Last game you finished, tell us about it

Gamedec - it starts slowly but i really got to enjoy it the more i played it. It is one of those mindfuck games, matrix-disco-elysium-eternum-inception combination; gotta say i got lost at some point in the story, at the beginning you dont think much about the connections, but the more you play it, the stuff gets more intertwined :eek: and i am surprised it did not get more attention from the media, it has some really cool and interesting mechanics. Every area is built differently but one or two were really annoying. Im surprised it doesnt have voice acting either, i think there are like 50 voiced lines in the entire game; sure there is a ton of dialogue but i finished earlier this week Black Book, and that small indie had even more dialogue and was fully voiced. A negative thing about the game is that you must save/load a lot if you dont want to miss something or you want the deductions done right, and since you cant name your saves, it can be a pain; and also in the first 1-2 areas of the game you miss some content because many dialogue choices depend on your skills and ofc at the start you are a noob.
ps i think the game has some issues with the gender, my MC was male but many times in the game he was refered as her/she and could only flirt/romance men; i saw some threads about this on steam hub :LOL:
 
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I haven't gotten around to buying Gamedec. It came out at a time when a few other games did and it was the odd game out. Still interesting, though. That's for your impressions.

Also thanks for mentioning Black Book cause that looks interesting and I've added that to my list also.
 
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Just finished WotR DLC#2, Through the ashes. It was a rather short DLC but pretty neat if you like the low level D&D combat. Not that I ever played PnP but this felt more PnP than any other cRPGs I played. It was a good fun but I didn't like how it ended (you get a cliffhanger to be continued ending). I probably won't replay it until season pass 2 is release where we get the second part of this DLC.

I'm still recovering from Kingmaker. That game has has an even longer recovery time than Jeff Vogel's Avernums. I'm still hoping to play Wrath, and from what you're saying I'll probably be ready, as coincidence would have it, when most of it has been done!
 
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I'm still recovering from Kingmaker. That game has has an even longer recovery time than Jeff Vogel's Avernums. I'm still hoping to play Wrath, and from what you're saying I'll probably be ready, as coincidence would have it, when most of it has been done!
Hope you have fun :)
 
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ps i think the game has some issues with the gender, my MC was male but many times in the game he was refered as her/she and could only flirt/romance men; i saw some threads about this on steam hub :LOL:
Because in the Gamedecverse you be can anything you want to be.

From the developer.
This is a sci-fi game. The action takes place in the 22nd century, where the reality, story, and context are different from what we're used to in our era. Some concepts might not be present, and others excelled into something different.

The Gamedecverse is a reality after the Post-Renewal Era where anyone can be anything and anyone, both in the Realium and many Virtualias. A person is no longer defined by the pronoun "he," "she," or "they," but by psychoscan.

The usual "he," "she" remained, but society decided there was no need to go into detail. The rainbow has become obvious - everyone is "himself" par excellence. Customs have changed; there are singles, there are flocks (extended families - a few guys, a few women).
So your MC might not be male. :biggrin:

Anyway did they ever fix the PC controls?
 
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I finished Doom Eternal - The Ancient Gods Part Two. Like the first part, it was absolutely brutal and one of the hardest FPS games I've ever played.

I thought both expansions were great with the exception of the final boss battle in each one. Those were a little too drawn-out for my taste. Overall, they're a must-play for fans of the base game, but be ready for some extreme difficulty spikes.
 
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Banner of the Maid. So, you're playing slightly before the actual revolution took place, with some elements lifted out of history, which I found to be a nice touch. It's similar to games like Ogre Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics, Fell Seal, etc, and the opposition is fairly tough. Some of your forces are very good against certain opposition elements, and vice versa. And they will make a bee-line for those classes, as well as any that might be weak or in dire straits. Of course you can also use that to set them up to great advantage.

I really enjoyed the game, though I only played the base version and the free additional content, I've not played the portion you can purchase for five dollars. The free content imo is totally skippable, as it seems to be made simply to annoy players with basically ever worse case scenario possible. There are three elements in these types of games that I do not care for, those being degradable weapons, time/turn limits, and opposition that appear out of nowhere, and this game makes flagrant use of all three, though the weapon issue isn't too dire as they recover from map to map. Lots of political intrigue along the way, there are factions to pursue and the exploration factor is pretty nice. If you enjoy these types of games you cannot go wrong with this one.
 
