So, what're you playing?

[HaemishM]

I knew being a lunatic is worth it. 

That's a man, man.

[Soulflame]

Skyrim.  This time as a 2H Nord, plan on supporting Asshole McShoutypants.  We'll see if that holds up.  By the way, 2H just absolutely smashes faces.  It's glorious.

3DS, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.  It's Moria/Nethack, but with Pokemon.

[HaemishM]

I started out 2hander but moved back to sword and board. 2hander just seemed so slow, plus magic usually requires a hand. I've gotten back into Skyrim heavy the last 2 weeks.

[Yegolev]

Started Risen.

Ugh.

Basically.  However I've played worse, by far.

[Shannow]

Fuck fuck fuck. We need a thread for rants.

So for a few months now I've been trying to win a Division 1 Season title in Fifa 13 Ultimate team. I know, EA, hah, but I didn't realise the true brutality of their evil. I've spent way to much time playing this game, broken one controller and frankly a bit too much money on opening packs...(oh my shame, the shame!)

But, at the end of the day, I really do enjoy it, I think they've done a pretty good job of replicating the soccer experience on a PC. Games are hard. Most of them are close. I win a lot of games 2-1 or 1-0, I lose a fair number 1-0 too...it has kept my interest. 

Maybe I suck but I hadn't been able to win the 7 games (out of 10) needed for a div 1 title...but tonight was the night! I was close....with 2 games to go I needed a win and a draw....oh god the tension....(wow this is sad, its a fucking computer game)....The first game I go down a goal in the first 10 minutes...fuck...fuck fuck fuck...here we go again...the first half ends at 1-0....the second half though I up the pressure and SCOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!

Anyway to cut a long fucking story short I win 3-2 including saving a penalty along the way.....

So last game, all I need is a draw for the Season....load screen starts...and then.....

Match disconnected.

Match disconnected...

Ok no worries, it will just put me back with 1 game left and Ill find a new game...

No.

Fuck no.

FUCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

FUCKING DIE IN THE FIERY PITS OF HELL EA NETWORK CODERS!!!!!!!!!!!!


Game doesn't count, but its taken my game away...The season is finished. It doesn't say if it even credited me with the win....Its just gone.

Gone.

Gone.

FUCKFUCK....

I check the news feed...the game isn't there.
I check the web app...the game isn't there.

EA robbed my of my glory. I want to hurt them.


Well whatever at least you folks may vaguely understand my pain. I'm going to go curse them out on twitter now.
Sorry my rant isn't very funny.

FUCK.

[rk47]

EA robbed my of my glory. I want to hurt them.

[Paelos]

I love that cat.


And stop buying EA products. I think after SimCity we all know that they've completely lost interest in putting out a working game.

[Shannow]

I love that cat.


And stop buying EA products. I think after SimCity we all know that they've completely lost interest in putting out a working game.

Sadly the soccer part of it is fucking excellent.  I'll probably burn in hell for that.

Ahh and have determined that I didn't win the season.  They just wiped that game out completely

[MisterNoisy]

Been playing some NFS:Most Wanted since I got it for free as an apology for Sim City.  It's actually quite fun, but the DLC offers are literally scattered all throughout the environment.

[Shannow]

Oh and mwo broke my PC

Best. Gaming. Night. Ever.

[Yegolev]

I think all of these threads are for rants, but feel free to start one.

[Brogarn]

Bought Dragon Age 2 on Friday off of Origin because 6 bucks. It's... okay. I really couldn't give less of a shit about anything pretending to be an overarching plot, though. I also feel like I'm playing someone else's life story instead of making my own. I guess that's the same in Mass Effect, but the first two games of that (I've yet to play the third) did it vastly better. Anyways...

Was given a Steam code for Xcom last night. Downloaded it this morning so will be playing that instead of finishing DA2. I may go back and finish that later. Maybe.

[HaemishM]

I love that cat.


And stop buying EA products. I think after SimCity we all know that they've completely lost interest in putting out a working game.

Sadly the soccer part of it is fucking excellent.  I'll probably burn in hell for that.

