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

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Yes, they probably want to release it before the end of the upcoming financial year.</p>

Dragon Ball Fighterz still looks better… xD

Having just finished yet another playthrough of OG Doom I’m well up for this.

Looking good. I like how colourful Eternal looks.

I still never finished Doom 2016, I need to get back to it.

Well I’m glad Eternal is looking A LOT more like proper Doom… I wasn’t too in love with D16, felt a bit too generic for my taste… but Eternal seems to go back to the basics… too bad about the name though, such a fuckin stupid name… u_u

I’ve been playing Surge 2.  It’s a fun enough souls-like grind.  Challenging in parts and significantly less so in others.  The biggest disappointment is the bosses, which was the same for the first game. There’s only one or two that i’ve come across that aren’t just reskins of existing enemies.

Playing this and Code Vein really make me realise that no one has been able to quite replicate the enjoyably brilliant bastardry of the fromsoftware games.  You can ape the formula on paper but there’s still a lot missing on the design side.  Nioh is the only non-from software game that’s come close though so I am looking forward to playing Nioh 2 when it is released.

Dave wrote:

Looking good. I like how colourful Eternal looks.

I was watching another video (the same live stream that the video I posted above came from) and it looks like there’s going to be dozens of options for the HUD in terms of how much is shown, the size of it, the colour of it. A lot of it seems to be to give as many accessibility options as possible but i kbow many folks, myself included, like tinkering with the displays purely for shits and giggles.

I received the PS4 Spider-Man today. I went to play it this evening and completely forgot to factor in installation and update time. That took about an hour, which is ridiculous (probably extended a bit as I used Netflix while it did the update).

Anyway, when I eventually got it going, I’ve been able to spend a couple of hours with it. I’ve barely scratched the surface, but it’s a lot of fun. Owes absolutely tonnes to the Arkham games (to the point I keep pressing triangle to dodge, because that’s what it was on Arkham) but does well with it. I can see myself having a lot of fun with it.

I also got Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, which is a compilation of 9 games, apparently. Mainly KH I and II and some ports of other things, like Chain of Memories. I’ve not played that yet, but figured I’d set it installing now while I do other stuff, expecting it to take as long as Spider-Man. Nope, installed from the first disc in under a minute, because it’s only putting 400kb of data on the console (compared to Spider-Man’s 40gb).

Yeah, it took me half an hour to install Jedi: Fallen Order yesterday, these installs are big these days. I’ve not had a chance to have a go on it until today.

Yeah, they have got to get back to compressing game data for the next generation.  40-50GB download / installs are crazy.

As to what’s next now that I’ve finished Tales of Berseria I think it is time to finally start Dad And Boy!

…

… Sorry, God of War.

Tempting offers on PSN, any thoughts?

Final Fantasy VIII Remastered – £10.71

Pillars of Eternity – £11.49

Judgement – £20

Fist of the North Star – £16

Stellaris – £16

Digital purchases are riskier as there’s no way to sell them on.  FF8R is a cert but the rest I’m more ambivalent on.

Judgment is worth buying. By all accounts Pillar of Eternity is too.  I can’t comment on the others. I’m not really interested in Final Fantasy remasters. (BTW Ben, have you considered Octopath Traveller? It’s meant to be an excellent JRPG)

I’ve been tossing up a few myself.

Plague Tale: Innocence

Monster Hunter Iceborne

Division 2 (which is less then $20 australian and a great price for a game less than 12 months old with good-to-great reviews)

Tbere’s some really good deals on there.  Devil May Cry 5 is worth the price they have it as and a few others as well.

 

Half considering Yakuza 6 too but I don’t want to overload myself.

But Yakuza 6 is excellent, it’s not that big a game too.  That said best you grab the Yakuza Remastered trilogy if you’very played 0-2 as that covers 3-5.

As to Octopath Traveler, only one problem – it’s Switch exclusive.

I will likely get Icebourne at some point but when it’s cheaper.

PoE I’m more intrigued by after playing Outer Worlds as it is also by Obsidian.

Might give DMC5 and RE2 a go when the physical copies are dead cheap.

Although, there is a substantial backlog zI really need to attend to.

So, having booted it up to see what happens, Nier Automata is now hogging my game attention like nothing else.

Nier Automata is amazing.

Just … you … wait

Anonymous wrote:

Nier Automata is amazing.

For a time it was, then it went up its own arse and turned to shit and then, once again, on playthrough, it went and did the same but this time super leaky diarrhea that went everywhere.  And Yoko Taro? Fuck that guy.

On route A, it starts off with this really smart opening that sells its play styles far, far more effectively than the demo ever did.  It seems like it will live up to its rep, but after the first boss fight? You get hit with these uninspired fetch quests, after that it goes back to being good, doing some smart stuff, with the combination of fighting, 2D platforming and a bit of shoot ’em up and it continues in this way, even with that bit with the 2 villages back and forth, all the way up to the superb carrier mission.  After which the game fucked itself.

Can anyone tell me why so many game designers go for the dumb as fuck ‘use this scanner and follow the beeps’ mechanic? Every game I’ve found it in, it’s been shit and this is no exception.  I “found” the hidden item to trigger the quest by pure fucking luck.  After that, it seemed to get back on track, then, once I had 9S out of where he was held, it went and flung itself headlong into the worst game design choices going – environments where your view is obscured? Check. Infinite enemies? Check. Un-fun boss fights? Check.  It’s almost as Taro looked at the game and went: Hey; it’s close to the end, let’s make it harder.  The Eve boss fight? One of the worst I’ve ever played.  Yes, let’s have a 3D platforming section where you cannot tell what the fuck is happening.  I just shot the fucker from the ground because it was so bad.

