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?
Video Games
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Well, that was a very satisfying set of final bosses for Act 2 of Dragon Quest XI.
Duffing up the penultimate boss? Very, very satisfying – especially having Hendrick smash the crap out of him with Unbridled Blade, the damage on that is nuts, but even better than that was Erik racking up 1400 damage due to a triple time quadruple attack! Yes, you read that right, a 12-hit combo.
The final, final bosses? These were clearly put together with this mind: So, you think you’ve over-leveled, have you?
Because doing these on the lower, more recommended level would have been a damn sight harder. Even with my powering up the gang, being attentive to gear, it got close on a couple of occasions.
The ending sequence was quite something too.
I’m now on Act 3 which, for some, is controversial and I can kind of see why, but am going to see where it goes, have done the first boss only of that.
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I gave my nine-year-old daughter her first shot on G1 Doom today (which I currently have on the PS3 as part of the BFG collection).
I’m not sure whether it was the responsible thing to do or not as her first reaction was “shooting this gun feels satisfying.”
She took to it really quickly anyway, whizzing through the levels quite deftly and displaying a slightly worrying knack for wheeling around and executing one-shot kills (especially once she got the shotgun).
And then I realised that a lot of the mechanics of the game are actually very similar to Minecraft, which she still plays regularly at the moment, so she slipped right into it.
So it turns out Minecraft is a gateway game that leads to stronger stuff. Be warned, parents.
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Just a wee heads up re Archviles in Doom Eternal. Fuck those guys. Fuck those guys to fucking fuckery and back. Most uses of the BFG9k are because you want to use it. The only time I’ve needed to use the BFG9k are encounters with the Archviles. That includes a skirmish last night in what I think is the last level that features three Cyberdemons (renamed Tyrants this time around).
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I gave my nine-year-old daughter her first shot on G1 Doom today (which I currently have on the PS3 as part of the BFG collection).
I’m not sure whether it was the responsible thing to do or not as her first reaction was “shooting this gun feels satisfying.”
She took to it really quickly anyway, whizzing through the levels quite deftly and displaying a slightly worrying knack for wheeling around and executing one-shot kills (especially once she got the shotgun).
And then I realised that a lot of the mechanics of the game are actually very similar to Minecraft, which she still plays regularly at the moment, so she slipped right into it.
So it turns out Minecraft is a gateway game that leads to stronger stuff. Be warned, parents.
If your kid starts saying ‘rip and tear’ be afraid, be very afraid parents.
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If your kid starts saying ‘rip and tear’ be afraid, be very afraid parents.
From the insanity that is the Doom comic.
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Just a wee heads up re Archviles in Doom Eternal. Fuck those guys. Fuck those guys to fucking fuckery and back. Most uses of the BFG9k are because you want to use it. The only time I’ve needed to use the BFG9k are encounters with the Archviles. That includes a skirmish last night in what I think is the last level that features three Cyberdemons (renamed Tyrants this time around).
FUCKING FLAMEY RESURRECTY FUCKHEADS! FUCK THEM TO SHREDS STUPID FUCKHEAD FUCKS!
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I remain curious about it.
I’m told, Ben, you know it’s quite … errrr …. challenging at times….
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Hahahah!
Yeah, but so too is Everspace – (the sequel is one to keep an eye on because it will not be a roguelike) and despite that game handing me my arse on numerous occasions, there is that quite insidious gameplay loop where you get a couple of upgrades for the next run – and even if that next run goes badly, you still mostly get something out of it, which incentivises another run…It’s fucking evil, I tell you….
But does it work? Er…. Yeah, it really does.
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Streets of Rage is supposed to be released 23rd April.
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I always kind of liked Skate being the only one who could run in SoR2.
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I’m still plugging away at Kingdom Hearts 2. I have absolutely no idea how far along I am with it though. It’s got a very weird pacing. In the first one, you visited a world, beat it, moved on. This one, you visit a world, do stuff, move on, then have to go back again later. It’s pretty dubious in narrative terms (given they’re supposed to be searching for people, why return to literally everywhere they’ve already been for no compelling reason?).
I think I might be near the end though, as I’ve reached the rainy city from the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts 1, so presumably I’m getting close to the final boss (though there’s loads of other stuff to do). Hit my first real roadblock last night, with a boss fight that I kept dying on. I ended up abandoning it and going off elsewhere to level up. It turns out levelling up the weird “forms” that Sora can transform into is sort of important, which is a shame, because I’ve been mostly ignoring them. They’re a bit of pain, because you have to build up a meter to activate them, then they’re time-limited (though not necessarily in an amount related to the activation metre you filled) and, most infuriatingly, there is a weird punishment mode you’ll sometimes be turned into instead, as penalty for trying to use them too much. Which is pretty bloody galling for a game feature I don’t particularly care about but have to use.
