What video/computer game are you currently playing?

[AndyDufresne]

Yeah, GOG is good for classics. I tried replaying Myst years ago, but it didn't draw me in again. Monkey Island 1 and 2 though always draw me in.


--Andy

[notyou2]

Yeah, GOG is good for classics. I tried replaying Myst years ago, but it didn't draw me in again. Monkey Island 1 and 2 though always draw me in.


--Andy

Soooo.....................you go ape shit over monkey island?

[rishaed]

No he goes BANANAS get your expressions right

[Frigidus]

Origin was forged in hell.

The only fair way to deal with EA's treatment of Sim City is to buy the game in a brick and mortar store but not go through with the Origin installation process. Just pull down a torrent of the game from piratebay at that point for a painless install with (ironically) no EA spyware. It will also rightfully contain the release date 'extra content' which should have been part of the main game instead of being sold separately at ridiculous prices.

EA is living in a dream world if they think they what they are doing to the once great titles that they get ahold of is a sustainable longterm practice for them or for the gaming industry. The craziest part is that when this backfires (and it very much will) their reaction will not be "we may have done something wrong" it will be "Sim City is dead as a genre - there is no consumer interest - let's can the series and focus on more online microtransaction games".

Gaming is very shaky territory at the moment; luckily the indie devs are alive and well.

Unfortunately, EA will probably survive perpetually by driving successful franchises into the ground while making decent money off of name recognition alone. Yet another classic franchise broken by the Worst Company in America.

[AndyDufresne]

The new Neverwinter Nights is out for beta testing

I know I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I really wish companies would put out RPGs on their own and not make them MMORPGs. For example, I would love to play The Old Republic game, but I have no interest in playing an MMORPG. Same thing with Neverwinter Nights.

For those of you looking for an RPG, you might want to look into this Kickstarter from inXile Entertainment (who has a pretty good track record): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inx ... ea14e40467

The game reached it's funding goal of $900,000 in about 6 hours already, and 30 days to go.


--Andy

[nagerous]

I hope they fix Sim City soon, have been looking forward to purchasing it. Not having an offline move is such a dumb move imho.

[AndyDufresne]

I hope they fix Sim City soon, have been looking forward to purchasing it. Not having an offline move is such a dumb move imho.

Based on all the articles and reviews I've read about it, I don't think an offline mode is in EA's idea of worthwhile. Which is disappointing.


--Andy

[muy_thaiguy]

Yeah, EA has some big names, and finds some way to mess them up. Mass Effect series for example. ME3 was a really good and egaging game, and then people got to the "endings". Yeah, that didn't work so well and boy were quite a few people mad. The "fixed" ending was a bit better, and more conclusive, but the ending still left a lot to be desired.

[xeno]

I hope they fix Sim City soon, have been looking forward to purchasing it. Not having an offline move is such a dumb move imho.

Based on all the articles and reviews I've read about it, I don't think an offline mode is in EA's idea of worthwhile. Which is disappointing.


--Andy

How do you make money off people not using the servers you're making them use.

Ill stick with heroes of o&c it's completely free

[AndyDufresne]

EA is like a money blackhole I think. A few reviewers made the point that EA's always online connection for the game is an attempt to make it more difficult to pirate the game, etc. But the reviewers also pointed out that because of the tremendous amount of poor reviews so far, probably the same amount of people (and if not more) previously willing to buy their game and fork of dough likely won't, or will hold off for a while, or won't try to get all their friends to buy.


--Andy

[Lootifer]

Anecdotedly the lack of offline thing plus in general EAs breand is exactly what has prevented me from buying the game.

In other news I finished the storyline on GTA: SA. Have begun GTA IV.

I now understand what everyone was saying about the driving and realism. But personally I like it and am enjoying it sdo far,.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

Anecdotedly the lack of offline thing plus in general EAs breand is exactly what has prevented me from buying the game.

In other news I finished the storyline on GTA: SA. Have begun GTA IV.

