Played anything decent lately?

Well, in lieu of the discussion in the other thread about us needing something else to discuss, I thought I'd 'do my part' as everyone else seemed to be.

Note that isn't actually a let's play thread, though if you have any suggestions I'll listen and probably even do it but I don't have the time nor the inclination to take a screenshot every 2.3 seconds and to do a long writeup after each playthrough.

I just thought that as nearly everyone here is a gamer of some capacity, it'd be useful to have a place to discuss any decent old/new/ancient game you might've tried recently.

Personally, I've been playing Morrowind again. I didn't *actually* have a computer that could run it decently back in 2002 and with all the min/maxing in the default system I ended up rerolling a lot. This time 'round I'm using an assortment of ~150 mods w. a few texture replacers as well as Morrowind Graphics Extender. Most of them are graphical and tweak-related, so for the most part I'm playing a stock game story-wise

Overall, I'm impressed. The world looks fucking brilliant and the setting itself is a hell of a lot more diverse than I remember. The landscape and enemy placement is actually thought out unlike that Oblivion shitfest where you run into a cave only to be swamped by 30 zombies and a rat at the begining only to find the rest of the cave empty. Enemies are spread equally to the point where you really start to wonder if it's worth opening that last door or not. The lack of leveled item lists actually lets you hold onto gear for more than an hour as well, which is nice.

Challenging, too. Curently playing a Telvanni Breton Mage born under the Atronach sign; at level 5 I have 512 Magicka points and 40 hit points - I can kill practically everything at range, but as soon as something gets into melee I'm as good as fucked which, given the way it's designed, happens more often than you might think. I was originally intending to go for a High Elf for even more mana, but I didn't like going against a fellow spellcaster and not being sure if I'd survive the first spell or not. Currently I'm just sailing about doing chores for the Councilers and their Mouths which is taking a little longer than I'd like thanks to stunted bloody magicka.

Mind you, it's not perfect. In a lot of ways it's broken (though the same problems exist in Oblivion). For example, I currently have a 1 second spell that fortifies my personality by 120 and raises anyones dispostion to 100, if I cast it and start talking as soon as the effect is applied I get massive discounts on everything. I have another that raises my intelligence by 340 points and my luck by 120, that's enough to get me into the alchemy menu where I can create potions that'll easily restore ~300 magicka. 'Absorb Health' is also very cheap to make and cast with a high chance of success whilst still doing very good damage. There's also the matter of summoned creatures, I have patched it so they no longer have a soul however any summoned spellcaster can be attacked to gain free magicka due to my spell absorbtion.

Those aren't actually as gamebreaking as you might think though, it's practically impossible to make potions without buffing yourself up first and I still end up dieing quite often despite 'uber' mysticism spells; and the summoning trick is really my only source of magic short of spending the rest of my miserable life hunting for ingredients. That, and those spells tend to fail a lot which is a bitch considering I have to summon a ghost to kill if I fail 3 odd times in a row.

tl;dr is that it's an awesome, open-ended, tactical RPG without the pause button. It has its faults, but it's still 100,000x better than I remember it, it's sequel or any other 'sandbox' game being.

I've uploaded some screenshots for anyone interested, most of these are just me fucking with the Depth of Field shader, but the later ones in particular are showing the game at the stage where I'm happy with it. I tweaked the Depth of Field shader so that everything you're not focusing on is blured slightly - it's not acutally noticeable unless you're standing right up against something at which point the effect is fairly subtle. The default shader just blurs everything which is horrid.

Screens are here: http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy12 ... Morrowind/

 

I'll write a review of something I am playing soon too but first things first. You mentioned you were using mods to tweak the graphics? It looks a lot smoother than I last remember. I'll have to find out you used and perhaps it'll get me back into the game. My favourite character was an imperial wanderer (custom class), ran around using a katana wearing basic dark clothing (no armor) and a funny hat that I had to kill a gondola guy for in the main city.

I know you'll probably hate me for this but I have to admit I enjoyed the combat system in Oblivion slightly better simply because I could swing faster. That and I was never a real fan of the major city in Worrowind, kind of liked the landscape and cities in Tamriel, however each to their own right?

