Posts made by Jaded

@sg That might actually be an interesting kind of challenge run. Which game would you do it with? I think Dragonfall would be the hardest.

@sg
The replacement of equipment and wage slaves is cheaper than replacing whatever it is that the security people armed with frag grenades might be protecting, in many cases.

@insomnia
Well I would hope how invasive the microtransaction system would disqualify on its own but I understand some people do not mind that. Everyone should have Tempest's reaction to $60 games with a pay to play system built into it, imo.

@insomnia
I was told by others that it takes about $250 in purchases to buy enough loot boxes to get the legendary orcs needed to get the real ending. But since that is all speculation and nothing that I could verify myself, I did not want to include it since it was not part of my own experience.

Let's talk ME: Shadow of War.

The first thing I can say is that the game is not worth its current price point. Unless you are a hardcore fan of the franchise I would recommend waiting until it hits the $25-$35 dollar mark on sales or discounts available through Steam or it gets thrown into a bundle.

For gameplay. The combat is the same as the first game with a few different weapons variations thrown in. Such as being able to replace your bow with thrown hammers. About 90% of the combat animations and finishers were copy pasted from the first game. So the entire process of playing the game will be very familiar. There was no innovation to the combat system or improvements that stood out to me. Playing with a keyboard and mouse is just as easy as using a controller - I think KB+M is easier actually, and the combat system still looks good to watch.

So what is different besides story?

You pick up actual gear in the game now to equip that to improve your baseline stats. But it is not a full inventory system limiting you to your weapons and then armor and a cloak. There was some nice development here though as each new piece of gear does modify the actual appearance of your avatar which was lacking in the first game outside of full skin changes.

The Nemesis system has tiered level captains and warchiefs that give you variations in that gear. So following the WoW style of quality you have white through orange quality equipment with legendary being blue. Upper quality equipment will unlock further special abilities for doing specific things while using that equipment. The better quality warchief or captain you kill the better the loot - and of course the more abilities they have and harder they are to kill.

There are also more skills for more character customization to choose from and you still have options to select perks for those skills. This means that each skill line has a primary skill tier and then attached to that teir are modifier skills that improve that primary skill in some way. And this seems to be the only game innovation that is not meant to support the microtransaction system.

So microtransactions. In the world you will pick up money from some defeated orcs or find treasures worth a lot of it. You trade this in for silver level loot boxes or warchests at a merchant you can access at any time. In the silver chests are equipment upgrades and in the warchests are allies that you get - orcs that work for you and you can call upon to assist you in-game. Gold and Mithril chests are rarer chests that you might get lucky enough to get in the game but you can not buy them with the in-game money you find. Naturally the gold chests hold better stuff, the mithril chests even better than that.

Now. You do not have to buy the in-game currency with actual money; you can farm up the coins to buy silver chests and the basic war chests but it is a very slow and tedious process with some drops giving you 5 coins and some giving you 50, those amounts will vary, but those chests cost 1500 coins. The gold and mithril chests take around 200 gold coins which are different from the in-game money easily found. Or you can buy gold coins with your actual money to get the best loot and allies that you can possibly have throughout the game.

From the 10 hours I've put in, it really does feel like that as the game goes on and it gets more difficult it might become more and more necessary to grind legendary captains and warchiefs for a chance at higher tier chests. Or to get the in-game currency for better and better gear and bodyguards. Moreso if you play this game on the hardest difficulties.

For the rest of the game:
The sound quality is to be expected with a lot of Middle Earth style orchestral music and tracks, but none that get quite as repetitive as the Witcher 3 did with the moaning wail music. All of the orcs in the Nemesis system have pretty good personalities and there was a lot of humor in dialogue written there - although I did think a few times 'oh god he's doing a monologue' before killing him and sometimes at death too. I really did appreciate the level of development that went in to making the orcs feel and look different from one another as far as the captains and the warchiefs were concerned.

So overall the game is not that different from Shadows of Mordor. If you like that game you already know what to expect going in. Because I am not a fan of how invasive this microtransaction system is and the looming prospect of the game being developed to be grindy to support it - I doubt this is a game I will finish.

I just dug into the Inhumans in the first two episodes last night and I saw the same thing that I saw at the beginning of shows like Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl and so on.

A show produced for as little as possible at the outset and then made more inexpensive in case the series does not work out. Which is probably why they got rid of Medusa's hair, and they show cased it those two times that they did so people knew it was "magic hair;" and why NASA was in a garage and consisted of a whole 2 employees. I think this actually hurt the show far more than anything else.

Additionally, these are actors new to their roles and new to each other so I did not expect something spectacular the first few episodes going in. And reading some behind the scenes stuff I am at least glad to see the actors are dedicated to the characters, especially the guy doing Black Bolt. IF it can make it past first season growing pains and not get cancelled there is a lot of potential for the show.

I can not say the same for Gifted. I suspect that will be a 1 season run. But we shall see.

@DownWithOPP
I...I really wanted this to be a hoax. Or some kind of lie. Really really wanted it to be.

Really.

Sigh.

@Misadventure
And now I am going to see if I should play it and review it.

Tropico 5 is super cheap on steam right now for its midweek madness with all DLC. A great purchase if you like the city sim building and management games.

@ThatGuyThere
I am going to agree with this. I have been watching it on Fox.com and I will say I just saw the third episode and...it tackled a sensitive topic with some heart. I liked it.

@Arkandel
I am not sure how others feel but if it falls into bad news, I apologize. I thought this new Trek was pretty much movie Trek in tv format.

I have recipes for a marscapone based cheesecake, banana maraguto, and a dark chocolate bourbon cake. I mean I can copy the recipes here or I can email the files I made for them. Just message me an email address I'm happy to share.

@Auspice
A hard 6+ people? Diplomacy.

@Insomnia Yeah the link keeps going to a 404 for me but I just went direct to humblebundle.com and go it, no problem.

@Thenomain

Damn only one? That. That is tough. I have favorite games with differing groups of friends but I think I'm going to have to go with We Didn't Play Test This with 5-6 people. Add in the expansions for extra cards and some booze and you have tons of zany fun.

@Insomnia said in Cheap or Free Games!:

Outlast + Whistleblower is free for 48 hours on Humble Bundle.

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Just saw the trailer for The Punisher for Netflix. This looks like it is going to be good.

Added it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIY6zFL95hE

@Arkandel
I too have considered this. But then from what I'm told WoW is so close to GW2 these days that I think I'd keep my money and play GW2 free.

@Tempest
There are still environmental terrain that can effect your people based on spell used yes. Are they all over the place? I would say no more or less than they were in the first game. If you pay attention to things you can avoid the ones that might impact you the most easy enough or use spells to offset them.

@Arkandel
Yes. There is a great story to it and the game is rather fun. It takes a new twist on how things like combat and magic is utilized with elemental affinities giving a nice twist on the standby of usual mechanics.

If you played D:OS1 you're already somewhat familiar with it. If not it might be worth picking that up as well. I recommend both games.