In This Thread Krylo Talks About Games He's Currently Playing

[BitVyper]

Get the scrap musket, then pretty much just roll - shotgun - roll - shotgun - roll - shotgun forever. Honestly, it sounds like you're having trouble with the mouse controls, so yeah probably switch to something else 'cause uh, Bastion isn't a very hard game, so I can't see anything but that being the source of your problems. Which is kind of understandable because the mouse controls were sort of weird. I find focusing on the scrap musket basically eliminates that problem anyway, because it's more natural to put your mouse where you're shooting, and the scrap musket doesn't require accuracy.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Krylo

If you have a 360, you can just plug the controller in and it'll work.

Just a note -- if you have the wireless controllers with the cable that can be used for charging, this cable does not appear to provide any data functionality and, thus, cannot allow for the controller to be used on a PC. At least that was my experience, and then I got the PC wired one as a gift.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Firstly, on the gameplay, it's an action MMO, like I said, which is good. . . but they don't really give you the tools you need to avoid attacks properly.

Interesting. Man, they should have a free trial weekend again, or a way for me to send people a free trial, for GW2 so I could get your take on it. I don't know that you'd like the game overall, but I know you've tried a lot of MMOs and would enjoy hearing your comparison to others that I haven't tried.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I played the game with mouse and key and I didnt have a lot of problems with it. I dunno what to say. Transistor seems to have some turn based elements judging by the trailers so it may be a bit less action-based.

[synkr0nized]

One of the games I often pick up and play regularly is Sins of a Solar Empire, specifically the Rebellion version of the game. This is also way wordier than Krylo's, so if that's not your thing I apologize ahead of time. I could talk about this game for hours, though, as I often do with games I enjoy.

Good-ish timing on my part: Sins is still on sale over at Humble Bundle: 19.99 instead of the normal 39.99. You can also get it directly in Steam for the normal price.


Click for a lot of words about a video game!

As you might have gleaned from the above video, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is a space strategy game, focusing on gathering resources to build up fleets, take over worlds, and drive out your enemies. The game was developed by Ironclad and produced / distributed by Stardock, and it touts itself as being "epic space strategy". In many ways, I'd argue they got that right.

The Story So Far
The original Sins release introduced us all to the three factions of the game, and the Rebellion video gives a brief overview of their history while also covering the original expansions before getting into Rebellion's changes.

Basically, the game centers on a vast area of space mostly populated by a far-reaching, human star empire that connects many systems and worlds together in a fairly peaceful union. Without any warning or initial contact, an alien race entered into this territory, its giant fleet appearing from the dark reaches of space and seemingly filled with insanity and lashing out at anything that got in its way. Numerous systems fall before any organized response can be put together. Most of the human worlds agree that there is a need to quickly mobilize, and the various traders and unions form together under the banner of the Trader Emergency Coalition, rapidly converting ships into combat vessels and designing new ships of the line to fight the aliens.

During all of this, when the TEC started gaining confidence and many felt they might be able to protect their territory, another fleet of ships invaded, clearly crying for their extermination. This group calls themselves the Advent, the descendants of humans with psychic powers who were cast out as heretics and freaks and banished years and years ago. They have grown more powerful and developed their own vessels of war to return and eliminate their oppressors. They find themselves locking horns with a mobilized TEC and the unexpected alien fleet, though it would seem they're more interested in the TEC's destruction.

The aliens, for their part, aren't aren't necessarilly malicious. A nomadic species, they subjugate planets rather than colonize them and genetically modify populations for the various environments as they pillage raw materials. They are called the Vasari, and they originate from the Dark Fleet which has been on the move for thousands of years, allegedly running away from a terrible threat in space that they fear is constantly on their trail. So while they are carving a path through TEC space and warring with the humans, in a way it's part of their paranoid dash to safety and a millennia of xenophobia.

This story gave the factions their initial flavours that have permeated through to the present -- TEC ships have strong defenses, the TEC has amazing trade, the Advent have psychic powers and manipulation and are the best at spreading culture with ships that boast a wide variety of buffs and debuffs, and the Vasari capitalize on mobility and plundering resources and focusing their ship skills on things that relate to trapping ships and stealing resources.

Rebellion
Sins was expanded twice: Entrenchment added starbases -- powerful orbital platforms that can take on fleets and have access to unique abilities -- and long-range cruisers built to take down structures; Diplomacy vastly expanded the diplomatic elements of gameplay, adding envoys to boost relations and research to support inter-faction missions and even ways to bribe the neutral pirate faction. These eventually got packaged together as Sins: Trinity.

Rebellion adds to this story by splitting each faction in two, the years of fighting giving rise to opposing viewpoints among the races. For example, the TEC Loyalists want to pursue peace among the Advent and Vasari and focus on defense, but the Rebels have become isolationists who focus on offense and have the ability to ally with the pirates. Advent Rebels have decided that Loyalist leadership within the Unity is corrupting their purpose and seek to purge from within (though it is unclear if that means they will come out of it looking for peace), resulting in different tech focuses. Vasari Loyalists capitalize on nomadic traits, capable of supporting their empire on board capital ships and their titan and draining planets to their cores, while the Rebel Vasari have turned to settling worlds and making use of TEC and Advent alliances and sharing technology to bolster themselves for the coming enemy in deep space.