 

I have always been a gamer, especially adventure and role-playing games. Especially the older games, without the terrible 3D. (NWN and Morrowwind were okay, but Ulima IX should not exist.) In the past, the story was more important than the graphics and sound. Now unfortunately the reverse. I can remember the days, when there were only text and/or very primitive, simple graphics (W stood for wolf in Wizardy I) because there was nobody yet who could make real graphics. Later on the graphics were some better: Legacy of the Ancients, Legend of Blacksilver, Die Dunkle Dimension, Questron I and II, The Ultimas, Phantasie I to IV, Bards Tale trilogy, Dragonlance games (SSI), etc, until to the present. (There more old RPG games, but then it will become a very long list.)

I've been playing the c64 game Legend of Blacksilver again. I had played this single player RPG game previously for the C64. (Now through an emulator.) When I play the game again, I was again amazed about the plot and the game quality.

The plot: Princess Aylea first contacts the principal character in the game in a dream vision. She will tell you that the evil Baron Taragas from the Kingdom of Maelbane has conspired with a local baron, Baron Mantrek, to find a magical material called Blacksilver. Supposedly, in the hands of evil, Blacksilver could be used to create weapons of mass destruction. Princess Aylea instructs the character to rescue her father, King Durek, who has been abducted by Baron Taragas.

Pros: The some of interesting parts of this game that you can find beneath some of the temples you can find archives that contain different exhibits. These exhibits work similar to those found in the intergalactic museum in Legacy of the Ancients. If you have the right gem, the exhibits can give you useful information, items or even serve as a gateway to far away places. In the towns, you can earn money through gambling, putting it in the bank, selling items or taking on jobs and errands. To get better stats you have to go to the temples, and beat him at his game. You will get higher ranks by the prince (In the castle) when you have finished quests. In addition, the plot is very good, and can really feel the atmosphere.

Cons: This game is not for the lesser experienced role-player, because it’s not easy at all. Auto mapping does not exist yet, so you have to draw the world map and the dungeons by yourself. Overall, the graphics are not what it is now, but who cares if the plot and game play is very good and more important.

 

I've been on a cyberpunk kick lately and have been immersing myself a lot of Shadowrun, mostly on the Genesis emulator and tabletop RPG. Am thinking of starting a new genesis game and doing a Let's Play for it, but I'm not sure if we've ever finished one on these boards.

 

Grakelin successfully completed his "Oregon Trail" Let's Play, he did.
Which reminds me, what the hell happened with Zanza's "Sims 3" Let's Play?

 

I am playing Pokémon Heartgold. Yes, I confess. Brings back childhood memories.

I will also start playing Civ IV Colonization soon. Awesome game.

 

I love the SNES Shadowrun. I play it every time I visit my folks.

Last night, I stayed up entirely too late playing Master of Magic. $6 at GoG.com.

 

I'm playing SoulSilver. Lugia took me nearly 20 ultra balls to catch, even when I had its hp so low I couldn't see colour on its health bar, and it was asleep, and my horsea has leered it a bunch of times.

I need to find somebody around her so I'll be able to trade evolve my soon to be seadra into a kingdra, though. It's Spring term, almost Summer, so nobody is here.

 

I wasn't a fan of the SNES one, but that mainly had to do with the shitty matrix interface. Having always loved playing deckers in the tabletop version, the genesis rendition of the matrix was amazing.

EDIT: Nice! Today while cleaning I found my Lords of Magic game

 

Meh, I'm busy with that EV Training stuff lately. Looks like I can create a type set that can beat all in this game too.

I want to make a Rhyperior though, so I need someone to trade with too. I have a friend who has Soulsilver, but we won't be meeting until graduation. (two weeks)

P.S. Isn't it easier to use Dusk Balls on Lugia, seeing that it lives in a cave?

 

I can't remember if ultra balls have an x2 or x4 catch rate. If it's x4 then it's the same as a dusk ball.

 

No, I'd agree with you there. Combat in Oblivion was better as you could actually hit things in combat without choosing luck as a favoured attribute. Magic is far superior in Morrowind, though. I like Morrowind's landscape better as it's something different instead of a bland medieval forest - ironic considering all the lore describes Cyrodil as a jungle.

But yeah, Morrowind Graphics Extender gives you the water effects and distant land. Distant land comes at practically no performance cost so far as I can tell which is just brilliant considering how much I hated all the fog originally. Hardware shaders are a different story though.

Using a heap of texture packs as well, Darker Morrowind (landscape), vurt's tree replacer and high-res sky packs alongside Better Bodies/Better clothing, Beryl's head replacer and Darknuts weapon/armour/clothing retextures. There are a ton of other misc replacers that aren't all that important but do clean things up a little.

It's a bit of a bitch to set up (using the code patch, TESTool, mlox and Wyre Mash) but personally I think it's worth it as you end up with a very pretty game that's fairly damned enjoyable to boot. Mod list is here if you need it.

 

Aye, my friend who was well-versed in both prefers the Genesis version over the SNES version. The SNES version allows for a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-all-trades advancement of character where the Genesis version enforces the dichotomy of technology and magic. The approach of the Genesis version is truer to the Shadowrun world. Furthermore, the Matrix in the SNES version amounted to Minesweeper. Minesweeper!? Are you kidding me!? Is this supposed to be fun?
Not having access to the Genesis version, I still love the SNES version for its gritty atmosphere and day-after-tomorrow atmosphere.

How good is Lords of Magic? I was playing Lords of the Realm II as recently as last year. I love that game!

 

Lords of magic was the first turn based strategy game I ever played and I love it. You choose 1 of 7 paths - Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Order, Chaos, or Life - you build alliances or go to war with the other factions while building your faction's cities and armies. Your goal is to defeat the lord of the Death faction (you can then play as death on new game).

Also there are story based missions that you can do as well that follow the stories of Beowulf, King Arthur, and others.

If you want to try the genesis version you can download an emuator and rom for it. I use Kega Fusion for my emulator and it's great. Or I'll give more thought to doing a let's play and probably start it after I get home from my vacation and charity walk next weekend.

 

By the gods, do I hate this game. Bought it full retail, and could never get far in it.


I've been playing Need for Speed Carbon and Imperialism lately.

 

I loved Lords of Magic, but it was buggy as hell.

Lately been replaying BG2. Again.

 

Now that I think of it, it probably would have been. NPCs keep telling me that specialty balls are better than Ultra Balls. I didn't bring any dusk balls though, just two heavy balls, which I used up on him. =/

My current team:

Quilava (FUCK EVERYTIME I THINK IT'S GOING TO EVOLVE IT DOESN'T! I think it's level 35 now, though)

Red Gyarados (By far the strongest on my team right now, he has ice fang, surf, bite, and thunder. I use him on everything)

Hypno (He started as a humble Drowzee who I was going to dump in the box, then I had to beat Team Rocket and I needed a psychic-type. Since TR uses all poison pokemon, he was my strongest for a while.)

Nidoking (Taking forever to train, but he was an essential part of my team in FireRed and Platinum, as well)

Lugia (Because why not)

Horsea (Gonna be a Seadra in another level or so. And then, after a trip through Mt. Mortar and a trade, it'll be KINGDRA!!!!)



My Dump Pokemon:
Blue Gyarados. I am so awesome, I use a Gyarados to dump HMs on. And I trained her from a baby magikarp. That is how awesome I am.

I actually just forgot that we get a shiny Gyarados for free (almost) in this game, and she evolved just before I got to it. Herp derp. It's awesome wandering around with two Gyaradoses, though.

 

Your team looks solid enough. Quilava evolves either 36 or 38, though probably 36. Nidoking is a nice joker pokemon that can learn a variety of attacks. You don't seem to have anything against a dark pokemon though.

My team is this:

- Primeape
- Jolteon
- Rhydon
- Starmie
- Murkrow
- Seel

I will make Seel a Dewgong later on. Murkrow has to evolve as well, and I need to trade with a Protector to make a Rhyperior. Oh, and I EV trained Rhydon and Primeape for now. Jolteon is halfway. I will train Starmie and Murkrow too, although I plan on replacing Seel with Articuno later, so no special training for Seel.

My team can hit super-effective to any type and receive a not-very-effective from any type. Hence the reason my starting pokemon rightfully rots in a PC now. All pokemon raised from eggs too.

 

Nice teams. And yes Quilava evolves into Typhlosion at 36.

My team is:

Umbreon @ Sitrus Berry - Payback, Curse, Confuse Ray, Toxic
Houndoom @ Life Orb - Flamethrower, Dark Pulse, Will-o-wisp, Nasty Plot
Slowbro @ Leftovers - Surf, Psychic, Slack Off, Yawn
Togekiss @ King's Rock- Thunderwave, Air Slash, Roost, Nasty Plot
Breloom @ Toxic Orb - Spore, Substitute, Focus Punch, Seed Bomb
Scizor @ Shell Bell - Bullet Punch, Roost, Swords Dance, Pursuit

I also have a lapras with Thunderbolt, Ice beam, Sing, and Perish Song that I keep in my box for when I need a bolt-beamer.

 

Nidoking gets peck and double kick, the latter of which is my anti-dark.