Video Games – The Next Level

Topic

What are you playing?

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Top 10 of all time? Maaaan that’s tough… but you definetly got a couple right there with Doom & SoR2 (although I’d put 3 instead of 2) and Vice City…

Mine would probably have:

– Starcraft: Broodwars (meaning 1+expansion)

– Samurai Shodown 2 (which I still play regulalry) instead of SF2

– Orcs Must Die! 2

– Fallout New Vegas

– a Worms game, doesn’t matter which one really, they’re all basically the same =P (though I did play Reloaded the most, probably)

– Batman Arkham City

– And one of those Zachtronic Puzzle games… Spacechem or Infinifactory… hard to choose from those 2, though I’d go with Infinifactory I suppose.

– (and those 3 above, obviously: Vice City, Doom (og one, not 2016) and SoR3).

I’m leaving a couple of games off from that list but I like it overall… I guess most people would have either a Mario or a Sonic game in there, but I didn’t grow up with consoles… so

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Bruce, Dave

Oh btw, speaking of Samurai Shodown, the Collection is free to nab on the Epic Games store right now (for a limited time)… It’s honeslty kinda hot garbage, but hey, it’s free I suppose… at least good for a bit of nostalgia…

Jon wrote:

– a Worms game

Yeah, the Worms games were great.

Pillars of Eternity has gotten rather good.

A large part of this is that I went to the inn and “hired” a fighter, created a Paladin, then headed over to Caed Rua, the next main destination and got another party member – which took the gang up to the full six.  New party member is a Chanter too, who kicks a large amount of arse.  The way the game describes Chanters is quite deceptive, as they have a range of offensive and defensive capability while sounding cool as fuck when in action.

What followed was me exploring existing locations, wreaking a large amount of vengeance on those areas that had previously proved vexing, finished off a number of quests and then did what was probably the first boss fight, with the game opening up quite a bit afterwards.  This includes my inheriting an entire castle that I can gradually restore.

What was particularly satisfying was watching the party just kill everything in sight.  There were some closer fights in a couple of places but the group does now have some regenerative and healing capabilities, which those fights demonstrated effectively – the party was able to recover.

The main satisfaction was seeing how quests play out and the degree of decisions you can choose on them.  Thus I lied to to permit desperate scavengers, took mercy on a woman escaping an abusive husband, stopped another being the victim of a con, executed a traitor.

That first boss fight wasn’t that much of a fight but it is what preceded it that made the game stand out.  Often, now, games will have 18 ratings.  These ratings are generally derived from bloody death sequences or attacks, the odd sex scene, but there’s rarely that much that falls under the heading of being truly mature.  But in the quite epic and complex conversation, this game staked its claim to being so in a very real manner, as it explored the nature of rape in very unflinching detail.  It threw a whole lot of other concepts in, but the whole sequence is text and voice acting, that’s all it is but when the person you’re talking recounts raping a helpless victim in a past life he now remembers, it takes a very dark turn.   It’s very well executed, very disturbing but that is as it should be.

I now have a vast amount of new locations to explore, likely get a ton of new, interesting quests that will likely play out in all manner of ways and have started to grasp, to a minimal degree, the dizzying array of character abilities.  The game’s systems are staggeringly deep, if you know what you’re doing there must be some killer, god build characters out there.

It’s not the huge, sprawling open world type games that this generation has pushed more than any.  The various locations are compact and built for both quality and interaction.  Well, save for those times when you have a fight in the trees and can see fuck all.  But at the same time, there have been occasions when I have been that bit more tactical and it has paid off.

Something tells me I might not finish this one, but if nothing else, Caed Rua is getting restored.

I’m glad you’re finding some redemption in the game.

The create an adventurer thing is useful  but you’ll probably replace it when you get your full contingent of party members.

I do like the classes.   Chanters are cool (although can be a little squishy) and I think Ciphers are quite novel too.

Generally, you probably want to have 2 tanks (say a Fighter and Barbarian/Monk/Palladin ), 2 ranged experts (Wizard/Cipher/Druid/Rogue/Ranger) and 2 support (Priest/Druid/Chanter/Palladin).

A lot of the classes are pretty versatile and can fit for example a healer and fighter role (palladin) or healer and ranged (chanter).

You also may want to have a look at your formation.  You should absolutely be putting tanks like Eder up front and squishy characters like priests and wizards (Sloth and maybe Durance) up back.

Enemies always attack the first they see so formation is an important component of exploring)

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Ben

So I spent the last week playing Bloodstained.

You were right, Ben, it is a pretty fun game.  I’ve always been a sucker for these equipment and ability hunt type games (which really is also the souls-like formula) so I liked this, and liked you I ended up doing most of the optional stuff too – like collect the shards, fill out the map and the optional bosses.  There’s a lot of variety in combat (again very souls-like) but I really just mained Welcome Company, Teps Oceus and swords for most of the game until I got the Rheva Bular and just used that.

