Video Game Thread 2.0

[Søren]

Nope. I stopped playing because i got sick of the fucking handshaking.

[Katsuro]

Out of curiosity, is Fable III really as bad as the gaming community says it is?

If you've played Fable I and II, then god yes.

If you haven't played the first 2 then yeah, it's still pretty bad.  Too many stupid design/interface desicions to list but you'll grow tired of them all very quickly.  It's almost like they took the worst aspects of Fable II, made them the focus of the game and then slapped on the most poorly executed and ill-though out map and inventory system in history.

How bad is the map/inventory system? Well, there isn't one really, at least not the way you'd imagine.  Instead of a conventional map and inventory screen, you warp to this sort of hall with rooms leading off it.  To look at the map you have to then physically walk up to a table with the map on it.  To change your clothing, you have to find the room where the clothes are kept and physically walk up to a set of maniquin things to select them.  Same things goes for weapons.  It might sound kind of cool but trust me it's not, it's just really goddamn fustrating.  It should not take me several seconds to look at my sodding map (and the maps in the Fable games sucked enough already), nor should it take over a minute for me to change what fucking hat I'm wearing.

[Art Vandelay]

Wow, and here I was thinking that II was a pretty big downgrade. At least it was still enjoyable to play, just not nearly as much as the first.

[Katsuro]

Fable II had it's problems but it was still enjoyable and it had a certain charm, thanks largely to it's art style.  III took whatever good will was left and flushed it down the toilet.  It's actually the only game I've re-sold (excluding franchises where the "sequel" means there's no real point in keeping the old one unless you're a collector, such as the Forza games for example).

[Witchyjoshy]

I've heard some people rave about Fable II and some people insist that the first Fable is the best.

I've been playing Fable (I don't have II) and I'm thinking "Yeah, this is a pretty good game, but it suffers from first game in a series syndrome, where it's got elements that feel unfinished that were expanded upon in a later game.  But yet a few people say THIS game is the best..."

[JohnE]

I asked this in another thread but this one has more eyeballs. I don't mean to spam.

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge with Wine (the program, not the beverage) for playing PC games on a Mac? It sounds awesome but too good to be true. Does it work okay, and more importantly, is it safe?

[The Illusive Man]

I asked this in another thread but this one has more eyeballs. I don't mean to spam.

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge with Wine (the program, not the beverage) for playing PC games on a Mac? It sounds awesome but too good to be true. Does it work okay, and more importantly, is it safe?

There is a reason why WINE is known as W(h)INE. Save yourself a lot of time and agony and use boot camp. WINE is constantly behind, constantly buggy because its team cannot port faster than other operating systems are developed. They do not have the manpower or resources.

Today I learned that State of Decay and its DLC Breakdown were rushed and are incomplete. For example, it was supposed to have quick load and save functions. Look in text_ui_menus.xml. A save manager fixes that. Looking at the game's scripts is brutal, so much copypasta. Have fun digging around and see for yourself.

[JohnE]

Oy, then I need to install a copy of Windows. That's what I want to avoid. Oh well. Perhaps it's just not in the stars.

[Søren]

I really enjoyed state of decay. It was a bit short and repetitive though. Its mindless fun if you turn off your brain

[The Illusive Man]

I don't like how Darkout is being developed. Stupid shit like storing numerical values as strings of text is not a good sign. I have no idea why, it does not prevent cheating.

I really enjoyed state of decay. It was a bit short and repetitive though. Its mindless fun if you turn off your brain.

Holy jeebus those optimization issues get in the way of fun. They should have had more time and money to polish it up.

[Søren]

Yeaaaaaah. The lag issues were really fucking weird...the game felt like slowing down at the most non-sensical random ass opportunities...

[chitoryu12]

Goddamn I needed that save manager. It keeps failing to save my game.

State of Decay came out so buggy mainly because it's an extremely ambitious effort by an indie developer, far above what most indie teams usually get to do. I remember the very early days of creation, when they had nothing but concepts and it was unclear if anything but the barest pre-alpha development would even be done.

[largeham]

I think i have changed my mind in eu4. It seems a little easy and simple compared to other paradox interactive games. All i seemed to do was fabricate claims and paint the map my color

EU is damned easier than CK (and probably CK2, haven't played it) and HOI3. My gripe was mostly about the uber-super-awesome generals lucky countries get, though part of my problem is simply l2p. Denmark/Sweden/Scandinavia should never allow Muscovy/Russia to get too powerful.

[Dakota Bob]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkh0-jPfxs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkh0-jPfxs</a>
Do you think we'll finally get an awesome Aliens game?

[Art Vandelay]

I've heard some people rave about Fable II and some people insist that the first Fable is the best.

I've been playing Fable (I don't have II) and I'm thinking "Yeah, this is a pretty good game, but it suffers from first game in a series syndrome, where it's got elements that feel unfinished that were expanded upon in a later game.  But yet a few people say THIS game is the best..."

You'd think the sequels would improve on the original, but Fable seems to go in the opposite direction. There's far less legendary weapons to find, less demon doors to open, armour is removed from the game completely the number of spells available is heavily reduced and magic system itself is barely usable. Basically, every spell has five possible levels of potency, and each higher level requires at least a second of time to charge it up, during which time you're completely immobile. When you reach the mid to late game where low level spells are effectively worthless against the various mobs, you've no choice but to take a fuckton of hits if you want to do any sort of respectable amount of damage.

Granted, NPC interaction is somewhat improved, and buying property is so much better in the second game (you don't have to kill the original owners to buy a property and rent is dumped straight into your inventory rather than having to physically go and pick it up every three days) and there's a little bit more to getting married and breeding. Not to mention, the maps are now a respectable size. That's nice and all, but it's rather frustrating how they seemed to only improve the side fluff while the core gameplay got rather gimped.

So yeah, if you do want to play the second, don't expect much of an improvement. It's still a fun game, don't get me wrong, just not quite as good as the original.