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I kind of finished "Middle earth - Shadows of Mordor" that was released recently on GOG. I finished the main game and one DLC (the one that sends you hunting) and plan on playing the other DLC soon.
It has an open world that left me a bit undecided. One the one hand, it has high production values (I guess) and has everything that makes you want to play more (collectibles that are easy to get and have a nice count - "3/32" ;)). The fights play fluidly and it is very satisfying to gut, stomp, throatslit, headshot and behead those Uruks. It is pretty easy, once you know how to play. As part of the story, you can't die. It took me about 35 hours to finish it, but I collected almost everything there was. The length was fine to me, I enjoyed the time I spent on the game and it didn't outstay its welcome.

On the other hand it is pretty shallow: though the maps (there are two) are pretty big, there is absolutely nothing to discover and the maps offer little variety, for all the POI are either marked or are part of the missions (that you start by going to the marked spot and hit a button...). There are some design choices that I didn't like too much, like the insane respawn rate.

At the time it was released it was marketed and praised for the nemesis-system: the Uruks have captains (regular Uruks that have special traits like invulnerability to certain attacks) that you can hunt down. In order to do that you have to locate them by interrogating orcs. The most dangerous captain that you encounter and who maybe even killed you is then called your nemesis. They all have one-liners when you meet them, and different ones when you meet them again - depending on how your prior meeting went.

The story is there and serves the purpose of leading you through the maps, I guess.

Though it is titled "Middle earth" it has very little to do with Tolkien's masterpiece. It copies the aesthetic of Peter Jackson's interpretation (a plus for me) and you read some familiar lore and meet and interact with a certain villain / hero (Gollum). So you probably feel immediatly "at home" playing the game. Just don't expect the game to be a "spiritual successor" to the Lord of the Rings (book).
 
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I keep meaning to go back to both Shadow of Mordor games, or however they are good. It always felt like a decent game, with solid combat. But it always, for some reason, turns into feeling like work at some point. Plus I never got too excited or understood what the hubbub was for that nemesis system. And I keep saying I want to try it again at some point. At this rate ...

But I did finish Dark Souls. My review:

Late to the party but I finally completed Dark Souls 1. This after having completed a lot of the other FromSoft games, but I never managed to get into Dark Souls for too much, at least until I would eventually quit. The fact that it's a lot slower overall, with a clunkier combat system and platforming that can always give you unpredictable surprises surely played a significant part in it. But once you just accept this, and learn to work around and with the system, you get over the initial issue.

As always, the best part of FromSoft games is the great level design, but Dark Souls 1 in particular seems to really excel at this. It has to have one of the most both convoluted and unnatural architecture to the whole layout of the world and places, but this also makes for some amazing exploration. You really learn to appreciate how the game world seems to keep wounding onto itself, in the most bizarre ways possible. And it's beautiful to behold.

The level design really makes you take mental note of the layout and the paths to everything, especially for the first half of the game where there is no fast-travel between bonfires. This is something I really took for granted in all their other games, and I didn't even think they started out with this sort of design. But honestly, it makes for a much better game the fact that fast-travel is non-existent for a good chunk of the game, and limited for the rest. It really makes the game world that much more of a character, giving you a constant feeling of impending doom when you need to get somewhere on the map for a particular reason. I remember constantly thinking of the routes I discovered, and what would pose the least issues to me. This also makes the game world that much bigger since you can't just zip around.

The game also corrected my previous notion that FromSoft started doing the jailing of your character in Bloodborne. Seems this was wrong; it was Dark Souls that seems to have done it before Bloodborne. Although Bloodborne did start their recurring practice of taking you to some high-end area, while jailing you, to really put the fear of god in you, for the areas that are about to come up later in the game.

Other things to remark on is that the combat is decent to pretty good once you get used to it. But it also has the unfortunate implementation of a command queuing system, where I constantly perform another action than I'd want to due to panicked hitting of buttons. But that's also on my end since I scare easily.

The worst thing about the game is probably the environmental traversal and platforming. It's really wonky and you constantly take risks. And it's such a nuisance to just go down from full life to nothing because of various falls and tumbles. In combat you have a chance to pull through, as small as that would be. But in environmental encounters you're just dead instantly.

