Video Games – The Next Level

Topic

What are you playing?

Replies

[Dave]

I played through Ratchet and Clank (which I keep calling Jak and Daxter in my head).

Dave, I think this might be a fun one for you and your kids if you haven’t already.  It’s not long – there are about ten planets which take about 45 to an hour each to get through and a ton of mechanics to use ‘just for the fun of it’ (Such as a gun that turns enemies into sheep, another one that turns them into 2d sprites.  Especially fun is a grenade which makes all your enemies stop and breakdance).

It’s not particularly hard.  I found some sections were a little tough or sometimes frustrating, but nothing unmanageable, and it’s generally the usual platform fare or an on-rails section.

It’s quite funny and charming.  One of the tools at your disposal is a little cute but murderous robot that floats around saying things to the enemies like “I wish for you only to DIE stinky alien!”.  It’s very silly saturday morning cartoon stuff.  I remember you saying your kids liked the Sonic film and it’s absolutely that sort of humour.

I had a pretty good time with it, and finished it in less then a week only playing a couple of hours a day (not even every day).  You can probably pick it up pretty cheap too.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Dave.

[Ben]

Jon wrote:

they ARE handheld ports after all

Didn’t know that, thanks.

Jon wrote:

some 2.5D action. The thing I loved the most was the different art style for each game.

I really wasn’t sure how I’d find the 2.5D element – turns out it doesn’t work for me.  Agree about the art styles.

Jon wrote:

I’m absolutely not interested in any other AC

For the cheap price you can get it for, Origins lives up to its rep and reinvents the series.  Whether the reinvention is to your liking is a different question….

Anonymous wrote:

Dave, I think this might be a fun one for you and your kids if you haven’t already. It’s not long – there are about ten planets which take about 45 to an hour each to get through and a ton of mechanics to use ‘just for the fun of it’ (Such as a gun that turns enemies into sheep and another one that turns them into 2d sprites).

Yep, it’s a really fun game for the most part.

Anonymous wrote:

One of the tools at your disposal is a little cute but murderous robot that floats around saying things to the enemies like “I wish for you only to DIE stinky alien!”

If you kill everything then deploy it, it goes around complaining about being bored.

As to cost RRP is £15.99 but it’ll often be on sale for £9-10.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Ben.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Dave.

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[Dave]

Mr Zurkon is absolutely the star of the game for me.

Ben, I know you found the last boss to be quite tough and I can see why but I think it’s a challenge a focused 12 year old would really get a kick out of trying to beat.  Personally, I found some of the late game grind rail sections to be a little frustrating.  I don’t think anything in the game is insurmountable.  They even throw really obvious shortcuts into the racing games so you can easily beat the racers if you don’t want to do the tracks properly.  I think the challenge is probably on par with something like Super Mario Odyssey (perhaps a little more advance).

I’m looking at picking up Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.  Its on special for around 50 bucks.  I had a really good time with Divinity Original Sin 2 last year and this is probably as close as I’ll get to that.  The only thing holding me back really is that it’s reportedly not as intuitive a console port as Divinity.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Dave.

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Ben

Anonymous wrote:

Ben, I know you found the last boss to be quite tough and I can see why but I think it’s a challenge a focused 12 year old would really get a kick out of trying to beat.

They ought to have faster reactions and better dexterity too.

Although, I’m told the idea was to encourage players to get the RYNO and then when you’ve got the RYNO it, well it RYNOs him.

Anonymous wrote:

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

There’s apparently some major tech issues with the PS4 version so you might want to hold off a bit longer.  Everything says the game is top quality, but there’s those tech issues.

I still need to finish Divinity 1 before starting the sequel, though maybe I shouldn’t wait as the two games are supposed to be quite different, with them having learnt much from the first one.

Yeah I actually did get the RYNO right before the two final bosses and I didn’t have any issues with them because of it.  I actually had more issues with quark because there’s a set amount of times you have to stop the groovibomb before you can beat him.

The RYNO is stupidly overpowered.  I think it’s meant to be used specifically for the Challenge mode!

That’s a shame about Deadfire – can you elaborate? I had more or less convinced myself to purchase.

Original Sin 2 is probably one of my favourite gaming experiences of last year.  It’s very worthwhile.

Seems to be about loading time primarily:

http://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/pillars_of_eternity_ii_deadfire

Cutting right to the chase, the load times in Deadfire are an absolute joke. We got our little stopwatches out at one point to start tracking them once we realised it wasn’t a one-off, and on average, loading screens are up for around one minute and twenty five seconds. That’s such an annoying length of time. It’s not quite long enough to go and make a cup of tea, but it’s long enough that you’ll think to yourself, “Maybe I should go and pop the kettle on?”

The frequency of the loading screens simply exacerbates the problem. If you go into a building to talk to a guy to hand in a quest, then want to head off to a new district to do something else, you’ll get a load screen as you enter the building, one as you leave the building, and then another as you travel to the new district. That’s four and a half minutes loading to about thirty seconds of gameplay.

Dying in combat means you’ll face another loading screen, and then all of the loading screens while you re-do the things you did before you died. As if that wasn’t enough, the game crashes with alarming regularity, so there’s a reload every time you get blue screened. Sometimes the cancel button will just stop working inexplicably, meaning you can’t get out of a menu you’re in, so that’s a reload. Accidentally click on a door that you don’t want to go into? Say goodbye to the next three minutes. Perhaps a patch will fix most of these issues, and honestly, we hope it does. But right now they’re inexcusable.

