Unified Vidya Games thread

[Freeky]

hell yeah, fuck em up!

[Cain]

I wouldn't mind this character becoming Empress. That's a very long way off, if it'll ever happen, so in the meantime I have more reasonable goals in mind. The first is the captain rank. Because a) sounds cool and b) it'll allow me to buy catapults for decorating my houses with, which is important when one owns several fortress looking buildings. After that, it will be going for Major, for the trebuchet.

From there on in, it's a long grind to Legate, with the only notable ranks being Centurion (for the symbol), Prefect (for the ability to purchase Forward Camp furnishings) and then at long last Legate, which allows for getting the Legate Black dye, one of the best black dyes in the game. Legate rank requires 30 million AP, which could be enough for getting to Empress, if I switch to a less populated server and manage to capture the ring of fort surrounding the Imperial City while there.

Doing so would unlock the Empress title (until she is deposed, in which case it will be Former Empress), a special costume, a special dye and the ability to buy a replica of the Ruby Throne. Then I can retire that character to the Linchal Grand Estate as some vicious, Interregnum-era warlord.

[Cainad (dec.)]

So I have basically been out-of-my-mind obsessed with the Pathologic series by Ice-Pick Lodge. I picked up the original game on Steam for like $1.29, about a month before HBomerguy's video came out.

Imagine my feelings when I got SUPER hooked on the much-improved sequel, Pathologic 2, in the glorious year 2020.

The games are very Russian, and center around twelve disastrous days in a village in the remote Steppe (easily understood as Russian though not explicitly stated, and the time period is likewise vague). There are three healers, a Bachelor of Medicine, a Haruspex, and a strange faith-healer girl, who all arrive on the first day in one way or another. Things are tense from the word go, as two prominent members of the community have died grisly, mysterious deaths. By Day 2, the disease is spreading.

In Pathologic 1, you could pick any of the three healers and experience the twelve days from their perspective. In Pathologic 2, they only were able to complete the Haruspex's campaign, but it's incredibly improved as a game overall.

Loss, failure, the relentless and cruel march of time, senseless and unavoidable death, avoidable deaths that are your fault, and the inability of your mortal body to keep up with the demands of the crisis (hunger, exhaustion, and infection will likely catch you before anyone else does). Rampant death and misery, and eventually a suggestion that perhaps you never had any real choices at all, despite all you've done, good or bad. Fun!



So yeah these games rule, 10/10 on the videosgame scale.

And it's on sale for less than $15 right now. https://store.steampowered.com/app/505230/Pathologic_2/

To convey why this is worth your time, please enjoy these screenshots of a Twitter bot that responds to people with random snippets of game dialogue.

[altered]

Pathologic has been a favorite since the ancient times of 2007 for me. Truly incredible game.

[Cain]

OK, I can stop dicking around in Cyrodiil for a bit:

[chaotic neutral observer]

To convey why this is worth your time, please enjoy these screenshots of a Twitter bot that responds to people with random snippets of game dialogue.

"A free man, if he is truly free, is responsible for everything that happens around him"?

Sold.

I'm currently playing Darkest Dungeon (playing through the DLC, and I still plan on making a Stygian run), but I'll add "Pathologic" to my list.

[Cain]

Well, still not an Emperor or Empress yet, but I have committed regicide finally.

[Cain]

Sometimes I get bored in ESO and stage grisly murder scenes in my houses for those who may be poking around

[Cramulus]

For SOME REASON, I've been replaying skyrim again.

your bedroom reminds me of my archmage quarters.

My archmage would like to be a Sorceror King, and believes that knowledge should be for wizards only. So I steal every book I can find. I dump it into a huge pile on the floor of the archmage's quarters. And the pile is also sprinkled with burning torches so it looks like it's on fire.

FUCK YER BOOKS

[chaotic neutral observer]

The Darkest Dungeon taught me to burn scrolls immediately, and to avoid books altogether.  Knowledge brings horror.

I finally finished my Stygian playthrough, although...I may have force-quit the game a couple times to reset an encounter that was clearly going badly.  So I guess it doesn't really count.

[Cain]

My archmage would like to be a Sorceror King, and believes that knowledge should be for wizards only. So I steal every book I can find. I dump it into a huge pile on the floor of the archmage's quarters. And the pile is also sprinkled with burning torches so it looks like it's on fire.

FUCK YER BOOKS

I actually do have a giant pile of books I could set on fire...give me a moment...



Housing is the true endgame in ESO. With enough in-game money and crafting resources, you can build pretty much almost anything. Military forts, bath houses, taverns and tea rooms, museums, outlaw hideouts...

