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

Bruce wrote:

Dave wrote:

My kids have been watching one of their favourite youtubers play that game where the goose has to piss everyone off. Has anyone played it? Is it any good?

It looks like a lot of fun but also something that could be pretty short-lived, and £16 on the PSN seems a little steep.

I bought it at full price. Thoroughly enjoyed it but it’s probably not worth the cost. I was hoping it would be a bit more “Goat Simulator-y” in terms of just being about creating open world chaos but it’s more like an old school point-and-click adventure game whose puzzles have multiple solutions.

Ah, that sounds like it could be pretty fun, I always liked those games. I might have to give it a go – maybe something to save for when we hit a boredom peak over the next few weeks.

[Bruce]

@dealerobiwomble this may be of interest given some of the issues you’ve had with fast paced games in the past:

https://www.polygon.com/doom-eternal-guide/2020/3/20/21188251/doom-eternal-best-difficulty-option-pc-xbox-ps4

I found some of the in game text slight too small to read comfortably but, by adjusting the HUD settings, i was able to change it to something more suitable.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Bruce.

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Ben, Dave

Bruce wrote:

I played the first couple of levels of Doom Eternal last night.

It’s fast (the default movement speed is “sprint like fuck”).

It’s difficult (I died a couple of times on the first level on “Hurt Me Plenty”).

It’s delightfully retro (health bottles from Doom and Doom 2 make an appearance).

It’s fun (oh god, it’s so much fun).

It is unequivocal Doom.

Great to hear.

Apropos of nothing, a mysterious blu-ray-box-shaped parcel arrived yesterday addressed to my wife. I imagine I will find out what it is in a few weeks. I keep hearing faint demonic growling and heavy metal guitar sounds coming from it. So maybe it’s the latest Adele album.

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Bruce

Im still playung Nioh 2 but i bought Doom anyway in the event that I get so frustrtated working from home my only recourse to relax is to blow a hole in a cacodemon.

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Bruce, Dave

Your only recourse?

I think NOT.

*strops off in a huff*

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Ben

Anonymous wrote:

in the event that I get so frustrtated working from home my only recourse to relax is to blow a hole in a cacodemon.

I think Doom Eternal should be available on the NHS to ease our current tensions around being holed up at home.

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Bruce

Thanks @Bruce -that article is useful.

I’ll probably get to Doom Eternal, at the current rate I’m going through games, in say 2-3 years? And I suppose I really ought to go back to Doom 2016 first?

My memory of the latter is, when you’re in that rhythm of death and destruction, it is like no other game going.  For instance Wolfenstein New Order relies far more on cover and positioning, Doom says ‘fuck that!’.

Anonymous wrote:

Im still playung Nioh 2 but i bought Doom anyway in the event that I get so frustrtated working from home my only recourse to relax is to blow a hole in a cacodemon.

Now, now Tim – you have a more pressing matter to attend to, you hurt Bernadette’s feelings.

Changing tack, tried a couple of demos / free games:

Trials of Mana – Ugh. I ought to like this.  It looks nice but the reality is that it’s a 25-year old game with a new paint job and it shows.  The storytelling is set at the ‘don’t give a shit’ setting, it never draws you in or gives you reason to care.  The combat system is reliant on that tendency SE like of moves being L1 and button, which has never worked for me.   Aerial enemies are particularly annoying, not hard to kill, just annoying.  The big irritant is right at the start, in a pub/inn type place I’m told to take a nap but there’s no option to do.  Turns out you have to go to a different pub, why? Because the game says so.

Path of Exile – Turns out that really useful dodge roll in Diablo III was a console edition.  Without it, I likely never would got on well with the game.  Here? This game does not have that.   What it does have is a set of impenetrable mechanics, trying to sell itself as a looter slasher like Diablo III but where you get to carry fuck all, it likes to have enemies attack from off the screen or behind UI icons and minimap doesn’t show them either so strategy? Tactics? They go out the fucking window.  It doesn’t look that great and the speech interactions are by the numbers.  Sure, it’s free to play but it plays crap.  If you invest tons of time putting up with it all, maybe, just maybe, it gets better, but I don’t have that – there are better games to play.

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Bruce

Dave wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

in the event that I get so frustrtated working from home my only recourse to relax is to blow a hole in a cacodemon.

I think Doom Eternal should be available on the NHS to ease our current tensions around being holed up at home.

I dunno. It’s actually causing tension in my house as I’ve been given strict instructions by the missus not to play it while the kid is awake. Bed time is in 8 minutes and counting…

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Dave, Ben

Having finished the DLC for PS4 Spider-Man, I decided to dive into the other game I got for Christmas: Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, which is a compilation of all the games up to 3.

The only ones I’ve played before are KH1, which I 100%ed on the PS2 a few years ago, and Chain of Memories, which I played on the GBA last year or so. So I decided to just refresh myself on the plot of KH1 with the theater mode and skip CoM. Dove into the KH1 cutscenes earlier.

About four hours later, I emerged the on other side. Keen to actually play I game, I went to the first one after CoM, which is 358/2 Days. Booted it up, it played an opening cutscene because I stayed on the main menu too long. That’s fine, I watched it. Went back to the main menu, started the game. It played the same lengthy cutscene again and wouldn’t let me skip it!

Sat through that again, and a couple more cutscenes, getting impatient to actually play something. Went out of a cutscene into… a summary page, like KH1 Theater Mode had to fill in gaps in the story that were in gameplay. Because 358/2 Days in this collection isn’t a playable game! It’s just a remastered cutscene collection!