I now understand what everyone was saying about the driving and realism. But personally I like it and am enjoying it sdo far,.

Get Niko drunk. Then drive. Or fistfight.

-TG

[Serbia]

I've started playing Skyrim again. Started over. Because I'm a glutton.

Just got an Xbox 360 at my company Christmas party, and Skyrim came in the bundle. Only just started playing it last Saturday, but already I'm addicted. Such an awesome game.

I dont understand? You got given an Xbox 360 from work?

Yes I did. Currently playing Halo 4. My username is Serb Vicious.

[xeno]

EA is like a money blackhole I think. A few reviewers made the point that EA's always online connection for the game is an attempt to make it more difficult to pirate the game, etc. But the reviewers also pointed out that because of the tremendous amount of poor reviews so far, probably the same amount of people (and if not more) previously willing to buy their game and fork of dough likely won't, or will hold off for a while, or won't try to get all their friends to buy.


--Andy

That's what they said about diablo 3 and even though ea didnt make it look how many people are still playing that game. I have hope in independent developers to break this chain of bullshit ea has created

[thegreekdog]

The new Neverwinter Nights is out for beta testing

I know I'm in the minority with this opinion, but I really wish companies would put out RPGs on their own and not make them MMORPGs. For example, I would love to play The Old Republic game, but I have no interest in playing an MMORPG. Same thing with Neverwinter Nights.

For those of you looking for an RPG, you might want to look into this Kickstarter from inXile Entertainment (who has a pretty good track record): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inx ... ea14e40467

The game reached it's funding goal of $900,000 in about 6 hours already, and 30 days to go.


--Andy

Thanks for that. I'm debating what I'm going to do since I didn't like Planescape: Torment.

[Frigidus]

I hope they fix Sim City soon, have been looking forward to purchasing it. Not having an offline move is such a dumb move imho.

They need to fix the mechanics of the game itself too. Turns out the simulation is completely broken. Quoting someone from another forum:

One of the biggest problems people are having with the game is the massive traffic-jams that seem to clog the entire system up. Now, this is responsible for the ineffective coverage of ANY traffic-based services (Fire, Police, Garbage, Medical, Education, Mass-Transit.) There are also a number of smaller complaints that may also be directly related to how Glassbox handles traffic.

"Workers aren't commuting."

"There aren't enough workers, even though I have plenty of population."

"Tourism is broken."

"Emergency services are slow/unresponsive/broken."


The agent system that is used for utilities (power, water, sewage) seems to be identical to the system that handles traffic.

The problem is that, just as power can sometimes take a ridiculously long time to fill the entire map (because the "power agents" just randomly move about with no sense) traffic and workers can do the same thing. Workers leave their homes as "people agents." These agents go to the nearest open job, not caring at all where they worked yesterday. They fill the job, and the next worker goes to the next building and fills that job, and so it goes until all the jobs are "filled." So, when you have all your "worker" sims leaving their houses for work in the morning, they all cluster together like some kind of "tourist pack" until they have all been sucked into "jobs." They don't seem to care if the job is Commercial or Industrial, only that it's a job.

"Scholars" are handled exactly the same way. As are school busses and mass-transit agents. This is why you see the "trains" of busses roaming through your city, and why entire sections of town may never see a school bus, despite having plenty of stops... Once all the busses are full, they return to school and stay there until school is done for the day.

Now, here is where it gets really good... In the evening, when work and school lets out, they all leave and proceed to the absolute closest "open" house. They don't "own" their houses. The "people" you see are actually just mindless agents (much like the utilities agents, as I said earlier) making the whole idea of "being able to follow a 'Sim' through their entire day" utterly POINTLESS!!"

The reason traffic problems cause so many other side-effects, is because EVERYTHING relies on those "people" who are stuck in herds trying to go to whatever closest "slot" they can fill. Casinos go bust because "tourists" are just "shopper agents" from out of town. You MUST put casinos RIGHT next to the entrance to your city if you want them to succeed. Placing street-car stops by the casinos can actually cause more harm than good! Why? Because the "shoppers" will board the streetcar stop (because it's the closest open slot) and be shuttled to a shopping district instead.

