[Det. Bullock]

Star Wars Starfighter
A nice 7/10 dogfighting game like the Rogue Squadron series but with slightly different gameplay choices.
Instead of a radar you have a targeting system but it lets you only target what's in front of you otherwise it's only autotargeting.
In some missions using manual targeting it's suicide since there are scripted moments when the character ask the R2 unit to lock on a certain target that's otherwise impossible to find because you can't tell where it is and you cannot cycle the targets.
The last mission has also what (for lack of a better phrase) it's a scripted boss fight: an enemy Ace you cannot take down unless you reach a certain point in the mission. Until the game decides that you can destroy it you can only damage his shield a bit and being used to games like Rogue Squadron itself or the X-wing series I've found that very unintuitive (I had to read a walkthrough because I couldn't understand why I couldn't do any damage to him).
Also, he's one of those targets that's impossible to see so unless you are careful not to use manual targeting and let the game scripts lock on him for you you are screwed because he has guided missiles that do a ton of damage and you need to have it in your sights to shoot them down.
It doesn't help that every time you get hit your aim is thrown off.
At the moment I'm trying to get all the optional objectives for the unlockables, some of them are quite hairpullingly difficult but still more or less doable.
I sincerely wonder why arcade dogfighting games often mistake lack of control for accessibility, a radar or a couple of key to cycle targets manually would have spared me a lot of swearing.
Perhaps it's just that I'm too used to the plethora of targeting controls of Tie Fighter and Freespace.

A positive though is that the range of your guns is ridiculous, there is even the possibility to zoom and in some missions you have enough open space to effectively snipe enemy fighters, I think only the last mission has targets that are undisputably beyond the range of your guns but not by much.
The controls are also very godd, very simple (the throttle is essentially brake, normal speed and boost) but there is a bit of inertia in the flight model which make things interesting especially when you have to manouver in tight spaces.

The story is very basic: a displaced pilot of the Naboo royal guard, a pirate and a mercenary with her scavenger sidekick join forces to get back at the Trade Federation during the events of Star Wars Episode I, but it serves it's purpose and avoids tacked in cameos.

[AdmiralRalwood]

In some missions using manual targeting it's suicide since there are scripted moments when the character ask the R2 unit to lock on a certain target that's otherwise impossible to find because you can't tell where it is and you cannot cycle the targets.
The last mission has also what (for lack of a better phrase) it's a scripted boss fight: an enemy Ace you cannot take down unless you reach a certain point in the mission. Until the game decides that you can destroy it you can only damage his shield a bit and being used to games like Rogue Squadron itself or the X-wing series I've found that very unintuitive (I had to read a walkthrough because I couldn't understand why I couldn't do any damage to him).
Also, he's one of those targets that's impossible to see so unless you are careful not to use manual targeting and let the game scripts lock on him for you you are screwed because he has guided missiles that do a ton of damage and you need to have it in your sights to shoot them down.
It doesn't help that every time you get hit your aim is thrown off.
At the moment I'm trying to get all the optional objectives for the unlockables, some of them are quite hairpullingly difficult but still more or less doable.
I sincerely wonder why arcade dogfighting games often mistake lack of control for accessibility, a radar or a couple of key to cycle targets manually would have spared me a lot of swearing.
Perhaps it's just that I'm too used to the plethora of targeting controls of Tie Fighter and Freespace.

Since it was made for consoles, the lack of targeting controls is because there were no more buttons available to assign functions to; that being said, whatever the "target nearest enemy" key is (it was triangle on the PS2) should cycle through targets when pressed repeatedly, and if you hold down the "target forward target" key, it should enter a special mode where all targets are highlighted and you can cycle through them with the d-pad (presumably the arrow keys in the PC version).

Unless the controls are just completely different for the PC port, of course. Personally, I vastly preferred the sequel, but it never got a PC port (and the last time I tried to emulate it, it didn't work very well).

