. Endless boring inventory fiddling was a big part of why I quit D3 after about halfway into my second (third maybe? Pretty unmemorable game imho) difficulty runthrough, I can't imagine also waiting for the privilege to do so. While watching someone else do the same! With a game pad instead of a mouse! Oh wow it must be so painful

  • McHogerMcHoger Registered User regular
    Shabooty wrote: »
    does pillar of eternity's story get interesting? i got to the big city and it hasn't hooked me yet.

    Not really. Pillars wants you to be invested in the story in a couple of ways and neither really work. Thaos isn't a particularly compelling villain and he's absent for the majority of the game. They also want you to be concerned about your characters situation in a way that's really hard to do with a blank slate player character.

  • RaiserGamesRaiserGames Registered User new member
    edited September 2019
    Mod edit - please do not use the forums for advertising

    A duck! on
  • durandal4532durandal4532 Registered User regular
    I really dig the world and characters of Pillars of Eternity, but the throughline story isn't as compelling as it could be. I think they did a better job with the DLC stuff up north, it gets cooking faster and justifies you pushing forward more effectively.

    While it's obviously a touchstone, I think the BG2 idea of justifying every random world-exploring sidequest as contributing directly to the immediate emotionally compelling goal of rescuing Imoen is still the best I've played of an early-game giant RPG.

    Take a moment to donate what you can to Critical Resistance and Black Lives Matter.
  • RawrBearRawrBear Registered User regular
    I really dig the world and characters of Pillars of Eternity, but the throughline story isn't as compelling as it could be. I think they did a better job with the DLC stuff up north, it gets cooking faster and justifies you pushing forward more effectively.

    While it's obviously a touchstone, I think the BG2 idea of justifying every random world-exploring sidequest as contributing directly to the immediate emotionally compelling goal of rescuing Imoen is still the best I've played of an early-game giant RPG.

    I ended up getting really into the story in pillars, but yeah it's sllooooowwwww to get started. Felt like it was like, half way through the game already, when I had a solid grasp on what my character's motivation for even bothering with all this was. Pillars 2 has maybe a weaker overall plot I think, but it was way more engaging because it just gets into it.

    Tyranny was great as well what with it's "Our evil boss has decided everyone in this valley will die in a week (including us) if we don't conquer it in time". Like, ok going to have to talk to HR about these management techniques later, but I guess we'd best get this project out the door first.

  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    RawrBear wrote: »
    I really dig the world and characters of Pillars of Eternity, but the throughline story isn't as compelling as it could be. I think they did a better job with the DLC stuff up north, it gets cooking faster and justifies you pushing forward more effectively.

    While it's obviously a touchstone, I think the BG2 idea of justifying every random world-exploring sidequest as contributing directly to the immediate emotionally compelling goal of rescuing Imoen is still the best I've played of an early-game giant RPG.

    I ended up getting really into the story in pillars, but yeah it's sllooooowwwww to get started. Felt like it was like, half way through the game already, when I had a solid grasp on what my character's motivation for even bothering with all this was. Pillars 2 has maybe a weaker overall plot I think, but it was way more engaging because it just gets into it.

    Tyranny was great as well what with it's "Our evil boss has decided everyone in this valley will die in a week (including us) if we don't conquer it in time". Like, ok going to have to talk to HR about these management techniques later, but I guess we'd best get this project out the door first.

    pillars also has the problem of including those awful patreon backstory characters who just have a wall of text whenever you click on them

    you learn to start skipping them real quick, but for a first time player you're just reading a ton of fluff and it feels like so much of it is irrelevant to your story and game

  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    Yeah the PoE 1 story is a very slow burn but once you get into the meat of it in the later acts it really really pulls you in, I found. The setting stuff is great and the companions are all excellent so that was enough to keep me going but the story threads did feel a bit thin to start with.

    The expansion is really consistently solid though and I loved pretty much all of it.

  • RawrBearRawrBear Registered User regular
    Brolo wrote: »
    RawrBear wrote: »
    I really dig the world and characters of Pillars of Eternity, but the throughline story isn't as compelling as it could be. I think they did a better job with the DLC stuff up north, it gets cooking faster and justifies you pushing forward more effectively.

    While it's obviously a touchstone, I think the BG2 idea of justifying every random world-exploring sidequest as contributing directly to the immediate emotionally compelling goal of rescuing Imoen is still the best I've played of an early-game giant RPG.

    I ended up getting really into the story in pillars, but yeah it's sllooooowwwww to get started. Felt like it was like, half way through the game already, when I had a solid grasp on what my character's motivation for even bothering with all this was. Pillars 2 has maybe a weaker overall plot I think, but it was way more engaging because it just gets into it.

