Video Games – The Next Level

Topic

What are you playing?

Replies

In other news, I know ted talks are not exactly en vogue, but this is sort of interesting:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktsFcooIG8

Problem is I don’t get on well with horror games.  TLoU was the first one I’d tried in years.  It certainly got in my head, but not in a way that encourages me to play it more.

Add in the very deliberate resource limitations and a stealth system I can’t work out the rules of, mixed with OHKO enemies, it’s an experience all right but not one I’m rushing back to.

Remaster looks lovely though.

As to the sequel, all sounds a bit too much of an Uncharted villain monologuing about how you killed hundreds of their people.  But the same game only ever set it up that way.

 

I’m not sure what you meant by the monologuing thing but I think the Last of Us is more conscious of the impact of it’s violence on the world than Uncharted.

Whether or not you’re interested, the accessibility options really are comprehensive.  The difficulty options attend to the limitaions and stealth stuff partly, but so do the accessibility options.  You can, for example, completely reduce the enemies awareness of you and maximise your stealth in the accessibility options (not the difficulty options). Likewise, you can highlight specifically the resource locations and prevalence.  There are degrees in these settings too.  It’s not just either or, like the high contrast option may suggest.

Anonymous wrote:

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

The use of music is brilliant. I’m finding even relatively mundane aspects of the game (like exploring empty locations to scavenge for supplies) to be hugely atmospheric and nervy experiences, and that’s largely down to the way the music is deployed.

There are also moments when the game uses it to build tension to almost unbearable levels even when virtually nothing is happening. Amazing really.

I think the things that the game teaches you through playing are amazing (as opposed to on screen messages).

Like the sounds of some of the infected. Some of them are really subtle to let you know that a specific enemy is close-by, it’s not just your standard screams and moans.

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Dave

That kind of subtle use of sound is designed to have you on constant high alert. It can be too immersive.

I spotted all the blues amongst the smiley faces btw. Interesting talk but I’m not about to try chocolati broccoli.

Yes, if you’re not a fan of total immersion than there’s a lot in this game that won’t work for you.

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Dave

Oh I am for sure. It can get all-consuming is all I mean. Unless I’m in the right frame of mind, not something I could play for hours at a time.

I grabbed the Racial Justice Humble Bundle and have installed Elite Dangerous out of it so far.  I enjoyed Frontier back in the day and so far this is a good update of the classic game.  I’ve just been flying around doing some trading so far, bought a second ship so I might outfit the first as an interceptor and go pirate hunting in a day or two.  On that front it seems a lot easier to upgrade and buy new ships here than in the 90s game.

An old friend of mine has been playing off and on for years, and he’s currently a few thousand light years outside colonised space, so we’re planning to meet up and fly some runs together in a few days.

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Bruce

Anonymous wrote:

Like the sounds of some of the infected. Some of them are really subtle to let you know that a specific enemy is close-by, it’s not just your standard screams and moans.

Yes true. It becomes almost instinctive how you respond to those – certain relatively subtle sounds just give you that immediate “oh shit” sensation.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

he’s currently a few thousand light years outside colonised space, so we’re planning to meet up and fly some runs together in a few days.

A few thousand lightyears in a few days?

Anonymous wrote:

I’m not sure what you meant by the monologuing thing but I think the Last of Us is more conscious of the impact of it’s violence on the world than Uncharted.

Whether or not you’re interested, the accessibility options really are comprehensive.  The difficulty options attend to the limitaions and stealth stuff partly, but so do the accessibility options.  You can, for example, completely reduce the enemies awareness of you and maximise your stealth in the accessibility options (not the difficulty options). Likewise, you can highlight specifically the resource locations and prevalence.  There are degrees in these settings too.  It’s not just either or, like the high contrast option may suggest.

The high contrast mode is particularly clever.  That isn’t one for me but love that it’s there.

As to monooguing, you’ve been killing people, people Tim, for days. They were alive and you killed them Tim. Their pet dog would miss them, but you killed the dog too.  You should be feeling very guilty unless you are a desensitisized crapbag.

Funnily enough…

You’re talking about a central theme of the game.  And your precise example is addressed in a way.

As I said, this isn’t Uncharted.

But the doggie

Dave wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Like the sounds of some of the infected. Some of them are really subtle to let you know that a specific enemy is close-by, it’s not just your standard screams and moans.

Yes true. It becomes almost instinctive how you respond to those – certain relatively subtle sounds just give you that immediate “oh shit” sensation.

Press R1 for Listen Mode!

[Ben]

Anonymous wrote:

But the doggie

Doggies, plural.

Changing tack, TLoU as VR? Possibly more scary than RE?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Ben.

Anonymous wrote:

But the doggie

Not all dogs!

Tim…

…

[Ben]

Ben wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

But the doggie

Doggies, plural.

Changing tack, TLoU as VR? Possibly more scary than RE?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Ben.

Part of the immersion of VR is the FPS  generally.

You could do it, but I dont think it would be effective ad you think. Noticeably there is a graphical reduction in VR due to the closeness of the pixels and I think that would have a strange effect here.

Anonymous wrote:

Tim…

…

You can press triangle to give them a pat and a tummy rub!

Thanks, interesting point about VR.

 

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Tim…

…

You can press triangle to give them a pat and a tummy rub!

Press triangle every time!

I was going to tell you about the dog I met yesterday. I don’t know if I will now.

Anonymous wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

he’s currently a few thousand light years outside colonised space, so we’re planning to meet up and fly some runs together in a few days.

A few thousand lightyears in a few days?

Basically it’s really fast to jump between systems, and with a properly equipped ship you can do a few dozen ly at a time – my little freighter can do 8 in a jump while laden and 11 if empty. You can travel FTL inside a solar system, but it’s not as fast as a jump, and you arrive in-system near the sun so it takes a few minutes to reach a planet or station.  If you don’t want to do anything in-system you can just jump out right away.  The only thing you need to worry about if you’re outside settled space is making sure you have enough fuel to jump – you can skim hydrogen off of stars, but only a few spectral types let you do it so you need to be careful about where you’re jumping.

What’s really cool is that there’s a group of players who just go on rescue missions into deep space to save people who run out of fuel.

