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Just beat WH40K: Space Marine.

Overall one of the more enjoyable entries into the 40K universe, it was the definition of a 7/10 game: Solid but repetitive combat with a little depth but not so much as to overwhelm. A serviceable story that is basically a 40K trope at this point (Someone toys with the powers of the warp, all hell breaks loose) but with enough oomph to keep you pushing forward. Linear level designs that seem sparse and uninspired but also uncluttered and not confusing. Space Marines are appropriately stoic, Imperial Guard are appropriately overwhelmed, Orks are appropriately shooty, Inquisition is appropriately ambiguous.

One thing this game did better than damn near anything I've played before are the jump-pack sections of certain levels, where your character can boost high into the air, then come crashing down to stun and kill enemies in a targeted drop. The sections built around this gameplay device were easily the most entertaining in the entire game and just great fun thanks to the weight of the attacks as well as the feeling of movement.

Otherwise its a real by the numbers third person beat em up, no RPG elements, very little character customization (basically get to pick slight variations of weapon loadouts). If you can pick it up on sale for $5 and enjoy the 40K verse, its a good enough way to spend 10 hours. Its a shame we won't be getting another entry into this series, a sequel with a hub and spoke world + a solid customization system (Space Marines have access to more artifacts and relics than almost everyone out there in the tabletop game) would be a natural progression for this type of game and it would have been fun to see what they had in store for Capt. Titus.

Not really sure what I'll play next. I feel like something slower and more story driven is in order, but I'm not really sure what I have that fits the bill. Maybe I'll play through one of the Shadowrun games (Hong Kong or Dragonfall) or maybe I'll give something ridiculous like the Grotesque Tactics games a shot (anyone have any input on GT?).
 
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Just completed a playthrough of the primary campaign of Orcs Must Die!

I highly recommend to folks who like the idea of tower defense games but have never been able to get into the overly serious or overly stripped down iterations seen elsewhere and just want a light, fun, single player tower defense game with a controllable main character and the barest trappings of a story line to keep the levels moving. Each mission can be easily completed in anything from 10-20 minutes and the soft cartoon graphics ensure the game can be run on almost any system.

The premise of tower defense games is pretty simple: the computer sends wave after wave of AI enemies at you and you have to lay down a gauntlet of traps before the reach their objective, which in this case are portals that bridge magic between another realm and the human world. Lay down a solid set of overlapping traps and you might not even have to lift a finger during the course of the level. Use the incorrect mix and you're scrambling to limit the damage before the next wave even begins.

OMD adds some spice into the mix by allowing you to control a playable character from an over the shoulder perspective and participate in the battle, activate pre-placed traps, use "weavers" which provide a sort of "skill tree" with upgrades that can be purchased using money from, what else, killing orcs.

The game was a legitimate blast and I would recommend, looks like it was a bit of a sleeper hit, likely on sale for a handful of bucks on Steam and elsewhere. The game has a sequel as well (although some people seem to be complaining that the sequel suffers a bit because the game was built to be played co-op) which I will undoubtedly check out in the near future (of course its already in my library somehow).

I wanted to use OMD as a breather between AAA action titles, but the game was actually frenetic and fast paced enough that now I feel like I need to play a walking simulator or something. Any suggestions for a really low stress, easy going game?

I have Flotilla in my library, which seems like an engaging but not twitch dependent strategy game. I have Terraria, which just looks relaxing thanks to the sprite based graphics. I also have The Stanley Parable as well as Firewatch, which both look at least slow paced and not reflex based even if the games themselves might be suspenseful.
 
Conquerors Blade

It's a free to play combination of dynasty warriors/mount and blade and total war with some mmo aspects

 
ImpulsE69 said:
Finally getting around to playing the Metro games. (Redux versions). It's strange because it seems way different than what I remember from playing the first Metro years ago (I only played for a few hours at that point).
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Metro ftw, if you can look past the sort of forced claustrophobia and occasional technical hiccups. I'd recommend trying Exodus too once it goes on sale... the transition from corridor to semi-open world works way batter than I figured it would.