Which I knew when I asked for the game originally, I’d just forgotten about. So I’ve spent half a day not yet playing Kingdom Hearts. Maybe tomorrow.

Anonymous wrote:

Your only recourse?

I think NOT.

*strops off in a huff*

Sypha…

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Ben

Well despite the general vastly positive reviews and reception, I’ve been reading A LOT of people complaining about what I was talking about earlier… Mind you, it’s not that they hate Eternal or anything (although I’ve read a lot of people saying they got refund), but they’re mostly disappointed or furstrated with the new gameplay style… some simply saying “it’s just not fun”.

Since I won’t be playing this for years, I went ahead and watched gameplay footage on YT, and yeah, there’s definetly a specific rythm and gameplay style the devs want people to do… and as I predicted, it’s not something that appeals to me…

While in 2016 you could entirely bypass glorykills and chainsaw kills, this time around you basically need to do it all the frickin time, since ammo is sparse and even the guns themselves don’t have a lot of ammo capacity , so you’re constantly running out of bullets, being forced to either switch to another weapon or use the chainsaw on a zombie or whatever to get more ammo… which means that you’re gonna see A LOT of the same glory kill animations over and over and over and over and over…

Oh and A LOT of people, even those who liked it very much, are complaining about the parcours/platforming elements… I gotta say, some of those elements are REALLY silly looking, like out of a Super Mario Bros. game… they look completely out of place and kind of break the immersion.

The other thing I did was watch a compilation of the story (cutscenes and dialogues) and ohhh boy, that was disapointing. But also, daaamn the writing is baaaaaaaaad… tonally it’s all over the place, and some of the dialogue is just cringey as fuck. Kind of a bummer, I was actually very excited for Eternal’s story, but in the end it’s just… there… and not even that interesting or good. Honestly 2016’s story is a lot more compelling, if a lot blander and cliché.

It looks like loads of fun to me, can’t wait to get a chance to play it.

Nice to have this and TLoU2 to look forward to in the space of a couple of months.

TLOU2 could be delayed by the outbreak according to Jason Schreir.  As could other games – nothing confirmed yet but we are in uncharted territory (without Drake and Sully and the gang to get us out of it.)

We are in uncharted territory but we don’t need Drake or Sully.

I have a cunning plan. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m sure it will be cunning.

Doom looks like all the fun.

 

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your only recourse?

I think NOT.

*strops off in a huff*

Sypha…

Le sigh.

Si, my morning star.

You can be my handsome sidekick or mascot.

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Ben

Ben wrote:

TLOU2 could be delayed by the outbreak according to Jason Schreir.  As could other games – nothing confirmed yet but we are in uncharted territory (without Drake and Sully and the gang to get us out of it.)

Hadn’t heard about that yet but it makes sense. I’ll look forward to it whenever it comes – Doom will keep me busy for a while and I have a substantial backlog to work through that will last me many months (if not years)!

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Bruce

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your only recourse?

I think NOT.

*strops off in a huff*

Sypha…

I now get this reference

Jon wrote:

A LOT of people

A lot of people need to lighten the fuck up.

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Ben, Dave

Bruce wrote:

Jon wrote:

A LOT of people

A lot of people need to lighten the fuck up.

Judge Maths you were, Judge Doom you now are (not the Roger Rabbit version)

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Bruce

Bruce wrote:

Jon wrote:

A LOT of people

A lot of people need to lighten the fuck up.

Yeah, starting by you, man… wtf??

Also, in other Doom related news, something, I guess good for a change is I was checking the prices for Doom64 and I noticed that they priced that game a lot more correctly in my (and others) region, I mean, it’s like a -27% tag, so still not what it should really bem but better than what they tend to do… but then it got me wondering, so I went back to check the price for Doom Eternal, and lo and behold, they also lowered its price for my region and a few others, so the game is now basically same price as USD, so the equivalent of 57-8 bucks, whereas it was around 75 originally (for base version of course).

Also, my posts about the regional prices were nuked in the steam forums… so I guess they listened? I mean, it would’ve been nice if they were consistent and give it the same -27% tag as Doom64, but hey I’ll take any reduction I can get… though considering how the economy is going crazy, I wonder if it’s more due to that than Bethesda realizing they were being insane.

Sometimes when Im playing Doom I think – why cant we all just get along?

And then you realise a shotgun is a universal form of communication

Jon wrote:

Also, in other Doom related news, something, I guess good for a change is I was checking the prices for Doom64 and I noticed that they priced that game a lot more correctly in my (and others) region, I mean, it’s like a -27% tag, so still not what it should really bem but better than what they tend to do… but then it got me wondering, so I went back to check the price for Doom Eternal, and lo and behold, they also lowered its price for my region and a few others, so the game is now basically same price as USD, so the equivalent of 57-8 bucks, whereas it was around 75 originally (for base version of course).

Also, my posts about the regional prices were nuked in the steam forums… so I guess they listened? I mean, it would’ve been nice if they were consistent and give it the same -27% tag as Doom64, but hey I’ll take any reduction I can get… though considering how the economy is going crazy, I wonder if it’s more due to that than Bethesda realizing they were being insane.

Scratch all that… I just checked and I hadn’t seen my currency plumeted to shit in the last two weeks… so no, they didn’t reduce the price, it’s just SteamDB that updated the currencies… the game is still stupidly expensive in my country… u_u

Doom64 does seem to be better priced… not by much mind you, given the currency, but it’s at least not overpriced like D:E, even by past standards.

Doom 64 was a free pre-order bonus with Doom Eternal here.