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Bruce

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Tim…

…

You can press triangle to give them a pat and a tummy rub!

Press triangle every time!

I was going to tell you about the dog I met yesterday. I don’t know if I will now.

I obviously press triangle for your dogs, B.

Del

Warren Ellis last week, Chris Avellone this week:

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/chris-avellone-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-by-multiple-women/#comment-jump

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds

Sadly, this is not the absolute success I was hoping it would be.  It is a very good expansion, but its flaws remain those of the game it has been added too, but amplified rather than corrected.

I was split on the main game – it was clearly one where the object was to prepare and stealth fight robo-enemies, with open combat the last resort.  That combat was also dynamic and could, if you didn’t watch out, see other enemies join in!  Where the main game faltered for me was those occasions where open combat, with no preparation, was mandated.  Or there was a lack of hiding spots because…. the game says so, OK?

As an idea, the cauldrons are a good idea but I find their execution lacking.  I don’t really enjoy them and, guess what, the final level of this expansion is a damn cauldron. There was also a whole lot of platform puzzles that I didn’t enjoy either.  That you have two “allies” with you only makes it worse because, like every game “ally” mission, they are dumb as hell.  Can’t climb, can’t fight, just nigh-on useless save as a distraction.

So, after a crappy final story level it all culminates in a Fireclaw boss fight.  You have not seen one of these, you don’t know its weaknesses but know what?  It doesn’t matter because this thing will hit your camera blindspot every time and, in the second or two it takes you to readjust, inflict a 3-4 melee combo that is next impossible to avoid because you have no frame of reference for where the bastard is.  And yes, this was on Story mode.  A Daemonic Thunderjaw? Kind of irritating in that it just casually wanders in, screw your preparation, but it didn’t last very long, this thing?  Took forever and is one of the most unpleasant boss fights I’ve encountered.  It near ruined the expansion as I’m not going to be enjoying the story cut scene if I’m hugely irritated at the game.  Go and fight more of the bastards? No. Hell, no.  Oh and adding control towers, with about triple the health, out of its arse, into that final fight, is a cheap move

The midgame quest was full of timed crap but then didn’t play fair either.  Most of the quests involved the game dropping multiples of the new enemies, whereupon a scrambled, messy combat resulted.  Was it good? Not really.  Are the new enemies cool? No, I can’t say they are – they are reliant on immunity and high health levels and other stats.  If the sequel goes in the same direction as this expansion I am unlikely to like it that much.  The quest with the Daemonic Rockbreaker was utter crap.  Those enemies are a pain anyway, but with a control tower added, it was a bad mess.

Did the final quest recover? To a degree, yes.  The final pieces of it were rather interesting and sets up a potentially great direction, but there was an oddity to it, more on that in a bit.

The new weapons? Only really liked the Stormslinger.  The other two were either too short-range, or their long range weapons were too slow, to be practically useful.  The new armour?  The problem is, playing on low difficulty, nothing really beats the shield-weaver so why change?  There is no reason to.

The bandit camp? That could have been missed and the expansion would be better.  Like Helis, it has a leader with an absurd health bar.  In a game with robo-enemies, no human enemy should ever be stronger, but those two are.

Away from these?  Some of the more minor sidequests and errands are far, far better and the highlight of the new material.  The area of The Cut is a masterpiece of aesthetic design, with soundtrack to match.  It is bolted seamlessly onto the main game world and exploring it, taking out command towers, ambushing the daemonic enemies – that generally works very, very well.  In these respects, it perfectly reflects the main game.

Should this have been a post-game expansion?  It’s set before the final mission, but that chronological placing doesn’t work for me at all, here’s why: If you complete the cauldrons in the base game, the signal source is revealed to be Hephaestus, but Aloy says she has to deal with Hades first.  Yet this expansion flips the order around.  You also find out more about Sylens that would be more effective as post-game info.  As it is, you get all this and the game says: Now go and deal with Hades.  The sequencing feels out of order.

On the face of it, you might conclude I didn’t enjoy this at all.  This would not be accurate – there is a lot of it I enjoyed.  The exploration was great, the world design amazing; some of the quests were excellent.  Its flaws are very much those of the main game, I had the same issues, the same difficulties, I didn’t like the final boss fights or some of the forced events, but away from that?  It flourished so well.  And, get this: On some of the errands that required going south, I was still finding new areas I had not previously encountered in the game world.  It is that densely designed.  It is done so well that you rarely ever want to fast travel.

Story mode is an excellent addition too.  Without it? Probably not finishing this, found that last fight way too difficult.  Story mode allows me to enjoy the game and appreciate all the work that went into it.

I’d be remiss in adding that, while there isn’t much of him in this, a little Lance Riddick goes a long way in voice casting. Playing this with the knowledge that a sequel is now in-bound is what sparked my finishing of this.  I was reluctant to finish the main game and the expansion was the same because, despite the flaws, the game is very, very good.

And for the sequel? Get rid of the bandits, they add nothing and quit the overt combat bullcrap.

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Dave

Yeah, it’s probably been at least 6 months since I played it, And while I think The Frozen Wilds is a really good DLC, it’s not Blood & Wine good or quite as great as the main game.

A lot of your comments ring true to me. Particularly about the story, which I remember being a bit if a headscratcher within the context of the main game (doesnt the Cut open up right before the final mission?)

I dont really echo your concerns about the gameplay and world, though. I think it’s all pretty perfectly tuned,  but I agree the Shield Weaver armour is OP and makes all other armour redundant (and it’s relatively easy to get too)

Anonymous wrote:

A lot of your comments ring true to me. Particularly about the story, which I remember being a bit if a headscratcher within the context of the main game (doesnt the Cut open up right before the final mission?)

Exactly – I think it would be far better as post-game, you’ve decked Hades, then you head to The Cut.

Not sure what you’re talking about with the world reference, as that’s one of the things I like most about it.  But the open combat sections? Yeah, not a fan.  (Although, it has to be said, Story Mode really helps on those.)

One bit of interesting info I stumbled on while playing this is that, if you play on the harder settings, shield-weaver is no longer as useful so you do need the new armours and be far more attentive to enhancements.  So, if you want to, the game goes pretty deep.

