September 2024 General Game Discussion Thread

[neogunhero]

Played about 2 hours of Age of Mythology Retold last night. Finished the tutorial, did two skirmishes against AI, and completed the first campaign level. So far I’m having fun with it. There is an added layer of complexity with the mythical creatures and gods that I’m still learning, of course not something I had to deal with in AoE4. I didn’t play this game much as a kid and when I did I for sure wasn’t fully aware of how the game actually works, so I’m learning it all over again.

In a way I keep comparing this game up against AoE4, just because I’m most familiar with that and both games are developed by the same studios, pretty sure running on the same engine also.

The graphics are very nice. Character models up close don’t look as detailed as AoE4, but it retains its old school look which I’m sure was an aesthetic choice. Environments, shadows, water effects, all of that give off a sort of magical, enchanted look, fitting for a game about mythical gods and creatures. Specific thing to point out, but I really love the color palette they used for textures and maps, the maps don’t look like realistic places as much as AoE4 does, they really leaned into making the levels have a more unique look and feel to them.

The music is a bit strange, I need to look more into it but I think it may be modern remasters of the original game soundtrack. Not bad, but some of the drum beats on the tracks I just found a bit bizarre yet amusing, having a sort of rap beat kind of a drum pattern.

Overall I’m having fun and I’m glad I’m finally using Game Pass for something good. I’ve struggled to find a game to play on there for a while, so this is a nice option for me. Looking forward to playing more of the campaign.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a bit more of FrogComposband. The Wild-Talent class I'm playing gets random monster abilities every couple of levels and by pure chance, I got the Bazooka ability from the Bazooker I was using as my previous ring character. It costs quite a bit of mana, but it has a flat 5% miss chance (instead of a miss chance based on enemy armour value) and does AoE damage, making it a good upgrade for my bow.

I also got a bunch of better gear as well as several stat potions, but I'm still missing a lot of resistances. Luckily because I level so fast I have a lot of HP despite having a low Constitution score.

 

[Frindis]

Huge news! Baldurs Gate 3 Patch 7 is now live, wohoooooo! It will be the last big patch for BG3, but Larian says that more patches will come for stuff like crossplay/photo mode.

Patch info for those interested:

Baldur's Gate 3

An ancient evil has returned to Baldur's Gate, intent on devouring it from the inside out. The fate of Faerûn lies in your hands. Alone, you may resist. But together, you can overcome. Gather your party.

baldursgate3.game

Baldur's Gate 3 patch 7—the RPG's final major update—is here with an in-game mod browser, evil endings too vile for streaming, and new Honour Mode actions to be scared of

The patch requires a whopping 160GB of free space to install.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Pifanjr]

And another character bites the dust. I didn't realise the feared status also prevents you from using staves and then my characted failed to read a scroll to escape.

So now I'm trying a sniper. So far it feels significantly stronger in the beginning than the last characters I've played, but I'll have to see how it'll hold up later.

 

[ZedClampet]

I wouldn’t blame them for the entire movie but in the general gaming community, just their name and their IP being tied to it is still a bad look. Also, surely someone high up at Gearbox watched the movie before it was released, and maybe that says more about their own personal taste than anything else if they greenlit it.

I have no idea how these things work, but I'd bet they would have owed the movie studio a lot of money if they pulled the IP at the last minute. Plus, most blockbuster movies are terrible, so how would you even determine this was bad enough not to release it?


***

Nice freebies on Epic this week. Sniper Contracts and the latest Football Manager. I'd love to play FM, but I don't understand soccer at a high level, so all the strategies and tactics would be chosen at random unless I researched everything, which I might do, You'd think that because of the American market they would at least add context sensitive help, but Madden doesn't do it either, and I bet that essentially no one in Europe knows what all the different defenses, like Cover 2, are for. I know how hopeless that would make Madden, and I'm guessing it's the same with FM.

@Brian Boru weren't you somewhat interested at some point in the Sniper Contracts game? Seems like maybe you researched it and decided against it or something.

 

[Zloth]

City of Heroes got on the PC Gamer Top 100 list! The Homecoming guys have been adding and adding to the game, it's good to see that recognition show up.

 

[Brian Boru]

weren't you somewhat interested at some point in the Sniper Contracts game? Seems like maybe you researched it and decided against it or something

I have Contracts 1 & 2 on Steam already. They're decent games, generally reviewed a bit over 70%, and over 80% for 2 on Steam.

Not replay games for me, and I didn't finish either since the sniping is somewhat more of a sim than I want—you have wind and gravity to futz with, and I didn't like the sniping UI. They're also fairly closed world, so tactical flexibility is limited—a lot of it is figuring out timing and location for taking down various targets in a puzzle-like way.

