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Sad to hear that Thief isn't holding up for you. You should try System Shock 2 though, but keep in mind that game tends to be even more offputting at first. Respawning enemies, weapon degradation, labyrinthine and sometimes poorly explained systems. (There's a System Shock 2 thread somewhere in the forum history here that has lots of posts with good suggestions about getting started in SS2.) If Bioshock is a first-person shooter, System Shock 2 was an RPG-meets-Survival Horror. If you've never played Deus Ex, you might also find that worth a look, with it really being the hybridized offspring of both Thief and System Shock.

Yeah, even if you're playing a strength character, you should carry a bow so you can pull enemies away from groups to tackle them one at a time. Also, it's an important thing to understand when choosing your character's equipment that your carry limit is divided into 4 segments. If the total weight of your gear is less than 25% of your carry limit, you will do a fast dodge, under 50% will be a good medium dodge with about the same amount of invincibility but a slower recovery, under 75% is a much less useful dodge which will have a long recovery. Above 75%... I've never actually looked at what that dodge looks like, it's probably terrible. (Above 100%, you're over-encumbered and largely immobilized.) If you go for 40 endurance and equip havel's ring, you'll be able to manage just about any build while maintaining a medium dodge. Also, if you do a strength character with a heavier, slower weapon, you'll probably want to have good armor with high poise. (Which lets you resist being staggered out of your actions when hit.) Additionally, heavier weapons tend to cause more poise damage against enemies, allowing you to stagger them more frequently.

In Doom 3, if you're fighting an Imp, when it winds up with its fireball, there's supposed to be a very bright light being cast out into the environment, right? With the fireball still in its hand, you can see the shadows of its fingers traced out across the walls, threads of the intense light scattering out everywhere. It looks awesome, and it makes a fight that might have occured in pitch black appear kind of bright and dazzling. On anything less than the highest graphics setting, that kind of stuff is just completely missing from the game, it makes it so much less playable. (If you had a flimsy PC, you could use the console to force the game to show those lighting effects even with lower graphics settings, but there was no individual toggle in the game settings for them. It was an incredibly bizarre choice on Id's part to hide that setting.) (Edit: I was curious to see if i could find a video to illustrate this difference, but all i'm finding is videos of Doom 3 purportedly showing off low settings, but still with all the lighting effects in place. I'm positive i'm not misremembering things though, i remember clearly having to go into the console to manually enable the lighting effects for the game on my way-back-then mid-range PC.) Also, the BFG edition of Doom 3 restricted settings even more, and even has noticeably lower resolution texture assets than the original game! I believe it might even be missing some of the aformentioned dynamic lighting effects too. It's completely bizarre, don't play that version of the game. (They also brightened up the game a bunch and stuck flashlights on a few weapons, which i'm going to argue completely misses the point.)

I really love Doom 3, and i still actually do, but when it was new i always felt like i had to be the apologist for it. People turned on that game so hard. I really enjoyed the flow of wandering into a room and scanning all the corners with the flashlight and then swapping out to your gun with only the muzzle flashes to light the room, i still think it lends well to some very tense encounters. (I think one of the causes of a lot of the backlash back when the game came out was lower graphics settings actually discreetly disabling a lot of the dynamic lighting effects, actually making the game even darker than it would have been on a better PC.) You can see some of what coalesced in Rage present all the way back in Doom 3, but i think the shooting and level design in Doom 3 was so much better than anything in Rage. Rage is a very loose feeling game with incredibly narrow and linear stages. (Being able to say that opposite Doom 3 is incredibly less than flattering, Rage has so many invisible walls.) You know, and then there was all the other stuff that kind of sucked about Rage, like the rubber banding AI in races and the non-ending.

