Thanks guys. Yes, i started both the campaign and a mission, and started feeling a bit lost at certain points with both of them- especially in the mission when people didn't like me, apparently, and started leaving my settlement.  It reminded me so much of those castlebuilding games!

Will watch the video, thanks, Stiler!  By Dawn of Discovery, do you mean the Wii version?  Or is it the same as the PC version Anno 1701?   I do have the latter, and it has a nice thick manual. I can't remember if it was it or Anno 1404 that i had played before.  I own them both, so maybe i should try them again first.

I really like the setting of Anno 2070 though, so maybe the vid will just get me there. 

Originally Posted By Traveller (6 FEB 2013 3:00am)

 

 

Will watch the video, thanks, Stiler!  By Dawn of Discovery, do you mean the Wii version?  Or is it the same as the PC version Anno 1701?   I do have the latter, and it has a nice thick manual. I can't remember if it was it or Anno 1404 that i had played before.  I own them both, so maybe i should try them again first.

Dawn of Discovery is the US name for Anno 1404

I've been playing some my old favourite dos games, like Whacky Wheels, The incredible machine, Capture the Flag, ...

Disclaimer: don't visit this site unless you've got a few weeks of free time to spare....

http://www.classicdosgames.com

Thanks, Fnord.  Cool, well, then i'm going to play that a bit this weekend.

I gave up trying top clone my windows onto my new SSD, but decided to use it just for games.  So, i installed Risen 2 on it, and chose higher graphics settings since i now have a rather better GPU as well (The nvidia 660ti)  and my wordy. I am speechless.

Speechless, i say!

I also have lots of fun tinkering with the graphics to see how i can maximize the eye-candy.

My experience has been so positive with this, that i've made a tentative truce with Steam.  I still hate that they force me to accept updates and patches- that i will never get used to or accept, but...

..anyway, you guys will see me around there a lot more from now on.  (You might have noticed i've joined the unofficial JA group there a while back)  Especially the Risen Playthrough is going good for me there.

I'm not going to uncrack Skyrim- that will remain cracked, bc i really am a bit of a control freak when it comes to TES, but, well, some other games, i don't mind giving Steam a try.

Oh BTW!  Dragon age 3!  I've pre-ordered it w/out even checking it out...  Anybody got news?

Grrr!  What a pity i like Piranha Bytes's games so much, because they're so darn sexist! All the sexist remarks one has to listen to in Risen 2... Which reminds me... When you play Divine Divinity 2  Ego Draconis, and you play a female character, you can make yourself a pretty nice looking character, but if you then upgrade to the expansion pack, DKS, your female character suddenly has these huge, ugly, enormous, erm... chest appendages that just ... looks... soo  ugly...

My children joked that i could use them as a weapon in their own right....    And when i mean "ugly"  i mean "not attractively shaped", beside being of gargantuan size.  Makes my character suddenly look like an old lady.  Ugh.

Originally Posted By Traveller (8 FEB 2013 10:34am)

 

My children joked that i could use them as a weapon in their own right....    And when i mean "ugly"  i mean "not attractively shaped", beside being of gargantuan size.  Makes my character suddenly look like an old lady.  Ugh.

That reminds me of a particular game that actually takes that to its logical extreme and makes them into something that theoretically could be used as weapons:

You could probably impale someone on those things.. 

Originally Posted By Traveller (8 FEB 2013 10:34am)

My children joked that i could use them as a weapon in their own right....

Your children are growing up.

Originally Posted By Traveller (8 FEB 2013 1:56am)

 

Oh BTW!  Dragon age 3!  I've pre-ordered it w/out even checking it out...  Anybody got news?

Newest info/rumor:

http://thenexusnews.com/the-witcher-3-announcement-intimidates-ea-bioware-and-dragon-age-iii/853568/

Basically a "source" claims EA is cracking the whip to make sure the game is out this year and doesn't get delayed and fall near the Witcher 3, especially since the Witcher 3, like Dragon Age 3, is going open world.

Tanks, Stiler, -gee, i wonder why they're allowing pre-orders so far ahead of time..- making sure, and it's a sort of marketing survey, in a way, if you think about it, i guess.  Yes, i do hope they're not going to rush it, because i feel a lot more positive about DA3 than about DA2 so far.

All very exciting studff, and I really hope my current rig will be able to play it..