The endgame was a little grindy, which is where you fill out the demon and shard list, and I suppose that makes sense because you level while doing it and you need to be at a relatively high level to take on  the optional “final” boss Orlock Dracule.  Although there was a lot of entering and exiting the same screen and hitting the same enemy over and over again until it gave up its shard, or the item needed to prepare something or craft a meal (which just felt super farmy and effortless).  Some of the bosses presented real challenges for me though – I found the Doppelganger particularly hard, for example.

The graphics aren’t great, but there’s sort of a bit of charm there, and the music is nice.  By the endgame you’re so overpowered that you can tear through most areas which is sort of a bit of a rewarding power fantasy I guess.  I booted up the Zangetsu mode, where you play as Zangetsu, and it’s absurdly overpowered.  I cleared 40% of the castle and the first 9 bosses in about an hour, and that probably took me more than 10 hours of playtime with Miriam (not including deaths and restarts).  I also had a look at the bossrush and randomizer modes but I feel like it’s done it’s dash.  It’s a fun game, and I could replay the castle again or spend another 2 or 3 hours finishing Zangetsu’s run, but I feel pretty satisfied by it at this stage.

Call of Duty WW2 came free with Playstation Plus so I played through the first mission of the campaign, D-Day.  It’s par for the course the campaigns in these games which is to say very cinematic and big-budget spectacle, but the gameplay is more or less the same as every other one of these games.  The campaign is only a couple of hours long though and that will probably see me through to Friday when The Last of Us 2 comes out.

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Ben

I finished Star Trek Judgment Rites last night. Took three attempts to get the “good” ending, as the final chapter sees you having to impress some benevolent aliens with how smart and kind you are. Even then, after getting them to agree to start formal relations with the Federation, my overall game rating had Kirk being told he needed a refresher course in the training simulator at the Academy, which, actually, feels right (the “best” ending has him being called the best captain in Starfleet and is a bit fawning, really). On my previous attempts, he’d been demoted to a teaching role at the Academy, which Shatner does well contemplating.

Unfortunately, the poor direction on the voice acting gets really distracting the longer the games go. It seems pretty obvious the cast were only working with sides and not full scripts, so had absolutely no context for their lines, meaning you get some really stilted, awkward interactions. There’s also quite a lot of places where the spoken dialogue doesn’t match the text and one point where DeForest Kelly seemingly gives up half way through a line (although I think maybe if you have the game pacing the dialogue itself rather than click-to-advance, as I had it, that was meant to be him being interrupted).

The game does do well in giving everyone something to do this time though. All of the main cast get a go at being on an away team, which is a fun, especially when Scotty comes along. Tell Kirk to talk to him at one point and he just reflexively says “it’ll take at least an hour, Captain”. “Pardon, Mr Scott?” “Oh, sorry, I thought you said something to me, Captain.”

There’s a pretty huge bug in the penultimate chapter where you can get to the final room of it without having finished off all the puzzles (which aren’t directly related to getting access to the room, but which play into doing stuff once you’re in there) and so the game just assumes you have. It fills your inventory with the items you haven’t yet collected and Spock starts going on about information he got from a character I hadn’t even heard of (a catatonic woman he’s meant to mind-meld with). Pretty confusing to say the least. I had to save, go back to an earlier save and do some of the stuff I’d missed and then go back just to get a handle on what was going on.

[Ben]

Oh, I haven’t played Zangetsu mode, will have to give that a go.

If you spend an absurd amount of time crafting it, the Blue Rose sword kills just about everything.

How did you find Alfred? That was the hardest one for me because of the perspective. For fights that were on a plain 2d pane, I got on better with.

And yeah, Teps Oceus – you use that for the first time then you never stop using it.

How did you get past Bathin in the end?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Ben.

A lot of bosses I just beat – Alfred was one of them, and so was the final one (two) but the three that probably gave me the most trouble were Bathin, Bloodless and Doppelganger.

Bathin was the fight that made me use food. Previously I had been beating the bosses on one health bar.

Bloodless and Doppelganger I just found hard. Bloodless has really hard to dodge tornado moves and has that health steal move.  Doppelganger has similar hard to dodge moves and is just relentless.

Alfred was annoying,  particularly the slow, but I figured out to stop chasing him pretty quick and instead double back and and jump hit him on that ledge which is a good way to get a secind or so of free hits.  I beat him with little health and no food though.

I found the quality of the bosses incredibly hit and miss.  Generally the human-ish bosses were harder then the demon ones.

Welcome Company was the shard I used the most though. I found it hugely useful.

Edit: Oh, also Orlock Dracule, obviously.  I basically had to overlevel and stock like 5 pizzas for that fight.

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Ben

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Bruce

 

Gameplay trailer is expected Thursday.  Like the final image of the Star Destroyer on this one.

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Dave

Irish streamers are exactly like you expect them to be. I love these guys, they’re the best.

Tried out a couple of games in my digital “to-play” pile tonight.

First up was Star Wars Battlefront II. I had liked the first game well enough but thought it was a bit limited and I tired of it quickly, but having heard good things about the single-player campaign on this one I thought I’d give it a shot.

