I played Melee last night, which is still about 5x more fun than Smash 4. It's not even the wavedashing, the faster startup on moves and the ability to actually edge guard make it a much more enjoyable game.
The Video Game Thread
- Thread starter James Stevenson
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I'm hooked to Diablo III again. The monk is awesome!
A friend just got me started in Dominions 4. It's a civ-style 4x, but with the depth and complexity of Dwarf Fortress. Graphics somewhere in the late 90s PC games look.
I'm running some frost giants with a big regeneration bless courtesy of my immobile pretender god tree. She crafts armor, casts global rituals, and summons things rather than participating directly like a dragon would. Can't figure out whether eagles, Garm, skeletons, or undead frogs are a better source of cannon fodder, so I do a little of it all. Hoping to soon enchant the entire globe with permanent glaciation, darkness, and raining frogs - my giants can weather area pestilences better than the more numerous but fragile human races.
I played partway through 5 games and restarted them once I'd learned something really important that would have changed everything had I known it sooner. Looks like for this game, game 6, I'll be finishing it to completion after 3 days of poking at it and reading 400 page manuals and data inspectors.
I'm running some frost giants with a big regeneration bless courtesy of my immobile pretender god tree. She crafts armor, casts global rituals, and summons things rather than participating directly like a dragon would. Can't figure out whether eagles, Garm, skeletons, or undead frogs are a better source of cannon fodder, so I do a little of it all. Hoping to soon enchant the entire globe with permanent glaciation, darkness, and raining frogs - my giants can weather area pestilences better than the more numerous but fragile human races.
I played partway through 5 games and restarted them once I'd learned something really important that would have changed everything had I known it sooner. Looks like for this game, game 6, I'll be finishing it to completion after 3 days of poking at it and reading 400 page manuals and data inspectors.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh man, I tried to get into that, but it has way too many options for my tastes. Dominion 4 is definitely for the hardcore RTS player. But! I heard that if you are a hardcore RTS player, it's also maybe the best RTS out there.
Turn based, not RT, but yeah. This is fantastic... this is in a lot of ways what Civ IV's "fall from heaven" mod would look like as a real game where magic, gods, and apocalypses were fully integrated into gameplay, kinda balanced, and not McGuyver'd in via mods. The only way to survive the glut of options is to pick a thing or two that looks interesting and then tunnel vision onto it until, in doing that thing, you've mastered the basics. And definitely not playing your first few games to completion, because that takes too long and you're likely gonna lose while still not able to fully grasp why.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ah yeah, turn-based, duh 
Anyway, I like games that I can pick up quickly, and generally dislike how the "it has to be better than the previous best game in this genre" has generally lead to games with more options, which is not the same as better games. I'm also prone to abandoning a game halfway through, unless a game has a good, compelling story, or I just really like the gameplay. Arkham Asylum was a top notch game, but I think I didn't even make it to the halfway mark.
Games I really, really like: Diablo III, To The Moon, Drawn: The Painted Tower (and the two sequels), Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, and lots more.
PS. I think the Sim City series is a good example of ever expanding options leading to a bloated game. I played Sim City 2000 to pieces, but I loathed later editions.
Anyway, I like games that I can pick up quickly, and generally dislike how the "it has to be better than the previous best game in this genre" has generally lead to games with more options, which is not the same as better games. I'm also prone to abandoning a game halfway through, unless a game has a good, compelling story, or I just really like the gameplay. Arkham Asylum was a top notch game, but I think I didn't even make it to the halfway mark.Games I really, really like: Diablo III, To The Moon, Drawn: The Painted Tower (and the two sequels), Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, and lots more.
PS. I think the Sim City series is a good example of ever expanding options leading to a bloated game. I played Sim City 2000 to pieces, but I loathed later editions.
Commandos, that was an excellent game. The unit's voice responses to commands were really immersive and memorable. I still think of Tiny when my younger (but huge) brother uses similar turns of phrase and mannerisms to this day.
Sim City lost me at 2000, it felt too much like homework. I switched to final fantasy and Battlezone from almost exclusively playing the Sim series at that time. (sim earth was pretty terrible too, but at least more fun than SC2000) For some reason I like DF, but that's a lot more immersive I guess. And I never really finish a game of it, I just play until I have a reasonably cool fort and I lose a few dwarves to this or that minor catastrophe.
Sim City lost me at 2000, it felt too much like homework. I switched to final fantasy and Battlezone from almost exclusively playing the Sim series at that time. (sim earth was pretty terrible too, but at least more fun than SC2000) For some reason I like DF, but that's a lot more immersive I guess. And I never really finish a game of it, I just play until I have a reasonably cool fort and I lose a few dwarves to this or that minor catastrophe.
I have a holy trinity that started around 2005 (10 years after i started to learn about MTG).
MTG, Defense of the Ancients (1 and 2), Blood Bowl (pc or tabletop). I have played each of those games more than i maybe should have
Oh and now that i think about it, i have played each of those games in a tournament setting!
This holy trinity might be lost due to Heroes of the Storm replacing DotA.
Hearthstone has replaced MODO almost completely, but i guess it will never replace MTG for me.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I have a holy trinity that started around 2005 (10 years after i started to learn about MTG).
MTG, Defense of the Ancients (1 and 2), Blood Bowl (pc or tabletop). I have played each of those games more than i maybe should have
Oh and now that i think about it, i have played each of those games in a tournament setting!