Other than these, I'm not sure anything else is worth mentioning. The story and lore is as obtuse as usual, but nothing too interesting. The setting of high fantasy is also another reason why I never resonated too much with this game, compared to say Bloodborne which has an absolutely phenomenal setting and story. But it's serviceable.

On difficulty, it's as you would expect from a FromSoft game, but in my case that was up until around the halfway point of the game, just before the fight against Ornstein and Smough. I switched from a dodging and rolling character to a heavy armor tank with a big shield, and shockingly I did much much better in most situations. After also getting Havel's armor and ring I was basically unbeatable in most situations. 99% of encounters and bosses that are normally regarded difficult or very difficult have turned into a cake-walk. This did result in the initial catharsis against all the abuse I had take so far, but it slowly turned the game much more boring compared to the tension-filled roller-coaster that it was before. At least exploration was still there, but without the risk of losing it all it wasn't the same.

Anyway, a great game overall, if you can put up with it. A 9/10 from me.
 
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Dying Light 2 - done after around 75h, enjoyed it but it has many things designed poorly and many glitches and bugs; browsed the steam forums and there are still several game breaking ones, i was lucky to not get one. Many small annoying things with the UI, inventory, map and so on that get tiring at some point; for instance half the time i changed the inventory, skill tree pages with the mouse a custom map marker appeared or how a pain in the ass is to change the arrow type on the bow.

The timed dialogue choices are also complete bullshit and overall the whole thing since there are no save slots and cant retry shit to see other outcomes. As for the story, it was meh in most part, i did not give a fuck about most chars but after checking google seems i got the good ending.

About Lawan, i found her very irritating, most of her scenes were complete shit and to quote someone i wanted to steal Lawan’s paraglider and kick her off the VNC tower; instead i really liked Hakon, it was funny trying to remember from where i knew that face, only after several hours, i remembered the guy from Banlieue 13.

Another negative thing, the rank bullshit which made loot rewards from quests completely useless; what is the point of getting cool legendary shit if its several levels below you.
I would say to wait for a goty version but all the small annoying things i dont believe will be fixed, as for the UI bad things neither, it was designed to be played with a controller.
 
Pirates of the Sword Coast - a Neverwinter Nights Premium Module (2005/2018EE)

I tried to play this game a while back but found myself quitting at the desert island level as it's one of those games that strips you of all your loot for a while here, leaving you with just your raw stats and some specific junk weapons. When I googled why I was finding it so difficult to progress, the general consensus was that rogues don't work for this game. So I quit.

Having now freshened myself for a retry I restarted the campaign, this time with a regular boring ol' fighter. In order to spice it up a bit I decided to specialise in the most bizarre and underused weapon I could lay my hands on, just to try it out. So I went for the Two Bladed Sword.

And once again I found it difficult to progress. Only this time it was my fault. I googled the Two Bladed Sword to find out why my fighter was so shit with it, and it turns out this two-handed weapon actually required feats normally reserved for dual wielders. So it's a dual wield weapon that's a two handed weapon. Oh my head hurts. Especially as dual wielding requires Dex in order to even get the required feats.

Ah well, that was the plan anyway, to go balls deep into something I knew nothing about to help make playing a fighter more interesting. And by the halfway stage when I'd gained enough feats and loot to make the character work, I can report that the Two Bladed Sword is indeed quite a fun build.

The module itself is quite a fun game that combines lots of tough but enjoyable combat and plenty of piratey lore and story for those that prefer reading to chopping. While I'm not adverse to text boxes and random lore, I found it especially hard in this game as so many of the texts used cliched piratey language alongside all the myriad made-up names and places. Your parrott companion is easily the worst offender here:

"*Squark* sssshiver me timbersss *kraw* wwwhat's thaaat *brak* noooo not for meee"

and then combine this with the EE default resolution making text boxes infuriatingly small for some unknown reason:

"*Squark* sssshiver me timbersss *kraw* wwwhat's thaaat *brak* noooo not for meee"

I just stopped reading great swathes of the text in the game and tended to bash through dialogues and only slow down if I felt something was indicating the text was must-know.

I shouldn't be too mean though, this is a pretty great module when all is said and done that has oodles of variety and a really well put together plot. It's most unique aspect is the inclusion of treasure maps, whereby you have to follow directions given by the map to lead you to hidden treasure. It's extremely simplistic in mechanics and kinda dumb in a way how easy they are to use and succeed at, almost juvenile, but it's so charming none of that matters, what matters is it's just so damn nice to have an all-new mechanic to play around with.


