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I tend to find the games that are the most well-written are those that don't have any romance in them, or they're well written apart from the romance bits, because apparently that's just not something games writers can do well. I haven't played much of the Witcher but I played a couple of hours once, banged this chick and was like "aw yeah" but then I got a fuckin pinup card for it? eh. I was cool with it being a thing that just happened, but then they had to make a big event out of it, and like a collector thing like these women are fucking rare butterflies you have to pin with your dick and CATCH THEM ALL. Really?

I really hope the industry improves in the future, if only because most games seem compelled to shoehorn a romance subplot in somewhere and I'd rather that if they did they did it well.

Pretty much the only game I've played for the last two or three weeks has been Animal Crossing: New Leaf and I'm not the least bit ashamed of that.

Been playing Fallout New Vegas for the past five days, and I've got to say that I've noticed that there are quite a lot of women in high places of command AND a lot of just plain badass warriors too.

Nice guy Origin had Dead Space 2 for $9, Steam had it for $33.

Bought NV in steam sale, haven't played it yet. Was playing FO3 for a while and I haven't played it in ages, it's fun. Still looks great.

From the hour I've played so far, Shadowrun Returns is fuuuuun. Basically the combat system from the old fallout games but improved, which is kind of all i want.

monkeydancer wrote:From the hour I've played so far, Shadowrun Returns is fuuuuun. Basically the combat system from the old fallout games but improved, which is kind of all i want.

Agreed. About an hour in as well, it feels a wee bit rough and interacting with the world outside of combat feels a tiny bit detached (this is, as you'd expect, totally for lack of a better word), but on the whole, it's exactly what I was hoping for (rain-slick cyberpunk aesthetic and well-executed/implemented turn-based RPG combat). Love the fact that user-generated content is already available, too. If the game gets even half the amount of user-generated content that the NWN games got then I'll be a happy, happy RPG gamer.

I'll be downloading it tonight or tomorrow. I'm liking the amount of Sci-Fi games in the fast few years and it's even nicer seeing Classic, almost cult-like titles and come back. Sharowrun, Cyberpunk 2077, etc.

But yeah, I'm pumped.

So uh, yeah. I guess I played it for 6 straight hours. So it's like, pretty good. I've found the gameplay outside combat to be a little dull (you're really led through everything) but the dialogue is mostly good and the story becomes very compelling. And the combat is just great, loving that side of it (which is probably 80% of the game so that's nice).

I'm really pumped about user generated content too, from what I've read I should be about halfway done with the main campaign, but I'm prepared to spend a LOT of time playing this game because I love the combat and think it has huge potential with a big community. I'm going to check out the editor myself too after I finish the campaign (probably tomorrow lol), although I'm normally terrible at that stuff so I doubt I'll get anywhere.

Bloody hell, it really is quite fun, this Shadowrun Returns. The campaign is disappointingly linear, but the combat and risk-reward and decision-making involved in selecting the runners to accompany you on a particular mission kindof make up for it. Besides, there's all that user-generated content to look forward to...

What class are you playing as, monkeydancer?

An elf street samurai focussing on pistols, with a few points in charisma too. I just couldn't NOT pick the class called street samurai, you know?

How about you? All the classes seem to offer interesting things, I've tried most of them by hiring different runners, I quite like wizards, but shooting things up is also fun.

And I agree about the campaign, the story is good but the outside combat gameplay is so linear, it's a bit annoying. I'm having too much fun to care THAT much though.

Street samurai as well. How could I resist? Hahaha. Playing a charismatic, somewhat kind-hearted female human street samurai specialising in rifles. It's hella fun, especially since I've pumped a fair few karma points into quickness to help with accuracy. What sort of party do you usually take with you? I've been trying to get a mix (usually me, a shaman, a mage and a decker/rigger) but I'm not finding shaman/shamen or deckers/riggers to be that useful most of the time so maybe I'll get an adept with me next time. Magic seems a wee bit underpowered (or, at least, not as powerful/useful as bullets) to me, but yeah, a mage is useful to have I guess.

Also still finding it a bit weird how there's no map, no real inventory and no ammo. It's fun and all, won't deny that, but yeah... is a bit, different, for better or worse. The campaign is well-written and all but a bit depressing in its linearity and on-rails-ness, now that I've played through it a bit more. Something that was mentioned in the Rock, Paper, Shotgun review is starting to make a lot of sense now: it's just as much a full-featured campaign-creation toolkit as it is a game. And, hey, look on the bright side: it doesn't have an overblown dreary cliche-ridden campaign that you feel obligated to play through before playing the occasionally much better user-created campaigns (*cough*NWN1*cough*)

NWN is definitely a good comparison, and yeah the main campaign in shadowrun is definitely better written than that...

I'm quite disappointed in the power of everyone who doesn't pump gun skills as well, I've tried using balanced parties because it feels like the right thing to do, but deckers/riggers seem nigh pointless (except one mission where I was required to take a decker) and shamans/mages don't seem a lot better... Adepts seem to have some cool skills but I have never been in a situation where I found close combat better or even equal to ranged combat with guns. I think part of it is I find the equipment menues very confusing so I haven't really been able to buy the spells I would have bought for myself for the spellcasting classes, I reckon if I'd run with that for my PC it would be better.

I hope the toolkit allows for some rebalancing of abilities, or at least making campaigns where different skillsets are more useful.

I'm not sure if you can even give your mercs stuff? Haven't tested it out yet, but I obsessively watched the Let's Plays on Youtube, which used a May 2013 pre-release build, where you couldn't, and I have a feeling that they didn't really change it.

Also, apparently the problem with Unity is that it doesn't really allow for adding assets (would require recompiling the entire game or something), which means that we might be stuck with the fundamentals (mechanics, assets, weapons, models, spells, etc) until the devs themselves add/change things (IF that happens, of course).

It's still a good game, but yeah, far from perfect. I'm not entirly thrilled with the devs' decisions re: menus and inventory and stuff as well. Maybe I'm just a bit of a traditional CRPG type. And, now that I think about it, the game actually feels a lot more like Fallout Tactics than something like Fallout or Baldur's Gate. Not necessarily a bad thing, but yeah.

I'm sure I've managed to give mercs things from the stash a couple of times but it doesn't always work, and I have no idea why.

It maybe doesn't matter too much that the toolkit won't allow changing the core mechanics, as long as there are the resources to create less linear campaigns, because with a more complex campaign where you can make more decisions than which mercs to bring with you I would be much more forgiving of the things I like less.

I don't think the in-mission inventory system is necessarily bad but it does make me stupidly stingy with items, I only use them if I think I really, really have to. I know that's more my problem than the game's, but it still annoys me and I prefer games that stop me doing that by having a bigger inventory, multiple use items or just making everything a renewable ability with a cooldown (the roguelike ToME does this and I think it's wonderful not having to think about conserving resources during a fight, you can use any means at your disposal to win without feeling that you might be making things harder for yourself later on in the game).

Agreed on all points. Actually, one of the campaigns already on the Steam Workshop, Life on a Limb, looks quite alright. Seems a bit less linear, by which I mean it doesn't seem like it forcibly transports you to the next fight every time.

Quite confident that in 6-12 months' time we'll be getting some top-notch user-made campaigns on the Workshop, plus potential DLC/campaigns from the devs themselves. It's a good game now, but it might become a great game in the future...