But I shouldn’t have bothered. Like a lot of Star Wars games, the aesthetics are perfect and the game is very pretty, but it just doesn’t have it where it counts. The mechanics are very clunky – it almost felt like Rebel Assault if you remember that – and there are game-ruining quirks like peeping round a corner and having a clear shot at someone in your crosshairs, but then somehow shooting against a wall when you pull the trigger. Oh, and the checkpoints are poorly spaced out so you have to keep replaying tedious sections over again. Even the stealth bits feel a bit basic and lacking in nuance. I gave up after a few tries and I don’t know if I’ll go back.

But the silver lining is that I also had time to try Titanfall 2 tonight, which I came to with no preconceptions and really enjoyed. It’s an old-school shooter which ticks all the boxes – fluid gameplay, a decent selection of weapons, intuitive level design, some cool abilities and some lush graphics. It reminded me of the Killzone games a little – a good solid shooter. I picked this up from the PSN Store for just a few quid on Ben’s recommendation and at that price it was a bargain. I’m going to enjoy this.

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Ben

Oh, and my digital pre-download of The Last Of Us 2 has finished, which means IT’S RIGHT THERE ON MY PS4 BUT I CAN’T PLAY IT FOR THREE DAYS. Gah.

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Ben

[Ben]

Dave wrote:

First up was Star Wars Battlefront II. I had liked the first game well enough but thought it was a bit limited and I tired of it quickly, but having heard good things about the single-player campaign on this one I thought I’d give it a shot. But I shouldn’t have bothered. Like a lot of Star Wars games, the aesthetics are perfect and the game is very pretty, but it just doesn’t have it where it counts. The mechanics are very clunky – it almost felt like Rebel Assault if you remember that – and there are game-ruining quirks like peeping round a corner and having a clear shot at someone in your crosshairs, but then somehow shooting against a wall when you pull the trigger. Oh, and the checkpoints are poorly spaced out so you have to keep replaying tedious sections over again. Even the stealth bits feel a bit basic and lacking in nuance.

Wow, sounds awful but it does have this strangely positive reputation.

Dave wrote:

Titanfall 2 tonight, which I came to with no preconceptions and really enjoyed. It’s an old-school shooter which ticks all the boxes – fluid gameplay, a decent selection of weapons, intuitive level design, some cool abilities and some lush graphics. It reminded me of the Killzone games a little – a good solid shooter.

It definitely has that very well worked out future world and aesthetic in common with Killzone, but isn’t quite so brutal and it has mech combat.  The other rarity, which gets brought up not often with FPS, is the story is superb.  How far along are you?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Ben.

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Dave

Oh not very far at all yet, but enjoying what I’ve seen so far – and yes, the story is immediately gripping.

There’s so much I could but shouldn’t say.  For all that it is a short campaign – it is – the intensity makes it feel far longer and there’s mostly no flabby, faffing around sections in it either.

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Dave

Dave wrote:

Oh, and my digital pre-download of The Last Of Us 2 has finished, which means IT’S RIGHT THERE ON MY PS4 BUT I CAN’T PLAY IT FOR THREE DAYS. Gah.

 

We’re no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I. A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of. You wouldn’t get this from any other guy. I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling. Gotta make you understand.
Never gonna give you up – Never gonna let you down – Never gonna run around and desert you – Never gonna make you cry – Never gonna say goodbye – Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

Maybe that’s in bad taste to some. But you get the gist.

Changing tack, other recent vids that got my attention:

Can’t quite believe this is in existence:

The idea of Rockfish Games taking all that they learnt from their first Everspace game and applying to the open-world galaxy they are builing for Everspace 2 sounds very cool – may be 2-3 years from hitting PS4/ PS5 but likely be worth the wait:

The idea of a RPG turn-based combat system for the next Yakuza game was always going to be a tough sell, but it is now looking gloriously bonkers:

 

I started on the first Uncharted last night. I didn’t have a PS3, so the series passed me by originally and I only got this as part of the remastered collection because Sony gave it away for free at the start of Lockdown.

So, I’m a few chapters in and it’s fun enough. Very linear. Normally in a free-roaming 3D game like this, when the game tells you to go in one direction (whether overtly or through coded funnelling in the environmental design) I immediately go the other way to look for stuff. I quickly decided that there wasn’t much point for Uncharted. And that’s fine, I’m quite happy to just go along with the story as it goes.

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Dave

Yeah, it took me a while to get into Uncharted, partly due to that linearity. The first couple of times I tried it, I felt like I was essentially just walking from cutscene to cutscene with little in the way of interaction, and I got a bit bored with it.

But if you get past those early levels the game does open up slightly, and the second game is better at mixing up the setpieces and the fights and the exploration and keeping things interesting.

I wouldn’t advise skipping ahead to the second game though – part of the fun of the series is the way the story builds and the characters pop up again, so it’s worth playing through them in order.

Also, the hidden treasures do provide a bit of an incentive to explore beyond the directions that the game pushes you in.

I quit Prey. Something I rarely do but the combat was causing me nothing but ball-ache. You are meant to be weak at the start of the game and build up your character’s skill set and abilities as the game goes on but I’m really not in the mood for that. I’m in the mood for something that’s a bit more fun rather than getting my arse kicked time after time.

So with that in mind I went through Portal after talking about it up-thread. It was a lot of fun but way shorter than I remembered. I’m going to move on to Portal 2 next which is also backwards compatible on Xbox One.