I just about managed to finish it, despite that absolutely dire final section where you can only dodge slowly and then booted up Route B.  For a time Route B defied my low expectations, it added much to the prior playthrough and then came the remote hacking section in the factory.  Yeah, you know the one I’m talking about, the one where you can’t move fast enough along or get blocked on that conveyor belt and it’s all instant death.  Yeah, that.  That killed it.  I cannot be arsed with lazy crap design of that nature.  It is lazy.  It is crap. And it killed the game.

Make no mistake, there are sequences where the combination of audio, visuals and design is absolutely superb, but in combination with that, it also has sections that are the polar opposite and the only real question for anyone buying this game is whether your tolerance level will be enough to put up with the shit sections to enjoy the brilliant ones.  Mine wasn’t.  And it’s notable that in both routes it’s the same mission that hacked me off, up to the level with the serpent? Fucking ace.  After it? Fucking shite.  It didn’t have to be, it only is that way because of some very deliberate design choices.  The platforming section that killed it? That kind of design was crap 25 years ago and its still crap now, arguably worse.

Oh and the “sidequests”? Don’t bother.  Buggy, obscure, opaque and a total waste of time.  It’ll either be a check these places and hope an enemy spawns, a fetch quest or an escort mission.

For its setpieces, Nier Automata is mostly superb.  If bought cheap, it’s worth getting just to experience those but there are lows every bit the equal, if not greater, than the highs and those won out.

Where the game is most interesting for me is the level of assistance it gives to the player.  This is an area of some controversy, as some consider that it gives too much to the player.  For myself? I found that the level of assistance enabled me to enjoy the game far more than without.  Often there were times when so much was going on the screen that I found it hard to keep track of where I was, never mind what numerous enemies were doing.  In those moments things like auto-evade really helped, but the game is inconsistent in its application – there are times when it will not work.  Still, for the most part, its help allowed me to appreciate the artistry in depicting that sheer level of chaos.  Similarly in some boss fight I was able to spend a few seconds appreciating the visual aesthetics and brilliance that I would not if I had had to focus more on the controls.

The tragedy of this is those design choices didn’t have to be made – the boss fight outside the resistance base with its infinite enemies is a prime example.  I almost stopped playing at that point when I realised the tricks it was resorting to, the most obvious, hackneyed, uninspired, lazy crap going; tricks that until then it hadn’t needed to resort to or rely upon; tricks that were manifestly unworthy of the game they were placed within, but placed within they were and the damage was done.

But the bigger damage is I could tell I was going to end up getting in a bad way and that? No game is worth it.  Ever.  I can spot the signs in advance.  If a game decides to go down that kind of set up, that kind of route then I have to bail on it.  In this respect Nier Automata joins Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. (Both games where the fun factor went way up, the further away from the main campaign I got.)

 

So, by means of an IGN YouTube vid I got past that shitty section, finished Route B, got to Route C and am back to despising Taro as an overindulged shitbag who needs to be impaled on a rusty spike, so I can pull out his intestines and strangle him.
All the fucking around with your visuals and controls might sound like a cool meta gameplay but it’s absolute shit to play.  Then 2B gets infected with a virus that fucks all your controls, sometimes you can jump or run but only if it lets.  Offensive options? Sweet fuck all.  Combined with the map being shit and too many fucking enemies – yeah, this sounds fun, doesn’t it? Fuck it, watching a YouTube vid walkthrough would be more fun than this – someone else might as well suffer.

So, due to a minor miracle, I got past the unholy-fucking-bit-of-shitbag-virus-section-that-should-be-consigned-to-the-lowest-depths-of-gaming-hell-to-be-tortured-for-all-eternity bit.

Now? Currently going around wrecking vengeance on any machine I see. After those fucking sections? They’re all fucking dead. The men, the women, the kids – they’re all getting offed no matter how cute they look.

In the end it came down to one thing: I really wanted that Chapter Select!
Outside of that, was Nier Automata worth it? Overall, I have to say no.  Route C goes the route of:
We need a sequel? OK, let’s turn it all to shit. I tend to find that profoundly unsatisfying and I doubt endings D or E can do much to remedy it.
Is the character switching in that boss fight clever? Well, sort of but it doesn’t make that much difference either. I was also expecting the endgame “choice” to be something else, given the idiocy the game pulled on the hacking the tower bit.  Until that bit?  After the pointless and obnoxious difficulty hike at the start of route C – which is never replicated in the following sections.  (New shit? Yes, but it doesn’t repeat the old crap.) – it moves along quite smartly.  Although I’m at a loss to know how anyone does the Hegel boss fight fairly, too often in that you can’t tell what is happening on the screen.
One point I will give it is that each of the three playthroughs is distinct, different enemies turn up in the same areas and there is some neat pick-up of plot elements.  The other point I have to give it is it does integrate the game modes very well in Route C.
I think over time, I might come to be kinder to this game – there’s still lots of quests to do, lots of stuff to find, weapons to upgrade but the fun remains watching your character kick a huge amount of mechanical arse in very stylish fashion.  For right now? The lows bring the highs down with them.

Wow. I’m not sure I agree with anything in your post except for the fetch quests being a bit naff.

II can see how the Eve boss fight might be a bit frustrating if your visions not great, considering it’s in a sandstorm, but otherwise it’s fine.

The fun in the game for me was the versatility of the loadout and you can really make the game as hard or as easy as you want depending on the loadout, particularly by the time you get to Route C. I enjoyed Route C the most because of this i think.

Also the story is bonkers and great.

 

In other news, I’ve been playing Fire Emblem 3 Houses.

So, it’s okay. I’ve never played a Fire Emblem game before but the life fact sim stuff us not as good as persona. It becomes a bit repetitive after you go through the first few months.

Because this is my first fire emblem fame I’m playing on Normal/Casual. It’s not particularly challenging so far and I think classic would have made for a more rewarding experience, because your characters die permanently so there’s no inclination to treat them as cannon fodder, which sometimes happens in casual.

The story hasn’t really hit me yet but I’ve inadvertently been spoiled by idle googling for 2 major story beats, which I think I would have enjoyed had I not read about them beforehand.