Sounds like the kind of thing that will get fixed but the game only hit PS4 end of Jan so it’s still pretty new.

I’ve the first one to play too, when I’m in the mood for it.

 

Ben wrote:

Didn’t know that, thanks.

Actually, I might be wrong, I know they were released for a handheld, the Vita I think, but they might’ve been developped for console…

Yup, seems that’s what it is… anyhoo, yeah they do feel like handheld ports for sure, so that might not be a good thing =/

But still, I enjoyed them warts and all, but yeah, it’s not for everyone, specially for people used to the regular games.

Fuck it,  I just bought Deadfire and Bloodstained.

The loading times in Deadfire sound shitty but if it shits me off ill go beat up some monsters in Bloodstained.  The two should see me through the foreseeable future of the lockdown and at least until Last of Us 2 releases.

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Ben

Ben wrote:

Far Cry 4 I may, may, come back to this but I suspect not.

Oh, no! I loved this game; so much so that upon finishing it the first time I immediately fired it up again from the start (rarely do that – havent touched Spider-Man since finishing its story). The music is great (though that’s the one aspect that is improved in the sequel), the map is huge and there’s always so much to do.

Opening up the map and liberating outposts, I could do all day. I generally avoided using the vehicles as not only are they clunky to control, it’s more fun on foot. All the upskilling and upgrading of items from hunting different animals is a clever way to get you to explore and utilise different weapons.

FC3 and FC4 are 10/10 for me (but FC4 is a little bit better), and FC5 is a 6/10.

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Ben, Bruce

Anonymous wrote:

Dave, I think this might be a fun one for you and your kids if you haven’t already.  It’s not long – there are about ten planets which take about 45 to an hour each to get through and a ton of mechanics to use ‘just for the fun of it’ (Such as a gun that turns enemies into sheep, another one that turns them into 2d sprites.  Especially fun is a grenade which makes all your enemies stop and breakdance).

Thanks, that sounds like fun, we might give that a look.

For the moment they’ve rediscovered the Wii, so we’ve had lots of Wii Sports, Mario Kart and Mario Galaxy lately. There are worse ways to spend lockdown!

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Bruce

Oh, and we’re also making a life-size model of Steve from Minecraft.

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Todd, Bruce

With the old thread hitting 1,000 posts I’ve moved the discussion to here.

Update: now I know how Skynet must have felt.

(I particularly like how that photo makes it look like we’ve got him guarding our booze.)

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Todd, Bruce

We hit a thousand? Wow.

As to Far Cry 4, it’s a digital copy, so its going nowhere and the idea of the odd drop in might happen.

 

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Andrew

Wait, how long have you been a mod, Dave?!

Last night I decided to give Sonic Advance a proper go. I ended up with a copy when I bought a spare GBA off eBay a few years back and it’s never seemed worth selling it, so it’s been lurking amongst my collection, looking perfectly nice with the sleeve I made for it, but barely played, because I’m not really much of a Sonic fan. Would this be the game to finally convince me?

No, not so much. My problem with it, and Sonic generally, is that there’s a fundamental mismatch between how the game is designed and what it wants to be. Sonic wants to be a pseudo-racing game, all about going fast and looking cool, speeding through loops grabbing rings with their pleasing sound. Which would be fine, except the general game design rarely matches that. Sure, you get a few moments of almost auto-playing wonder, rushing through areas that you barely glimpse. But then you grind to a halt as the game remembers it needs to offer some challenge and you’re left to fumble about a bit. Sonic (and co’s) inability to walk up an incline is maddening, especially as there’s no control to just start running and there’s often not enough room to get a run up, so you’re left to trying to walk up it as much as possible and then jump it, which doesn’t always work.

Getting around in any way other than running along a path is a chore, which is why it’s weird the game is, from the off, filled with so many side-paths, optional routes and secrets. Well, I assume it is – there seems to be quite a lot of architecture suggesting so, that you simply zoom past at speed, along with side-routes just out of reach thanks to an array of street furniture to funnel you on, that the speed sections will throw you directly into. The controls really don’t allow for much exploratory platforming and the game is always trying to shepherd you with bumpers and pins. To indulge in delving the game’s secrets you have to actively play it “wrong”, fighting against its every attempt to rush you through sections, which is silly, because the rushing through things is the best bit.

Worse than that though is that the game will frequently punish you for going fast. Most speedy section end in you being flung into the path of an enemy and unless you already know it’s there (by trial and error replay memorisation) you’re inevitably just going to slam into it and lose all the nice rings you’ve just built up. This is a general trend with enemies in Sonic; there’s frequently no way you could fairly know of and react to their presence (there are many that lurk just above the edge of the screen, which may be down to the GBA’s screen dimensions, if you’re being charitable). You’re just left to smash into them and recover. The ring pseudo-HP health system does mollify that somewhat (I think that’s actually the best design element of Sonic), but it’s still pretty frustrating getting clobbered by an enemy you haven’t seen.

Sonic really feels like a game that wants to be Unirally but feels obligated to also try and be Mario, without really managing either well.

Martin Smith wrote:

Wait, how long have you been a mod, Dave?!

Dave signed his soul away some time ago.

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Dave

I feel terribly unobservant for not having noticed.