One other thing I’ve found interesting in the game (even if no-one else will) is that all the early 00s teen heart-throbs and Disney Channel stars that were stunt-cast as the Final Fantasy characters for KH1 (Christy Carlson Romano, Mandy Moore, Lance Bass, a particularly bored sounding David Boreanez as Squall) have been replaced for this game, by people who work more regularly as voice actors. Except for Aerith, who is voiced by Mena Suvari, of all people.
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I always kind of liked Skate being the only one who could run in SoR2.
Well then you should like SOR4… Only Cherry can run, and Adam can dash (and the other 3 can go fuck themselves it seems
)… I honestly never liked that only Skate could “run” (well, he skated), because I didn’t wanna play with him, since he was the weakest and it took forever to kill ennemies with him… I mean, sure it must’ve been neat before SOR3 happened, I suppose, but I actually somehow managed to skip SOR2 altogether back in the day and only played 1 & 3 for some reason… so by the time I played 2, I was quite underwhelmed with it… =/ -
Honestly I always felt that SoR3 was a letdown after the second game. It’s off-balance and I thought Zan was a bit crap.
SoR2 is perfectly balanced and polished in a way that the third game isn’t.
Well then you should like SOR4… Only Cherry can run, and Adam can dash (and the other 3 can go fuck themselves it seems )…
That special move is only unlockable as DLC.
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The sequel is where the big graphics and sound jump happened – it was one of the first 16-Meg cartridges.
Yeah, that’s right, 16MB!
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Ohh it’s not so cheap then… I must’ve bought it during a big sale… well, it’s not super expensive either… it’s worth the price tho, it has quite a bit of content for this type of game and lots of replayability with the multiple paths and different endings.
Edit: Oh and btw, you can find it in bundles by now as well… should’ve maybe said that before… sorry =P
it’s actually in one bundle right now, but not a super cheap one, although quite decent, some of those games are well worth the asking price…
https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/platinum-collection-build-your-own-bundle-march-2020
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I have finally started playing Doom Eternal.
It is metal.
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I also got this today.
A copy of Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, which I dropped some none-too-subtle hints to my wife about, after Bruce mentioned it a while back. It’s a beautiful book and a real treasure trove for fans of that era – I love all the concept and development art for both the games and the console.
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Thanks!
I had promised the kids that I would buy this on my birthday for us to play together.
It’s lots of fun. It turns out every one of us has an inner shitty mischievous goose that we’re just itching to unleash.
Seriously though, it’s a really nicely put-together game. Although the concept and gameplay are fairly simple, there’s a polish here in terms of the presentation, music, animations etc. that just makes it a joy to play.
Also, the stealth mechanics are better than some of the far more high-profile stealth games that I’ve played.
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Happy Birthday Dave.
Glad you’ve had a fun day grumping around as a goose.
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Speaking of Sephiroth…
I have finished FF7Remake. I really enjoyed it and provide the following observations:
1. The pacing is all the way bullshit. Don’t think you’re two thirds of the way through the game just because you’re at chapter 12 of 18. Chapter length varies dramatically – some, such as the first mission can be short ranging from 45 minutes to an hour. Others can take 3 hours and there was one which took me 6 hours to do because it involved a lot of side-quests.
2. There are what I’ll call “story” zones and “hub” zones. Story zones are linear gameplay that push you from point A-B. Most chapters are like this but there are a few “hub” zones where you’re given more of a free-run of the area and these are the chapters that will allow you to do sidequests. From memory, there only are four of these throughout the game.
3. The sidequests are mostly naff but you should do them for levels, treasure and to see some new monsters.
4. The combat learning curve is also strangely paced. It can be quite hard in the beginning but it can quickly become bouts where you seemingly just push attach and do special moves. This does change. Closer to the end you need to pay way more attention to your materia management and weapon upgrades, and consider which spells to utilise and which abilities to execute and when. There are a couple of skill-checks throughout the game to check you understand the mechanics but you can still kind of steamroll those enemies. It’s not until closer to the end that you need to start playing smart, which is more akin to how battles were in the original game.