I’ve been plugging away at Spider-Man. The game says I have about 40% campaign completion, but that must be on counting the side stuff like landmarks and backpacks equally with the story missions, as I’m not even out of Act 1 yet.

It’s been a lot of fun, but undermined by a few bugs. The most unduly irritating is that there have been several occasions where I’ve gone to take a photo of a landmark, perfectly framed up in the camera, taken the shot and the game’s rewarded me for a different building that’s behind me or several blocks away even, nowhere near my viewfinder. That’s a pretty basic bug to still be in the game, especially when you’ve got landmarks literally across the road from each other.

I also had one where I was fighting some goons and happened to accidentally activate one of the pigeon catching collectible missions in passing. I concentrated on the enemies, given they were shooting at me, and tried to web-throw objects at them (which was a bonus token objective). Except I couldn’t do that because the game thought I was in the pigeon chase and had locked off my ability to web-grab/throw anything other than the pigeon.

Still, those quibbles aside, it’s a lot of fun. I love the little stuff, like Spidey taking the subway as fast travel. They’ve really run with the MCU’s take on his mask eyes being lenses, which helps the pseudo-Arkham abilities no end (which reminds me, so much of the game’s diegetic justification for gameplay is such hoary nonsense. Like when you do the pipe mania mini-games and Peter rambles on about it being testing for new circuit designs or whatever). And it’s nice seeing newer characters like Mr Negative in the mix.

I did a side-mission last night actually which had Screwball in it and I thought “hey, Screwball. It’s so cool they’ve used the modern characters in this game”. Then I remembered that Screwball debuted in the early Brand New Day era, so well over a decade ago which made me feel incredibly old. She’s almost as old as Venom was when he appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man on the Gamecube.

The only point of divergence Tim are some of the very deliberate design decisions.  Some of those I really liked – I only worked out the Pid chips significance towards the end and can see myself going back to that to work out the best set up.

Other choices I found to be infuriating to the degree that it eclipsed everything that is great about it and it has a good amount to brag about.

From a plot perspective I can easily what the point of cretain infamous sections was, but found them a pain to play – for me, gameplay and plot were, in those select sequences, in opposition.

Game world is smartly constructed, I love the design for the Flooded City and the audio and visuals for when you’re in a huge fight is mostly excellent.  There’s a good variety of robot enemies and they all have personality.  Some of the plot sequences are very effective from the amusement park and Beauvoir to the factory worshippers.

The problem for anyone who uses the full set of autochips is that the game cannot be completed with them.  In order to progress through certain sections you have to switch them off or you’ll never make it.  Which is a shame as I wouldn’t have been as frustrated by those sections.  But overall? Probably talking of 5% of the game, if that, eclipsing 95%.

If anything, now I have that Chapter Select enabled I can appreciate the game more because I can skip that 5%!

Ok, let’s try and do a review of Nier: Automata, as opposed experiential-stream-of-consciousness-while-playing-rants.

It’s a strange one for me as I tried the demo – did not work for me at all.  But in the full game, that first level? Worked so much better.  For some reason it just integrated its game styles far, far better.  After that level, bar a couple of fetch quests, it had one sequence after another that worked really well.  The bits that didn’t work so well? Were by no means unique to this game, other games have used the same devices and they’re rubbish there too.  There are sections where plot and gameplay, in terms of what works best for each, tend to oppose – what works for plot doesn’t for gameplay, but points for taking the risk.

Graphically it’s a very smart game and it shows up what has perhaps been lost by a pure 3D, open world focus.  The shooter sections, both horizontal and vertical are very loving homages to games past.  The 360 degree version is their successor, taking advantage of dual analogue sticks, a control set-up the arcades never had save for the likes of Smash TV.  There’s the 2D platforming, which has had a revival in the last year or so and those sections tend to be superb – there was only one I really objected to.

The hacking game? Barely features on the first playthrough! First? Yes, you do have to play it three times, no it’s not a big game.  Yes, I couldn’t quite quit it entirely despite being hugely hacked off with it at times.  Although those times are measured in minutes; the times I was enjoying it is measured in hours.  When you do start using that on the second run, it feels a very natural addition to the styles you are already used to.  By the time you get to the third playthrough, where all four styles feature, it feels quite, quite normal.

Each of these game styles are depicted very, very well – you might think slicing through a horde of enemies in 2D would be less satisfying than 3D, but it isn’t so.  Sometimes it’s even better!  There’s also the gameplay innovation that is the Pod that accompanies you.  This gives you long-range fire attacks, which you can use in combination with melee or, in some cases, you kite the flying enemies while the pod takes them out.  It makes for a different way of playing a game – you will have not played this before.

Soundtrack is another huge, huge plus – there’s parts of the soundtrack that I still have going around my head, but even that doesn’t restrict itself to doing the same stuff.  The third playthrough takes a darker turn and that requires sadder, more mournful themes, but these tend to be cleverly reworked versions of the soundtrack you knew.  For all that I wasn’t a fan of the story direction, ending E did go some way towards de-fanging that.

Enemy design is mostly very inspired, there’s a bare handful of times when it resorts to an enemy too big for the screen that the camera can’t really track – most of the time it accomplishes this.  The other thing the design really gives the enemies is a real sense of personality – they may be just bots, but these bots have a sense of character.

How much assistance should a game give to a player? For some, this game will be an example of high heresy because it gives you a lot, if you want it.  And it really works because, quite honestly, I needed that assistance in this game.  The one flaw is, if you really use the full range, there will be times when it screws you over and, for those times, I wish it was that little bit smarter because then it would have been even better.  Why use them if they make it that easy? The counter-Q here is to ask if challenge is all a videogame can be.  If I’m focused on hitting the right buttons and directions in a very chaotic fight, am I able to also appreciate other aspects? Probably not.  In this game, not having to worry as much about playing it meant I could appreciate things like the visual artistry that went into the fights.  Hugely detailed, very well executed sequences that deserve some appreciation.