Martin Smith wrote:

My problem with it, and Sonic generally, is that there’s a fundamental mismatch between how the game is designed and what it wants to be. Sonic wants to be a pseudo-racing game, all about going fast and looking cool, speeding through loops grabbing rings with their pleasing sound.

I think this is a fundamental misconception, but one that seems really persistent where Sonic is concerned.

Even from the earliest Sonic games, the concept has always been that of a mean platformer with lots of challenging slower sections, mixed with occasional speedy setpieces as payoffs. It’s never been all about speed.

(Seriously, go back and play Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 if you don’t believe me. Marble Zone is full of tricks and traps, Spring Yard bounces you everywhere you don’t want to go, Labyrinth is a tense race against suffocation, Scrap Brain is a mechanical maze, and as for that section of Chemical Plant…)

In recent years there’s been slightly more of the ‘hold boost to win’ approach in the crap Sonic games, and the tricky platforming has become more about navigating dodgy 3D than tricky level design, but that balance between platforming and speed has always been there. Albeit with some games better integrating the two elements than others.

For me, the problem with the more recent 2D stuff like Sonic Advance and the DS Sonic games is that they’ve got the Sonic physics wrong, and the subtle changes to how he handles – particularly when it comes to momentum – have made the game far more frustrating to play.

It’s only with Sonic Mania that the 2D Sonic games really remembered how the character is supposed to move.

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Ben, Bruce

Given I can’t play Resi Evil 7 when the kid is up I’ve given Super Mario World a go for the first time in years. I’d forgotten how fair but punishing the platforming can be. If you rush it, you screw up. You have to be very deliberate with where and when you jump. Also, I’d completely forgotten the fact that all the music is based on the same melody (though I hadn’t forgotten the delightful bongos that kick in whenever you mount up on Yoshi).

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Dave

Dave wrote:

(I particularly like how that photo makes it look like we’ve got him guarding our booze.)

Handling lockdown well there with two empty multipacks of cider!

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Dave

Re: Resi 7 VR

I’m reasonably our resident-in-land-of-mortal-peril-with-many-creatures-out-to-kill-him (aka Aussie) @Tim played it and can attest that it is indeed scary as fuck.

Bruce wrote:

Dave wrote:

(I particularly like how that photo makes it look like we’ve got him guarding our booze.)

Handling lockdown well there with two empty multipacks of cider!

The worst part of it is that in our house it’s only my wife who drinks cider!

In fairness we only got the second one yesterday and emptied it out so we could give him his second arm. That’s them in the background.

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Bruce

The pyramid has been ready for a while now.

However, it needed flattening on the inside. And illumination. It was… intense.

And now, it’s kinda peaceful.

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Dave, Bruce

New project. Constructing another slightly larger pyramid on top of the pyramid.

As ludicrous as that sounds, let me explain. The only way to get to the top of the pyramid is by tedious jumping. So, I’m going to put stairs on the pyramid. Structurally that means I’m going to build another pyramid on the pyramid. Luckily, I have a shit-ton (eight double boxes full) of sandstone and smooth sandstone.

And it’s not like I got a job or anything to mind. Just me and my games….

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Dave

Place your bets as to how long the rest of the series lasts:

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Final Mix /  Re-Chain of Memories

RCoM first, it lasted less than 10 minutes, card-based battle system? No, fuck, no.

As to the first game – it starts off badly with a load of fetch quests, one item of which is practically invisible and poor indications as to what you can and can’t interact with.  I also don’t give a damn for Kairi and Riku either.  The bit where you are supposed to get the Keyblade was lousily signposted as well.

After that, it recovered a bit, although again signposting issues came up, like the way to progress the story to walk into and out of a shop twice.   Also, a combat system where the camera is permanently on acid doesn’t work that well or me.

Then it dived off a cliff with the Trickmaster boss because in that battle you have a lock-on that is nothing of the kind, more like lock-off; a lead character who will not get on the damn table; a menu system that is clunky to navigate that doesn’t pause all the action and an awful camera.  It was total arse.

Then I ended up in the Coliseium doin these barrel trials, when on the second? They place in the middle of the fucking air!  Oh, use magic? Nice idea but the lock-on is shit and the menu is too.  And it’s all timed! So, instead I will roast that fat fucking faun on a BBQ, slice pieces off of his roast and eat them in front of him while he’s still breathing.

The Gumm ship level? Could have been good but super-jerky controls kill it.

Fuck this game   I’ll just watch the cutscenes in Theater mode and be done with it.  Even allowing for the fact it’s a 13-14 year old game grants it no leeway because it’s design choices would have been shit then and it’s even more shit now.

Kingdom Hearts was a fun game. A really, really fun game.

Everything released since has been, to me, impenetrable garbage.

Anonymous wrote:

Kingdom Hearts was a fun game. A really, really fun game.

Everything released since has been, to me, impenetrable garbage.

After the quick in succession experiences of the awful Trickmaster boss and those fucking barrel trials, I went back just got through then did the arena fights. Lost to Ceberus and felt quite deterred by it all.

Decided to go to Deep Jungle and got on far better. Boss 3 should not be far easier than Boss 2 but it was. Not only was Clayton beaten up good, so too was his supersize dog too. After that got the Cure spell.

With that, gave Ceberus another go and beat the shit out of it.

So feeling a bit happier.

