Video Games

Topic

Games. A love and loathe activity, especially when you can’t nail a section or take out that one bastard boss.

So, what are you buyin’? What are you playing?

Replies

1. Ben wrote:

   On reviews, you might want to take a look at Skill Up’s one. I haven’t got around to it but they tend to be very good vids.

Its a really really good review that encapsulates my thoughts well.

 

One of the nice touches is the end credits features all the players you’ve synced with and their structures you’ve used.

 

I’m not sure you’d like it, knowing how frustrated you can get.  You won’t die, but you’ll tumble a lot and I think you might not like that.

With that said, if you can get past that I think you’ll find it very rewarding, like you did with MHW.

Anonymous wrote:

I started playing Chapter 13 at 10pm last night and finished Chapter 14 at 1pm – largely because you actually don’t have the option to skip or save at that point (for… reasons).

So you have to play for 15 hours straight without saving? There’s literally no way I could ever do anything like that.

Anonymous wrote:

With that said, if you can get past that I think you’ll find it very rewarding, like you did with MHW.

MHW really pushed it though, it’s why I’m a little wary of Icebourne.

(Part of me is looking at going: I could use Master Rank to beat the shit out of that pair of Tempered Bazelgeuses, but will wait until it’s dead cheap.)

For myself the idea of someone complaining about long cutscenes in a Kojima game is hilarious.  What did they think they were buying? It’s like complaining about a From Software being rock hard.

Tales of Zestiria vs Tales of Berseria

And I’ve now remembered why I stopped playing Zestiria a couple of years back: Big open spaces, appalling or zero signposting and an utterly incomprehensible, number swarm combat system.

The last three bosses I did, all gimmick ones too, really showed up just how terrible the combat system is for giving you a clear idea of what you are actually doing.  You’ll do a combo, three to four figure numbers in different colours come up, at the least it has to be a few thousand HP damage if not 10,000 plus, right?  Wrong, it’ll be far, far less then that.  Add in unpredictable companion AI which might heal or might not and it makes for a really bad combination.

This was only amplified when I went back to Berseria and started a fight.  It’s showing I’ve done X hits, Y damage, the enemy bar is going down to indicate the effect too – so much clearer, so much better.  Not to mention that the newer game gives four attack buttons to the older game’s two which allows for more visual variety of moves.

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Dave wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I started playing Chapter 13 at 10pm last night and finished Chapter 14 at 1pm – largely because you actually don’t have the option to skip or save at that point (for… reasons).

So you have to play for 15 hours straight without saving? There’s literally no way I could ever do anything like that.

3 hours, I meant 1am</p>

Oh, that’s not too bad then. From what you were saying I actually thought 15 hours could be plausible!

Nah 15 hours would be ridiculous.

Kojima is well known for forcing people to follow his rules, but that would be absurd.

The sequence is basically a long expository cut-scene between your player character and another character, followed by a short sequence where you have to make a choice, followed by an interactive credit sequence intercut with expository sequences (although you can control the camera during this bit), followed by a medium-length expository cut scene, followed by one final bit of gameplay which is just some trekking to music, followed  by a series of cut-scenes with some short interactive bits, then then the actual non-interactive, non-skippable credit sequence.  The whole thing takes 3 hours.

The Skill Up review that Ben alluded to does a pretty good job of describing the gameplay.  Most reviews really simplify or pave over the experience, but the Skill Up one is pretty good at breaking it down.

I found Skill Up a few months back, fantastic reviews, not short but well worth watching.

There are a couple of surprises in the game which I haven’t seen spoiled by any reviews or trailers.  They relate to places you go and are really cool and contribute a lot to spicing up the gameplay beyond just carrying shit from point a to point b.

Now that I’ve finished it, it seems quite a lot of the more positive reviews have been coy about certain aspects of the game which are rewarding.  This seems to be done to ensure the player experienced is untarnished, and, frankly, I agree with that choice.

Oh Google.

Stadia causing Chromecast Ultra devices to overheat and shutdown claim users

There’s even more bad news for Google’s Stadia service, with reports that the device needed to make it work on a TV is overheating. It’s not exactly been a smooth launch for Stadia so far, not so much because of any technical problems but simply a lack of interest and a lot of missing features. But it seems there may be a serious issue after all, as a number of users on Reddit are beginning to complain about the Chromecast Ultra media player dongle – which is needed to make Stadia work on a TV – overheating. In the worst cases this is allegedly leading to it shutting down, which apparently is a safety feature to ensure the Chromecast doesn’t burn out any internal components. That’s all very well but it also means people are having their play time limited to a few hours, and in some cases no more than 10 minutes.

Google have responded to the issue on Reddit but not only claim that the overheating isn’t a problem but deny that it’s causing shutdowns, which seems a bit pointless in a thread about shutdowns.