Make no mistake, there are those four to five sections that may frustrate the hell out of you to the degree that everything it does right just fades away, eclipsed by the irritation that you can’t nail this one fucking section and yes, you can see what it’s doing and why but you still don’t like it.  There are some very deliberate design choices made here and quite honestly I’ll probably avoid the name Yoko Taro in future, as apparently, according to those who have played his previous work, he does have previous form in this respect.  To the extent that this game is a lesser example in comparison!

But does that really mean that the game as a whole is bad?  That 95% must suffer for the excesses of 5%? That wouldn’t be fair. One other thing it does, which is something that has come up for the Yakuza series: Bigger isn’t better.  The gameworld isn’t that large, it’s not huge but it’s very well put together – the map is pretty rubbish but the way the zones fit together has been thought through.  This is a world that prizes quality over quantity.

So, in conclusion? Yes, it does deserve your attention.  Yes, it might, at times, severely piss you off, but it’ll also delight probably a hell of a lot more.  It does offer something that no other PS4 game can claim to.  It’s Platinum Games doing what they do best – jaw-droppingly awesome action.  I’ve tried to be mostly vague on the story, but there’s some really inspired touches here, which even extends to the names of three of the bosses.  There’s one level that is so superb that the game then spends the rest of the time trying to match it in vain because it was that damn good.  So…. Yeah.  Play this.

Ah hah! The old backpedally mcbackpedal!

Ah, we have here an individual who cannot tell the difference between modes of writing, wonder he’ll get on in this here Internet, eh?

Onto more serious matters, for those who have played both the Uncharted and Last of Us games:

How does the difficulty of Last of Us compare to Uncharted?  If I was to opt for the easiest setting, would it be akin to the Explorer mode in Uncharted?

Reason is The Last of Us Remastered is going for a tenner and, at that price, it’s worth a gamble but is only on offer for the next two days.

I’m not sure if I would take a jab at your job but I don’t think there’s a mean spirited intention there.

The last of us can be pretty challenging in parts, and knowing how frustrated you can get id be inclined to suggest the easiest setting.

It’s got a consistent learning curve and you never quite feel you’re on top of the combat, which is the intention of the designers, as it’s a survival game.  The puzzles aren’t tough though.

I’d say that The Last Of Us is definitely worth a shot at that price, but I would be prepared for some sections that are a little bit tough and frustrating.

But then I say that as someone who often struggles to find the patience needed for stealth gameplay.

If push comes to shove and you get spotted can you fight it out or leg it away or is it instant fail?

Some of it is instant-fail stuff.

Hmm, that could be an issue. Will have a look at a walkthrough or two

Anonymous wrote:

I’m not sure if I would take a jab at your job but I don’t think there’s a mean spirited intention there.

I’ll admit that it does read a bit harsher than I intended so have altered.  It was supposed to be a more playful response to you pulling this crap here:

Anonymous wrote:

Ah hah! The old backpedally mcbackpedal!

But I was probably feeling more stung than I realised.

I’d rather be proved wrong about a lot of things. It’s like trying to cycle backwards up a hill.

It’s not solely an internet thing. (“We don’t do humour here, dear.”)

I hope you give Last of Us a go, Ben. One of my favourites. It can be frustrating but it’s very worthwhile. Just think of it as levelling up your stealthy ninja skills. Bennie the Jett probably had to contend with similar trials.

Sending stealth cuddles to all.

 

I think I’m going with the view that it’s Naughty Dog, they tend to want you to get to the next bit, even if there is erratic signposting. It’ll take an age to download at just over 40gb, so time to boot up Dad and Boy.
Changing tack, you have an external hard drive of game data for PS4, you buy a PS4 Pro – does it work with that with no changes?

Yes. You have to disconnect the external drive from PS4 first by selecting option to stop using extended storage. Then plug it into Pro.

Thanks.  It’s not an immediate thing but if I don’t go for PS5, then nabbing a PS4 Pro on the cheap would be good but don’t want to have to re-download terabytes of game data!

Now, as soon as Horizon Zero Dawn 2 is confirmed for PS5 that will sell me the system!

Along with PS4 backwards compatibility.  PS3 would be nice but not as essential.  PS1/2 – I can’t say I care about those because trying to play those games on HDTVs they were never designed for doesn’t work, they look awful.

I think I’m about halfway through Ratchet & Clank, as it was also going for a tenner but was a mere 25GB download. (Last of Us? Currently downloading.)

It’s a strange game in that it’ll do some stuff that can feel quite unfair but then it goes and does that’s surprisingly supportive. You will run out of ammo against enemies, die and then have to restart but, the use and XP you picked up on the previous run carry over and your ammo is restocked! This is surprising as it means you are actively encouraged to try stuff knowing you don’t actually lose that much, if anything, if it goes wrong.  I wasn’t expecting that at all and it takes the edge off those times when the game ambushes you.  Although, the first boss battle? Pretty graphics but that was about it.

The game’s appearance is amazing.  It’s not going to be a big, long game but it’s certainly a quality one.  Going on a tear through a load of enemies is a succession of graphical brilliance and chaos.  There’s a great sense of personality to your adversaries. Similarly each world is very distinct and well put together.

Story? Is a massive but very fun mick take, including characters being aware they are in a remake!

Unless there’s a really massive and nasty difficulty spike I’m not expecting this to last long, just be a really fun ride from start to finish – which it mostly delivers.

Oh and one other really important point, you have a ground shadow – essential for 3d platforming but it’s not guaranteed.

 

Vince Zampella (CEO of Respawn) takes over EA’s DICE LA studio (x)

Vince Zampella, co-founder of Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order developer Respawn Entertainment, will head up EA DICE’s LA-based studio. Under Zampella’s leadership, EA plans to expand the outfit and have it release an “original” game.

