Sly's St(r)eam Tombola Thread: DOOM 2016

[Sly Reflex]

I'm off back into space with Gratuitous Space Battles next. Will it be good? Will it be shit? Does anyone even care?

[illdog]

No!

Thats a lie, but that game sounds shit. But book/cover and that.

[Sly Reflex]

Ha! I've put 20 minutes into it so far and it won't make it through the weekend.

I thought this was going to be a twin stick high score shoot 'em up similar to Geometry Wars. It's fuck all like that, you basically have to set up a strategy using funds to set up a fleet. Then you click fight and the ships automatically dog fight in a 2D representation. I think the closest I can come to comparing it with anything would be a football manager game in that once you've decided to play a formation with certain players, then that's all the input you're going to get.

It's not really my kind of thing, I bet board game players would get some fun out of it, or maybe people that are into mega strategy games. There's too much planning and not enough playing for my liking.

[DANGERMAN]

I remember Cyberpunk mentioning it on a podcast years ago, in fact I don't even think he was on the podcast, I think it was just a post we read out

[Sly Reflex]

It wouldn't surprise me if it was a phone game, the set up is all one click menus and dragging ships into place, so it'd work well on those platforms.

You have different size of ship which can do different jobs. I've only had control of 3, there's the standard big cunt that has loads of shields, health and can do loads of damage. Next up is a smaller quicker ship which is cheaper to man and buy but is also weaker than the big cunt. However, the mid ship can shoot down the smallest lot of ships. The smallest lot of ships are cheap and brittle as fuck, but they can shoot incoming missiles and other little cunts to bits. I've seen other ships on the enemy sied do other stuff, but it's not that important. I'll probably play this until all the cards have drops and then fuck it off for something hopefully better.

EDIT: After 20 minutes of playing I now outrank Cyberpunk, according to raptr. He must have played it really indepth, then.

[Sly Reflex]

This is really short, I've only 3 more missions to do and then that's it completed.

[Sly Reflex]

So, that was over quickly...

There's a fuck load of DLC that came with this game, Not gonna play it because I don't really like the game. Still it was a quick one to get off the list. The ship building stuff was quite nice, I reckon that's where the fun comes in making your own ships that use better parts or are specialised in a job. Fuck that though, I seriously cannot be bothered tinkering with that shit, someone has probably worked out all the best ship designs anyway, I am sure that there'll be some smart arse who has put them up somewhere on the internet.

Next up is Gish.

[Sly Reflex]

I remember why I stopped playing Gish the first time, mainly because the controls are pretty bad and the way you deal with enemies is inconsistent. It's so close to being a game that's playable though, it's kind of frustrating that the areas it falls down in are the most important ones as a game. Really all it needs is a proper jump without having to bounce numerous times before achieving the height you normally need and a decent way to attack that hits every single time.

Gish is getting fucked off, parts of it are like trying to thread a needle while a rampant dog is trying to shag your leg.

I just pulled another game. It is Risen 2, except I have Risen so it'd probably be an idea to play the first game rather than the sequel. I actually have no idea what Risen is about, I think maybe it's a survival horror or something. Anyone played it?

[radiofloyd]

You trollin'? Risen is an open world rpg series from the developers of Gothic. I think Bob has played it.

Risen 3 is actually due out in August. Sacred 3 and Tropico 5 are also coming out this year. All your favourite games are getting sequels.

[Sly Reflex]

Nope, I didn't know what Risen was. I have no idea what half the games in my steam library are. That's compulsive purchasing and humble bundles for you!

If Sacred 3 is anything like Sacred 2 it'll be 3 times the size of our universe and half the skills will be broken. I'll still probably milk the tits clean off it though. Sacred 2 was one of the best broken games I've ever played.

[Craymen Edge]

I just pulled another game. It is Risen 2, except I have Risen so it'd probably be an idea to play the first game rather than the sequel. I actually have no idea what Risen is about, I think maybe it's a survival horror or something. Anyone played it?

Not played it, but it's a super european RPG (German, I think). So, interesting and deep, but technically iffy.

[Sly Reflex]

I just looked at HLTB and it's more than 20 hours. I'm probably not going to see the end of it before I want to move on, unless it's super awesome and I want to continue. It's going to have to be really good to have that happen, I thought Tropico 4 was great but didn't feel the need to carry on with it to completion.

[Sly Reflex]

Risen is really fucking hard. I'm actually having more trouble with it than I did with Dark Souls, the combat is sort of similar in that everything in the game so far can kill you in about 2 or 3 hits. Harsh man. Harsh.

I might have to look at a guide because I have no idea what's going on, the game just expects you to understand what does what.

[Sly Reflex]

When playing Risen you will...

Be killed be emu's in a handful of hits.

Be killed by spike rats in a few hits, normally in less because they roam in packs.

Be killed by wolves, again in a few hits. These roam in packs.

Be killed by boars in a few hits, these fuckers also run in packs.

Be killed by moths. In a few hits. These cunts also run in packs of over 3. The most I've seen is a mass of about 10 of the fuckers.