5. Start working on levelling up your magic materia (green) as soon as you can. So as soon as you get a new type of green materia equip it to an active character. The additional spells become pretty useful later and it avoids a grind. This goes for weapon skills to – you should try to maxout a weapon proficiency everytime you get a new one to get the skill. There’s also special battle intel requirements which needs this.
6. Do the battle intels. They give you summons after you’ve done enough and you can only get the best summons in the game by doing these. They’re generally not that hard and if you plan ahead you’ll avoid a grind. The 200% stagger one can be done with tifa using her triangle skill.
7. If you get stuck on a particular VR Challenge or Colliseum challenge, there is an option to go classic and the fight will mostly automate except for choosing skills. This makes it a lot easier if you’re just looking to get a result (or a summon).
8. The game is lovingly crafted and it can be tempting to smash through it but it does remind you to stop and enjoy the scenery. There world is very well realised and it’s quite nice spending time with the members of Avalanche at certain points (who are all very likeable – Wedge is voiced by badger from Breaking Bad and eminently positive, Biggs is like a young charlie sheen without the ego, and Jessie is just adorable) and Aerith (who kills it with the mo-cap and voice acting – she’s very, very likeable). Tifa is great too and Barrett steals his scenes with his big-black man overzealous eco-terrorist thing. Red XIII appears too, later, and he’s a perfect rendition and instantly likeable.
9. The game is really funny in parts. All the bonkers humour from the original is maintained here and they do a pretty amazing job of balancing the mature themes, with scene-chewing villains and off-beat humour. I could give a couple of more examples of this but I don’t want to spoil anything.
10. Like the original, there are two motor-cycle sequences and they suck, like they did with the original. This actually seems to be a deliberate design choice.
11. The bosses are probably the standout gameplay elements (both design wise and getting you to appreciate the nuance of the mechanics). The last two chapters have, I think from memory, 6 or 7 and some of them are back-to-back. It’s classic Final Fantasy and designed to ramp up the tension and it works.
12. There are a couple of bullshit stun-lock moves and bosses have an annoying habit of interrupting certain spells and abilities. This doesn’t happen on classic but it does happen on normal and it can be very frustrating if you think you’ve got a spell ready to go and all of a sudden you get hit from an out of nowhere projectile. You have to pick your timing and sometimes that means not just launching things as soon as the ATB bar fills. This goes for executing abilities too. Alot of them need to be close to the enemy otherwise you will miss. It’s very easy to think the game is cheating you here, and to a certain extent it is (particularly on the harder optional monsters). I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve had a revive ready to go only to get hit before the animation finishes. You just have to be cautious of the enemy and watch their attacks and either dodge or block before making your move – easier said then done.
13. I found ATB first strike and Healing linked with Magnify to be the single three most useful materias in the game, so watch out for those.
14. The story takes a pretty big swerve near the end but it is mostly faithful right up through, with all the set-pieces and characters you’d expect. There are some padding areas and some of the areas are expanded which can sometimes feel like a trudge if you are waiting for the next story beat but I suggest you just enjoy them as they’re mostly pretty fun. The twist near the end is talked about a lot on line and, frankly, I don’t mind it because we get to fight Sephiroth which is an awesome fight and it’s basically the designers telling the audience to expect the unexpected from future entries . With that said, I’m not sure how it will go with someone unfamiliar with the base-games story as it does introduce a major character near the end without naming them or explaining who they are.
15. The endgame is pretty complex. It’s basically replaying the game on “Hard” which is a significant difference to normal because you really, really need to block and dodge, where normal never really made that essential, and it also limits magic use and prohibits item use. The whole idea here is certain “manuscripts” can only be found on hard and you need these to unlock the final set of upgrades for your characters so they have the skills to take on the optional monsters. It’s actually looks like a surprisingly worthwhile endgame made easier by the fact that you can do it via chapter select rather than playing straight through, I’ve already done one chapter (chapter 8) on Hard and nabbed a few manuscripts. I am tempted to go through the whole thing, but I am also imagining how much trouble some of the later bosses and simulations will bring.
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Thanks!
I had promised the kids that I would buy this on my birthday for us to play together.
It’s lots of fun. It turns out every one of us has an inner shitty mischievous goose that we’re just itching to unleash.
Seriously though, it’s a really nicely put-together game. Although the concept and gameplay are fairly simple, there’s a polish here in terms of the presentation, music, animations etc. that just makes it a joy to play.
Also, the stealth mechanics are better than some of the far more high-profile stealth games that I’ve played.