I prefer Sniper Elite 4 for that kind of game, and Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 for an open world experience—I described that one here previously as a poor man's Far Cry, which is meant as a compliment since it's only $20 full price. I've played SGW3 at least twice, and will again—it's fun.

 

[ZedClampet]

After getting increasingly irritated, I've blocked anime games from showing up in Steam. It is so annoying to go to Popular Upcoming Games and see half of them have anime girls in the picture.

 

[neogunhero]

More AoM last night. The UI is a bit confusing at first. When you are ready to construct a Titan Gate which spawns in your God, there is a small little circle button at the top center of the screen, next to your god abilities and resource tracker. It doesn’t play a special sound or give a notification when it’s available, so during a skirmish against AI last night I didn’t start constructing it until the rest of the AI players where over halfway done with theirs. Well now I know, and in my second skirmish I played I ended up spawning in three gods at the same time. Needless to say I completely destroyed my enemies base.

I think there are different win conditions in this game but I’m not sure how to achieve them. It may be because I play against Standard difficulty AI, but after I destroy an enemies base, I have to wait a while for them to surrender. In AoE4, it’s pretty immediate once you slay the enemies king unit and their town centers that they are defeated in the match. AoM takes a bit longer for the enemies to give in, so much so that I left the enemies base after thinking I beat them, just to find out about 10 minutes later that they had some surviving villagers who started to rebuild the base lol. I just went back and finished the job.

While I am really enjoying this game I just can’t help but feel like it’s a pretty basic reskin of AoE with some minor additions. Besides the gods and myth units, there isn’t a whole lot different, and I’m sure that was the case with the original. It was enough to justify it a separate release with its own following of fans who prefer mythology over historical battles, but it’s really just not a whole lot different. Maybe the more I play the more I can see and appreciate the differences.

Still though, I would recommend it to people who like modern RTS games. There is depth and complexity but only if you seek it out, meaning that this game could be good for both casual and experienced players. I consider myself a casual RTS player, and I really enjoy AoM as well as AoE4. They’re modernized, streamlined, filled with convenient QOL improvements over older RTS games, and overall just a lot of fun if you’re into these kinds of games. These are my favorite kind of RTS games, the ones where you build a village and a massive army then go steamroll your enemies with violence. Lots of fun

 

[BeardyHat]

After getting increasingly irritated, I've blocked anime games from showing up in Steam. It is so annoying to go to Popular Upcoming Games and see half of them have anime girls in the picture.

I live in fear of someone looking over my shoulder and seeing one of those on my screen. I can't believe people actually put anime girls on their cars these days, what ever happened to Shame?

In the short periods I've had game time recently, I've been playing more Everspace 2 and have somehow racked-up 6.2-hours so far. Hoping to have the energy to play a little more tomorrow, as I'll have the evening to myself after the kids are in bed; I'm unfortunately going to have to miss a little birthday party at a Barcade, because I couldn't find a babysitter, so someone needs to stay home with the kids. We should normalize kenneling children to give parents a break...

Been also playing Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door on my new handheld, but more related to this forum is that this handheld also runs DOS games, so I've played a few levels of Hocus Pocus and also have Monster Bash installed on it. Been trying to think of other DOS that would work well on it, as it's only a 4" 4:3 screen.

 

[neogunhero]

Strange thing on Steam I’ve noticed. I’m really excited for an upcoming game called Tavern Keeper which comes to Early Access in November. I’m a bit biased with my excitement though, it comes from Greenheart Games, creators of Game Dev Tycoon, which is my favorite casual game ever, and this game has been in development for over 10 years so in a way to me that means it’s going to be awesome, they spent so much time on it how can it not be? The demo was great, but anyways-

I’ve noticed a bunch of very similar tavern games pop up on Steam in the past four months. Ale & Tale Tavern, Tavern Management Simulator, Traveler’s Tavern, and Tavern Talk. All of these games seem very similar in the sense that you run and manage a tavern, with the exception of Tavern Talk which is a visual novel, but you still play as the owner of a tavern. There is also Tavern Master but that came out in 2021 so it’s free from this speculation. Also I just found out about Inn Tycoon and Pub Sim, also quite similar games released in the past few months.

Because I’m a fan of the developers of Tavern Keeper and know this game has been in the works for so long, I want nothing but the best success for them. I’m worried that the sudden saturation of tavern management style games flooding Steam will make people uninterested in their game. It does a lot of things differently, especially in the story side of things, but I’m not sure if that is enough to set them apart. It’s not an especially high profile game either, I’ve barely seen anyone talking about it. I also wonder why there is this sudden flood of similar games, do they all know Tavern Keeper is coming out and want to capitalize on its popularity? But like I said, that game isn’t even all that popular right now, so that’s probably not the case.