First: Dex and strength requirements/scaling are listed on every weapon. Look at the weapon you want to use, and if it scales C with strength and D with dex, you want to focus on strength. Strength weapons are usually big hammers and swords, dex weapons are usually bows and fencing blades and other such things, but that's only a guideline. Check the weapons. Additionally, strength will increase the bonus for two-handed damage, while dexterity will decrease casting time on spells. So if you're playing a magic-heavy character, it might be beneficial to focus on a dex weapon. Bonus: Don't get confused by the magic stuff, pyromancy doesn't scale with anything, it only scales with how upgraded your pyromancy flame is. Beyond that, Sorcery = Intelligence, Miracles = Faith. Bonus 2: Endurance is your most important stat, since it increases your stamina and your carry limit, letting you block more and dodge faster, respectively. Stamina caps at 40 endurance though, so there's basically no reason to push it past that. Second: In Dark Souls, a weapon that starts out seeming completely awesome will often be out-competed by weapons that start with much more humble stats. Find the weapon you like, pay special attention to stat scaling and moveset, and then start upgrading it. Third: Not really, no. Not unless you're intensely serious about min-maxing for pvp. If you're having difficulty with the game, some of the starting classes get very good gear out of the gate that can help you push through much of the early game, but the differences in stats basically don't matter. (In general, your gear is more important than your stats. Give priority to upgrading your gear.)

I never considered combining those weapons with a pre-ignitor, that sounds fantastic. Also, do Zoltan explode when they die now? They didn't do that before, did they? I'm certain they didn't. I lost a full four man boarding party of experienced Mantis crewmembers on a Zoltan ship when a room full of Zoltan opponents simultaneously all exploded on death in a horrible chain reaction.

So the radiant quest system in Skyrim did tend to leave many of its quests feeling indistinct. Since the system randomly looks for an unexplored dungeon in your game state to populate with objectives and enemies for your current quest, the result is that it tends to leave the quest design in Skyrim always pushing you towards a dungeon even moreso than in previous games. So i'll give you that, if you don't like dungeon-diving in TES games, that sucks. (I think it helps to bump up the difficulty and use the dungeons as an excuse to actually think about all the supplies you're hoarding.) I would still argue that the dungeons in Skyrim are, at the bare minimum, better than the dungeons in Oblivion. In my time with the game, i found many distinct and elaborate dungeons, quite a few with unique events and even some with dungeon-borne quests to stumble across while pursuing the objective for one of those radiant-assigned quests. (Everything in and around Blackreach really stands out to me as awesome.) On the other hand, If you mean to try and argue that Bethesda failed to populate the overworld itself with interesting content, I think that is crazy talk. I don't think anybody does that stuff better than Bethesda.

It was a colossal pain in the ass to get to the crystalline beings' home sector, yeah. It's a shame, there's a lot of unique events and gear to find in there, and the crystalline crew members are awesome

I just enjoy Elder Scrolls games as like... exploration spaces. I like wandering around the cities and through the wilderness, venturing into dungeons for items to hoard. I love all the little incidental environmental story-telling, and then the more overt forms too, going around talking to the NPC's and reading the books. (I actually like the TES lore, i think Bethesda's always done some fun things with it that a lot of other fantasy settings never really even consider. It's a world filled with unreliable histories and contradictory mythologies.) It's why Morrowind is still my favorite game in the series, despite Skyrim being such a better game. Morrowind had the most interesting setting and story. They could both probably be in a personal top ten list for me, i suppose. Not to completely disparage Oblivion, i loved it when i played it and i think the game gets a bit of a unfortunate reputation these days, but Cyrodiil just came off as such a bland setting. (It's presented as a pretty standard medieval fantasy location, one quite contrary to how imperials were presented in other TES games as a very roman empire-esque culture.)

Regarding Dark Souls: That capra demon boss is an optional boss, it's a little harder than most people will ready to deal with, when they find it. Grinding for stats also won't really get you much, those gains are incredibly incremental. What actually matters much more is the gear you have, and not in the sense that you're waiting for better drops. Find stuff that works for you and then start upgrading it. Beyond that, it's very much a skill-based game. Each weapon having its own moveset is something to keep in mind, get a handle on the feel of the attacks and the dodge and all of that. Also, on the stat screens, you can hit... I don't know what the button would be on the PC version, but it's the back button on a 360 pad. It will bring up a few terse tool tips that explain what everything is, at least enough to have a functional understanding of the game. Regarding Skyrim: Did public opinion turn on this game while i wasn't looking? What's going on here? I certainly still think it's one of the best games in the series, i only love Morrowind more, and i'm saying that as somebody who's played TES games since Daggerfall.

