Any gamers around here?

[Plu]

Any recommendation for Sins of A Solar Empire: Rebellion while it is on sale? I love the genre, it's pretty much what I grew up on, but I haven't played one in a long ass time. Is it pretty much the best out there atm or is there better?

I tried it for a little bit but for some reason didn't really enjoy it. I think it was because the battles feel extremely unrewarding in that game because they take forever to play out and the game expects you to just be randomly building stuff as they play out, which didn't work for me.

On the other hand in the same genre I bought Endless Space last week and I really like it; it's turn-based and works a bit like civilization in many ways, but with more focus on the diplomacy and research part and the battles are played by planning out a global strategy and then watching the game generate a cinematic that shows you the outcome of your plans (and your opponents)

[Hydra009]

Any recommendation for Sins of A Solar Empire: Rebellion while it is on sale? I love the genre, it's pretty much what I grew up on, but I haven't played one in a long ass time. Is it pretty much the best out there atm or is there better?

I love it to pieces.  I love the enormous scale, complete with strategic zoom.  I want to bestow knighthood on whoever designed the UI - what would otherwise be a deluge of information is very well-organized.  I love the factions.  I love the pitched battles.  I love how the units are smart enough to engage targets with minimal micromanagement.  I love the beautiful (but incredibly unrealistic) solar systems.  I love the game's aesthetics.  I love the music.  I even love the unit acknowledgements.  It is in my short list of best strategy games I've ever played.

But it is not without its faults, expect lengthy battles and lengthy games, though it is reduced somewhat in Rebellion.  There's no campaign, so it's skirmish all day every day.  Pirate raids are very nasty and normal AIs basically get slaughtered by them.  The AI on normal and hard is still somewhat derpy, being lamentably slow to invest in planet development.  In the early game, they eschew capital ships with the ability to colonize planets for its far less efficient frigate equivalent, which really slows down colonization. They also have a tendency to overproduce strikecraft frigates, which can fairly easily be countered and destroyed.  The AI tends to mine-spam to a sickening degree, which can be very frustrating.

And finally, there are some serious balance issues.  TEC is heavily overpowered (Rebel TEC is particularly imba since it can ally with rebels/militia forces, which eliminates pirate raids, eliminates rebel attacks, and tremendously speeds up colonization, allowing you to focus your military entirely on enemy factions).  Advent sports some lovely buffs and offensive abilities, and their hangers and strike craft are amazingly effective, while Vasari are pitiful (their early research is inferior to the other two factions, their colonize buff is less useful than you'd expect, the superweapons are a joke, their research tree is littered with useless research, and their famed lightning raids are more myth than reality :()

To combat this, I have tweaked the game settings somewhat, virtually removing space mines, reducing pirate damage slightly, and making Vasari abilities work much better with each other while still keeping them roughly on the same footing with the other factions.  For example, the Vasari capital ship that buffs nearby ships with faster speed is reduced but passive, so no more jerky maneuvers or inadvertent breaking formation from the buff activating while only part of the fleet is nearby.  The end result is a much more maneuverable and faster fleet, which opens up maneuver warfare capabilities previously difficult to pull off.

I'm not quite done tweaking and playtesting things, but the gameplay is already greatly improved.  I hope to finish soon.

[Insult to Rocks]

So, I just got Saints Row the Third yesterday. Why don't more games have Japanese themed death match game shows in them?

[Shiranu]

Cant stand Saints Row :|. Don't know why, wanted to like it, but it was so damn boring.

[the_antithesis]

So with the holiday prices of Steam, I was finally able to get Yar's Revenge.

That's Yar's Revenge, not Yars' Revenge, with the apostrophe before the S so you don't confuse the Atari VCS classic with this sad little remake that couldn't. I have played the hell out of Yars' Revenge as a kid, as I'm sure many had as it is one of their more popular games. So I was curious about this modern day remake.

So would you like if the game is any good?

So the fuck would I.

The game crashes every fucking time on launch. I have tried searching for a solution but none of them seem to work. More importantly, the game seems to be largely abandoned by the publisher, so getting help to get this thing to work may be impossible. It's possible my laptop just isn't up to snuff. But the solutions were rather high on the technical expertize scale. It could be because PhysXdownloader.dll isn't properly installed and to install it. But it won't install. If it doesn't install, it's probably because you had a virus checker that wasn't properly removed. Use the removal tool for the virus software you used to have of go into the system settings and delete the HKEY_4536fgvdwhgt6uywbqdew674y237rg23yur273dgewj7823tdgewdh7286udb3647832-3. Oh, you dumb fuck. You deleted HKEY_4536fgvdwhgt6uywbqdew674y237rg23yur273dgewj7823tdgewdh7286udb3647832-3a. Can't you tell the fucking difference, you noob?

