GAMES!

Certainly didn't expect open world exploration in PoE II. Feels like it raises the potential of the game significantly, but I guess it could just as well end up as a bland add-on that doesn't contribute to the game as a whole at all.

However, with just some more focus on the magic-technology conflict, we might be getting somewhere interesting with this franchise...

 

Torment: Tides of Numerena is out today (in case you missed it, it's, supposedly, a spiritual sequel to Planescape: Torment, kickstarted ~4 years ago). Although inXile has gotten a lot of heat during development (mainly cut stretch goals and subpar communication to the backers), I'm slightly optimistic about the game. However, I severly doubt that I'll have time to actually play in the near future, mainly due to limited computer time, so I would highly appreciate any first glance reviews posted here.

Any takers?

 

I, too, would be interested in anyone's hot take!

 

I'd have to play Torment first I guess.

 

I would do it, but I don't know when I'll have the time.

 

On PC, I just finished Pillars of Eternity and am replaying the dawn of war series in anticipation of Dawn of War 3 releasing later this year. Waiting a few months before picking up Torment so some of the bugs are worked out and maybe some of the promised cut content put back in.

In other games I recently got my Tak game that I backed on KS. Tak is a game from the Patrick Rothfuss books. It's quick to learn, having only 2 things you can do on your turn, but incredibly deep strategically. I've also just wrapped up a grueling store championship season for the Android: Netrunner LCG where I went to 6 store championships and only made the cut at 1. Also building an LCG community at my LGS where we mostly have Netrunner players, but also a couple for Game of Thrones and Star Wars. Really looking forward to Legends of the Five Rings (L5R) rebooting as an LCG this summer.

 

Found a few windows of free time in a otherwise tightly packed schedule, which I promptly devoted to Torment: Tides of Numerena. A few thoughts after just a couple of hours into the game.

Overall, I'm pleased with the game. Even if Planescape: Torment haunts it like a overachieving elder brother, always reminding the player (especially the lovely gents over at RPG Codex) of how good things could have been, TToN is certainly of the same blood, conveying the same atmosphere and contemplating on questions of the (level? pedigree?) as PS:T. If you compare each and every component of the two Torments individually (main story, environments, characters, etc) I'd even go as far as saying they're pretty equal, and that most of the critique of TToN is merely derived from the very nostalgic memory that most players have of PS:T.

One of the things I appreciate the most of TToN when it comes to mechanics is the effort system, not too asimilar to the system used in the Rustbelt PnP, which I briefly played with Wolfsbane and Wobbler some time ago. You can spend points of Might, Speed or Intellect to improve your chances of succeeding at a certain task, be it striking a opponent with a dagger, persuading a odd fellow to hand over a "weaponized meme" or grabbing hold of some pink, floating cones. Since resting, which refills your stat pools, is fairly hard to come by, this adds a interesting level of strategy to the game which I haven't encountered before.

(My train is soon arriving to the central station, so I'll have to fill out this post at a later time.)

One thing that disturbs me is the lack of portraits. A, admittedly generally well written, description of the characters you meet sure adds a feeling of quirkiness to the Ninth World, but portrays would certainly contribute a lot to this feeling, making the game feel more "whole".

Regarding the visual aspects, the world itself is engaging, but animations are a bit off, and it feels like we've come a bit further than having main characters getting blocked by companions every now and then. I've yet to venture any further than Sagus Cliffs, the first city (out of two(?)), but I've already seen a great deal of variation (particularly liked the hazy Fifth Eye).

The whole deal with ending up in your own subconscious upon death is highly appreciated, and I've found myself loading less frequently than I usually do in story-driven RPG's whenever I fatally fail at a certain task. However, I wish there were simply more to do in there right from the start. The area feels empty and sterile (maybe reflecting the Last Castoff's (that is, you) own mental emptiness, since you were literally "born" when the game starts), but seems to be steadily growing as you explore the world.

As many reviewers have pointed out, the combat system is not one of the game's stronger parts. I've so far been in one encounter in which blood was spilled (expecting another one soon), but I'm playing a "slick Jack with a silver tongue", so combat was never the route I planned to take. It feels like the game was mainly designed for this kind of play through, using the main character's quick mind and/or fingers to tackle a certain problem, not just brute force.

While PS:T had 0 "ordinary human" companions, TToN seems to have only human companions, although most of them not so ordinary. However, this hasn't bugged me at all, and since one of the first companions you encounter is shadowed by selves of alternate realities (not sure how else to construct that sentence, grammatically), creativity has not been lacking too much in the companions department.

 

I picked tides up as well. After spending the better part of 45 minutes reading I finally got to choose a class. I hope the game isn't just simply wall of text after wall of text. I can just picture the developers patting themselves on the back for not being concise at all and using as many words as possible to describe a red bucket.

 

OMG does the game have red buckets? Squeeee!

 

Speaking of Tides, RPG Codex ripped it a new butthole here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10572

Though I'm sure a lot of the people on this forum already have read it there.

 

Do they go meta though? Does it see decline in itself?

Is it like 4chan where it's always the newfags that are messing it up for everyone?

 

Apparently, Werewolf: the Apocalypse is being developed by Cyanide Studios (the people behind Blood Bowl, and also a Call of Cthulhu game that will be out later this year). I thought it was relevant World of Darkness-y related news even if the release date is a ways off. There's also a couple of text adventure mobile World of Darkness games out now, if anyone has that particular itch to scratch. I'd pick them up myself, but my phone is terrible so I'll have to wait until I get an upgrade.

 

We Eat Blood and All Our Friends Are Dead? I was kind of hoping they'd gotten a bit further at this point.

There seems to be a lot of strong opinions about the story and seemingly some abstruse power struggles between popular WoD writers. Apparently serious business.

I probably won't play it but any work on the IP is probably a good thing. After all, White Wolf is owned by Paradox and that likely means a proper game by Obsidian in the foreseeable future.

 

Jagged Alliance 2, 1.13 mod.
Sick modding fanbase, they took the game and completely overhauled it. Been playing it for over a decade now, holy moly. Can't get enough of it.

And I can't stop talking about it. A friend of mine asked what games I'm digging right now, I quit my monologue after about half an hour, never stopping to state how f*cking awesome it is.