It’s one of the few Doom games I’ve never played so I’m looking forward to trying it.

Jon wrote:

Bruce wrote:

Jon wrote:

A LOT of people

A lot of people need to lighten the fuck up.

Yeah, starting by you, man… wtf??

You’re shitting on something you havent even played and others are clearly enjoying. What did you expect other than a bit of hostility? A tickertape parade and a medal?

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Martin Smith, Dave

Yeah Jon, weve been reading your posts for a decade – there isnt ant surprises left.

When you like or dont like something you get real forceful about it. Id say its tedious but its just who you are. Same way im a hamdsome genius and Bruce is part Judge part Maths.

Sometimes people will call you on your shit, sometimes they wont. Best not to take it as anything else other than a community knowing you very well after 10 + years.

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Bruce

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Bruce

Bi software are so emo

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Dave

And Doom Eternal backwards is almost Latrene Mood. If you squint. Which is very apt for these toilet-paper deprived times.

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Bruce

Surely its Mood Latrene!

Frankly, thats even better

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Bruce

Analyse me! Analyse me, oh hamdsome genius. Just who am I? Dave would like to know. You wouldn’t want him to get moody.

You are a mymstery

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Bruce wrote:

Jon wrote:

Bruce wrote:

Jon wrote:

A LOT of people

A lot of people need to lighten the fuck up.

Yeah, starting by you, man… wtf??

You’re shitting on something you havent even played and others are clearly enjoying. What did you expect other than a bit of hostility? A tickertape parade and a medal?

I’m not “shitting” on anything, I’m just sharing some stuff, both that I myself think, and that I read as reviews… we all do that and we’ve been doing it for decades. Oh and also, respectfully, but **** off with that whole “oh you haven’t bought it so shut up” argument. That’s like the basest dumbest shit ever… or do you also get upset when people critisize trailers? ‘Cause as far as I know that’s the bloody point no? To judge if you’re interested in something… I’m fine if you wanna get bitchy at me for whatever reason, but at least don’t be a hypocrite.

Anyways, yeah sorry for “shitting on your enjoyment”… I wasn’t aware people required other people to validate it.

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah Jon, weve been reading your posts for a decade – there isnt ant surprises left.

When you like or dont like something you get real forceful about it. Id say its tedious but its just who you are. Same way im a hamdsome genius and Bruce is part Judge part Maths.

Sometimes people will call you on your shit, sometimes they wont. Best not to take it as anything else other than a community knowing you very well after 10 + years.

Yes, thank you captain obvious. Also, I’m hardly the only one who gets “forceful” when I don’t like something, as we just saw… it’s not like you ain’t forceful or tedious yourself… but guess what, I’m usually not in your face about it… maybe I should remind more often you how annoying (or judgemental) you are, and that it’s okay, because after a decade we all know it’s just who you are.

But hey, luckily, unlike some other people, I’d actually rather “shit” on a game or a movie or whetever else than on other people… but hey, that’s just me, what do I know…

(oh and just so there’s no confusion, yes Tim, that was me calling you on your shit, it works both ways)

Please stop.

Go take some cathartic headshots on something or catch some Doom Crossing butterflies whichever you prefer.

 

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Ben

Video games are stupid. Meh. :/

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Dave

So it turns out that Crash Bandicoot is fun but is actually quite challenging. Some of the 3D stuff is a little wonky though, which may be part of it.

It’s definitely not that I’ve got worse at gaming over the years and am now struggling with a basic kids’ platformer. No. Definitely not.

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Ben

The only thing I’m struggling with right now is to follow my own advice.

Just so there’s no confusion, I’m beyond annoyed right now.

 

 

 

[Ben]

Anonymous wrote:

Doom Crossing

Why does this not exist?

If you don’t pay your bill in Doom Crossing, Doom Guy is your debt collec – urk!  … Sorry, financial re-acquisition agent, yes?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Ben.

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[Bruce]

Apologies if the clay is the wrong consistency for a lot of people or if the YouTube adverts at the start of the video are different in your country but saw this and figured it was worth sharing:

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Bruce.

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Dave

Cheers. Reminds me of Pingu’s The Thing.

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Bruce

It’s the same guy! 😁

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I am a most excellent Judge of claymation (if that’s even a word).

 

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Bruce

Yeah I’m not going to respond to that.

I’ve been smashing through Nioh 2.  My lunch breaks are suddenly more fun now and I usually cram in a gym session somewhere in the day.

I really enjoy it but if there’s one thing that’s worth saying is that there’s far more nuisance and deliberately frustration elements then in From Softs games.

It’s a pretty common staple for enemies to have a move where they grab you and stab you or something, whittling down your health to close to none, and you think if they let you go you’ll be able to escape and heal… BUT then they don’t drop you and stab you again.  It’s basically the developers saying “bwahahahha, you thought you were going to live but no you are silly person”.  These types of moves are dialled up to the max in Nioh (not just bosses, normal enemies too) and I am shouting “FUCK!” at my screen an awful lot … an awful lot.

Mostly the bosses have been manageable so far.  There’s been a couple of skill checks. I’m only just now learning to Burst counter which is going to be super helpful.  I still haven’t mastered Ki Burst which leaves me at a bit of a handicap sometimes.  Every Boss has been hard (even with a summoned NPC who usually dies about 2 minutes in), and some more than others, but nothing so far has caused me to put my controller down and leave it while I regain my focus.  That happened a lot in Sekiro, and in the Nioh DLC, so I am expecting at least a handful of bosses to give me this level of grief.