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Dave

I’ve been playing Cod: ww2 and Battlefront 2 (because they’re free this month on PS+).

Im npt particularly good at either od them, bit getting by. Those, and more recently my experience with Doom Eternal have made me whether I was ever any good at first person shooters?  Have I been living  a lie?

Do you want to know the answer?

God no. I dont want to be confronted with the harsh truths of my existence

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve been playing Cod: ww2 and Battlefront 2 (because they’re free this month on PS+).

Im npt particularly good at either od them, bit getting by. Those, and more recently my experience with Doom Eternal have made me whether I was ever any good at first person shooters?  Have I been living  a lie?

How do you feel about Doom (2016)? I don’t think I’ve ever been this good at playing a first person shooter, or at least not since the days of Unreal Tournament and Q3: Arena. Something about the speed this game is at and the weapon dynamics just bloody clicks for me. I had some problems when I first got to Hell, but after adjusting a bit and getting used to switching weapons a bit faster I’m f-ing killing it.

Just as well I wasn’t going to do so then.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve been playing Cod: ww2 and Battlefront 2 (because they’re free this month on PS+).

Im npt particularly good at either od them, bit getting by. Those, and more recently my experience with Doom Eternal have made me whether I was ever any good at first person shooters?  Have I been living  a lie?

How do you feel about Doom (2016)? I don’t think I’ve ever been this good at playing a first person shooter, or at least not since the days of Unreal Tournament and Q3: Arena. Something about the speed this game is at and the weapon dynamics just bloody clicks for me. I had some problems when I first got to Hell, but after adjusting a bit and getting used to switching weapons a bit faster I’m f-ing killing it.

Yeah its a fun game and I think the Doom games are a pretty good balance of forcing the player to find a rhythm and asking them to be a bit tactical.  Doom is more rhyhthmic, then something like Metro: Exodus, which means its something you can jump into pretty easily.  It’s also not quite as random or punishing as COD campaigns which can be stupidly simple, or painfully frustrating depending on what the AI feels like doing in that particular run.

I found Doom Eternal much harder than Doom though.

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Bruce wrote:

I quit Prey. Something I rarely do but the combat was causing me nothing but ball-ache. You are meant to be weak at the start of the game and build up your character’s skill set and abilities as the game goes on but I’m really not in the mood for that. I’m in the mood for something that’s a bit more fun rather than getting my arse kicked time after time.

So with that in mind I went through Portal after talking about it up-thread. It was a lot of fun but way shorter than I remembered. I’m going to move on to Portal 2 next which is also backwards compatible on Xbox One.

Yeah Portal is only a couple of hours (or a few if you count the final boss, which I find tricky). They’re good hours though.

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve been playing Cod: ww2 and Battlefront 2 (because they’re free this month on PS+).

Im npt particularly good at either od them, bit getting by. Those, and more recently my experience with Doom Eternal have made me whether I was ever any good at first person shooters?  Have I been living  a lie?

If you have completed Killzone 2 on any difficulty setting, the answer is ‘no’.

Yeah I have but I was young and spry and handsome back then in 2010 which are key elements of being good at first person shooters.

Call of Duty WW2 isn’t particularly hard, but sometimes the terrain is a bit obtrusive in your movement and the enemies are often hard to place, which sometimes means a grenade just seems to appear out of nowhere and blow you up.  It means that you can play pretty cruisely through some of the mission and then spend 20 minutes replaying the same 3 minute checkpoint over and over until you get it.  Battlefront 2 isn’t so dissimilar which is made slightly more annoying because the checkpoints aren’t as tightly spaced and are less forgiving.

I expect to be able to beat them both, but, I’m not exactly killing it on either game.

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Ben

I haven’t played a Call of Duty for years. Are the single-player campaigns still pretty much ‘on rails’?

(I’ve downloaded the WWII game for free but haven’t played it yet.)

Have you thought about playing without wearing your sunglasses?

Dave wrote:

I haven’t played a Call of Duty for years. Are the single-player campaigns still pretty much ‘on rails’?

(I’ve downloaded the WWII game for free but haven’t played it yet.)

I’m not sure what your definition of on rails is but it’s probably not dissimilar to the later uncharteds where you move from area to area in a fairly linear fashion, but there is some variety of movement dependent on the area.  There are often little shooting segments with AA guns, or in a tank, or in a jeep to punctuate the straight FPS stuff.  There’s even a bit where you chase a train which felt a little bit like the scene in Uncharted.

Grenades are overpowered shit in just every CoD

That sounds like there’s a little more freedom than I remember. I can’t remember which one I last played (maybe the first Black Ops?) but it was almost Virtua Cop-esque in places.

Fight for racial justice Humble Bundle has an awful lot of games and books for a really good price

https://www.humblebundle.com/fight-for-racial-justice-bundle?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_1_layout_type_twos_tile_index_2_c_fightforjustice_bundle

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve been playing Cod: ww2 and Battlefront 2 (because they’re free this month on PS+).

