Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.

I'm starting to like my pure mage already. My mage (with the help of Virgil and Sogg Mead Mug of course) just tore through the bandits blocking the bridge near Shrouded Hills with ease. All I had to do was cast Plague of Insects on the leader (to slow him down) and summon a Orcish Champion, those bandits were on the ground in less than twenty seconds.

I'll be sure to post about it fairly often, I think it's going to be my main game for a while haha. Actually this is probably the third time I've started it, the first two times I got to the first town and said "okay I'll put it down and come back to it when I'm finished with (whatever my main game was at the time)" and never did, no fault of the game though.

First thing I can say is that it's well written and your character building does affect things beyond combat, IE: a character with low intelligence speaks like a moron, characters with high intelligence speak as such, etc, and if you make your character too ugly then you'll always start off with a negative reaction from NPCs.

I often hear Arcanum being comapred to Fallout, and that alone is already good for me! ;)
I know that, If I started it, I would probably choose some sort of gunslinger-diplomat build... again. There's nothing I can do, it's my favourite!

Just bought the ROTT remake that went on sale. Looking forward to playing that and streaming its nostalgic shinanigans. First time I played that game was back when "freeware" and "shareware" were both things. Installed the game on what us old-timers call a "floppy disk".

Well if my memory serves correct, some of the founding members of Troika Games actually worked on the first couple of Fallouts before they left to form Troika Games. So there is an extra little bonus haha.

I've heard that tech builds (including gunslingers) are a bit harder than magic characters but that you can (apparently) beat the game with a huge variety of builds, including a couple different types of diplomat.

Fallout 3 (evil playthrough, so much fun) and Thief Deadly Shadows.

I had originally planned to re-play Planescape: Torment after that, but that's probably gonna have to wait until after Pillars of Eternity.

I finally started the first Batman, Arkham Asylum.

That's a good one. Imho the best of the series.

Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum
I like mapping!

Dust.

Fun for the most part, but getting frustrated with the map. A quest sends me to a place that is blocked and re-navigating the constantly spawning enemies is a significant chore for something with direction/spacial issues. Not a fan of the map at all and some of the enemies have attacks that are either very dumb, or the game doesn't provide adequate information on how to avoid.

So I'm playing until I die and then don't have the stamina to start back at the last waypoint when I have no idea how to get back to anywhere. Otherwise, its very fun. I'm sure I'll get going on it, but getting over that hurdle is rough.

You can talk them down if you like/choose the correct dialogue path.
Arcanum is GREAT, everyone, if you are unsure about playing it but it MIGHT appeal, PLAY IT! I certainly recommend fast-turn-based mode for combat.


I've been playing Papers, Please quite a bit and am LOVING it, very different and engaging and well done.

And depressing...

But that's part of its awesomeness.

I tend to agree! :)
Imo, Arkham City has a better combat system (which is actually just an improvement over the same formula of the previous installment) and much more variety in gadgets and moves, yet the first has better design, plot and an overall more convincing atmosphere.
When Arkham City seems more like a tribute to fans ("we need to include ALL the caharacters in a single place"!), Arkham Asylum feels more similar to the comic book.

And the first one had Scarecrow....

But yeah the combat is better in the second one, but i always thought that the open world of it was too shallow to motivate me long enough.

And Origins is arguably the worst but still a good game.