I'm still working my way though my first play through and I have little bad to say.
 
Jade Empire is very different than I imagined.

I assumed it would be a pure button mashing fighting game set in historical China, and to a certain extent it is. But its also not. There's even a "Galaga" mini game woven into the gameplay.

The combat can be painful by today's standards. You're locked on to a single enemy when combat begins and are often attacked from multiple sides. Trying to lock on to someone closer to you often leaves an opponent at your back. Luckily the game gives you a "power smash" attack that doesn't seem to drain any of your vitals; it just knocks over anyone close to you who isn't blocking at the time. If you play JE you'll be using it a lot.

The first really hard battle took me at least 20 tries to get past. You have to defeat two waves of enemies in a confined ring, and a boss joins the second wave. Your pal, who is supposed to be helping, usually dies pretty quickly at the beginning of both waves and leaves you on your own. The time I did make it past he somehow survived until it was both of us against the boss and we barely beat him.

It's all pretty clunky, not smooth at all. You can quickly press the joystick twice in any direction to evade (or towards an opponent to attack) but its frustratingly inconsistent. It doesn't always work. To make things worse - your view can become obscured at times when you try to back away from an enemy. That's when you use Hulk smash and hope for the best until you can see yourself again.

But all that being said: it IS a good game. The plot is standard but fine; It's kind of like historical China Steampunk. It's connections to KotOR are very apparent. JE almost comes across as a KotOR mod at times.

I've put in three nights so far and it's definitely compelling enough to continue.
 
Zeze said:
Like most of you in this aging forum, I'm getting older too. I haven't been playing much games but then a nerdrage ticked inside me and I spent pretty penny on GTX 1060 6gb from HD6870 (6 yrs old~). I also upgraded from i3-2120 to i7-3770 used.

I used to play TONS of Dota 2.. probably over a decade from Dota 1. That game locks you in for 40-50+ mins with your teammates, so people end up getting VERY toxic. I was 5K MMR solo queue- top 98%~ percentile.

But everyone is miserable. Flaming exists on ALL MMRs. I finally quit and never looked back. I truly became sick of it.

Today I play...

1. Overwatch: A beautifully made game. It's not as 'deep' and addicting to me. Unlike Dota, matches are shorter and you can pick up and go. I'm sure they have their own toxic community, but it's a totally different world vs the salty world of Dota.

2. GTA V: Man this game still brings my system to its knees. At max settings it still dips to 30-40 fps. I just love the fully fleshed out Los Angeles.

3. I play some indie games. I'm a sucker for scroller shooters or Smash-TV shooters. Enter the Gungeon is pretty fun, albeit very hard.

Hit me up at Zeze#1191 on Overwatch. I play at random ass hours.
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I mostly play GTA 5 and PUBG. I spent some time on CS 1.6 too.
 
I keep thinking I am getting good/better at Dirt Rally 2.0 and then I go and have some of the sloppiest stages of my entire eRacing career.

I am still calling total BS on some of these online records though. There's no way I'm a minute slower at the finish gate lol
 
Zeze said:
Like most of you in this aging forum, I'm getting older too. I haven't been playing much games but then a nerdrage ticked inside me and I spent pretty penny on GTX 1060 6gb from HD6870 (6 yrs old~). I also upgraded from i3-2120 to i7-3770 used.

I used to play TONS of Dota 2.. probably over a decade from Dota 1. That game locks you in for 40-50+ mins with your teammates, so people end up getting VERY toxic. I was 5K MMR solo queue- top 98%~ percentile.

But everyone is miserable. Flaming exists on ALL MMRs. I finally quit and never looked back. I truly became sick of it.

Today I play...

1. Overwatch: A beautifully made game. It's not as 'deep' and addicting to me. Unlike Dota, matches are shorter and you can pick up and go. I'm sure they have their own toxic community, but it's a totally different world vs the salty world of Dota.

