Done with Turnip Boy. It's a fun bitesized piece of Zelda-lite.
Made a start on Dead Cells now and enjoying it so far.
Done with Turnip Boy. It's a fun bitesized piece of Zelda-lite.
Made a start on Dead Cells now and enjoying it so far.
I really want to finish Dead Cells. It's good but I was better at it when I had so little unlocked.
Oh I don't imagine I'll ever finish it. Haven't found it too hard yet but this reeks of the sort of game I'll bounce off the difficulty curve eventually.
Anyone bothered with this Stray?
I'm a twit
I haven't and I'm not much of a cat person but I will at some point as it does look like my kind of thing.
Seems to me like something I'll enjoy once and then never think of again.
It's exactly that yeah, short and sweet but you'll have no reason to go back to it. It's a lovely version of one of those atmospheric walking simulator type games.
I finished Horizon Forbidden West:
Toggle Spoiler
Now on to Cyberpunk 2077 which apparently has gotten adapted for PS5 now. So far, my impressions are:
- It's coool, like how some of the cities (Omega) of Mass Effect would be if the game was made today.
- The characters surrounding you at the start seem well done and acted
- What little I've seen of battle so far has been a bit Mass Effect as well - just like a clunky shooter. I feel like it's missing some VATS mechanic or some such, but maybe that will come.
- Though I've discovered you can use Swords so will probably go with that.
The biggest problem so far is that it makes my brain hurt, literally. The city in itself is sensory overload - which I suppose is a good thing that's what you want cities in games to be - but I can see it getting tiresome after a while if the environment is just the same all the time. No Skyrim night skies here, exactly (or the serene trekking of Witcher 3 for that matter....). In fact it's a bit like they were blatantly trying to make the antithesis of Witcher 3 (which I get, but then again - why? It's the best game ever).
And on the topic of brain hurting - the menys are absolutely jarring. I sit pretty far from my TV when I play, so reading in the menus is a massive strain on an old mans eyes. It's getting quite bothersome, as the menus are so bloated with seemingly important info. The Map is extremely confusing as well.
Still, I think I'll end up enjoying this in a meaningless, Fallout kind of way (fuck about a lot).
THPS1+2 are on PS Plus this month. And Yakuza 7.
Videogames need to get on board with the idea of letting us climb ladders quickly, where's the harm in me just zipping right up there.
It's one of those things that I reckon gets a little too immersion-breaking compared to the benefit it brings to gameplay.
Of the 8000 things in each game that do that why not have one be useful.
I dunno. How many ladders do you actually climb in a game?
Unless you are playing snakes and ladders.
It'd put a whole different feel on that ladder climb in MGS3.
Disco must have hated Red Dead Redemption 2
I've been playing Dragon Age and at the third attempt I've gotten past the prologue/intro of Inquisition and this is just one of the many things wrong with it. It's quite amazing to see the last really good game they made (Origins) get progressively worse in the sequels as they cut all the interesting bits off and replace them with chores and the illusion of depth.
I stand by the ladder thing though, we're all happily zipping down them in ways in which nobody ever used a ladder but still crawling up them at a painfully slow rate. The ladder in MGS3 serves a purpose, it has narrative significance and it's own song for the occasion, probably the most thought out ladder in gaming.
Took me a bit to work out you were talking about actual ladders and not climbing rankings in competitive games.
Inquisition has a lot of very good stuff in there but and I enjoyed it a lot on my second playthrough as well but the structure of a lot of the basic gameplay is veeeery MMOy.
DA2 is the most interesting idea of the three but meh.
My thoughts on redoing Inquisition last year condensed:
The combat system in Origins is just so fucking good. I tried one of the others and the fact they took that away just made it unplayable for me.
My favourite combat in any RTS I've ever played.
The biggest problem with it so far is the combat (which has done well to be worse than the UI, controls, and the movement) which I assume is a fairly prominent part of the game and by extension the character system. I spent quite a while trying to work out where all my abilities were going to go when I started and why I didn't seem to have any stats or anything. Coming almost straight from Origins where you might have 30+ abilities by the end it was rather jarring to find that you get 8 slots (which I guess means each class gets exactly 8 abilities) and you don't get to assign stats or anything. It feels like they took the worst parts of Mass Effect and painted it all in fantasy colours, it remains to be seen if the same illusion of choice exists here as well. The culling of most of the skills makes the combat far more bland, pop the couple of abilities you have and then sit and wait for them to re-charge or for the enemies to be dead once you've convinced your character to actually attack anything. I understand that modern 'Bioware' games are just not built for me but it's still a shame to see them gutting the systems that helped make the first game so interesting.
