The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[FunkMonk]

Hmm Battletech looks real good y'all

Releases tomorrow.

[Habbaku]

I'm excited for it, but so afraid of buying games at-release these days.

Please let me know what you think ASAP.

[FunkMonk]

I'm excited for it, but so afraid of buying games at-release these days.

Please let me know what you think ASAP.

I'll be playing it right after work. I'll write something here about it.

[Habbaku]

Expeditions: Viking and Expeditions: Conquistador are pretty cheap right now.

Anyone had good experiences with them?

[Josquius]

Expeditions: Viking and Expeditions: Conquistador are pretty cheap right now.

Anyone had good experiences with them?

I've got Conquistador.
Meh.
Its a great idea and setting.
But it all feels very clunky. Like something from the mid 90s.
If you're comfortable with old games then you might get into it more than I did

[garbon]

Expeditions: Viking and Expeditions: Conquistador are pretty cheap right now.

Anyone had good experiences with them?

I've got Conquistador.
Meh.
Its a great idea and setting.
But it all feels very clunky. Like something from the mid 90s.
If you're comfortable with old games then you might get into it more than I did

Yeah, CC loved the latter and has made initial positive comments about the former. I found myself in same boat with Conquistador. A bit too old school for me.

[11B4V]

Anyone else following this?

https://gamerant.com/cyberpunk-2077-first-person-rumor/

[Habbaku]

Expeditions: Viking and Expeditions: Conquistador are pretty cheap right now.

Anyone had good experiences with them?

I've got Conquistador.
Meh.
Its a great idea and setting.
But it all feels very clunky. Like something from the mid 90s.
If you're comfortable with old games then you might get into it more than I did

Yeah, CC loved the latter and has made initial positive comments about the former. I found myself in same boat with Conquistador. A bit too old school for me.

Thanks, Tyr and garbon. Gonna take a jump on Vikings, then. If I like it, I'll go backwards even though the Conquistador idea seems cooler.

[Tamas]

So, overall I like Battletech and I'll be playing it but it has some pretty glaring flaws.

I was expecting better graphics from the screenshots. It's serviceable but nothing special.

The tutorial is not very good and I hope it can be skipped if I ever restart the campaign.

But still, it's fun to try and position yourself on the maps, trying to take that good shot in (that won't have you grind the enemy mech down one pip of armor at a time). And the campaign mode makes you wanna be sure you don't get damaged needlessly. Jumpjets are fun as well.

Basically, it seems like they didn't even try grabbing the attention of people new to Battletech.

Next big question for me with the game is the AI - I am just entering proper campaign missions territory.

[FunkMonk]

I'm excited for it, but so afraid of buying games at-release these days.

Please let me know what you think ASAP.

I'll be playing it right after work. I'll write something here about it.

After about 10 hours of actual game play I am finding it difficult to pull myself away from this video game.

Graphically the game looks pretty, especially the terrain. There are some framerate issues if you're picky about that sort of thing, though I am running it on a 6 year old CPU and a GTX 970 with 16 gigs of RAM, so make of that what you will. The art style is quite nice as well.

The turn-based combat is slower paced than the new XCOM, which I like. It really feels like giant stompy robots slugging it out inside lunar craters or lush forests, and the light mechs really feel like they're flying across the maps conpared to the heavier mechs. The initiative phase system is really cool in that you can manipulate the turns so that lighter units can run in, shoot something in the vulnerable rear armor, and then on the next turn fly away to safety (or shoot and fly to safety if you have that perk) before the heavier unit can react. Overall I'm finding the battles very satisfying, echoing what Tamas is saying.

What happens in the mech battles matters a whole lot in the campaign. It hasn't happened to me (yet) but going into bankruptcy ends your game so costly repairs after battles and losing your mechwarriors actually matter. And making your mechs from scratch in the mech bay is super easy and, for me, really enthralling. I'm still in the early game so scrapping together salvaged weapons and mechs into something resembling a coherent and sensible mech lance is challenging but doable. It is very satisfying building your mechs and then seeing them actually work well with the other mechs in your lance. In my last few contract missions I was neck deep in SRMs but had no good ballistic weapons so I slapped a ton of SRM 6s and jump jets on my Centurion and Shadow Hawk. Basically they fly up to enemies and slam them with dozens of missiles and secondary weapons, while I have a fast scout in a Spider (and I just pieced together a Jenner to replace it) that moves along the flanks and sensor locks enemies making it easier to land hits. The 4th mech in my lance is just a fire support mech, shooting from slightly behind the brawler mechs with lasers and autocannons. It's working well so far.

On the negative side, I've had one crash so far. Also I would suggest loading it in a SSD. And as I mentioned above it could use more optimization so it runs smoother.

Overall I'm really happy with this video game so far.

[Valmy]

So, overall I like Battletech and I'll be playing it but it has some pretty glaring flaws.

Yeah like I have to go in the service of vile Aristo-SWINE



But at least I get to fight against Le Directoire...er...the Directorate.

I was expecting better graphics from the screenshots. It's serviceable but nothing special.

Boy, you are not kidding. I am glad to hear this reaction because I thought maybe there was something wrong with my graphics card. The art style in the cut scenes are alright but man the maps are horribly washed out. Everything just looks bland and brown.

[Tamas]

After the first story "boss fight" mission you get a crapton of cash, but I was so beaten up in the actual fight, that after buying just a couple of small things, fixing up stuff, then actually having to wait like 2 months to have a lance worth of mechs operational, I am broke again 

[FunkMonk]

I watched some gameplay footage of that mission so I knew what was coming 

Only had a little structural damage on my Blackjack and some accidental overheat damage on my Spider.

Lights early in this game are hilarious. You can fly across the map and spot for your big boys either using just the passive scanning or sensor locking so your guys can just go ham on some unsuspecting light mech which just had all its defensive evasion erased.

[Tamas]

Is the sensor lock ability some kind of equipment I need to install?

[FunkMonk]

Is the sensor lock ability some kind of equipment I need to install?

It's the first ability you unlock in the Tactics branch of the skill tree