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Dave wrote:

My problem with it, and Sonic generally, is that there’s a fundamental mismatch between how the game is designed and what it wants to be. Sonic wants to be a pseudo-racing game, all about going fast and looking cool, speeding through loops grabbing rings with their pleasing sound.

I think this is a fundamental misconception, but one that seems really persistent where Sonic is concerned. Even from the earliest Sonic games, the concept has always been that of a mean platformer with lots of challenging slower sections, mixed with occasional speedy setpieces as payoffs. It’s never been all about speed.[/quote]

It’s not though, is it? Literally everything about Sonic, from the name to the advertising to the character is all about going fast. If you were to ask anyone what one thing they know about Sonic the Hedgehog it would be that he’s the fastest creature alive/obsessed with speed etc. So to have a game(/games) where going fast is actually a trap to hinder progression through and exploration of its levels, and that is built around careful pixel-perfect platforming despite the fact you can’t control the character properly at low speed is well, kinda stupid.

It’d be like me creating a game called Jimmy the Flying Pangolin – starring an eponymous Pangolin wearing old aviator goggles and bomber jacket, natch – which had an elaborate and entertaining flying mechanic that served to only ever throw you in the path of unseen anti-aircraft batteries and lead you into dead end aerial mazes. Sure, I can claim the game was always intended to be about ground based exploration, but it’s not exactly serving expectations of how I’ve sold it, is it?

Martin Smith wrote:

It’s not though, is it? Literally everything about Sonic, from the name to the advertising to the character is all about going fast.

If someone hadn’t ever played the games, then yes I can see how they might think that.

Similarly they may be disappointed by the sparsity of practical plumbing advice offered by the Mario series.

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Bruce

[Martin Smith]

Dave wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

It’s not though, is it? Literally everything about Sonic, from the name to the advertising to the character is all about going fast.

If someone hadn’t ever played the games, then yes I can see how they might think that.

Similarly they may be disappointed by the sparsity of practical plumbing advice offered by the Mario series.

You mean people who only know Sonic from how it’s sold and advertised every time?

Edit: and on the Mario note, most Mario games feature him exploring new worlds via pipes, so I’m not sure that it’s particularly misleading for people expecting a plumbing element.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Martin Smith.

I guess I’m just not really clear on what your complaint is. The Sonic series has always since its inception been a mix of tricky platforming and speed elements, but you’re saying that you think it clearly wants to be just a speed-based game and the platforming elements get in the way? And you’re basing this on TV adverts and multimedia characterisation that play up the most exciting aspects of the games, rather than on any previous experience with the games themselves?

The truth is probably in the middle.

The history of platformers is that they were originally side-scrollers and so were designed so the player had to think and act quickly.

The two main entries in the 90s, Sonic and Mario, took different approaches when the side-scrolling element was removed.  Sonic does seem to urge the player forward more than Mario.  That’s not just done via the loops, but also with his checking his watch and tapping his shoe when you’re idle. Sonic has far more verticality and is, obviously, animated to be faster. It’s clearly marketed this way too.  With that said, the game does have plenty of sections with Mario like methodical and tactical platforming (where the screen isn’t moving at the pace of a side-scroller) and those familiar with the gameplay know this, and recognise these parts as an aspect of the games pacing.

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Bruce

Sonic is actually not that faster than Mario (he can sprint), he’s just animated that way…  and yes, the main difference is some of the level designs, but I guess if you’re a pro a Mario, you can sprint your way through the levels and go quite fast as well…

Dave wrote:

The Sonic series has always since its inception been a mix of tricky platforming and speed elements, but you’re saying that you think it clearly wants to be just a speed-based game and the platforming elements get in the way? And you’re basing this on TV adverts and multimedia characterisation that play up the most exciting aspects of the games, rather than on any previous experience with the games themselves?

Yeah. You keep getting hung up on this idea that, because you’ve played them for so long, you know what they actually are, as though this invalidates my point, but it doesn’t.

My point is that what they present themselves to be, through, yes advertising and multimedia, but also big featured chunks of the gameplay and, as Tim says, smaller characterful elements in the game like Sonic tapping his foot impatiently, is a game about going fast etc. Which it then punishes you for (with enemies you can’t avoid etc) and presents you with the tricky platforming you’re so keen on. It’s a total bait and switch: those adverts aren’t an accident and they’re not isolated cases. Pretty much every advert for a Sonic game is built around presenting it as a game about looking cool and going fast and that’s clearly what Sega wants Sonic to be and be thought as. But as you keep saying, it’s not and has never been. It’s an identity crisis, exacerbated by the fact that – in my opinion – the tricky platforming bits don’t play that well, in part due to how the game is built around the going fast bits.

 

?

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Dave

Martin Smith wrote:

in my opinion – the tricky platforming bits don’t play that well, in part due to how the game is built around the going fast bits

If you haven’t played the original run of Megadrive games (Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles) then I would definitely recommend them as the absolute best the series has to offer. And Sonic Mania is a worthy modern update/remix of those.

Like I said earlier, the integration of platforming and speed definitely deteriorates as the series goes on, possibly due to the more complex mechanics and 3D introduced and also (for the 2D games) due to the changes in the dynamics of how Sonic moves and the inferior level design. So I definitely wouldn’t judge the series on something like the Game Boy Advance version.