Im npt particularly good at either od them, bit getting by. Those, and more recently my experience with Doom Eternal have made me whether I was ever any good at first person shooters?  Have I been living  a lie?

Aren’t those games primarly PvP FPS games? ‘Cause there are two clear types of FPS games, the “competitive” ones (PvP) and the uh… I dunno, let’s call them “casual” ones (or PvE), meaning those FPS games like Doom, Metro, Bioshock, etc, which are single-player games firstly (even though they might feature PvP modes).

I can play PvEs fine enough, but when it comes to competitive games, yeah fuck no… I was never amazing at them, but with age, oh boy… reflexes ain’t what they used to be… =P

They are, but I’m talking about the campaigns.

I.think the PvP aspect does inform the single player mechanics though.  They’re both designed to be multiplayer games with single player appropriated from that.

I’m both cases the budget is through the roof though. Especially COD. The motion capture is best in class.

Dave wrote:

That sounds like there’s a little more freedom than I remember. I can’t remember which one I last played (maybe the first Black Ops?) but it was almost Virtua Cop-esque in places.

Yeah I dont think these are any more on rails then most FPSs.  There aren’t secret areas to find like in Doom but traversal is otherwise pretty standard.

Cyberpunk 2077 bumped to 19 Nov

It’s 15 minutes to midnight, I’m still awake, and I’m genuinely considering booting up the PS4 to play TLoU2 the second it’s released in a quarter of an hour.

And here. You. Go.

In other news, the next Lego Star Wars is now set for 20 October.

Dave wrote:

It’s 15 minutes to midnight, I’m still awake, and I’m genuinely considering booting up the PS4 to play TLoU2 the second it’s released in a quarter of an hour.

I’m in my way to pick up my copy now after the store VERY RUDELY refused to fulfill my order last night (apparently they have to “keep to the release date” bunch of jerks).

Ben wrote:

Cyberpunk 2077 bumped to 19 Nov

Fuck you 2020!

Honestly though, if they are really using the time to iron out bugs as opposed to just prepping a ps5 release alongside then it’s a good thing.

I hate when AAA games are released with major bugs.

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Ben

Anonymous wrote:

I hate when AAA games are released with major bugs.

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Ben, lorcan_nagle

That is fucking great!

Also: EA.

I recommend his channel. He makes a living shitting on the games industry, and he’s pretty funny and good at it.

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Ben

[Dave]

What’s the downside of eating a clock?

(TLoU2 spoiler)

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Dave.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Dave.

[Dave]

Anonymous wrote:

What’s the downside of eating a clock?

(TLoU2 spoiler)

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Dave.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Dave.

You’ll get ticked off?

IT’S HERE

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Anonymous wrote:

I recommend his channel. He makes a living shitting on the games industry, and he’s pretty funny and good at it.

Thank Bob for Jim.

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Ben

Dave wrote:

IT’S HERE

Ooo, ooo. Press R2! No, wait, L2. Yeah, L2.

Martin Smith wrote:

Press R2! No, wait

I’m a couple of hours into TLoU2 now, and I’m not going to give away any specifics but it’s already impressive – great visuals and excellent performances, with some amazing subtleties in the faces and body language.

Gameplay-wise, it’s very much in keeping with the first game (I’d forgotten how much of this game was opening drawers) and the story is unfolding nicely too. Although I’ve barely scratched the surface there so far, there’s clearly ambition here that goes way beyond most games.

Looking forward to playing more later on.

Played a couple more hours of TLoU2 tonight (got more into the story now) while my wife did some crocheting and sat and watched.

She’s not usually that into games but within about half an hour she went from “what is this bullshit?” through “so who’s that character then?” to “why don’t you do this to solve that puzzle?” to “shoot him!” – I think the franchise might have a new fan.

I’ll have to go back and show her the first game at some point.

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I returned after a year or so away, save for a quick try out of seeing how HDR affected the visuals last year, to Horizon: Zero Dawn

Does HDR have that much effect? On this game? Oh yes. Looks amazing. But at night time, or a damn cauldron, you will need the brightness set to 100% to see anything. The HDR effect works against your playing it because you cannot see crap.

Did a couple of cauldrons. I had previously avoided these as I didn’t like the first one. It was built around the idea of taking away most of what made the game so good, open-world, dynamic combat, with an emphasis on preparations from a hiding spot. Add in crappy platforming puzzles and I was never going to be a fan. So, I went in with a very specific advantage applied – Story mode. Did it help? Hell, yes. You can still be hurt, you will be killed if you go around thinking you are immortal, but enemy attack impact is way down and yours is way up. One-shot Silent Strike kill on a Bellowback is insane. …. But it’s also really fun.

In a couple of very dynamic open world fights i.e. more things kept turning up, so more shooting resulted, I was able to appreciate all those other elements – like the detail on the Tramplers, the indication of the flames roiling in their bellies, which you blow up with a terablast arrow. I haven’t tried my luck with either Stormbird or Thunderjaw. Of the two, Thunderjaw is easier – shoot the cannons off, grab and blow the crap out of it with them. Stormbirds, however, are satanic flying bastards

I don’t think I’ll ever like the cauldrons, just too much cryptic puzzle crap for my liking, but at least I do have a way of completing them. Intent is to get to the end of the Frozen Wilds, including getting the new weaponry.