Of course I want to see all developers find success in their games, but in this case I’m rooting for my favorites. I hope Tavern Keeper lives up to its hype and that it finds a dedicated community of players who understand that this one is different from the rest.

 

[ZedClampet]

If it makes you feel better, gas station games were big a couple of years ago, and all the ones I know sold well.

Ale and Tale Tavern is pretty fun. I played the demo. It's pretty different from Tavern Keeper. It's a first person game and you have to cook, etc. Blackbeard's Tavern is also pretty fun (and free) and also involves ordering inventory, cooking, making drinks and waiting on customers.

I don't know what the Pub game is. but the one closest to Tavern Keeper is Inn Tycoon. Both of these are very similar to Tavern Master.

Most of these are restaurant sims, and Tavern Keeper is more of a tycoon game, but I think there are enough niche players now to support all these games.

 

[Johnway]

After finishing arcade paradise i'm starved for some quick bitesized action. I've decided to sink into Forgive me father a call of cthulu inspired FPS shooter. Got to say its jolly good fun if so far a bit on the easy side so far. But who knows it might get harder or spicy combat later.

 

[ZedClampet]

WTF I just had to complete a Captcha to buy something on Epic. What kind of store doesn't think your credit card and corresponding name/address aren't enough proof of who you are?

 

[Frindis]

WTF I just had to complete a Captcha to buy something on Epic. What kind of store doesn't think your credit card and corresponding name/address aren't enough proof of who you are?

Did you buy/redeem something while being on VPN? I do remember having to do captcha on Epic Games, but only through VPN.

 

[BeardyHat]

After finishing arcade paradise i'm starved for some quick bitesized action. I've decided to sink into Forgive me father a call of cthulu inspired FPS shooter. Got to say its jolly good fun if so far a bit on the easy side so far. But who knows it might get harder or spicy combat later.

Let me know how it goes. I found it charming initially, but felt like that wore out pretty quickly.

 

[neogunhero]

If it makes you feel better, gas station games were big a couple of years ago, and all the ones I know sold well.

Ale and Tale Tavern is pretty fun. I played the demo. It's pretty different from Tavern Keeper. It's a first person game and you have to cook, etc. Blackbeard's Tavern is also pretty fun (and free) and also involves ordering inventory, cooking, making drinks and waiting on customers.

I don't know what the Pub game is. but the one closest to Tavern Keeper is Inn Tycoon. Both of these are very similar to Tavern Master.

Most of these are restaurant sims, and Tavern Keeper is more of a tycoon game, but I think there are enough niche players now to support all these games.

There’s always going to be trends like that when it comes to Steam games. Just a few months ago was the whole supermarket grocery store simulator craze. It’s a bit different than that though, where the supermarket simulator trend is full of very poorly made asset flips, this tavern simulator/tycoon trend seems to be filled with games trying to do enough to differentiate themselves from competitors. With Tavern Keeper you have the whole storybook character thing where certain characters have an entire backstory and quest line to complete, but apart from that and the highly detailed item editor, the basic core gameplay seems a bit too familiar to similar games. I haven’t played any other tavern style game, but it seemed pretty par for the course on those kinds of games.

Also I looked into Pub Sim, it looks very identical to all of those supermarket simulator asset flips. It appears very cheaply and quickly made.

 

[ZedClampet]

There’s always going to be trends like that when it comes to Steam games. Just a few months ago was the whole supermarket grocery store simulator craze. It’s a bit different than that though, where the supermarket simulator trend is full of very poorly made asset flips, this tavern simulator/tycoon trend seems to be filled with games trying to do enough to differentiate themselves from competitors. With Tavern Keeper you have the whole storybook character thing where certain characters have an entire backstory and quest line to complete, but apart from that and the highly detailed item editor, the basic core gameplay seems a bit too familiar to similar games. I haven’t played any other tavern style game, but it seemed pretty par for the course on those kinds of games.

Also I looked into Pub Sim, it looks very identical to all of those supermarket simulator asset flips. It appears very cheaply and quickly made.

If these other games are good it will only help Tavern Keeper. You think the next retail game is going to have it easy from people who played some crappy retail games? Meanwhile, if I play a tavern game and enjoy it then I want more tavern games.

By the way, I don't know about the retail games on the switch store. but there have been some good ones on PC. I wouldn't blanket call them low effort asset flips. Almost every one of them is still getting frequent updates with new stuff added to the games.