Pretty sure this was made by Australians. Which explains a lot
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Yeah, I saw that it was made by an Australian company. I presume there must be some UK influence there though, as the observational stuff about UK life is pitched pretty perfectly, even down to the in-game menus imitating different types of UK road signs.
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There are two post game boss battles too; one with Sephiroth and one with some guy from the director’s cut additional ending scene (teasing the next semi-sequel, Birth By Sleep). I had a go at both and they can get fucked. They’ve both got about 10 health bars and killed me in about four hits each. I’m sure if I levelled up to 99 or so I could conceivably take them, but ::shrug::.
This is quite a typical Final Fantasy model. They always have 2 or 3 insanely overpowered bosses outside the main story game (and I know KH isn’t a core FF game but in the same family).
I did do the Ultima Weapon recently in Final Fantasy 8 and they make no bones about you needing to grind up to the top level as one attack does exactly 9998 damage to your entire team, leaving you to heal from 1 hit point only if you max out your stats. If you aren’t level 99 then you’ll get wiped out instantly.
When you get to Final Fatasy VII they hide away the Ruby and Emerald weapon as super tough optional bosses if you can be bothered.
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Finished Farcry5. It got better as I went along; the world/map is pretty big, and there is a great “twist” at the end of the third map that I maybe wasn’t paying enough attention to anticipate at all. The story isn’t as good as 3 or 4, and it was actually quite buggy for a console game. I haven’t noticed bugs in games in ages – but here there were characters that would get stuck, or things would disappear (things I’m meant to interact with!).
There are still outposts to liberate (the best part of 3 and 4), but none of them were challenging – I died way more often from miss-timing a parachute deployment than from enemy fire, and passed most missions on the first attempt. The story ending is a real downer that almost invalidates the entire gaming experience if you care about that.
Upon finishing it I immediately restarted a “New game +” on a harder setting and am making my way through a second time (it’s an extra long weekend, and quasi-lockdown; what else am I gonna do?) while listening to podcasts.
I had originally thought I’d spend the long weekend playing a new game (there’s another online sale on (maybe Red Dead 2?)) but the idea of another 7 hour download puts me off.
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Dragon Quest 11
Talking of – took out Malicious Arachtagon, with the main difficulty is it’s two back-to-back boss fights. However, due to preparing accordingly, his major attack of confusion was blocked.
The big benefit to this was that it was the last Cobblestone quest and seeing the result of that made for a very satisfying stop point.
Took out another boss too, in Phnom Nohm – that was a fairly straight forward fight.
One thing that separates this from the Tales series is your visible enemies are quite a bit smarter. In Tales they will generally see you from far away, make a beeline for you, even at high levels – what follows is monster suicide. In this one they don’t do that, instead if they spot you and your level is on par, they might try and take you out, but if you are high level? They spot that too and leg it!
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The story ending is a real downer that almost invalidates the entire gaming experience if you care about that.
I normally spend a decent bit of time post story with these sorts of games moping side stuff up post game but with Far Cry 5 there was a very real sense of “why bother” because none of it matters.
Yeah, that and also it just doesn’t make sense.
SPOILERS
At the game’s end you confront the big baddie cult leader and are given the choice to walk away and let him do his thing, or arrest him (you are a deputy sheriff). If you walk away your allies leave with you and the cutscene hints at them planning on returning with the national guard, but your character’s brainwashing is triggered by a musical cue in the car and the screen fades to black.If you arrest him during his rant a nuke goes off in the distance (with word of others) and you all scramble to head to a side-character’s bunker, with the cult leader apprehended. You drive through burning terrain with tress aflame collapsing on the road and burning animals scampering, eventually crashing your car. You wake to find yourself handcuffed to a pole in a bunker from earlier in the game with the cult leader your only company. So basically it’s a nuclear apocalypse and your character is trapped underground. The end.
You can keep playing the game to collect missing items or complete side-missions after the credits run but the world/map isn’t destroyed or burned.
END SPOILERS
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Andrew, you know we have spoiler tags, right? [ spoiler ] [/ spoiler ] with the spaces removed.
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Finished RE3 which is disappointingly short. I do not recommend paying full price for this. RE2 is longer, more fun to replay, and generally a better survival horror game. RE3 is shorter, Jill isn’t interesting (which is annoying because she could have been an interesting character) and could have been DLC for RE2. It’s a Capcom cash in.
I am going along with Hard Mode in FF7R. It feels more like the go get levels of the original and does require planning and strategy. I managed to beat the Malboro simulation but I’m yet to unlock the secret one. I need to level up my Level 6 weapons more I think and so I’ll replay some more of the chapters ro find manuscripts.
Conversely I’m about halfway through Doom Eternal and dropped the difficulty down from Hurt Me Plenty to Too Young To Die. I just found I wasn’t paying attention to all the mechanics of the game because I was panicking about survival. This easiest difficult let’s me time to think instead of react which is a better state to learn the game for me. It’s usually blasphemy for me to play in the lowest difficulty but I’m not a Bruce tier champion and am finding it much more manageable. I did do the first 4 levels on Hurt me plenty and may replay on higher difficulties once I’ve upgraded my stats and weapons more.
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I’m not a Bruce tier champion
😂😂😂
I found the opening few levels hard going. Didn’t lower my difficulty but was tempted and can understand mere mortals doing so 😁. I’m now revising the early levels to find all the collectables and breezing through them now the combat has clicked and I’ve unlocked all my upgrades.
I tried the master levels (ingame levels with more, tougher enemies) though and that’s kicking my arse.
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I have to say I’m very impressed by the Doom Eternal Champions out there.
It’s so fast paced and frantic and you’re pretty much always in low health. I felt good doing the Doom Hunter bit finally but then one of the arenas on Super Gore Nest got me and I thought “fuck it, im easing the tension”.
I went on all the way through the Marauder fight and while some arenas were okay , some were still damn tough and I got through the Marauder by the skin of my teeth…
I have managed to do do some of the purple demon gates though, two on HMP, and the last one on TYD which had three tyrants… definitely glad I did that one on “easy”…
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Its a weird game – it’s punishingly difficult but allows you to mix up the settings to make it accessible as possible.
All the achievenents / trophies can be unlocked on any difficulty. All the optional cheats and difficulty switches don’t impact progress either. The Sentinel Armour also offers a bit of support in a “play it your way” style too.
In fact, the only thing thay goes against this is the inflammatory naming of the difficulty setting.
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I kinda hate that they’re calling the cyberdemons “Tyrants”… like… wtf… THOSE are cyberdemons… not that WOW/Diablo-looking POS in 2016…
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Side note: what upgrades should I prioritise? Weapon mods/Praetor suit? And what runes would you recommend? I’m using the death slow down, air slow down and extended range resource pick up one.
Runes:
I used the death slo mo too. That’s probably the most important one. The blood punch shock wave was pretty useful for farming extra health.
Weapon upgrades:
The shotgun grenade launcher and full auto. The launcher is useful for auto staggering Cacodemons and destroying turrets on the Arachotron. Full auto spinning barrels chews thru enemies if they get too close.
The heavy cannon also has two good upgrades – the sight and the slow mo perk might come in useful for headshotting enemies later in the campaign and targeting weak areas (Mancubus arm cannons and Arachotron turrets) from a distance. Fully upgraded micro missiles are devastating too.
The chaingun mobile turrent is excellent for crowd control and larger enemies like the Baron of Hell too. If you collect any mastery tokens I’d use it on this as it stops it from overheating.
The flaming mastery upgrade for the super shotgun is a neat way of earning armour.
Suit tokens:
I personally went for all the exploration upgrades first but the dash upgrades and ice bomb ones where the most useful in terms of movement and combat/resource farming respectively.
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Ah okay, hugely useful!
I actually have completely avoided the icebomb and have been using the frag. I accidentlu switched over to it last night and remembered it existed! I’ll have to use it more.
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From what I’ve seen in videos the ice bomb is mostly useful to quickly get rid of pinkies/spectres, armoured mancubi and specially the archviles… I Honestly don’t see the point of having frag grenades considering you get both shotgun upgrades very early on…
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Also, some good news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rga1vqmSBEo
It looks like it’s confirmed you can run with the retro characters… that’s good. Plus I suppose their existence means a 3 button layout, which is also good. I really wish we could run with nuAxel and nuBlaze though… but oh well…
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Also Doom related:
Context: that’s John Romero, one of the original creators of Doom in the photo there.
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New lockdown survival strategy…. Streets of Rage 4 launches 30 April, with online play.
If any game was going to get me starting online gaming, it’ll be this one – anyone up for doing a MW squad to kick the crap out of Mr X and his infinite gang o’ goons?
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I’d love to but I’m not signed up to PS Plus sadly.
One of my major bugbears with the PS4 is having to pay a subscription for online gaming, as opposed to the PS3 where it was free – I just don’t do it often enough to justify the cost.
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