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Kevin Klemme
March 09, 2020
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Kevin Klemme
January 27, 2020
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Kevin Klemme
August 12, 2019
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oliverkinne
December 19, 2023
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oliverkinne
December 14, 2023
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Mycelia Board Game Review

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oliverkinne
December 12, 2023
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oliverkinne
December 07, 2023
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River Wild Board Game Review

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oliverkinne
December 05, 2023
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oliverkinne
November 30, 2023
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Jackwraith
November 29, 2023
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oliverkinne
November 28, 2023
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Spitfireixa
October 24, 2023
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oliverkinne
October 17, 2023
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October 10, 2023
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Outback Crossing Review

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What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

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16 Feb 2022 21:47 #330844 by hotseatgames
I finished the original F.E.A.R. game, and rolled into the first expansion, Extraction Point. Perseus Mandate will be after that. I never had the expansions back in the day, so this is all new content for me.

Extraction Point started out pretty easy, but now they are throwing tons of soldiers at me at once, and these guys do not mess around. I've died in the same scene 4 times now.
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17 Feb 2022 11:06 #330858 by Galdred

quozl wrote: I'm being recruited to play Space Empires IV. I've never played. Anyone here want to join?

I had tried it once in MP, but 3 months after starting, the game was still completely undecided and I had to find a sub to end it as I was going on vacation.
Unfortunately, the time commitment is too high for me to play these days, but the game really offers endless customization opportunities (and quite a lot of micromanagement).
I think it is one of the best 4X, especially in MP.
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18 Feb 2022 16:34 #330909 by RobertB
An old co-worker was big into Space Empires. We'd get stories from him like, "A and B are brothers, so they always attack each other right off the bat. C tries to turtle until everyone else is exhausted or dead. D takes two weeks between each turn." And so on. He sold it so well!

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19 Feb 2022 00:05 #330918 by hotseatgames
At the end of the third stage of FEAR Extraction Point, I encountered a crash bug that is apparently common. No suggested fixes have worked yet, so I decided to jump into Perseus Mandate. That one takes place during the events of the first game, but you are a second team that went into Armacham. I am enjoying it immensely, as it is chock full of cool gun fights. They also, I admit, made me jump with one of FEAR's trademark jump scares. Dicks.

Also, on a whim, I re-installed Alien Shooter TD, which takes the excellent Alien Shooter formula and turns it into a tower defense game. It's really cool, and challenging as well. If you have not played Alien Shooter and Alien Shooter 2, they are Diablo-esque games that focus on obliterating tons of bug-like aliens. They are extremely fun and can be obtained for cheap during a Steam sale. Warning - avoid the Zombie Shooter franchise. They inexplicably suck. I don't know how they bungled such a slam dunk.

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19 Feb 2022 00:20 #330919 by Gary Sax
I said something very similar in the dedicated thread... but Crusader Kings III is such an incredible game that has a really high barrier. For me, it isn't the rules or the complexity of the game. It's understanding the initial game state any individual state, count, duke, etc is operating in. It takes me a full 30 minutes to feel comfortable enough, contextually, to understand the political, economic and diplomatic situation any given character is in. It's very daunting. Once I break through that I *always* have an incredible time with the game.

This game, I decided to take on the ruler of Mecca and Medina, toiling along in the Fatimid Empire. The extra income from the pilgrimage sites really super charges you to be much stronger than a normal emir.
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19 Feb 2022 00:51 #330921 by hotseatgames
I just installed Crusader Kings III on Xbox. I don't know how it will be, or if I will even give it a chance. That's the thing I find bad about Game Pass. There is so much on there, it's almost paralyzing to decide what to check out, and if I do check something out, I tend to give it only the smallest of chances to impress me. Save point in the wrong spot? Fuck you, deleted.

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19 Feb 2022 05:47 - 19 Feb 2022 05:59 #330923 by Gary Sax
It's very complete and dynamic as a base game, something I cannot say of many other paradox games. I don't know if I'll be good on console or not.

The traditional advice is to start in Ireland like the tutorial does (do the tutorial!). I think starting as a count or duke in any bigger stable-ish kingdom is a good start. Plenty of room to just quietly learn the ropes and being under a liege will give you a good perspective on what is going on under you when you do become a duke/king. And it gives you way fewer potentially game ruining decisions and keeps the relevant cast of characters lower, so lower mental overhead.