    Tyranny was great as well what with it's "Our evil boss has decided everyone in this valley will die in a week (including us) if we don't conquer it in time". Like, ok going to have to talk to HR about these management techniques later, but I guess we'd best get this project out the door first.

    pillars also has the problem of including those awful patreon backstory characters who just have a wall of text whenever you click on them

    you learn to start skipping them real quick, but for a first time player you're just reading a ton of fluff and it feels like so much of it is irrelevant to your story and game

    Oh yeah, at first it was like, "cool its like those memory orb things from planescape torment", but they are universally too long, completely irrelevant, and often not particularly interesting. Half the time (all the time?) they are slapped on NPCs you can't even talk to asside from reading a giant paragraph of text from their past life.

  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    yeah I was thankfully forewarned about the kickstarter NPCs and read like 2 of them before skipping everyone with a gold nameplate

  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    RawrBear wrote: »
    Brolo wrote: »
    RawrBear wrote: »
    I really dig the world and characters of Pillars of Eternity, but the throughline story isn't as compelling as it could be. I think they did a better job with the DLC stuff up north, it gets cooking faster and justifies you pushing forward more effectively.

    While it's obviously a touchstone, I think the BG2 idea of justifying every random world-exploring sidequest as contributing directly to the immediate emotionally compelling goal of rescuing Imoen is still the best I've played of an early-game giant RPG.

    I ended up getting really into the story in pillars, but yeah it's sllooooowwwww to get started. Felt like it was like, half way through the game already, when I had a solid grasp on what my character's motivation for even bothering with all this was. Pillars 2 has maybe a weaker overall plot I think, but it was way more engaging because it just gets into it.

    Tyranny was great as well what with it's "Our evil boss has decided everyone in this valley will die in a week (including us) if we don't conquer it in time". Like, ok going to have to talk to HR about these management techniques later, but I guess we'd best get this project out the door first.

    pillars also has the problem of including those awful patreon backstory characters who just have a wall of text whenever you click on them

    you learn to start skipping them real quick, but for a first time player you're just reading a ton of fluff and it feels like so much of it is irrelevant to your story and game

    Oh yeah, at first it was like, "cool its like those memory orb things from planescape torment", but they are universally too long, completely irrelevant, and often not particularly interesting. Half the time (all the time?) they are slapped on NPCs you can't even talk to asside from reading a giant paragraph of text from their past life.

    yeah at some point they patched it and colored the title of the NPC to let you know that you could skip them entirely

    but my first play through there was definitely an issue of clicking on NPCs and trying to suss out whether they were useless or not based off of how much text they spewed on screen

  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    man I wonder if tyranny will ever get a sequel

    like damn that game ends on a "well we're really going to need to resolve this situation" note

    although I wonder how they could account for all the permutations on the story/endings

  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    I doubt it. Wasteland 3 is releasing soon, the fact that they chose that over Tyranny tells me something about the sales.

    They apparently also made a VR thing, Mage's Tale.

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular

    Sep 16 - Later Alligator

    Later Alligator is out today!

  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    Played a little into the breach this morning, its still a great game

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  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    Kwoaru wrote: »
    Played a little into the breach this morning, its still a great game

    I've been looking for something that plays like Into the Breach

    as in

    turn-based
    tactical
    2D / pixel art
    plays well on small screens

    preferably with some kind of level up / loot system

    I'd want something that's a little more story-based and less run-based than ITB, but I'm willing to compromise on that

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPhu-96zxz4
    Banner Saga is pretty close but its turn based system has always felt weird to me, and it has some weird resolution scaling system that doesn't work for me



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbiGZhjJvFo
    Fell Seal would also fit the bill, but the game's art is just so.... ugh

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC__j2gzYP0
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RIIze_PhfM
    I'm very interested in Fae Tactics and hopefully Arcadian Atlas turn out well

  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    My top recommendation for that sort of thing would of course be Invisible Inc.

    But you might also be interested in Nowhere Prophet or even the Harebrained Shadowrun games.

  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    I really enjoyed Fell Seal. Finished it in around 60h, not many games I finished in 2019. Yeah the art is a weakpoint, but otherwise it's nicely scoped, and the tactics part is the best of it. The story is fairly rote. A lot of thought has gone into the systems, including a nice compromise that reduces grind as time goes on.
    It's very FF:Tactics though.

    Wargroove is an Advanced Wars-esque game. But at launch it was very harsh. I stopped playing then, I heard it got patched for QoL. (Checkpoints and a single save per mission)

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    edited September 2019
    I played through Shadowrun Dragonfall and Hong Kong a few years back, and then did a replay of HK earlier this year. I forgot how buggy some parts of HK were, and how awful the matrix stealth/hacking was. I eventually gave up on it right before the epilogue stuff because the load times had gotten so abysmal for some reason (unity lol).

