What are you playing? (Redux)

[BuddhaRhubarb]

I suck at video games too. Always have, yet I keep coming back for more...like a video game character.

Something I noticed recently playing... people talk about the desensitization of violence through video games, killing virtual people being so easy... But actually you yourself often die as much (just as horrifically often) or more than the hordes sent at you. Indeed I played a lot of suicide GTA on the old PS2. Drive till you explode or get beat to death by 20 cops kinda thing. I hardly ever got anywhere "mission-wise" in those games but I had a hella good time going out Tony Montana style over and over and over.

[11B4V]

I suck at video games too. Always have, yet I keep coming back for more...like a video game character.

Something I noticed recently playing... people talk about the desensitization of violence through video games, killing virtual people being so easy... But actually you yourself often die as much (just as horrifically often) or more than the hordes sent at you. Indeed I played a lot of suicide GTA on the old PS2. Drive till you explode or get beat to death by 20 cops kinda thing. I hardly ever got anywhere "mission-wise" in those games but I had a hella good time going out Tony Montana style over and over and over.

It is easy IMO

My other half watches in amazment at how I'll meticulously sneak around into and out of an area while playing ES4, ES5, FONV, and FO 3. She says there's something wrong with me. Probably right.

She sat and watched for over two hours as my character skulked around and sniped all the Death Claws from the quarry in FONV. Or in ES4 as my character snuck through a dungeon fort past an ass load of Necromacers to get some freakin amulet.

She laughed her ass off at my tactic for vault 22 in FONV.

[Scipio]

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos.

Still a great old-school dungeon crawl, where even the bad guys make sharp right turns.

[Grey Fox]

ABC Monday Night Football is hard.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Tried a few training missions in Modern warfare 2. not really my thing. going back to Fallout New Vegas today.

[lustindarkness]

So, my son asked for Rome Total War, and I could not find the CD anywhere, I downloaded the thing from steam for him for @$5, he playes it every once in a while on my laptop. Cool to play a quick single player battle every once in a while.

I'm still playing MW3 on the PS3.

Why do I even bother posting here anyway? Not like any of you really care what I play. 

[Habbaku]

Why do I even bother posting here anyway? Not like any of you really care

Self-fulfilling! The CdM school of posting is not recommended.  If people only posted when someone was interested (instead of posting to get people interested), the forum would quickly die.

[Scipio]

Xmas weekend will involve me diving headfirst into Wing Commander 1, 2, 3, and Privateer.

[Octavian]

Started up a game of EU III Death and Taxes mod. The map looks great and so far the mod is fun. Started as France in 1461. My main objective is to 1: tie France and Italy together (heir of Charlemagne), 2: defend Christianity from the turk (taken Apulia), 3: Break the encirclement of England and the emperor plus deal with Burgundy.

Annexed Provence together with Savoy while making a seperate white peace with Provence's ally Burgundy. England attacked me during the war and they raped Scotland my ally. Made peace with the English by paying 300 ducats and giving up my sphere in Cyprus. Portugal led the Burgundian alliance and she refused peace despite my ally Castille   somewhat raping them. Eventually with the help of French vassal troops they surrendered. Had to give up the canaries and some cores plus a tribute.

[szmik]

Mass Effect 2
the game took my breath away. It's truly epic. Played it for 20h without a break druing weekend, not counting quick runs to the fridge or toilet.  My wife is totally pissed off. 

[PRC]

Mass Effect 2
the game took my breath away. It's truly epic. Played it for 20h without a break druing weekend, not counting quick runs to the fridge or toilet.  My wife is totally pissed off. 

That sounds like my first playthrough of it... blew me away.

[szmik]

ending of ME2 is ... too easy? sitting behind cover and shooting for a couple of minutes 
have to do it on higher difficulty level

[HisMajestyBOB]

I've been obsessively playing SimCity 4 Deluxe.
So much fun. It's like crack.

Any user-created content?

L.

Network Addon Mod (NAM) is a must, and I threw in 2 submods that use it.
Also a bunch of different buildings, but nothing that really changes the functionality of the game.


Oh, and I've moved on from SC4 to... actually, I really haven't been playing much of anything the last week or two, besides Angry Birds on my phone and B-17 Flying Fortress with Vassal. Been too busy and tired.

[11B4V]

Playing CMBB (putting together a little AAR for it) and working up SSG's Korsun Pocket. Ran a computer controlled 12 turn run of my Prokhorovka scenario for TOAW 3. What a wonderfully historical scenario....

[Syt]

Been playing some Distant Worlds - Legends this morning. Some people complain that the game plays itself, but I rather enjoy it wih the following settings:
- research, colonization, diplomacy manual
- construction, Intelligence missions, military operations: AI suggestions
- fleet sizes, taxation, fleet dispositions etc. are set on the Empire screen

I keep a few fleets under manual control in case of war.

My game as human republic went rather well at first. I discovered a few human colonies early on (including Sol III) which gave me a considerable boost. I expanded undisturbed for quite a while. I befriended two adjacent empires and had neutral relations with two more.

Things became interesting when I invdided an independent reptile world. An empire o reptile was right next door, and there was a serious of short but ultimately undecisive conflicts in which the occasional remote colony would change hands.

Another insect empire was extraordinarily weak. We kept arguing about a few mining stations along the border. I used them as a pretence for war. I crushed them in round 1 and made their remaining worlds my vassals. Shortly tehreafter the vassals broke free and I crushed them once and for all.

By this time I had a huge lead in tech and had a large but not huge empire. There were a few more skirmishes, but nothing bad.

Things went downhill when I two weaker races agreed to become protectorates of the Sytonian Enclave. These two kept getting dragged into wars. I didn't pay much attention to war exhaustion (fought first the reptiles again, then tried to swallow another small insect empire, got dragged into conflict with the reptiles again, then two consecutive wars with a huge insect empire on the far side of the galaxy . . . ) till it was too late - most of my worlds experienced revolts, which caused taxation to plummet. Were I had an annual surplus of 100k I now had a deficit of 500k. I ceased all hostilities, but by then it was too late. Five or six of my oldest colonies and strongest defected to a neighboring neutral amphibian empire. A world or two of the insect empire I had conquered joined the reptiles. To add insult to injury, my homeworld declared its independence.

I fought a massive battle for that planet, but in the end it cost my some of my best ships, a whole battle fleet defected during the fighting, and two fleet admirals and two troop generals had died, and I still hadn't retaken the planet. I guess this is the point where I will have to sit back and lick my wounds, trying to stabilize the remnants of my empire (still 2/3 left), consider a regime change (though my allies won't like that), and putting the economy back on track before I start a campaign to retake what was mine.

It would be easy to give up now, but I want to try and rebuild my empire.