General Video Gaming Recs and Discussion


View: https://youtu.be/w70Xc9CStoE?si=mofymGZiTO2n6JDv

So Ross Scott is actually being serious about this. It's certainly an amateur thing as he himself said, but I'm interested to see where this goes. Skip to 14:16 for the meat of the matter.

Stop Killing Games - the link. If you live in the West, I recommend checking it out. You do need to own The Crew, which I think most folks here don't (myself included). But it's 100% something.
 
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View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE-_gbZFusQ&pp=ygUQWkVQSE9OIGNpbmVtYXRpYw%3D%3D

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5conx9rSKOc&pp=ygUGWmVwaG9u

From the developers of Warhammer 40,000: Gladius, ZEPHON is a post-apocalyptic 4X strategy game built on Proxy's unique tactical combat system. Guide survivors through a turbulent future, navigating unexpected disasters, eldritch horror and cyberpunk monstrosities. What will you do to survive?
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View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1481170/ZEPHON/
ZEPHON is a game from the makers of Gladius: Relics of War which moves the action from the grim darkness of the distant future to a post-apocalyptic near future Earth which has recently come out of a war so devastating that it essentially randomized the Earth's surface. You are one of a variety of individuals who have managed to attract enough of a following to start rebuilding something like a society. In a world beset by the remnants of an alien invasion, where Skynet is still trying to fortify its cities, where alien monsters and eldritch horrors walk among men, what will you do to survive?

The demo is currently available. Do check it out?
 
Sounds maybe interesting, though if "Proxy's unique tactical combat system" is supposed to mean Gladius mechanics (and the screenshots suggest it is) that's a weird thing to hype IMO.
 
Grey Rook said:
The demo is currently available. Do check it out?
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Aineko said:
Sounds maybe interesting, though if "Proxy's unique tactical combat system" is supposed to mean Gladius mechanics (and the screenshots suggest it is) that's a weird thing to hype IMO.
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Gladius was an interesting mix of digestible 1UPT lite wargame combined with strategic gameplay that felt like a turn-based RTS. I kind of enjoyed the combination but it's not one I expect to have more than niche popularity.

Zephon looks like it's pitching some sort of actual narrative, which will hopefully allow for more structured play and maybe replay value over Gladius, which did end up feeling a bit like a skirmish-only RTS towards the end of my playtime with it.
 
stormbringer951 said:
Zephon looks like it's pitching some sort of actual narrative, which will hopefully allow for more structured play and maybe replay value over Gladius, which did end up feeling a bit like a skirmish-only RTS towards the end of my playtime with it.
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Gladius has a narrative campaign for every single faction, though I'd readily say they're pretty poorly done on the gameplay level.
 
Aineko said:
Gladius has a narrative campaign for every single faction, though I'd readily say they're pretty poorly done on the gameplay level.
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It had a narrative quest for each faction last time I played, which was admittedly a while ago, which amounts to a set of optional objectives you can complete in stages within one mission, which results in an alt victory condition. One game's worth of optional content for each faction isn't nothing but also isn't a lot of content.
 
stormbringer951 said:
It had a narrative quest for each faction last time I played, which was admittedly a while ago, which amounts to a set of optional objectives you can complete in stages within one mission, which results in an alt victory condition. One game's worth of optional content for each faction isn't nothing but also isn't a lot of content.
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That is what I'm calling a narrative campaign, yes, because Gladius is not a type of game where 'campaign means a sequence of levels which are discrete gameplay instances' would make a lick of sense.
 
My first playthrough of the Zephon demo took me about nine hours to clear a medium-sized map, but I'm slow. There is more story involved, since the faction leaders are more than faceless, interchangeable nobodies but actual characters. There are random events that pop up, demanding that you pick between a few different options with different outcomes. There is a trade mechanic where you can buy or sell resources and items, there is diplomacy between different factions... I don't really like that all the human factions are mostly the same, with the differences being limited to a handful of passive buffs and a few research topics. Every faction can access every unit, given time and effort.

Also, desert terrain is constantly wreathed in sandstorms which slow your units down, cuts their sight radius, and deals damage over time. These cannot be removed like most other tile blockers, and appear to last forever in addition to being so dense that I can't even make out the hex grid or the movement range markers beneath them, which seems excessive. There is also a thing that's just called 'fog' which sometimes appears over tiles holding independent alien units for reasons I don't understand which has a similar effect, but at least the Fog is temporary.

The AI in the demo appears to overbuild units to the point that they can't pay their upkeep, which greatly reduces their combat ability. I do like that volcanic, desert, and arctic terrain doesn't penalize food production any more, it just doesn't give any bonuses. And naturally, all the really cool shit is locked out in the demo since you're limited to a maximum tech level of four out of ten.
 
Aineko said:
That is what I'm calling a narrative campaign, yes, because Gladius is not a type of game where 'campaign means a sequence of levels which are discrete gameplay instances' would make a lick of sense.
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Why not? It plays out almost totally like an RTS (down to optimized comp build orders in MP lol) in actual gameplay. Each map can represent a different area on a planet or wherever, it doesn't really make less sense than RTS campaigns do (I have never complained about, say, teching up in AoE a gazillion times per campaign), and would give you opportunities to demand solutions to wildly different scenarios in the same way that RTS campaigns often do.
 