Ok Google

Meanwhile, as Google throws more petrol on the raging fire that is Stadia, the Internet decided to lay into CDPR for – unconfirmed early plans for Cyberpuk 2077:

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/11/the_internets_up_in_arms_because_cd_projekt_red_cant_confirm_or_deny_cyberpunk_2077_multiplayer_microtransactions

Of course, the very idea that different companies might have different track records which undermines the quick, clickbait ‘comparisons’ the net likes to invoke, while demonstrating they don’t know what a comparison, barely gets a look in.

Have I paid microtransactions for Witcher 3? Yes, the season pass was a bargain.  Oh no! Also bought some AC Black Flag content, RedOut map packs – were they worth the money?  Yes they were.  Are they loot boxes or FIFa’s infamous ultimate team bollocks? Nope.

Still, sane rationalism doesn’t get you YouTube clicks which means nae money.

The article is correct and it’s unreasonable to expect another response.

CDPR have to answer to their shareholders.   They can make a robust argument why microtransactions shouldn’t be used, but it would get put to a shareholders vote. It’s  not really his call, and that’s what he’s saying reading between the lines

 

It’s good that people bitch about microtransactions (in fully priced games, obvs… not in F2P games) because companies abuse them. So yeah, better to bitch and moan than not…

I don’t disagree but I wish people had a better idea about where and who to direct their complaints.

Depends on how it works.  Five quid for a door colour base part deserves all it gets.  A £0.69 upgrades unlock doesn’t

IIn this case? Next to nothing is known about C2077 multiplayer, they still have to finish the base game.  So jumping on them for something that may not happen and declaring them to now be the same as EA is internet hyperbole.

Especially since Witcher 3 is, frankly, one of the best games of all time and came from a more or less unknown studio.

They’ve earned a little benefit of the doubt here. Especially since, as Ben mentioned, Blood and Wine was as big as most AAA games are. Frankly its the best value for money DLC i’ve ever played and nothing else even comes close.

If it were EA or Ubisoft, and they’d said they never would and then did, I’d get it.  If it were Rockstar, people would just shrug their shoulders because they know the base game will be unaffected.

Ben wrote:

A £0.69 upgrades unlock doesn’t

As in unlocking upgrades already in the game and otherwise available to you?

Ben wrote:

IIn this case? Next to nothing is known about C2077 multiplayer, they still have to finish the base game.  So jumping on them for something that may not happen and declaring them to now be the same as EA is internet hyperbole.

 
Sure, but it’s also a good way of sending a message: DON’T! and hey, seems to have worked.

Yeah im not a big fan of content hidden behind a paywall.

I dont necessarily think theres anything bad about, for example, spending 10 bucks on 25,000 red orbs in Devil May Cry 5, because you could otherwise earn those with a few hours of gameplay.  But I hate the Street Fighter model where they sell a new character for $10 and they’ve fleeced the fans for $300 over the course of a year.

Well if you go on a case-by-case basis, I’m sure there’s an argument to be made for plenty of models… but as a general rule of thumb it’s safer to say: unless it’s a F2P game, microtransactions = BAD. Makes things easier.

Interestingly, Warframe has been seen as a way of doing MTX right.  It’s free to play and they seem to have been quite canny in how they set it all up.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

So, gave this another go.  In the process found something utterly bizarre.  Since I use subs in games the first thing I will do with a new game is enable them.  But when I try that here, they are not in the Audio Options on the main screen.  Yet, have heard they are there.  So booted up the campaign, skipped the first cutscene, paused, went to Audio Options, which now does have a subtitle option, but to get it I have to start campaign and go through the first scenes that set up the story without them! Why do this?

The other element that just does not work for me as a form of signposting is the white circle prompt – when I see that, I don’t think I must go to it, it’s just a white circle.  As such, this rendered the opening boss fight that requires very limited ammo heavy weapons quite a bit more tricky than it should have been.

Still, got to the next level – which was a good deal bigger and far more intricate than I expected.  The one irritation here was the goddamn grenades.  They are practically a superweapon, their range is huge, the indicator never actually works as an indicator .  So, they’re awful.  Can’t say I liked the whole Jackal system, quite liked the hack option.  Not seeing much from the aim/target assist as shots still to miss an awful lot.

As to the fighter stages – er, yeah.  When No Man’s Sky is wiping the floor with your space combat, you know it’s messed up.  The L2 lock-up on was counter-intuive, the 3D sense of position and speed relative to your surroundings is lacking too.  It’s just about all-right, but I think they would have been better off doing on-rails shooting sequences for these levels.

The one thing that I really enjoyed was the world-building and aesthetic design – all of that worked very well.  It is a very pretty game.

I’ve been playing a bit of Fallen Order.

 

Look, I’m not exactly loving it.  It’s not exactly Sekiro – the parry system is not as clean ( I’m deliberately playing on the second hardest difficulty with the parry window shortened) and the platforming … sucks.  It’s not uncharted (except for the set pieces) and I can’t tell you how much the idea of ice slides to a rope just … sucks.

I’m only a few hours in but I don’t really get the high scores.  I don’t really think it deserves the hype.