Be killed by swamp dudes in a few hits. These don't come in packs, but then again they don't need to since they have 5 times as much HP as the animals you end up fighting. You can steal their weapons when you kill them, for some reason they managed to beat upwards of 80 points of health off with each hit with a bent twig which only allows you to hit them for seemingly 1hp a pop.

Be killed by an NPC if you accidently clip them during battle. NPC's just join a fight if they are in proximity so normally if you accidentally nudge one who is fighting something you kited back to town, they are going to kick fuck out of you. To add to the pain of them giving you a shoeing, sometimes instead of killing you they beat you down and steal some gold from you. Nowt like rubbing it in.

Get lost as to what the quests actually are because there's no quest markers. Luis the drunk wants me to bring him a beer. I have all sorts of alcohol in my inventory that isn't beer. He doesn't want this alcohol. He wants his beer. Where is this beer? I'll be fucked if I know. I've looked in all the traders and cannot see beer.

I think that's a problem with this game. There's hand holding and then there's abandoning the player. My task as I'm posting this is to find shards of a broken sword so I can meet a guy called The Don. I found one piece randomly as I was playing in one of the chests before I knew I was looking for it. I know one of the NPC's has a piece, but he won't give me it at all. I suspect Luis has a piece, but since I can't get him beer I won't be seeing that. The other pieces are scotch mist, I've no idea where they are even after talking to every cunt in the camp as many times as it takes for them to tell me to piss off or start looping information. All it needs is markers telling me to look in a specific direction, currently it feels like when you are driving about and you are lost so decide to ask for directions, when you pull up you always end up with some cunt that gives you insufficient meandering directions that are neither use nor ornament.

Despite me laying into it, I'm enjoying what I've played, I just wish it told me how to do stuff. I'm not even sure how I'm meant to level up, or at least distribute skill points. I might even have to read the manual for this game, something which I've not had to do since the Amiga 1200 days.

[Sly Reflex]

This fucking game, guys. This fucking game.

I spent ages running around the swamp trying to figure out wtf I was meant to do.I spent ages trying to get Luis to accept grog but couldn't do it, so I decided to hit him out of frustration. Despite him not being able to walk in a straight line, he got up the instant my blade connected with him and stright out one hit killed me launching my body about 10 foot away from where the fight started. The drunken prick.

So I'm walking around this camp talking to everyone and I find out how to level up. When you level up you get given points. Talking to trainers allow you to trade in these points with a sum of gold to buff that stat. Convoluted? You don't even know half of it.

So I decide to buff my strength. You can buy a +1 or a +5, the +5 works out cheaper in the long run so I went for that. A quest I started last night with a guy called Lorenzo wanted me and him to go to a local cave to clear it out and go 50/50 on the spoils. I follow him to the location and he attempts to mug me, so I have to chip away with my foam sword against his mile long hp bar. I managed to KO the shithead and take his belonging.

I then noticed that the guy I levelled up at had a way for me to earn money by fighting the people in the camp in what they dubbed "The Arena". I had to pay to start a fight with 3 guys, but only had enough to fight the lowest guy. So I bashed that dickhead around and robbed him while he was on the floor (he'd have done the same to me!), went back the the fight man and claimed my winnings. The next one I could afford to fight was Lorenzo. Guess what? I put the bet on, went to Lorenzo to get him to go to the ring (for some reason you have to talk to everyone to get them to go to mission places) and he wouldn't fight me again because I'd beat him before running to his shack and laying down. When I followed him to try and get him to fight because I needed the money to fight the top fighter in the bandit gang I noticed that there was tankard labelled "beer" on the shelf.

I have a look around the 4 shacks and there's 1 beer in each cobbled together hovel. Great, I can get those and give them to Luis so I can get whatever missions he's blocking me out of. Now as soon as you walk 2 footsteps into someones house the whole fucking village goes into lockdown, doesn't matter if they can see you or not, obviously these bandits have the 3rd eye open when it comes to people trespassing on their property. So I run into one of the buildings and snatch the beer. Then I snatch another. I think that will be enough, so I go to Luis and give him a beer. 1 beer = 1 question answered. I see that he knows about the golden sword fucking thing I'm meant to be collecting, he tells me the names of the people who have a piece of which one is himself. I try to trade for the sword piece but he says he wants 2 beers for it. Twat. So I walk back to the camp and look for another beer I can steal easily. I find one, I now have 2 beers, enough to buy the sword part. I go to Luis all smug like he's gonna hand over that sword fragment. Then when I start to talk to him, I need to give him a beer to open up the speech tree to get him to give me the option to get him 2 beers for the sword part. Utter cunt. There's 4 beers in the whole town, one of which I get kicked to death if I even get close to it. Why don't I just sneak in and take the beer? Because I need to pay 100 gold and 5 points so I can learn to sneak. Except I need to spend 100 gold on fighting Domingo so I can get 200 back. Fuck.

