stalker clear sky

spent so much time tweaking mods, learning controls, trying to figure out what Im supposed to do and such that I realized I was having about as much fun as getting a root canal.

still want to play it as I can smell an awesome game in it but for now.... too much work.

Crusader Kings 2, for the second time, having twice tried manfully to understand how to play the damn thing. The more I read (the official "manual", the wikis etc.), the less I understand how to PLAY THE ACTUAL GAME. It's making me feel stupid, but is it really my lack of intelligence which is the obstacle here, or the incoherent documentation (including the wikis) and the far-less-than-intuitive interface in the game itself ? Feudalism itself is interesting though, so at least I suppose I've enjoyed picking up a few things about an old political/social system.

But the more I read about this game the more I'm thinking it's not worth the effort anyway, because veterans of the game say that once you get the hang of it, it's too easy anyway lol. Learning curve like a sheer cliff and then once you do understand how to play it, it's not all that good anyway apparently : almost the definition of a nightmare game. I will try for a third time at some unspecified time in the future, but for now this game has defeated me. Shit interface, shit manual, totally unhelpful community and apparently an ultimately flawed game too. I don't know why I spent my money on this tbh. And I love a complex, well thought out game with longevity. Quantum physics is surely more accessible than this game. I'll stick to the relative ease of German philosophy.

Also, Far Cry 2. I didn't give it much of a chance though and will almost certainly give it another go. I didn't like the drab colours tbh.

That's one game I regret finishing. The only worthwhile zone they added to the game was the first part in the swamp, which is pretty fun and has an awesome atmosphere. But after that I quickly found myself missing the original game, as I was pretty much playing on the exact same levels, but with awesome stuff cut, like the underground labs. The faction fighting system was pretty fun at times though. The last part is the only actual part of the game which I would describe as really bad, and was one long and surprisingly boring firefight which I was glad to be done with.

The original is almost incomparably better.

good to know, i feel a bit better about quitting then

Devil May Cry - PS2

Was really unimpressed with the downgrade of pretty much everything from Devil May Cry 3 PC. Graphics, cutscenes, animation, style. Which is odd considering this one is usually high on peoples list.

I'll stick with one of the best action games ever, my high resolution Devil May Cry 3 on PC. Yeah. :kicks demon in face:

I trudged through the end, but soon after deleted Dragonfall from my WL. It probably is better, and SR Returns wasn't terrible, but it left me underwhelmed.

Anyway, I took another run at Machinarium tonight, and OMG no matter how cute it is, I just hate the gameplay. Controls are annoying, puzzles are annoying, hint system is terrible - kind of an all or nothing.

I was so excited when I got it last summer/fall, but I didn't really enjoy it the first attempt, and the second attempt made me pull out my hair out.

Machinarium - first game quit and deleted from drive in 2016!

I'm hoping Dragonfall is much better, word is that it is loads better and so I remain hopeful, but I've not leapt to trying it either after the, exactly, underwhelming and boring experience of Returns. I didn't understand why combat was even in the game. *click click**hope for good rolls**clickclick*

I played Machinarium a bit with my partner and we enjoyed it okay but it was nothing great and we didn't get very far before ... I don't know, getting distracted by other things. I don't remember the controls being a problem and probably didn't get far enough to get annoyed by puzzles (they seemed pretty cake or took just a couple minutes of thought but weren't overly difficult. I think what I remember most about some of them was I knew what had to be done but didn't know how the game wanted me to execute it, which was a bit annoying. If we'd gotten further I'd probably have been more turned off and have less of an okay feeling than I do about it now having not gotten very far.) It did seem a bit juvenile and definitely not a must-play P&C (barely any story, which is what I think the best qualities of great P&Cs is.) Don't blame you for deleting it.

Nethack

Yeah, I think that is enough suffering for now. I was a neigh unstoppable ranger with -13AC three levels beneath minetown. I was wasting frost giants and golems left and right. Then I stepped on a polymorph trap and turned into a leprechaun in a particularly dangerous area. All my armour fell off but I wasn't too worried since that portion of the level I had already cleared. But then things started to go south quickly. First I prayed to Venus to save me, but for some other unknown reason she gave me the middle finger and reduced me character level by 1. And then my leprechaun body automatically teleported me to a dangerous area of the level. I quickly drank a potion of invisibility and hoped that I could somehow wait it out. But it was too late. An air elemental grabbed me and pummeled me with debris until I was dead.

Dragonfall is VASTLY better, nay, it's a shame to even compare it with the shit that is Shadowrun Returns. Dragonfall is EPIC.
See my reply above for Dragonfall.

Shadow of Mordor (XBox 360 version)
Okay, so I knew before hand that this had issues.
I can tolerate slow terrain rendering (if at all).
I can tolerate pop in and pop out.
I can tolerate no lip sync.
I can tolerate the Mockney accents of the Orc kin.
However,
I can not tolerate the abysmal loading times from the pause menu/s. On average, 8 seconds every time.
This is a game where the pause/menu screen is used a lot. Upgrades, map and Sauron's army all require regular attention.
Please, anyone considering buying this game, get it on the current generation of consoles.

Binding Of Isaac Rebirth - my 2nd try to beat this game failed. I've beat mother and then broke her heart but could not move further, was getting shitty items all the time and the save file disappeared. Cool..

Tomb Raider 1-5 - This was the very first time I've played this game (only played Angel Of Darkness and later Crystal Dynamics games before). Thought I'd enjoy these games since I love older stuff and I freaking love old graphics. Was wrong, I have no patience to play boring long missions with such clanky controls. Pity.

Frozen Cortex. I really, really like Frozen Synapse and the gameplay for this one looked like fun so I got the latest Humble Bundle, mostly for this game.