[deathspeed]

I never did get into Starfighter as much as Rogue Squadron, but i have it so now you are making me want to play it again.

I started HAWX 2 yesterday, although I've had it for several years.  Other than the annoyance of having to rebind my joystick controls every time I play, it's been a fun arcade flight shooter so far.  I'm still messing around with the bindings anyway, trying to figure out what I actually need on the joystick and what can stay on the keyboard. I still struggle sometimes with targeting the thing I want to shoot, and sometimes it's difficult to tell exactly what the objective is, but so far the strategy of "blow everything up" has met the objectives.  But I'm only on mission 3, and i think i read that there are 20, so I might need to figure out a better system.

[Det. Bullock]

In some missions using manual targeting it's suicide since there are scripted moments when the character ask the R2 unit to lock on a certain target that's otherwise impossible to find because you can't tell where it is and you cannot cycle the targets.
The last mission has also what (for lack of a better phrase) it's a scripted boss fight: an enemy Ace you cannot take down unless you reach a certain point in the mission. Until the game decides that you can destroy it you can only damage his shield a bit and being used to games like Rogue Squadron itself or the X-wing series I've found that very unintuitive (I had to read a walkthrough because I couldn't understand why I couldn't do any damage to him).
Also, he's one of those targets that's impossible to see so unless you are careful not to use manual targeting and let the game scripts lock on him for you you are screwed because he has guided missiles that do a ton of damage and you need to have it in your sights to shoot them down.
It doesn't help that every time you get hit your aim is thrown off.
At the moment I'm trying to get all the optional objectives for the unlockables, some of them are quite hairpullingly difficult but still more or less doable.
I sincerely wonder why arcade dogfighting games often mistake lack of control for accessibility, a radar or a couple of key to cycle targets manually would have spared me a lot of swearing.
Perhaps it's just that I'm too used to the plethora of targeting controls of Tie Fighter and Freespace.

Since it was made for consoles, the lack of targeting controls is because there were no more buttons available to assign functions to; that being said, whatever the "target nearest enemy" key is (it was triangle on the PS2) should cycle through targets when pressed repeatedly, and if you hold down the "target forward target" key, it should enter a special mode where all targets are highlighted and you can cycle through them with the d-pad (presumably the arrow keys in the PC version).

Unless the controls are just completely different for the PC port, of course. Personally, I vastly preferred the sequel, but it never got a PC port (and the last time I tried to emulate it, it didn't work very well).

Yeah, but it isn't really reliable (and it's more of an "auto-target reset" button), it depends a lot on distance it seems and getting the target you want is a crapshoot, for a few side objectives memorizing the position of certain enemies was more reliable than try to cycle through them.
The thing is that it doesn't really have that many controls, I used my HOTAS since I like to use it but I could fit everything on just the stick with room to spare if I wanted to. But probably the game on PS2 used buttons for throttle and roll instead of one of the analog sticks.

[AdmiralRalwood]

The thing is that it doesn't really have that many controls, I used my HOTAS since I like to use it but I could fit everything on just the stick with room to spare if I wanted to. But probably the game on PS2 used buttons for throttle and roll instead of one of the analog sticks.

L2 and R2 (left and right trigger) for "go slow" and "go fast", if I remember correctly; roll, however, I'm pretty sure was on the right analog stick (or it was in Jedi Starfighter, at least).

[Det. Bullock]

The thing is that it doesn't really have that many controls, I used my HOTAS since I like to use it but I could fit everything on just the stick with room to spare if I wanted to. But probably the game on PS2 used buttons for throttle and roll instead of one of the analog sticks.

L2 and R2 (left and right trigger) for "go slow" and "go fast", if I remember correctly; roll, however, I'm pretty sure was on the right analog stick (or it was in Jedi Starfighter, at least).

There is a button to modify yaw into roll in the PC version but I dispensed with it since I could bind roll to the throttle ministick so it's possible the first game didn't use the second analog stick on PS2, still I think it might have been viable having at least a real "cycle targets" key using the d-pad for the orders like in Rogue Leader since there are only four of them.