When a game needs this level of ability to just get it to fucking run, it can go fuck itself.

[Hydra009]

Been playing the new XCOM and its Enemy Within expansion pack.  I'm pleased to report that it is a great game worthy of the title.  Almost everything has been updated while staying more or less true to the spirit of the 1994 game.  In particular, the tactical battles and squad management got major overhauls - no more time units, the battles have a more cinematic feel (there's even the occasional synckill), soldiers gain veteran abilities, and you can implant soldiers with alien organs or put them in powered exoskeletons (at the low, low price of a quadruple amputation).  And you can unlock psychic powers, but it's much less of a gamebreaker than it was in the original.

But I do have a few nitpicks:

* An incredibly linear story.  One playthrough is basically the same as the next.
* Exalt (a rogue organization you have to fight) is a pushover.  It's seriously like a skeet-shoot.
* I don't like how you can't ambush aliens.  It's always you scouting them out, and they immediately run to ground the instant they're spotted.  WTF.
* You're very limited in how you can make money.  You can't manufacture/sell anymore.  (And the money amounts of ridiculously low for what you're doing.  The original had you spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, and that was in 1994.)
* You're more limited in how you intercept UFOs.  You can't wolfpack them anymore and you can't wait till they land then send a Skyranger out - my preferred tactic for getting as much undamaged alien goodies as possible.  You can only mount one weapon type and you also can't choose any tactics (cautious or aggressive assaults).  :(
* The reason for the alien assault is nonsensical.  Horribad, even.

A couple of ideas for the next installment:

* Actual diplomacy with XCOM member nations.  They could have varied dispositions towards XCOM (and the UN) and give you specific objectives to accomplish in their region, possibly in conflict with other nations' goals.  You could coordinate attacks with their national military or make requests from them (cracking down on Exalt or pressuring wavering countries to stay in on your behalf)
* A better interception mini-game.  Something more interactive, at the very least.
* More varied weapons.  Especially new ammo types, like incendiary and high explosives.  Possibly even melee weapons.

[Plu]

Considering your nitpicks and love for the original XCOM, you should consider checking out Xenonauts.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/223830/

It's still in early development but mostly complete and in terms of gameplay much closer to the original XCOM, and in my personal opinion, a far better game for it.

[Nonsensei]

Been playing Starbound.

Like terraria, only way fucking cooler.

[GrinningYMIR]

Got a 2014 core set box of magic cards for Christmas, been a long time since I played, the last cards I bought were back when return to ravnica was new. They just pump so many out so quickly

I have a large collection of cards now, some dying back to unlimited and 3rd edition, but they're all illegal for standard play. I think I might make myself a few legacy decks with my old cards, especially seeing as how I can't bear to get rid of my old cage breaker deck.

Red, white, and Green ftw!

[Insult to Rocks]

Got a 2014 core set box of magic cards for Christmas, been a long time since I played, the last cards I bought were back when return to ravnica was new. They just pump so many out so quickly

I have a large collection of cards now, some dying back to unlimited and 3rd edition, but they're all illegal for standard play. I think I might make myself a few legacy decks with my old cards, especially seeing as how I can't bear to get rid of my old cage breaker deck.
Red, white, and Green ftw!

Card games? What a nerd!
But seriously, I was always the one who rejected whatever game was popular at the time, whether it be Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or whatever, so I know nothing about Magic. What's it like?

[GrinningYMIR]

I've always enjoyed magic, it's fun and strategies are always changing. Even though the best players end up using derivatives of one strategy or another. Each color tends to support a different play style.

 For example; often times white is about damage mitigation, defense, and an eventual overwhelming assault with big creatures

While red often times kills it's opponents with small creatures, but lots of them, you die from big bites.

It's fun, yet expensive if you want a big collection

Some of the old cards were worth big money too, an alpha black lotus went for 50k recently. Fun!

[Sargon The Grape]

I've gone and joined the Starbound crowd, and yeah, it's pretty much superior to Terraria in every conceivable way.

[Nonsensei]

I've gone and joined the Starbound crowd, and yeah, it's pretty much superior to Terraria in every conceivable way.

Im having a lot of trouble finding some fucking titanium.

[nanivzla]

Dunno if I can be considered a gamer, but my husband is, and I've been playing Diablo with him for about a month or so. I really like Diablo. I also played and loved BioShock

[Hydra009]

Card games? What a nerd!
But seriously, I was always the one who rejected whatever game was popular at the time, whether it be Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or whatever, so I know nothing about Magic. What's it like?

You can summon nightmarish machine-monsters to do your bidding, mentally dominate your opponent to death, and/or litter the battlefield with the charred remains of your enemy's army.  It's fun.

Red, white, and Green ftw!

Blue/black or red/black!  Also, I'm learning to love blue/green.