How sorely wrong I was. The game is far from entertaining. That's because of three reasons.
1. The enemy seems to have telepathic abilities and they will always do the ONE thing you didn't consider. Never mind how you place your players, they WILL find a gap they will utilize.
2. The game is only paused when there's a major event: tackle, interception, or whatever. So if the enemy player has the ball on their side of the field, you need to take every single possible move into account. If the enemy decides to run instead of throw, you better have a roadblock on every single nook he can take. That, of course, leaves the other enemy players wide open for passes - and that's probably what he will do once you've made your tactical blockades that were ultimately for naught.
3. My team's players suck hard compared to any other team. They have the worst speed, worst passive block, worst release - everything. And I don't know how, or even if, they get any experience and become better. I can purchase free agents, but my salary cap is so low I can only afford the players that suck as much as my current players. So why bother?

I think it's the issue #2 that ultimately ruined the game for me. There should be pauses more often, so that I could react to enemy movement better. Not very fun watching him run through the whole field while my guys just watch like dumbasses as he goes by.

Book of Unwritten Tales 2 (PS4)

After finishing the first two games in the series, I was eager to give the 3rd one a try. I didn’t own BoUT2 for my desktop computer, but I managed to borrow the PS4 disc from my local library.

I got about 1/4 of the way through the game before I called it quits. At first I thought I wasn’t enjoying the game as much because I needed to get used to the controls (it’s a bit awkward on the PS4), but after playing for a number of hours I was pretty used to the controller but still not enjoying the game.

The character artwork was much nicer in this game, much more smooth and cartoon-like. The voice acting is still excellent. The puzzles are still quite logical. But overall I felt like the game was less funny, less silly, and even more slow-paced than BoUT. After completing about 1/4 of the game, nothing (plot-wise) had really happened yet, I still had no idea where the game was heading, which left me a bit lost and unmotivated to continue.

I am very close to letting go off Daggerfall. It just seems I advance so slowly. I am a spellsword at level 3 I think, and I am trying to perform as many Mage Guild quests as possible so that they allow me to use the services to summon that... something (Deadra? Diedre? Marlene Dietrich?) on a correct date so that I can get a quest to get the Oghnum Infifuckingfindum artifact in order to get an extra boost to my Endurance points (which then helps me to get max extra help points in subsequent level ups).

It is just that:

- The Mage Guild quests are as boring as hell. Usually they are about me having to go to some dungeon and run around trying to find a certain someone to kill, and then get back to the guild.

- The problem with the quests isn't fighting, but finding that damn creature or mage to kill. The automap in the game is pretty much useless for navigating to the parts of the dungeon which are still unexplored, the only way is to just run around blindly and hoping to find a room or corridor you haven't explored yet. I think I've run now in one dungeon for many hours trying to find the target, I have no idea where he/she is. I'm thinking of reloading a save game before accepting this quest and getting another one from the guild, but then there is no guarantee it will be any better, probably the very same problem again.

As much as people keep complaining how modern RPGs supposedly show you with a big arrow where to go with your quest... if the alternative is THIS shit where you just wander around aimlessly with a completely useless automap, yes thank you give me that damn big arrow on the top of my head! This kind of exploring isn't any fun, just stupid.

- Even though I have finished many of these boring mage guild quests already, I still don't get the rights to use those services. I am currently a "Journeyman" I think. How many quests do I have to perform before they allow me to summon that damn Dietrich? 300?

- The way you level up seems... obscure. Something about using your primary skills enough and then you level up when you sleep. What then when those primary skills reach 100%, does it mean I can't level up any more? One of my primary skills is already at 54% and another one at 48% or so, so when those reach 100%, is that it then, no more levelling up? Shit, I think I'll get only to like level 5 or so, and that's it.

I got the impression earlier that leveling up isn't that important in Daggerfall "because your skills get better by using them", but that doesn't seem to be the case really, unless you want to be stuck with e.g. your pisspoor health/spell points, low endurance/strength etc. I think you get more health points only when you level up (largely based on your Endurance), and you also get extra points to your attributes through leveling up. Getting your skill points up doesn't seem to need leveling up though, but that's only part of what you need to become more powerful iin the game.

- I really, REALLY, dislike how the diseases are implemented in this game. So you contract some disease from some rat or bat, not knowing about it until it is too late, ie. you are in a dungeon doing a quest while you get a bad feeling while trying to sleep, and then find out you have some disease which has degenerated most of your attributes for awhile, making it impossible or at least harder to continue the game, and you can't get to a town to get rid of the disease either before dying. Yeah I have the cure disease spell available now, but how do I detect the disease before it starts eating permanently my hard-earned attributes? Then again, I have now endurance at 76, hopefully it allows me to avoid getting diseases in the first place...

As much as I had problems fully enjoying TES Arena, at least it was more straightforward to comprehend. You level up when you have killed enough or performed enough quests, or even merely explored enough of dungeons (yes, even just searching new areas gives you extra experience points). While the dungeons were twisty and annoying at times, at least the automap was very easy to read, as in "I need to go towards northwest, that's the part of this level I haven't explored yet/that's where the exit to the next level is"). None of this "Which way am I heading now? Have i been here before?" as in Daggerfall.

I kinda liked doing the main quest, but my patience is wearing thin with the current Mage guild quests. I'm hoping to find some interesting reason to continue playing (as I generally like CRPGs which are about honing your skills and leveling up), but at this point there doesn't seem to be a point.

WTF, really? That's the game in the series I was most eager to play (probably because it's the only Linux-native one), what a downer...

Right now I'm midway through Critter Chronicles and I'm starting to get tired of it a bit... Maybe I should take a break before tackling TBoUT2, then. :\