All that aside, when you’re in tall grass (the meme of this console generation), have a perfect shot lined up and it executes perfectly – few games can match it.  Or, you know the shot won’t take it out but there’s a load of explosive tripwires waiting for the charge that’ll result.  Or better, just tripwires, with no shots required.  Oh, not to forgot blowing up Trampler bellies…. Oh yeah, Grazers and Lancehorns.  One fight that becomes very unfair with the Stormslinger is Glinthawks, you just shoot them out of the air!

 

 

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Ben wrote:

One bit of interesting info I stumbled on while playing this is that, if you play on the harder settings, shield-weaver is no longer as useful so you do need the new armours and be far more attentive to enhancements.  So, if you want to, the game goes pretty deep.

That’s only partly true.  I did a replay last year with the difficulty amped and the Shield-Weaver is still basically your go to.  There are a couple of points where the amour with better corruption preventative is favoured, and the shock one works could against the Thunderclaws, but basically you just main shield weaver and the other armours only give you a slight advantage anyway.

Its not as pronounced as the debuff management in, say, FF.

Anonymous wrote:

All that aside, when you’re in tall grass (the meme of this console generation), have a perfect shot lined up and it executes perfectly – few games can match it.  Or, you know the shot won’t take it out but there’s a load of explosive tripwires waiting for the charge that’ll result.  Or better, just tripwires, with no shots required.  Oh, not to forgot blowing up Trampler bellies…. Oh yeah, Grazers and Lancehorns.  One fight that becomes very unfair with the Stormslinger is Glinthawks, you just shoot them out of the air!

This is one of the things that is really fun about the game – the variety it gives you in taking down the robots.  I tended to favour corruption arrows in the endgame and made them all fight each other but tripwires are super fun too.  Compare it to something like TLOU2, which has a similar stealth mechanic in a lot of ways, the options are sparser and the environments tighter, so you feel like you have less of a grab-bag of goodies to take enemies down and you can rely more on the same tactics.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

This is a massive disappointment for one reason, this:

This suggests the game will be smarter and better than its predecessors – but it isn’t.  It’s a very pretty, dressed-up lie.  White paint? Don’t make me laugh I could barely see the fucking thing and even with that, badly done, the rest of the signposting, especially on timed sections, is utter shit.

For its opening level it goes for a stumble-around-badly-in-the-fucking-dark section.  It “explains” its systems badly and is inconsistent.  “Go close to vegetation”? She did it once, at the game’s request, but after that? Nope, I’m running against the wall – no concealment.  Its “stealth” is pathetic, with the usual hyper-aware, 360-degree sight, guards, who don’t react when shot with a fucking arrow.  These games should just say everyone’s a fucking terminator and be done with it.

The swimming sections? Fucking awful.  Oh and that “hold” option for QTEs – also inconsistent shit, as when I held triangle it didn’t register, no, this one you have the tap.  What the fuck is this inconsistent bullshit? You set those fucking options up, I believed them, I even gave the game a chance because of them and the very game undermines them!

The cart puzzle? Saying items are outlined in blue means sweet fuck all if you can’t tell there’s a tunnel because the level is too fucking dark and you have to stand in just the right spot to see it.

Oh and let’s forget that opening “stealth” sequence in the ruin, you get so far, and it switches instantly to you being spotted, but you now suddenly have a machine gun, having not previously picked up a gun from the previous five guys you offed.  Again, it’s a dark firefight at night against enemies wearing dark clothing.  Thank god for aim assist because there was fuck all else for me to get past that bit with.

Back to the apocalypse, it finally killed itself with a shitty timed platforming sequence, with shite signposting and instant death for not following its unclear bollocks “instructions”.

Oh wait, here’s a, er, image, showing the clear, clear difference between the three exploration settings:

Are you fucking kidding me? I can barely tell the difference between them!

Oh and if you’re going to do colour subs, they need to be the right colours.  Not fucking purple on black in a dark, night-time level!

OK, back to the game – yes, that opening section going down the cliff looked amazing, but it was blighted by difficulty in being able to easily see what I could – and could not – interact with.  And I had set that option to “easy” – it wasn’t.  That and am I going to trust a game like this on falling a short height? No way.  Games like this will kill your character for falling six feet while allowing them to survive falling 60, just because.  Some of the other bits were graphically amazing, but like its predecessor, it blurs the distinction between cutscene and gameplay – there were times when I couldn’t work out which it was or what I was to do.

Apparently, according to a guide I nearly made it to the end of that apocalypse level, but after watching several impalings, I just didn’t give a shit.

And from looking at the same guide for the next bit, deciding to give this game another chance would be another waste of fucking time. Loads of QTE bollocks that its already seriously fucked up on.

I can’t really convey how disappointed I am by this.  The previous two games had sections where I just didn’t want to play them, but on this one that effect is heightened so much more by the utter failure that are its “accessibility” options.

I really like when you hate on games now.

I think you should do a YouTube channel.

Ye gods no.

I’ll admit there is an element of me wanting a rant to be an entertaining read, but on this one I am rather seriously hacked off by it.

If it makes you feel any better about it, of the three new Tomb Raider games, Shadow is the fewest goodest.

Edit: It goes without saying, bit you’re playing with colour and contrast dialled right up on your TV, right?

So I finished TLOU2.

For the record, it took me just shy of 30 hours (29 57mins) playtime.

I pretty much just mained the last 5 hours or so because the story gets pretty hectic.

I’m doing a second run on “Hard” to get the collectibles and I’ll go for the platinum trophy.  Also, the game deserves to be replayed if only just to re-experience the environments, which are the most detailed I’ve ever seen in a videogame.  The work that has gone into this is phenomenal.

What do I think about it? Oh, I think things about it.  But those things will be thought aloud a bit later on, once it’s a bit further clear of the release date.

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So, tried to forget about the accessibility mess, try and use a different paradigm to look at Shadow of the Tomb Raider – ultimately? Still the same result.

That bit I gave up on last night? Has to be in the running for most emotionally manipulative section of a game.  You have a timed section where you have to get from A to B, fail and you die.  But this bit has this kid in trouble so you go for the kid, wall of flame comes out of this doorway, but you’re going to save the kid, right? Wrong.  The ledge you’re on crumbles away, you die.  You cannot save the kid, the kid only exists as a distraction to stop you seeing the route upward – which you take, abandoning the kid.  Yeah, that feels all kinds of wrong.

