Oh no, did darkeningday's ravings over these shite games trick you into buying them? I'm so sorry. Run while you can?

Risen is the sort of game you have to acclimatize yourself to. The combat seems rigid and unresponive until you realize you need to time each swing perfectly, and you've sunk a healthy number of learning points and gold into your chosen spec. The writing is a bit bland and uninspired in the opening hours, but it gets pretty compelling later on. Also, it has what could be one of the best voice casts in an RPG: Andy Serkis, Lena Headey and John-Rhys Davies.

Angry Joe couldn't figure out Dark Souls either.

Fuck yeah, Steam summer sale. So far, I've made off with:

Doom
Dying Light
Bioshock Infinite

I'm sure there will be more purchases to be had in the near future before the sale ends.

No, Risen was a game I had wanted to play at its release date, but never got around to it, so I'm getting to it now.

Dying Light is fucking amazing, one of the best games I've played (in terms of open world, action and atmosphere) in some time. Let me know your thoughts once you give it a spin.

Hint: Play on Nightmare. It'll crush your soul, in a good way.

Great to hear

I have several friends who play and they've been begging me to try it out. The premise sounded like it was right up my ally, but I didn't want to pay 60 dollars for it. I'm looking forward to diving in soon.

I got Dark Souls 3 and N++

I'm pretty sure that's me done.

Pretty much polished off my summer sale funtimes today, over the last two days:

Hollow Knight + OST
System Shock
System Shock Enhanced Edition
System Shock 2
Hyperdevotion Noire + all DLC
Owlboy + OST
Ruin of the Reckless + OST
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2 + L4D2 Beta

and not part of the sale persay but was free on the humble store:
Killing Floor

Had to skip I Am Setsuna because my current comp can't even run it. Eh, it's on consoles anyway.

Killing Floor rules!

Doom is fucking amazing, one of the best games I've played (in terms of action, blood and adrenaline) in some time. Let me know your thoughts once you give it a spin.

Hint: Play on Nightmare. It'll crush your soul, in a good way.

Replaying Horizon: Zero Dawn now that I've upgraded to a PS4 Pro and 4k/HDR tv, and it's noticeably prettier and more vibrant (which is saying something, since it was damn nice looking before). Also playing Uncharted 4 for the first time--actually, my first uncharted game, period--which has been a bit of a letdown, but I guess not that different than the descriptions I'd seen. Have Doom to get to as well.

Devil Daggers and Hyper Light Drifter so far, both of which are great from what I've played. Gonna also get at least Hyperdevotion Noire and Aviary Attorney.

Here's everything true that's ever been spoken about Devil Daggers (ignore the video's title though..)

I've just picked up Elder Scrolls : Legends on Steam which is a F2P card game in the vein of Magic / Hearthstone (VERY similar to HS, but infinitely better), set in the ESO universe (obviously). Any fellow players?

I used to play a lot of Hearthstone, and quit due to excessive frustration (just like many others), but I love these card games. I'll check it out soon, looks interesting.

I had the same concerns, but ESOL has entirely blown them away. MUCH Better designed!

I just signed up to get pre-order alerts from Best Buy, Amazon and WalMart for the SNES Mini Classic and I'm almost certain I will not get one due to the amount of cockSUCKERY going on with Nintendo and all the scalpers.

The U.K. pre-order already came and went in half hour from what I heard the other day and people are selling their PRE ORDER CODES on Ebay for $250+.

Gotten any further in Risen, Juli? Do you still think it has bad combat?

No.



Yes.

Have you at least entertained the idea that maybe the combat is supposed to be absurdly clunky and challenging in the opening hours because you're a literal fresh-off-the-boat half-starved stowaway? I fail to see how anyone could dislike Risen 1's combat all that much, aside from the Angry Joe sort of people. Here's a great post by my buddy who created the awesome indie game Volgarr The Viking explaining the operations of the various combat system; he agrees that Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma indeed have better combat: https://steamcommunity.com/app/249230/d ... 595968254/

It's not a bug, it's a feature! The bugs in Gothic 3 represent the hardships our hero has to go through on his epic journey! The game crashing is just testing your endurance, you'll feel much more heroic once you bite your way through. It's supposed to be frustrating, because only enduring frustration makes you harder!!!

Seriously, this reminds me of a fallacy in the sim racing community where they only accept a game as a "simulation" if the cars are unforgiving and brutally hard to drive. The hint that race cars (especially modern ones) are designed for making high speed driving as easy as possible and generally excel in that aspect is something these people don't want to hear. If it's not hard, it can't be simulation.

The animations changing in Gothic 1 as you learn how to hold a blade from trainers was not a bug, nor was the attack speed increases and additional combos and options your character learns in Risen as he acclimates to the world and trains his abilities.

