Topics

31

General Gaming - The Arcade / Battletech!

« on: January 24, 2016, 03:16:27 AM »

What is Battletech?


 You've probably heard of the classic game Mech Warrior? It's that universe but in turn based, mech crunching format instead of realtime mech crunching format.


Well the geniuses at HBS (Harebrained Schemes: Shadowrun Returns, Dragonfall, Hong Kong) are making another turn based game! And y'all know how much I love turn based combat. Like a fat man loves a fry up.


That doesn't help, what is Battletech?


In the medium distant future after multiple terrible civil wars 5 houses, noble in name, fight for the right to rule over humanity. Their weapons of choice? Giant mechs kitted out with as much demolition hardware as possible! If you're a noble in a planetwide firefight, may as well look badass, right?


Where can I find more?



http://harebrained-schemes.com/


Or check out the steam group Battletech(2017) I created for updates.


It was successfully kickstarted a while ago but I didn't really see it until now. It's slated for a 1-2Q 2017 release so only a year or 2 to wait.

32

General Gaming - The Arcade / Why I love - The Darkness II

« on: January 21, 2016, 02:52:36 AM »

I went into the game with no knowledge of The Darkness, I didn't play TDI and I didn't read the comics.


The player character is Jackie Estacado, a standard italian-american gangster with all the tropes. The character is pretty vanilla in other words and doesn't make a great impression but the drawn art style is catchy enough to make me want to see the rest of the level at least. The intro starts with a slow tour of a restaurant introducing various mobsters in your employ until you're thinking 'Yeah okay, I get it, he's a boss.' Jackie seems like an uninterested everyman. However by the end of the level Jackie gets possessed by an ancient evil called The Darkness which manifests itself as black snake like heads sprouting from each shoulder and armadillo starts to get pretty cool.


The action had most definitely commenced and I forget all about Jackie. I'm slicing people in half with snake heads, I've got engraved M1911s, things are looking up. For the most part it's an average shooter with snake heads as an interesting extra mechanic. Then something truly great happens. Out of nowhere a girl runs down an alley and he shouts 'Jenny!', suddenly Jackie has some history. He thinks he's seen a ghost and is going crazy but he knows Jenny. Later on (after some more carnage) he takes a shortcut through this beat up diner and inside the diner looks great and the lights are on and is Jenny is the only person in it, cleaning tables with the radio on. This is where you get the first glimpse of what kind of a person Jenny is, she makes the most of things, has fun where and when she can. Jenny sees Jackie and runs over to him giving him a hug and calling him by the affectionate nickname rat-face. Jackie reacts by saying more or less 'I don't care if this isn't real'. The song on the radio changes and Jenny drags you to the centre of the diner to dance with her and you get choice to kiss her or to wait until the song finishes. She invites you back into the kitchen either way and the vision vanishes and the diner is back to lights off and run down.


Jenny's character grows the more of these maybe-flashbacks-maybe-hallucinations and as hers does, so does Jackies. If you play through the game the ending is just so damn perfect. It's both a great example of how to grow a relatively blank slate character through interaction with other people and just a fantastic love story.

33

General Gaming - The Arcade / Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

« on: January 15, 2016, 12:08:35 PM »

I think I've slowly come to the conclusion that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is the best game ever. It's a proper RPG with themes and narrative as well as lore. It touches on multiple subjects both implicitly and explicitly in a non-contrived manner, just as part of how the narrative is. All this could be with any skin they choose, it'd could work as well in a sci-fi game or medieval theme but instead in a modern setting with an unnatural twist makes it all the more directly relevant. The game is atmospheric from the start with a great choice in voice acting (Billy West, Fry from Futurama) for one of the central characters while a good script keeps the exposition concise. The game at launch was fraught with bugs and problems but now devs and fans have patched it to a state where it runs brilliantly and as such its following has increased over the years.



This is one game that I believe would really benefit from a remastered edition: bug fixes properly incorporated, a new coat of paint, some pixels ironed and animations lubricated. Or whatever a remastering does.


Why now Rob? How does it possibly help to discuss an 11 year old game? Well, Paradox bought the right to create new White Wolf games (which includes World of Darkness, which includes Vampire: The Masquerade, among other things) and are (apparently) set on using its potential. This happened a couple of months ago (oct 2015) and I'm looking forward to seeing what Paradox produces.