2. GTA V: Man this game still brings my system to its knees. At max settings it still dips to 30-40 fps. I just love the fully fleshed out Los Angeles.

3. I play some indie games. I'm a sucker for scroller shooters or Smash-TV shooters. Enter the Gungeon is pretty fun, albeit very hard.

Hit me up at Zeze#1191 on Overwatch. I play at random ass hours.
Click to expand...
Wow this was 2 years ago.

I'm still rockin' that GTX 1060 6gb and same rig. I don't have much time to play because of my own zerglings. But I do fire up some games:

1.Overwatch: This game still remains fun. Over a long time, I have full command of Wreckling Ball. He's lots of fun to play and makes ton of impact.

2. Assassins Creed Odyssey: I wanted to check out how my 'upgraded-2-years-ago' rig would handle this modern AAA title. It looks absolutely beautiful and runs at 40fps on 1920x1080 at near max settings. I play it on Medium with a much smoother 55-60 fps. The game good while the presentation is great. It has the exact 'conquer the fort' mechanic. WTF I just looked it up, they're both Ubisoft. It's like they're reskinned games with moderate differences between the two.
 
Finished playing Unreal gold today. Played it like 20 times already since it was released in 1999 ( I am not crazy, lol)
 
Been playing Disco Elysium. I wanted to write a review about it, but it's a hard game to quantify/describe so I'll just mention it here. It's Planescape Torment (isometric rpg) without any combat. Everything is done through dialogue with NPC's/items. You play as an over the hill alcoholic detective investigating a murder, who has lost his memory after several days of heavy drinking. There really isn't any way to fail the game, and the are usually multiple ways of solving problems depending on your approach. There is tons of text to read, but the writing is very good (at least as good as the old BlackIsle stuff imo), and there are plenty of unique NPC's to interact with. Only complaint about it is that its short (around 25 hours to complete), and the ending was somewhat disappointing.
 
Right now I'm playing the most of:

- Escape From Tarkov (not much, just a bit here and there. I've been doing Offline Mode cause I'm such shit at it and there's such a learning curve. Christ even at Easy difficulty the enemies are plenty dangerous for me)
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare: LOVING this, after ignoring everything after MW2. I get my ass kicked plenty but it doesn't even bother me, and I have a good time playing and slooooowly getting better (I once reached a 1:1 K : D ratio in a game, although it was Gunfight I think).

That's about it. I want to get back playing RDR2 but for some reason I just haven't. Maybe I'll play less of the above this weekend and give it a shot. One thing that sucks about coming back to a game after months of not playing is you forget all the controls, lol, especially a game that has a lot of controls.
 
I bought Surviving Mars which I wanted for a long time and then spotted Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey which is bonkers good and prevented me from playing SM and then.... Planet Zoo came out and now I'm sucked in bugs and all.

clamum said:
Right now I'm playing the most of:

- Escape From Tarkov (not much, just a bit here and there. I've been doing Offline Mode cause I'm such shit at it and there's such a learning curve. Christ even at Easy difficulty the enemies are plenty dangerous for me)
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare: LOVING this, after ignoring everything after MW2. I get my ass kicked plenty but it doesn't even bother me, and I have a good time playing and slooooowly getting better (I once reached a 1:1 K : D ratio in a game, although it was Gunfight I think).

That's about it. I want to get back playing RDR2 but for some reason I just haven't. Maybe I'll play less of the above this weekend and give it a shot. One thing that sucks about coming back to a game after months of not playing is you forget all the controls, lol, especially a game that has a lot of controls.
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I saw some streamers play Tarkov a while back and it looked like a very serious shooter. I was interested in playing but at the time it wasn't released yet. Is it really technical to play?
 