Sharing resources and services gets to be a joke, because all the vehicles ("agents") get bound up with the busses at the entrances to cities.

TL;DR: Fixing the way the game handles traffic and "sims" will fix 90% of the problems plaguing players!

[muy_thaiguy]

Replaying Dragon Age Origins, good game, but the lack of a voice for the MC and clunky/dated battle animations drag it down for me.

[xeno]

Replaying Dragon Age Origins, good game, but the lack of a voice for the MC and clunky/dated battle animations drag it down for me.

The mc doesn't need a voice for an rpg but dragon age sequels ruined the whole series for me.

Just get heroes of order and chaos if you can play MOBAs well make a cc guild

[AndyDufresne]

Not quite yet playing, but I backed Planetary Annihilation on Kickstarter last year, and the game may be released as early as this Summer. It isn't the type of game I usually play or get interested in, but I thought I'd give it a stab since, I love robots. I was just rewatching the trailer, and it just made me look forward to playing the game.




--Andy

[rishaed]

Replaying Dragon Age Origins, good game, but the lack of a voice for the MC and clunky/dated battle animations drag it down for me.

The mc doesn't need a voice for an rpg but dragon age sequels ruined the whole series for me.

Just get heroes of order and chaos if you can play MOBAs well make a cc guild

Hope your not talking about Awakening. . . The expansion pack IMO wasn't all that bad, in fact I liked the fact that if you could find all the materials you could craft some awesome weaponry at the keep.

[Lootifer]

Just rocked out some fun sessions of LFD2 addon Helms deep reloaded.

I am terrible at that game, but man its good fun.

[muy_thaiguy]

Replaying Dragon Age Origins, good game, but the lack of a voice for the MC and clunky/dated battle animations drag it down for me.

The mc doesn't need a voice for an rpg but dragon age sequels ruined the whole series for me.

Just get heroes of order and chaos if you can play MOBAs well make a cc guild

Hope your not talking about Awakening. . . The expansion pack IMO wasn't all that bad, in fact I liked the fact that if you could find all the materials you could craft some awesome weaponry at the keep.

He's talking about Dragon Age 2. I actually liked the combat that didn't feel so clunky, and the fact the MC had a voice. The sarcastic voice was awesome, but I'll agree some lines were head scratchers. But yeah, Awakening was pretty good and in-depth.

Also, to rishaed, DA2 was not "bad", it just wasn't as good as it could have been. Like the seperate archs. Each one by itself, would have made for a pretty good game (like fighting off an invading army of Qunari and the subsequent campaigns). Just that the overall game arc was rather disjointed (though the DLC did add some nice backstory and missions) and not very smooth.

That's why I hope DA3 will have the story level and overall character depth of DAO, but a voiced MC with combat that actually looks like combat, not rock'em sock'em robots.

[AslanTheKing]

maniac mansion 2

great game

[maxfaraday]

maniac mansion 2

great game

You mean DOTT? Yes great game.

[AndyDufresne]

I hope they fix Sim City soon, have been looking forward to purchasing it. Not having an offline move is such a dumb move imho.

Based on all the articles and reviews I've read about it, I don't think an offline mode is in EA's idea of worthwhile. Which is disappointing.


--Andy

And the verdict from EA's Blog: Single player version of Sim City rejected, evidently

So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision. We did not focus on the “single city in isolation” that we have delivered in past SimCities. We recognize that there are fans – people who love the original SimCity – who want that. But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality. The SimCity we delivered captures the magic of its heritage but catches up with ever-improving technology.

I like how they mention "thousands" of people who love the always connected. Instead of the hundreds of thousands, if not a million that seem to not care for it.

It seems some people have found editing the source code of your game can allow you to play offline. But right now you can't save locally to your machine. Cinemablend.


--Andy