34

Total War Mods - The Engineer's Shed / Med2 modding

« on: November 22, 2015, 05:33:35 PM »

I was hoping someone here might be able to help, I'm looking for a medieval 2 mod which does a bit of balancing specifically wrt east european factions and also adds in some units like a variation of musketeers for each faction that doesn't already have them. Anyone know of something like this? I was sort of looking at Retrofit Mod but I can't find any detailed list of changes.

35

Bethesda Entertainment / Fallout 4 (this is bethesda, right?)

« on: November 15, 2015, 11:21:53 AM »

Anyone got it and want to share first impressions? I don't have it myself but I have been following the hype and seen what a few people think about it n the first week.

I gather that roughly half say it's great and the others say it's the weakest fallout title since or including tactics(which is my personal favourite of the series).

Reasons cited as being: New special system feels off, not enough points to spend. Voice over has limited dialogue, especially regarding choices. It takes away from the feeling of being anyone you want. I was already less than jazzed for the game but now that I hear my favourite meta-game in maxing out all 7 special is unattainable, I'm not going to pick it up likely at all.

36

General Gaming - The Arcade / Overwatch

« on: November 07, 2015, 01:29:25 PM »

Even if you have no interest in fps I'd say watch the trailer, it's literally pixar quality animation.

It's a new multi-player FPS from Blizzard. Anyone who watches any gamer on youtube will probably know what it is.

If you don't, simply put it's a multiplayer fps with extra mechanics in the form of character abilities which can range from teleport and revert time to landmines and rocket salvos. It's still a really easy to learn game due to the easy shooting mechanics and the clearly defined roles of which there are 4. Offensive characters are great at getting close and doing damage, defense are good at holding choke points, creating area of denial and long range attacks, the tanks are good at soaking damage in one way or another and the support focus on healing, shielding or armouring. Actually that was a longer explanation than I wanted.

A lot of people were expecting this game to be f2p with skins being the only paid for item. I was always a little skeptical of this, the game's been in development since 2011 I believe? I know it uses some of the things from the cancelled MMORPG Titan anyway. Anyway at Blizzcon they revealed it'd cost £45 or your region equivalent. Guild Wars 2 did the same and it's done well, originally TF2 was paid for (which the game is being compared with relentlessly). I don't have any fear that it'll kill Overwatch at all.

37

General Chatter - The Boozer / YouTubeRed

« on: November 06, 2015, 12:45:11 PM »

Anyone got anything on this?

It's a subscription service for youtube. I immediately question why anyone would get it instead of adblock but then realise that I don't use adblock to support content creators. So it's for people like me then who don't really want ads but want to keep their favourite channels running? Doesn't seem to be. The money from YTR goes into a pot, YT takes it's cut and then the rest of it is divided up to each channel depending on how many minutes of their content people watch. Well that seems fair-ish-I-guess in theory but: Who are the people that are going to be subbing? Mostly adults with money. Who watches more minutes of video than any other demographic - kids. So really the money given by people to support the channels they watch end up going to pewdiepie and markiplier. Or so I see it anyway.

38

Fandom Discussion - The Secret Garden / Heroes

« on: October 14, 2015, 05:25:05 PM »

Anyone seen the new series so far?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It pretty much has the same plot as X2. Find the mutants, find all of them.

I won't deny that I did get goosebumps at the promise of the return of Hiro. Also the Bennet thing is weird, very Heroes.

Zack Levi is actually pretty good but his section of story makes too little sense. Like I get that you can be pissed off at supers for being at a place which gets nuked or whatever and your kid dies buuut to carry on a grudge, killing people every day for like 4 years or whatever seems a little much.

Also the videogame girl has a weird power (or maybe it's the guys?) even by heroes standards

Teleporting kid is great though.

I re-watched the other series earlier this month and I got to say, it was more of a mixed bag than I remember. Sylar wore out his welcome by the end of season 1 but somehow stuck it out for the other 3 and the inconsistencies with powers gets kind of old. People on that show also shift from being next to pure evil to actually decent way too often. The best character development that went on I think was Matt's, Hiro's & Ando's, Niki's and Claire's. Even though every time Claire took centre stage I'd say to my brother: That's right folks, it's gonna be a Meg episode.

39

Game Tutorials / Heroes of the Storm!

« on: September 23, 2015, 04:18:57 PM »

If anyone plays and has builds/strategies for maps or whatever post here.