Up until now, the LA-based DICE studio has primarily been responsible for providing support for DICE Stockholm, developer of the Battlefield franchise. According to the LA Times profile, the office will remain separate from both Respawn and DICE Stockholm under Zampella’s leadership, but will “probably” be rebranded to establish its own identity.

While he leads the LA DICE office, Zampella says he will remain on as head of Respawn.

Stuff like this really irritates:

https://guides.gamepressure.com/ratchetandclank/guide.asp?ID=35174

The encounter with Dr. Nefarious isn’t that hard. You must remain in motion all the time (which access to the Jetpack helps a lot with), avoid his attacks and deliver your own. After losing some of his health, the boss will start regenerating by drawing energy from the nearby supernova. There’s no special tactic to prevent him from doing so – continue your barrage and after a few seconds the boss will be knocked back from the star, which will stun him for a few seconds.

Some enemies will appear on the battlefield, but at this point in the game they pose zero threat – you won’t even notice them in the area.

Utter shite.  Having got to the boss, the weapons do sweet fuck all damage, while he gets to do a shit-ton and this is on Casual setting!

Up until the second hoverboard race the game was doing great.  That race? Full of sabotage right from the go, didn’t feel at all like the first race and it should do.  Everything that followed was video game hackery – the chase sequences with Victor with Clank was awful, the Quark disguise sections? By that point the game wasn’t even trying to hide the shit it was pulling.  Even so, the boss fight with Qwark felt about right, yes, it was prolonged, but it’s the endgame, yeah, OK.

Nefarious? Is too big a spike.  It isn’t matched to anything in the game – it just has the pawprints of people deciding to make it difficult for the sake of it.  You can’t dodge fast enough, reorient the camera fast enough and you don’t have enough ammo.  I dunno, maybe they want players to feel a sense of “pride and accomplishment” ?  All they accomplished was to kill the game.

Supposedly, getting the RYNO kills the bastard shitbag oh and using the jetpack but the problem there is anything with a finite supply in games I’m wary of using and it sounds like running out of fuel is another cheap instant kill.

Shame really, 75% great, 25% total shite.

Wonder if The Last of Us will score any better?

So The Last of Us? Not impressed.

It’s a game that shows Naughty Dog have no clue to do stealth, your supposedly human enemies can shrug off blows like a brick to the head with ease.  Headshot? They shrug those off too.  Strategy? Tactics? Don’t matter.

Oh and those guns your enemies have? They magically disappear.  Hey Joel, that guy had a rifle! Grab the rifle Joel, why aren’t grabbing the fucking rife Joel? Are you a fucking idiot Joel? yes, yes, you are because you don’t grab the fucking guns.

In the end I went with the ‘fuck it, just run’ option and got through a section that way.  Fuck all equipment and ammo any anything else so starting to conclude what it said for ‘easy’ was utter shite.  “Resources plentiful” – Fuck no, they are not.

The only plus point right now? Unless it improves drastically, don’t have to waste more money on the sequel.

I knew you’d love it.

Now I feel somewhat responsible.

Not my fault, I didn’t realise Ben is Tom Cruise:

Fuck you obstacles – I’ma keeps on out-running all you all.

Anonymous wrote:

Fuck you obstacles – I’ma keeps on out-running all you all.

Shouldn’t have had to resort to that at all.  But loads of fucking soldiers, all able to take numerous and I’ve fuck all ammo so it was the only option.

And now I’m in a fucking sewer with a fucking swimming section combined with darkness! Yeah, real inspired combination that, probably nothing worse to piss players off. Can’t see where to go and don’t want to anymore.

Oh yeah and those “game hints” I’ve got turned on? Do sweet fuck all.

The game is basically a big version of the Dara O’Briain joke: “Here is a test? You can’t get past it? Game over”, except my reply is: And fuck you and the horse you rode in.

From what I can tell this is a good 20-25% of the game – I don’t care about the rest.  And as for the setting Easy – another total fucking lie.

Part Deux:
The second biggest problem is it wants to invoke realism while being a videogame and those two drives rip it to pieces.  There’s a bit in that damn subway where you get to a wall, at the top of it is a load of stairs.  I’m to buy Joel can’t help Ellie get to the top and jump up himself because… That’s not the route thus invisible walls.  They did with ‘how do we get on this truck?’ Well, you could climb on that there can, couldn’t you? Wait, the game says no.
The biggest problem? It does nothing good for my disposition and outlook.  And sure, I knew there was a danger with this being a part stealth game but I could only go by the difficulty settings of Uncharted and these are very, very different.  The game would be immeasurably improved by an Uncharted-style Explorer mode, but it doesn’t have one.  Expecting a game to be easy on the Easy setting is not, I think, that unreasonable but this is nowhere near being so.  I find it very difficult and it’s not going to get any easier so, what reason is there to continue?

I will say that it looks amazing, that technically it is a very accomplished remaster – and the way it conjured a really creepy mood right at the start was quite, quite excellent but, with apologies to Dr Seuss:
I do not like The Last of Us, Sam I Am
I do not like combat, I do not like the stealth,
I do not like The Last Us, Sam I Am!

Anonymous wrote:

Now I feel somewhat responsible.

This I have to emphasise – no, you’re not.  There is no way for any of you – including Tim and Dave – to convey how this game would be ahead of my buying it.
Just to get a measure of finality, managed to get out of the damn but the how of is not encouraging.  Game reloaded with Joel looking right at the ladder needed and with the pallet on the left.  In short, it spawned me in the exact perfect position to see what I needed to.  By myself? I doubt I would have found it and when they got outside? It looks incredible.
I can see the thinking that they want to engineer a sense of dread and limiting the combat options, so no Explorer-style mode, is part of that.  But what they missed is the story and atmosphere already conjures up that sense of dread so well that easier combat would not puncture it!  You’re still going to want to get through it quick and get the fuck out of wherever you are, that’s how good it is at conjuring mood.  The difficulty isn’t required for it.