    Invisible Inc I gave a very brief try, but then got scared away by the countdown timer. I should really give it another try based on how many people have recommended it.

    Wargroove was... close. I remember liking the PSP Advance Wars clone (Field Commander), but something about the combat system in WG always made it feel like I didn't have that many strategic options, and was mainly winning because the AI was just kinda dumb.

    Nowhere Prophet seems interesting but I'm coming off a Slay the Spire binge, and there are some parts of deckbuilders that still don't sit right with me, namely getting screwed on "hand with no defensive options" followed by "hand with all defensive options" and the game not giving you enough options to mitigate that.

    but both Slay the Spire and Into the Breach have that thing that I like: where you can see what you enemy intends to do, and then set up this clever and amazing combo that will let you negate their next move, set up an opportunity for attack, and then execute it on your next turn for some very satisfying damage


    Brolo on
  • AnzekayAnzekay Registered User regular
    @Brolo if you like JRPGs you could try Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. It's got a pretty great story, a lot of excellent characters, grid-based JRPG turn based combat that does have some stuff where enemies telegraph attacks and stuff.

  • TcheldorTcheldor Registered User regular
    If you like the world shown inTrails the they also have Trails of cold steel 1 and 2 which are fun.

    3rd one next month as well.

    League of Legends: Sorakanmyworld
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    Steam: Tortalius
    Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
  • ph blakeph blake Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Had my first "are we the baddies?" moment in Monster Hunter. Had a quest to hunt a Rathian, but she kept flying away wherever I got anywhere near her. So, er, I kinda went to her nest, stole one of her eggs, and then ran waddled like hell to the nearby sand dunes. She, uh, she really didn't like that.

    The open area and natural slopes of the dunes made it easy to avoid her fire spit and tail spin, and I managed to hack at her wings and head pretty good and get in a few knockdowns into huge charged slashes; soon enough she's limping away, trying to escape. I finished her off in the same nest that I stole the egg from. The really fucked up thing is that I didn't even need any mats or anything; I was mostly just fighting her to see if I could.

    ph blake on
    7h8wnycre6vs.png
  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    I will say that while Nowhere Prophet is a deckbuilder with a similar structural design to Slay the Spire, the differences kind of end there. It's more similar to like, Magic or something else along those lines, summoning units to fight for you in a battlefield with your deck, rather than directly using cards to attack (there's still some of that, but it's more supplementary).

  • Medium DaveMedium Dave Registered User regular
    I WANTED to get jank-ass, Euro-ass, WRPG-ass Greedfall from Gamefly last week. Instead, how could they fuck me like this, they sent Borderlands 3 instead.

    I played about 4-5 hours this weekend.

    Rage 2 is a better game than Borderlands 3.

    NOW! I know you must be saying, "But wait, isn't Rage 2 a boring post-apoc world filled with bandits and no sense of humor or style?" AND YOU ARE CORRECT and that's why it's better because NO ONE EVER SHUTS THE FUCK UP IN BORDERLANDS OH MY GOD.

    Rage 2 also plays better and has pretty fun, DOOM 2016ish combat. Blands 3's combat is better than 1, 2 and Pre, it feels mostly like a modern shooter. There's a lot of quality of life changes around the edges and then you just literally play more Borderlands that's all it is. You also drive a lot more because the world is bigger but it's not an open world, you still go to discreet sections, it's kinda odd.

    One of the few games where both the negative and positive reviews are exactly the same, "It's more Borderlands!" It is also dangerously unfunny, the like 5th person you run into is accused abuser Chris Hardwick and then he, like everyone else in the game, never shuts the fuck up and also just has like 3 "things" about this personality and intones on and on about them ad nauseum so that's not super cool at all and sucks.

    And, ok, so like it's unfair to compare most games to Hitman 2016, it's a helluva game. But you know where you throw something at someone in that and they wrote a lot of little barks about that are also designed around the fact that someone is about to die or get knocked out? And they're silly and well implemented? So I was killing bandits in Blands and i just shotgunned one to death - money and blood flew out, XP popped up and then his bark started, "Noooo! My world famous chilli recipe now dies with me!!!" And like, that's not the funniest thing in the world but also it felt really lazy to just have it happen after they were dead and it made me think of throwing fire extinguishers at mooks faces and lines being comically cut off in Hitman and it just kinda bummed me out.

    I beat the sound boss and then started a mission where you go into a VR world to save someone - it's the exact same area I was just in, but with a blue fuzzy filter on it holy shit man. And at that point I turned off the sound and worked on finishing an audiobook I was into.