Still, onto the jungle, how bad can it be? Answer: Really fucking awful.  It does this fight with Jaguars, but the execution is awful.  The one positive I will grant it is these big cats are not as bad as the bastard wolves, or worse, that motherfucking bear in Rise of the Tomb Raider.  But the way you take one out? By QTE.  The problem here is the options have settings that look to cover all QTES, to make them easier, but they don’t cover all QTEs and this one? Is an exception but I only worked that out after dying about three times.  The effect of this is, via this inconsistency, the game is undermining the very structure it has set up.

I then did a second Jaguar fight, after another, opaque puzzle – it’s idea of “assistance” here is a bad joke.  That fight was a little better due to no QTE bollocks.

Kawak Yaku is a very well done creation, I enjoyed walking around it, exploring the nearby jungle, which really shows off the graphics.  So why did it fail utterly?

First, the whole idea of underwater stealth sections requiring dodging piranhas – this was awful.  The distance for the final section was ludicrous – had I not upgraded Lara’s breathing I have no doubt she’d have drowned.

How did I get to that point? Went into the ruin and got to fight section.  The idea was to do stealth takedowns by water, but the controls aren’t up to it and the enemies have superhuman sight.  I went with the ‘fuck it’ option, killed the first one by stealth then machine gunned the others.  Tried stealth on the second fight, a bit further on but they never unlink, all have super eye-sight, so killed one by stealth, machine-gunned the other three.

This was followed by another fucking awful puzzle, but also semi-present subs or out-of-sync subs – it’s very hard for me not to conclude the game creators had no clue as to what they were laying claim to on the accessibility grounds.  Nor do I recall the earlier two games failing on the subs in the way this later, supposed to be more advanced version does.

Got out of there, via that fucking awful swimming sequence and, it then kills itself.  You have a jungle stealth sequence but your enemies will mostly always be linked.  Even if they aren’t don’t trust the silent takedown icon, another enemy will see you do it and then you’re dead.  And I do mean dead because, even on easy, Lara dies in a few shots while having next to zero offensive options that are quick and easy.  Being fair, this is the same as the other two but the way the character was talked of in review coverage suggests something rather different, which isn’t the case.

Combine this with nerfed survival instincts, I’m certain it lasted longer in the earlier games.  Here, it’s so much shorter it’s useless.  Aim assist is also so variable as to be useless, which is a shame as Rise had that nailed for the most part.

If you are doing stealth sequences in games, it is critical that you can tell where your enemies are – it’s the only advantage the player has, but here it just doesn’t work.  You can never see where everyone is with confidence enough to make a move, knowing you’ll get away with it.  Plus, on every time I was spotted and tried shooting it out, someone would start firing from somewhere, but without any direction indication that helped.  So all your enemies are camoflaged against this very detailed jungle and they kill you very quickly.  For some these superhumanly smart enemies will be fun, but it just doesn’t work for me.  I can’t trust the game systems to do what I expect them to, my view of the enemies is severely compromised and there’s that ow level of health.

The other thing it brings up for me is this: HDR and 4k is about 2-3 years old at this point.  I don’t think game designers have yet learnt how to design game graphics for HDR.  HDR darkens and lightens but game design hasn’t caught up.  There was a bit in HZD:Frozen Wilds where I could not tell where to go, found a guide, it said there was a tunnel.  I could barely make it against the darker HDR-enabled darkness of the area.  The whole jungle area for this bit is a worse example.

So yeah, I’m done.  This game is unplayable for me.  It is not at all accessible, which is sad because it could have been.  I can imagine ways in which it is enjoyable for others, but none of those apply for me personally.

Judgment

I have to admit, my first couple of hours with this, I was considering it a misjudgement.

Still, let’s start with the impressive and positive.  Sure, it’s the Dragon engine used on previous Yakuza games, but they’ve clearly learnt how to get more out of it because the world of Kamurocho has never looked as good, nor been so seamless.  You enter buildings, stairways, sewers, it juust keeps going, no loading screens.

It is a bit of a negative at first in terms of combat, as you can be inactive for a second, and that window, the AI pulls off a cheap shot.  It was a while before I managed to hit first.  The combat is weak at first too.  Tak is not Kiryu, he is not a walking tank.  After a few upgrades, however, he improves a bit.  One of the things I really don’t like is the toggle dash, it’d be easier to just hold X instead.  It’s also hard to use in combat – which practicaly walls off all of its wall strike abilities. That it doubles up as dodge doesn’t help either.  Still, if you ignore the wall talk and stick with the reliable tactic of battering your enemies with a bike or whatever is close to hand, that works.

The one absolute failure in terms of new systems is the entire mortal wounds mechanic.  It is shite.  It contributes nothing positive to the game whatsoever and every single boss has the ability, no matter how minor.  The only way to deal with it is to fire up your own EX field, because dodging and blocking is useless against this ability and you just hope to batter the boss down.  There’s no strategy, no tactics, it’s woefully unsatisfying and it severely diminishes the boss fights. Those fights have the QTEs of previous games but without much in the damage being done to the boss if you win, which undermines the appeal of doing them, save for avoiding extra damage.

Still, that’s the bad, what of the flawed?  Here is where the majority of the new stuff resides:

• The tailing missions are a mess.  They’re not that hard but neither are they are that good.  The way the game displays its hiding spots is frustrating, along with every single target acting like they’ve been trained in counter-espionage.  With a few upgrades, they become more manageable.
• The chase missions starts off a disaster, due to the very short QTE time, but once you realise the running is auto, so you can focus on the directions and buttons, they get easier.  The button prompts also appear to be set, not random, so, if all else fails, you can just learn them.
• Photo missions – the explanation for this one was abysmal, I needed an online guide to make sense of it.  The idea of walking through a street while holding a camera, on a previously suspicious target who now has no idea you’re following just didn’t add up.
• The drone flying is another case of the ‘irritable but manageable’ , does it really contribute that much?  Not really.
• The disguises? If the game had an actual commitment to them and the idea of stealth, then maybe it would work better, but as it is?  On the first attempt it did the ‘unclear conversation prompt’, where what Tak comes out doesn’t link to the choice given.  Then that blows your cover and you beat up everyone.  Later in the same mission, the game decided to go with ‘fuck stealth’ option and inflicted an open fight on me. Fine, I don’t do stealth anyway.
• The active search / crime scene evidence – can be very irritating, but got a couple of perks active – maybe they will improve it.