I reserve my right to change my mind

Anonymous wrote:

I’m only a few hours in … I reserve my right to change my mind

I’m not a gamer so this is asked from a position of genuine ignorance (and interest): what can a game possibly do new or differently after a few hours of play that would make you think it’s better game than a few hours of play have made you think so far? I assume the game mechanics will not spontaneously change in mid game.

Yeah so you know how you might not be sure if you like a tv show in the first episode or a movie in the first 20 minutes? How about an album after the first two songs?

Same principle applies with games.

Mechanics are unlocked, new abilities erc you get a bettered feel for the combat, new levels, new takes on the mechanics, different enemies, the story can win you over.  It’s all paced to be a gradual unravelling until the “endgame”

It’s not Pong where it never changes except to speed up.

Wait, Pong speeds up?

Well PongVr: The Next Generation: Revenge of the Gladiatrix 2 – Enhanced Edition does.

But it takes microtransactions to do so.

Anonymous wrote:

I don’t really get the high scores. I don’t really think it deserves the hype.

Reviews I saw were far more mixed, some really love it others, like yourself, are less impressed.

The lack of technical polish has been commented on too – that it’ll likely patched and improved a little as there was no way this was ever changing its launch window.  Another net acquaintance loathes the slide sequences too.

On the other side of the coin, it is the first decent single player SW game in about a decade so that could be boosting it a bit for others.

Did you play TitanFall 2? If not, it’s a PS+ freebie in December, worth a look if you haven’t.

Yeah Titanfall 2 is great.

The level design echoes it in some respects. You get a sense it’s the same level designers.

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah so you know how you might not be sure if you like a tv show in the first episode or a movie in the first 20 minutes? How about an album after the first two songs?

Same principle applies with games.

Mechanics are unlocked, new abilities erc you get a bettered feel for the combat, new levels, new takes on the mechanics, different enemies, the story can win you over.  It’s all paced to be a gradual unravelling until the “endgame”

It’s not Pong where it never changes except to speed up.

This is true to a degree, but a bad game is never going to magically get better once you hit 8 hours in.

It kind of depends what kind of game it is.

The last Uncharted didn’t really hit its stride until several hours in, when all the game mechanics had been fully explained and the story properly set up.

There can definitely be a ‘gradual build’ aspect to some games, especially the more narrative-driven ones.

DavidM wrote:

I’m not a gamer so this is asked from a position of genuine ignorance (and interest): what can a game possibly do new or differently after a few hours of play that would make you think it’s better game than a few hours of play have made you think so far? I assume the game mechanics will not spontaneously change in mid game.

 
Games are weird in that regard… for exemple, a couple years ago I bought and installed Shadow of Mordor, started playing and abandonded it after a couple hours, because I found it too overwhelming in that moment… However I do know it’s a good game, and I know I’ll probably enjoy it whenever I get back to it and struggle through those first couple of hours…
 
So I guess pacing is a big issue, it’s a very difficult thing to get right. For sure, a shit game will remain a shit game, but a good game can be bad at first if they screw up some things…

I think games can work more than other media in paying off after a longer time. I’ve played quite a few where you can’t quite get to grips with the combat or game system and then it clicks and becomes 10 times as enjoyable.

They can also tend to load a lot of exposition and cut scenes at the start, often staying quite ‘on rails’ and then opening up so you are a fair way in before you properly start playing. Which admittedly may not be ideal game construction, they should grab you from the off, but it does mean I have found a lot of satisfaction from games I initially didn’t love.

As Jon says, if it’s a shit game it’ll almost certainly stay that way but if it’s maybe a little frustrating at first with good aspects it can come good.

 

 

Martin Smith wrote:

This is true to a degree, but a bad game is never going to magically get better once you hit 8 hours in

Death Stranding is a good example. It’s not a bad game from the outset vut it gets a lot better 8 hours in.

Mechqnically, most games are at their best in the endgame because everything’s been unlocked and you understand the territory.

garjones wrote:

I think games can work more than other media in paying off after a longer time. I’ve played quite a few where you can’t quite get to grips with the combat or game system and then it clicks and becomes 10 times as enjoyable.

Yeah, given that there’s often a skill element to a lot of games, I think it’s understandable that there could be a period of frustration and difficulty that then gives way to a smoother and more enjoyable experience once you’ve mastered it.

In that way it’s not comparable with a relatively passive experience like reading a book or watching a movie. In video games, sometimes there’s a bit of learning or acclimatising to do before you can get the best out of it.

Oops, double post.

Anonymous wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

This is true to a degree, but a bad game is never going to magically get better once you hit 8 hours in

Death Stranding is a good example. It’s not a bad game from the outset vut it gets a lot better 8 hours in.

Mechqnically, most games are at their best in the endgame because everything’s been unlocked and you understand the territory.