Some of them started out very basic. but they were in Early Access and have improved quite a bit. Plus. none of them were asset flips to begin with. They just used the same engine.

 

[neogunhero]

If these other games are good it will only help Tavern Keeper. You think the next retail game is going to have it easy from people who played some crappy retail games? Meanwhile, if I play a tavern game and enjoy it then I want more tavern games.

By the way, I don't know about the retail games on the switch store. but there have been some good ones on PC. I wouldn't blanket call them low effort asset flips. Almost every one of them is still getting frequent updates with new stuff added to the games.

Some of them started out very basic. but they were in Early Access and have improved quite a bit. Plus. none of them were asset flips to begin with. They just used the same engine.

You’re right, it’s unfair to call them all asset flips. But trust me, the ones I saw on the Switch store were quite appalling haha. They looked like bargain bin games you’d find at Circuit City for $5 each around the year 2000. There are definitely a few on Steam, but I won’t call them all the same.

 

[ZedClampet]

@neogunhero found you another one

Save 70% on Crossroads Inn Anniversary Edition on Steam

Crossroads Inn, a real-time management sim, unfolds in Delcrys' unique fantasy realm. Construct and oversee your inn, delight traveling heroes, and achieve renowned status for your services across the kingdom.

store.steampowered.com

And they are coming out with a sequel soon, but no date on that.

 

[ZedClampet]

You’re right, it’s unfair to call them all asset flips. But trust me, the ones I saw on the Switch store were quite appalling haha. They looked like bargain bin games you’d find at Circuit City for $5 each around the year 2000. There are definitely a few on Steam, but I won’t call them all the same.

Almost all of those games that I listed in my post have had extensive updates since launching into early access and have added all sorts of things.

When someone does an asset flip, takes a game from the unity store and puts it on Steam, there are no updates. They might fix a couple of bugs. but they aren't adding mechanics and new gameplay.

But the retail engine isn't a ready-made game anyway. You actually have to do work to make a game with it. There are all sorts of engines like this in the Unity and Unreal stores. Some good games have been made with them.

 

[ZedClampet]

Check out this wildly innovative game coming soon to Steam:

Fortworld on Steam

Fight, mine, and build in this fun, open world survival and crafting game!

store.steampowered.com

 

[Brian Boru]

WTF I just had to complete a Captcha to buy something on Epic

That's cos your main self is one of the most revered Steamers in the land—Epic rightly assumed your account had been hacked. Good luck sorting the schizo thing…

 

[ZedClampet]

That's cos your main self is one of the most revered Steamers in the land

Confused. What happened that caused people to lose their sense of taste?

 

[Johnway]

I think there are different win conditions in this game but I’m not sure how to achieve them. It may be because I play against Standard difficulty AI, but after I destroy an enemies base, I have to wait a while for them to surrender. In AoE4, it’s pretty immediate once you slay the enemies king unit and their town centers that they are defeated in the match. AoM takes a bit longer for the enemies to give in, so much so that I left the enemies base after thinking I beat them, just to find out about 10 minutes later that they had some surviving villagers who started to rebuild the base lol. I just went back and finished the job.

Forgot to talk about AOM so i'm doing it now. I think this is a valid issue. in most RTS games, once the enemy loses (all) its construction site/HQ its pretty much over, as they have no means to rebuild. The problem with AOE is that the peasant CAN rebuild and they are dirt cheap and numerous. They just don't know when to bloody quit. Sometimes you strike lucky and you bottle them in their base or if you're lucky the faction just gives up after destroy certain things. In some missions its extremely tedious as you quite literally have to burn them out. Recently i was playing the malay campaign and this one mission just dragged on and on as i quite literally chased the enemy from one end of the island to the other. they Just kept rebuilding everything and i had to build castles and numerous buildings slowly choking the life out of them. Eventually they ran out of space to build a TC and it was end game. But even after i crushed them on land, i still had to destroy their docks before they finally conceded defeat.

While I am really enjoying this game I just can’t help but feel like it’s a pretty basic reskin of AoE with some minor additions. Besides the gods and myth units, there isn’t a whole lot different, and I’m sure that was the case with the original. It was enough to justify it a separate release with its own following of fans who prefer mythology over historical battles, but it’s really just not a whole lot different. Maybe the more I play the more I can see and appreciate the differences.

i don't remember too much about the faction mythical monsters but i felt they were slightly underwhelming, but then again, this was my early foray into RTS games and this was coming off from an AOE2 downward spiral. I think the problem with most AOE factions is that they are very simiar besides stat differences and maybe their one unique unit. AOE mythology was suppose to give them more distinct personality but wasn't quite there. Then again, i just used the hydras for all my story missions as they were practically indestructible.