(I mean, a Sonic game on a Nintendo system? Ugh. They probably made it shit deliberately.)

Don’t ever play F-Zero GX, the preboot bit has both Ninty and Sega allying against Sony

Something died in videogames when they released Mario and Sonic at the Olympics.

I’ve been playing a bit of Bloodstained and Deadfire.

Ben, you weren’t wrong about the loading times on Deadfire.  Luckily I do have an SSD drive which reportedly cuts the loading time in two, but they are still noticeable.  It’s odd for this type of game – where it’s isometric levels – there is a loading screen whenever you enter anything, whether it be the town or the second level of a house.  It’s not too bad with an SSD but it is a bit tedious.  I’d imagine it’s tedious on PC too.

Bloodstained, Ben, the mechanic really is basically Dark S0uls (which largely is based on the earlier stuff like Castlevania) so much so that I gingerly recommend that style of game if you liked this.  It’s really not dissimilar.  You can run through areas to get to the next safe point and grind a bit until you’re confident enough to take on the “area boss”.  I’m only three hours in, but it does seem pretty fun so far.

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Ben

Anonymous wrote:

Bloodstained, Ben, the mechanic really is basically Dark S0uls (which largely is based on the earlier stuff like Castlevania) so much so that I gingerly recommend that style of game if you liked this. It’s really not dissimilar. You can run through areas to get to the next safe point and grind a bit until you’re confident enough to take on the “area boss”. I’m only three hours in, but it does seem pretty fun so far.

Now I wouldn’t have linked those two!

Anonymous wrote:

Bloodstained, Ben, the mechanic really is basically Dark S0uls

I have seen more than one review, most notably perhaps the one by Zero Punctuation, saying it’s so similar it plays as a rip-off.

A quick bit of googling shows there is commentary on this elsewhere and it’s usually Bloodstained fans saying the game is much easier and nothing alike.

I still think they are alike for the following reasons:

1. The game world is build around progressing to save rooms which are basically the equivalent of DS bonfires.

2. When you die you lose the experience and items gained since your last save (I think).

3. The bosses are skill checks.  The first boss seems tough and becomes easy once you learn the mechanics.  This is exactly the same mechanic in every Soulsopurne game ever and you’ll always find plenty of “first boss” guides showing you the ropes.

4. You can grind to overcome. Both games encourage you to grind to get to a level youre comfortable playing at.

5. Generally enemies and bosses will make quick work of you if you’re not attentive.

Ben, if you like the progression mechanic here you might want to check out Code Vein which is a little gentler Dark Souls clone (not too gentle though). Also, it’s anime and about vampires. I think if you can play through MHW you have the ability to get through that too.

If you do, just remember that the game expects you to try and retry until you learn how to beat the baddies and play.  Similar maybe to racing on an videogame track – you won’t know the corners at first but by the tenth lap you’re a master!

Heh, I do have a rather substantial backlog – without adding to it.

Well, I thought I’d make the suggestion.

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Ben

Oh, it’s not a problem – I appreciate it, just more that I have no idea when I’ll get around to checking it out.

Was going for a wry one-liner with the previous post but maybe that intent didn’t make it.

Hahah I did pick up the tone.  You always have way more of a backlog then me (I really don’t keep one to be honest, if I don’t have something to play I’ll have a look on the store and buy something I like the sound of).  It may be one to add to the list, although I do think you would find it frustrating in parts, but no less then Monster Hunter or Devil May Cry (or indeed perhaps Bloodstained).

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Ben

My backlog consists solely of things i have yet to build in Minecraft…

Latest completed project: A subway system between houses.

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Dave

Your face is a backlog

Anonymous wrote:

My backlog consists solely of things i have yet to build in Minecraft…

Latest completed project: A subway system between houses.

I’m building a Death Star at the moment.

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1:1 scale, I presume?

Well that poses a question. Which one?

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Todd, Ben

The answer is you build Death Star I and then encapsulate it in Death Star II, not unlike how I built a bigger pyramid made entirely out of stairs to encapsulate my original pyramid.

The diameter of the first one would be one hundred and forty thousand blocks. I don’t think you could even render enough of it to see that its curved at that point.

#flatdeathstar

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Dave

Anonymous wrote:

The diameter of the first one would be one hundred and forty thousand blocks. I don’t think you could even render enough of it to see that its curved at that point.

Well I’m already 130,000 blocks in, so not giving up now.

(No, mine was a more compact and bijou Death Star that was maybe about 30 blocks across. Barely big enough to fit in the Emperor’s chair.)

Dave wrote:

30 blocks across

Pfft. My enchanting pyramid (inside the pyramid (inside the stairs pyramid)) is 30 blocks across.

Anonymous wrote:

Hahah I did pick up the tone.  You always have way more of a backlog then me (I really don’t keep one to be honest, if I don’t have something to play I’ll have a look on the store and buy something I like the sound of).  It may be one to add to the list, although I do think you would find it frustrating in parts, but no less then Monster Hunter or Devil May Cry (or indeed perhaps Bloodstained).

Those three are interesting in that:
DMC5’s spike was at the end.
B-RotN was hardest on the first level, where your options are most restricted
MHW has spikes all over the place!

Anonymous wrote:

Dave wrote:

30 blocks across

Pfft. My enchanting pyramid (inside the pyramid (inside the stairs pyramid)) is 30 blocks across.

