General gaming discussion

[ItalAussie]

I've been playing Spelunky 2 a lot, and I don't think it's as nicely balanced as the original.

It errs on the side of being too difficult - I've finished it, so this isn't a "git gud" situation - and also has a lot of periods of waiting very early on in the game which make repeated plays tedious. There's a bunch of tanky, fast, randomly-moving enemies in the first area that are just very poorly thought-out, as they cause everything to grind to a halt. The other big strike is that health is essentially meaningless. You aren't going to die from gradually losing your health points - you're going to die as one of the lots and lots of instant kill mechanisms gets you.

Dying in Spelunky wasn't so bad. You laughed at some Spelunky-flavoured nonsense, and then you jump in again. But it takes over 10 minutes just to get through the first area (if you don't die, which is far from a given), which makes repeating incredibly tedious, and death therefore stops being fun. It's still a good game, just not as good as the original.

[Mazuuurk]

Bloodborne or is that not up your alley?

It sounds like it could be but I read it's insanely difficult and I'm a "Story Mode" type of player. Like I'm a completionist, so I'll always try to do everything in all games but usually on an easy or the easiest setting.

Ghost of Tsushima?

I haven't played it yet (need to clear some backlog first) but it's got great reviews.

Will have to check it out at least. Kind of seems to lack the RPG elements I usually look for but so did Red Dead and God of War kind of and I enjoyed those two anyway so.

[Ian]

Is the first Divinity: Original Sin on PS4/ have you also played that as well as 2?

[Mazuuurk]

Is the first Divinity: Original Sin on PS4/ have you also played that as well as 2?

Not sure, but I played it on PC way back when I had one!

[SincereTheRebel]

The wheel and pedals are amazing. I should have bought it years ago. Even my mom jumped into it and had a go. Nothing but laughter for 5 minutes.

[Shindig]

I forgot how quickly Witcher 3 shoves an arse in your face.

[Mazuuurk]

@Mahow I went for Ghost of Thushima in the end. It's basically Horizon Zero Dawn but less dynamic somehow, and set in feudal Japan. And you fight people instead of massive machines which I suspect may end up getting a bit old after a while.

But It's pretty, and so far quite captivating.

Also downloaded FFVII Remake which I keep "saving for later" as it's only a part 1 - i don't feel very rushed to get into it...

[Shindig]

Back to where I was in Witcher 3. Beat the erm ... skeleton cave bloke after a few failed attempts. It's a simple fight but I'm a greedy git. I do not care for Geralt leaping into strikes and his movement outside of combat is ... sudden. But the actual RPGing is mint. I don't know what the point of a quick item select is when you can't heal in combat. Maybe I'm missing something.

[Vercetti]

I'm quite into Horizon: Zero Dawn, at the moment.

Well, I have been over the last couple of weeks. It's starting to become a bit of a slog. Lots of trekking back and forth across the map (I don't really like fast-travel), and it still takes quite a bit to off the robots. Mind you, I haven't really looked into too many weapons or upgrades, so far.

I do know that Corruptors and Deathbringers are cunts, though.

[Ian]

I've not played HZD yet but it's on the list and I may get to it soon.

Back to where I was in Witcher 3. Beat the erm ... skeleton cave bloke after a few failed attempts. It's a simple fight but I'm a greedy git. I do not care for Geralt leaping into strikes and his movement outside of combat is ... sudden. But the actual RPGing is mint. I don't know what the point of a quick item select is when you can't heal in combat. Maybe I'm missing something.

Is it four items you get or something? I tended to have a healing item for out of combat, Cat for the frequent dark bits and whatever the one is that does heal over time in combat which is ace at the higher levels.

But yeah, the combat has only ever been so-so in Witcher games, the RPGing/writing /characters is where it's one of the best.

[Shindig]

I have bread on my quick bar but the game has nowt of it. Not that the combat's hard like. Just a bit daft having to go in, poke, get out and repeat. I probably need to read some tutorials at some point. Outside of combat, it's piss. Just meditate and crack on.

[Pepe]

This is good:

https://toughlovearena.com/

[Mazuuurk]

I'm quite into Horizon: Zero Dawn, at the moment.

Well, I have been over the last couple of weeks. It's starting to become a bit of a slog. Lots of trekking back and forth across the map (I don't really like fast-travel), and it still takes quite a bit to off the robots. Mind you, I haven't really looked into too many weapons or upgrades, so far.

I do know that Corruptors and Deathbringers are cunts, though.