I've been playing Avorion. It is a bit hard to describe. Here is what gamepedia says about it:

Avorion is a procedurally generated sci-fi sandbox where players start out at the edge of the galaxy and must find their way to its core. Players build their own ships, which they will use to explore the galaxy, trade and fight.
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The ships are all voxel-built, and building a good ship can be quite complex, but you can get by (at least on the normal difficulty settings) with a flying box. It just makes everything a bit harder, because it will maneuver like a box.

It is still early access, but there is tons of gameplay already in the game and most of the game mechanics are in and working well.

Overall a really fun game. I've sunk a lot of hours into I in the last month or so.
 
SMOGZINN said:
I've been playing Avorion. It is a bit hard to describe. Here is what gamepedia says about it:



The ships are all voxel-built, and building a good ship can be quite complex, but you can get by (at least on the normal difficulty settings) with a flying box. It just makes everything a bit harder, because it will maneuver like a box.

It is still early access, but there is tons of gameplay already in the game and most of the game mechanics are in and working well.

Overall a really fun game. I've sunk a lot of hours into I in the last month or so.
Click to expand...

Thanks this has been on my wish list for a while.
Check out Empyrion appears to be a similar game but you can get out of your ship and explore areas.
Not tons of space combat or trading in empyrion but there is some.
 
Fanatical Meat said:
Check out Empyrion appears to be a similar game but you can get out of your ship and explore areas.
Not tons of space combat or trading in empyrion but there is some.
Click to expand...

I have over 200 hours in Empyrion. I really like the game, but putting it on hold for a while until they work out the whole CPU thing and get a bit of story element added.

This weekend my step son and I are going to revisit 7 Days to Die. It has been about a year and a half since we played that game and a lot has changed. Should be fun for a few weeks at least.
 
SMOGZINN said:
I have over 200 hours in Empyrion. I really like the game, but putting it on hold for a while until they work out the whole CPU thing and get a bit of story element added.

This weekend my step son and I are going to revisit 7 Days to Die. It has been about a year and a half since we played that game and a lot has changed. Should be fun for a few weeks at least.
Click to expand...

7D2D is one of my favorites assuming you play with someone else. I need to take breaks from it too but one thing I like about its early access is the game changes and feels new each update.
Long development cycle doesn’t bother me at all.
You guys should have fun with it.
Important: Maps take a long time to generate in Alpha 18 so start the game up early, generate the world log off and have the step son join when he is ready.
Depending on your machine it can take 10-30 minutes. 16k maps way longer.
 
paperfist said:
I bought Surviving Mars which I wanted for a long time and then spotted Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey which is bonkers good and prevented me from playing SM and then.... Planet Zoo came out and now I'm sucked in bugs and all.



I saw some streamers play Tarkov a while back and it looked like a very serious shooter. I was interested in playing but at the time it wasn't released yet. Is it really technical to play?
Click to expand...
Haha, I picked up Humankind Odyssey too after seeing someone play it in a YouTube video, but I hated the keyboard controls (I did see a gamepad was recommended, but I haven't tried it with my Xbox controller yet) so I only played it for an hour or so. Need to revisit it with a controller.

Ah, I wouldn't say Tarkov is necessarily "technical" (and it depends exactly what you mean by that). There's no crosshairs or remaining round counts or specific health level, sounds are extremely important (to tell where others are), damage requires you to address it via bandage/splint/painkillers, you must manually reload magazines by loading them bullet-by-bullet (just drag-and-drop your ammo over the mag), guns can be extremely and realistically modified and taken apart, damage is quite realistic (one shot head shots; shots to extremeties can disable them; etc).

But there's isn't really a ton of stuff to learn, just some basics. I just think it's difficult (even the AI enemies are brutal IMO) and the biggest thing is learning the maps. I think once you get familiar with a map you'll do much better on it. That's my two cents, being a noob. "Jesse Kazam" (and I'm told "Pestily") on YouTube have good beginner videos explaining things. It's a steep learning curve but I think it can be rewarding.
 
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