On New game+ about to finish it again.Originally Posted by Mazuuurk
On New game+ about to finish it again.
Well, I guess I now own the N64 version of Quake 2. Thanks, Nightdive. Nice to see Quake 2 getting ported to a different engine with a few bells and whistles. I want to download it just to read the design doc they've managed to scan into the extras menu.
The group continues on
This picture taken shortly after the group got an achievement for beating said boss without the blindingly obvious cheese that we became aware of the moment the achievement popped up.
Bought a game called Thronefall on Steam. Decent little minimalist tower defence style game.
You're a King and your Kingdom is under threat each night. During the day you build up your Kingdom by spending gold. You choose between spending it on things that will increase your income, or things that will increase your defences. Each night a wave of enemies will attack and you must fight them off. You ride around on a little horse too so you can get involved.
If they destroy your castle, you lose. Assuming you survive the night, you collect up all the gold you earned from your buildings/killing and prepare for the next night. It's in early access title right now but it's a fun little time killer. Can't complain for less than £6.
Currently having an existential cris with my big titty goth girlfriend.
Awesome, what you reckon? I like the characters, story and the combat mechanics but it does feel like the game lacks a little polish - they could have varied the enemies a little more.
"And now - you're in a SWAMP! So here's SWAMP-SCORPIONS! Oh wait, now you're in a forest, so here are FOREST-SCORPIONS!"
Loved the story but didn't connect to any of the characters that much. Some of boss fights are epic as fuck. Most annoyed with the sidequest, those are mostly boring as hell, run to person A then to person B & C and then back to A, Sidequest complete.
Found out I'd been using the wrong ability on one the eikons troughout both first gameplay and new game+. That was a bit lol.
As mentioned previously I've held off on buying an emulation machine as the Mrs wanted something held back for a birthday present. Well it's on the horizon and I'm looking at a couple.
I'm not wanting to dive into the near £200 ones until I know I'll actually use one much, so my budget is £100 or less. I'm looking at the Miyoo Mini+ and Anbernic RG35XX.
For a little more there is the horizontal types of the Retroid Pocket 2S and Powkiddy X55. I'm guessing not, but was wondering if anyone here had one? Common sense says I should probably get the cheapest then go from there.
I forgot you still wanted one. Literally sold mine for sale price, with my custom sd card loaded with insane romsets I'd spent hours doing the other week..
It's a cracking thing but it reminded me I don't like handhelds, never have.
No worries.
I'm only after entry level for now. I reckon I'd be like you and be bored of it or annoyed with it quickly.
I think I'll just go for the Anbernic RG35XX for now.
I actually think the form factor of the PowKiddy X55 suits best and it is likely the best deal. It comes it at $90(£71 or so) and ships free, but it's coming from China and fuck knows when.
The Retroid Pocket 2S has similar issues. It's their newest release and still shows as pre-order when it supposedly came out 3 weeks ago. $99(£77ish) so it's still on the money, however on Reddit people are only just starting to receive pre-orders. So it would be guesswork as to when I got it.
The higher price and better performers in the Pocket 3+ and the RG353M/405M seem great, but we're still not quite at the level of coverage I'd like. Once we can tick off all N64 and Gamecube games(for not crazy money), we're talking. So it seems a waste to jump in at this price point.
The RG35XX is the only one listed on Amazon without a significant markup for the trouble. To pay £63 and have it next day and with proper coverage, seems like a no-brainer. Should I get it and fall in love with all things retro however, then I could play the waiting game for someone to give an upgrade on the T618 chipset that's in most of the top dogs right now.
Someone on rllmuk is selling an RG35XX plus 128 GB SD card for £45 delivered: https://www.rllmukforum.com/index.ph...£45-delivered/
I'm a twit
Yeah the side quests are quite boring.
Wait, what abilities are you supposed to use?
Great reviews for Shadow Gambit (by the Shadow Tactics / Desperados 3) guys so once I'm done with Baldurs Gate 3 being underwhelmed by Starfield may have to wait.
I've been playing Ratchet and Clank, the PS5 one. Its great fun. Easy as fuck, brainless. Looks absolutely fucking gorgeous. Exactly what I needed.
Can't be arsed doing all the side stuff for cosmetics etc, but the main story zips by and the weapons as ever are just stupid fun.
I probably should pick that up. That and Returnal must be cheap as chips now.
They're both absolutely amazing games. I prefer Returnal on PC for accuracy but its equally class.
While BG3's music is generally really good, I'd say it's probably not up to the Divinity 2 (incredibly high) standards. That said:
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Last edited by Adramelch; 18-08-2023 at 08:10 AM.
Cheers Baz.
Having done some more digging, the likes of the RP3+ and RG405M etc are alright options, however as mentioned they don't quite get to Gamecube yet. Given you're stumping up £170+ for one(the RG405m is £220 on Amazon if you want protection on it), that's a lot.