Yeah, the FIFA series really is pretty good. I would not classify it like the Madden series AT ALL. Madden has really shitty gameplay that seems to get worse every year. The last Madden I played (12), I didn't actually feel like I was playing the game so much as watching an interactive movie of the game that I pressed buttons on every once in a while but my button presses seemed really disconnected from any of the action that happened on screen. FIFA, however, was the business. The gameplay was solid. The Ultimate Team stuff was very addicting in a Pokemon-GOTTA GET EM ALL! sort of way. It was a very evilly ingenious way of doing micro-transactions.

I only stopped playing last year's game because I got Football Manager 2012 and really liked the depth of that title more.

[Shannow]

The Ultimate Team stuff was very addicting in a Pokemon-GOTTA GET EM ALL! sort of way. It was a very evilly ingenious way of doing micro-transactions.

There was a point about 3 weeks ago where I hit rock bottom and decided I had to have Sergio Ramos and Iker Castillas. Oh the shame.

Combine fun game with card collecting, that's evil ingenious incarnate.

Still mad. FUCK YOU EA.

[Tannhauser]

Been playing DA2 to pass the time until Bioshock Infinite.  DA's combat is fun at any rate.  Missed opportunity.  Anyway!

SWTOR has been off and on, got in danger of burning out before the xpac which I've preordered. 

Now firing up Bioshock Infinite for the first time!

[HaemishM]

After getting really frustrated with my recent shitastic LOL form, I decided to take some days off and play BF3. Now I'm frustrated as shit with that and I have decided to finally install Bastion to play at lunch.

It's pretty damn good. Not the kind of game I would expect to like at all but I do.

[Brogarn]

XCOM has turned out to be absolutely fantastic. Big love for this game with one caveat: whomever designed the camera needs to be punched so hard between the eyes that they're forced to view the world as that camera does.

[Yegolev]

Now that Terraria is out for 360, I'm getting constant texts about that and will be forced into MP soon.

Consequently, the boy has gained an interest and so is currently playing it.  Also asking questions that I don't have real answers to.

Went back to GT5 for some (relatively) relaxing B-spec stuff.  Might fire one of my drivers if he doesn't start performing.

[rk47]

Crysis 3 is a wasted potential.
A sad end to a good series.

[MisterNoisy]

Been playing Lego City Undercover of all things, and if you have a WiiU and kids, I'd say it's a must-have.  The load times are horrific, especially when you're loading back into the main city zone, but it's easily my favorite of the Lego games that isn't the original Lego Island.

[jakonovski]

Started on Xcom proper. All I can say is what the fuck is anyone seeing in this POS, half the game is scripted! Also, what is wrong with the soldiers, one of them got promoted to a sniper and now he is unable to hit anything. His hit chance is always 29% at most.

Also why is it even possible to save mid-mission when the outcome is rigged to what you played before loading?

[Yegolev]

So you can not send your lone guy into that door before backup arrives?

[jakonovski]

It's like the devs were really concerned that someone was having fun the wrong way. I was having so much badwrongfun this time that since I forgot to save in geoscape before losing everything, I must load something from over an hour ago.

[Merusk]

There's an INI tweak to let you reseed the randomizer on load.  I believe it's even on the option screen.   It's because savescumming is dirtybird business and not for serious gamers, you pantywaist.  

 

Also: The scripted bits are only in the beginning.  It's an extended tutorial for some reason - current thought process is gamers today "demand" storylines instead of "here's a game, you shoot aliens. Go fuck them up."

  The only other 'scripted' bits are what happens at milestone tech discoveries.

[jakonovski]

That'll maybe help me get through to the good bits, the tutorializing is really painful for sure.

Funny thing is that in the original I never had any compulsion to redo anything, because the systems were so transparent, but here I felt as if I'd failed to beat a level, which naturally demands a retry.

edit: also I hope all of that priority bullshit on research is just a tutorial. I mean jesus christ, does that fake German accent person have to pipe in at every opportunity?

