Slightly odd that he talks about not knowing what the players want, this late on! This is still making all the right noises at the moment though. Dwarf Fortress-esqe (amusing he didn't mention that influence at all) but by the looks of it with more direct control of characters, and the more zoomed in view does give it an old fashioned Sim Hospital vibe.

May I ask you guys about SotS II - what is the amount of completion like currently? Is the combat any good? How is the AI? I looked in the forums and there are certainly people still dissatisfied but there are some more positive voices in the mix too.

I am always on the lookout for another space 4X. Distant Worlds is the one I've played the most recently - I like the empire building, the ship design, the AI and in particular it has the most interesting galaxy that I've seen in one of these games. It evolves well and there are plenty of unique discoveries with an impact on gameplay. On the downside, it's realtime/pausable which is a large downer for me. Also it needs all the expansions for the proper experience and it never became very cheap.

Amazingly I would suggest that they add a turn based mode into the game! You wouldn't expect that sort of retrofitting to be feasible/sensible but the game simulates everything down to the individual moment already and battles are resolved concurrently on the main map so turns could actually be very fluent even with many battles going on. You'd need new sitrep and order management screens to coordinate turns but you'd escape the game currently being single player only. Get some PBW going and the game and forums would be a lot more self-fuelling than they are now. They peter out between patches as it is even though this is a great niche game.

Yeah I feel pretty old too, awesome memories though. I had completely forgotten about Star Ranger! At that age I could only win the first rank. My fave games were:

Chopper Command (side scrolling like Defender)
Spike's Peak (on a double cartridge with Haunted House at the other end!)
Some Star Wars game (forgot the name, again like Defender, you were the speeders versus the ATATs on Hoth)
Adventure (with the 3 dragons, the keys and mazes)

Also I had a fascination with that Indiana Jones puzzle game that was almost impenetrable due to obscure puzzles and lack of hints. In fact there was almost no text at all! I bought that used and without instructions, consequently I didn't get very far. Accessibility hadn't been discovered yet!

I am biding my time and saving up: once Bluesnews goes Pay To Win I will buy a "50k posts" booster pack.

PHJF wrote on Oct 12, 2012, 17:41:
With great monster power comes great monster responsibility.

First you get the monster power, then you get the monster women!

In X I really liked the dynamic economy and the way you could influence it by building up your infrastructure and productivity. I also loved the graphics, although you spent most of the game looking at distant specks on the viewscreen that didn't stress the engine at all. The main drawback to me was that the main thing I looked to do, the managing of production, trade routes and all that, only actually needed a 2D engine to execute. All the 3D navigation and simulation just made the economy game slower.

Hmmm. I've had a few crashes on level loads as well. After ctrl-alt-deleting your way back to the desktop you can see an error for missing or invalid files and an instruction to revalidate your steam files. I've done that but the problem is reoccurring. Definitely a bit rough around the edges currently it seems!

If the internet profile has come in at the expense of customisable local deathmatch teams then they have made a big mistake! All my worms fun to date has been with friends and family, face to face; I've never played an internet game.

I am interested to see how it turns out, a DF variant with lots of polish could be good. Having ale in a DLC pack is a pretty dick move though, if it powers happiness it sounds like a pretty core feature to potentially pay extra for.

This comment was edited on Oct 10, 2012, 23:02.

The new physics, items and classes all seem good this time, much better than Reloaded. There are some issues though. The water effects are glitchy for me, they leave artifacts behind that block the action and get cleared up every few seconds or so. I imagine that will get fixed quickly.

Local multiplayer has an annoyance unless I am doing it wrong, team names and customisation are tied to your steam account (for the steam version at least), and if you play 4 player then the teams will be called MisterBenn, Clone 1, Clone 2 and Clone 3. You will also all have the same hats and accessories unless I am mistaken, it wasn't clear to me - the menus are a bit consoley so I may have not noticed the right way to do it. There are also reports on the Steam forums about matchmaking problems currently, there's no lobby, most of the time there are no games to find and noone joins yours if you create it. Even when people know their friends are creating games for them to join.

The core action of the game looks very solid and some of the new changes add a bit more depth even, but it might be worth watching this space for a while to see how the technical side improves.

1) That is a good looking top 10! Gaming's not dead and we're in the middle of a purple patch!

2) I will hang fire and see what you guys make of XCOM, I want it to be great but can't tell from what's out there so far.

3) In TL2 I just lost my level 34 HC Ember Mage, using a build based around using Shockbolts once I hit 35! The Djinni's Arena was like three times harder than anything before it for a glass cannon...

I thought the Thieves Guild started well, the organised crime part: openly shaking down and intimidating the shopkeepers was fun! It then got generic quickly after that.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking Bethesda have been quite smart in their approach to Skyrim. You get a game out of the box that keeps console and PC players alike happy. Some of the DLC is a bit of a cash in but it is optional as it should be and seems still viable to those with no access to mods. PC users get mods to make the game as beautiful, challenging and replayable as they like. Shareholders benefit from the after sales DLC revenue, and apart from the DLC so far being unremarkable, noone really gets offended.

I think it's to Bethesda's credit that they've been savvy enough to balance the interests of all groups very fairly, offering PC and console gamers alike lots of what they are used to to be happy, while spinning a decent profit without resorting to some of the nastier business tactics that do the rounds these days.

Yeah, I'm still loving Skyrim very much but the DLC so far has left me cold. As soon as they release something substantial, a decent new landmass or something with new game mechanics that are useful across the whole game, they will get more of my money incredibly quickly.

I really hope this is awesome, it looks fun but I'm a bit concerned. The streamlining in Civ 5 was too much for me, and things like abilities instead of inventory worries me in the same way. Part of the fun previously was organising the base output to have good supplies of decent weapons and it tied back into the science too. From what I've seen, the aliens always announce themselves with a cutscene so there is no getting shot at out of the dark, that's a bit of a shame. I think there's it will definitely have some fun in it but it might take a bit of a leap to embrace some of the changes.

I got the impression from one gameplay vid from an expo that some effort has gone into the head to head multiplayer. It looked like good fun, you could select from your faction's roster and fight it out over single maps and it gave the impression that the factions in that setting had effort put into them to balance them out. That could be an interesting new facet although it might be necessary to actually avoid the multiplayer unless you immediately see the entire set of aliens in your first sitting!

All you need to do is hamstring the progress of the country and its ability to keep pace with the world, and you could increase the turnover of this specific sector!

I'm really interested in this game but I'll hang fire and get some opinions and watch a gameplay video or two. I think like Civ 5 the streamlining will be a bit polarising and it might take a bit of a leap to embrace the new changes. Things like abilities instead of inventory are quite offputting so I'll wait and see.

What I would say is that the video that I watched a while back made it look like the 2 player deathmatch was interesting. Select some units and abilities from your faction then fight it out over a single encounter map. The action and tactics looked good at first glance.

Nice video, I like that tune too.

I am loving Torchlight 2 so much, it's been years since I played a single game so fiercely, day after day. I've been playing Veteran - Hardcore and as a result I haven't seen all of the story yet. I just lost a L26 engineer, he got taken out by one of those sniper engineers from act 2, he was at 80% health but his shield was down and that was enough. Just as I was starting to feel safe behind a wall of gadgets!

I cannot believe this was a cut price game! The action is rock solid and there seems to be lots of different builds available, I have tried all sorts of stuff with varying levels of success. Also while the cartoony style is not my first choice, some of the environments are really good, my favourite was the dungeon in act 2 with the mana fissures that kept spewing out mana bursts.

In my mind this genuinely lives up to Diablo 2. I've been following Path of Exile keenly, particularly the Builds of the Week on YouTube - and while it will no doubt have its particular strengths, I wonder how it can compete with this game as an overall package.

Yeah that's a pretty weak premise for an article. Some games haven't aged well, is that a surprise? Production values, interface and interconnectivity are the main gains since the ninetees but you have a great deal of compromises too. Some ninetees games achieved over 5 or 10 years of replayability! How many games from this decade will manage that?

Of course you still get gems these days but in general the mainstream of modern gaming is more mass produced, less interactive, more dilute, more chaperoned, less finished and less owned than it used to be!

(Ahhh - I know that firmly defines me as old, crusty and predictable but it felt good!)

Definitely arcadey, those cars have like 5x the grip you'd expect and can make large readjustments while going round a corner with no issues whatsoever! I am looking for another sim, my G25 has been gathering dust since NFS Shift 1 + mods.

Considering people normally have a single wheel and PC at their house, I think more racing sims should cater for "party mode" time trails, letting friends play in any order on a chosen course and maintain a chart of everyone's best times with named ghosts selectable so you can jump in and out and compete. It seems to be such a simple thing and yet I always found games wouldn't directly let me do that.

eRe4s3r wrote on Sep 26, 2012, 12:42:
By the way, anyone know what the changelog from 8.2.3 to 8.2.4 is? I am (not feeling like) downloading another 600mb just to find out nearly nothing changed

Complex Mod 8.2.3->8.2.4

LOG:
---NEW FEATURES---
All weapons range increased by 40% for a wider battle theater
---BUGS---
White screen bug should be fixed now (at least for the major part of video cards)
Vipers/Mines self-destroy bug fixed
---IMPROVEMENTS/BALANCING---
Hgn Gujking Balken Cannon damage reduced 250000->150000
Vgr Storm Corvette accuracy vs fighter reduced by 50%
Vgr Bomber weapon damage/accuracy vs frigate/capital increased by 10%
Vgr Bomber weapon damage/accuracy vs fighter/corvette reduced by 10%
Vgr Interceptor weapon damage increased by 20%
Hgn Ion Cannon Frigate weapon damage increased 2800->3200
Hgn Flak weapon damage/accuracy vs corvettes increased by 25%
Hgn Interceptor weapon damage vs frigates reduced by 20%
Hgn Vortex health reduced 375000->300000
Improvements on Solar System Map
Starting fleet configuration revisited
Explosion FXs improved
Explosion smoke fade time 2x on the battle field
Training game modality improved
Mp3 player improved, no more lag for the game
Several code optimizations for better game performance
Vgr Plasma Corvette weapon damage devreased by 40%
All Carriers HPs increased by 40%
Vgr Missile Bomber weapon damage reduced by 20%

I've skipped a few versions, I will be picking this one up...