In my digging I found something called the Ayn Odin Lite. It's currently $221 including shipping(works out at £175 currently) however it absolutely shits on the previously mentioned options. Both in terms of build and performance. You go from should play most N64 and PS1 and might get some Gamecube, to this thing crushes most any game on Gamecube and can do a good job on most PS2/Wii games. It can even cope with some Switch titles.
The downside to the thing is actually getting it in your hand. They quote a week from ordering to ship it and unless you choose DHL(10ish) you're looking at 20ish days after that to receive.
If you can wait, it's fine, but the bigger issue is being slapped with a customs charge. From checking Reddit there's a big mix of people who avoided any charge at all to those who ended up paying some £60 extra. If you get it at just the price of device and shipping then it's a fantastic deal. If you have to pay import taxes then its another story.
Sounds like it’s worth the risk, if it’s that much better. And you plan to use it, of course.
I’m like DS in that I’ll spend days setting everything up perfectly, play one game of PES, have one match on No Mercy, make me on Here Comes The Pain, and then never touch it again.
I'm a twit
Yep. I had this conversation at work about setting up a thin client as a retro machine. The conclusion I came to was that I already have a PC capable of so much more and I rarely game outside of the house.
It's why I'm sticking to the little one first. See if I actually use the thing. I don't want to commit to a potential £200+ spend for it to gather dust after a couple uses.
Finished Baldur's Gate. 135 hours on the counter, though I'd say 10-15 of those might be idling so let's say 120 (for tactician mode at least). One of the best games of the past decade or two no doubt, but I wouldn't say it's the best ever or anything.
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Last edited by Adramelch; 19-08-2023 at 12:21 PM.
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And it was meant as such. DOS2 is one of my favourite games.
The internet reaction to Baldurs Gate 3 has been funny to see. Fans turning to devs of other games and going look, they managed to release it working great and finished on release day, why can't you? To which devs are replying(and getting shit on for), it's unfair to use this as an expectation going forwards.
Baldur's Gate 3 has been out (in a fashion) for almost three years.
This, plus not many studios being in the situation Larian were at where they've basically been building up to doing this for years and years.Baldur's Gate 3 has been out (in a fashion) for almost three years.
At the stage I'm at BG3 feels very good and probably a bit overhyped. There are things it's definitely better at than Original Sin 2 but I'll reserve judgement as to whether I think it's better.
They are only in that situation because of their own excellent work, though. If anything the fact they've built up to this entirely off the success of their other games - which have succeeded purely because they are brilliant games - gives other studios even less of an excuse.
It is a reward for their good work but it's still not as simple as that, certainly from the morons who are pretending like this game proves other developers are lazy or bad at their jobs.
Not every development team gets to work for a boss who's as driven by encouraging and rewarding creative types as Swen Vincke is. Not everybody gets to work in an environment where the thing being done right is more important than being done on time and then allowed to keep working on it after the fact until they've got it into exactly the shape they want it in. Not every dev is allowed to capitalise on the community buy-in (Kickstarter, Early Access, etc.) as Larian do. The studios making this sort of RPG generally don't have Larian's experience, budget, number of staff (which Larian casually doubled or something while making this game) or freedom to work the way Larian have here.
The takeaway here should be that execs and publishers should give creative people the time and space to innovate and hone the things they want to make. Making a game like BG3 (or DOS2, or-) is very hard and requires a lot of time and experience that most people trying to make this sort of thing simply aren't afforded, and the morons driving this discourse just now aren't going to use BG3 as a stick to beat studio / publisher decision-makers with, they're going to use it to hound developers on Twitter who are probably being crunched to death to hit a deadline so they can then be immediately shuffled onto the next thing.
The works of Jason Schreier alone should make it clear how many games which appear in a bad state were basically doomed from the get-go because of disorganisation, confused motivations for making them and people being overworked on stuff they probably didn't want to make in the first place.
Case in point: Redfall, as I was playing a bit of it for the first time last night and reading a bit about it this morning. Arkane have spent years and many games learning to make a particular sort of game extremely well. They wanted to make Dishonored 3, they got told to make a multiplayer thing with microtransactions which doesn't play to any of their strengths, some of that was suddenly stripped out partway through so the shape of the thing changed again and when Microsoft bought out Bethesda there were people at Arkane actively hoping that they'd be allowed to restart Redfall as a single-player game or, if push came to shove, just cancel the thing.
Now there's a lesson there about getting into bed with publishers, but again that's not a lesson for the people on the ground who get the shit when their game plops out into the world and doesn't do well. And I bet half of the people wanking on about this are going to rush out and buy e.g. Starfield if they haven't pre-ordered it already because the people crying about wanting better standards are the same people who continually reward the big developers and publishers for demanding games be rushed out the door on time.
tl;dr: Larian are great, this is a very good game, I would like more RPGs to be made with this much backing and love, a lot of people who play video games understand as much about development as I do about, say, plankton.