The companions are fun and interesting and the whole game has a very light hearted and semi-comedy tone. For example, one of the companions is only with you because he wants you to ritually eat him at some point, as befits his honourable cultural tradition. Another quest gives you the option to mutilate a potential companion so that he can appear more 'piratey' to his boss, aka give him a hook hand and a peg leg, etc.

During the later stages of the game there also appeared to be ample opportunities for some good juicy choice and consequence in your allying options, though, since I've only played it once, I have no idea how impactful those choices were or weren't.

So I think there's something for everyone here, the only real stumbling block being if someone just isn't into pirates as a setting or gets put off by a build that surprises you by being useless several hours into the game.

It's not overly epic but its long enough to feel like you've played a full game and it ends at about the right time. I'm a very, very slow player and I squeezed about 20 hours out of it. How Long To Beat has it as a 10 hour completionist game. I have no idea who submits stuff for that website, but they probably don't read all the equipment text in shops or google for info on two bladed swords.

Its one of those games where, when your in it, lots of little things can possibly irritate you, but, once complete, should provide you with a nice memory to help contribute to your memory of life-time enjoyable experiences. I know that I'll still be thinking about this game positively for many years to come. 7.5/10
 
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Pirates of the Sword Coast - a Neverwinter Nights Premium Module (2005/2018EE)
When I googled why I was finding it so difficult to progress, the general consensus was that rogues don't work for this game. So I quit.

I googled the Two Bladed Sword to find out why my fighter was so shit with it, and it turns out this two-handed weapon actually required feats normally reserved for dual wielders.
So this is where common sense is thrown out of the window and you need to learn the rules that the game created (whatever that is) to make progress. This is not fun.
 
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Of even less fun is when the game has a game breaking bug or two, which at least Pirates didn't have.

Dark Dreams of Furiae (2020) and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr (2018) - both Neverwinter Nights premium modules. Both N/A out of 10.

Both of them are quit-for-good games after initially promising starts due to encountering game breaking bugs. They are literally unplayable to all but the most lucky or most patient players. Both have a Mostly Negative consensus on Steam. A sharp contrast to Pirates and Daggerford which have Positive and Mostly Positive respectively.

That just leaves Tyrants of the Moonsea for me to try with regards to the Premium Modules.
 
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Hard West 2 - not much to say about this game, a lot of the time it just feels like a dlc to some big game, maybe because its short as well, on easy you can finish it in under 10h; i did not liked some stuff about the combat, no reloading, no overwatch, just one skill per companion, overall its just an abuse of the bravado thing which replenishes your AP when you kill someone. The story is pretty meh, same for the voice acting, maps are small too. Nothing worth remembering about this, its just one of those small games you play if you dont got anything better to do/play.
 
Red Dead Redemption 2. Most watchers have already formed their opinion about this game, and my opinion does not influence their view. However, there might be some who have not considered this game seriously as a possibility. I wrote this review for those.

While not an RPG, RDR2 has many things in common with modern open-world ARPGs such as the Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 4, and also a little bit less modern games such as Mass Effects or Skyrim. I will call these types of games "action games" from now on, as the "RPG" part is a faint line.

RDR2 is a slow game having a pace which is comparable to Kingdom Come Deliverance out of the games I have played. Sometimes the slow pace was enjoyable, and other times frustrating. The game has perhaps the most detailed, beautiful, and well-crafted open world I have ever seen in games (including TW3). I could almost sense an old house's smell when I entered it with my character. The sounds were so authentic that sometimes I thought there was a bird or an insect in my house until I realized that the sound came from the game. The devs know that they crafted something special and do their best to show all of it by sending you all over the world in quests. Fast travel is possible using trains, stagecoaches or from a camp after investing a lot of money, but not used much. In practice, the game strongly encourages you to ride everywhere with a horse. Most of the rides were enjoyable, increased the immersion, and forced me to admire the incredible open world, while sometimes I thought, "not again, I have to ride to that town".