Re the 'weapons" , ... well, my kids already met such a - with the concept in the Playstation 2  fight tournament game Soulcalibur,  where there is a female fighter with, er, very mobile assets, and a friend with an older brother told him to choose this female fighter because she has certain characteristics that could distract the opponent.  Of course there was a lot of giggling and miming going on with that idea, when the kids heard and saw  that re the Soulcalibur game.

..and so, when i chose my character with DKS and saw her, er, physique, they were in the room and heard me going; 'What the!" and ran closer and asked what the problem was.  Well, of course it was all extremely embarassing, and ended up in them giggling their heads off, and...- well, just use your imagination re joking and miming and possible scenarious thought up by kids in, er..  I was pretty red-faced..  (Heh, and since she wears armor, they even thought of the potential for the armor providing a handy little cubby hole to stash things in)

Star Trek Online, though it's a bit too focused on action considering it's a star trek tittle

Been playing Ni No Kuni on and off for a few days, it's such a wonderful rpg.

I haven't been a huge "jrpg" fan for a long time, since the 90's mainly, when my friends and I played them and we'd stay up sometimes all night (Secret of Mana, Phantasy Star, Saga Frontier, etc). I love interest in jrpgs a long time ago, especially turning toward more western rpgs , the likes of TES/Gothic series, they were just the better games imo then most jrpgs of the time. The jrpg genre kind of got "stale" to me, like the 90's and "wwII" games, and modern gaming with "modern warfare/zombie" games.

However this game I kept up with for a while when it was announced it was coming to the US finally and mainly because of the fantastic animation and art style that's a collaboration between Studio Ghibli (Grave of the Fireflies, My neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, etc) and Level 5. The entire game has sucha  wonderful cartoon like art style that imo is one of the best "animated" looks that any game has ever pulled off, it's like Dragon's Lair, but actually live and not just a cutscene. The sutscenes it does have are animated by Studio Ghibli and are wonderful to watch, it's just amazing that Level 5 made the actual gameplay match the art style so well.

The story, characters are mostly well done, and Mr. Drippy is wonderfully voiced in the English language with a Welsh accent that fits so well.

The gameplay itself is what jrpgs stand for, however the combat isn't locked, rather like Level 5's last game you can move around during combat, etc. It also actually focuses on you using "familiars" which are basically like Pokemon, there are a ton of creatures that you can train to be a familiar (most enemies you fight have a % chance to allow you to train them after battle).

I'm really enjoying it and recommend anyone here who has a PS3 to check it out if you like rpgs in general, even if you have grown tired of "jrpgs."

Here's some decent reviews:

Apart from that I'm waiting for Aliens Colonial MArines to unlock tomorrow, hopefully it's good, got my fingers crossed, love the Alien films (well the first 2 lol).

I tried to play Mirror's edge again, this time with a controller, but i still can't make it through the tutorial, horrible controls!

Played Darksiders II instead, which is even more fun than it's predecessor, brings back good Zelda memories.

I've been wondering if i should try Darksiders.  Do you guys think i'll like it?

Btw, i suddenly got bored of Risen 2 when i realized it doesn't have the complex faction choices you had in the Gothics and in Risen 2.

I mean, there's the pirates and that's it?

I'm not sure...

Darksiders certainly doesn't have the depth of RPG's like the witcher, Gothic or TES.

The storylines and quests are very linear and there isn't much to discover through random exploration besides collectibles.

Graphics aren't top quality either, just the average WOW cartoony textures

On the positive side the combat system is quite complex and there are quite a lot of physical puzzles to solve in the dungeons.

The gameworld, although small, has many different regions like forests, deserts, etc.

Thanks Marko.  Hmmm, well, remember i mentioned i got an SSD?  ..and then i tried to shrink down my C-drive so i could clone it?

Well, i've given up on that.  Even after moving and uninstalling a *-load of stuff, i can't get that stupid partition shrunk to smaller than about 600 gigs.

So, i've decided to use the SSD as just another slave HD and play games on it, until July when i'll have time to fiddle again.

But now i've already uninstalled my Skyrim, and i can't remember where i put my gamesaves.  Same with Witcher 2.

So, looking for something pretty to play - hey i wonder if I should reinstall that Drakensang 2 game - that was pretty and i don't mind replaying a bit bc i hadn't gone too far in that.

And i had a disc of Darksiders somewhere, so i might try it.

New Vegas too brown-ish- i need some pretty eye-candy right now.