Meanwhile, over in Pillars of Eternity, at the local branch of Leeroy Jenkins Anonymous:

I an Durance, I am a Leeroy
Hello, Durance.
In combat, I am suicidal,
We know the feeling.
I cannot stop just charging into the fray despite having no defence.

Yep, that’s Durance. The bigger problem here is, even in Story mode setting, this game has permadeath for your companions! In the end, I got around by tweaking his AI settings and he’s no longer quite the suicidal idiot he was.

Done a number of quests now, still find the combat quite baffling but that isn’t where the heart of the game is, which is conversations. Although the game has some curveball outcomes that you cannot see coming when you choose them. It’s not quite up there with Witcher 3’s infamous unexpected leg break, but it’s still pretty out there. At the point where the three City factions are offering loyalty quests, but the strange thing here is the lock-out happens at the point of accepting, not completing, the quest. Seems kind of weird, especially for a game that has been emphasising freedom up until now.

The Caed Rua restorations are going quite well. Took out a group of bandits, although the game gives you this quest, which turns out, after a bit of net research, to be endgame content! That’s more than a little under-handed.

Elsewhere, the effect of completed quests is starting to have effects “people know you’re a honest broker” – oh? Do they now?

I don’t think I’ll ever find this type of game easy to play but the array of choices it gives is truly intriguing.

Also play the Hitman 2 demo – let’s just say it didn’t go well and leave it there.

So I finished Fallout 4 a couple of days ago, got the most I could from one run (I did save before the point of no return to get all the endings), managed to get all companions’ perks, lots of stats, all the achievements, etc… I’m almost 400 hours in, so I’ve just been base-building for a couple of days, and getting all the unique weapons I was missing… it’s kind of a bummer because by going with the endings I went with, I lokced myself out of 3 unique weapons, one of them bugged, and one of them I just lost… I know I had it, but I don’t anymore…

Anyways, I feel like I should record a video or something when I’m done, considering all of the effort I’m putting into it… but it sounds a bit silly…

Now go to Far Harbour Jon, but don’t bother with Nuka- Cola World.

If you like the idea of having an armed to the max Sentry Bot companion, do Automatron.

Toejam and Earl Back In The Grove. Excellent fun. It’s essentially the Megadrive game with a nice new coat of paint, a few new features and some funky as hell music.

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Dave

Continuing with Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, I played Kingdom Hearts Re:coded yesterday. By which I mean watched.

Yes, this is the other game that’s been stripped down to just cutscenes. I presume it’s mainly due to it being a DS game and thus hard to port, but honestly, going by the story from the cutscenes, it seems unbearably tedious. It’s yet another retread of the first game, along with a retread of Chain of Memories (which was a retread of the first game). It’s clear they know they’ve been mining this out too much because it only uses a handful of worlds from the original game and while Agrabah and Olympus Colosseum yet again make the cut, they also use Alice In Wonderland, which hasn’t been seen since KH1.

Anyway, it’s some sort of Matrix-esque journey into a digitised version of Jiminy’s journal. It was originally a Japanese-exclusive mobile phone game (in 2008 or so, with free-roaming 3D graphics! I had a Motorola flip-phone in 2008) so I guess it was just trying to push KH to people who hadn’t had access to it before, though I’m not sure the demographic of “people with a phone good enough to play a game and willing to do so” was that distinct from and sizeable compared to “people who have a PS2” back then. Now, sure, then, probably not.

This is an HD remaster of the DS port, though you can see its primitive roots. Lines of dialogue are very oddly paced, with pauses dumped in the middle of pretty much all sentences, presumably to keep the individual file sizes down for the DS to cope with. It gives everything the intonation of rhyming couplets (without the rhymes). Ultimately, its main reason for existence, in this form, is as set-up for the next game Dream Drop Distance (originally on the 3DS). Hopefully that will actually move the story along again instead of being another loop of the Jeremy Bearimy the games seem to exist in.

Ben wrote:

Now go to Far Harbour Jon, but don’t bother with Nuka- Cola World.

If you like the idea of having an armed to the max Sentry Bot companion, do Automatron.

Oh, I’ve done everything… all dlcs… it’s kinda dumb that doing nukaworld makes you lose Preston, but eh… I’d already done his perk and he’s still available for big quest-lines (although one mission bugged out and I couldn’t complete it, but it didn’t affect the progression, thankfully).

I’ve finished my main base in Sanctuary, I might still add some more stuff, although I already went over the limit quite a bit… it’s getting laggy, but eh, I’m sure I can get away with some more crap… =P

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Ben

So I’ve been playing The Last Of Us Part 2.

Imquite far in and I suspect a bit further than Dave, partly because I think I got a bit of a head start on it.

Knowing how spoiler adverse people can be I’ll keep my comments to a minimum at this stage, except to say this:

I have thoughts. Oh boy, do I have the thinky-thoughts about this game.

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Ben

Are they good thinky-thoughts or bad thinkle-thoughties?

Some of them are dog related.

Are we still talking about The Last of Us?

