Gamers Thread

[Vegard Pompey]

I've lost all desire to play any Civilization game since playing the Fall From Heaven 2 mod for Civilization 4. Despite how glitchy and unpolished it is, even after being patched dozens of times, going back to vanilla Civ after it just seems like a huge step backwards.

 

[waif]

Draele, check out Natural Selection. I don't think the new one is out yet, but try the old one. It's a free Half-Life mod. The original Half Life costs like $2 now, so yeah...worth it. It's inspired by shit like Starship Troopers and Alien as well as Starcraft. Pretty fuckin' sweet.

 

[rms]

Are there still NS servers? awesome mod.

 

[Enemy242]

I beat Crysis 2 which was hella fun except about 1/2-3/4ths of the way through you basically do/experience everything and then it just becomes constant run and gun and the same things until you beat the story. i was constantly waiting for some sort of new suit unlockables/new powers/amazing things but honestly there were few moments in the later sections of the game that baffled me except for a few of the environments. great game though regardless and looks great on my system.

i just installed bulletstorm and am going to give that a try, so far i hate the dialogue (super wannabe manly and trash talking that ends up seeming stupid as fuck) though the art direction and environments are fucking awesome. the whole whip/kick thing is ok and i dig it but by far the best thing is the levels (from the start you're walking down a building with gravity boots seeing sky scrapers jut out and hovercars fly, fucking awesome).

i have a weird glitch which i've found in bulletstorm and fallout 3 where the really far environments have a sort of tear/jiggling appearance but when i zoom in it goes back to normal. do any of you guys maybe know what that is?

 

[Pessimism]

if you get all the new downloadable content crap, let me know if it's any good. Haven't bothered to buy that and probably won't

Nah, I only got the base steam rip. Game on its own is fun, but the diplomacy is broken (as in there isn't a point to it).

I'm probably not going to buy the rest. It's fun, but I've heard there are still some major problems to the core mechanics. Not enough for me to justify spending $60.

 

[rms]

Like what problems? I could help explain. Diplomacy is tough, but honestly just easier to conquer everyone haha

 

[Pessimism]

For example, actual negotiation is just pedantic and not worth the time. Some lovely real examples:

Me:
"Hi, I would like to trade my somewhat rare luxury resource for another, even more readily available resource which you have that I do not! This is in your interest since I notice your city actually wants this resource!"

Comp:
"What! WHAT!? How dare you! You need to at least throw in 800 gold, your second best city, and every single one of your strategic and luxury resources - only then will this trade work!"



What's even better is:

Me:
"Well, you done fucked up trying to show how big of a man you are, walking your troops into my city and attacking. Too bad I just razed 4 of your cities, and am going to raze another."

Comp:
"Stop! We should be at peace!"

Me:
"What are the terms?"

Comp:
"Well, we will have a peace treaty that will last ten turns; in addition to the treaty, I require you to give us all your strategic and luxury resources, plus some gold, for 25 straight rounds. Anything other than this is less than fair!"

Me:
"Treaty DENIED."


I do find it hilarious when said enemy offered me every one of their garbage cities. Literally they (Siam) threw 8 cities on the table today in an effort to curb me from wiping them out of the game. Nothing like trying to destroy the happiness of one's civilization with a bunch of useless unhappy trash cities. Joke was on them though, because I was easily able to bring each one up to a happy level within 5 turns while my cities happiness plunged from 45 to 40. After those ten it was back to around 45/47. Plus I started getting lots of gold, silver, dye, fur, etc.



But that does bring me to another point, I hate that the AI straight up litters the map with these totally useless fucking cities. Such a damn eyesore. Then they get ballsy and threaten you with a "stop building shit next to us or you'll regret it", when it was the computer who built that shitless/worthless city next to your sprawling metropolis.

I love the fact that you can't stack units now though, that shit is pure class.

 

[Necroraven]

I'm more of an RPG guy myself. Final Fantasy is probably my favorite series ever. My other favorite series would have to be the Metal Gear and Resident Evil.

Am I the only one who wonders why games like FF (and all games which have experience points and levels) are called RPGs?

 

[waif]

Yes. Most of us have realized that the term "role-playing game" when applied to video games means something different than when applied to pen-and-paper RPGs.

 

[Necroraven]

Yes. Most of us have realized that the term "role-playing game" when applied to video games means something different than when applied to pen-and-paper RPGs.

There are quite a lot of pen-and-paper-ish video games there

 

[waif]

Like what?