So yeah, it’s a flawed game but what of its ace card? Yes, like previous games from the same studio, it is the story that keeps you playing: Excellent characters, a plot that never stops developing, some truly horrific developments – hey, The Last of Us 2? This is how you do horror without going overboard – if the opening scenes don’t whack you emotionally, then somewhere you’ve lost your soul.  And it is all executed with perfect conviction in the cutscenes.  You want to know what happens next, you need to see how this plays out, regardless of the gameplay crap it throws in your way.

I’m now on Chapter 3 and, with everything else that the game has, it’s going to take a while.

At first, the game seems rather stingy with its upgrade points, but after a while it starts to be more generous and you also start to work out how you play it to get more points quickly.  The prologue and the first two chapters are more or less a very extensive tutorial, albeit a confusing one at times.  The one thing I haven’t yet tried is drone racing, which is talked of positively.

Overall? Flawed it is, but it’s still pretty good despite those.

I really liked Judgment but I wouldn’t call it a horror. It’s more a thriller with crime/legal elements.

It’s also not really comparable to TLOU2. They’re totally different.

[Ben]

Oh, come on, you know the bit I’m talking of Tim. It’s absolutely deserving of the term horror.  The bulk of the game? No, but that bit at the start, with the fire, is fucking horrible. And that’s all that line is referring to.

Back to the game, the store perk where they will still serve you, no matter what you do to the shop is hilarious.

“Thank you sir, we look forward to seeing you again.”

No, you don’t – I threw a fat guy through your fucking windows.

The best – or worst – was getting spotted by a trio outside of a Poppo, legging it inside and then throw a couple into the aisles, while also doing the eternal classic heat, now EX move, of microwaving one of them!

And I can still buy from there after doing all that.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Ben.

Metal Slug XX vs Metal Slug + Metal Slug X (NeoGeo ACA)

What difference does handling make on a game? Everything.

Metal Slug XX was a 20th anniversary creation, built to celebrate the franchise.  I nabbed it with 50%, thinking I was getting a bargain.  It wasn’t.

The problem with the game is simple – it thinks that bigger + harder = better.  But it then throws lots of graphical clutter and, fatally, lagging controls.  In a game that requires precision perfect controls no less.  Even so, I only had that nagging of something being wrong when playing it, it felt oddly slower, but couldn’t quite identify the problem.

Today, before it went off sale I was considering bagging the Metal Slug Anthology for £7,99, after all, 6 games for that price is a great deal.  Except, those ports have a very bad reputation.  There is, however, a new set of ports, based on the NeoGeo versions, which are arcade perfect.

Let’s be honest here – I had a copy of the anthology on the Wii, it was OK, but not great.   Also, I don’t think much of Metal Slug 4 and Metal Slug 5.  Metal Slug 3? Has its moments, but is also where the series started thinking bigger and harder was better.  No, the best of the series, by far, is Metal Slug and Metal Slug X and both of those would cost the same.

So, for the sake of £2.87 I gambled.  The result was stunning.  Metal Slug X played so much better! Controls were precise and instantly responsive.  This felt right.  It was good, it was sharp, it was awesomely fun.  And it really shows up Metal Slug XX for the shitshow, cynical cash-in it is.  A game from 1996 is kicking the crap out of it in every respect.

Metal Slug wasn’t on sale, but for just under £6, knowing I’d be getting the same, top quality experience? Nabbed it, played it, loved it again.  There’s a crazy level of detail to the style of these games, combined with a lot of humour, topped off with some quite glorious destruction and over-the-top announcements of power-ups obtained.  “Rocket Launcher!” never gets old for instance.  But the difference between the games, the new and old, the one version versus the other versions, it is night and day.

 

Ouch, yeah I saw that MSXX game, but just looking at the screenshots I said… mmm nah… the backgrounds look super shitty, like they tried some weird 3D to 2D thing or something, but it just doesn’t cut it compared to the brilliance of 1,2,3 & X… the reviews on steam don’t inspire much confidence either…

Speaking of Steam, the summer sale: meh… not impressed with the discounts this time around… not Steam’s fault obviously, but yeah… So I ended up buying some old stuff to fill up my collection: The Doom Classic collection + Doom 64, the Fallout Classic collection, the King’s Bounty game I was missing, and then I bought the Battlechasers game which looks pretty AF (even though I’m not a fan of RPGs) and the Witcher 3… so I got the 15% or so discount for the whole thing Steam is offering.

I think I tried Witcher 1 & 2 a long time ago and kinda hated them, but apparently W3 is really good… so we’ll see… if not, meh, it was cheap…

Inspired partly by the Robin Hood thread, I’m currently playing Conquests of the Longbow a Robin Hood adventure game. Unfortunately, it’s a Sierra adventure game, although so far it hasn’t been as cruel and packed with arbitrary deaths and dead-ends as the likes of Police Quest, Laura Bow and Freddy Pharkus. It seems a lot of that has been brushed aside in favour of a game narrative that adapts to your choices and actions. For instance, I failed to save Marian from getting killed very early on and it didn’t seem like the game was going to stop because of that, just carry on regardless. I’m not entirely sure how that would have worked given how much of the plot she carries (I went back and reloaded to save her) but it’s better than a “haha, you done stuffed up. Hope you save recently” screen.

Interestingly, the game’s written by Christy Marx, who worked on various Sunbow shows back in the mid-80s, such as Transformers and mainly Jem. There’s maybe a bit too much of an attempt at authentic medieval dialogue, but it’s pretty good overall in terms of story. Certainly pretty well researched and there seems to be bringing in some pagan/druidic elements into the mythos.