I mean, dogs deserve pats

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Without spoilers, I hope it has proved worth the wait.

The first one was an incredible experience. Very moving.

The second one focuses on different emotional themes than the first.

Which is as spoiler as I’m going to get at this stage.  It’s a worthy successor, but… different, and also the same. But different.

So it’s the same but different. Won’t be the same but I’m tempted to watch it somewhere on twitch.

Also, approximately 5 hrs later and it has only occurred to me to make a naughty dog pun.

Anonymous wrote:

Imquite far in and I suspect a bit further than Dave, partly because I think I got a bit of a head start on it.

We started at the same time but I’m presuming you’re a bit further ahead by now as I only have a couple of hours per night to fit in gaming. Plus I’m really taking my time over it, taking it very slow and exploring every corner (I spent almost an hour last night just picking out the chords for various songs on the guitar). So I expect you’ll get through it a lot quicker than I will.

I agree it’s probably best to keep spoilers out of this thread but feel free to start a dedicated spoiler thread and I can always come back to it once I’ve finished the game. Like you I can already tell there will be a lot to discuss here in terms of the game’s themes and how it explores them.

May be this is a Q best suited to that spoiler thread but: Is TLoU 2 a game better suited to playing in short bursts, spread out over a longer of time than say, trying to blitz its 20-25 hours in a day or two?

I think it depends on the player. It came out on Friday and I’d be willing to bet there are people in the world who have burned through it already and completed it.

But I’ve waited years for this and I want to savour and enjoy it, so even if I had more time to play than I currently have, I don’t think I’d be racing through it any faster than an hour or two per day.

Certainly the individual areas of action are small enough that you can play for an hour and feel like you’ve made some progress and accomplished something, even if only as part of a much larger whole.

But at the same time I can imagine it rewarding extended play too. A big part of it is the atmosphere it creates and the relationships and the way the game sucks you into its world, and I can imagine it feeling special to play for many hours without that spell being broken.

This is a neat little bit of media coverage about The Last Of Us 2:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53093613

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Ben, Dave

Yeah, I saw that earlier, very cool. A few of the accessibility options are quite prominent at setup but I had no idea about a lot of that stuff. Pretty great.

The accessability options might be the biggest success of TLoU2.  I like that high contrast mode.  It’s not for me but I like that it can be done.

Bruce wrote:

This is a neat little bit of media coverage about The Last Of Us 2:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53093613

That’s fucking awesome. I hope more businesses wake up to this.

Ben wrote:

May be this is a Q best suited to that spoiler thread but: Is TLoU 2 a game better suited to playing in short bursts, spread out over a longer of time than say, trying to blitz its 20-25 hours in a day or two?

I suspect those are fast playtimes.

The core game play loop is basically 1) Explore area and fossick for resources. 2) Engage enemies in an encounter.

You could forseeably bounce from encounter to encounter without spending as much time exploring the environment (Some of which are semi-open world).

I dont think that’s what the developers want though. The areas are as detailed as RDR2 (Probably more so) and resource gathering and preparation really makes the encounters easier.

The playtimes I’ve read that focus on that aspect have this at 35 hours.

I’ll probably play twice (I played the first 3 times) because there’s too much here and not enough to see in one go.

Edit: Although, How Long To Beat does have an average playtime of 25 hours.  That’s shorter than I expected based on where I am in the game and how much story seems left (This is without looking at guides – there’s a reason why I have deduced how much story is left but it could be deemed spoilery).  That’s also just pure runtime and not taking into account some of the encounters really are hard and you might replay then half a dozen times until you get it. Checkpoints are very forgiving though

Also, it doesn’t matter if you play it fast or slow. It’s designed for both, but it’s a very intense game – the encounters are very intense – and at times emotionally exhausting.  The longest ive played in one sitting was 4.5 hours yesterday and i was pretty wiped after that. I’ve been trying to play one “chapter” at a time(clearly announced by bold on screen text), or if that chapter is too long I’ll stop when it transitions into the next location.

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Dave

There are some strange parallels between the games story and what’s going on in Seattle right now, though.

Anonymous wrote:

it’s a very intense game – the encounters are very intense – and at times emotionally exhausting.  The longest ive played in one sitting was 4.5 hours yesterday and i was pretty wiped after that

Yeah it’s very intense and I would say more brutal and emotionally draining than the first game. The moments of respite and levity are more few and far between (from what I’ve seen so far, anyway).

I think 4.5 hours would probably be a bit more than I could take in one sitting. I clocked 2.5 hours tonight and that was about enough for me (it was a particularly nerve-shredding bit though).

It’s a fantastic game though. I haven’t been as engaged with a game in years, probably since the first one.

When I played Resident Evil 7 on VR – I could only play for an hour or so at a time. May be an hour and a half.

That wasn’t because of the VR just because of the constant dread and intensity of the experience.  You needed to give your heart a break!

This isn’t quote that bad but some of the encounters come close. Particularly when the game pulls the rug from under you.

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Dave

Yeah, neither of you are convincing me to return to the first one.

Anonymous wrote:

You needed to give your heart a break!

That’s why God-Emperor Palpatine invented Xanax.