[Faust]

Started blasphemous, very Catholic, lot of fun

[Cramulus]

Started blasphemous, very Catholic, lot of fun

I LOVE the art in that game

I ended up putting it down for a few weeks and then when I came back, I was lost -- but I think I'm over 75% through

definitely enjoyable if you like that style of game

and the setting they slowly reveal... it's *chef kiss*

[altered]

Playing through the last Control DLC.

There is now an ability upgrade to Launch.

Multi Launch.

Also, there’s a mod that turns Charge into a hitscan explosive.

And SHUM, which you should spend more time with than you want to.

Also, SURGE.

Story is eh, new puzzle mechanics are good but old hat, and the architecture is just Containment Sector meets Maintenance. There is one genuine moment of unquestionable weirdness gone well beyond even what the main game had. But ... the real stars are on the sidelines.

[altered]

Beat it.



———Spoilers follow.———



That sucked, actually.

I feel like they sort of took a dump on a really good story and worldbuilding. Alan Wake fit inside of Control, I am not down with Control being inside of Alan Wake instead.

Jesse’s story is unfinished, the FBC is still on lockdown, the whole plot of Foundation is untouched, the only returning character other than Wake is Langston, who does nothing except tell you the obvious and ramble about his cat. In fact, the cat rant will play multiple times. In fact, that sort of low quality jank is everywhere in AWE.

The new mechanics are Alan Wake mechanics. They fit, but it’s literally just a less interesting version of the TV fight in the pit in Foundation... and is never used in combat. Indeed, if you try and drag the player-controllable lights into the only fights with a Taken enemy, they fucking pop.

And those fights are scripted puzzle-boss encounters against the same fucking thing over and over, and you fight the fucker like ten times.

It’s Emil Hartman. From Alan Wake. Except he looks like a Resident Evil enemy, from the BAD games (like 5 and 6), and even less creative.

Oh yeah. That’s the only Taken enemy. All the other enemies are Hiss. All of them. And the only new Hiss type is, I kid you not, Rangers except they fly like they’re wearing jet packs (which totally destroys the nightmarish freefalling/tumbling nature of the Hiss Elevated, which they’re supposed to be a variant of...).

There’s a ton of hidden secrets compared to the main game, apparently, but I don’t really care? The plot sucked. The areas were literally Containment Turntable meets Maintenance vents and Research offices. The shifted areas were subpar, with exactly one good set piece that they waste on the very start. The Altered Item you cleanse is the world’s dullest puzzle, it’s on par with the Hideo Kojima mission on PS4, except that’s more engaging.

Hartman was a fun fight the first time, and the second time... and then I wanted to never see him again.

And then he’s the end boss.

And there he’s a piece of shit dumbass with functional invulnerability unless you have infinite energy, absurd damage (charge with three max damage did fuck all and launch was not hitting hard either) and/or extremely good fortune. And then a laser beam Distorted joins the fight.

I admit: I turned on Invulnerability and rapid energy regeneration. Because that fight was so tedious and unfun that I didn’t CARE. It wasn’t even challenging like Tommasi round 2, it was just BAD.

And the arena was another AWE room like the other two in the sector, except with a third of the arena taken up by a very bad wooden mockup of some buildings that didn’t even correspond to anything from Alan Wake! For the Bright Falls AWE containment zone!

And for all of this, what do we get! “YOU DID IT DIRECTOR” “Oh I know I did Langston” “Uh oh the Bright Falls AWE is acting up again!!!!” “Oh no” “We got an agent in Bright Falls don’t worry” aaaand done.

It was a two-to-five hour playable trailer for a new Alan Wake game that shat all over Control’s lore and worldbuilding by making Jesse, the FBC, Polaris AND THE HISS all created by Alan Wake to help him escape. Thomas Zane shows up as an actual clone of Alan Wake, who (I must add) looks like Jim Raynor in Starcraft 2 rather than, uhh, Alan Wake. And then they turn Thomas Zane into a filmmaker, not a poet.

I never actually liked Alan Wake that much, let me just say. But they don’t even respect the Alan Wake lore.

Alan Wake is being given the power of a deity, when they could have left him as an interesting and important part of the much broader world that Control is painting.

Instead... we got AWE.



———Spoilers end.———



I’m not happy with it. It actually actively degraded my enjoyment of the main game and The Foundation. I threw my brain at Nioh for a while thereafter: if I’m going to be abused by a video game, I want it to be on my terms.

If you can avoid AWE, avoid it. If you can’t avoid it without avoiding the game itself... it’s still one of the best games I’ve ever played, but you’re getting an inferior experience.