I've just started Cryostasis - a sort of Polar themed indie shooter with an intense environmental setting. Only about an hour in and the action has beed fairly limited as the game sort of teaches you how to play through the early stages. An interesting mechanic is that you are asked to act out the fates of perished crew members of the icebound ship you have discovered, to advance the story, in dream-like sequences striving to bring closure to their unreconciled demise. To regain lost strength you look for warm objects like light bulbs, flares or fires to warm your hands with. So far a quite dark game... in keeping for the dark week we just went through, or in the case of a million others, still enduring. 

Please tell us if it is any good. I've had the game for a while now (got it in a collection), but have not installed it yet. Still, it looks interesting.

Oh, and I did it!

Deus Ex: HR beaten, on the highest difficulty, no alarms raised and no enemies killed!

Originally Posted By Fnord (6 NOV 2012 8:29am)

 

Oh, and I did it!

Deus Ex: HR beaten, on the highest difficulty, no alarms raised and no enemies killed!

Respect,! That idea usually fails in Shangai when i try that, in EASY mode.

But ofcourse i'm like a bull in a china shop when it comes to stealth

Originally Posted By markornikov (6 NOV 2012 8:54am)

Respect,! That idea usually fails in Shangai when i try that, in EASY mode.

But ofcourse i'm like a bull in a china shop when it comes to stealth

It actually gets easier once your halfway through Shanghai (first time), as you, if you always do melee take-downs will get enough exp to have all the important augmentations by that point (which feels like a bit of a flaw with the game itself, once you have all (useful) hacking augmentations, and the social augmentation, you'll simply not have a whole lot of other things to spend your points on). And I don't know if it actually is any harder to do a stealth playthrough on the highest difficulties, it did not seem like there were any more enemies, but they did deal a whole lot more damage, something that only mattered against bosses (but not really, as the stun-gun was kinda overpowered against them).

Oh, and I also did this one:

Spoilery bits hidden, but it was a pain to do in a no-kills playthrough. 

Just tried playing one of our newest games last night.

Painkiller: Hell and Damnation. Not quite sure how it fits into JA but I'm not complaining much. highly reminiscent of old shooters like Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, and Turok. Your hero, Daniel, is dead. He now wanders purgatory searching for his wife Catherine. Both Heaven and Hell lied to him promising to rejoin the two if he helped them in various ways. It starts in a cemetary with Daniel's head in his hands. Death appears and offers him the chance to reunite with his loved one for the low low price of "Seven Legions of souls." Daniel reluctantly agrees (what else is there to do?) and the game begins. From what little bit I played this game is unforgiving. If you don't know what you're doing you WILL get slaughtered right out of the gate and the difficulty just keeps ramping up (not that I'm complaining.) With how many Skeleton warriors, demons, and banshees are rushing you seven thousand souls seems like it's going to be a breeze but the side objectives and hidden areas should keep me preoccupied.

I think that pretty much explained my opinion, I'm enjoying this one. The weapons are different except, of course, the shotgun one of your two starting weapons (the other is some sort of thing that fires bansaws and sucks souls out of enemies) but even it's secondary fire is different from most in that it fires a load of buckshot that, when it makes contact, freezes enemies in place. By far though the sound and visuals in this game are my favorite. Starting in a graveyard isnt too off for a horror game, but the look is certainly eerie and watching massive monsters and demons wander around outside the fence is awesome. The music is about what you'd expect, heavy metal, but that is only during combat. Outside of combat is only the wind and the restless souls of the dead. Cries for help, screams of pain, sobs of fear and sadness fill your ears as well as The otherworldly guttural growls and bestial roars of demons and other unspeakable horrors either attempting to scale the walls or just begging for you to find that exit and join them.

If you're a fan of FPS games or even just a decent horror game this one is certainly a good choice, be warned though the requirements are certainly high. I'm playing on a lower-middle end computer and it can handle low settings without the framerate dropping a lot.

gosh, you've got to be really fast get that achievment without killing anyone 

...

I'm playing Far Cry 2 a bit, this is going to be a long November until FC3 comes out

Originally Posted By Support (6 NOV 2012 10:16am)

Just tried playing one of our newest games last night.

 

Painkiller: Hell and Damnation.

Yea, that is almost the polar opposite of an adventure game

Originally Posted By markornikov (6 NOV 2012 4:46pm)

gosh, you've got to be really fast get that achievment without killing anyone 

 

You still have some ranged weapons (I used both the Stun Gun & P.E.P.S), the biggest problem was the big robot that exploded upon death, so I had to reload twice because it killed the two heavies after I had thrown an EMP grenade at it. 

The graphics in ACIII are so detailed, cats don't see the difference between fictional and real cats 

http://kotaku.com/5958423/watch-assassins-creed-iii-confuse-the-hell-out-of-a-cat

Originally Posted By Fnord (6 NOV 2012 8:29am)

Deus Ex: HR beaten, on the highest difficulty, no alarms raised and no enemies killed!