You just have to do fast travelling after a while. I did the same and then got to a point where trekking back and fourth just got a little too tiresome. Maybe half-way through the main story or so. How far along are you? It's quite worth making sure you explore all regions relatively early. Have you done all the cauldrons?

[Ian]

Having finished Cyberpunk and deciding I should have a palate cleanser before getting into something big (probably either Control or GreedFall, while the latter is on Gamepass) so I did a few hours of Carrion. It's fun, and the bundle of tentacles, eyes and teeth moves in a genuinely unpleasant way around the levels. I hope it's not too much longer but I'm liking it for now and it captures the feeling of being the B-movie monster quite well.

[Alan Shearer The 2nd]

I've majorly gone off games in the past few years, apart from an occasional FM 2012 addiction streak, natch, but I've just got back into Skyrim after 4 years off. Forgot just how much there was to it, barely scratched the surface with the 70 odd hours I'd originally put into it.

[Mazuuurk]

Just re-read the IGN review of GreedFall and it says:

but I have a feeling this is going to be a crowd-pleaser for those of us who still shake our canes and talk about how the genre peaked a decade ago

.


That is absolutely grandpa Maz in a nutshell, so might actually give it a go as well, once I'm done with this Ghost of Tsushima.

[Ian]

Yeah the RPS review was very much flawed gem, worth a go if you want to see somebody trying something a bit (good) BioWare-y.

[Shindig]

Onward to Novigrad in Witcher 3. I've got one more contract within my level range but she was surprisingly annoying. Also, a big arse city with no recognisable blacksmith. Bugger.

[Ian]

Novigrad definitely has blacksmiths.

What was the annoying contract?

[Mazuuurk]

Yeah the RPS review was very much flawed gem, worth a go if you want to see somebody trying something a bit (good) BioWare-y.

Gonna give it a go after Ghost of Tsushima

[Ian]

I think I'll do Control first (just so I'm not doing big RPGs back to back) but I think GreedFall will be next after that.

[Mazuuurk]

Sounds good then maybe we can manage to align our playing


(for at least the first week it's gonna take you to get through it while I'm doing the prologue or whatever )

[Ian]

Yeah I was gonna say I have waaaaaaay more free time than you so that probably wouldn't last.

[Shindig]

Novigrad definitely has blacksmiths.

What was the annoying contract?

I assume so. He's ditched Blacksmithing for bakery. I don't fancy fast-travelling back to the dwarf one everytime I need a repair / offload some weapons.

[Ian]

There's one who eventually becomes a master smith or whatever but there are definitely others knocking about.

[Ian]

https://kotaku.com/former-xbox-execu...ses-1846000965

[Shindig]

Bold. In other news, I found the blacksmith. And a transperson. I'm starting to get why the LGBT lot aren't that keen on CD Project Red.

[Ian]

I get that maybe in Poland the way they deal with such things isn't deemed to be backwards but you'd think they could just hire one writer who knows what's up to keep 'em right with these things.

I mean progressing from trading card woman isn't difficult but it's progress, I suppose.

Is it the Elf you've found?

[Mazuuurk]

Has anyone tried Persona 5?

I'm considering adding it to the To Do list but the setting just seems so oddball (even for a JRPG). By reviews it sounds like it's basically some Japanese version of a Disney channel high school drama or something.

[Ian]

I haven't but a games journo I like a lot had it on his games of the year.

[wullie]

I dismissed Watch Dogs Legion early on but I've got to the point where I've embraced all the rubbish characters and terrible accents and it's like a high-tech Saboteur, clunky and a bit rubbish but really enjoying it. The driving however remains dogshit, but luckily the tube and drones means you don't need to bother

[Yevrah]

Have you played with the perma-death option on? That really intrigues me in terms of getting attached to your squad.

[Ian]

Are the people you recruit to play as not really copious and entirely disposable?

I've not watched anything in depth so I dunno.

I'm probably also slightly underestimating my own ability to become attached to plentiful goons in games.

[Raoul Duke]

They are a bit generic, but it's about finding the right mix of type, look and skills. You can always bin them off and replace if you need to. It's a decent blast though and as an ex-Londoner made me super nostalgic, visiting where I used to live/work/take drunken night buses to shit indie clubs in Camden etc.

[Yevrah]

Is it actually a fair bit of London to scale? Enough to recognise where bus stops were?