Ben wrote:

Yeah, neither of you are convincing me to return to the first one.

I think you will hate this game, Ben.

The accessibility thing is cool though.

Ben wrote:

Yeah, neither of you are convincing me to return to the first one.

I don’t think it’s what everyone is looking for in a game. Like I said before it took me a few tries to really get into the first one.

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Ben

I think the experience of the first one is one of the best in gaming.

Indications along the same lines are strong for the second one (although, I have some reservations at this stage best left for a later date).

The challenge options in the second one seem to cater to a wider range of player expectations.  I’m playing on the middle difficulty “moderate” and it’s doing what it says on the box for the most part.  I am tempted to play through on the next difficulty up on my next play through (which reduces the prevalence of resources and increases damage) but we’ll see I have had a fair few “skin of my teeth” bits at this stage.

But, the game also has more tweaking that you can do (https://www.androidcentral.com/last-us-part-2-how-adjust-difficulty-settings) and with the accessibility options you can basically make an experience that caters to what you want.  With that said, the games theme is that you are a survivor, not a superhero, so you’re meant to feel uneasy about your chances with every encounter you take on.

If you haven’t already, you should give FF7Remake a go.  A lot has been written about the lower difficulties in that game and I think if you’re worried about accessibility, there are things that you can visit with that game too.

Heads up, people!

Injustice Gods Among Us – Ultimate Edition is currently FREE on Steam!

I’m not sure for how long but grab it now before it’s too late!

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Dave

Anonymous wrote:

Heads up, people!

Injustice Gods Among Us – Ultimate Edition is currently FREE on Steam!

I’m not sure for how long but grab it now before it’s too late!

Also free on PS4 and Xbone (though the latter is just the base version with no DLC).

I made a post last night about South Park: Fractured But Whole, also mentioning Injustice, but it looks like the board ate it.

TL:DR version: Super-hero pastiche is good fun, surprised how much the game mechanics have changed since Stick of Truth, little concerned I’ll get burned out on it before finished, as I did with SoT.

Anonymous wrote:

Heads up, people!

Injustice Gods Among Us – Ultimate Edition is currently FREE on Steam!

I’m not sure for how long but grab it now before it’s too late!

Thanks, I’ve grabbed it for PS4. Always meant to try it at some point.

You should all grab it just for kicks, but to be honest, Injustice 2 is MUCH MUCH better in terms of gameplay… well, and everything else, I suppose… but the first one is okay.

If anyone wants me to kick their ass on Steam let me know… =P

If I don’t like it I’ll demand a refund.

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Hi Dave – you will not be able to get a refund because you paid $0 for it so you cannot re fund what was not funded for in the first place. Ergo no refund can be made so your demands will probably seem a bit silly.

I think you should probably just follow Jon’s advice on this one.

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Dave

Jon wrote:

If anyone wants me to kick their ass on Steam let me know… =P

I don’t have Injustice 2, but I have Injustice 1 (obviously) and I’m always up for multiplayer. I’ll PM you a link to add me. I need to learn some basic gameplay first so give me a few days ;)

Anonymous wrote:

Hi Dave – you will not be able to get a refund because you paid $0 for it so you cannot re fund what was not funded for in the first place. Ergo no refund can be made so your demands will probably seem a bit silly.

Trust you to find the legal loophole!

[Jon]

Dave wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hi Dave – you will not be able to get a refund because you paid $0 for it so you cannot re fund what was not funded for in the first place. Ergo no refund can be made so your demands will probably seem a bit silly.

Trust you to find the legal loophole!

I know it’s a joke, but on Steam at least, you can delete games from your library (or you can also hide them) if you don’t want the clutter of free games… if you change your mind later, you can re-activate them. I went on a deleting spree a few years back… I’ve only re-activated a couple, that’s how I found out =P

 

Also, in other news… So EA is going back in full force to Steam, they’ve finally added Mass Effect 3 and Dead Space 3, which is cool because I’ll finally be able to start the ME trilogy and finish the DS one (although their prices are fucking horrible so I’ll need to wait for a DEEP discount)… They’re even adding those trading card thingies for their older games… that, more than anything else, makes it look like EA just gave up trying to compete. Good…

Now we need for ActiBlizzard to crash and burn… oh and the Epic Games Store, though that’s gonna be harder for the forseeable future considering how much money they’re throwing at publishers for exclusive deals… but it NEEDS to happen… I downloaded the EGS to get the free Samsho Collection (which is pretty shit, btw, unfortunately) and ohhh boooy… their client is GARBAGE… 2020 and they still don’t have a fucking shopping cart… a SHOPPING CART… like… really queen?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Jon.

I’m sorry, Dave.

You will have to keep the game.

Dave can give the game to someone else to play.

So my earlier comment about the graphics in TLOU Part 2 being comparable to Red Dead Redemption 2 needs revision.

They are better.  The environments and detail are superlative.

Also, the music are best in class. And the use of audio cues.

Fuck this game.

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Dave

Also, Ben, the accessibility options and difficulty control really is very impressive. Pretty much every mechanic in this can be made tougher or more forgivable.  It may be worth considering.