I’m about to play the levelled called “The Frenzied Blaze” which reportedly has one of the tougher bosses up until this point so we’ll see.

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Anonymous wrote:

I am shouting “FUCK!” at my screen an awful lot … an awful lot.

Yes, yes, I can see this happening.

I thought of you when I read that line. :)

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Ben

Ah, but I have gained more serenity and better knowledge of my triggers as I have aged whereas young Masters…..

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You’re both a good influence on each other.

I always enjoy reading your reviews.

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Ben

Ben wrote:

Ah, but I have gained more serenity and better knowledge of my triggers as I have aged whereas young Masters…..

Heh!

To be fair though, Ben, swearing at the screen is hardly out of the ordinary for most players of these games.

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Ben

Dave wrote:

So it turns out that Crash Bandicoot is fun but is actually quite challenging. Some of the 3D stuff is a little wonky though, which may be part of it.

It’s definitely not that I’ve got worse at gaming over the years and am now struggling with a basic kids’ platformer. No. Definitely not.

A fair few people who played it originally found it harder when the remaster came out and it’s not (entirely) down to your decaying reflexes. The game was rebuilt in a different engine and the differences in hit boxes and polygon shapes means that it’s actually got trickier platforming now.

https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/5/15922340/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-hard-difficulty-jumping

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Dave

I wonder if Crash Bandicoot knows that only perverts wear drawstring pants…

Anonymous wrote:

swearing at the screen is hardly out of the ordinary for most players of these games.

The Quarantine Vol 2 vid Laymen Gaming did – covering gaming news while playing COD: Warzone was hilarious in this respect.

Martin Smith wrote:

Dave wrote:

So it turns out that Crash Bandicoot is fun but is actually quite challenging. Some of the 3D stuff is a little wonky though, which may be part of it.

It’s definitely not that I’ve got worse at gaming over the years and am now struggling with a basic kids’ platformer. No. Definitely not.

A fair few people who played it originally found it harder when the remaster came out and it’s not (entirely) down to your decaying reflexes. The game was rebuilt in a different engine and the differences in hit boxes and polygon shapes means that it’s actually got trickier platforming now.

https://www.polygon.com/2017/7/5/15922340/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-hard-difficulty-jumping

I’ll take any excuse I can get.

Oh great, one of the few games I’ve been waiting for just announced an Epic exclusivity deal… joy… I’ve been waiting for a PC port for almost a year, and this is what we get… fuck that shit. u_u

Jon wrote:

Jon wrote:

Also, in other Doom related news, something, I guess good for a change is I was checking the prices for Doom64 and I noticed that they priced that game a lot more correctly in my (and others) region, I mean, it’s like a -27% tag, so still not what it should really bem but better than what they tend to do… but then it got me wondering, so I went back to check the price for Doom Eternal, and lo and behold, they also lowered its price for my region and a few others, so the game is now basically same price as USD, so the equivalent of 57-8 bucks, whereas it was around 75 originally (for base version of course).

Also, my posts about the regional prices were nuked in the steam forums… so I guess they listened? I mean, it would’ve been nice if they were consistent and give it the same -27% tag as Doom64, but hey I’ll take any reduction I can get… though considering how the economy is going crazy, I wonder if it’s more due to that than Bethesda realizing they were being insane.

Scratch all that… I just checked and I hadn’t seen my currency plumeted to shit in the last two weeks… so no, they didn’t reduce the price, it’s just SteamDB that updated the currencies… the game is still stupidly expensive in my country… u_u

Doom64 does seem to be better priced… not by much mind you, given the currency, but it’s at least not overpriced like D:E, even by past standards.

It’s good that Steam do regional pricing, they can do it because you buy through their program rather than a website where location is easily manipulated. It definitely reduced piracy here because previously games were out of reach of a lot of people. A starting salary for a uni graduate in Malaysia is about $600 so buying a game at $60 is 10% of your earnings. When I got here 17 years ago everything was pirated and the games makers were making nothing (I am not exaggerating there, there was nowhere that sold original games even if you wanted to pay full price). Now people buy through Steam.

I agree though it can often be rather randomly applied, instead of applying a fixed percentage discount some items are really cheap and some not at all.

Booted up Doom 2016 tonight, gave the Foundry level a go in Arcade.  Fuck, is that level utter shit.  Got so bored with all the lack of ways to work where to go and what to interact with I immolated Doom Guy in the doorway on fire.

But it’s not just that, there’s just too much shit to juggle at high speed, it just doesn’t work for me.  It’s why I waited until the game was under a tenner so there’s not much left.  At the same time the whole desperation, down-to-sliver-of-health then recover style isn’t one I like either.  It’s also why The Last of Us doesn’t work for me, it’s that same style that I don’t like.

Chances of my looking at Doom Eternal, even when dirt cheap? -251.

garjones wrote:

Jon wrote:

Jon wrote:

Also, in other Doom related news, something, I guess good for a change is I was checking the prices for Doom64 and I noticed that they priced that game a lot more correctly in my (and others) region, I mean, it’s like a -27% tag, so still not what it should really bem but better than what they tend to do… but then it got me wondering, so I went back to check the price for Doom Eternal, and lo and behold, they also lowered its price for my region and a few others, so the game is now basically same price as USD, so the equivalent of 57-8 bucks, whereas it was around 75 originally (for base version of course).

Also, my posts about the regional prices were nuked in the steam forums… so I guess they listened? I mean, it would’ve been nice if they were consistent and give it the same -27% tag as Doom64, but hey I’ll take any reduction I can get… though considering how the economy is going crazy, I wonder if it’s more due to that than Bethesda realizing they were being insane.