Just to be clear, that doesn't apply to the intro? No way I can see getting past the enemies so I have to shoot through. I was very concerned starting out thinking something was wrong with my game, i.e., no UI, no inventory even though it would allow me to pick up a gun or two....

Originally Posted By CB (7 NOV 2012 3:15pm)

Originally Posted By Fnord (6 NOV 2012 8:29am)

Deus Ex: HR beaten, on the highest difficulty, no alarms raised and no enemies killed!

 

Just to be clear, that doesn't apply to the intro? No way I can see getting past the enemies so I have to shoot through. I was very concerned starting out thinking something was wrong with my game, i.e., no UI, no inventory even though it would allow me to pick up a gun or two....

 

It applies to the intro as well, though there is no alarm to worry about there, so you just need to be good at avoiding the enemies. 

It also applies to enemies during boss encounters that are not the boss itself. 

Originally Posted By markornikov (7 NOV 2012 8:00am)

The graphics in ACIII are so detailed, cats don't see the difference between fictional and real cats 

 

http://kotaku.com/5958423/watch-assassins-creed-iii-confuse-the-hell-out-of-a-cat

That video has become a meme among my friends! (I posted it earlier today where they could see it, and now people won't stop telling jokes that can in some way be related to that video)

Puddle A Physx Puzzle game, where you have to guide fluid through contraptions and traps.

Gameplay is simple, it just involves tilting the screen left or right, to control the flow.

Sounds easy, but later levels are really hard. Still loads of fun guaranteed.

I'm playing Overlord with the Raising Hell expansion. It is actually quite fun, though I am a bit disappointed by the fact that the game forces you to not be evil at many points. You are supposed to be an evil overlord after all. 

Originally Posted By Fnord (14 NOV 2012 8:25am)

I'm playing Overlord with the Raising Hell expansion. It is actually quite fun, though I am a bit disappointed by the fact that the game forces you to not be evil at many points. You are supposed to be an evil overlord after all. 

Ah yes, that game to this day is one of my favorites. I think it was my first Xbox 360 game... Anyways there is a lot of choice in that game, and Gnarl reveals later Spoiler AlertYou are one of the heroes. this is why you had to do some nicer things. A lot of fun, some good strategy, and lots of useful hidden stuff. Yeah that was definitely a fun game, the sequel too 

After abandoning the Testamament of Sherlock, I discovered Dishonored.  Love it.  I starting playing it, then was interrupted by a week of no power due to hurricane Sandy. Very frustrating. Now  I'm back and it is fabulous.  One of those games that offers multiple soluitions, so you can re-play it many times and it feels like a new game.  

Yes, you can be violent...or not.  There are non-violent (meaning, not killing anyone, but you do knock them out so they snore) ways to get through each mission and accomplish each goal....and they are challenging.  Great game. If you're interested, check out ChristopherOdd's playthrough on YouTube...spoilers of course.

Hope you're all doing well. 

H

Originally Posted By Support (14 NOV 2012 10:58am)

 

Ah yes, that game to this day is one of my favorites. I think it was my first Xbox 360 game... Anyways there is a lot of choice in that game, and Gnarl reveals later Spoiler AlertYou are one of the heroes. this is why you had to do some nicer things. A lot of fun, some good strategy, and lots of useful hidden stuff. Yeah that was definitely a fun game, the sequel too 

I beat the game, and aye, after the big reveal, it made some sense.

I still often picked the senseless evil option whenever I could, because, well, I could. (For those who have not played the game, the "evil" options are often along the line of how evil is portrayed in Dungeon Keeper, i.e. somewhat silly).

 I did not beat all of Raising Hell though, those levels were not as fun as the core game. 

I'm not heading straight into Overlord 2, too much of a good thing and all that

Cannon Strike: Pointless game. It was just bland and boring, failing both as an action game and a tactical game.

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space: I don't feel that making the sequel a longer game was such a good idea. Part one in the series (Strange Adventures in Infinite Space) was a nice little coffee break game, but now you can't fit it into a coffee break anymore. Still, they made quite a few improvements to the formula, and overall it was quite fun. A bit like the recent FTL, only stranger (and a bit shorter and less punishing)

Pushcat: A fun mix between Boulderdash & Bejeweled (it makes a lot more sense when you play it). Overall quite good, though not what I'm after right now.

Zombies.: Seem to live and die on if you find the premise of "office zombies"=real zombies to be funny. The part that I played was just too simplistic to be fun, as enemies would just run straight towards you, and if you hit them with a melee attack, they would be pushed back. So unless surrounded there was really no way for the zombies to beat you, as long as you move ahead slowly. 

Reprisal: A nice homage to Populous. Seem to have a bit more direction to its gameplay, and they removed some of the slightly abusive strategies that could be used in Populous, so I give this one a big thumbs up. 

I've been currently playing The God of War Hd collection

Completed the 1st now working my way through the 2nd.

Thought my image was appropiate.