I am missing Skyrim tho, so i'll put up a search for the gamesaves soon...

Darksiders is an action adventure game and it relies heavily on puzzle solving (especially the second one).

If you like action adventures you'll likely enjoy it (IE prince of persia, God of War, etc).

Art style is good, combat can be fun and lots of puzzles to solve along with some light rpg mechanics (2nd darksiders has a lot more loot to find and armor/weapons, etc) and way to build up your main character.

Oh thanks! It definitely sounds wiorht at least trying it out!

I'm "trying" to play Fable 3. After spending an hour battlingn with Games for Windows Live, another hour downloading the one piece of the DLC that I got (that managed to take far longer to download than the main game itself), I'm now battling with an interface & controls that clearly were not designed for PCs (and parts of it I doubt worked all that well with a gamepad either)

heh, I actually have a physical version of Fable 3, haven't tried it yet though

I've played it a bit, and I've managed to come to the conclusion that Fable 3 is not a very good game. Note that I'm still relatively early in the game, and it is possible that things change later on, but thus far these are my thoughts on the game:

The Good

The setting was quite nice, I enjoyed the industrial revolution-themed setting, and unlike many other steampunk games, this one feel like it takes place quite early on in the industrialization.

Voice acting was good (hardly Sacrifice or Mass Effect level of voice acting, but it worked well enough)

Also, it has a nice art style.

The Bad

Camera has a very low y sensitivity and a high x sensitivity. Also, the camera does, for some strange reason, not stop where I want it to stop, but instead moves back a little. This just feels unnatural and odd.

Combat is not just simple, it is simplistic. I've seriously played children's games with far deeper combat systems than this. In fact, most children's games have have deeper combat systems than this.

Texture popin & generally low res textures

Interface & menus are just poorly designed. Who's bright idea was it to force me to hold down a button for several seconds in order to do certain things? While I can see a logic in having a slight delay when it comes to important choices, to prevent missclicks, even if I had to hold down the button 1/3 of the time that I have to, it would be too long. Also, the options menu is in the form of a large room that you walk around in, and then you need to find a sub-menu there in order to save/load/quit the game. Esc brings you to this room. 

The game shows you exactly where you should go, in the form of a very obvious glowing path. You do have the option to turn this off, only turning it off does not turn it off. It is an eyesore, that is even more immersion breaking than most similar systems that I've seen.

Games for windows live adds another 30sec of loading time each time I start the game. Also, the above mentioned issues. 

The worst thing about Fable 3 for me was the interaction with npc's, I don't know whos idea it was but man did it suck. Why not have good deep rpg-like interaction? be able to actually talk to npc's, etc while also having the "emotes" system like in FAble 2?

Instead they dumbed that down even further where you had to use emotions without being able to DECIDE which to do with npc's. Forcing a male character to dance with another random male npc, or vice versia even if it makes more sense a player to start with a handshake or other things first...seemed so strange and disconnected.

Then the follow up to that was an on-rails kintect fable......yeah. Don't think I'm going to get back into the Fable Franchise unless they really beef the next one up, go full open world, deeper combat system, actual good interaction with npc's, etc.

Overall i found Fable III to be enjoyable, it sure has its flaws like you've mentioned, but if you don't take the game too seriously it's still fun

I really liked that one can buy and rent out houses and invest in stores, it's something more RPG's should have, it adds to the realism.

Fable III best part comes at the end of the game, where your choices do have an impact on the game world. Unfortunately once you've finally reached the end of the road to rule, there isn't much left to do...

Originally Posted By Stiler (16 FEB 2013 8:24pm)

The worst thing about Fable 3 for me was the interaction with npc's, I don't know whos idea it was but man did it suck. Why not have good deep rpg-like interaction? be able to actually talk to npc's, etc while also having the "emotes" system like in FAble 2?

 

I thought that would improve later on, as I read in a review that this part was supposed to be deeper than in previous games. I guess that reviewer was dishonest in this regard. 

Early on you only have the option to shake hands or burp in someones face (why would you do that anyway?)

I've uninstalled Fable 3, the game just annoyed me. 

Finished my first playthrough (there will certainly be a second one) of Spec Ops: The Line. While gameplay-wise it a fairly standard cover-based shooter, the story is so amazing it makes for a unique experience.

I have so many games I've never played, but missing Foxiest of the Hounds in Deus Ex: Human Revolution is keeping me awake at night...