Maybe have some chamomile tea.

It blows my mind that you can beat Nerigigante in Monster Hunter World – a fight I had to go online and join a party to beat – and yet standard video game fare troubles you so.

Should we place bets for whether you’ll beat it and end up loving it?

Well, you could but you might end up losing a pile of money.

And yeah, it is inexplicable that my ability on games is so erratic.  I do think it is something how I’m reading the screen just doesn’t work in the way it does for 99% – I am the one per cent!

Killing Nerg did require use of the barrel bomb exploit, but you have to get him to being low enough that he goes off to sleep.

Then he gets woken up with a bomb, the bomber legs it, goes back to sleep and then….

Joking aside, I also found The Last Of Us difficult and abandoned it shortly into my first playthrough (on PS3). It wasn’t until the PS4 remaster that I decided to give it another shot, and I got on with it a lot better.

I think it helped that I was off work for a few days during that second playthrough and was able to spend extended periods ploughing through it. The stealth sections took me a while to crack as I’m not a very patient gamer.

Yeah the Last of Us is a challenging game.

It’s very rewarding though. I’ve played it through thrice which is more than I have for any game I think.

Definitely. It is one of the hardest games I’ve ever played to completion but one of the most satisfying – I don’t think I’ve ever emotionally invested in a game like I did with that one.

I haven’t ever replayed it in full but I loved the Left Behind DLC, which was one of the best expansions of its kind that I’ve seen.

The Remastered package includes the DLC so for a tenner…. Yeah, it’s good value.

Have heard the game changes quite a bit at Bill’s Town.

Might be that it ends up akin to the Tomb Raider games, in that  I go back to it every now and again.  Do loathe dropping a game.

If you haven’t got to Bill’s Town yet and you’re finding the game too challenging it’s only going to get more so.

Dave wrote:

Definitely. It is one of the hardest games I’ve ever played to completion but one of the most satisfying – I don’t think I’ve ever emotionally invested in a game like I did with that one.

I haven’t ever replayed it in full but I loved the Left Behind DLC, which was one of the best expansions of its kind that I’ve seen.

I agree.  It was the first game of it’s type to make me fully appreciate that a Video Game story told well can rival even the best movies.

I don’t think i’ve ever been as emotionally riled since, but it probably helped that it was in an age before spoilers dominated the internet.

Red Dead Redemption 2 might come close but it’s a pretty distant 2nd.

R2D2 has traumatised many gamers.

Anonymous wrote:

If you haven’t got to Bill’s Town yet and you’re finding the game too challenging it’s only going to get more so.

I do agree that it gets more challenging, but I do think the challenge then levels off after that. Once you start encountering the real nasties then the combat and stealth sequences are more or less variations on those themes until the end.

I may be wrong though as this is all from years-old memory.

That’s not the same with my memory.

I remember the pacing being deliberately hot and cold.  Tough bit followed by a little bit of a relax.  To be completely transparent I think everything before Bill’s Town is considerably easier than what happens afterwards.  There’s three or four sections from my mind which I think were particularly tough and they’re throughout the game.  One of them is the very last bit and one of them is not that far before that and involves a colder climate.

It’s all completely fair and doable though.  It’s just that you have to be cautious and patient, and most importantly, smart.

There’s also that natural video game factor of becoming familiar with the mechanics and the expectations of the designers as you play.

 

Anonymous wrote:

It’s all completely fair and doable though.  It’s just that you have to be cautious and patient, and most importantly, smart.

No wonder I struggled.

Yeah I’m a dummy too because I’m pretty sure I was still making the same mistakes on my third go around.

These posts on TLOU do help, thanks.

I’d need to replay it in order to help, but I can make you some tea in the meantime.

The Royal Mail has announced a set of special stamps celebrating classic British video games.

Some nice choices there.

I didn’t know Team17 were brits… anyhoo, ahhh Worms, one of the best franchises ever… too bad they’ve mishandled it for a long time now… =(

Love that it’s OG pixel art style worms there. Oh and Sensible Soccer too!

Good but missing any Jeff Minter, which is a bit of a sin.

garjones wrote:

Good but missing any Jeff Minter, which is a bit of a sin.

Maybe they’re leaving him to be on coins.

Looks like the full set also includes four Tomb Raider stamps too.

 

I really don’t need any stamps…

But how will you mail my birthday card to me?! 

njerry wrote:

But how will you mail my birthday card to me?! 

Owl post, obviously 

So, started what I expected to be a doomed undertaking on Ratchet and Clank and, well, wasn’t quite so doomed!

First, hoverboard racing – Rilgar went better than expected while Kalebo III lived up to expectations that it would not be fun – and it wasn’t, the enemy racers will ram into you, lose no speed while you do – yet, despite such dastardly tactics, I still got to and won the Gold cup which gave me two RYNO cards.  All of a sudden I might actually be able to get that and use to indeed RYNO Nefarious!

Second, decided to do the Brains side mission – this turned into an unholy but immensely satisfying slaughter due to upgraded weaponry! And this was the other reason for doing it – weapon upgrading.

Third, the grindrail of Kalebo III – this would have bee n so much better with some checkpoints! Still did it though.

So, after a couple of hours, I had 6 RYNO cards assembled, plus all the gadgets and won four hoverboard races – kind of neat.

Despite the last few RYNO cards collection being an exercise of tedium and frustration, mostly due to to the game not really wanting you to go back to completed levels despite permitting, getting the infamous RYNO in Ratchet & Clank was very worthwhile.

What I didn’t anticipate is that it would enable me to teleport to the final boss, I was expecting to have to take out Quark again.  And this time around? With the RYNO? Oh yes, Ripped Him A New One! It was fucking excellent watching Nefarious get absolutely shredded.  Even flying to the other platforms and having to deal with the Warbots was far easier because, well, RYNO.