Yeah but a sphere is a particular pain in the arse in Minecraft.

I should have gone for a Borg Cube instead. Which is essentially just a block of diamond ore on a larger scale.

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Todd

I have moved constructing a 140 block diameter Death Star onto my list of minecraft things to do.

It’s just below “finishing all current projects” and just above “polar bear farm”.

Ben wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hahah I did pick up the tone.  You always have way more of a backlog then me (I really don’t keep one to be honest, if I don’t have something to play I’ll have a look on the store and buy something I like the sound of).  It may be one to add to the list, although I do think you would find it frustrating in parts, but no less then Monster Hunter or Devil May Cry (or indeed perhaps Bloodstained).

Those three are interesting in that:
DMC5’s spike was at the end.
B-RotN was hardest on the first level, where your options are most restricted
MHW has spikes all over the place!

I think it’s really telling how these games play with different experiences.

So far, in Bloodstained, I’ve faced five bosses:

I did not find the first area, or boss, tough at all.

The first skill check for me was at the second boss (Zangetsu) and he is by far the toughest encounter for me to date.

It took me until the third boss to learn how to play properly (Craftwork) by using the dash and jump and shards.

I beat the next area, and fourth boss (the one that gives you double jump) with barely any effort.

The next area, Twin Dragon Tower, I found to be quite tough, because of the stupid poison toads, and it wasn’t until I played a bit more cautiously and warped back to Arandtown that I managed to get through it.  The boss of that area, I played maybe three times and then beat, and the time that I defeated it I was barely sure how I did it.

That’s my experience so far.  It’s pretty similar to most experiences I had with Soulsborne games.  On the old board, there’s a serious of posts from me about Bloodborne which pretty much echo this.

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Ben

Zangetsu is tricky.

General tip is to crack the food recipes – they are far better than potions.

Minecraft Grievances #323

I had four llamas and two llama pups. I log out for a while. I log in again. Suddenly there’s only two llamas.

Are they cannibals or something? Anyway, I beat the remaining two to death with a hay bale.

Next time I have llamas I’m not going to settle for cheap knock-off cannibal llamas that I stole from the trader. I need the real deal. Wild llamas.

There are llamas on my pyjamas

Anonymous wrote:

There are llamas on my pyjamas

My haybale and I are coming for it.

No worries. I have death claws now AND a blankie fort.

I’m mulling buying Maneater as it looks like a lot of fun. Kind of like Ecco the Dolphin but with the ability to kill people.

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Todd

Red Dead 2 is finally on sale so I’ll grab it over the weekend for AU$40. I won’t play it yet though as I’m still working my way through Hitman, which seems to capture the “Edge of tomorrow” style of repeating a level until you know its people, places, and timings perfectly enough to pull off the perfect mission more than any game I’ve played before.

 

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Bruce

ugh… I started doing a house/base/whatever in Fallout 4… it’s annoying enough, but then I had to fucking do everything all over again because the game REALLY doesn’t help you at all… u_u

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Todd, Dave

You forgot to take into account the vengeful llama factor.

Anonymous wrote:

You forgot to take into account the vengeful llama factor.

Why do you think I’m on the booze?

My excuse is angry squirrels and cascading trees and I needed something to counteract the coffee.

Dave wrote:

I’m mulling buying Maneater as it looks like a lot of fun. Kind of like Ecco the Dolphin but with the ability to kill people

I’ve never heard of this but just watched a trailer and that shit is right up my street!

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Dave

Yeah I’ve gone ahead and bought it, should arrive tomorrow. The reviews have been good and it looks absurdly fun.

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Bruce

Hey Anders, are you getting Minecraft Dungeons when it comes out next week? The kids are counting the days until Tuesday so I think it’ll be a day-one purchase for us.

Dave wrote:

Minecraft Dungeons

I have no idea what this is.

My PC broke last week and I’ve done a shitload of work setting up an economic plan where I could afford a new one so i can probably not afford it, whatever it is.

I’m anxiously awaiting java Edition 1.16, the so called Nether patch.

Anonymous wrote:

DaveWallace wrote: Minecraft Dungeons

I have no idea what this is

I’ve had a first bash on this and it’s tremendous fun. The underwater environments are lovely and the controls are fairly simple and responsive, and the killing (of wildlife and humans alike) is bloody, brutal and satisfying.

But it’s the presentation and sense of humour that really make it. Framing the game as a shitty shark-hunter documentary (complete with naff intro sequence and cheesy voiceover) was a stroke of genius. It’s that same tongue-in-cheek tone that adds so much to the GTA games. I can tell I’m going to really enjoy this.

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Bruce

Dave wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

DaveWallace wrote: Minecraft Dungeons

I have no idea what this is

Ah, it’s Diablocraft. Looks kinda cool, actually. I haven’t played any of the Diablo games since Diablo II.

Civilization VI is free in the Epic Games Store, for the PC people out there.

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, it’s Diablocraft. Looks kinda cool, actually. I haven’t played any of the Diablo games since Diablo II.

I never really played any of those games, that whole thing passed me by. The only game in that area I ever enjoyed was Dungeon Keeper 2, which was amazing.

Dave wrote:

I never really played any of those games, that whole thing passed me by. The only game in that area I ever enjoyed was Dungeon Keeper 2, which was amazing.

I’m not inclined to put those games in the same category.

Diablo is a hack-n-slash loot-based dungeon crawler.