The machinegun boars and the broken balancing and the constant crashes in Gothic 3 were bugs. Gothic 3 is an anomaly in the series, thankfully.

Once the thought "controls are broken" crosses my mind, immersion is instantly broken. Of course I still give the game a fair chance because it could be me, but if it doesn't get better (this was the case with Gothic 1's Menu system for example), it's unplayable for me. Maybe it's the same for Talented Juli.
I don't want to struggle with the controls themselves, but with the challenge the game throws at me. It's a thin line to differentiate between these two aspects, but games that manage to do the latter are good, while games that feel like the former suck.

I bought Bioshock Infinite (PS3) for $15 at Walmart. I'm looking forward to playing it! I enjoyed the first two and this one looks pretty great. Right now our TV is at my parents' because my dad and I are building a cabinet for it, though it's almost done.

Risen 1's M+Kb controls are second to none, I don't think there's a single aRPG that has a more intuitive interface and UI. G1's feel like a crappy console port, despite only being developed on PC. I dunno though, once I got used to them I never gave them a second thought, and they were certainly nothing preventing me from playing the game.

There is a reason Gothic and its sequel are widely regarded as the two greatest action RPGs ever made, you know.

It's really funny, then, that I never heard or read a single word about them before seeing you mention them in this here forum.

That says more about you than it does about the games.

The bad performance in Blighttown on PS3 is intended, it represents the grueling journey your adventurer is going through. The massive framerate drops, as well as the long loading times upon death in Bloodborne, are there to teach the player patience. Genius!


It really doesn't.­

That IS pretty dumb.

Most video games get across the "you're a weak-ass punk bitch" point across by limiting your movepool at first, and giving you more moves to play with as you become less of a weak-ass punk bitch.

And what does it say, exactly? That I'm not as much of a video game hipster as you are? Seriously DD, you're the guy who thinks that pulling out graph paper as part of planning a video game fight is the definition of fun. You're the last person who should be lecturing me about what games I do or don't like/care about.

Um, the Gothic series is a really well-known CRPG franchise. It was received super well in the early 00s and while it's not as well-known as Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment or KOTOR, it's still up there.

Your combat animations change and improve as you learn how to fight, through the words and demonstrations of your trainers. If you don't like hardcore action RPGs, that's fine, but don't pretend like it's some kind of accident.

Yeah. Granted I knew it more because of Shutdown but in fairness I wasn't really all that familiar with the genre prior to frequenting this thread however many years ago, but Gothic was still one of the ones I saw mentioned frequently by him. It really says more about just not looking into the genre that deeply more than it says about either DD or Xl specifically, just like how I wouldn't necessarily expect your average Joe Schmo gamer to be all that familiar with Phantasy Star but everybody with a rudimentary understanding of JRPGs knows the series.

Clearly we all need to head over to rpgcodex.net to learn more about the genre

(seriously it is the best place for indepth RPG discussion I've ever found, if you can ignore some of the horrible community aspects)

Pretty sure Phantasy Star is more equivalent to Baldur's Gate in terms of notability. Gothic and Risen are more like, maybe Kiseki (Trails in the Sky/Cold Steel) levels of notability, in that someone who only has passing knowledge of JRPGs at the most wouldn't know about them.

OK, so far, so good. I went through the tutorial campaign story yesterday and opened up the solo arena draft. So far, I'm really liking it. You can clearly see how they were inspired by Hearthstone, but determined not to repeat its flaws. Aggression is mitigated by the fact that you draw more cards + the Prophecy mechanic.

The stuff that was weak in HS is suddenly good - healing seems a tad better, buffs seem a LOT better, Taunts/Guards are also really viable, combos are easier to pull off and seem less backbreaking. And also, the other way round - removal is kinda pricey, or conditional.

The only two things I kinda dislike so far are that it's mostly minions vs. minions (not that many spells or permanents... but the synergy between minions is fine). The other thing is that 50-card decks seem a bit too big for the way the game is playing out. I might be wrong about both once I actually get deeper into it.

watching a few people play crash, i forgot how unforgiving it can be

Question for the PC gamers - there's some steam games I'm curious about trying. I'm not a PC gamer so would it be worth it to get a Steam Machine? And how do they work, connect to the internet and download straight from Steam? I've always been a console guy so that's as far as I'm willing to go trying this stuff out.

Makes me wish I had a PS4. :[

Could just be me, but I've barely heard anything about it. If you're already open to spending $600 you may as well just build a windows OS desktop from scratch for the same cost, it's really pretty easy and you'd get better specs than anything for that price preconfigured, SteamOS or otherwise.