I have to give the game due credit, there is stuff here that no other game has ever done like asking you to suck up bots with a magnet and then fire them at a warship!  Similarly, the game levels are well designed and visually very distinct.  The animation for when there is a large amount going on, enemies being shot, exploding and bolts going everywhere – it is quite something.

I still go with that, due to how those final levels play out 75% brilliance and 25% videogame crap it doesn’t need, especially the final boss.  If anything the question posed here is does a game require challenge to be fun, even at the final boss level? I think not.  The final boss being more consistent, so not rendering the RYNO mandatory, would have made for a better game.  It’s too easy for you? There are three difficulty levels, use them.

Changing tack…. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

I’ve now played and completed two Call of Duty games.  Quite honestly? It was two too many, even at the cheap, cheap price of £12 for the duo.

I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where I came to utterly despise the player character I control like this one.  By the time I got to end I wanted the nauseatingly self-righteous, bleeding heart motherfucker that was Reyes dead.  I hated his arse.  So, got my wish.

But it’s not limited to the main character either, the lack of dramatic, satisfying pay-offs in this main campaign is a big problem. There’s the whole “fight” with Riah – hugely unsatisfying.  Later you do not even get to kill Kotch.  Instead you get a cutscene with him monologuing, so much wanted Reyes to rip his tongue out to shut him up, then he dies.  This is the guy who has taunted you throughout the entire game – at the very least, a shotgun blast to head ought to be mandatory but nope, death by cutscene.  Oh and Kit Harrington? I should give a damn?  All of the twists were obvious and too often I found myself where I really should care or the game section to get to that plot section had been so irritating that, either way, I didn’t care about these cannon fodder characters that this extended piece of military porn expected me to.

The combat? I’ve never played a game that desperately needed a really good auto aim because it was so difficult to see where enemies were.  Even if I got a bead on them, they’d move fast – if your game has enemies that mobile, that fast, the player needs something to even the odds.  On the one hand the game tells you that you are the best soldier ever, but you also find that you are very, very fragile.  Preferred solution a lot of the time? Let the immortal squad kill almost everything as they will have the superhuman speed and aim needed.  There were some neat weapons, didn’t get to hold onto them and the whole scattering of heavy ammo is a blatant video game conceit.

Space combat? Dire.  The whole hold L3 and forward to escape locks? I found that very difficult to do, I don’t like the L3 and R3 buttons due to the difficulty of use but combining that with directional input in a combat situation? Ugh.   It also shares the difficulty of being able to keep track of enemies that ground combat but transposed to a full 360 degree plus environment that only makes it worse.  The lock-on / fire mechanism never worked that well for me, as did the limited missiles.  But the biggest problem is I never really felt in control of the fighter and lacked a sense of position relative to everything else.

Graphics? Probably the stand out aspect of the game.  Each of the worlds was well-designed and looked great, the future aesthetic was nailed perfectly, there’s some very artistic action sequences.  It’s mostly very, very good.  The only flaw is it doesn’t always indicate enemies clearly enough, which in turn shows up what a good job Killzone did with the Helgast! You always knew who those bastards were.

If you’re after a shooter from 2016? There’s only two great contenders – Doom and Titanfall 2.  It ain’t this.

So this is my update, Tim.

(by the way – the shirt you were wearing today was really hot)

I know, Tim, but lets keep this professional.

(*sigh* okay)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

• First Fire Emblem Game
• Slightly disappointed.
• Just wish the life sim stuff was more like Persona 5. Exploring the Monastery is boring.
• Extremely good value for money. There’s four storylines here which each are probably 40 -80 hours worth of playthrough each. I’d guess it’s around 300 hours worth of content without grinding.
• Becomes pretty repetitive and i’ve got no real desire to play-through one of the other houses after I finish the first (Blue Lions).
• It would be a more rewarding game if you played it on Classic where characters have permadeth, with that said there are some tough stages particularly in the later game, but you don’t get affected by resource or character management.
• Story is okay.

A Plague Tale: Innocence

• Genuinely impressive graphics. More so in the countryside rather than the city. On par with the best graphical games out there.
• More a puzzle game described as a third party action.
• Story is fine. Hugo is kind of annoying, but that’s the point. None of the characters are phenomenal.
• It’s pretty tough in parts and there’s some frustrating sections.  The last “boss” was tough and I wouldn’t have known what to do without a guide.
• It’s got some bugs. For example enemies don’t reset when you restart a checkpoint but ‘walk back’ to their positions, which means they can sometimes become aware of your companions on a checkpoint restart when they shouldn’t.
• It feels like season 1 in the way that a telltale game does it’s seasons, with the expectation that the audience will hang on to the next iteration a couple of months down the track. Turns out a sequel is due in 2022 so i’ll be surprised if the interest stands the test of time.

Mortal Kombat 11

• There are punch buttons
• There are kick buttons
• The story mode is genuinely batshit with blockbuster cutscenes unlike anything ive ever seen in a fighting game.
• It’s still super dumb, but it’s kind of fun.
• There is a whole boatload of content here locked behind a huge grind and a bit of a paywall which really docks it a few points.
• It’s a good mindless fighting game.

Monster Hunter: Iceborne

• Downloaded it tonight.
• Seems more of the same but very rich with content.
• Played the first hunt and by fuck am I rusty.
• The grind is immensely satisfying so I’m sort of looking forward and dreading it in equal measure.
• Kind of hoping there’s a little more to it than just new areas and new monsters and the same mechanics.

They’re good reviews but what colour is your shirt?

I mean…how do you do that?

Magic shirt powers

So if I borrow your shirt, I can type all the words super speedy and sensible too?

I thought I might find the answer in Atwood’s book or On Writing but the solution lies in a magic T-shirt.

no it lies in a magic shirt shirt

it’s a shirt shirt

like a classy person

That was shorthand for classic Tim-shirt.