[Scourge of Ages]

I just beat XCOM 2 on Veteran. Gonna have to go back for a harder difficulty, because I kind of stomped the aliens into the dirt...

I did like the final mission and cutscene, it was very TFTD-ish.

[Sushi]

Finally got around to playing X-wing Alliance. Wonderful Star Wars atmosphere, hooray! An x-wing game with padlock view, sweet! But wow the mission design is embarrassingly bad, wildly veering from "trivially easy" to "ridiculous and impossible" to "what am I supposed to be doing?"

e.g. One of the first "real" missions asks you to fly a Y-wing for a basic strike work evaluation. According to the briefing, you blow up some undefended pods, then take out a docked cruiser, then try to do some damage to a lightly escorted convoy. All goes fine until the third segment, where the "light escort" turns out to be a couple of modified transports with crazy firepower and shields. Engage them, you explode, and get to do the whole thing over again. After googling it appears the recommended strategy is to rope-a-dope those escorts away from the convoy, then loop around and hit them. But you have to do it before the convoy gets away, of course. Blah.

[niffiwan]

oh ho yes. I think my basic strat was all power to engines; avoid the damn transports & kill the "thrust" modules/ships in the convoy with dumbfired torps, hyper out, reload, repeat. Then finally come back & kill the now stationary convoy... and if feeling sadistic try to kill the transports with maximum range head on passes with a couple of bursts of gunfire each time before wild evasion @ max engine power until I can draw back out of range, recharge shields+lasers & try again. And hope to keep the damage output greater than their shield regen.

Actually, I think I ended up using that strat far too much in too many missions 

[0rph3u5]

How good is the writing of Tyranny compared to Pillars and ye olde Baldur's Gate?

The problem with that comparision is one of quantity... Tyranny has a lot of good writing and I would say it is on par with the two Baldur's Gate as whole; however it is much more contained in it's scope and cast, and some resolutions fall by the wayside because of that. (as for Pillars, I never completed Pillars but I found the characters in Tyranny a bit more compelling TBH)

Now a big HOWEVER, there is a good chunk of content you will not see in a single playthrough as there are at least 3 mutually exclusive branches to the main plot and each segment of Tiers has at least an alternate resolution; e.g. I never broke the Edict of Fire because I found a way to break the Edict of Storms with an alternate path that doesn't require you to travel to the area affected by the Edict of Fire.


Finished Tales of Beseria last night ... While as a game it leaves some things to be desired, the story and the cast are great (though not the best in the series, Velvet as lead is pulling much more than your usual JRPG lead) - the storytelling is well though out, despite a few wierd points, and highly emotional.

For a JRPG, who are notorious to be slow starters, it has decent pace and never really let's you down; an effective trick here is that it is a committed revenge story, which takes a slow a first hour and a half to establish the driving force and then kicks in the appropriate gear, more than once using the obessive nature of revenge as a plot device and through it all -even through a moment that might have turned a lesser game's anti-hero protagonist- sticking to the emotional core of the proceedings, with all the kicking, screaming and grieving it needs to do. Velvet simply doesn't serve her revenge cold

There is much to unpack here about what really makes it work, so will stick to that I highly recommend it. A minus.

[Det. Bullock]

Finally got around to playing X-wing Alliance. Wonderful Star Wars atmosphere, hooray! An x-wing game with padlock view, sweet! But wow the mission design is embarrassingly bad, wildly veering from "trivially easy" to "ridiculous and impossible" to "what am I supposed to be doing?"

e.g. One of the first "real" missions asks you to fly a Y-wing for a basic strike work evaluation. According to the briefing, you blow up some undefended pods, then take out a docked cruiser, then try to do some damage to a lightly escorted convoy. All goes fine until the third segment, where the "light escort" turns out to be a couple of modified transports with crazy firepower and shields. Engage them, you explode, and get to do the whole thing over again. After googling it appears the recommended strategy is to rope-a-dope those escorts away from the convoy, then loop around and hit them. But you have to do it before the convoy gets away, of course. Blah.