Scratch all that… I just checked and I hadn’t seen my currency plumeted to shit in the last two weeks… so no, they didn’t reduce the price, it’s just SteamDB that updated the currencies… the game is still stupidly expensive in my country… u_u

Doom64 does seem to be better priced… not by much mind you, given the currency, but it’s at least not overpriced like D:E, even by past standards.

It’s good that Steam do regional pricing, they can do it because you buy through their program rather than a website where location is easily manipulated. It definitely reduced piracy here because previously games were out of reach of a lot of people. A starting salary for a uni graduate in Malaysia is about $600 so buying a game at $60 is 10% of your earnings. When I got here 17 years ago everything was pirated and the games makers were making nothing (I am not exaggerating there, there was nowhere that sold original games even if you wanted to pay full price). Now people buy through Steam.

I agree though it can often be rather randomly applied, instead of applying a fixed percentage discount some items are really cheap and some not at all.

Yeah regional prices are pretty good… but again, that depends on the publisher… there’s been a recent-ish trend with triple A publishers to do whatever the heck the want and overprice their games in certain countries though, like here in Mexico. My guess is they have some data that suggests they can get away with it, but it’s still a shitty practise.

Fortunately, the vast majority of publishers/games seem to follow the same regional pricing pattern, which is a lot more fair. My guess is that Steam has a “suggested” price listing, but you obviously don’t need to follow it. So most indie devs, who probably can’t afford any sort of global market research, just go with those suggestions, whereas triple A games don’t and follow their internal stats instead, hence the huge difference.

But sometimes it’s just sooo random… Like, Doom eternal was announced with a +25% tag, whereas Doom64 had a slight reduction. They both came out at the same time… so what’s the difference? Who knows…

At any rate, that randomness totally kills dead the silly idea that those price hikes are due to taxes or currency value, as many people argue… That’s clearly not the case, because if that were the case, both Doom Eternal and 64 would’ve had the same % of either a markup or a reduction, since they came out at the same time and are published by the same company…

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garjones

Ben wrote:

Booted up Doom 2016 tonight, gave the Foundry level a go in Arcade.  Fuck, is that level utter shit.  Got so bored with all the lack of ways to work where to go and what to interact with I immolated Doom Guy in the doorway on fire.

But it’s not just that, there’s just too much shit to juggle at high speed, it just doesn’t work for me.  It’s why I waited until the game was under a tenner so there’s not much left.  At the same time the whole desperation, down-to-sliver-of-health then recover style isn’t one I like either.  It’s also why The Last of Us doesn’t work for me, it’s that same style that I don’t like.

Chances of my looking at Doom Eternal, even when dirt cheap? -251.

Ooof… if you don’t like that aspect, then yeah, you should probably not bother with Eternal, because they doubled… nay… tripled down on that aspect while making the game considerably faster and harder… =P

Jon wrote:

making the game considerably faster and harder

This is bang on. I’m finding it quite challenging. While small skirmishes are perfectly straight forwards I’ll usually die a couple of times in the larger arena battles. I never feel cheated when this happens and will often mutter “fuck, I should/shouldn’t have done that”

I know Ben and I fundamentally disagree on this point but I think that’s a mark of excellent game design.

If i game makes you learn it, and if you make a mistake you feel it’s due to your actions and not the games, then I think it’s brilliant.  That’s a chief reason why I like the Soulsborne stuff.

I found Doom 2016 pretty hard in parts, but it’s doable once you get the rhythm.  Doom Eternal looks like it’s just going to max this out.

I think signposting is different to difficulty / style. Doom goes for a style that doesn’t work for me but does for lots of others.

Difficulty is far more an individual thing as to if the feeling that the game is being unduly unfair.

Every game starts off as a stacked deck against the player, who then finds ways to reduce it. Difficulty is the severity of that.

Oh, I don’t think I agree with that.  I think there are badly designed games which are “unfair” where hitboxes are deceptive or something, and there are games which have challenges that aren’t properly playtested to understand how a gamer is going to address them and know when to ease up on the difficulty, and then there are games which are challenging, but the challenge is very deliberately designed to be overcome and not just to punish.

I think Mario Maker levels are a good example of both our points.

Miyamoto levels draw the player in then become more difficult. I’m quite certain there are loads of player designed levels that have an immediate vertical difficulty wall that deters playing the level.

Jon wrote:

My guess is that Steam has a “suggested” price listing, but you obviously don’t need to follow it.

Almost certainly. With other online distributors like Amazon or Comixology (before Amazon bought them) that’s basically the model. They make pricing suggestions but the decision stops with the actual content owner.

It would explain why it isn’t uniform but as you say the two Doom titles from the same people is a little weird.

garjones wrote:

Jon wrote:

My guess is that Steam has a “suggested” price listing, but you obviously don’t need to follow it.

Almost certainly. With other online distributors like Amazon or Comixology (before Amazon bought them) that’s basically the model. They make pricing suggestions but the decision stops with the actual content owner.

It would explain why it isn’t uniform but as you say the two Doom titles from the same people is a little weird.

And that’s of course not the only case… Lots of weird pricing instances from triple A publishers… another notable one was Capcom’s “Marvel vs Capcom” games, where the third one was released with a higher price tag than the 4th (and newer one)  which was released with a lower price tag. If you check them right now the third one has a +12% tag, while the most recent has a -50% tag… that’s also a pretty huge gap that makes no sense. Capcom in general is very weird with their regional prices… soooo random.

[Bruce]

Anonymous wrote:

I found Doom 2016 pretty hard in parts, but it’s doable once you get the rhythm.  Doom Eternal looks like it’s just going to max this out

Yep. This is how I felt tonight. Got through a whole level without dying and felt it was because I’d “clicked” with the game. The battle chess analogy that a lot of the promo material has mentioned is certainly an aspect, as is the constant need to resource manage and restock mid combat. There’s also a huge element of battle ballet – the constant need to keep moving, jumping, spinning, dashing and parkouring means you really need to be in the zone when playing. After a particularly intense skirmish the wife turned to me and went “thank fuck that’s over, now I can blink!” The fact casual spectators find it intense is probably the best representation of the need for focus.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Bruce.

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Dave

I played Doom Eternal properly today.

Just the first mission from start to finish (Hell on Earth) – its very, very retro and clearly hearkening back to the original Doom 2 (with the enemy choices – Imp, Shotgun Guys, Arachnotrons and Cacodemons).  The lighting is also clearly designed to make the enemies look like sprites, and all the colours, graphics, level design and imagery in general seems to be very deliberately taking us back to early 90s Doom in a way that the 2016 remake never did.

I did get past the first level and had a look at the next one (Exultia) and the design seems to be a bit more modern so maybe the first level is more or less an easter egg for fans.  With this said, the game play very much builds on the rhythm of the first one (constant glory kills are very much needed to survive) and it is extremely fast paced and intense.  It’s not unmanageable, and it doesn’t require super lightning reflexes, it just means a lot of zipping around the maps glory-killing enemies which is likely to feel very foreign if you aren’t familiar with Doom 2016 and are more familiar with cover-based FPS.

The gameplay is obviously expanded now and there are new devices to suck health, armour, or ammo out of the enemies dependent on what you need at the time.  You clearly need to think on your feet as to whether you’re going to go for a glory-kill and get your health back, chainsaw someone to replenish ammo, or flamer someone to get some extra armour drops.  Clearly this philosophy will expand the further the game goes.

It hasn’t clicked with me yet, and it doesn’t feel as innovative and interesting as Doom 2016 yet, but I’m sticking with it.

In other news I finished Nioh 2.  There were some incredibly tough bosses (Shibata Katsuie you fucking fuck I hate you you fuck) Reading various commentary on the game is interesting because some bosses I found tough were easy for others, while others I melted through had other players pulling their hair out.  By the endgame it becomes more akin to Diablo in that you’re just hunting for better gear and are so stacked with abilities that you can blitz most enemies (provided youre still avoiding attacks), while in the start of the game it’s far more Soulslike where you have to pace yourself and be incredibly patient in combat.

I’m dabbling in some other stuff – like the online expeditions and the twilight stuff in new game plus – but the endgame grind to max out the equipment is probably a little beyond me.  I will probably check out the DLC when it comes.  It’s a very good game – it’s not so polished like Fromsoft stuff, and I can’t say I found it as emotionally thrilling or satisfying as Sekiro, but it is a fun and incredibly depp game that really is one of a kind.

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Ben, Dave

After binging on two games worth of Kingdom Hearts cutscenes last week, I actually took a break from it and played through Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap this past week.

It’s… well, it’s a good game, not a great game but comfortably good. But as a Zelda game, it’s a bit lacking.

It’s the first Zelda I’ve played to completion in ages where I haven’t got all 20 hearts. It’s just such a grind to do so because most are locked behind Kinstone fusing, one of the game’s main gimmicks. This is where you have to go up to pretty much every NPC in the game and see if they have a fragment of a little medal they’ll match up with one of yours. If they do, a change happens in the overworld. It’s not a terrible idea, but it gets really bloody tedious, not least because half the results are nowhere near where you are when you fuse and because a lot of it is randomised. So there’s very little causality to it and it quickly feels arbitrary and disconnected from the actual game, a gimmick instead of actual side quests.

The other thing that put me off is that one heart piece is locked behind getting all 130 collectible figurines in the game. I say collectable, that’s generous, as they’re only available in one place, through a randomised gacha capsule machine that runs on a crypto-currency of seashells. Every time you get a new figurine, your odds dwindle unless you raise stakes, so you’re having to pay 10s if not 100s of shells for a good chance of a new figurine pretty quickly. But even when the odds are in your favour, it feels rigged. Worst of all, it just takes ages to do. I had a full wallet of seashells and spent an hour trying to get the figurines and only collected about 40. The drawn out process of it all broke me.

The other weird thing is that there’s lot of recycled music in this. Not all of it is, but pretty much everything in Hyrule castle and town is just copied from Ocarina of Time, which is an odd decision.

I am on a classic Tomb Raider binge. About halfway through number 3.
I just prefer the old graphics and old Lara… I am old school like that.

Exciting, eh?

Final Fantasy 7 remake released in Australia today.

I’m picking it up tomorrow, and Ill probably get Resident Evil 3 too at the same time (why not? it might be a while before new releases if Last of Us and Ghosts of Tsushima get delayed).

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Ben

Far Cry 4 on PS4 – completed a second time on the weekend. I bought this game over a year ago second-hand from EB for $12 having loved FC3 on X-Box360. I was really enjoying FC4 but stopped playing in March last year because of the NZ massacre – seeing some of the gunman’s footage on the news here really made me feel uncomfy about FPS so I stuck to FIFA for about 9 months.

When I finally got back to FC4 earlier this year I finally completed the story and wanted to work through some of the collectibles and whatnot but also wanted to start again – that a game of this era doesn’t allow more than one save is pretty ridiculous. But my desire to start again was stronger than holding on to my accomplishments so I started a new game and plowed through it over a few weekends – about 40 hours in total, and I enjoyed it just as much; maybe moreso having covered it in one go. I wanted more and Far Cry 5 was on sale on the PSN store so I snapped it up on Sunday (it took 7 hours to DL though, which was pretty horrendous).

It’s… quite a departure from 3 and 4. They are pretty much identical games in gameplay, just with different settings (a Pacific Island in 3, a small Himalayan nation in 4), and the similarity isn’t a weakness – I could play 10 games with the same approach set over different locations quite happily. You start as a basic civilian, unlock parts of the map, learn new skills, attain new weapons, and take down a few mini-bosses on the way to the big boss, by which point you’re basically John Wick meets Rambo.

So far, a few hours into 5 it’s a very different game. It looks amazing, the wilderness and lighting in particular (the people not so much), but it seems less well thought out, and so far it’s nowhere near as challenging. I’ll obviously stick with it, but I don’t have high hopes of it topping or meeting FC3 or FC4. I did play FC2 but not for very long – not my kind of game.

Yeah I loved Far Cry 3 (I skipped 4) and found Far Cry 5 to just be missing something.

I think it’s that Far Cry 3 felt exotic and adventurous while the antagonists and the mid-western cult setting in Far Cry 5 is less appealing.

I thought the gameplay in FC5 was fine, and the map was fine, but I didn’t find it as memorable as FC 3 and didn’t bother with the follow-up game, New Dawn, which is a “sequel” set on a revised version of the same map.

Andrew wrote:

that a game of this era doesn’t allow more than one save is pretty ridiculous

On PS4 you can always just set up a different user account on your console and play it on that.

Anonymous wrote:

Final Fantasy 7 remake released in Australia today. I’m picking it up tomorrow

Unless you’ve a copy reserved, you might want to move a bit faster.  I’ve been notified that Base can’t get enough copies – starting to consider going digital on this one now – I rarely do so but starting to think it might work better, especially with it being a 2-disc game.

I’m also deep in Dragon Quest 11, having a great time with that, in no hurry to finish it – have a 10+ gbame backlog to go through and have recently acquired Judgment, so I’m kind of set?

Andrew wrote:

FC4 earlier this year I finally completed the story and wanted to work through some of the collectibles and whatnot but also wanted to start again – that a game of this era doesn’t allow more than one save is pretty ridiculous.

Could be worse I suppose – they could be charging you for extra saves.

Far Cry Primal is probably my favourite of the recent Far Cry games. It actually felt different from all the others rather than leaving you going “hold on, which one is this again?”

Just heard back from Base – my FF7R order is in the batch they’re getting next week.

Also they’ve gotten thank you emails from NHS staff using games as an escape. Quite cool that.

They’re running as much as they can remotely too.

 

 

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Dave

Ben wrote:

Unless you’ve a copy reserved, you might want to move a bit faster.  I’ve been notified that Base can’t get enough copies – starting to consider going digital on this one now – I rarely do so but starting to think it might work better, especially with it being a 2-disc game

Tempted as I was to rush down to my nearesrt JBHiFi at 4.30 in the morning…

I picked it up this morning and it was fine.   Probably largely because my nearest stores are all city based and aren’t getting a lot of traffic now.  The lady at the counter did say one or two other stores have sold out already and they will be getting another shipment in but not before the ACTUAL release date. Anyway, I have it in my hot little hand (bag).

Evidently there is upsides to the coronavirus because I do get to play these early.

And by all accounts RE3 will terrify your arse.

However,  since you played RE7 in VR you might have immunity

Yeah, I’ve been playing video games occasionally in my lunch break and I think Doom and RE3 might be a little toointense and adrenaline inducing for what is meant to be a “break”.

Hopefully FF7R will have some side quests or exploration I can do a little more idly

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah I loved Far Cry 3 (I skipped 4) and found Far Cry 5 to just be missing something.

If you loved 3 I can’t recommend 4 enough – it’s still exotic and adventurous; really very similar gameplay with the outposts to liberate, and animal skins and plants to collect. The main enemy is pretty captivating and well written, and your own character is much less obnoxious than the frat boy of FC3.

Oh btw, I remember people discussing Toe Jam & Earl at some point in here, so just to tell you guys, the remake is currently on sale (75%) on steam…  up until monday, IIRC.

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Bruce, Dave

[Martin Smith]

I started in on Kingdom Hearts II this week. It’s the Final Mix version in the PS4 anthology release, which I think might be a significant distinction. There’s stuff here that feels like later additions, mainly the opening prologue section with Roxas. Following Roxas and his friends around Twilight Town doing mundane stuff makes for a very slow opening – it took me three hours to get to even the title showing up and it’s even longer after that before you properly get into the full-on Disney-FF-fanfic-esque mash-up that is the core of Kingdom Hearts. There’s a fairly strong Metal Gear Solid vibe to it all – the fake out protagonist convolutedly related to the proper one , the impenetrable story.

Having played/watched 358/2 Days first (even though it was released later) has helped with my understanding of the plot, so I think I know what’s going on, but on the other hand, I feel like I’ve been given a lot of spoilers for things that will be big reveals later. But anyway, that’s fairly inconsequential, it’s all about dicking around in weird retellings of Disney films and so far it’s delivered on that with Mulan, Hercules, Beauty and the Beast, Steamboat Willie and Pirates of the Caribbean at me. Pirates of the Caribbean feels the weirdest of those, not only because it uses a (relatively) realistic art style to represent its world and characters and has none of the original actors reprising their roles, but because it just feels so screamingly mid-00s. It’s dated almost as badly as the blocky Y2K menu fonts.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Martin Smith.

