What game are you playing right now? #2

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Finally got around to purchase New Vegas. Man, steam is dangerous when you are bored so easy to buy stuff. I am enjoying the game quite a bit.

 

System Shock

Souped it up with a hi-res mod for resolution and one for in-game 3d Objects.
And it's still awesome. A proper midi-synth will make it even sound better.
And after a few hours of playing one hardly notices the dated graphics.

I forgot how big the levels were.

Still great atmosphere an game play.

 

Just finished a massive Dark Souls binge, currently playing through IWD for the first time. Enjoying myself, though I find the amount of combat per RP elements is a little low for my tastes, aside from that beautiful music, background art and combat mechanics.

 

I'm replaying Baldur's Gate 1 . . . AGAIN. I didn't finish the last game either. I was also in the middle of a Dragon Age: Origins game, but the hard drive on my Mac failed, so I can't play it anymore (my PC is too old and doesn't take PCIe graphics cards), at least until it gets repaired.

I'm doing an evil run as a gnome Fighter/Illusionist.

 

Skyrim. Playing through the Dragonborn expansion. Pretty darn good so far. Playing Gears of war on and off with a friend in 2 player co.op, as well. Also thinking about starting Crysis 2. Had it for ages, and I keep forgetting to play it.

 

henkie: Do you do any blogging or game reviewing? I really enjoyed your recap of Evolva. There are so many games on GoG that I'm hesitant to try since not many people write about them. I sort of forgot that there are great games that aren't necessarily "classics". Also, what's your GoG account name (I'd love to be your GoG friend to see what you have in your library, you can PM the details if you're comfortable).

Vorona: Have you tried the Enhanced Edition? Or is that what you're playing? I started right off the bat with BG2 since I didn't have the wherewithal to play through BG1s graphics. Also, do you write your character's back-stories and whatnot? I just started doing that with Icewind Dale, updating the biographies and what-not and I find it makes actually playing the game a lot more satisfying.

 

Ludovik, no I don't do any blogging or game reviewing, but I did like the game and wanted to share my experience here. I usually look at the reviews at GoG itself, read a few to get some positive and negative points so I can decide for myself if those positive and negative points weigh in favour of the game or against it. And since I usually still wait for special offers, I feel I can afford those few bucks it costs to find out for myself if it's good or not.

I didn't know you could become friends on GoG (as in: there is functionality like that on the website), but if you know how to, my username is the same as here but with an additional 196 at the end.

Also, if you have issues with BG1's graphics, there's a mod called Tutu that will actually run BG1 on the BG2 (ToB) engine. I sometimes write backstories for my character's, especially if there's a theme I thought up for the party beforehand. On the other hand, some I just play for the gameplay challenges, so for most of my solo's I tend not to think up backstories, the game itself is enough in those cases.

 

I thought for sure you could see someone else's GoG album and reviews via their username, guess I'm wrong (not the first time). I feel the same way re: reviews and sales. I just find that I'm not usually willing to go out on a limb and try a game or genre which I don't already know and enjoy. Evolva seems unlike anything anyone would typically play (except Spore maybe). I've been getting into games that require controllers lately. Playing a classic game with a controller automatically transports me back to my teenage years of being in a dimly lit room playing A Link to the Past.

 

You may be right about there being an option to find at least someone's reviews through someone's username, I don't know. Probably the search function, if nothing else. I haven't actually bothered to write up a review on GoG for any of the games I own, though.

But I'm sure that if you want to read some user opinions on a game, you can always ask for some in this thread. Our community is pretty small, so there's a good chance no-one knows it if it's a pretty unknown game, but you can always try

 

I'm playing vanilla Baldur's Gate. The only "mods" I'm using are portraits and sounds (I put "mods" in quotation marks because I'm not sure if they actually count as mods or not). But my PC has been not liking the game, so I did download the EE version for my Mac last night. So far, I like vanilla much more, but I haven't ever played with TuTu, etc., and I haven't played BG2, other than having short "Oh, I guess I'll die now" starts when I was really new to video games. Seriously, I've never gotten out of that first prison scene.