[Ian]

From what I understand it's obviously scaled down but as well as what Raoul said there I've seen a bunch of games journos, streamers, etc. saying they can retrace their old commutes, etc.

I don't know London so that aspect of it would be lost on me.

[Raoul Duke]

Yeah, it's mostly to scale and has the majority of major landmarks in place, but even where I used to live is there a bit condensed) but there's even a mapping of shop types (so the Tesco I used to live near is a fake brand supermarket), which is a nice touch. My old workplace is there and there's been several times when I've navigated from A-B just by knowing the routes IRL.

[Yevrah]

Ok, that is immense.

[wullie]

I wish I would have turned permadeath on because I basically play just as the people who have the disguises and there are a lot of completely disposable team members, that's one of the big missed opportunities with it I think, there's not a huge reason to switch between people outside a core handful you might gather.

[Shindig]

Today's Witcher 3 bugs - The main quest halted because my objective was a sconce. Geralt refused to interact with the switch and instead set it alight. Reloading an older save fixed it. Also, I had the game lock on me because I had just finished a fight and hit a loot prompt before the game tried to launch into a cutscene. The game decided to load indefinitely.

Also, I've went to Skellinge early. Fuck Skellinge. It's not horse friendly. I'm amazed I had the money for the boat ride.

And all this talk about London makes me want to pick up a copy of The Getaway or something. I know Driver technically had a chunk of the Gateshead Quayside but it was nowt, in the grand scheme of things. Places you know in games is cool.

[Disco]

It seems a shame that maps like that aren't used for more things, imagine the great stuff you could make in a reasonable representation of London. Ubisoft will use it for their dumb hacker game then throw it in the bin.

[Shindig]

I'd rather walk around in that than click my way through google street view. I have had half a mind to go back to GTA IV now that I've walked parts of New York. Apparently The Getaway has 10 square miles of London which seems small.

[Ian]

Carrion completed. I really like it, the way the creature improves and levels is fun and I like that after the last more difficult combat bit it just let's you do the "the b-movie monster is free!" bit and rampage through a bunch of defenceless mooks to end the game.

Control next I think.

[Raoul Duke]

It seems a shame that maps like that aren't used for more things, imagine the great stuff you could make in a reasonable representation of London. Ubisoft will use it for their dumb hacker game then throw it in the bin.

My long-term bet is that sometime soon somebody will get a pretty decent 1:1 mapping of the entire globe and build something like Watchdogs Legion with it. Microsoft Flight Sim has something like this and the map data is there and available. Don't think it's too far-fetched that we'll be playing something like this in our lifetimes.

[ItalAussie]

The remake of FFVII really hit the spot for me. I enjoyed it a lot, and I liked being able to deep dive into the earliest (and some of the best) bits of the game.

I really like that they embraced the weirdness of FFVII, rather than trying to pretend that it was sensible and grounded. I didn't enjoy all of the additions, and there's a few things I really don't love at all. But - without wanting to spoil a months-old game - the ending kind of untethers them from the original game a little bit that will make the story interesting going forwards. I assume they also did this because rendering every FFVII city in the same detail as Midgar seems like it would be a gargantuan task.

One place the remake dramatically improves on the original is the emotional beats involving the destruction of Midgar. In the original, I hadn't even really comprehended what had happened, and it was all a bit "oh well, the extras died and it's time to get out of here". In this case, it was genuinely devastating.

Combat's great too.

[ItalAussie]

I warmed a lot to Spelunky 2 in the end. It has the same incredible addictiveness that the original had. I still don't think it's as tightly designed, but there's a lot more packed into it. Once you're good enough to reliably get through the first section, and also access the secrets, the game changes a lot.

I still play it, even though I've cleared out everything except the very final crazy challenge, which I have no intention of doing.

[ItalAussie]

After reading a thousand amazing reviews of Hades, and really liking Bastion and Transistor, I decided to give it a try. Seemed like a slam dunk.

It's boring. Combat is kind of fun, but you reach a plateau where you're essentially just replaying the same battles over and over and over and over again, solely to incrementally drip feed in some more storyline. Pass.

[Ian]

Yeah while everybody's going nuts over it the repetitive side of it is what's putting me off Hades a bit.

[Shindig]

Yeah, roguelites don't really work for me unless I can reliably get to a decent point. Dead Cells was great until the item pool got so big the drops I wanted no longer happened.

[Dark Soldier]

I fucking love roguelikes/lites. Isaac, Spire, Hades, Dead Cells are all God tier. Neon Abyss is really, really good too.