Dungeon Keeper is a strategic base-building game with elements of combat. It’s almost as if you play the enemies from Diablo.

Yeah exactly, I agree it wasn’t the same style of game, but it flipped the situation around and let you play as the dungeon master. It was tons of fun.

It’s as close as I’ve ever got to playing a Diablo style game.

Until Tuesday.

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Dave wrote:

It was tons of fun.

It sure was!

There was a short era here in Sweden where popular video games were translated into Swedish. The radio group Rally, mostly known for their parodies of contemporary (and classic) pop/rock songs not entirely dissimilar to Weird Als body of work, read translations of all dialogues in Diablo and it was… not en pointe. Griswold had a thick Gothenburg accent and sounded like a parody. Cain the elder sounded exactly like a young man badly impersonating an old one. And so on.

I’m not sure if it was Rally, but someone read translations of Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2, and it was absolutely loaded with translation errors, rendering parts of the game really hard for some people. I remember specifically the line “your creatures are falling in battle” being translated into something that instead meant “your creatures are in battle”. It was robbed of urgency.

I really don’t like translation errors. It’s why I refuse to watch english movies with subtitles when I have the option. [/rant]

 

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Dave

Anonymous wrote:

your creatures are falling in battle

I can only read this in “that” voice.

It Is Payday!

Reminds me a lot of the Red Alert (1&2) soundtrack.

[Ben]

Kingdom Hearts is dead.

Cause of death:

• Crap boss fights
• Camera perpetually on drugs
• Non-existent signposting

The Oggie Boogie and both Ursula boss fights were awful.  Note I’m not saying difficult, I’m saying awful as in their design.

Oggie Boogie’s mechanism is you have to select the right button to get access to hit him, but the camera is so close in it blocks your view of where he is.  Fighting the camera is the only challenge in it.  The subsequent fight with him as the house is similarly bad in giving you a good view as to be able to see where to go and what to do – the idea is simple, the execution undermines it.

The first Ursula fight will be you versus the lock-on system and camera, they are your true enemies here along with incredibly lousy signposting as to what you should do and when.  Even guides failed to really explain what to look for in any accurate sense.  It was a very crappy, utterly un-enjoyable fight.  The next one? Even worse, as it does what the game does with the large, impervious to assault from the front enemies, requires you whack her from behind but she never turned away from Sora.  In the end I just kited the bitch and let Goofy and Ariel beat the back of her head in.

The flying and swimming mechanics? Shite.

The difficult boss fights? Shadow Sora and Riku were tricky, but again, your true enemy there is the camera and the enemy’s break lock-on ability.

Maleficient? This is where the game went into out-right unfair territory, with off-screen, off-camera attacks.  It then followed that up with a dragon boss that killed the entire party in less than 10 seconds – and this is on the easiest setting.  Maybe I’d feel I had an actual chance if I could cripple the feet but no, you have to hit the dragon head and the dragon head only, while it is spamming attacks at high speed.  It was blatant game artifice of the worst kind.  It contributes nothing positive, it just slams a big wall in…. Because.  So I booted up the Theater Mode and watched the remaining cutscenes.  None of it changes my view on Riku – he remains a total shitbag.

The other, far more frequent frustration was how to advance the levels.  Time and again it would be beyond cryptic – I have no idea how people worked this stuff out without a guide.  Often I just wouldn’t visually register stuff because it was too well hidden, like black stairs on a black background that were practically invisible.

The sad thing is it wouldn’t take much to make the game far better.  A more zoomed out camera?  Would render the combat much more fun.  A paused screen when you access the clunky-as-hell manual menu? That is pretty much essential for me.  Navigate these menus while running around, trying to avoid enemy attacks, with a camera forever doing 1080 degree spins? Nope.

The other games in the 1.5 / 2.5 collection?  Well, Re:Chain of Memories is card crap, so that’s dead. 358/2 Days is a weird, boring movie, Kingdom Hearts 2  looked to have gone up its own arse with a load of crappy minigames at the start that pay sweet feck all.  I would have loved to have simply killed all the employers as they paid so bad.  Leave town on the train, a commie serial killer fear sweeps the town.  However, you apparently don’t have to do those crappy minigames at all, despite all indications to the contrary.

No, instead it’s Birth by Sleep that’s been the surprise winner so far.  Far more stable camera and easier to navigate menus, plus it still has those large fat enemies but they’ve lost their protection so can be battered from any angle.  It makes for a far better game and really shows up the flaws of the fist one.  Will it stay that way? Well, let’s just say you’ll hear about it if it doesn’t.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Ben.

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Well, bye bye Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.

When the end came, it was quick – it took a rusty katana, plunged it into it’s guts and if blood loss didn’t kill it, blood poisoning would. It went from zenith to nadir very fast. A glorious space fight of tearing through Heartless that was incredibly fun is followed by… 3D platforming bollocks of the worst order. There’s no indication of where you should go, the camera is abysmal and you will press the jump many times only for the game not to register it and plunge you back to the floor. I just don’t have the tolerance for this anymore so yeah, it ends there.

Other flaws were bringing big enemies immune from frontal attack but who rarely turn around. And while the camera was better across the combat, the enemy technique remains little more than break lock-on and hit from off the camera.