So I roll back my save, get the 3 beers, go to pisshead Luis and get the sword shard. I sell whatever bits and bobs I had no use for and set up a fight with Domingo. I tell Domingo to get his arse in the arena and he refuses saying he needs a beer! Absolute fucking cunt of a game! So I roll back a save, buy the sneaking ability and grab the beer without getting gangraped, but now I don't have enough money to start a fight with Domingo, so I go adventuring in the local area killing shit so I can sell the meats and pelts to a trader. I found out I could fight the guy that organised the arena shit so took him for a ride and took his bit of the sword. After a bit of juggling with finances I managed to set up the fight, give him the beer and then chip away at his health bar until I downed him. Of course I robbed him as well, because he was a smack talking like the dirty little bitch he was.

After that I was allowed to fight the so called camp leader. He had a piece of sword, so I mugged the cunt once I'd done giving him the death from 1 billion cuts from my shitty sword. Either he died from that or died from malnutrition from not getting anything to eat for about 2 weeks.

Now I can put the sword together, meet the Don and get some fucking armour. I've spent 5 hours of this game walking around in bare feet because I cannot afford the workers uniform (500 gold) that I've not even sure would give me some protection over the cloth breeches I've got on now.

I see the Don, he tells me I need to go to another place called the harbour. I won't get any provisions. I won't get any heads up of who I am looking for. I'll just have the same sword I found at the start of the game and my shitty shield. Plus I need to bribe some cunt to even get into the harbour, so fuck knows how much that's going to cost. I'm probably going to spend most of my time in Risen a penniless hobo. I'm scared of buying into anything in case I get shafted about like I have in tonights session.

What pisses me off the most is that the game can essentially lock you out of missions if you don't doin them in a very specific way. I just want to do some adventure questing, not work out some fucking mensa inspired puzzles on how I should progress without locking myself out of the game. That's just rubbish.

There's a solid game in here somewhere, but I'm struggling to find it in between me shouting "You fucking cunt!" at all the bullshit it's pulled so far.

[Sly Reflex]

Also, in the cave with all those moths in, I found a shadow monster that had more hp than Ricardo, Craig, Lorenzo, Domingo and Borag put together. I tried backing away from it with my shield up but it ran up to me and did a mana explosion and one hit killed me. What a bastard.

[Sly Reflex]

I think I'm going to go to the harbour and see if this game opens up a bit. If it doesn't I'm going to fuck it off, I'm a bit tired of its bullshit on how it presents quests. Or rather how it doesn't present them.

[illdog]

Lolz and tings. Sounds like you hate it but its compelling all at the same time.

[Sly Reflex]

You have to pay attention to every single little thing the NPC's tell you otherwise you're fucked. The quest markers might as well not be there, in most cases they aren't.

You're right illdog, it is compelling but the way they've handled it makes me resent the parts that aren't sign posted at all. All it needs is that little bit of direction and it'd be totally palatable. It's not as if it's sneaking in the direction like some games do by forcing you to do something so you understand how to deal with situations. It doesn't explain any mechanics at all. For instance, when I started the game I looked at the controls. It said Ctrl to sneak, which is the usual key for doing that sort of thing. Did nothing for me at all. Then 5 hours into the game and I've had to work out that I need to talk to one specific guy cutting a log that I can learn to sneak if I pay him a certain amount of gold and levelling points.

It's just backwards design that makes you fight against the game instead of enjoying it. It reminds me of the times when we used to pirate PS1 games and they'd all be in japanese so we'd have to work out everything trail by error. That was OK then because we were school kids and the only things we had to worry about was getting grades in school and avoid being caught wanking. I've got a million things to do with life now (avoiding being caught wanking is still one of them) and having to pick apart a games mechanics so I can enjoy them when a little assistance would make the game 100% more fun. I seriously hope that Risen 2 resolves the issues I'm having here with Risen because I think that it'd be great with just those things resolved.

[Sly Reflex]

Harbour Town. If you had to guess where Harbour Town was, which way do you think you'd walk if you were in a game? You'd suspect that it'd be quite close to the Bandit Camp Swamp given that at the start of the game you're given the option to go to either of these place. So using this gaming common sense I fought my way through a load of hard mobs to the coast. What was there? FUCK. ALL.

I went back to the start of the game where I met the guy that pointed me towards the Bandit Camp and asked him for directions and he pointed me on towards a landlocked farm. After talking to the folks there, I was escorted to a place that looks like it is landlocked but is actually a harbour.

It looks like this is the sort of game that depending on which way you go first, you get indoctrinated with whomever you want to side with. That's quite interesting that there's two sides to the coin you're playing. However, I'm totally retiring this fucking game. Just the general layout of the game makes me want to do this.

I've put 8 hours into this game now and I feel like I'm getting nowhere. I'm still using the sword I found at the start of the game, I'm still using the shield I bought from the first vendor and I'm still walking around in my linens barefoot because I can't get any armour. What I've achieved so far should have been a first 90 minutes worth, not the running time of most other games. So seriously, fuck it. I'm through with struggling to make progression because of poor design. There's a lot this game has to offer, the art design, music and all British voice overs are really good but they are not enough to hold me into playing it any longer. It's a squandered opportunity if ever I've seen one to make a really good game.

I'll pull another game from the pot when I've calmed down a bit, I don't think I could take it if I pulled something out now and it was going to be a bastard.