Right, I’m not saying that every game that’s slow to start or fully reveal itself is a lost cause, but something like, say, Duke Nukem Forever doesn’t suddenly get any more playable after you sink 8 hours in. There are lots of cases where you can play a game for only a brief period and know it’s crap/not for you.

Sure, a game with demonstrably bad design is demonstrably bad from the start.

A game with some unpolished elements and some bad design elements can redeem itself if there are other enjoyable aspects, like the core game play elements.

Fallen ORder for example has combat which I haven’t found particularly satisfying yet.  Im playing it on a hard difficulty and i have found it challenging, but not satisfying in that the mechanics haven’t coalesced when fighting the enemies, and i havent found execution of the abilities, parry system, dodges etc to really feel like a power-fantasy.  It feels clunky but it may be due to fighting low level enemies which are just introducing you to the system rather than testing it.

There are unforgivable platforming elements which are just badly designed and I have no idea how they didnt get flagged in playtesting. Unless the character is deliberately harder to control on higher difficulties or something. I’m hoping these particular incidences are few and far between (these are sort of slide conditions where you have to jump off at the end to a rope, but you have to end the slide  exactly parallel to the rope and if you dont you restart. These sequences where in Uncharted but if you left the slide on an angle there was plenty of scope for correction and the window to grab the rope wasnt as brutal)

BTW, do you guys ever play indie games or only big triple A games? I only ever read about the famous stuff in here, so I was wondering…

I very rarely do.  I played Remnant: From The Ashes which is by an indie developer, but it’s probably not really an Indie Game.  Code Vein and Control are similar in that their from smaller developers but well known in the space and secured big distribution.

No Man’s Sky is a good example of this which Ben clearly loves.

I think Martin, Dave and Bruce dabble in that stuff a bit.

Jon wrote:

do you guys ever play indie games

This was a favourite back in the day.

To answer the question honestly though – no, not any more really. It’s a question of time and awareness – I just don’t have that much time to spend on gaming any more, and I’m a bit out of touch with what’s out there.

Any good offers around on Fallen Order? I was hoping for a decent price but Black Friday is increasingly a damp squib in the UK and I can’t see it anywhere sub-£40. I guess it’s maybe still a bit too new to hope for a significant discount before Christmas.

Anonymous wrote:

No Man’s Sky is a good example of this which Ben clearly loves.

Talking of which it’s had another big free update that sounds excellent – one feature added is ship slot addition which really changes things for the ships I have.  Also can salvage unwanted ships, might be worth doing a new game just to see how it all can work.

Jon wrote:

indie games

If you haven’t played these, you ought to – tend to be quick games, but the worth doesn’t lie in the play time:

• Flower
• Abzu
• Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap

 

I play some indie games. Recently:
Unavowed
Lamplight City
A Case Of Distrust

I love stuff like this!

That’s excellent.

Well, I finished the exercise in frustration that was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered.  At least this time when I tried to carry that fucking liability MacMillan onto the chopper it let me actually walk on board – the previous time there was an invisible in the way.

Having played the rest of it, it is very clear to me that the Shock and Awe level is the game’s high point.  It never returns to that degree of excellence and it never gets anywhere it die to numerous self-inflicted wounds.  The rest of it?  The levels in Chernobyl would be better as a cutscene.  The stealth mechanics are non-existent and utterly opaque.  What’s more you clearly shoot the guy dead in it, but a few years on he’s walking around just fine so the point of those levels were?  Later there’s this frigging awful level where you have to chase this guy and keep up with him despite loads of enemies shooting at you.  Now, if the aim assist and the targeting was worth a damn maybe you could pull it off but in this game? They aren’t.  You may think you have the target on that guy and that when you fire you will shoot that guy, but you will not – your shots will go wide, or, since your are superhumans who shrug off bullets, make no fucking difference.

It’s been said this is where videogames first started trying to mimic Michael Bay movies.  In the story, yes, this fits but the gameplay?  Goes too far in the other direction – too often I just decide ‘fuck it, get to cover, let my fellow superhumans kill all the stick figures’ – works too because enemy aim is perfect, every. Fucking. Time. You might think you are safe and then from nowhere you will be near death.  You will follow the direction indicator and you will see sweet fuck all, so good are the enemy at hiding.  The problem is: Do all these ambush mechanisms immerse you in the game and make you feel like you are playing an elite soldier? No, it does not.  It makes you feel like a fraud, unfit to be there because you can do fuck all – your shots don’t hit, you can barely see the targets, the aim assist is useless.  Close quarter missions? You will not believe how many fuckin’ guys can be in one fuckin’ room without you seeing them.

Another level has the idea of planting explosives on armour, using smoke grenades – neat idea, too bad it botched it.  Press button to throw smoke grenade, nothing happened – in the end, I somehow did it.

Then there is the number of the literally respawning enemies.  Does it really have more of an effect if you kill 100 guys in place of 10? Or is killing the 100 guys, who turn up in the same spots just really fucking boring? I go with boring.  After a few times of doing it, it becomes a case of ‘we’ve killed how many?’

