I haven't played the game in 17 years and got it to install and run last night on Win7. I remember really loving the SP and didn't recall there were bots in the MP part of the game.

Has anyone here played this recently? 

I remember playing it back in the day but it bored me a bit. Never been into the "realistic" military kind of FPS. 

I played it in randoms as well as with func_ and enjoyed it.

I hope they're able to keep the game feeling fresh, not sure what else can be done in this universe. 

...but yeah it does need to progress. 

I tried DOS1 because I'm a sucker for attractive ARPGs (although this is pure RPG rather than Grim Dawn ARPG). Seemed far too complicated and although the turn-based combat was cool I got my arse kicked so far sideways my PC fell off the desk, and I uninstalled it. For some reason recently I decided to try DOS2. Seemed far too complicated and I got my arse kicked so far sideways I got a nosebleed. But I reloaded, turned the difficulty down, avoided any combat and focused on gathering loot until I sort of got used to it....

And now I'm really enjoying it. It's a pretty different RPG experience for me. I don't know where the fuck I'm going, I don't know what the fuck is going on. Half the paths take me into combat that is instant death. There's a billion incomprehensible skills and items and crafting options. I'm out of my depth, my little party is out of it's depth....and surprisingly I'm really liking that. It feels genuine and "real", we're dumped in this world, banded together, with a decent knowledge of our basic skills, and just have to get on with it. It makes a refreshing change from the "player is god" style of Diablo 3 etc. It also looks really nice. So yeah a pretty good timesink so far.... 

....but nice themes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjAgPt7R3Z4

TBH the settings look better done than Elex / Destiny 2 even though the tech is probably based on the Quake 2 engine.... 

Finished DOS2 early access. Got 20-30 hours gameplay out of that alone. While waiting for the full release I re-purchased and re-tried DOS1, knowing full well it will be fucking complicated and fucking hard. I did much better this time, with a lot of trial and error (a lot around the first town can fuck your shit up), and a lot of quicksaving for the instant death traps / instant death combats. And I've really got into it. So with the rest of DOS1 AND 2 I got my RPGing sorted for the rest of time.

What I will say is that DOS2 has a lot of little improvements over DOS1, here's a few I've noticed:

+ much nicer GFX all round
+ body-looting after combat easier than hunting loot in general
+ better and more informative portraits
+ physical and magical armour system better and logical
+ gigantic skill bar is much better and easier to use
+ auto-adding skills / useable items to bar is helpful
+ much bigger inventory screen and all chars inventories on one page is helpful
+ streamlined combat AP system seems to work well
+ health numbers on enemies

There might be more.... 

- Bioshock devs
- Roguelike FPS
- Arabian Nights theme
- You have a whip
- Early access
- ????
- Profit

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/09/18/city-of-brass-early-access-review/#more-477963 

procedurally generated leaves a big question mark over the whole thing but I have quite fond memories of Arabian Nights from back in the day, so I guess wait and see will be my motto here. BioShock devs are a big plus, though. 

Three things I really like in games:

Exploration
Progression
Sense of being in a cool other world

Two things that fuck that right over:

Rogue-like
Proc-gen 

 

not a big fan of proc-gen either (except minecraft). Amazed at how handmade the environments look though.

Gameplay looks better than most of the "retro shooter" games i've seen. 

The first person horror game "Outlast" is free at humblebundle at the moment. It's the deluxe version that they are giving away, meaning you also get the DLC-s.

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/outlast-deluxe

As of the time of this post, there is still 10 hours or so before this offer ends. So go and grab it when you can! 

I've got it yesterday, and played all the way to the middle of the game.

The post-processed blurring effects are heavily overdone, sometimes making the image look like a 144p YouTube video.

The environments at the very beginning of the game are beautiful, but the game quickly goes down to boring architecture that resembles Half-Life 1 maps, only more detailed. They really focused all the way on making the visuals realistic, and ended up not focusing enough on making interesting & inspiring architecture.

The gameplay is almost entirely about being chased. The puzzles are too simple and doesn't require inventory management. Environment interaction is minimal.

Overall, it feels like a "if Hollywood made a movie adaptation of the Amnesia: The Dark Descent game". Simpler puzzles, simpler history, simpler art style, more chases, more acting, more realism.

The history is really good, though. the only truly annoying character is the priest. 

Watching cohh play this. https://go.twitch.tv/cohhcarnage looks cute and a nice style for that sort of game. 

Yes please play Hob!! It contains things this community should love, like:

- backtracking / retracing levels
- monster in-fighting
- lots of cool abstract / pseudo-brutalist architecture 

They released a big update for Strafe. You know, the game you didn't play because "procgen blahblah pseudo-retro" bollocks, or you played it expecting a classic FPS but then got butthurt as you had your ass kicked by the roguelike-ish elements...

It's actually good fun once one actually tries it and gets the hang of it. Plus they fixed a lot of bugs, rebalanced things and added some new stuff. There's also a daily challenge mode with leaderboards, and the game is currently 50% off. Was nice to compete in Spelunky, maybe try here as well? 

...fucking challenge mode and leaderboards, how about Dark Souls meets Shadow Warrior on PC:

https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/02/nioh-complete-edition-pc-port/ 

 

Got thoroughly addicted to this as per previous posts.

Got to the end game temple, got a locked door which told me some cryptic BS about "making sure I have all my memories" or something. Right. Okay. Cool. WTF.

So I google. Apparently you need a certain number of Bloodstones, which I have collected a few of. Also apparently you probably need to use them, rendering them into Inert Stones, which I have done a few times and then sold them on. Also apparently you don't need to keep them, just have owned them. Except the game doesn't tell you anywhere how many you have / have had. Occasional posts helpfully list locations of the Bloodstones which of course are scattered all over the world, half of them in obscure quests half of them in hidden chests.

So at the point, after a game which generally prides itself on multiple solutions to most problems (negotiations, sneaking, fighting, tactical use of surroundings, etc). I'm now faced by an impassable barrier which requires me - but doesn't actually tell me in the first place - to revisit unknown locations all over the whole game world, making sure I have enough stones, which again, it won't tell me how many I have nor how many I need.

Strangely enough, after being addicted to it for a couple of weeks, I haven't touched the game ever since I read that........... 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/219990/Grim_Dawn/

70% off to celebrate the two Act DLC, but if you like ARPGs you should have got this at full price anyway. All the classic ARPG tropes, a good balance between the grittiness of Path Of Exile and the cartooniess of Diablo 3, but better than both, and looks great throughout. 

https://www.gog.com/game/grim_dawn

I'll start playing as soon as I finish up a few games already started. Looking forward to it.