Gameplay-wise though, while there are decent puzzles and a solid interface, much of the game seems to boil down to “go stand by this road and wait for someone to happen by” or “aimlessly wander the forest until something happens”. There’s also the obligatory puzzle that can only be solved using the manual (ala all the pharmacy bits in Freddy Pharkus), which is just paper DRM and while the GOG download comes with PDFs of the manual and hintbook, it’s still a pain to have to back and forth between them and the game.

 

This is a glorious piece of satire:

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Ben wrote:

This is a glorious piece of satire:

Fuck, that is extremely well positioned above my post.

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Ben

Moved the TLoU2 spoiler discussion to its own thread here, as it seems like there’s enough chat to support it and I don’t want this thread to become a spoiler minefield as the discussion continues.

I’ll stay away then.

I figured you would do that but I think separate threads can often be where the discussion goes to die.  For the record, I put a lot of effort into spoiler tagging that post because I knew you were still playing it Dave. So, just hope you are aware of that.

I appreciated the spoilers. I enjoyed the rest too. Great review.

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Ben

Thanks. I guess it wasn’t a pointless waste on an hour then

Ooops. I’m grateful for the spoiler tags but you got my meaning.

It absolutely wasn’t a pointless waste of effort, Tim.

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Ben

Anonymous wrote:

I figured you would do that but I think separate threads can often be where the discussion goes to die.  For the record, I put a lot of effort into spoiler tagging that post because I knew you were still playing it Dave. So, just hope you are aware of that.

Dave was being extra cautious is all.

I’m not playing any video games at the moment, and I’ll have to stay out of TLoU2 thread, but you can answer my reading question if you like.

Dave was being an Isaac.

Anyway, videogames! What are you playing?

Anonymous wrote:

I figured you would do that but I think separate threads can often be where the discussion goes to die.  For the record, I put a lot of effort into spoiler tagging that post because I knew you were still playing it Dave. So, just hope you are aware of that.

Thanks for tagging the spoilers, appreciated.

I’m just aware that these conversations that broaden out into more general discussions can end up giving more away than people participating might realise, especially when it comes to comparisons with other movies etc., so I wanted to be on the safe side and not potentially ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the game who is playing through more slowly. It’s only been out for a couple of weeks after all.

I’m still very much enjoying it and actively delaying my own progress through the game. There are certain recurring quiet moments built in to the story that revolve around a specific mechanic, and I’m finding I dwell on those moments for a long time – an hour or so at a time – just to enjoy the quiet and play with that particular game mechanic.

Such an impressive game.

There’s a thread for that now.

Anonymous wrote:

Dave was being an Isaac.

Anyway, videogames! What are you playing?

You know what I’m playing Tim-sensei.

Anonymous wrote:

There’s a thread for that now.

Hopefully nothing I said there was too spoiler heavy.

I get the sense you’re a bit irked by this Tim – sorry if so. I understand the desire to discuss a game in depth when you’ve completed it, especially when it’s very new – I just thought a spoiler-heavy discussion with interest from several voices was better off in its own thread, rather than people having to pick through it carefully here if they’re still trying to avoid spoilers.

It’s difficult when something is available in full to everyone immediately and people will move through it at different speeds – it’s a bit like Netflix series, and we’ve tended to opt for dedicated threads in those situations, like with Witcher recently.

That was a thread that thrived so hopefully there won’t be any feeling that the conversation is being stifled by being moved to a dedicated thread. In a way it highlights it even more I think – the conversation is big enough to warrant its own thread.

Yeah, im irked because you only do this when it’s shit you haven’t completed or seen, and want to say pure of. You did the same with Joker.  I’m aware of how spoiler sensitive you are so I wrote my post with that, and you, in mind and, of course, you still put things out of your sight, out of your mind.

At the end of the day, it’s fine it’s no big deal. I hope you enjoy the game. But I dont like that you did that.

Anonymous wrote:

You did the same with Joker.

I didn’t have the ability to modify threads at all when Joker came out so you may be thinking of something or someone else.

Sorry this has tapped back into that frustration either way, it’s absolutely nothing personal.

Yes, I would prefer to stay clear of spoilers for TLoU2, but I’m assuming that’s true of others who haven’t completed the game in the two weeks since it came out, so hopefully this can be seen as more than revolving around just my personal feelings.

I’m not. You started a new thread and got that shit moved.

As far as I know, there’s only two people playing this on the board so didn’t think it warranted enough eyes for its own thread. Particularly when the spoilers are so clearly marked.

Anyway, hope you enjoy discussing the game.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for detailed spoiler discussions to have their own threads – like I say, that happened naturally with Witcher as people didn’t want to navigate that detailed discussion in the regular ‘watching’ thread, and again that was nothing to do with me so there isn’t a personal element here.

The fact that Ben and Bernadette are also engaged with the discussion shows there’s interest in the game here beyond just you and me, so again this isn’t a case of just wanting to end the discussion.

I don’t have anything further to add here other than I regret the tone of this conversation as I always feel like we’ve been on friendly terms in the past, and I just want to make clear that there’s no animosity here whatsoever from my side. I’m genuinely sorry if past actions over ‘Joker’ or anything else have been interpreted in that spirit, as it isn’t intended at all from me.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Yeah we just haven’t done that with games so it reeks of Mod entitlement.</p>
Read this thread.  Look at the AAA games we’ve played. Look at the spoiler tags on things like FF7 remake.

Count how many separate threads we have for videogames, because, there aren’t that many people playing it.

For me, I spent a lot of time and effort on that post and carefully curated it so it could be it was clear there were things that could be talked about now,  and things that could be talked about for those that had played it through. You took that away from me like you took away Ellie from that table. Like you killed all those doctors.

I cannot forgive you for this, Joel. But I can try

I think it’s time to move on from this discussion. You already said that you posted the spoiler discussion in the full expectation that I’d move it to a dedicated spoiler thread, and a few days ago I even explicitly said that I’d prefer it if any detailed discussion took place in its own thread so as to avoid spoilers in the main thread, so it doesn’t make sense to me to now suggest that it’s a surprise that I did so.

At this point it feels like looking for an argument, and it’s an argument that I don’t want to have and which I certainly don’t want to poison the atmosphere of what is usually a fun and pleasant thread.

So I think now is probably the time to drop the subject and move on, as I doubt anyone else is enjoying this any more than I am.

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Dave

<p style=”text-align: left;”>

Dave wrote:

so it doesn’t make sense to me to now suggest that it’s a surprise that I did so.

</p>
Oh its not a surprise, just disappointing.

Not an argument either. Just keeping you in check. And expressing my frustration over the hour I put in. Hope my tgoughts csn still bear fruit for someone.

We’ve recently got a bit hooked on Lego Worlds. I ignored it when it came out as it had mediocre reviews, but (in a bit of a No Man’s Sky situation) they seem to have done quite a lot to improve it since release, and it’s now a fairly fun sandbox alt-Minecraft type game.

Basically it takes the normal Lego games setup, removes the irritating puzzle-solving formula and substitutes in a surprisingly extensive open building system that lets you either construct objects brick-by brick or populate a world with hundreds of different pre-loaded models which you can then further deconstruct and modify as you wish.

It’s a nice alternative to Minecraft, and what it lacks in pixelated charm it makes up for in additional elements like vehicles and space travel and painting builds that Minecraft doesn’t have.

As it was a bit of a flop and has been out for a while it can be picked up pretty cheap now, and it’s worth a look. You in particular might like it, Anders.

Last I checked I’m someone.

I’m going to click on the spoiler in the other thread now because Ben said I could…

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Ben

I’ve been making progress through Conquests of the Longbow and whoever that reviewer was who said it isn’t like other Sierra games and didn’t have arbitrary deaths is a fucking liar. It’s not as stuffed full of them as other ones I’ve played, but it’s got that same smarmy, condescending “well of course you should have thought about that before doing it” attitude with trial and error deaths. For instance, disguising yourself as a jeweller to meet the Sheriff and his wife, if you don’t look through all the property you stole from the jeweller and use the rouge he happens to be carrying to dye your beard, you get instantly recognised by the sheriff’s wife as the yeoman you were disguised as in the archery tournament (despite her not even being there!) and get a game over. There’s also been loads more puzzles you can only do by slavishly referring to the manual, including some weird finger spelling system, which means much of the game consists of just alt-tabbing to a PDF for answers.

It’s such a tedious ball ache. I think I may have said this here before, but certainly on my blog, but whereas LucasArts adventure games feel like someone wanting to tell you a good story and have fun with you, a Sierra adventure game feels like some dickhead down the pub asking you trick questions and obnoxious riddles and laughing at you in front of everyone every time you inevitably get one wrong.

 

I’m itching very, very close to buy Generation Zero on Steam while it’s on sale. Anyone here with experience?

It’s either that or a thorough replay of Farcry 3 and 4.

So I’ve spent about a 150 hours buidling my settlement in Fallout 4, imagine my disapointment when the decorations phased through the fucking shelves… TODDAMMIT BETHESDA!!! (Todd Howard =P)

Anyways, I think I’m gonna finish buidling everything first then try to decorate as quickly as possible and save, although that might not really solve anything, it seems the engine just goes stupid and there’s nothing to do. Also, it might’ve been a bad idea to link all the provisioners to Sanctuary, as I already have 22 settlers (+ a dog and a cat), there’s always 3 merchants with their 2 bodyguards each and their cows, so the extra however many provisioners that come in create quite a bit of chaos… last attacks on sanctuary have spawn the enemies in odd places and sometimes I find a settler or a fucking cow on some roof… u_u

So I’m guessing I should probably stop doing shit in there at some point soon before my computers just crashes with all the crap going on… it’s already slowing down quite a bit =/

Ben, how far along in Judgment are you?

Chapter 8 – it’s a big bastard of a game.

Very Yakuza in the way the story keeps turning too.

I’ve been playing Cunt-Strike: Globally Offensive for a couple of days.

I used to play the predecessors a lot, for years but that was like ten years ago. I expected to be rather rusty but… I’m not?

I’m still shit with snipers but I’ve been doing rather well with my old tricks. It’s weird how this game is virtually the same as it was 20 years ago and still being played.

Yeah, I thought the story was really good – very detailed and complex, but dealing with complex themes in the way that a lot of anime is.  I really liked Tak as a protagonist too.

You’re about to enter the third act which is where it really heats up.  The finale is one of the most compelling things I’ve played in recent times so i’ll be interested to hear your take when you get to that.

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Ben

The other element I enjoy about these games is they show you don’t need a big game world to have a big game.

Jon wrote:

TODDAMMIT BETHESDA

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lorcan_nagle

Pyschonauts for the OG xbox. Got a preowned copy cheap off of Ebay. Clunky-ish 3d gameplay like a lot of these mid 00s platformers but it’s a lot of fun. It’s also bit of a blast from the past seeing this when I put the disc in:

Yeah it’s a testament to the design that you don’t get sick of revisiting the corners of Kamarucho

OK, let’s talk about the Valhalla leak.

Unlike TLOU 2, which I think was hurt by its leaks, I don’t think the same is true for Valhalla.  The internet is up in arms about it, but I’m not seeing the problem, or at least no more of a problem than people might have with both Origins and Odyssey.  In fact, if this is any indicator, then Ghost of Tsuschima is probably going to get a kicking from the same people for the same reasons.

If the footage proves or demonstrates anything conclusively, it is why developers are wary of showing gameplay off before it is ready – and this? It certainly isn’t ready, but if the aim was to hurt the game, I’d like to think its failed.

Ultimately, what it all comes down is evolution, not revolution – and I have to ask why people were expecting the latter from a Ubisoft game? That isn’t what they do, maybe once upon a time, but not now.  Rip off of the Witcher 3?  Or the same sort of homage to it that Odyssey was? Answer depends on your perspective.

Sure, there’s now a stamina bar, done numerous times elsewhere. There’s a rather nifty sailing sequence, albeit with familiar mechanics.  Which can be criticised, yes, but again, it’s Ubisoft.  And this has been marketed as a trilogy conclusion, so, of course there’s going to be a lot of similarity to the preceding two games – what else was expected?

If you’re really going to get the game no matter what, these leaks pose no danger to you whatsoever unless you want to know absolutely nothing about it.  If you don’t mind about that they might even make November seem even more distant.

More weirdly there’s supposed to be a big reveal for Valhalla on Sunday, which is so close as to render the whole leak pointless.

Yeah, fandom is often dumb, for the same reasons they’re often dumb in the other thread.

There’s been a whole bunch of AC fans wanting to go back to the playstyle of the Ezio games for ages, so maybe Ubisoft should take a page out of the Resident Evil playbook by remaking the classic games while at the same time moving forward with new iterations.

I probably would get a good remake of AC2

So I’ve been putting together a list of things “to play” and “to watch for” in my head, because I find myself at a loss for new things to play, Ben, as you mentioned. So, without further adieu, with respect to PS4 releases (available this year):

To Play (in order of playingness but mostly in order of buyingness)

DLC for Control

DLC for Nioh 2

Days Gone

Hollow Knight

Smash Bros. Ultra Super Mega (to finish)

Inside

 

Maybe to Play (in order of Maybeness)

Trials of Mana

Dead Cells

Blasphemous

Catherine: Full Body

Desperados 3

Astro Bot VR

Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners VR

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Shooty shooty bang bang: Airstrike Edition

Yakuza series

 

To Watch (in order of watchingness)

Elden Ring

Cyberpunk 2077

Ghosts of Tsushima

Marvel’s Avengers

Mortal Shell

Babylon’s Fall

Disco Elysium

Biomutant

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Bayonetta 3

Nier: Replicant Remake

Wasteland 3

Dying Light 2

 

Sure, there’s other stuff, like Assassins Creed, Vampire and Watch Dogs, which all could be great (but may be better off getting for a hypothetical ps5 later down the line). There’s also a ton of maybes – Elden Ring is almost sure to be delayed like Tales of Arise was, as well as a bunch of others on that list.  There’s sure to be things that come out of left field.  Maybe Baldurs Gate 3 gets a PS4 releas.  Anyway, the point of this was to look to the calendar year and try to get a handle on the things that might be playable before the year out.

Wait until Dead Cells is actually finished before considering it. I bought it over a year ago and the devs are still faffing about with it as if it was in closed beta.

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Ben

Oh? Thanks for the tip-off anders

Tim, a new Biomutant gameplay vid came out a few days back, looks great, but release date is ‘when it’s ready’.

Yeah they’re always “when it’s ready”.

Usually, I would say it’s about maximising your financial gains, and some of those “when its readys” are more or less guaranteed Q4 releases, which is traditionally a very profitable time for the industry (for example, one could argue that Jedi: Fallen Order was a “when its ready” that had a Q4 release when it was really not ready) but, with the change to next-gen and Covid-19 it’s much harder to say. I’d still expect to see some of those games that don’t yet have release dates released this year (Mortal Shell is as close to a guaranteed Q3 release as you can get, and I’d say Disco Elysium and Yakuza 7 are reasonably safe bets for later in the year).  I’ll never forget that the release date for God of War was announced about 6 weeks from release, so that stuff does happen.

There’s also the XIII remake which looks pretty good, but that’s the week before Cyberpunk.  Interestingly, current projections have the PS5 releasing fairly close to the PS4 release of Cyberpunk, which seems a bit daring.

Good to know about Dead Cells.  To be honest, it’s not super high on my must-play list but I am curious.

Anonymous wrote:

Good to know about Dead Cells. To be honest, it’s not super high on my must-play list but I am curious.

I still love the game and I do believe it’s my favourite roguelitemetroidvaniaplatformingmadness game of all time. Together with retro-heavy Rogue Legacy.

Fairly certain Biomutant is being done by a small studio, so do give them credit for taking time on it.  Plus, putting out a buggy, crappy product could axe the studio.

Ben wrote:

putting out a buggy, crappy product could axe the studio.

Todd Howard is laughing.

Have you played the earlier versions of Catherine, Tim? If not, I’d definitely recommend that. It’s a really interesting game, mixing a solid puzzle game with a quirky anime story that delves into ideas games rarely touch. It’s not perfect, by any means, but worth your time.

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Anonymous wrote:

Ben wrote:

putting out a buggy, crappy product could axe the studio.

Todd Howard is laughing.

Who knew big bastard companies would be immune to disasters?

Remember Timesplitters? You liked that? Too bad, the same studio did Haze, it bombed and that failure wiped them out.

I have actually never played it and only heard good things  so thought a “complete” version on a remastered engine would be the best place to get the full experience.  Is this not right?

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Martin Smith

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Good to know about Dead Cells. To be honest, it’s not super high on my must-play list but I am curious.

I still love the game and I do believe it’s my favourite roguelitemetroidvaniaplatformingmadness game of all time. Together with retro-heavy Rogue Legacy.

Actually Anders, have you played Hyperlight Drifter?

Anonymous wrote:

Actually Anders, have you played Hyperlight Drifter?

Nope. Should I check it out? I’m knee deep in Far Cry 3 at the moment, and I have Far Cry 4 lined up afterwards. Then I’m out of real gaming.

I mean, I still play Hearthstone and Minecraft but at this point they’re more like chores. :)

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Andrew

Anonymous wrote:

Nope. Should I check it out?

Google it and tell me what you think. I’d say it falls pretty close to.the Dead Cells aesthetic and gameplay

Talking of Far Cry 3, the PS4 version is on sale on PSN for £2.74 – yes, really, 90% off.

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Andrew

Far Cry 3 is still the best game in the series

Anonymous wrote:

Google it and tell me what you think.

It looks like a crossbreed between A Link To The Past and Dead Cells. I’m not 100% sold on the isometric gameplay from first glance but I will probably check this out after Far Cry 4.

The campaign is pretty short, but it’s worth checking out if you’re into the idea of a challenging retro with modern trappings.

In the interim, I’ve decided to dedicate my life to Hollow Knight (in between dinner with some girl who apparently wants to see me for some reason)

You could complete all of hollow knight while the quick time events from far cry 3 are going. I fucking hate those.

Anonymous wrote:

I have actually never played it and only heard good things  so thought a “complete” version on a remastered engine would be the best place to get the full experience.  Is this not right?

Yes. Sorry I meant, if you’ve not played the game before in any version, definitely give any version of it a go. I wasn’t sure if it was on your maybe pile because you’d played the original release and weren’t sure if the new one was worth the revisit/upgrade (and I don’t know either, tbh, I played the original 360 release back in the day).