The timed missions are, well, they’re timed missions – they are universally awful.  Even in the storming the nuclear silo – which shouldn’t have that many people inside it, there’s an entire army in there – it’s not great.  The worst one was the pointless post-credit ‘surprise’ mission that was Mile High Club.  It came out of nowhere, nothing was explained about it, it felt and was utterly pointless.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more uninvolved in a story in a game than this.  Too often cowardice and staying in cover, letting your immortal squadmates doing the work was the best option.  Too often I felt like ‘Soap’ was an imposter who must have paid to pass selection because the character was so useless.  Yes, there has to be a limitation or the game is no challenge but this went far too far in the other direction.  Especially as I was on Easy.  This game’s idea of easy does, too often, give Killzone 2 a run for its money but it doesn’t sell itself as that experience.  In a way the other game is easier as you can always tell who the Helgast are.  In retrospect, this game also shows up why Killzone 3‘s gun accuracy was so revolutionary at the time.

And the final level? Underwhelming.  It’s up with the level after Death From Above whose intro suggests you will be piloting and shooting a tank, as it’s the same as the previous level. Wrong, you are instead escorting the tank.  The end level wants to be an epic finale but doesn’t give you the tool to make it an epic finale.  You don’t have a gun that can actually destroy vehicles, just your standard machine gun and later, when it says to shoot missiles at a Hind gunship, the aim is laughably bad – you will never actually hit it and, later on, the level shows that you never supposed to.  Finally shooting Zakhaev? Anti-climax.  The end “cutscene”? Well, there isn’t one – just some very brief narration on a white screen.  Easily the stingiest, most limited unrewarding ending sequence I’ve seen.  And it’s far, far ahead of any competition.

The other aspect that was stunningly awful is this:  It has a 74GB install – you’d think that was for the multiplayer, especially as it completed the ‘all data to play campaign’ but, or so it said.  On these final 5-6 levels, I had 4 waits for the content install, even thought it was at the 49GB mark.  It is not a big campaign, I should not have been having to wait for the game to still be installed.  Due to their amazingly dumb accomplishments over in Infinite Warfare, where even after an update file is fully installed, the game still has to install the campaign which takes ages – yes, it is a good 20-30mins watching a progress bar slowly fill up, Infinity Ward have got themselves bottom of the list.

Oh yeah, the grenade indicator, the direction indirector, they are both awful.  You might think you are running from an instant kill grenade and you will have ran to it.  You ‘ll be told to find something and spend a whole lot of time looking for it.  You’ll be shot and try to follow the arrow of where it came from and see nothing.  All I can really conclude is this series’ success is built on multiplayer but even in that respect I doubt it.

It looks nice enough.  In that respect it is a technically accomplished remaster but the game itself is one of the worst I have ever played.  It was £12, in effect £6 for each game.  I feel pretty much ripped off at having paid even that – oh yeah, and if, by some miracle, you are considering buying that Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition that includes this – don’t.  The DLC code for it expired 30 Sept 2019.  An Actrivision special right there.

Re: indie games.

Unless it’s done in a pixel art style it’s hard to tell what’s a indie game. I played Ori and the Blind Forest recently and was surprised it was developed by a smaller studio. The quality of it was really high.

Bruce wrote:

Unless it’s done in a pixel art style it’s hard to tell what’s a indie game.

 
Anything not developped / distributed by any of the big studios (EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard/Activision, Valve, Square Enix, WB games, etc…) Although some indies do get picked up by big studios, but the vast majority don’t. There are some bigger and some smaller indie studios of course… but like in general.
  
MY favorite indie dev for exemple is probably Zachtronics studios… they make the best puzzle/programming games (Spacechem, Infinifactory, Opus Magnum, etc…). There’s one game kinda like that, by antoher studio, I REALLY want to play: Factorio… I’ll buy it soon… I love that type of games.
 
Some indie devs worth knowing:
Zachtronics
Klei Entertainment
Coffee Stain Studios
Supergiant Games
ACE Team
 
Those studios have done some of the very best games I’ve ever played, and while some might not be as small, they’re all still indie studios.

Okay so I had a look at some of those… and I’m very confused.

 

Where are the guns and swords? I couldn’t find a reference to Troy Baker in any of them and he MUST be one of the voice actors?

Interesting look at accessibility in games in 2019.

Oh, thanks – will have to take a look at one Bruce.

EDIT: Now watched it, fantastic stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Where are the guns and swords? I couldn’t find a reference to Troy Baker in any of them and he MUST be one of the voice actors?

If you can afford Troy Baker, you’re probably not an indie dev… xD

Ben wrote:

Oh, thanks – will have to take a look at one Bruce.

EDIT: Now watched it, fantastic stuff.

I thought you might have been interested. The rest of his videos are good too and worth checking out for anyone remotely interested in the craft of videogames.