    Look, it's more fucking Borderlands and you already know if you want that. I'm not SAYING you should buy Rage 2 INSTEAD of Blands 3 - you certainly shouldn't do that. I'm just saying that Rage 2 is like slightly better if only because I'm not having bad jokes shouted at me constantly.

  • I ZimbraI Zimbra Worst song, played on ugliest guitar Registered User regular
    Everything MD said was correct, but god help me I'm really enjoying Borderlands 3. I'm even interested in where they're going with the story so I can't wait to see how brutally they let me down on that end.

    Also I don't really know anything about Chris Hardwick aside from the abuse allegations but holy shit he is annoying. People listen to him? Voluntarily??

  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    something that impresses me is the chili recipe line is the only death bark in borderlands 3 i've heard people mention, which means literally everyone hears it like, early on

    liEt3nH.png
  • MechMantisMechMantis Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    ph blake wrote: »
    Had my first "are we the baddies?" moment in Monster Hunter. Had a quest to hunt a Rathian, but she kept flying away wherever I got anywhere near her. So, er, I kinda went to her nest, stole one of her eggs, and then ran waddled like hell to the nearby sand dunes. She, uh, she really didn't like that.

    The open area and natural slopes of the dunes made it easy to avoid her fire spit and tail spin, and I managed to hack at her wings and head pretty good and get in a few knockdowns into huge charged slashes; soon enough she's limping away, trying to escape. I finished her off in the same nest that I stole the egg from. The really fucked up thing is that I didn't even need any mats or anything; I was mostly just fighting her to see if I could.

    You should have electrocuted her or caught her in a pit then sedated her with general anesthetics and had the researchers first drag her back home then slowly dismember and dissect her to further their knowledge of how Rathians, a type of creature that are apparently ubiquitous and have been tangled with since time immemorial, tick.

    Also you get slightly higher chances for some mats by doing a capture so you can make sweet sweet weapons and armor. I mostly stuck with the Pukei gear for my poison-related needs but a friend swore by the Rathian SnS, which also looks baller

    EDIT: Oh I forgot to mention, you can see the the last monster you captured to the left of the main gate of Astera, still tranq'd all to hell.

    MechMantis on
  • Medium DaveMedium Dave Registered User regular
    something that impresses me is the chili recipe line is the only death bark in borderlands 3 i've heard people mention, which means literally everyone hears it like, early on

    I wonder if it's because it was probably the only one that I fully understood? There are more than a few and most are too quick or garbled nonsense but this one is not shouted out a million miles an hour, so it's almost like someone said, "yeah, that one is the money maker, make sure it's eeeeaaasssssyyyyy to hear so they crack up real hard."

  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    A lot of things considered more acceptable when previous Borderlands were released but are still in Borderlands 3 are really annoying. Wacky midget enemies should have been gotten rid of years ago.

  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    Couscous wrote: »
    A lot of things considered more acceptable when previous Borderlands were released but are still in Borderlands 3 are really annoying. Wacky midget enemies should have been gotten rid of years ago.

    It’s funny to me that they addressed the ‘problem’ of the midget enemies by... changing their name. Removing them entirely? Whaat? Surely people are only offended by the name!

  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    Couscous wrote: »
    A lot of things considered more acceptable when previous Borderlands were released but are still in Borderlands 3 are really annoying. Wacky midget enemies should have been gotten rid of years ago.
    Honestly I am surprised they still had that shit in 2014

    Calling a little person that has been considered fucked up for a while! There have been multiple TV shows about it!

    In 2019 it is straight up inexcusable

    CYpGAPn.png
  • BaidolBaidol I will hold him off Escape while you canRegistered User regular
    Anzekay wrote: »
    @Brolo if you like JRPGs you could try Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. It's got a pretty great story, a lot of excellent characters, grid-based JRPG turn based combat that does have some stuff where enemies telegraph attacks and stuff.

    HELLO YES DID SOMEONE MENTION THE TRAILS SERIES I AM HERE

    After Skies of Arcadia and Chrono Trigger, the Skies series is my favorite game/series of all time. Just, use the quality of life turbo mode they added in the PC release.

    Steam Overwatch: Baidol#1957
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    Hitman has some fantastic minor jokes and incidental dialogue that made me mad they didn't have subtitles.
    OcJmkYzMEGoZUmKNhqAC8BWE7E12V-jDJ5AokyP9gcg.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=7f0ecef538db2d12aa66c7c8cf6c00ee8d8ecc13

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    I cannot imagine the writing being worse than 2's. Exactly the same, sure. But 2 was interminable.

  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    That lady tried her best

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This discussion has been closed.