I could be incredibly boring about how much fun you can have with an Entropy/Spirit mage and how much the combat/skill system lets you engage as much or as little as you really like. You can convince yourself that it's still sort of there in DA2 but they seem to have removed all pretence of tactics in Inquisition, it seems to be an entirely 'action' based game.
I finished Firewatch yesterday. Decent enough 4 hours of story with you playing a guy stationed in the forest during the dry season. The atmosphere is compelling but then they kinda just fall off with the ending which was a bit disappointing. I've enjoyed playing this sand Road 96, both games you can dip into without SEETHING.
I liked Firewatch a lot. A perfect "sit and coast through on a Sunday afternoon" sort of thing. If you like that sort of thing Kiko the obvious suggestion is Gone Home and Tacoma is really good too.
Excellent - thank you. Hopefully they're on gamepass.
Having ploughed a fair way into the game I'm in broad agreement about Inquisition. Goodness knows why they decided the first area should be so huge and require such high levels for bits of it, I ran into a level 12 rift at about level 6 which I guess is meant to teach you that you're going to be doing a lot of backtracking (thought you'd cleared an are, well here's a load of shards to look for) it isn't as well gated as some of the other areas. In fact I'd go as far as to say it's probably the worst map, immediately afterwards you go to the little desert area that is a thousand times better, something that size would have been far better to start with. On the whole most of the areas are quite fun to explore and uncover, they've always done a good job of telling little stories through notes and little scenes dotted through the landscape and the landscapes are certainly pretty. The addition of jumping is an odd one, that would suggest they want to encourage exploration but you quickly find that isn't the case, there's a prescribed route for almost everything (until of course there isn't and you do in fact have to Skyrim your way up to some areas) and your reward for deviation is normally an invisible wall or being knocked off something by your companions.
The combat and AI are frankly bizarre, in a lot of fights your whole team (and the enemies) will simply stop and stand around for a bit no matter what orders you've given or how their behaviour is set. The tactics screen from Origins got a lot of stick but it did actually work a lot of the time, the only saving grace being that the AI will use their abilities in between taking a break. I really don't understand the shift from everyone auto-attacking to needing two inputs to get the same result, same with no pause on combat initiation, it's an absolutely maddening change. Not the worst offence though, that is reserved for the skill system which I was in fact wrong about. You don't get 8 skills for your 8 slots you get a whole lot more so a decent number of your levels are completely wasted because you can't access all your abilities at once. How that sort of restriction made it into the game is beyond my comprehension, I cannot think of any reason for it let alone a sensible one (console versions of Origins/DA2 let you use as many as you like).
The Skyhold stuff is legitimately great, easily the best bit of the game. I thought they could have done more with the building/expansion (get rid of the repeating and pointless requisition stuff in favour of finding resources to build it up or recruit people for a start) but I do look forward to mucking about between missions chatting to everyone and seeing what I can make/buy etc. The crafting is ok but it does make almost all other weapons and armour that can be found or bought completely redundant and the masterwork system being chance based is a bit bullshit (even if it is run by one the many sexy dwarfs they've crammed into this game). I'm delighted to see that a fine Bioware tradition endures, everyone uses comically massive cups in cutscenes for no apparent reason, this happens in every Dragon Age game and I believe all the Mass Effect ones too. Characters/companions are done well again but I have to disagree on the handling of the 'trans' character (if that's what Krem is meant to be) given the first time it comes up in dialogue literally half the options are 'SO YOU'RE NOT REALLY A MAN THEN WHAT'S UP WITH THAT HUH?' Not sure what they do after that point because they aren't around to ask anymore but it's an incredibly poor start. Cringey writing aside I thought they did it much better with Sera as in someone who doesn't care about *insert aspect of their character*, they should just put trans characters in and not mention it if that's what they want. The cameos from characters from earlier games are fun, I liked how they tagged along on certain missions, of the regular party members only Solas has so far been a bit of a waste of space and Cole I've barely used because melee rogues seem committed to dying as soon as they can unless you micro them or keep them in stealth forever. Voice acting is pretty strong all round oddly apart from the main character whose lines more often than not feel completely disconnected from the scene (Man-quisitor may be different, not tried that). Iron Bull/Varric/Dorian/Cassandra are all really well done as is Cullen and I do like how they all interact between missions.