Rebellion incorporates all of Trinity and moves forward, adding new elements as well as balance updates. Rebellion's two core additions to the Sins gameplay are the factions, splitting each race into Loyalist and Rebel sub-groups, and Titans, massive warships that dwarf even capital ships and boast various awesome powers. Additionally, Loyalists and Rebels share the core skills of their faction from the previous game and expansions but add a set of unique abilities to differentiate themselves based on their differing focus and political aspirations. Small corvette ships were added to each faction, as well, serving as fast-attack ships with special abilities that are a counter to long-range frigates and can harass larger ships (vanilla Sins suffered from players spamming long-ranged frigates with minimal counters; that is less viable now).

The game also has two "DLC" packages that add more flavour to games -- Forbidden Worlds increases the variety of gravity wells available, providing more resource-rich planets as well as more anomalies. Stellar Phenomena adds random events to games, including things like plasma storms, planetary rebellions, and economic boosts, that randomly trigger as you play.

Gameplay
As indicated in the name, games take place within solar systems. Game mechanics trump realism here, as typically multiple empires start from a capital world within the same system and fight to control the various worlds in orbit -- usually many more than one star would likely hold. Additionally, gravity wells of planets and other objects are connected to one another by phase lines, allowing for maps to have interesting layouts and provide unique avenues into enemy territory and defensive choke points. So in that sense when you look at a map you might feel that it's stupid that so many planets are floating around a star or that you cannot go from one planet to another directly, but as a strategy game it works out quite well.

You start with one terran planet, capable of having one of the highest populations and, as a capital, a huge amount of tax income. Resources come in two forms -- metal and crystal -- gathered from asteroids surrounding planets and other gravity wells. Some planets offer more of one type (e.g. ice is all crystal, volcanic and ferrous are all metal), and non-planet gravity wells that have asteroids cannot be colonized but provide resources at a faster than normal rate if you can capture and hold them. As you expand from your initial world to colonize other planets, you start generating more and more income -- credits from taxes, metal and crystal from mining. You then dump your funds into research, orbital structures, and fleets. The greater your income rate is, the better equipped you are to increase your capital ship crew cap and fleet supply. Fleet supply will tax your income the more you have, forcing you to balance between fleet growth and empire growth.

Everything in your empire can be controlled manually or left to their own devices, aside from fleet deployment and orbital construction. At the left of the screen, there is an "Empire Tree" that shows all of the planets under your control and icons for the various structures and ships in orbit around them. While zoomed out on the map, you can see icons for the planets surrounded by quarter-circle boxes that give a quick heads-up of the amount of ships and/or structures in orbit. As you zoom in to a gravity well, the individual structures and ships can be seen as icons, and continuing to zoom will show the 3D models of everything. As a result, you can manage your empire from high-level views all the way to specific battles and engagements. Ships can be grouped into fleets or left independent, and you can focus on a fleet or specific ship -- you can even zoom all the way in to an individual fighter in a squadron.

The AI for the game is decently intelligent with respect to your own forces and the default control of ships across the board. If you tell your ships to go somewhere and allow them to manage combat on their own, ships will mostly do what is appropriate for their role -- fighters will prioritize bombers, flak frigates will chase strike craft, capital ships will engage one another -- and use any skills on cooldown. However sometimes there are advantages to prioritizing targets on your own or directing combat.

Neutral world AI is much simpler. Un-colonized worlds often have a small militia force (TEC faction ships, since this is all supposed to be in their space) defending them, and on some maps there are actual neutral worlds that will have their own orbital structures and defenses in addition to a small fleet. In either case, all these ships follow a singular directive: if an enemy is present in their gravity well, they fly directly toward it and attack. Likewise, there is a Pirate faction that at set intervals will launch a raid based on which faction has the highest bounty (you can use this to distract enemies or make them even weaker for your own invasion). Their AI essentially travels in a direct route to the target's closest planet, even if that takes them through someone else's defenses, and charges forward. They also tend to blindly chase down trade ships to kill them/plunder the money, regardless of how poor a tactic that might be, and this can be used to keep them from actually winning a fight.

Enemy player AI is stronger. The computer is fairly good at expanding its empire, and its ability to manage resources is impressive. An AI player can churn out a large fleet and research higher-tier skills even while maintaining a high fleet supply and, thus, a large tax on their income. However, since humans are creative thinkers, the AI does get resource bonuses in the higher difficulties, enabling them to come at you with an impressive force in the early game and keep up pressure throughout. Also, the AI can specialize in research, aggression, or fortification, giving a little variation in what it's like when they are encountered. The AI tends to wait on some research projects until human players have dumped into them or at some later point in a game. For example, each player can research ways to spread their culture throughout the map, and culture can overthrow enemy planets with enough influence. The AI will typically not invest in this until one other player does, though if you don't make it a priority they can and will pressure your border worlds with their culture. You can also often get a Titan built before them, as they seem to focus on getting a few capital ships deployed before investing in one. Ultimately, there is some predictability, of course, that you can't rely on when playing against human opponents. For example, an AI will usually not go for a titan first or mass corvettes or stack at a choke point like a human would.