This holy trinity might be lost due to Heroes of the Storm replacing DotA.
Hearthstone has replaced MODO almost completely, but i guess it will never replace MTG for me.
Oh dota. Great game, not great for my blood pressure
American Football set in the Warhammer universe. It is Turn-based
When i started, i didn't know anything about American Football, and i haven't played any warhammers, still i got hooked to that game really hard.
I heard that Blood Bowl isn't as hard to learn as Warhammer, but Blood Bowl still has quite a lot of info to gather before you can really get in to it.
You pick a race to play with. Bash your opponents team and try to make a touchdown or two.
After the game you get experience for your team and level up your players.
The gameplay seems really random and ultimately it is that, but somehow the better player will usually win.
There are 24 different races to pick from, but if you want to try you should never play something like Halflings or Goblins, because they are "funny" races... you get beat up pretty hard with them.
For instance Wood Elves are really good at making Touchdowns and Chaos can bash you to pieces when that team levels up.
So when you start, the hardest to learn is when you roll dice and what you need to roll.
In a PC version you can just test it out, because the computer does the rolling, so it isn't that bad.
But in a nutshell it goes like this, you roll the die when ever you:
-Pick up the ball
-Throw the ball
-Catch the ball
-Roll armor when you:
-Tackle someone -> if you get that player down, you roll for armor and see if the dude is injured
- Foul someone (kick a dude who is on the ground) -> roll armor and see if the dude is injured AND see if the referee catches you on the act.
-Your player is hit with a rock that the audience has thrown at you
-Your opponent has hired a wizard who can throw one Lightning Bolt or Fire Ball at your player(s)
-Try to move away from a square where your opponents duded is standing next to and you happen to fail it.
-If you "go for it", move 1 or 2 extra squares and happen to fail it
Most of these are d6 rolls, but armor roll is 2d6
Knowing these rolls is key, because if you fail any agility rolls (dodge, ball handling, go for it)
Your turn is over.
Better players will know when to roll the dice and when to wait and not risk your positions.
I started with fumbbl.com it is a free java version.
There is "bigger" game also available on steam, it is fine also. Cyanide's Blood Bowl. There will be a sequel to that one this year... can't wait to test it out
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I run a Blood Bowl League at the library I work in every Fall, tabletop play. We call it "Monday Night Football", because calling a children's program "Blood Bowl" would raise some eyebrows. We've finished three seasons where I currently work, as well as two more at the library I used to work at. I play with kids, so we simplify a few of the "chrome" elements to lower time/complexity, downplay the gory flavor text, and rework the money system to account for our season length (we give a lot more money each game and allow upgrades for players to be bought with that money rather then through xp), but otherwise play it straight. Over the years I've collected and painted 14 teams and eventually I'll get all the "normal" teams (Ogres, Halflings and Vampires hold no interest to me). Mostly I'd like to add Amazons and Chaos, maybe High Elves. Our previous champions have been:
2014 Destroyers (Orcs)
2013 Runners (Skaven)
2012 Bruisers (Chaos Dwarves)
2011 No Season
2010 Blue Lightning(Lizardmen)
2009 The Dark Elves (Dark Elves)
2014 Destroyers (Orcs)
2013 Runners (Skaven)
2012 Bruisers (Chaos Dwarves)
2011 No Season
2010 Blue Lightning(Lizardmen)
2009 The Dark Elves (Dark Elves)
Man, that sounds like the best, FSR! I miss playing games with people that have a ton of free time. Everyone I know these days is all used up and exhausted at the end of the day/week by their jobs. No one seems to want to work PT and have free time to actually enjoy themselves anymore; they're all FT. Either it's a shitty job and they're overworked, or it's a good job and they devote extra time and energy to it because they enjoy it.
Guess I should look into PT positions at the library! I'm a little bored of smelling like chickens I guess.
Guess I should look into PT positions at the library! I'm a little bored of smelling like chickens I guess.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
So.... How long is FT? In the Netherlands FT for most jobs is 32-40 hours a week (excluding overtime), or you work in shifts. Both leave plenty of time and energy to pursue hobbies.
There's apparently a new Blood Bowl-esque game that came out on Steam. It's by the makers of Frozen Synapse, which sounded great on paper but I thought was actually pretty balls to play (in a bad way), so I'm not very optimistic, despite Penny-Arcade plugging it.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Unfortunately, if you want to do fun stuff at a library, you probably need to be either be a high school kid who gets a temporary summer position assisting programming or a librarian that does programming (which requires a master's degree and is often full time). Non-professional work at a library generally is maintenance, shelving books or circulation/processing tasks, none of which are particularly fun. You could always try to get an act together and get in on the school/library/party circuit running programs by contract.
Ironically, though, as I type this I smell chicken here at the library because yesterday two of my co-workers made fried chicken with the kids for our cooking program and now the whole place smells like KFC.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I am a children's librarian at a public library.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I suddenly like you. Being a librarian was my childhood dream.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Not me, but in retrospect it should have been. The job rocks.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Pfft FSR has always been awesome
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I ended up a Software Tester, which is also fun, but I was fascinated by books when I was little. Read from a very young age, and relished literature in high school. Then computers took off and I slowly became addicted to the computer screen (though not the TV, neither do I watch series on my laptop or something). Nowadays I'm not reading as much as I'ld like, and my dreams of being a librarian are long gone