Proper campaigns in a civ-ish/turn-based 4x style game is... definitely not a new thing. HoMM, Age of Wonders, probably more I don't recall offhand just due to not playing much 4x-style stuff that isn't fantasy. Design similar to gladius definitely isn't anathema to campaigns involving discrete maps, heh.
 
So, there's a game called Artificial Dream in Arcadia.

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2248430/Touhou_Artificial_Dream_in_Arcadia/
Aka what if you took a really old school SMT, like say SMT II, as an inspiration, put actual zoomer teenager as the protagonist and then also replaced all the demons with Touhou cast and made a dungeon crawler out of it. And it just works.
It is an old school dungeon crawler, mind you. So no initial map, you uncover it as you progress, random encounters, unknown enemy weakness. Need healing or god forbid reviving? You can only do so at specific locations in a dungeon. And you have to pay for it. For each and every hit point. Items in the shops are also very expensive and revival items also cost a premum. They do drop from specific enemies. You can capture enemies to join your team (limited to one of each), and while you can force an item drop, doing so forfeits experience or money gained from that enemy. I.e. you literally turn the captured enemy into item. You can do the same with money.
Dungeons (the ones i've see so far) are pretty good, with some nice (or not nice) gimmicks.
 
... how many touhou dungeon crawlers does that make? I could swear we're either approaching or past double digit discrete games for that specific combination... there's at least three or four besides that one, iirc.

It's kinda' weird touhou fangames have gravitated towards that design as much as it has...
 
The latest long video from Caldwell-Gervais, covering the Diablo series.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3v-7Rndd8M
Each entry appears to be emblematic of the era it was released in. And recreates the mental pressures used in gambling. The main delineation is the degree an entry prays on this factor for monetization, with Immortal being the obvious worst perpetrator. But even that entry is still a worthwhile game, its just buried under its monetization.
 
I've been on a boomer shooter binge lately, and recently I've been playing a game called Herald of Havoc. It seems to be a little known game, the visuals are pretty basic, and there is no story to speak of - not even intro text - but don't let that fool you. The game is a lot of fun, the combat is punchy and satisfying, and the game can be pretty brutally difficult and throw massive numbers of enemies at you. I'd recommend it.


View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1963510/Herald_of_Havoc/
 
RimWorld is currently 20% off with its first three DLCs (Royalty, Ideology, Biotech) being 10% off. Go get it.

And no, you don't need the DLC. You can get hundreds of hours of playtime with the base game alone. Paradox this ain't.
 
Hykal94 said:
RimWorld is currently 20% off with its first three DLCs (Royalty, Ideology, Biotech) being 10% off. Go get it.

And no, you don't need the DLC. You can get hundreds of hours of playtime with the base game alone. Paradox this ain't.
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How does RimWorld compare to the classic, the hero, Dwarf Fortress?
 
It is absolutely more accessible, with more varied playstyles, even if it lacks z-levels and the worldgen.

I cannot recommend it enough. No, you don't need any DLCs or mods to make it run well (though mods absolutely help)

Join us cannibals, war criminals and cultists in the RimWorld thread.
 
Hykal94 said:
It is absolutely more accessible, with more varied playstyles, even if it lacks z-levels and the worldgen.

I cannot recommend it enough. No, you don't need any DLCs or mods to make it run well (though mods absolutely help)

Join us cannibals, war criminals and cultists in the RimWorld thread.
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No Z-level and no worldgen? Those are my favorite parts of DF.

Does Rimworld have a roguelike adventure mode?
 
Yeah, having played a fair amount of both, Rimworld provides a more accessible but smaller scale (no hundreds of dudes in your colony in Rimworld) game with a lot more variety to it. It's also incredibly moddable and the mods can provide completely different playstyles.

It's not quite as deliberately weird in some ways as DF, but oh boy is the accessibility just off the charts better.

EDIT: No z-level, and no adventure mode in Rimworld.
 
There's no roguelike adventure mode but the game does have quests where you send your colonists to another part of the world to dungeon dive or assault an enemy base.

Overall, RimWorld is more Sims-like in its treatment of colonists. Whereas DF expects you to have a massive colony in the hundreds, you have some 12-20 pawns (or more or less) that you care and invest in.
 
I tried playing Team Fortress 2 again for the first time in a while, and it's sad to see the state it's in now. It used to be my favorite multiplayer shooter in its heydey (say 2007-2012) but now the servers are just overrun with bots.
 
Hykal94 said:
It is absolutely more accessible, with more varied playstyles, even if it lacks z-levels and the worldgen.
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For a certain usage of accessibility focused on UI; Rimworld's still about 30 USD with that 20% sale, while ASCII DF is still, y'know, whatever the bandwidth you spend on downloading it costs :V

The steam editions are comparable in price, but DF's more or less full featured shareware with the (steam) buy-in being UI/graphics related.

... if you include modded stuff, though, I'm not sure the playstyles are actually more varied for rimworld? With adventure mode and all the nonsense DF's own modding scene throws in, at least as far as I've noticed it's fairly comparable.

DF doesn't really expect you to have a massive colony, in any case. You can (most of the time I've played it through its life, I have just due to hardware limitations on my end that have only eased up a little recently) play small forts without much trouble, only missing out on some of the higher nobility interactions at worst (and iirc you can adjust the numbers on those so they do show up when you only have like 20 critters or whatev'). DF allows and ecourages higher numbers, but the game plays more or less fine with just a dozen or two dwarves or whatev'... even less is viable, but it does start getting pretty harrowing without a good few replacements on hand in case of funtimes, heh.
 
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