It took me over two years to complete the game, not because it was terrible, but because I got lost hunting and fishing in the open world and forgot to focus on the main story, which amends from Western movies and books. The game tells the story of the end of an era where a gang of bandits struggle to survive in modernizing world. The main character, Arthur Morgan, is a central member of the gang. The story was good, perhaps even great for a video game, but not exceptional. It did not have to be because the way the story was told is not matched by any game I have played. Almost all main missions were done together with NPCs from the gang, and the story was told in discussions between these characters and the main protagonist. The stellar storytelling felt natural and immersive. I hope other developers would be influenced by it. For example, Ubisoft games would be a lot better had they copied the Rockstar way of storytelling.

Another stellar feature of the game was the characters. After all, NPCs in computer games are just software puppets designed to give a realistic immersion of a person. Rockstar did well by allowing just the right amount of interaction with the NPCs. They had their schedules, talked with the main character when he walked past, and even had parties, but you could not ask them questions like in RPGs. That removed some of the repetitive lines, which may break immersion in RPGs. The only other studio I know of making NPCs as well is CDProjekt Red.

What I especially liked about the game not being an RPG was that there were no health meters on top of enemies, which improved the immersion. All enemies would drop after a few shots depending on where you hit them (headshots would mainly kill always). Further, the itemization was too gamified for me to care about looting enemies, increasing my focus on the story. My character ended up acting like a real person would have done during main missions instead of stopping all the time to hoard everything from dead enemies and every room, which I tend to do in RPGs. Nevertheless, I missed the focus on character development RPGs tend to have. Another feature I had mixed feelings about was how characters/enemies in a mission would magically appear into the open world during a mission. You could only do one mission at the time and had to either finish or abort it to accept other guests.

This brings me to the negatives, which are, naturally, many. The controls felt janky, making me shoot my horse instead of jumping on it or picking a fight with random NPCs just because I could not control my character. Firefights were often over because I ended up coming out of cover by accident. Missions were gamified too much granting the player medals after completion similarly to GTA5. It was impossible to save the game during missions. Some of the main missions could be half an hour long and quiting without losing process was not possible. Further, the slow pace sometimes killed my interest to continue playing. I had to shelf the game multiple times before I managed to finish it. The missions were very much railroaded, which is both good and bad. On one hand, they were tuned well, like a good movie, but on another hand, if you played them once, you’d need to repeat almost the same next time. Despite these negatives, it is not difficult to see why this game is considered a masterpiece and one of the best of its type ever.

This game is not for everyone, but it has similarities to action RPGs making some of the watchers potential audience. If you liked the Witcher 3, like to watch Westerns, don't mind slow games, love to wander, hunt and fish in game-world wildernesses, or appreciate (open world) art when you see it, you may find RDR2 one of the best games you ever played. If you cannot stand railroaded games, playing a predefined protagonist or don't like action games, there is probably no need to try RDR2. The odds are that you won't like it. As for me, this game goes among my all-time favourite action games together with the Witchers, Mass Effects and Cyberpunk 2077.

If you are like me and enjoy story driven immersion rich games, I would encourage you to try this game when you have time. For me, it gave one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had: 9/10.
 
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I second a lot of what you said. The immersive and simulation aspects of the game are pretty much unparalleled. They went so much into making everything immersive that at times it's annoying. But you still have to give it to them for having such a strong vision.
 
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I've considered buying RDR2 on more than one occasion, but that 'Rockstar Social Club' installer thing always tips me towards refraining from doing so.
 
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I purchased RDR2 recently and it's currently battling Elden Ring in my queue for what game I'm going to play after I finish my current one.

@largh You mention the controls being janky. Did you use a gamepad or M+K?
 
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I purchased RDR2 recently and it's currently battling Elden Ring in my queue for what game I'm going to play after I finish my current one.

@largh You mention the controls being janky. Did you use a gamepad or M+K?
You may try both at the same time. When you need zen from all the Elden Ring stress of dying, give RDR2 a spin until you need more stress to counter the slowness ;)

I used gamepad mostly. I'd remember that M&K was better, so it probably tells partly about my incapability of using gamepad...anyway, the character does definitely not move as smoothly as in other games I have tried. And he walks slow!
 
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It's sort of intentional "jank" sometimes imo. Until you get used to it, and some probably never do, it feels like you're moving a tank sometimes when controlling Arthur. Since they animate each movement, and the characters don't spin on a dime like they do in other games. Plus the game constantly enforces you to not run inside camp or other narrative areas. Plus the very long and detailed animations, compared to other games, for the littlest action. Plus other quirks.
 
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