The NoClip (which did the fantastic Doom 2016 and Half Life documentaries) did an interesting podcast about the accessibility controllers a while back.

http://noclippodcast.libsyn.com/10-playing-sekiro-with-one-arm

Bruce wrote:

The rest of his videos are good too and worth checking out for anyone remotely interested in the craft of videogames.

Yeah, I’ve added the channel – first started noticing stuff like colourblind mode on Doom, but there was a whole lot of smart stuff in other games – using colours for characters in subs makes a big difference.

Spider-Man had an entire suite of cool stuff – like skip QTEs and puzzles, which hugely improved the game for me as one of its puzzles was the hold sticks in direction to match frequency and you have to get just the right angle on each.  Those type of puzzles have previously been done by pure luck.

I haven’t started it yet but Shadow of the Tomb Raider has different difficulty settings for its gameplay types.  So one for puzzles, one for combat, not sure about the third, maybe platforming.

Anonymous wrote:

Death Stranding is a good example. It’s not a bad game from the outset vut it gets a lot better 8 hours in.

Yeah, that is an interesting case. It looks like an exercise in a ridiculous amount of tedium, boredom, frustration framed by a just plain weird narrative that tests the patience of players for endless hours. Then there is a “click” once the player goes into the semi-multiplayer social experience where the “making connections” theme expresses itself in the gameplay.

I suppose that’s what Kojima meant by a “strand-type” game where even though there are no true multiplayer elements (players playing together) there is a sense of connection and investment in other players’ progress. Offline, it might just be an unending slog – easily criticized – but online it has a different and more significant effect.

The asynchronous multiplayer is available from the start.

The first 8 hours or so are not tedious they just don’t do a good job of teasing how good the game will be later.

That is what is meant by a ‘strand game’ and those themes are evident throughout the entire game. It’s very hard to describe, unless you’ve played it?

Are there any other games like that? The Dark Souls series to some extent, maybe? It’s a unique experience to offer that maybe only games can provide.

Dark Souls was the first one to do it with notes and things left “Enemy ahead” sort of thing. There was actual co-op in Dark Souls too.

The scope and the particular way it works in Death Stranding is not something I’ve seen done before.

I really do think Kojima is a genius. Not necessarily a narrative genius but the master design is pretty genius.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-12-05-untitled-goose-game-waddles-to-xbox-one-this-month

Tempted by this. Looks like it could be fun.

I finished Jedi: Fallen Order.

Look, this is the disappointment of the year for me.  The chief reason is the controls, which are really sticky and non-responsive.  At times your character will just randomly stop as if it’s hit a wall and it means you have to be constantly pushing the joystick button to sprint and re-sprint to get your character moving.  Oddly, the traversal was far more frustrating than any of the weight-management stuff from Death Stranding.

The other thing is the aiming and physics are really hard to manipulate.  I spent probably two hours on one puzzle throwing like a little fire orb  thing around with my force powers but it was so hard to get it to go where I wanted it to go I wasn’t sure if I was even doing the puzzle right.  A more grievous example is with the camera lock on which is really slow to register, and became such a problem in the final fight (where I needed to force pull a droid towards me to get it out of the way) I ended up lowering the difficulty just to clear it without the frustration of the controls.

I think some of these issues may be less prevalent on PC due to a mouse and keyboard.  Nevertheless, it really made the experience frustrating.  I felt like the platforming and collision detection was really difficult to manage as well – I can’t tell you how many times I tried to double jump to a ledge only to just jump into the ledge without actually grabbing it. It’s not fluid at all like something like uncharted, and because there’s no fast travel system you end up replaying the same laborious platforming sequences again and again as you revisit planets (often for story reasons, but also often to explore further with your new abilities).  Some kind of waypoint system with the holomap would have been really useful too because it’s very easy to get lost and misread the holomap and find yourself backtracking for 20 minutes when you’re revisiting some of the more expansive planets (Like Zeffo).

The game is redeemed by the lightsaber stuff, but it’s not as refined as Sekiro and after say 20 or 30 hours I still can’t work out the parry window and parry recovery.  It feels like it’s random, and my parry reflexes were really honed by Sekiro so it’s not my reaction time, it’s just that the game’s actual timing isn’t really perfectly reflected by the enemies attacks.  I spent quite a bit of time practicing with super-low level enemies who really telegraph their moves and I still probably got it right once in every 5 attacks.  It’s really frustrating because the core appeal of the game for me was to revisit the liquid deflect mechanics that I loved about Sekiro.  Judging by youtube videos, plenty of people have been able to master it, but for the life of me it remained out of my grasp.

Finally, and this is more just a frustrating end-game thing – there’s no new game plus or ability to replay certain sequences of the game.  The entire last level is only playable once which is really annoying because it contains one of the two best fights in the game and easily the best platforming sequence.  It seems like such a simple thing to include it but even in the endgame a little prompt comes up which says “Your character returns to where they were before The Fortress.  You cannot replay the Fortress.” – Why the hell not?  Seems like such an annoying deliberate omission.