I know we probably won't because they mix things up a fair bit between Dragon Age games in terms of your character's standing and stuff but I'd love an expanded version of the bits where you pass judgement on people. Bigger choices, more consequences from your actions. Will also be keen to discuss Iron Bull with you once you've finished the main game.
Have you got the Trespasser DLC? It's good and Solas becomes a much more interesting character in it.
I have been playing the Spider-Man game now it's on PC. It's pretty great innit?
I believe I bought it recently enough to get all the DLC, currently doing the deep roads thing which I believe is one of them (delighted to have another War Table, at least this one isn't behind three unnecessary doors).
Even the Deep Roads, the bane of DA:O, is not bad. It at least has some very impressive scale to some of the views.
What race you playing as by the way, Disco? I've done it twice and can't not do Qunari but being Quanri it does come up that you appear to be the chosen one of entirely the wrong religion.
I never understood the Deep Roads getting so much hate (always seemed fine to me) when The Fade exists. I absolutely loved the entire rest of the game but The Fade was torture.
I did Orzammar early this time (to get Oghren as he normally turns up towards the end and I barely use him) and it was much better that way, not that I hated them particularly but it was always a bit dauntingly large to do last/late. I found the final part in Denerim to be more of a slog than anything else this time, easily the least interesting section of the game for me.
@Webly I'm elf in Inquisition, which I would imagine is handled exactly the same as Qunari. Beginning to think I fucked up on the Iron Bull front, the choice I thought I was making turns out to make almost no difference (which is a bit of a theme in this game) other than a couple of flavour texts so far. The big chap looks so lonely in the pub now.
Last edited by Disco; 14-08-2022 at 10:16 AM.
Papers Please is out on IOS
Any of you tried Rumbleverse?
Are Nintendo Switches still good? Considering getting one (already have a PS5). I remember reading there were issues with joycon drift? I'd like to play the Mario open world game, also comoleted Breath of the Wild but on the previous platform, so happily give it another run through.
You can buy a plug in controller of decent quality for £20-30, which will eliminate the drift. We've had two in the house and they only tend to drift after decent use after a couple of years anyway.
As always is with Nintendo it's just their first party games. If you want the Mario/Zelda/Pokemon/Kirby/Animal Crossing type stuff, then it's worth getting.
The Switch itself is still £250 or £300 for the OLED screen version. You can get the Lite version for £180 now which isn't bad if you are only using it portably anyway, but you can never plug that one into the TV if you every got the chance to.
I have been playing an absolute shit ton of Ori and the Will of the Wisps after my orignal save file got destroyed and I lost the will to redo all that shit again so took enough time off to forget literally evertything. I'm now I'd say 60-75% of the way through the story? These games are some of the best platformers of all time and by a distance.
I've not done the second Ori yet but definitely will at some point.
Still really enjoying Spider-Man just now though.
What a game.
Started Spiderman, that active combat is going to do my hands in. It's really interesting what they've done with that and the swinging to make it feel Spidermanny.
Miles Morales is the game I stuck with most while trying to rush through as much as I could on my PS+ trial. The only thing that put me off was all the combos which I would completely forget if I left it any more than a day without playing.
I'm not sure the PC one comes with Miles Morales. Also small note, I miss Peter Parker being a journalist not a scientist.
It's not a Spider-Man review unless you tell us it really makes you feel like Spider-Man.
I finished the mini game "What Remains of Edith Finch". Another one of those quick stories that are pretty immersive and fun. It took me a while to realise I was ruining my experience with the inverted controls (as default) but then the game grew on me. Visually very beautiful and some really fantastic sequences including the video game within a video game.
I get that confused with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. I seem to remember liking it, though. Lots of little stories about her family and a cool bit with a set of swings.
My id software odyssey has reached it's logical conclusion. I've bought Wolfenstein 3D. Mouse controls are not doing what I expected them to do but I'll live with it. German maze hell.