As to its melding and command deck, that remains incomprehensible to me. It says its explained but try and do one and it blocks everything – not that it’s that easy to use. Also, I’m not a fan of the whole ‘buy stuff and combine it to get random outputs’, which this is. There are better synthesis systems, one is in FFX.

The battle menu is easier than Kingdom Hearts, but it’s not that much easier. It’s not helped by it removing a used ability from the list, so you can’t easily see it charging.

Kind of a shame really, had enjoyed up to just under the halfway point but after that it kept doing self-inflicted and then decided to go with, well, what it went with.

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Do you have  physical copies, Ben? If so, I do recommed the mass effect 3 route: smash them, bury them in the yard, build an outhouse on top, burn the outhouse.

It’s not going to kill the spirit of the games, they are long dead. You killed them with the above reviews.

Fun reading, but I’m sorry about your lousy playing experience regardless.

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Ben

I’ve got a ridiculous (physical and digital) pile of games to play but I’m adding Maneater to the list after just your initial comments @DaveWallace. I’m going to tell a mate about it too – he’s a big shlock horror fan and I know this will be a must buy for him.

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Ben, Dave

Ah great. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s simple fun and slightly rougher around the edges than a big-budget title but still very entertaining. I spent an hour earlier today just cruising around a bayou chomping small animals, irritating alligators four times my size and wrecking hunting boats, and had a great time.

Plus the undersea design is quite beautiful in places in a chilled-out Ecco sort of way.

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Bruce, Ben

Anonymous wrote:

Do you have  physical copies, Ben? If so, I do recommed the mass effect 3 route: smash them, bury them in the yard, build an outhouse on top, burn the outhouse.

It’s not going to kill the spirit of the games, they are long dead. You killed them with the above reviews.

Fun reading, but I’m sorry about your lousy playing experience regardless.

Nah, the series is loved by millions, some reviews here by me won’t change that and there are certain unique factors active for me that most playing them won’t have.

They’re digital copies but economically £26 for the entire series is pretty good.

EDIT: Well, that was fast.

Kingdom Hearts 2

Is harder automatically better? No and this game proves it.  It’s certainly harder, but it’s not better.  The QTE bollocks of the re-skinned Darkside boss didn’t help either – as did the badly explained reversal idea that boils down to ‘spam button, spam attack, alternate between them’.  I took it out but I can’t say I had a clue about what it was doing or how it was effective, there was so much graphical clutter on the screen.
This is after all those crappy minigames at the start that pay sweet fuck all too.

Finally, there is the “Struggle”, an idea to which the logical and entirely justified response is to slaughter everyone in the town because they’re a bunch of sick fucks.  It does the usual bollocks, OK first fight though I already despise the whole orbs concept.  Then the second one they whack the difficulty way up, as you take on a dwarf steroid junkie and lose.  The rest of it? Why should I care?  Will there be a sense of ‘pride and accomplishment’ or just a sense of it being a complete waste of time with the difficulty contributing nothing?  Based on that first boss, it’ll be the latter and I’ve other games to spend my time.  This one doesn’t want to be played? That’s fine, it won’t be.

Onto Kingdom Hearts 2.8, place your bets as to how long it survives.

I meant the spirit of your (apparently non-existent) physical copies.

Ah, well, given the design choices, I’m quite certain they were soulless to begin with, so no spirit left to kill.

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So yeah, like after a full month after release, I finally finished SoR4’s story for the first time… so… saying that the game didn’t grab me would be an understatement. There are sooo many things that irk me, the whole no running/rolling thing now seems minor compared to it all.

Throughout the game you can see a clear lack of budget and how that affected the gameplay quite harshly… overall the game is quite short, and there’s a sever lack of enemy types which leads to “cheap” AI tactics (and mechanics) to compensate.

So to make this short, yeah I like what they did overall quite a lot, but I just don’t enjoy playing it… and after a while the “indie-ness” of the game shows quite badly.

I’d really like to see a SoR5 by the same team though, and see what they would come up with when adding what’s missing and adjusting accordingly.

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Ben

Maneater continues to be hugely fun – I must have spent two or three hours on it today alone, which is a rarity for me these days.

Now that I’m several hours into the game, the mechanics are revealing themselves a bit more fully and I’ve built up some decent abilities and opened up several of the game’s areas (all of which feel nicely distinctive, with design work that just gets better and better, particularly the undersea sections.)

But it’s still the game’s humour and fun factor that really makes it. There’s a notoriety meter similar to the Wanted level in GTA, and if you chomp too many humans (which is easily done – it’s just so tempting) then waves of increasingly intense hunters come after you on boats and you have to eat them too.

Like the older, best GTA games (III and Vice City) it’s easy to find yourself ignoring the mission objectives and just cruising around causing trouble for its own sake. And there’s so much outside the main missions to discover (this evening I found where the mafia buries their bodies, which is a great little area) and you can uncover numerous undersea landmarks that all have their own little gags attached.

This has been a delightful surprise.

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Ben

It sure looks like GTA meets Goat Simulator.

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Bruce, Ben

I don’t want to jinx it, but I am enjoying Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance so far.

Anonymous wrote:

It sure looks like GTA meets Goat Simulator.

Untitled Shark Game

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Bruce

Well I haven’t seen the kids all morning so I presume Minecraft Dungeons is a hit.

Either that or they’ve cracked my login PIN and they’re playing Maneater.

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Bruce

Good news either way, then.

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Bruce