I know Star Wars fans loved it and I’m not really a Star Wars fan, but i’m definitely a gamer. I didn’t really get into the story but it’s fine, the characters are good.  I just thought it was a really sub-par game that makes lots of dumb choices and really needed at least another 6 months of play-testing and polishing.  It really blows my mind that some review sites are giving it a 9/10.  The comparison I’ll make is this game feels like it COULD be a 9 if the developers spent a little more time developing it and thinking about quality of life adjustments and maybe we’ll see that in a sequel, but right now it’s way more Uncharted 1, with it’s super clunky controls and multitudes of frustrating deaths, then Uncharted 2.

There’s a story mode which probably makes for a breezy playthrough but I expect you’d run into the same platforming issues, but perhaps that mode would pave over some of the more frustrating elements due to it’s ease.  Otherwise I can’t recommend it.  I know some people here are thinking about buying it and maybe you’ll have a different experience then me, but it’s easily my biggest regret of the year.

 

I’ve been able to get about ten hours into Witcher 3. Its good but I’m finding it a bit hard to get into the swing of the combat and there’s a lot of stuff to remember. It’s not really scratching my gaming itch just now so I’m going back to an old favourite for a break…

Anonymous wrote:

I finished Jedi: Fallen Order. Look, this is the disappointment of the year for me.

Thanks for this detailed review. I’ve been tempted a couple of times in the last couple of weeks to buy this at full price, but after that review I’ll wait and grab it when it’s closer to the £20 mark or so.

Internet – Git gud Tim
Tim – I completed fucking Sekiro.
Internet – Fuck.

Appreciate the review Tim, especially the details. Like Dave I’ll go with the ‘buy physical copy when cheap’ strategy.

Oh I didn’t just beat Sekiro, I beat Sekiro four times.

Sword Saint Isshin is a masterpiece of design and easily the hardest and most rewarding boss I’ve ever played.  Nothing in Souls comes close but Orphan of Kos from Bloodborne does.

 

I’ve read lots of similar complaints for Fallen Order so I know I’m not the only one.  Some of the bugs will be ironed out no doubt while some of the mechanics will remain. I really hope they add in some kind of Chapter Select mechanism which would be a really simple addition and go a long way to adding repeatability.

I’ve never actually said this before because I believe this is just a genuine internet conspiracy thing, but if it came out that the high review scores were bought I would not be surprised.

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve never actually said this before because I believe this is just a genuine internet conspiracy thing, but if it came out that the high review scores were bought I would not be surprised.

I think there’s a more likely answer:

Lack of good single player SW games for a decade + It’s a SW game = Boost effect (To borrow a line from SkillUP’s review “you can be a motherfucking Jedi”)

Similar to how Outer Worlds benefited from the disaster of Fallout 76 but to an even greater degree.

Yeah but that still ignores all the obvious problems with the bugs and mechanics.  You can turn a blind eye to the quality of life stuff because it’s Star Wars but it takes an extra type of ignorance to ignore the fact that the platforming is just not fun.

 

There’s a part of me that wants to replay it in, say, 6 months when the gameplay is smoothed over with the hope that it’s a better experience but I said I’d do that with FFXV and never did.

It’s clearly been releases now to capitalise on Star Wars interest and that’s EA.  I feel like a sucker buying this at full price and I did that largely due to the positive reviews.

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah but that still ignores all the obvious problems with the bugs and mechanics. You can turn a blind eye to the quality of life stuff because it’s Star Wars but it takes an extra type of ignorance to ignore the fact that the platforming is just not fun.

Ah, but a true fan will put up with that you see.  Me? Not so much.

Anonymous wrote:

There’s a part of me that wants to replay it in, say, 6 months when the gameplay is smoothed over with the hope that it’s a better experience but I said I’d do that with FFXV and never did.

Don’t bother.  The second half of the game is still complete arse and, even patched up to the max, Chapter 13 remains unsalvageable bollocks.

Anonymous wrote:

It’s clearly been releases now to capitalise on Star Wars interest and that’s EA.  I feel like a sucker buying this at full price and I did that largely due to the positive reviews.

The reviews are what influenced me too. I’ve been too busy with work to have time for a new game in November and December so I didn’t grab it immediately – now I’m glad I held off and heard your opinion.

Delving into it a little deeper a lot of the mediocre reviews on metacriti are expressing the same complaints and I’ve found a couple of articles expressing the same confusion over the high reviews of a really buggy game with major technical problems.

What Ben says is probably true but I’m still suspicious. I’ve never been suspicious over review scores before.  I’ve disagreed with some, sure, but never so much as to be suspicious.

 

Anonymous wrote:

Delving into it a little deeper a lot of the mediocre reviews on metacriti are expressing the same complaints and I’ve found a couple of articles expressing the same confusion over the high reviews of a really buggy game with major technical problems.

What Ben says is probably true but I’m still suspicious. I’ve never been suspicious over review scores before.  I’ve disagreed with some, sure, but never so much as to be suspicious.