And to expand on Redfall a bit: It's super meh. It was very unstable for me but even when it was behaving itself it just feels a very empty, shallow thing. I get new guns regularly and don't care, because I haven't had a remotely challenging fight yet. They make vampires sound scary and safehouses sound important but the very first vampire we fought went down very easily and we just stumbled across our second and third safehouses very quickly. The missions we did felt very "run here and click on a button", and while I quite like the town itself and it's a nice-looking place it doesn't feel like there's anything to do or any threat in traversing it, and even these early level-ups which should be exciting in a game like this I really just don't care. Minor upgrades to skills I never need to use.
The levelling thing is a minor gripe for me about BG3 as well actually, and probably a problem (to me) of adhering to D&D. If I'm only getting a level cap of 12 then it's not ideal that a good chunk of level ups seem to not actually offer you much.
As a counterpoint I finished a co-op replay of Divinity Original Sin on Friday and most level ups feel like you're achieving something tangible, whether it be getting a few more skills at a certain level or equipping a bit of gear you'd been holding onto.
Last edited by Ian; 20-08-2023 at 09:53 AM.
Yeah the levelling does feel underwhelming especially for non-spellcasting classes (or rather, uneven, every level where you get an extra feat is massive) and that's not helped by the fancy (and needless in my opinion) screen they have for it. I would be fine with it if the gear was more exciting, but it often isn't. There's a few pieces that are incredible, but I'd have hoped vendors specifically had more exciting gear.
As for this being the standard for RPGs going forward, I think it should be but with the following caveats: a) it should be the standard for triple-A RPGs. Smaller studios shouldn't be expected to put something of that quality out, they simply don't have the resources for that, and b) much like Ian has suggested, it should be the standard for the whole studio (meaning the executives as well, and primarily them), not just aiming it at the devs.
All that said, it should be the golden standard for all gaming in two aspects:
- Publish your game when it's actually ready. That's not to say that everyone should be spending 6 years in development, but if you can't do that then aim lower to begin with. I would be completely fine with a game that's a third of Baldur's Gate's size, as long as it comes out that polished.
- Monetization. Larian are quite clearly going to make a decent chunk of money (as FromSoftware did with Elden Ring), without needing to resort to microtransactions.
Last edited by Adramelch; 20-08-2023 at 10:16 AM.
A lot of the gear is quite situational too and while there are some I keep (having something with feather fall or misty step on for example is always handy) there are some I know I don't want to be arsed swapping to for certain situations so I just sell them. Or hold into in case Gale gets peckish.
The Eikon abilities you use with R2 + square or triangle. I had the wrong one assigned to one of them.
As we get to the beginning of Act 3 the bugs are starting to rack up.
Yes, it's definitely less polished. I didn't encounter anything game-breaking (at least nothing that couldn't be fixed with a save+reload), but there were more of them around for sure.
Yeah sure but I mean - which ones are the right ones, in your opinion?
Apologies if spoiling.
I had Bahamuts Flare breath assigned instead of Gigaflare. They're quite similiar in animation but Gigaflare is much more powerful. My best set up is Odin - Dancing Steel + Lightning Rod, Shiva - Diamond Dust + Rising Punch, Bahamut - Impulse + Gigaflare.
Ah right. Don't have access to Odin or Shiva yet but it's kind of obvious you are getting there so no real spoiler.
I did use Flare breath for a while bit it was shiiiite, so now I have the same setup as you. I find Bahamuts Triangle-skill (the one where you have to dodge around with the wings for a million years) a bit shit though as it's so slow to charge.
I do like the Phoenix power-skill that also heals you a bit, especially nice for encountering a large group of minions. Takes ages to recharge though.
Yas lads mechdeath lets have it
Wrestlequest has an absolutely abysmal amount of dialogue > interesting to read ratio. I need to plot through it to get to video gaming.
After a mere 58 hours of Baldurs Gate 3 I am out of act 1!
Jeff Keighley really needs to invest in some security for his events.
Fancy a look at Wrestlequest and I've found that it's included with a Netflix sub so that's handy, although at the moment it doesn't seem to actually be compatible with my phone because it's too new which is a new one on me.
Details of the Playstation Portal(the thing that looks like a screen between two halves of a PS5 controller) have started to come out and it's not exactly wowing.
It only works over WiFi to connect to a PS5 in the house that's on and running. It's literally just streaming the game to you, no processing is being done by the device. It also doesn't come with bluetooth, so unless your headset/earphones are Playstation Link compatible, they wont work and you must buy their shiny new earbuds.
It's priced at $199(so likely £199 too) but I can't see it being too popular with the way it currently works.
Sounds like a portable TV
Not having Bluetooth seems like a weird move, very-Apple like.
Basically a £199 second screen.
It's quite annoying as if they saw it like this, its uses could improve. You could have your inventory on display, a map to gaze down at, some secondary tasks on it etc.
Atari are making a new 2600 and cartridges
Man, what a turn this company has had. It wasn't that long ago they were trying to sell us hotels and crpyto.
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