If anyone wants a game I play on EU servers my tag is Rob#2644

40

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / UK Welfare Reforms 2015

« on: July 20, 2015, 08:48:50 PM »

Labours getting some flak for not opposing the welfare reforms... British political apathy, guess that's not really news then.

The bill itself is actually pretty decent. Caps benefits for households at 2 kids, so basically only have them if you can afford them....Like everything else. Oh and it has the novel idea of getting people on these benefits to actually pay their loans back at some point and not just ride the system forever. It's almost like they're trying to get people to work? Crazy. The UK has obviously gone to the dogs.

In other news, E3 was pretty much a success with Ubisoft and EPIC giving PC another look, deciding not to completely write off gamers who prefer decent looking games  played with enough keys to make complex gameplay.

41

Game Tutorials / Understanding Starcraft 2

« on: May 21, 2015, 07:55:17 PM »

So I've heard a lot recently of people that want to watch SC2 but have no idea what the commentators are saying. I'll use a thread here to explain what they mean and why some plays are significant.

So, basics.

Mirror match: A match between two of the same race.
Foreigner: Anyone not Korean. Which is why despite there being an american tournament between two american teams, they might still be referred to as 'foreigners'.
Natural: The mineral patch right outside your start base, the one where you naturally expand to.
WoL: Wings of Liberty, the first third of SC2
HotS: Heart of the Swarm, the second.
LotV: Legacy of the Void, the final chapter.
Greed: Going for more economy at the cost of military.

Strategies!

Rush: This one still eludes me, no idea what this is.

Timing Attack: When one team is just about to finish researching a critical tech or one which puts them at an advantage over their opponent they might set up for what is known as a timing attack. An example in the Legacy of the Void expansion would be Roach tunnelling for the zerg, once that is researched the zerg player will have a much stronger army than they did the second before it was researched.

Timing Window: The time before the opponent catches up in tech or provides counter tech/units. E.g. Protoss player does a run by with invisible Dark Templars, the timing window would be the time it takes for the opponent to get a source of detecting stealth.

Cheese: An unorthodox tactic usually with boom or bust mechanics (either you kill your opponent quickly or you lose). An example would be building a barracks right outside the enemy base and spamming marines until either the other player stabalises or you kill enough workers to win. Other variants are used to force a change of play from the opposing player, such as building a cheap building right on top of their natural.

Bio Heavy: A heavy biological force, usually made up of lots cheap units, good for midgame fighting with certain techs. Most used for timing attacks.

Straight to Air: Does what it says on the tin. No longer a strategy really but may resurface in LotV.

Scouting!

Why is scouting important? SC2 is all about countering your opponent. To do this you need to be able to have an educated guess as to which strategy they'll be using. If you scout your opponent and see that they have no gas building built then it's most likely they'll be rushing with weak bio. To counter, build a wall and a few ranged units. If you scout one gas but nobody working it then it's likely they're saving for a timing attack or going to harass early with one or two fast units like reaper. Two gas and you know they're doing something weird like straight to air, rush them.

42

General Chatter - The Boozer / Animus

« on: February 26, 2015, 12:36:14 PM »

Any good anime you want people to know about. Bam. Right here, right now. Or whenever you feel like it.

Psycho Pass, it's a Japanese Minority Report with an 18+ sticker and a cool look into thought crime and police states.

43

Arts, Crafts, Music & Drama - The Artisans' Guilds / Vocal Range

« on: February 26, 2015, 11:48:23 AM »

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/20/top-artists-vocal-range_n_5357698.html

I found this and thought it was really interesting. It's a list of some top artists and their recorded vocal range. I get that the list is in no way comprehensive but still interesting. Thoughts from musical people would be great if you got the time. I just play drums so I have no musical talent

44

Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Miliband = tool?

« on: February 07, 2015, 01:06:41 PM »

This isn't technically news but recent events are reinforcing a point. Miliband is a tool.

"We support businesses but will also tax them into oblivion while simultaneously expecting them to bend over and take this extortion and not move to the Maldives" Literal quote from the douchebag himself.

45

Tolkien & LOTR / Fan Films

« on: January 27, 2015, 11:29:01 AM »

I shared this a while ago somewhere, probably the chatbox but I'll link it here in case anyone wants to see it. The film is centered around Arathorn and his time helping people of Eriador and finding a girlfriend.

The channel does more prequels iirc but I've not watched any others. It's also about an hour long.