[Teleku]

The tutorial bullshit is only on the first game you start.  When you start new games, you get an initial speech when you click on each section, which you can instantly escape though, then nothing else.

This game keeps me honest.  I save scummed the ever loving shit out of the original when I played it.   

[jakonovski]

Next hurdle: instead of integrating seamlessly into the game, the Slingshot DLC is an option you can activate whenever a Council Mission (or something) pops up. I kinda want to do it, but I'm worried it will unbalance the rest of the game.

Lesson seems to be that DLC is always better left unbought, unless it's Sleeping Dogs.

[Ratman_tf]

edit: also I hope all of that priority bullshit on research is just a tutorial. I mean jesus christ, does that fake German accent person have to pipe in at every opportunity?

I demand that you post your opinion of the final mission. 

[rk47]

Next hurdle: instead of integrating seamlessly into the game, the Slingshot DLC is an option you can activate whenever a Council Mission (or something) pops up. I kinda want to do it, but I'm worried it will unbalance the rest of the game.

Lesson seems to be that DLC is always better left unbought, unless it's Sleeping Dogs.

it unbalances the game because they can't figure out how to make it more fun.
so they throw in power stuff in there tied to a narrative mission that nobody really liked.
and yes, they will talk your ear off if you let them. ESC is the only way.

[Morat20]

Started on Xcom proper. All I can say is what the fuck is anyone seeing in this POS, half the game is scripted! Also, what is wrong with the soldiers, one of them got promoted to a sniper and now he is unable to hit anything. His hit chance is always 29% at most.

Also why is it even possible to save mid-mission when the outcome is rigged to what you played before loading?

Honestly? Just do something different.

Yeah, if you load a save and take the exact same actions in the same order? The exact same thing will result. You can however, just do something different. Admittedly you're basically searching a fixed solution space and there are a limited number of moves, but you'd have to try a WHOLE lot of combinations to run out of options.

I only savescummed when I switched to the classic mode, and only a bit as I ruthlessly crushed the bad habits from a normal playthrough.

[jakonovski]

A few more missions in, and I'm hating XCom more and more. It's so restricted compared to the original, I can't stand it. Horrible camera that confuses you constantly, tiny and/or corridor like maps, rigid move-shoot only, one piece of gear, no picking anything off the ground, no priming grenades, and most irritiating of all, you can't get a jump on the aliens.

There is something intensely satisfying in precisely positioning your troops in the original, in managing all the little things so that the odds slowly stack in your favor. I get none of that feeling here, just an action game trapped in a turn based shell full of fuzziness and bad controls.

Even the challenge feels rigged somehow (even if it largely isn't), like the game is putting forward an AAA blockbuster show where the events have to go just so. I miss getting a blaster bomb right through the cargo doors of the Skyranger on turn one.

[Yegolev]

I miss getting a blaster bomb right through the cargo doors of the Skyranger on turn one.

If any change gets a positive from me, it's this one.

[Ingmar]

Get a die, roll it at the start of each mission, if you roll a 1 fire all the people you took on the mission. Congratulations, you have now simulated a wonderful and engaging game system from the old game. 

[jakonovski]

The difference to me is that in the old XCom the aliens felt like they were doing their best to win. In this modern iteration, they feel like the they are trying to lose in an entertaining fashion.

Oh, and someone please tell me that the aliens still have a morale system. I can't tell yet.

edit: incidentally, how do you send multiple interceptors? A UFO shot up my African plane and now it's hovering all over Europe, yet I don't get an option to send more planes from my German base. Just the busted one from Egypt that is undergoing repairs.

[Fabricated]

You can buy more interceptors from the hangar interface or transfer ones from other areas.

Also- aliens don't ever panic unless hit with a psi ability that makes them do so. Mutons/Berserkers do react to being nearly dead however.

The "Aliens get a fucking free turn" shit is easily the dumbest thing in the entire game, which is another INI flag that I happily turned off via the XCOM Toolbox (a mod that's just a little program that makes all the tweaks sliders and checkboxes, and also adds a bunch of neat gameplay mutations that the devs dummied out for some reason).