Playing any games?

[SoulBrotherKab]

I don't know about sucking, but yeah...I don't like auto leveling. I want to feel an area is dangerous for me. Conversely, if I'm a complete and utter bad ass...I want to know that I am the biggest, baddest mofo in that specific area.

 

To keep things interesting though, a hybrid of auto leveling and predefined levels is best, I think. Always like the odd encounter that turns into an epic life or death struggle.

[NKF]

Mark Hamill was also Ripburger in Full Throttle. Amazing how the hero of the last half of Star Wars has gone on to play the voice actor (and in some cases act) many successful villain characters in cartoons and computer games.

 

BTW, when we say short what does that mean? I mean...Oblivion is a short game compared to Baldur's Gate. BG can run into the hundreds of hours, if I'm not mistaken.

 

An example would be Fallout 1...generally considered shorter than the second. I put in like 35-40 hours. Fallout 2, I put in roughly 70.

 

Short as in - start game. Progress through a couple of towns, (as with most of these games powerleveling as necessary). Bam - you're suddenly in the temple and have just beaten the boss. Most other Bioware D&D rule CRPGs have a lot of Fed-Ex type missions with you going around in circles doing stuff for profit or to progress the story until you reach the final boss. ToEE on the other hand is much lighter in that respect. I guess that lets you concentrate on the tactical battles more.

 

Open ended games like the first two Fallouts and the Elder Scrolls games are so variable depending on how you choose to play the game. I kind of waste a lot of time doing my own thing with them. Morrowind in particular I've never ever completed the main plot. Lots of running around and doing inane things like buying all of the limited supply items off every trader in the game.

 

Speaking of Fallout 2 - that game could be beaten very quickly if you head straight for Navarro after the temple, nabbing the FOB (and hopefully the Enclave armor), and then using some mentats to dumb yourself down (that is if you didn't start with 1 or 2 INT) before speaking to the BOS guard - who will then fix up the ship for you. That sets up the end-game mission for you quick smart. Or quick dumb rather.

 

- NKF

[Matri]

Oblivion sucks anyhow... auto-levelling monsters my ass...

Then I recommend Martigen's Monster Mod and Francesco's. Reduces the auto-levelling monsters into a more sensible heirarchy system. Lowly bandits will remain lowly for the duration of your game, while the tougher ones will only show up when you're at higher levels.

 

Unless you're on a console, in which case ignore me.

[Space Voyager]

Oblivion sucks anyhow... auto-levelling monsters my ass...

This is the least of the problems. You can get ALL kinds of Oblivion mods that correct pretty much all flaws, seriously. One of the mods I used to use (haven't played O for ages) was the one that had a certain level threshold for each of the monsters, so that you really were not able to play through the game with level 1, as some actually did with vanilla...

 

Oh, and saddlebags mod is necessary.

[Azrael Strife]

Would you name me these necessary mods? Without auto-levelling monsters I would play the game.

 

I was never able to install the inventory mod, as it is now it is horrendous.

[SoulBrotherKab]

I liked some of those better looking character mods and the clothes/armor mods. Wish I could add those to my 360 version.

 

Heh, one mod had this anime-looking elf lady with like EE boobs and jiggles. Point is, there's all kinds of ridiculous mods out there for Oblivion.

[Matri]

Just head over to TESNexus and browse their mods collection.

 

A few of them might require OBSE, though.

[Space Voyager]

Would you name me these necessary mods? Without auto-levelling monsters I would play the game.

TESNexus that Matri posted the link to is definitely the way to go.

 

Also https://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View...Articles.Detail

 

You want Francesco's leveled creatures/items mod (detailed desc. at https://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2518) among other things.

[Matri]

Francesco's "fixes" the monster levelling, and Martigen's adds new monsters.

 

I believe Martigen's even has a patch mod to add the new monsters to Francesco's fixes. End result, more monsters that don't auto-level spawning only in appropriate places.

 

Let me tell you, you haven't truly played Oblivion until you get chased out of some ruins by a swarm of ethereal, flying skulls or get stabbed in the back by a party of skeletons you foolishly thought would stay dead.

 

Or even find yourself on the run from a giant black widow and her little spiderlings only to run smack into a goblin camp, and then watching the two groups set upon each other while you hide and watch before making your escape.

 

Ahh, good times...

[FullAuto]

Dead Space. An awesome survival horror that was focus tested to shooty mediocrity in development.

 

Quite obviously made on a decent budget, looks and sounds lovely, the ship environment is coherent and fits together nicely, despite the artificial constraints on exploration. The menus pop up in game as holograms the protagonist looks at, which is a nice touch. The enemy design is disgusting and great. The weapon design is rather meaty. The story is 100% derivative (Alien/Aliens/Event Horizon etc) but fun. The camera positioning is a little odd, but it works.

 

Now, the game has a decent creepy atmosphere, but ruins it by going for shocks. There's no tension because you know a monster's going to jump out. The game could have been an eerie masterpiece (eeriepiece?), but there's just too many attacks too often. The combat is good, and the new approach is nice. The first time I decapitated an enemy and it just kept on coming was a real WTF moment. The vacuum/zero gravity sections are excellent and under-used, there should be whole games using those ideas!

 

And of course: there's loads of items lying around, enemies drop money or ammunition so you've always got plenty of ammo, you can buy new kit and upgrade your existing stuff, loads of health packs lying around...this is where it's all gone wrong. Such a bloody shame.

 

It's still a good game, worth playing, but it's a shooter, not a survival horror.

[Matri]

This is just a (very) late addendum to my previous posts from a few months back, but here it is to prove my point:

.

 

Nobody else has ever come close to that. And that's Luke Skywalker!

[Gimli]

Played the demo of Knights of the Chalice, a TB RPG sporting D&D 3.5. It's good, very good. It can be pretty hard though. That battle against the lich in particular was very difficult for me. Probably has to do with my lack of knowledge of D&D.

[Matri]

Well, if it's D&D 3.5 then you're gonna need maces & warhammers, a Bless or Prayer spell, and lots & lots of healing spells. To use either on yourself or on the lich. They hurt undead, you see.

[FullAuto]

 

The Last Guy!

 

You are TLG, and you have to run around cities rescuing people, and the more you rescue, the bigger the crowd following you gets. But there are monsters in the cities (hence the rescuing), so you have to dodge them yourself and prevent the hundreds of people following you from being attacked too. It's from a satellite view, and you can switch between normal and thermography (to see where people are hiding and find secret routes) but the monsters don't show up on thermal, so you have to be careful. There's a tight time limit, VIPs to find, power ups to use, and it's good, frantic fun.

[Gimli]

Well, if it's D&D 3.5 then you're gonna need maces & warhammers, a Bless or Prayer spell, and lots & lots of healing spells. To use either on yourself or on the lich. They hurt undead, you see.

 

Ah, even Cure Serious Wounds doesn't do a lot of damage to him. And him and his minions outnumber me almost 3 to 1. In all the combinations I've tried so far, it seems like the only real way to kill him is to use an "undead slaying arrow", which is an almost certain 1-shot-kill if it hits. But since I only have one of those, I have to hope that the guy having it will get his turn before. I notice that there's some randomness in determining who goes first. How is that decided?

Anyway, if I'm lucky enough to knock him down, I use fire spells (fireball and fire shield) from the mage, turn undead and fire elemental from the cleric and I use the two knights to deal the physical damage. AOOs and Great Cleave help with that. Too bad I couldn't level enough to get the Whirlwind attack.

Unfortunately, neither the Cleric, nor the Mage seem to last long, and I can't effectively protect them because the game always forces my guys to one specific spot and in the same "formation". I still have to see how much help I can get from armor/shield spells.

[Matri]

As with all turn-based games, Initiative determines who fights first, while weapon type, class, proficiencies, feats and dexterity determines how many times you attack per turn.

 

You have a mage, try putting a Grease spell around. That should afford one of your knights enough protection to focus on the lich and kill it fast, then they can move on to the minions. Turn Undead will never work on the lich, so keep it to protect your spellcasters from the minions until the knights can get to them.

 

And frankly, the fire elemental should be used as a tank or a decoy, since it's expendable. This way, your knights will get a chance to hopefully flank the lich, which will pretty much doom it.

[Gimli]

I don't think I can choose Grease, i.e. it's not in the list of possible spells. I'll check again just to be sure.