 

[mutantllama]

Baulder's Gate is pretty much DnD in video game form

 

[waif]

No it's really not. I mean, yes it captures the mechanics and all that. Yes it's awesome and stuff. Yes, there are choices. But if you're in a dungeon fighting a monster and you have a rope you can't have two members of the party clothesline the monster or use it to hoist up a huge boulder and lure the fucker under it or something like that. True, the actual mechanics of DnD don't explicitly cover something like that, but it provides the framework for the DM to improvise and figure out a way to simulate it in a fashion consistent with the rest of the experience. No videogame does that. I mean, some will specifically let you do that (like Just Cause 2, you can tether the fuck out of everything), but nothing will let you do anything, and it's the ability to do almost anything, to think outside the box - and therefore, inside the character - that really defines pen-and-paper role-playing games for me.

 

[mutantllama]

Fair enough.

 

[rms]

For example, actual negotiation is just pedantic and not worth the time. Some lovely real examples:

Me:
"Hi, I would like to trade my somewhat rare luxury resource for another, even more readily available resource which you have that I do not! This is in your interest since I notice your city actually wants this resource!"

Comp:
"What! WHAT!? How dare you! You need to at least throw in 800 gold, your second best city, and every single one of your strategic and luxury resources - only then will this trade work!"



What's even better is:

Me:
"Well, you done fucked up trying to show how big of a man you are, walking your troops into my city and attacking. Too bad I just razed 4 of your cities, and am going to raze another."

Comp:
"Stop! We should be at peace!"

Me:
"What are the terms?"

Comp:
"Well, we will have a peace treaty that will last ten turns; in addition to the treaty, I require you to give us all your strategic and luxury resources, plus some gold, for 25 straight rounds. Anything other than this is less than fair!"

Me:
"Treaty DENIED."


I do find it hilarious when said enemy offered me every one of their garbage cities. Literally they (Siam) threw 8 cities on the table today in an effort to curb me from wiping them out of the game. Nothing like trying to destroy the happiness of one's civilization with a bunch of useless unhappy trash cities. Joke was on them though, because I was easily able to bring each one up to a happy level within 5 turns while my cities happiness plunged from 45 to 40. After those ten it was back to around 45/47. Plus I started getting lots of gold, silver, dye, fur, etc.



But that does bring me to another point, I hate that the AI straight up litters the map with these totally useless fucking cities. Such a damn eyesore. Then they get ballsy and threaten you with a "stop building shit next to us or you'll regret it", when it was the computer who built that shitless/worthless city next to your sprawling metropolis.

I love the fact that you can't stack units now though, that shit is pure class.

On the first example, it becomes really diffulcult to trade luxury resources if you basically assemble a semi-large military. If you don't have anything, no one will be scared of you or anything and will love to trade, or do research agreements. And if you declare war on someone, you basically can't trade with anyone unless a civ hates the one you declared on.

The second, if you're military force is larger than the other civ's you will always get a great deal for declaring peace. Only if they have like one city will the deal be shitty.

 

[Pessimism]

Except in the first example, I had no military size larger than any other civ and they were still outright denying me. Even when I did gather a rather large military the deals were still denied.

And as for the second example, I had the largest military on the continent and the stupid AI wouldn't negotiate. I cut out all my really really unfair peace treaty dialogue (unfair to me that is) because it didn't make for a good quick read/rundown of the situation.

The game is just fucking retarded in this department, and that is nothing new for a Meier/Civ game.



In other news, bought the AvP game off steam for $5, and the Predator campaign is so damn good. Short, but sweet. I would kill for a full on open world Alien/Predator game.

 

[Chimaera]

I read that the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm was sold out, and seeing as I only wanted to get that game for the Gears of War 3 beta, I decided to get the new Mortal Kombat instead.

Turns out it's not sold out, but I think I'd rather just get Mortal Kombat anyway.

 

[rms]

Except in the first example, I had no military size larger than any other civ and they were still outright denying me. Even when I did gather a rather large military the deals were still denied.

And as for the second example, I had the largest military on the continent and the stupid AI wouldn't negotiate. I cut out all my really really unfair peace treaty dialogue (unfair to me that is) because it didn't make for a good quick read/rundown of the situation.

The game is just fucking retarded in this department, and that is nothing new for a Meier/Civ game.



In other news, bought the AvP game off steam for $5, and the Predator campaign is so damn good. Short, but sweet. I would kill for a full on open world Alien/Predator game.

Guess were playing different versions or something, i've never had either problem

 

[Pessimism]

We may literally be; as I said I am playing the unpatched base release.

 

[PhlegethonVeins]

This game is looking to tug at all the strings my heart desired for it.