So, it could be lack of familiarity. The camera seems to move too fast, and I end up zooming in when I don't want to. Also, everything is really tiny. I thought it was a resolution issue (and it probably is an option somewhere), but I also have played vanilla Baldur's Gate through Wineskin on my Mac, and I didn't have that problem then. I haven't left Candlekeep, though, so we'll see. I'm glad I'm able to do the one-player Multi-character game on the Mac with EE, since it never worked with my other version. I don't know if I can transfer the multiplayer game to the single player folder, yet.

So far, I'd rather play the original game on my PC, but since my PC is old and having problems, having another option that allows the multiplayer thing is nice. I'm very glad they made an official Mac version, even though it's obviously bizarre to be playing games on a basic MacBook. I guess graphics aren't an important part of my gaming experience. Or maybe I just actually like old graphics better than new ones. Certainly, I'm not enjoying all the squinting I have to do with EE.

I haven't yet added any custom journal entries. Can you do that in vanilla BG1? That said, when I was playing it several years ago (the original retail version on my really, really old computer that no longer exists), I did create a character-centric "walkthrough" where I essentially told the story my character was having in a WordPerfect document. I didn't get very far (pretty typical), but I still have it. That's one thing I do like about EE -- the fact that you can add your own entries to the journal. I love that feature, even though I haven't used it yet.

Oh, and I also really like the Total Ability Points section when rolling ability scores. I used to have to guess if I had a good roll, then go back and subtract points to find out if it was actually a good roll or not. Having the total displayed at the bottom is really useful. It also shows the difference with different classes. My paladin was mostly in the 80s, with a few 90s, and a solid amount of 70s, but when I was rolling for my thief, it was almost all 70s. That was interesting.

Okay, I think I'm rambling now, and some of this probably goes in the Baldurs Gate EE First impressions thread. I didn't want to post there until I'd experienced more of the game.

 

ATM, Original BG, with the usual Baldurdash fixes + Unfinished Business. A lot of mods throw the balance/spirit of the original game out of the window, but the UB just finishes what Bioware didn't have time for & polishes what they'd run out of dusters for.

Since I've been away, though, it's mostly been Skyrim (mods FTW) + Mount & Blade (vanilla & Warband).

 

Magpie; have you tried many of the Skyrim mods? The only mods I ever played with are Windows Fullscreen and auto-unequip arrows. There seem to be a lot that add a lot of content whereas I just want ones that "fix" aspects of the original game. That being said, I am thinking of opening up a game of Skyrim, I just found at a certain point that I was bored with wandering through random caves.

 

While I haven't really added much in terms of quests, gameplay tweaks can make a huge difference in terms of replay value by making some more interesting builds valid.

At the moment, I'm running Skyrim with more than 100 mods, but the vast majority are either item packs or tweaks of some nature. The most interesting ones I've found are probably spell tweaks / additions, since they make playing a magic-based character much more palatable. Restoring stuff like waterwalking, open locks and so on also makes a massive difference and gives you more incentive to give a damn about the Alteration school. Normally, I don't get on with magic-based characters, but mods have given me incentive to try, and to enjoy the different experience. The big one for me has been Spell Sneak Attacks, which has made playing a proper Nightblade feasible.

 

Just come off BG: EE. Absolute pile of complete tosh.

 

Uri, you don't like BGEE? What don't you like about it?

 

I have been playing NWN1 with its expansions. Am waiting on Icewind Dale 1 and 2 to arrive in the mail. I am glad that I found this community of people that share my game likes and have been able to find out many extras for the games.

 

I just finished IWD 2 and am preparing for another run through of BG 2
could I get some mod recomendations?

 

It depends on what you're looking for in mods. Challenge, NPCs, added content, fixes, items?

 

Currently playing the new Tomb Raider. I really, really like. Very good game. And I've never really been a Tomb Raider fan, but this is very well done.