The fire elemental has indeed proven to be a very good spell. It's a good decoy, deals a decent amount of damage and even deals damage when hit, so it's a no-brainer.

My philosophy with turn undead is to use it only when I can target at least 3 undead. I only get two shots total and it's success rate is fairly low. But even one cowering undead is great help. It does work on the lich, but rarely.

 

The big problem with the lich is that he has a very powerful arsenal of spells. I don't remember all the names, but I know he has an empowered Cone of cold and a Dominate person spell. Basically, if he casts any spell before I shoot the undead slaying arrow, it's likely I already lost the fight, because most of his spells will kill or knock out a party member.

 

Is there a way to have more than one elemental at the same time? Also, how can I use initiative to increase my chances of acting first? Is it possible to have my knights attack more than twice per turn? I'm talking regular attacks, not AOOs or Cleave.

 

By the way, did you play the demo? Thought I'd send you the save for analysis.

Too bad I don't have the money to buy this now, looks like a really sweet game.

[FullAuto]

Rainbow Six Vegas.

 

Now, when I think of FPS, I think of a spectrum ranging from Serious Sam (mad knockabout fun, stupidly powerful guns, hundreds of enemies at a time, high scores) all the way over to SWAT 4 (very precise application of minimal firepower, not actually much killing, tactics and gadgets). Now, R6 used to be on the realistic side, with each and every enemy a very real threat to you and your team, using tactics and firepower in combination in a somewhat realistic way, rescuing hostages and so on. With R6 Lockdown, that all changed. With R6 Vegas, it's changed even more.

 

Health regeneration simply doesn't make sense, but it's here, and all you have to do is get back into cover for a few seconds and you're as good as new. Using the third-person view feels like cheating, as it gives you much more situational awareness, you can blind or aim fire with very little risk to yourself. You can carry two main weapons, plus a pistol with unlimited ammo. Shotguns, I'm sad to say, are practically useless, due to their extremely slow rate of fire (waving them around and pumping the action flamboyantly after every shot, great stuff) and the fact that you totally lose your point of aim after every shot. There are a lot of FPS' guilty of this, the Call of Duty series is a repeat offender, though it's usually the reloading actions.

 

Overall, it should have been called Rainbow 6 Hollywood.

[Civilian]

Thanks for the warning about that game, FullAuto. I saw it today in a store for ~7 credits (GreenPepper series IIRC) and wondered if I should buy it, as i liked SWAT 4 very much. I am happy now that I didn't.

[FullAuto]

It's not a bad game, by any means, but it's not what I'm looking for ATM. I've got a few FPS on the go, and I was looking for another realistic one to balance out the arcadey types. This isn't it.

[Thorondor]

@FA: given what you're looking for I think S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl (the original from 2007) a good compromise.

 

As you may know the setting is fictional, based on an alternate reality where there's a second accident at the famed disaster location. So there are other humans, mutant creatures and just plain freaks of nature borne of the radiation anomalies to creep you out.

 

There are some gamey elements like the famed 'medipacks', but combat requires surprising skill, care and ammo management for something you'd name a FPS (albeit with some RPG elements). Things like encumbrance and fatigue count, for instance.

 

You're not an ammo sponge here, so be prepared to die with a couple of well placed shots. Running and gunning will just make you very dead. In fact you'll die surprised at the AI's adeptness multiple times even when you _think_ you know what you're doing.

 

::

 

If it interests you, for starters and further intel you can check a review of the game over here.

[Azrael Strife]

Looking for old movies for my father I came across with, much to my surprise, that STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl's premise is loosely based on an old novel and movie

 

The background and some terminology of the game ("The Zone", "Stalker") is borrowed from the popular science fiction novella Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky and the 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker that was loosely based on it, as well as Stalker, the film's subsequent novelization by the original authors.

[FullAuto]

Isn't Stalker a MMO Shooter?

[Azrael Strife]

Isn't Stalker a MMO Shooter?

Nope, FPS/RPG hybrid similar to Oblivion in a sci-fi setting.

 

I got bored with it pretty quick.

[Matri]

You've got a much smaller inventory space, and it also has a smidge of survival games, in that you need to eat regularly but also need to regulate your radiation intake.

 

Also, visiting Pripyat is eerie...