There's no real wrong way to approach CKIII, my only counterintuitive suggestion is to play through things that seem like a big L, that's when a lot of my best games have occurred. Sometimes you end up in a shitty situation or inherit a real fucking talentless turd of a ruler and doing damage control and spending the next ruler or two coming back is pretty special gaming---often you can.
Last edit: 19 Feb 2022 05:59 by Gary Sax.
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19 Feb 2022 12:12 - 19 Feb 2022 12:23 #330926 by san il defanso
I gave myself about 25 hours of CK3, and I think ultimately I got irritated with how many things happened that were totally out of the blue. Gary Sax, what you said about interpreting the initial game state is no joke. It's a really entertaining game in lots of ways, but I think it's just too much. I am sure I could get my head around that kind of thing given some more time, but I don't have the energy. In general I think that Paradox games are too long form and open-ended for me. I liked Stellaris pretty well, and I come back to it now and again, but I think I prefer the more gamified approach used in Civ.

Speaking of which, lots of Civilization VI lately.
Last edit: 19 Feb 2022 12:23 by san il defanso.
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19 Feb 2022 13:34 - 19 Feb 2022 13:35 #330927 by Gary Sax
Yeah, I understand bouncing off Paradox stuff. I think it's a gamer psychographic thing. Paradox games are like the old show Whose Line Is It Anyway:

"Welcome to Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter"

I find that very liberating because it frees me from trying to be efficient or feel bad about doing badly. I can just poke at it and explore it while still having clear things I can do that will progress my position.
Last edit: 19 Feb 2022 13:35 by Gary Sax.
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23 Feb 2022 17:34 - 23 Feb 2022 17:40 #331002 by mtagge
Played through a nice little indie game on GamePass. "Nobody Saves the World". You play as an amnesiac who picks up a wand and can shapeshift to different forms. The dungeons (but not overworld enemies) require using being creative with using forms and side skills. You gain in power not by killing things but by beating "challenges" such as having the slug knock 100 enemies into walls using the horse's charge active skill combined with the bodybuilder's impact passive skill. The dungeons have restrictions such as all damage x 5000 (so I used the egg's passive that you can't take more than 1/6 max damage in a hit, and I combined it with the monk's smite that hits all enemies on the screen with light damage). Some enemies must be hit with certain types of damage.

It's pretty nice that the game "forces" you to try tons of effective combos to power up. Took about 25 hours and was a ton of fun while it lasted.
Last edit: 23 Feb 2022 17:40 by mtagge.

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23 Feb 2022 17:37 #331003 by Gary Sax
Absolutely going to white knuckle holding off on not playing Elden Ring until I have some time and a few patches have rolled out.
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23 Feb 2022 18:38 #331006 by Ah_Pook
I'm pretty fucking excited about elden ring yep

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23 Feb 2022 18:51 - 23 Feb 2022 22:14 #331007 by hotseatgames
I bought Divinity: Original Sin 2. Never finished the first one, or really got that far, but this one has looked good to me for a long time. It was on sale so I figured why not.

Elden Ring looks cool. It also looks like all the other From games, in that they quickly piss me off and make me quit.

update: first couple of hours with Divinity are very fun and cool. Plus, there is an Arena mode that is essentially a team based minis skirmish. Awesome! There is also an actual GM mode like the old Neverwinter had. Not sure if I'll ever get to that, but it's cool that it's there.
Last edit: 23 Feb 2022 22:14 by hotseatgames.

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23 Feb 2022 23:34 #331010 by Ah_Pook

hotseatgames wrote: Elden Ring looks cool. It also looks like all the other From games, in that they quickly piss me off and make me quit.


They certainly have a brand, it's true. I still can't quite believe their particular schtick somehow became insanely popular...

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24 Feb 2022 00:26 #331011 by san il defanso

hotseatgames wrote: I bought Divinity: Original Sin 2. Never finished the first one, or really got that far, but this one has looked good to me for a long time. It was on sale so I figured why not.

Elden Ring looks cool. It also looks like all the other From games, in that they quickly piss me off and make me quit.

update: first couple of hours with Divinity are very fun and cool. Plus, there is an Arena mode that is essentially a team based minis skirmish. Awesome! There is also an actual GM mode like the old Neverwinter had. Not sure if I'll ever get to that, but it's cool that it's there.


I have D:OS2 on Switch, which is really not the right way to play. I think it really wants to do online co-op, almost everyone I know who really loves the game says that is what pushed them over the top. For me I think the game became a little too much like XCOM for me, in that it was more a series of tactical battles connected by roleplaying elements. I'm not great at tactical gameplay in the first place, but I think mostly it just killed the pacing for me. You know how people complain about combat taking forever in later editions of D&D? That's how I eventually felt about D:OS2 after like 20 hours. Like, a couple little monsters show up and I need to jump into another turn-based battle.

I know a lot of people really are buying what D:OS2 is selling, and that's fine. But it really made me appreciate the speed of real-time-with-pause combat. That method has plenty of its own problems too, but at least its quick.

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