 

The Star Wars name does weird things to people.

Seems there’s a Tesco online voucher that lets you get £25 off a £70 spend, and videogames are included in that offer… So that brings Jedi: Fallen Order down to a much more reasonable £25.

(Ben, if you want it, it’s XXHTFL.)

70 – 25 is 45

Should have explained in more detail. The game is £50 at Tesco, so you can just add £20 of your weekly groceries to the order to make it up for the order threshold to trigger the voucher.

I’m still going to wait and get it for Christmas, but at least this lets my wife buy it more cheaply!

You’re getting it on PS4, right?

Yep.

Just be aware that it does appear to be particularly buggy on Ps4.  There’s loads of people complaining about gamebreaking bugs on the EA forums if youre interested in checking.  By the sounds of it, I was lucky to only experience relatively minor glitches and one instance of “falling through the scenery”. With any luck, the major stuff will be patched before Christmas.

Thanks. I’d heard of a couple of bugs that were being patched so hopefully that will be done soon.

The rate I get through these things I probably won’t encounter them for months either way!

Thanks, but there’s no way for me to justify when my game backlog is 10+.

Ah ok.

I’m making it a habit of stopping by the EA forums to see when the next updates are (and if they’ll add a chapter select) but I’m not confident they’ll roll out a comprehensive patch soon.  Sorry to be a downer, you’re clearly keen on the game and there’s plenty to enjoy about it but it’s a major disappointment for me and I can’t help but feel scammed by EA.

So it does look like they are doing a comprehensive patch (still no post-game stuff) so with any luck the game will be relatively bug-free by the time you get it, Dave.

Excellent, good to know.

IGN picked Control as their game of the year.  It’s a very good game and I don’t mind the pick – Sekiro would have been mine, but Control is probably second.  5 top games this year for me would be:

1. Sekiro

2. Control

3. Death Stranding

4.  Devil May Cry 5

5. Metro Exodus.

Games that I would recommend are:

Resident Evil 2, Judgment and Astral Chain

Games I found to redeemable in some way but didn’t really wow me were:

Borderlands 3, Kingdom hearts 3, The Outer Worlds, Rage 2, Fallen Order

I think that’s everything I played that was released this year.  If i’ve forgotten something, it speaks volumes.

2019? I’m still working my way through 2016, 2017, 2018 games.

I don’t think 2019 was a particularly good year for console gaming at any rate.  It looks like a lot of the releases that were due this year were postponed to 2020 to be optimised for next gen consoles and as a result there’s a lot of straggler titles and unpolished titles.  The five titles I listed (and Resident evil 2) are the only titles I’d consider technical achievements pushing forward what is capable of the medium. Everything else feels like it could have been released in 2016 anyway.

Things I’ve enjoyed this year that actually came out this year:

Pokemon Shield

…

I think everything else is from 2018 or earlier.

Yeah I don’t think I’ve played a 2019 game yet either… xD
 
But hey, the winter sale is almost upon us, so maybe I’ll get something soon.

Playing Doom with a toy trumpet controller.

Finally, we have reached the pinnacle of the internet.

Crying laughing watching that.

My kids have been gradually working their way through the PS4 Mega Drive collection over the last few months, and they’ve just discovered (and fallen in love with) Golden Axe and its sequels.

It’s an almost laughably basic and old-fashioned game by today’s standards, but I think that’s part of the appeal for them. The mechanics are easy to understand and it’s got that old-school arcade forward-momentum aspect to keep you hooked, and determined to come back and beat that one last baddie who killed you last time.

It’s been fun rediscovering it with them. Nice to know these old games have still got it.

Soon they will graduate to Streets of Rage then

 

We did have a quick go on SoRII a couple of months back (my son keeps referring to it as “Halls Of Hell”, which I might like even better). But they seem to like Golden Axe better, the fools.

Talking of which, when is the new sequel due out? It feels like that’s all gone a bit quiet.

It’s coming out in 2020 but no release date is set.  That’s not necessarily a bad sign, lots of publishers announce release dates 2 or 3 months out to maximise the development time.

The cynic I am will say it’ll either be before the end of the financial year or after

Anonymous wrote:

The cynic I am will say it’ll either be before the end of the financial year or after

I’m not usually a betting man, but I’d put money on this.

Hey, hey, let’s not get reckless now

Actually it was supposed to come this year, but I guess it got delayed… last I heard they got a KILLER line-up for the soundtrack, so that’s the most important thing… =P
 
The game already has a Steam page, so that’s good. Means it’s closer to release than not, unless something goes wrong of course. Edit: I just read a dev comment on Steam: “The release is planned for the first half of 2020.” So there… =P
 
I just hope they don’t fuck it up with the controls, they need to keep a simple 3 (or 4 max) button layout.
 
Oh wait they recently announced Adam as a playable character, which is sweeet… also, here’s one track they released, sounds great: