Rate the Last PC/Console Game You Played

[Romans832]

Yay us for total confusion!

You might have extra codes or something... In App and Website all show same prices 😕

[Guest]

No clue. Not really a problem, for me, but sucks for you.

Regarding civ6, I've been playing more. I may have been wrong calling it just a quicker version of civ5. It's hidden, but the game has lots of layers, many of which can only be seen with certain units or aren't noticed easily. They did fix, a lot of things.

For example, Settlers, when selected, show all eligible locations to settle, in green, and ineligible locations in red. Furthermore, you can "attach" units like settlers to military units, so they always move together.

[pretre]

The problem with Civ 6, at least for me, is the depth of 3rd party mods isn't present that was available for 5. That really extended the replay.

[Romans832]

1 hour ago, pretre said:

The problem with Civ 6, at least for me, is the depth of 3rd party mods isn't present that was available for 5. That really extended the replay.

Mods for a RTS?

Kind of mods do you need?

[pretre]

1 minute ago, Romans832 said:

Mods for a RTS?

Kind of mods do you need?

Additional scenarios, Quality of Life improvements, new countries, whole game conversions.

[Romans832]

What about the 6 new countries?
Is that a whole new bundle or a part of the digital deluxe?

[Yarbicus]

Frankly, I find Civ 6 mind numbingly boring.

[Guest]

On 6/25/2018 at 7:47 PM, Yarbicus said:

Frankly, I find Civ 6 mind numbingly boring.

More than Civ5? Or any other "sid Meier" game?

I don't think any of them are particularly exciting, but I enjoy them.

[Yarbicus]

Much less interesting than Civ5. Everything works but I just don't enjoy playing.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Yarbicus said:

Much less interesting than Civ5. Everything works but I just don't enjoy playing.

Can you give an example?

[ROGRE]

Inversus Deluxe - available on all consoles and PC

Simplistic looking shooter whose plain looking graphics belie its fun and tactical depth. You would be forgiven for thinking this boxy shooter used crossword puzzles for game maps but that's not the case. You control a square that glides along and can fire in four directions. You have a limited number of shots but your ammo regenerates over time. Your bullets do a lot; create a path for you, block your enemy's path, stop incoming enemy shots, and oh yeah, kill the enemy. 

While nothing like it visually, Arcade mode will remind those who have played Geometry Wars of that experience. it is good fun.

Versus mode pits one or two players against the CPU or other players via couch co-op or online (if you can find them). This mode does a great job of of capturing the kill or be killed mentality. you'll be spamming shots, and then running for your life while you're waiting the few seconds it takes for your ammo to regenerate. Peeking around corners trying to take out the enemy while making sure you don't take one in the face in the process. The AI is more than competent and it will really make you work for your victories.

Inversus is one of those games that doesn't have a lot of options but what I love about it is that it does one thing and it does it well.  It is a great shooter. Also cool because developer Hypersect is just one guy, Ryan Juckett.

 

[Torg]

I recently got an old Apple ][e set up ... and played Krateka (sp).   

😄

[TheBeninator]

On 6/29/2018 at 9:31 AM, Torg said:

I recently got an old Apple ][e set up ... and played Krateka (sp).   

😄

Mmmm 1.023 MHz of pure computer power.

Did you get the big daddy package of 1 MB RAM ?

[Guest]

No Man's Sky (PS4, Late 2018 revist)

They did a rather massive patch to this game recently and I think it's to the point where if this is what it was when it was released, people wouldn't be mad. Decent game. Really, really improved over the launch version. They added multiplayer, character appearance customization, and added a base building feature like a lesser minecraft. You can also name, just about everything, from your pistol, to planets, to your spaceship, and even the lifeforms you discover.  

That said, game is just a 3/5 instead of a 2/5. It's playable and decent, but it still isn't a great game. I'll spend some more time on it.

[Romans832]

No Man's Sky has become huge in streaming these days!

[Duckman]

Not sure how I feel about NMS...  I purchased it on sale after the update and it is certainly playable.  It just feels more like ARK (exploration/survival) and less like a full universe.  It's particularly unfortunate that it does not support HOTAS or even simple flight-stick.  The lack of real controls, in my book, keeps it from qualifying as an effective space-sim.  That said, for a survival game it is just fine.

[Guest]

On August 27, 2018 at 7:53 AM, Duckman said:

Not sure how I feel about NMS...  I purchased it on sale after the update and it is certainly playable.  It just feels more like ARK (exploration/survival) and less like a full universe.  It's particularly unfortunate that it does not support HOTAS or even simple flight-stick.  The lack of real controls, in my book, keeps it from qualifying as an effective space-sim.  That said, for a survival game it is just fine.

Not what makes something a Space sim or not, given that space is, more or less, a fantasy setting due to humanity's lack of actual human exploration. In my book, it's a pretty version of minecraft that sacrifices creative-complexity for graphics. And one of the biggest minecraft complaints is definitely the graphics, so they definitely have a target audience.

I will note that if you explore different systems, seems like each system ventured, unlocks new elements of the game, which if you go back, are now found in those previously explored systems. For example, there's basically no space combat until you get maybe 3 or 4 systems in. Then you go back to your starting planet and there's fleets surrounding it and you can get into space combat, should you want. 

Anyway, I'm playing it on a PS4, which also has iffy controls, but you can get used to them.

I will note that the more I play, the more I find that I don't really like the space aspect of this game. I'm starting to feel like the point of this game is to create appeciation for the ground under your feet.

[Duckman]

5 hours ago, paxmiles said:

I will note that the more I play, the more I find that I don't really like the space aspect of this game. I'm starting to feel like the point of this game is to create appeciation for the ground under your feet.

Hence my feeling that calling this a space sim is a mistake.  It's not bad as a survival/crafting game but the space aspect is iffy at best.

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, Duckman said:

Hence my feeling that calling this a space sim is a mistake.  It's not bad as a survival/crafting game but the space aspect is iffy at best.

Well, have you ever thought about it? What exactly is the gain of space travel? Definitely gains as a species or government, but for the individual, not much. It's just a hazardous area. I love the romance of a space adventure, but space certainly doesn't look very safe or fun. By contrast, planets are really rather safe when compared to the vast unknown of space as well as the known dangers of space. I think the game giving me the feeling that space is generally unsafe and staying a on a planet the wiser course, yeah, I think that's a perfectly realistic space simulation conclusion. 

But I've never really called No-man's sky a space simulation. No one ever explained it to me as such, either. I don't think it even tries to simulate actual space travel.

Anyway, progressed a bit futher. Finally built my "fleet command" room on my Freighter. Appears that the main function of my "fleet" is to go on missions for me, which occupy real time. Both mass effect andromeda and Dragonage inquisition had similar mechanics. Basically allows me to amass followers (in the form of captained space ships) which I send on missions to gain me additional resouces. So I sent them on a mission. Now I wait the mission time (in this case, about 3 hours), and can do other things while I wait (including not playing the game). I could probably speed this up by adjusting the console's inner clock, but I'm in no hurry. 

[Duckman]

4 hours ago, paxmiles said:

What exactly is the gain of space travel?

There have been numerous gains from space travel.  Are you referring to the personal level or the corporate/national level?

We had an astronaut on faculty at UW when I was a grad student and he could not say enough about how life-changing spaceflight was.  On a less personal level the list of things coming from the US space program engineering that eventual trickle into general use is also huge.  Then you have to ask what kinds of costs you incur for increasingly rare resources, whether that is water, minerals and metals or even basic protein and space to grow it and transportation costs.  If you can reduce the costs of escaping the gravity well (see space elevators) then the overhead for micro-gravity factories and farms and potentially mining or asteroid collection go way down.

Those basic leaps are no more a stretch than waking up on an island with dinosaurs or living in a cubeland where you hide from the zombies every night.

The No Man's Sky website only mentions space-flight and dogfighting in passing but the steam blurb spends half it's time stressing spaceflight and travel outside the atmosphere which is far from representative of my time spent.  If you approach the game as Ark on a galactic scale then it's a good game, better than average at this point.  If you go in comparing it to Elite Dangerous or even a standalone like Starpoint Gemini (which is where I was coming from) then the game is a fairly serious letdown.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Duckman said:

There have been numerous gains from space travel.  Are you referring to the personal level or the corporate/national level?

Definitely the personal level. I can see how it benefits a nation, corporation, society, and species, but on the personal level it does seem rather unimpressive in terms of gains which cannot be more easily acquired elsewhere, and at significant decreases in cost/risk.

And in No Man's Sky, it really is just you. You aren't traveling space for the betterment of others, your exploration is entirely just because you wanted to.

I think that's at the core of why I think No Man's Sky makes you appreciate being on the ground...

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Duckman said:

If you can reduce the costs of escaping the gravity well (see space elevators) then the overhead for micro-gravity factories and farms and potentially mining or asteroid collection go way down.

So regarding Space Elevators, you can't do that, per say, in the game, but you can construct a "Teleport Portal" on your ground base, which allows travel between the ground and space stations at no cost (other than building the portal and initially finding the space station). Interestingly, when you travel the portal, your spaceship just happens to be docked where ever you arrive.

And there is no "launch thruster" cost to fuel for lifting off a space station.

I honestly like the idea of a space elevator better, but I'd imagine something of that scale would be difficult to run on a graphics card, at least at present. Something for tomorrow's games, probably.

