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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Finished playing...

« Last post by Marco on Today at 05:19:56 PM »

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.  This short game simplifies the Far Cry 3 systems somewhat: there's no crafting or inventory, you don't choose your upgrades when you level up, and there's only one weapon in each class and one kind of syringe (healing).  As Vylin noted back in 2013, the visual filter does make the game less attractive; the music and sound design is good, though.  The storyline is deliberately hokey and frequently amusing.  I was completionist about this game (hunting down all of the collectables and buying all of the weapon upgrades) and it took me eleven hours.

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Finished playing...

« Last post by Winston on April 18, 2018, 02:06:24 PM »

Life is Strange

I like Telltale-style games: Video-game stories that evolve as you make decisions throughout the game. Most of the games I’ve played in this genre are based on major commercial properties: Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Back to the Future.

Life is Strange, published by Square Enix, is based on an original concept. You play Max Caulfield, a teenage high-school student in a Northwestern town. Within the first ten minutes of playing the game, you (and she) discover that you have the ability to rewind time.

This a significant ability in a story-telling game. Normally, once you make a decision you’re stuck with it for the rest of the game. In Life is Strange, if you don’t like the result of a choice you can rewind and play it again. This lets you look through all the dialog options with the other characters and make informed decisions for how you’d like a scene to play out. You can also use the rewind ability to solve puzzles, since items you pick up go back in time with you, and you return to the spot where you started the rewind.

Life is Strange‘s story falls into the “magical realism” category: Apart from the rewind ability, Max’s life is grounded in the real world reality of living as a typical mis-understood teenager. Max deals with career choices, making friends, fellow students who are dealing with depression, suicide, and drug use.

This leads to my one source of dissatisfaction with the game: it spends a lot of time dealing with teenage-style angst issues. It seems like a waste of time when there’s a potential murder to solve and hints that a disaster is coming that could wipe out the town.

The game has other rough spots: There were a couple of locations where I spent a lot of time wandering around looking for items that were hard to see on the screen, often for tasks whose only purpose was to resolve an unimportant plot point that the game wouldn’t let me skip.

Overall, I liked the game. It was a change of pace from the over-the-top fantasy action games I usually play. It shows there’s a place in the videogame world for human stories.

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Healer's Quest

« Last post by Piralyn on April 18, 2018, 01:26:25 PM »

Well, I got them all to the castle.  I guess I have some green bar filling skillz.

But the addition of "mood bars" in the full version has me worried.  Now I have to care about the dead rogue's feelings?

I'd like my own mood bar, where when it fills, I get full party healing cooldowns.  Or killing cooldowns, depending.

If I've learned anything from BCP, just tell a dick joke or a fart story and the dead rogue's feelings will go back to green.

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Healer's Quest

« Last post by Fallowgrey on April 18, 2018, 09:35:48 AM »

Well, I got them all to the castle.  I guess I have some green bar filling skillz.

But the addition of "mood bars" in the full version has me worried.  Now I have to care about the dead rogue's feelings?

I'd like my own mood bar, where when it fills, I get full party healing cooldowns.  Or killing cooldowns, depending.

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Finished playing...

« Last post by Marco on April 18, 2018, 09:17:52 AM »

Far Cry 3 (not Blood Dragon yet), because I remembered that it was in my Steam library when Far Cry 5 came out.  I spent 36 hours on it.

Compared to Far Cry 2, this game introduces more non-immersive UI elements (fast travel, detection indicators, the ability to mark enemies with a camera and keep track of them, etc.) and some light open-world gameplay reminiscent of Just Cause 2.  Outside of the main storyline, you can climb radio towers to unlock map segments, murder all of the enemies in an outpost to unlock a fast travel point, or hunt down collectables.  The game rewards stealth, but you can also do reasonably well with sniping or a commando approach.  The in-game economy is moderately interesting, though you do eventually run out of things to spend money on.

I found the storyline to be relentlessly misogynistic, and didn't find the main character sympathetic at all.  It did have its entertaining moments.  Visuals and sound design are pretty good for a game of its day.

Random side note: this is the only FPS game I've played which allows you to slide down steep hills without taking falling damage.

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Healer's Quest

« Last post by Snique on April 18, 2018, 09:06:41 AM »

At each combat I let at least half the party die. Is this what it's like to be a raid healer?

Yes. Remember the mantra: if the tank dies, it's the healer's fault. If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault. If the DPS die it's just funny. (Optionally add "Install GTFO".)

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Healer's Quest

« Last post by Winston on April 18, 2018, 07:34:47 AM »

At each combat I let at least half the party die. Is this what it's like to be a raid healer?

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Healer's Quest

« Last post by Thanamira on April 18, 2018, 07:14:41 AM »

I can't tell if I'm laughing, crying, or speed-dialing my therapist.

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Re: Tweed .gif challenge

« Last post by Thanamira on April 18, 2018, 07:05:28 AM »

Is Tweed still taking requests?  If so, something that combines "ooh la la!" and "well, then!", preferably with a male subject.  (This is quite good, with a female subject, although I wouldn't mind a bit more smirking: http://media20.giphy.com/media/p9RiW2PYqBdcI/giphy.gif?w=320 )

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Outside Azeroth - General Chatter / Healer's Quest

« Last post by Marco on April 18, 2018, 06:51:47 AM »

For people who like staring at green bars, the indy game industry has brought you:

http://healersquestgame.com/gametrailer/

(This is actually a short demo, not just a trailer.)