The mission design is quite intentionally that way, you are always outnumbered even with "light" enemy opposition because that's the Rebel Alliance for you.

Just destroy the first container in each train to stop the transports so you can destroy them without worrying of them jumping out, remember to go and recharge.

Also: play on medium, the game is balanced for that difficulty, easy is sometimes bugged and hard makes your wingmen incredibly stupid, they'll die immediately and then all enemies will gang up on you or the bombers will fail to hit the targets they were assigned to (one of the first missions with the alliance has this problem, the Y-wings should disable a Dreadnought but on hard they fail to do so most of the times because, I kid you not, they can't even land more than a few ion shots on it).

PS: with easy it's also almost impossible to reach the rank of general and the Kalidor Crescent Diamond Eyes since you get less bonus points and ordinary points than on medium.
You get bonus points for doing inane stuff like destroying a Star Destroyer while alone in a Y-wing, but it's largely doable when you know when to just get back and let your shields recharge and you aren't playing above medium since on hard you cannot destroy the shield generators of Star Destroyers and other capital ships before their shields are down.

[Black_Yoshi1230]

Iridion II on emu. At the fourth sector, and so far I'm loving it. If only I can bother to learn how to properly angle the satellites to absorb damage.

[0rph3u5]

Finished Gravity Rush (Remastered) ... and it actually makes we want to go back on my harsh judgement of the sequel. The problems I described (camera mostly, controls a little) become less pronounced when you play the first game, simply because the missions there are slower and the Nevi basically eaiser targets in part 1, which makes part 2 more an evolved form and both frontsv- something that is utterly lost to you if you play them in reverse order.

So if you have interest get them both.

[An4ximandros]

Twisted Insurrection & Battlefield 2142 through the Revive project.

Both are fun, TI is really awesome at being a darker Tiberian Sun and 2142 brings in all that nostalgia.

[Colonol Dekker]

What's the revive project?  I wish to play more 2142.  Europe ftw.

[An4ximandros]

When gamespy died, EA promised to migrate old games to a new host. Never actually did. People made a new host for the back end, it's free. https://bl2142.co/

How you get the game itself is up to you, I had the game and expansion on origin. It's on this dead end where EA seems to let it slide since it let's people play the old games without them having to do or pay anything.

[Mammothtank]

Twisted Insurrection & Battlefield 2142 through the Revive project.

Both are fun, TI is really awesome at being a darker Tiberian Sun and 2142 brings in all that nostalgia.

*Pokes for some TI MP sometime*

[CP5670]

I'll need to check out TI, it looks very interesting.

I started playing Deus Ex Mankind Divided and like it a lot so far. The Prague hub is huge but very detailed and more interactive than the previous game. I'm having a great time just exploring (and looting) everything, and the side quests are interesting as well.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Thinking about replaying Spec Ops: The Line after seeing it on sale for $6 (if you haven't picked this game up yet, you totally should; $6 is an absolute steal for this classic).

[RangerKarl]

Been playing both Ace Combat 5 and Tides of Numenera. AC5 has that weirdly comforting repetitiveness that comes from being well-worn over the years. The AI fighters rush in to get clobbered immediately and obediently, you regularly rack up kill rates an order of magnitude higher than your wingmen, and there's that sweet, sweet Kobayashi Keiki OST. A little bit like JP5-powered chicken soup.

Torment, though, is oddly enough the inverse. It wears the trappings of far flung science fiction, yet a lot of the art and dialog are very much reminiscent of the weird parts of the city of Sigil (at least in Sagus Cliffs). I'm not too sold on the whole Effort thing though, spending currency to affect outcome is an accepted thing now but to me it just feels like I didn't pick the right skills or grinded enough out of the gate.