[Duckman]

Pax, I've played as much NMS sky as you have, hence my commentary.  I know there is no space elevator in it.  Note that the entire content of that post was in answer to your question about the benefits of space travel which increase by leaps and bounds if you can minimize the costs of lifting mass out of the gravity well.  In game terms the benefit of space travel is whatever the game designers want it to be.  In the case of NMS, the benefits of space travel are almost all about trade and even then once you enable your warpgates space travel is minimized.  Otherwise it is simply a barrier to further exploration which requires crafting and maybe a small amount of skill to bypass.  Given their crappy flight controls, it is clear that this is pretty much all the want with space up to this point.

A space elevator is trivial for a graphics card, just like a planet is.  Look at Elite Dangerous where you have ring systems.  The only reason ED doesn't do continuous flight is their instancing system, not any graphics limitations.

[Guest]

So I'm taking another break from this one. It's odd. No Man's sky feels like a pay to play game. It has lots of gimicks designed to make you waste time, which in a game with paid premium time would makes sense, but this game doesn't have that, so it's rather unforgiving. And it's nothing major, just little things. Minecraft is certainly similar in this respect, but I feel this game takes it to an unpleasent further degree.

For example, the button to land the ship and the button to set a waypoint are the same button. Landing a ship is free, but taking off is costly. You can't cancel the landing sequence if accidently pushed. It won't always let you land, you much be within a certain proximity of a viable landing place. So you take off, look the ship around, pick a point to go after, and realize you have starting the landing sequence. Now you could argue that is my mistake as the player, and it is, but now I need to got get more fuel to launch again. Doesn't use all the fuel, but it's a process that wastes time that should have been resolved by just cancelling the landing sequence. 

Another example, mining and refining. So first, the material required to power the mining device must be mined... That same material is also used to power the refiner. So you go mine as much as you can, but unlike minecraft, if you mine too much, the excess material just disappears, but despite getting nothing, you still use up power for your miner. And mining is really slow. It would be faster if you could take your ship, but again, it's a nasty price just the lift off. Furthermore, the ship's mining laser only works in space and only on asteroids...just super irritating. 

And then there's the sentry drones. Basically, every time you try to progress in the game, these little drones will start shooting at you. They aren't everywhere, but they effortlessly travel and if you destroy them, more come, infinitely. And again, every weapon you have is powered by resources that you then must acquire. 

Basically, the game punishes you for doing just about anything that it suggests you do...

And again, nothing is quick. It's this long process to attempt anything. 

Another example, I want to build something. Well, it requires components I don't have and can't find on the planet I'm at. I'll go to the store as I would in most other games. Well, the store is on the space station, or scattered really far apart on the planet, usually too far to realistically walk to. Now I need to waste launch fuel. So I get to the space station and they don't have what I need. So now I've wasted a trip. Now I can go to another space station and hope they what I need, or just accept that my current project can't be done. This happens a lot, for me, in this game.

And, as above, I use the teleporters to bypass the need for launch fuel, but using the teleporters is it's own pain. You just can't complete simple tasks in this game, everything is really complex in a bad way.

10 hours ago, Duckman said:

A space elevator is trivial for a graphics card, just like a planet is.  Look at Elite Dangerous where you have ring systems.  The only reason ED doesn't do continuous flight is their instancing system, not any graphics limitations.

Maybe it's ram I'm thinking of. This PS4 struggles sometimes.

[Duckman]

I have to admit, Pax, that it amuses me that you are complaining about the fact that it takes lots of resources to lift off but accept as given that space is not worth it.  The argument that you gave about space being of questionable value in real life is even more applicable to lifting mass (like taking off in a plane or spaceship).

What you are calling a waste of time when gathering is actually a form of immersive gameplay.  It's a game that is refusing to give you something for nothing (you have to invest some combination of time, skill and awareness).  To be honest, I find mining and refining fairly easy.  There are lots of tools to facilitate it and unless I run out of inventory space (which has to be managed carefully until you unlock a lot more spaces) I have never lost any resource I have mined or refined.  With my experience in mind I can see the harvesting/refining intended as an immersive experience in the game (forcing your attention usually forces immersion unless there is something distracting in the mechanics).  In Ark you can change the server settings and make harvesting easier which is not possible in NMS.  Most people that I see with custom servers in Ark make resources easier than I think they should be but I agree that the default setting is more grindy than it needs to be in Ark and possibly in NMS (although NMS is really not bad for anything I have made thus far).  The hardest/most annoying grind I have run across in Ark is the grind for more recipes/patterns.

 

I've been comparing NMS to Elite Dangerous specifically because of the spaceflight component that I wanted to find in NMS and did not.  Regarding the grind, ED is probably as grindy as or even more grindy than NMS but the whole point of the sandbox is supposed to be that you can find something that you enjoy doing to complete the grind and in ED I can do that....  Bounty hunting and (much to my surprise) mining are entertaining to me (and again, to my surprise, exploring is not).  In NMS, there is no enjoyable form of resource gathering that I have found.  While it makes sense to me and has functional tools I don't enjoy running around on the planets I have found gathering stuff and the controls make space-mining a painful experience.