The Nisos, the b-variant of the federation cruiser, was probably the most reliable start for me in vanilla, but i also really enjoyed both of the crystalline beings' ships. (My best victorious game in FTL was with the Carnelian.) I'm not sure what i like in AE yet. The b-variant Lanius ship, The Shrike, definitely looks like a promising all-around start. I also had a good game with the Tektite, the c-variant rockman ship. A lot of the other new c-variants look quite weird and interesting, like the Simo-H stealth cruiser or the Cerenkov Zoltan cruiser. (The former lacks not just shields but also the stealth gear the other sc variants have, it instead has super shield drones at start. The latter starts with a crippled reactor and relies on emergency batteries and its zoltan crew for power.)

Of the new ships/configurations, which ones have you guys been playing around with? (Hell, for that matter, which ships/configurations did you guys use in vanilla?)

For people who have been holding out for the PC version. (Like myself.)

You can also counter an enemy's mind control attack by using your own mind control system on your affected crew member. I also can't overstate how much i appreciate that you can now save a set of crew positions, it makes it so much less fiddly to put everybody back where they need to go after a battle has concluded.

You're kind of making it sound like Ken was the only lasting product of Looking Glass, which sells the impact that company has had quite short.

Looking Glass's library of first-person games is well worth catching up on, as they're kind of PC gaming's secret most influential games. (If it's a first-person game that emphasizes exploration and emergent systems, it pretty much all traces back to Ultima Underworld.) Anyways, play those Thief games, then play System Shock 2. Definitely play System Shock 2.

VOXELS. I will be sad if their fancy new HD-ified engine lacks crazy voxel terrain. Outcast though, it's a great game that never really seemed to get its due, it's definitely deserving of another spot under the light.

The mind control system and the flak cannons are probably my two favorite new pieces of gear.

I've heard fairly persistent rumors that From plans to remove GFWL from the first Dark Souls, they might just be focused on getting Dark Souls 2 out on the PC first.

The "off-screen artillery" is the new "anti-ship battery" hazard, but it actually shows up in some scenarios as a friendly asset that will lend you additional firepower against your opponent, so that's neat. I've been playing a lot of the update, and i think the changes are good. Most of them seem geared towards giving you more ways to break through tight defenses, which not only blows open the number of viable builds available to you, but also seems to make the game a fair bit more difficult because its likewise harder to defend yourself.

Have you played any of the other Looking Glass games?

I'm curious, in what sense was FEA not what you expected?

I'm glad to see the Cybertron games getting some props here, i really enjoyed what Highmoon did with those. I'd second them probably being very appealing to anybody who enjoyed Space Marine. (FoC straight up lifts a few mechanics from Space Marine.) True to what's being said here, i'd count Metroid Fusion probably just slightly ahead of Other M. I hate the slow, unskippable dialogue scenes and the linearity, it makes it incredibly boring to replay, unfortunate when counted as part of a series known for opening up in surprising ways on replays. Fusion is up for debate though, Other M is just a bizarre train wreck of a game. Some neat gameplay ideas, still way too linear, but then that story, holy shit.

The X-box/PS2/GC Spider Man 2 game was awesome, the way it handled web-slinging and wall-running made for some of the most enjoyable locomotion mechanics i've ever played around with and it more than offset the kind of boring mission design and middling melee combat. There was a lot of nuance to the mobility in that game, it took some actual skill to become proficient with and just felt so great once you got a handle on it. While most of the Spider-Man games have generally cheated by having the web connect to nothing and simply hiding that fact offscreen, in SM2, the web would auto target the highest point on the nearest building, and then physics would basically take over. The general gist is trying to get as much momentum as possible off of your swings, but intermittently wall-running across the side of a building to carry momentum between the occasional weak swings. Of course, its reputation has been somewhat inflated over the years, it was for a long time one of the best superhero games on the market, but it's long since been surpassed by other games that dabble in similar subject matter, just not by other Spider-Man games. Also, lots of Bruce Campbell reading out obscure Marvel trivia every time you found one of the hidden hint markers, some of which teased that he would say something different on each and every one if you found them all. Well, how could i resist? So i found them all, only to find that it makes him literally say "something different" on each an every hint marker. You won that round, game. Related aside: One of the guys mainly responsible for the Spider-Man 2 game kickstarted a trick-focused score attack game based on the Spider-Man 2 movement mechanics. , but perhaps it will coalesce into something special as it eventually closes in on a release.

I think the mechanics of police chases are much better in GTAV, relative to IV, to say something positive about the game. I like that the cops more rigorously obey line of sight, and how the game's new on-foot stealth system can play into that.