I have been inclined to check it out but I rarely dont have anything to play these days. Maybe if everything coming out this year gets delayed I’ll give it a download.

I did play a bit if FF7R tonight (chapters 1 and 2). I make the following comments:

1. The graphics are best in class. I have never seen better lighting or fire effects.

2. The combat is updated extremely well. It is just as tactical as the original while bringing it into real time. Certain enemied require different approached and you switch these up fluidly in battle.

3. The narrative structure is made clear from Chapter 2.  This is telling the same story as the original game but not in the same way.  I am expecting certain plot beats will be hit earlier than the original and others expanded on. I’m.being very careful not to give anything away but there are significant differences in the way the story is told from early on.

4. The new structure makes me think this is a 3 game franchise.  There’s plenty of story and they could pad it out for more but it looks like this chapter is going to cover some important plot points and it feels already like they will keep it tight.

5. Im collecting trophies but I can’t view them. Presumably this is locked until the street release.  This is incredibly frustrating and enough to make me want to put it down for a week until I can properly track my trophies (I’m a sucker for acievements).

6. This is waifu central. Male White Japanese anime fanatics whatever they are called are going to go ballistic over the women. They’re all extremely adorable.

7. The characterisation is good. It means into each characters stereotype and gives us glimpses of depth early which fans knows must get paid off. At the same time theres some lighthearted and cleverly done fun made at the characters and how they have been perceived over the 2 decades since the last game

 

 

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Ben

[Ben]

Ouch. The Last of Us II is delayed indefinitely.

Which translates to me as ‘until this C19 shit is over’.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Ben.

I’d say pretty much and you can’t really blame them when physical sales are still a big chunk and those shops are shut in many countries. On the other hand a lot of people at home with a lot of time to waste on video games.

I do wonder whether, in this case, there’s also a content aspect.

Playing a game about living in the post-apocalyptic aftermath of a global infection pandemic might not be the kind of escapism people are seeking at the moment.

(Still, it’s a disappointment as I was really looking forward to it.)

I suspect C19 has affected their staff. If that is so, it limits their options and games aren’t that important.

Also , this is a guaranteed hit no matter when it comes out.

In other news, Trails of Cold Steel IV has just been announced for western release

Ben wrote:

I suspect C19 has affected their staff. If that is so, it limits their options and games aren’t that important.

I gather the game is more or less done, its logistics issues that are causing the problem here. Which is fair enough in the current climate.

We also have to step back and look at the bigger picture, which is that financial projections are going to be all over the place at the moment, especially if – as I expect – the big console launches planned for this year are delayed to 2021 too.

Without the PS5 this year it makes sense for Sony to spread out TLoU2 and Ghost Of Tsushima later in the year.

That’s a point – is Ghost still on track? As its giant competition has just vanished.

No delay announced yet as far as I can see, but given that they’re both Sony games I could see the same happening. When was it due, June?

I imagine a lot of the big games will see delays for similar reasons. I’m just thankful Doom Eternal came in under the wire (a week and counting until I can actually play it).

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Ben

Yep, June and there’s nothing else in that part of the year. Could get bumped , especially as, like you I don’t think the next gen can launch this year now.

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Dave

The previous commentary from Sony on this was that they weren’t expecting c19 to affect their q2 earnings.

The thinking on that has obviously changed. With Days Gone being a less then stellar release, SIE really needs LOU2 to come out with a bang and it’s virtually guaranteed to … But not if it’s digital only with digital only promotion.

Ghosts of Tsushima and Last of Us arent really in competition but, like blockbuster films, tentpole games release clear of each other to maximise profit.

The other big releases of the year are Avengers and Cyberpunk.  If Last of Us doesn’t launch in August,  I could see them holding on for a November or Christmas release.

Sidenote: the openingbsequencebof RE3 is scarily prescient – there are riots and filmed news reports on a pandemic keeping people on their homes…

[Ben]

Meanwhile in Dragon Quest XI, the Fortress of Fear is one very well-realised dungeon.  (Did do a couple of more detailed posts covering various earlier sections but the board ate them)

Initially, you get hit with a gate guardian boss fight that is deceptively tricky, even if you’re inclined to be cautious and over-leveled. It doesn’t let up either, for as you ascend the fortress, the enemies become stronger – there are some serious bastards in here with serious abilities.

At the same time the graphical design is superbly creepy and wonderfully detailed.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Ben.

There are things I am wanting to say about FF7R which will evidently have to wait until.tbe street release.

I am, by a best guess, somewhere between a quarter and a third through the narrative.  That does not necessarily equate to playtime, but only in terms of purely progressing through the story.

My feelings – lest this borderline turn to a review – are many and varied.

One thing I will say is that the power fantasy of male gamers imprinting them on Cloud while being flirted with by very adorable female characters is well realised.  More can be said here, and this should not be taken as an adverse finding of any of the three (!) female protagonists who make Clouds acquaintance by the stage I’m at in the game

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Ben

I’m telling Sypha.

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Ben

Dearest, I did not say I thought it was a good thing, just that it was very well realised.

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Ben

Oh, I know. Your hand looks happy in that picture.

Oh definitely not in that sense – not in the porny sense.  In the writing and acting sense.  The budget behind this game is very evident.

I didn’t think you meant anything else. I’ve been reading some of the reviews. It sounds great.

In other news, I have the lend of a new toy to play with. I’m about to open my first chest. I’m very excited.