1941

Agreed, for 2/3 edition. 4th edition is a different beast and works much better in translation to computer gaming, I think.

1942

I don’t think the problem is with the rules, I think the problem is with every single implementation, besides maybe Temple of Elemental Evil. Baldur’s Gate and the Neverwinter Nights series both suffered from the same issues, lack of transparency in combat. I don’t mean we have to see every dice roll just that it’s difficult to see who is doing what or why. The carefully laid tactical framework is lost in a morass of interrupted or misleading animations and confusing phased turns.

ToEE got it a lot of this right but was a terrible game on its own thanks to the source module and lack of development time, but you can see a brilliant game under there.

I would kill to see a 4e computer game.

1943

1993 was such a great year for so many games mentioned. The ones I put the most time in were:

Wing Commander: Privateer
Elite II: Frontier
Project N.O.M.A.D.

God those were awesome.

1944

Nearly all off what you talk about is handled behind the scenes.

Are you sure you aren’t just disappointed that it isn’t full turn based?

1945

Yes, I don’t mind the idea of a phase based or pausable real time system. What I think bogs everything down is when they fail to show what phase everybody is in. Did my warrior successfully pull off the power strike? Did my wizard manage to debuff the target? These things are too hard to discover.

1946

I find this really interesting. The original NWN left a lot to be desired - plot, mostly - but what it blossomed into was a very stable, highly moddable multiplayer engine. The persistent world scene was small but delightful, and the RPG servers were (at their best) the closest thing I’ve ever found to a drop-in D&D session with a bunch of people who really liked playing D&D (and not just Diablo in D&D form).

(At their worst… well, that’s probably too explicit to describe on this forum.)

NWN2 was a far, far superior single-player game, with a much better plot. But the engine optimisation was terrible, the animations and artwork were of a much worse quality despite the improved graphics, and the multiplayer clunky and unstable. I don’t think it ever came close to the heights of online NWN gaming. And the ending of laughably bad.

I still need to play MoTB; I have heard great things about the story, but I can’t bring myself to play through the original campaign to generate a character (and I feel wrong rolling a new, high level character).

1947

I have NWN2 platinum edition, one of those back log games I should get round to playing

1948

The bad news is the first act of the NWN 2 OC is pretty slow & boring; but the good news is it gets a lot better if you can slog through it to the rest of the game. Plus there are plenty of great mods of NWN 2; Tony_K’s AI mod is a must-have, IMHO.

Trust me: just make a new character for MotB. The plot connections to the OC are minimal; and there’s enough high-level gear etc. in MotB that you don’t really need anything.

1949

Bioshock 2 was a Games for Windows Live title, and definitely had controller support. I haven’t verified gamepad support for the PC version of BI myself, having played the 360 version, but I’d be stunned if it was dropped from the series.

1950

This is false, unless it was added in a (much) later patch. In fact, there was a lot of discussion about the lack of controller support.

1951

Well, now I’m stumped. I thought I specifically recalled using the gamepad for my PC replay, and I also thought that a game could not get GfW certification without gamepad support. Guess I’ll go home and try it.

EDIT: Guess I was assuming too much. 360 Controller support is optional for kb/m titles.

1952

I tried Drakensang River of Time for about 90 minutes just now. This game, is surprisingly good. I like the graphics; in fact I am surprise how good it looked. It gives off the Ultima vibe that I somehow didn’t get from the video of the Richard Garriott Kickstarter Ultima game. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare as the KS game is not final but RoT is nice. I like the combat, watching the characters sparring at each other and I like how the game zoomed in to each character as you chat with them and they looked pleasing enough - yes, Skyrim, Oblivion and Fallout 3 has done this but they are ugly; these guys seemed to have gotten it right.

There are a lot of stuff to get familiar with esp the stats and the char screen, so I think that takes some getting used to and as some have pointed out, there is a manual to read. I’ll get to it but so far, I am pretty happy with my $3 purchase and wish that I hadn’t tried it - how can I go back to DA: Origins? This will be the second attempt at DA:O which I stopped halfway. SIGH!

1953

New Humble Bundle!

Hotline Miami
Proteus
Little Inferno
Awesomenauts
Capsized
Thomas Was Alone
Dear Esther

1954

Cool, I think I’ll get this one. I want to walk around in Proteus and Dear Esther for an hour. Proteus is beat the average, so I doubt I’d save much vs a Steam sale of each. No big deal.

1955

There’s no surprise at all. ;) TRoT is the consequent upgrade on the the first Drakensang. Basically 9.5 of the top 10 community wishes implemented. It’s such a shame the game didn’t sell and the studio imploded.

1956

Drakensang: the River of Time is greatly superior to the first, imho, and well worth a shot even if it has aged a bit. There’s something comforting in its soft, lush, yellowed visuals. The story is more a local affair than boy saves universe, and it smacks of 19th century Americana (think Twain’s river culture). As Tciecka and Murbella intimated, the first Drakensang could probably be skipped unless you’ve “played em all” and are jonesing for a BG style fix.

Edit: Oops, I missed a whole page of responses. Push this one back to the end of the last page. :)

1957

Bump

Couple more EA deals (all Origin):

Syndicate for $4.99
Crysis Maximum & Crysis 2 Maximum for $11.99
Crysis 3 for $29.99

Just noticed this EA bundle for $9.99 (Origin). Includes:
[ul]
[li]Mirror’s Edge[/li]> [li]Mercenaries 2[/li]> [li]Burnout: Paradise Ultimate Box[/li]> [li]The Saboteur[/li]> [li]Bulletstorm[/li]> [/ul]

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is now $9.99 (Steam)

1958

Und now I shall do ze happy Bundle dance.

Proteus and Hotline Miami are beat the average (currently $5.69), and the bundle includes an exclusive Chicken skin for Awesomenauts.

1959

Just an FYI, Brad - that ME3 deal is no longer active.

1960

Any recommendations from these?

Here’s mine, from the games I have:

Hotline Miami - totally not worth it. It’s crap (or I never gave it a fair chance, it could be either one).
Dear Esther - walking speed is too slow for me. I like the idea, but I hate that it takes forever to explore in a game where the only thing you can do is explore.

Games I’ve heard about:

Awesomenauts - I heard Tom Chick repeatedly call this a MOBA on the Qt3 games podcast, and I generally don’t enjoy that genre, so I can safely ignore it, right? Or is this the one MOBA that will turn me around on all MOBAs? (Like Defense Grid turned me around on all tower defense games).