What Games Are You Playing?

Worth getting for $30?

 

Did you enjoy Doom 1 and 2? Do you like single player FPSs? Did you feel like Doom 3 was a misstep for the series and you preferred the old games with their fast pace and hordes of enemies?

If you answered yes to those questions, DOOM is a must buy. It's awesome. It's so much fun, I would have even been fine paying $60 for it.

Gameplay is excellent if you like old school shooters, graphics are excellent, even the music is badass if you like heavy metal. This game is a perfect example of how you bring back an old franchise the correct way. It stays true to the old Doom games, but feels modern at the same time.

They even did a great job of making the weapons feel really similar to their Doom 1 and 2 counterparts. I find myself using very similar tactics to what I did in Doom 1 and 2. Well I mean plus glory kills, secondary fire modes, upgrades, and double jumping. There's a bunch of modern stuff in this game too.

This review is spot-on IMO:

Even Yahtzee enjoyed it, and he hates everything

Just buy it. It's really good.

Also it's not a reboot like Doom 3, even though they've been marketing it that way. it's a direct sequel to Doom 1, 2, and 64.

 

Does it have the hordes? I'm only early in and it's got the frantic pace and mixture of weapons right but the combat definitely feels more like skirmishes rather than big epic battles with a shit ton of enemies.

 

How far are you in the game? The hordes come later. You don't really have the weapons to deal with them in the early parts of the game. It has that kind of thing from Doom 2 where there are so many enemies that if you stand still, you die. I'm finding that sometimes the best thing you can do when you have like three or four big demons and a bunch of smaller demons swarming you is to climb and get out of their way.

Good horde weapons: rocket launcher, heatblast mod for plasma rifle, Gauss cannon with siege mode, chaingun with turret mode, BFG9000

 

Modern Warfare 3

I was wonder why it looked kind of crappy and then I realized it's 5 years old. I thought it came out like 2 years ago. There's so many of them they all sort of run together.

 

Doom

I like it so far. It very basic like the original but it still has enough going on to be interesting.

 

I bought No Man's Sky and have enjoyed it for the most part so far, but I expect a polarized response given its slow pace. Most of my time has been wandering, exploring, and collecting rather than fighting or blowing stuff up. Initial impression is around 7/10, although my opinion has improved over time. Initially, the very limited inventory space was quite frustrating, but things are starting to open up now.

 

No Man's Sky looks like a fun sandboxy indie game similar to Subnautica. I'll pick it up when it's under $20 during a Steam sale, but $60 is way too much for it. I've also read/heard the PC version is a mess right now and they are working on a patch.

 

I've been skeptical about No Man's Sky due to the procedural generation aspect. Can it really create enough interest/variety to avoid the "been there, done that" feeling too soon?

 

I got it for $40-something with a preorder deal. It definitely has an indie feel to it. I can't see the typical mainstream gamer reacting well to the pace.

 

I haven't played it enough yet to know. I've only explored a few planets so far. I'd need to play more to see if it gets too stale.

 

NMS seems like a real love/hate game. I love it so far; It's a great chill out game. It's lack of a really strong narrative and its simpleness in some mechanics makes it quite different. I think a lot of what you get out of it depends on your kind of person; I just like exploring around and taking in the sights while improving my stuff. The best moments are those I've crafted myself; running low on resources, running from enemies, diving over cliffs to escape or just finding a bizarre structures and aliens. If you're cynical about it from what you've read then it's probably not for you.

For me, it's a modern development on the classics like Elite and Mercenary on the C64 and that's more than enough for me.

@AKS how far are you in?

 

@monsly I've explored a few planets and visited a couple of moons. I think I've nearly doubled my inventory slots on my character and found a ship that is a bit better than the one I started with. I also got a better multitool as a reward from one of the aliens. I've spent most of my time wandering, collecting, and upgrading so far. I've learned enough of the alien words that I can usually take the appropriate action when I encounter aliens that provide me with a few choices and get the reward.

I'm sure there are some more combat oriented components of the game I've yet to really get into. I've just fought a few animals and sentry drones so far. I haven't gotten into any battles while in my space ship. I think there is certainly a strong element of repetition from the procedural generation element of the game, but sometimes you can find an interesting looking planet with good rewards when the random roll of RNG goes your way. I was considering buying a ship with about 20 inventory slots and just happened to stumble upon a ship while exploring that had around 19 slots for free. I just needed to repair the ship and add a few upgrades. It's random what you find and get. The moon I most recently explored was quite cold and snowy, and I was frequently given warnings about temperature dropping. I've heard there are planets with acid rain that can kill you and lots of enemies. I haven't found those things just yet.

 

Space battles are a pain in the butt. Space pirates can pull you out of pulse warp and can really quickly take you out if you don't have decent shields or aim.

I've discovered about 40 planets and 10 systems. I stopped being imaginative with their names some time ago. They're now just called iron-(number) for planets and IOR-(number) for systems.

iron-36 had vortex cubes all over the surface, worth around 20,000 units each . My first planet with water was actually a waterworld, which made it tricky to land and get to the beacons.

I've maxed out my suit inventory, which was a bit annoying when I got my atlas pass v1.

The v1 unlocks the opposite door in space stations which contains a suit inventory upgrade, which I have no use for now.

It's pretty repetitive, not sure if I'll get to the centre of the galaxy

I've run into a couple of systems and planets discovered by other people on the atlas path.

 

That all sounds fine to me.

 

So is there the option of being a space pirate yourself?

 

You can attack transport cruisers, which brings a bunch of fighters to protect it, but there's no, "Arrr, you're a pirate!" state that I'm aware of.

 

How often do you run across the cruisers?

 

They're pretty much everywhere when you're in space. Never been a system without them.

They seem to warp in whenever you leave a planet's atmosphere.