Anonymous wrote:

Kind of hoping there’s a little more to it than just new areas and new monsters and the same mechanics.

From what I’ve heard it has some new mechanics / Quality of Life improvements plus it doesn’t restrict the new monsters or variants to the new area.  Be interesting to see how you find this – I’ll probably get it at some point but when it’s cheaper.

Yeah there’s a huge summary of what’s changed when you first boot it up. I didn’t bother reading it. I guess i meant a little more variation in the grind/weapon moves.

II got the clutch claw to work a few times against the first monster but I clearly haven’t mastered it. First monster is like one of those mud/lava swimming shark things, but in the snow.

II carted more times then I’ll care to admit, but I don’t think there was a fail limit, but I really need to practice.

I never did the Witcher or Final Fantasy quests so maybe I’ll give them a go.

I got it for 25% off which was 40 AUD. It’s a lot for DLC but by all accounts it’s comparable in content to Blood and Wine, in that its probably as big as some other games, so I’m fine with it at that price.  There’s been a couple of updates since release including a new area and new monster so looks like it’ll be serviced for a while.

I expect you to do better than me on those but get some practice in first:

• Witcher is rock hard to do, whatever you remember of the Leshan in W3, it’s had a major upgrade here.
• The FF one with the Yaku is also deceptive and I’m not convinced it’s possible to solo Behemoth.  The fucker cheats like no tomorrow.

I agree it’s supposed to be an exemplary DLC – for me I found MHW bloody difficult so I’m not sure I want to go back to it.

Damn I just burned through 150 hours on factorio in like 3 weeks and cash… good thing I had no work, ’cause it’s one of those games… xD

Also, I was looking at the Steam Awards thingie, crazy that GTA5 is still on top of the charts after all these years… no wonder it never goes on heavy sale… =/

Ben wrote:

I expect you to do better than me on those but get some practice in first:

• Witcher is rock hard to do, whatever you remember of the Leshan in W3, it’s had a major upgrade here.
• The FF one with the Yaku is also deceptive and I’m not convinced it’s possible to solo Behemoth.  The fucker cheats like no tomorrow.

I agree it’s supposed to be an exemplary DLC – for me I found MHW bloody difficult so I’m not sure I want to go back to it.

It’s a tough game and I certainly never mastered it. I am better at From Software games because they’re just a little quicker. I use the Long Sword mostly because that’s the closest weapon to a From Software type experience.

II did manage to solo the base game up until the elder dragons, where I ended up going online with a party to do. I didn’t feel too guilty about it because the game is designed to do that and it’s fun being in a party, although occassionally you end up with someone who is rank 300 or something and tears through the monster. You feel kind of useless then.

II have actually played Behemoth a couple of times because it came out right when my interest in the game was ending. I never beat him because inevitably someone was too slow to hide behind the rock. I’m hoping now that more people know how to do it it will be aeasier.  I think it is designed to be played in a party but I’m sure it’s possible to solo it. I won’t be doing it though.

LLeshen seems to require solo play though.

I think if you have top gear and really know what you’re doing then you can probably solo Behemoth.  I am nowhere near that having been unable to get past the twin tempered Bazelgeuse mission.

For someone who has taken out Deviljho with ease and followed that up with taking out a Lunastra and Teostra together, Behemoth is probably manageable.

FF7 Remake bumped to April:

 

Started Red Dead Redemption 2. It feels like theres a daunting amount of stuff I need to wrap my head around and keep track of before i can get properly in to it. Health, stamina and deadeye levels and cores, cores and levels for the horse, reputation, weapon condition, camp contributions, eating and sleeping. Concerned all of that is going to to get in the way of having fun.

It did for me, unfortunately. It’s an amazing game but I didn’t find it much fun.

Git to work ya lazy bums! What did ya think ya were doing, playing games?

<p style=”text-align: left;”>There’s a lot of life sim stuff in RDR2 but I didn’t think it was overly complicated. I did often forget to eat though, but it doesn’t really penalise you to severely and it’s easily fixed.</p>
Weapon maintenance was a bit of a pain IIRC but you find weapons pretty easily so you only need to maintain the ones you really like.

I want to write this animated movie. https://t.co/CGQ6rkEWYF

— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) January 13, 2020

Looks like Cyberpunk is delayed to September which is a giant cake of turd.

Stupid giant turd cake.

I would like a Whitta-scripted Starfox movie.

I’m just hoping there are no more delays to TLoU2. Booking the day off work for that one I think.

The September launch for this and Avengers feels suspiciously close to the proposed lunch window of the PS5 in October-December.  So, my guess is they’re prepping those as launch titles for that system.  If it happens to TLOU as well, that’s pretty much confirmed.

It’s not dissimilar to what happened with GTA5 which launched on the PS3 in September and then on the PS4 when it launched in November

Anyone here played Stellaris on PS4?  It has this big reputation but I’m uncertain.

Also need to decide on Judgment but the disc version about £5-10 more and it’s a Yakuza spin-off, probably a safe bet.

(Cue you lot laughing yer arse off and waiting for an inevitable rant.)

Anonymous wrote:

The September launch for this and Avengers feels suspiciously close to the proposed lunch window of the PS5 in October-December.  So, my guess is they’re prepping those as launch titles for that system.  If it happens to TLOU as well, that’s pretty much confirmed.

It’s not dissimilar to what happened with GTA5 which launched on the PS3 in September and then on the PS4 when it launched in November

I thought GTA V on PS4 was more than a year later – September 2013 then November 2014?

That kind of delay seems more likely to me. I don’t think it serves them to do a simultaneous current-gen/next-gen release. Especially given the likely backwards compatibility aspects of the next gen consoles.

Yeah, the “next-gen” (now current gen) versions of GTA V came out much later than the 360/PS3 versions, because they added in the extra first person mode as an incentive to get people to buy it again.