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Friday Fun Thread for December 9, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What video games are people playing?

I just finished the Outer Wilds after picking it up on sale, and wow, that game was incredible. The ending actually made me cry, something I haven't experienced in a video game in almost a decade.

I usually don't go for narrative driven/mystery type games, but Outer Wilds is truly in a class of it's own. I've heard Return of Obra Dinn is similar quality, as well as Disco Elysium, so I'm curious to check those out.

Just finished XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. It fixed the gameplay issues I had with vanilla XCOM 2 + minor DLC, the voice actor selection was a fun surprise, and the additional story and gameplay elements were fantastic; my only complaint is that they should have tried to actually integrate the Alien Hunters DLC rather than just tossing its boss baddies into regular missions. My playthrough was longer than it should have been, but that was probably my fault for being too paranoid of the possibility of speedrunning myself into a corner. (In the first XCOM remake I made it to the final battle and then just couldn't beat it). It was also very clever of them to make the canon XCOM 1 ending "the player loses", not just because this made me feel better about being a loser, but because it gave them a good diagetic excuse for not going too wild with the story and gameplay changes.

(edit: strikethrough added for accuracy)

This was a great game. It's a shame nothing in the genre has really matched XCOM imo.

I keep wondering when someone will make a new Jagged Alliance style game.

You have played and finished Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 "Wildfire"* right ? That's a .. solid improvement on the original JA 2. Much tougher, tons more guns, much better maps. (strategic layer is almost the same, but all the maps were made more interesting. some new mechanics).

*it's a combination of 1.13 with the 'Wildfire' mod maps. It was a bit of a pain to install back in the day, but it's probably still possible to get all the mods needed.


IMO, you'll have to make it yourself, I think. All the JA remakes were not good by shit tier studios.

Almost bought some of the 3d Russian ones, but upon closer review the magic was probably gone.

I've an idea for what I think would be a worthy successor. Have much of the game outline, mechanics / skeleton of a story for in my head.

It'd be use the assets of the isometric RPG game Underrail:Infusion. That's sequel to Underrail, which is an excellent isometric indie RPG. A fix for the cravings us old guys have for 1990s style games.

Not exactly Fallout - more combat oriented, of course it being indie, the graphics are unimpressive, but the game is just good.

So the idea is try to talk the dev into either letting someone make, or perhaps eventually making a tactical game like Jagged Alliance with assets that they're making for an isometric RPG set in the same 'universe'.

I feel like the two games wouldn't have be that much in competition with one another.

It's a very long shot, but I feel like writing up a proposal and lobbying it at him and seeing what he says is worth it.

There'd not be that much actual programming involved, as most of the logic would be the same in both games, so shouldn't be too difficult to develop. Merely make a shitton of maps, some interface changes, write all the dialogue and scripts. Just. Heh.

If I were remaking a game it'd be Star Legions, a sort of proto RTS where you play the explicit bad guy (a rip off of Klingons dialed up to 11). You're the invasion commander overseeing a series of Invasions of peaceful planets for glory and wealth.

I mean, if you're invading peaceful planets you are a bad guy. Doesn't have to be explicit or painted green.

There's really no point to planetary invasions whatsoever. Pure sadism, really.