Been playing Starcraft 2 lately. for any other RTS players out there i gotta ask. Did they ramp DOWN the difficulty??? I am utterly confused because I'm playing this on Hard and Brutal and breezing through it, earning all 3 achievements for each mission on Hard. I can remember playing sc1 and being terrified to take it off of easy...

Other than that though I do really enjoy the mission selection it isn't linear necessarily and you earn money from each mission to permanently upgrade your forces. Increasing bunkers from 4 troops to 6 with an added auto mg on top then adding almost double HP with reinforced structure makes even two bunkers a serious defensive threat for example. You essentially turned 2 basic bunkers into 6 or more with almost no effort and little building space.

I haven't finished this one yet but I'm enjoying personalizing my squad to my liking and hopefully it will carry me to the end.

The impression I got from playing the SC2 campaign was that the quest were a lot "nicer" to the player. They were not designed to beat you, just make it feel like you had the chance to lose. 

I bought FC3 on pre-order and got the original Far Cry for free.

Far Cry 2 is one of my favourite games, but alas the original didn't age well and it's a boring game.

Graphics are acceptable for it's age, but gameplay is just terrible. It plays like any other random first person shooter.

Terribly linear and way too hard right from the start. It also doesn't help that enemies can shoot you through walls, but you can't shoot back .

Let's just pretend i never played this game and hope FC3 is even betten than the second game. From what i've seen it looks like a spectacular open world game.

Originally Posted By markornikov (20 NOV 2012 3:11pm)

I bought FC3 on pre-order and got the original Far Cry for free.

Far Cry 2 is one of my favourite games, but alas the original didn't age well and it's a boring game.

 

Graphics are acceptable for it's age, but gameplay is just terrible. It plays like any other random first person shooter.

Terribly linear and way too hard right from the start. It also doesn't help that enemies can shoot you through walls, but you can't shoot back .

 

Let's just pretend i never played this game and hope FC3 is even betten than the second game. From what i've seen it looks like a spectacular open world game.

Far Cry gets better once you get past the first bit. The game world opens up a lot more, and it allows for plenty of different approaches to the game's problems. Also, the game has a surprisingly complex physics engine. 

Then it gets worse again. I hate the enemies that are introduced later on. Never actually finished the game. 

I had the exact opposite expeirence.

I LOVED far cry 1, hated far cry 2 (it wasn't relaly that much alike). FC2 was so linear in terms of missions and how you do them, driving was boring and the whole repair /shooting at you everywhere you go got boring fast.

Far Cry 3 is looking good though and seem sto be going more toward FC1, at least in terms of setting and openess.

hmmm, maybe i shouldn't compare both games too much, and give it another try

...

Currently i'm enjoying an old favourite of mine Microsoft's Pandora's Box ,  one of the better puzzle games ever made.

I wish they'd make a puzzle game similar to this one. Puzlle games are either logical or just regular jigsaw puzzles.

Here's some reviews for FC3, looking very good:

http://www.gametrailers.com/reviews/dyxtjr/far-cry-3-review

Originally Posted By Support (19 NOV 2012 1:21pm)

Been playing Starcraft 2 lately. for any other RTS players out there i gotta ask. Did they ramp DOWN the difficulty??? I am utterly confused because I'm playing this on Hard and Brutal and breezing through it, earning all 3 achievements for each mission on Hard. I can remember playing sc1 and being terrified to take it off of easy...

 

Other than that though I do really enjoy the mission selection it isn't linear necessarily and you earn money from each mission to permanently upgrade your forces. Increasing bunkers from 4 troops to 6 with an added auto mg on top then adding almost double HP with reinforced structure makes even two bunkers a serious defensive threat for example. You essentially turned 2 basic bunkers into 6 or more with almost no effort and little building space.

 

I haven't finished this one yet but I'm enjoying personalizing my squad to my liking and hopefully it will carry me to the end.

Support, i've just bought Heroes of Annihilated Empires from GOG- used to love the game but it wouldn't work in 7 before GOG fixed it up. As soon as I've satisfied my HOAE itch, i'm going to load on SC2, which i got quite a time ago, and kept forgetting to play it bc i was always busy with something else.

I have a thread going here somewhere for us strategy nerds--if there's someone out there also interested in strategy, maybe i should search for it and revive it...

Originally Posted By markornikov (21 NOV 2012 6:53am)

hmmm, maybe i shouldn't compare both games too much, and give it another try

 

...

 

Currently i'm enjoying an old favourite of mine Microsoft's Pandora's Box ,  one of the better puzzle games ever made.

I wish they'd make a puzzle game similar to this one. Puzlle games are either logical or just regular jigsaw puzzles.

Yeah, PB is fun. 

Maybe i shld try FC2.  Have it somewhere, i think.  But promised someone i'd play the latest Deus Ex this December. Finally have a bit of time for gaming again.  Been back to Skyrim, and cruising along with MQ for a change, bc i'm quite eager to test out expansions but want to finish MQ first.  Seems to be throwing interesting light on the civil war, btw-- i just could never choose, but maybe i'll now go with the rebels after all.  Much as i love the empire.