All in all, there is definitely some min-maxing that can be gotten into when looking at how the factions and their splits are balanced (e.g. a couple of the titans are a lot weaker than the others; some race/faction-specific techs aren't impressive). That said, each plays differently enough -- and the rebels/loyalists slightly different again -- that it's easy to find the one that you like the most and charge ahead. Outside of human-human multiplayer games none is sufficiently weaker than another, so jump in with whichever you like the most!


This post is already way longer than it should be. I will save my faction/loyalist+rebel breakdown for another time or when I make a Sins thread.

[BitVyper]

Oh yeah, for the record, Vindictus is pretty totally sweet. It's less ARPG and more just a straight action game that has some RPG mechanical elements. One thing that's great about it is just how much the playstyle changes from class to class; there's some basic elements that remain the same across all classes, but the overall style varies drastically.

I also like the plot, because I'm pretty sure the player is the unspoken villain. Humans are kind of being gigantic assholes, but it keeps a heroic narrative because they keep winning while creeping ever-closer to a doomsday brought about by their own actions (although I guess the existence of Mabinogi tells us that works out alright in the end). There's at least one war going on with the gnolls specifically because you the player murdered their king, who was a moderate and interested in maintaining peace. There's also a questline in season 2 that is basically Heart of Darkness, so far as I've played.

[Revising Ocelot]

Been playing a bit of the ol' Zelda, on and off. Used to the 3DS now, I can use the full 3D and not go cross-eyed and the thumbstick isn't bothering me either. Got a StreetPass tag thing earlier for it and Pokemon Y. So there's at least one other person in the country with a 3DS. So that's cool.

Encountered http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYc_Vosp9_Y today, and it inflicted a critical hit right in the memory of being 6 years old watching my 17 year old brother play Link to the Past, and then playing it myself some years later.

[Ryong]

On Sleeping Dogs:
Yeah, the relationships were terribly handled as they just sort of happen and then nothing more afterwards. The plot seems like it'd benefit from branching paths and there were certainly some weird parts with it how'd Wei's cover only get blown out in the end? how the heck is everything fine with a cop who did all sorts of bullshit? ( although maybe I should get the year of the snake DLC to see how it goes after the ending ).

The combat, the silly but extremely effective cover jumping stunts, everything about it is great...But the fact that almost anywhere you shoot a gun the cops instantly know where you are and how often you actually find guns is a bit annoying.

Also, Just Cause 2 "driving around for no reason whatsoever" still feels better than in Sleeping Dogs.

On Bastion and game inputs for it:
I used an old controller that had turbo to play through it before I actually got my x360 controller. This meant unloading the pistol revolver things in half a second, which was fantastic.

Also also:
Marlow Briggs is hilarious.

[Arcanum]

Started playing LoZ: Wind Waker HD (never played it on GameCube). For some reason that is beyond me, Nintendo decided that I'm not allowed to invert the Y-axis on the camera. I can only do that for the first-person view. Why Nintendo? Why would you do this to me? Why would you have that feature for one camera and not both?

Anyway, the Forbidden Fortress or whatever it was called was boring as hell with it's terrible "hiding in a barrel" stealth bits. Hopefully the game picks up once I get the Lion King a sail.


I also had picked up Bound by Flame right before it launched because with a code from GoG it was only $25. The game is alright, but really rough around the edges. The voice acting and writing is really hit or miss, and unfortunately mostly misses. The combat is really slow since a lot of things take forever to die. At first I liked that I felt weak fighting multiple enemies, but that never really improves as you get more skills. Also if you specced into the Warrior tree instead of Ranger then boss fights are a pain in the ass, since a lot of their attacks will still knock you on your ass unless you get a perfect parry as a Warrior, whereas the Ranger stance can dodge back and avoid the attack completely.

Equipment customization is awesome though, since every upgrade socket on a piece of gear changes how that gear looks, and upgrades that offer different stats have different looks as well.

Overall the game is alright. To sum it up, it feels like Witcher on a budget meets Fable. Not sure I'd recommend it though, even at $25 (it's normally $40 on PC). Still, Spiders (the devs) are definitely improving, considering their previous works were "Of Orcs and Men" and "Mars: War Logs." Given how much they seem to be improving I'm genuinely interested in seeing what their next game will be.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Arcanum

feels like Witcher

I will never understand why people liked Witcher.

[Arcanum]

I played through the first act of the Witcher 2 and then kind of stopped. I didn't like how the game seemed to be focused on being prepared for what you're going to encounter next, despite you having no idea what the fuck you will be fighting next. Pretty sure I reloaded more saves in that game than in any other game I've played.

Plus fighting the Witcher Assassin guy was the most frustrating experience ever when I played it, because game would start before the loading screen for the fight went away, so the guy would get 2-3 free hits on you, taking you to like half health. The boss of the final act was equally frustrating. And not even the kind of frustrating where you felt satisfied after winning the fight, the kind of frustrating where you were just glad you didn't have to slog through that shit anymore.

The game looked really pretty though, so that's a plus I guess?