General gaming discussion

[Shindig]

Well, I finished it. You know how these things usually have some basic level of interactivity? This one is all reading. It was torture to get through. Dialogue is trying to be hip and teenage but then the overarching vampire cult comes in and it's all "Behold, my liege! We shall inherit the moon particle!"

So what I was hoping to be a grounded 'that lass framed me' story dove off a cliff into supernatural arsery. Everyone has a dodgy past, special powers or, in the case of three characters, they are all parts of the same person. And there's an evil corporation. And a Vampire mafia cult. And a moon crone. She lives on the moon which is where you go when you die and sometimes you come back. Long as fuck.

[Gray Fox]

I find myself with an urge to go back an play The Division 2 again.

I quite enjoyed the game on my playthrough and my interest in FIFA is dying. My issue is my playthrough was on the XB1. I'm now a Sony Pony so it'd mean starting over again, unless there's some way I could carry my data across platforms(I doubt there is).

[Ian]

Anybody listen to any decent gaming podcasts? I appear to be between series on a few things I listen to and I don't listen to any gaming ones other than the two main RPS ones and The Back Page so I'm wondering if there are other ones I would like to fill the game.

[Mike]

I listen to GiantBomb’s Bombcast, I used to prefer the Beastcast but they had a few staff leave. Thankfully they started up a new one, Nextlander, last month.
I also listen to The Computer Game Show, though not weekly. They’re all pretty lighthearted. The Bombcast being the most serious of the three.

[Ian]

Ta. Might give them a bash.

[Ian]

Did the first couple of hours of It Takes Two yesterday and it's off to a good start, though the tone is a bit weird. Like at a glance you'd definitely say it's designed to include a younger audience but even aside from the fact that it's a story about a child being distraught over her parents divorcing, but you get these really weird tonal shifts from the zany talking book telling you you just need to COOPERATE TO WIN!!!! and then the next moment you're having a sentient hoover suck its own eyes out as it begs for forgiveness. Which is surprisingly horrifying despite there being no gore. Then you rumble on and meet some squirrels who are definitely committing war crimes in their war against wasps and chuckle nervously about it when you find out. The co-op is genuinely very good though with everything geared around that, there's nothing that I've noticed you could just brute force on your own.

Further to this, did a bit more yesterday and you have a section where you're flying a plane made of pants while the other player mans the guns and ends up with them having a Street Fighter-esque fight with the squirrel leader on the wings of the plane and then this leads directly into a really depressing scene where the kid is depressed as fuck because she thinks her parents are ignoring her.

I like the game but the story/gameplay don't really tie into each other. It makes for a very weird combination.

[Shindig]

I don't think Josef Fares' previous games have been like that. Brothers and A Way Out were played a lot straighter. I can't imagine the tonal whiplash this is giving you.

[Gray Fox]

The Mrs was in town while I had to wait on a delivery, so I asked her to go in game and pick up Ghost Recon Breakpoint. It was only £10 2nd hand so I thought I'd take the punt. I also saw the Divison 2 I'd had a feeling to play was only a fiver, so added that in. I didn't know there was a 3 for 2 on, so she's gone and picked up the Witcher 3 on the fly.

I'll likely start on one of those over the weekend if this work pattern doesn't finish me off.

[Shindig]

I now have a PS5. One penny less than the Baz price from GAME. Looks like branches are getting regular weekly stock. I bought Demons Souls with it.

[Baz]

Over four months later

[Shindig]

But it's new and not travelling from St. Helens.

[Gray Fox]

That makes it worth the wait.

[Pepe]

Art of Rally is very good.
@Shindig, get on it.

[Shindig]

I like the look of it. It's not out on Sony platforms yet so I'll keep an eye out and see if I can sneak a review copy.

[Gray Fox]

Astros Playroomm isn't a bad little intro into the PS5 if you haven't touched it yet.

You've also still got a couple of days to claim Junes free games. The new ones don't come in until the 7th.

[Shindig]

I've already got what I want. I've got Bugsnax, Astros Playroom and Soulstorm. There's a couple from the PS Plus Collection I want as well.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Been hammering Disco Elysium the last few days and I'm almost finished.

Not sure if fucked it near the end or if it was the best possible outcome (doubt) but I'm now close to finding the killer.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

And I'm done. Great game.

[Pepe]

Did you smash Cuno's head in?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I did not.

I went for a weak as shit build. Lent heavily into intellect and motorics.

[Pepe]

Then you're not done.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Remind me how smashing his head in went for you?

[Pepe]

My revenge is coming, worry not.

[Shindig]

Dragon God. Name a worse Souls boss. It's reminding me I might not know that game as good as I think. I'm sure the columns in that fight were bigger in the original. Staying out his sight seems real tricky now.

EDIT: And now I'm finished. Couldn't be arsed with King Doran and chasing other trophies. Only took 16 hours. On my first playthrough it took 21 hours just to get 3 bosses down.

[Pepe]

I am garbage at it, but Hades is very good.

[Ian]

So I was reading some comments on RPS about the new FIFA and:

Check their steam page.

It says:

Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: EA on-line activation and Origin client software installation and background use required.
1 machine activation limit

This is apparently applying to their other sport games as well.

Is it 2007 again already?

[Disco]

I'm assuming people who buy FIFA are expecting to get shafted, it's part of the experience at this point.

[Ian]

From what I played of FIFA 20 that seems a fair assumption.

A sub-dom thing probably.

[Raoul Duke]

I've recently started replaying GTA V for about the 3rd time. It's still great. Really hope they double-down on the heist stuff on the next one.

[phonics]

So I was reading some comments on RPS about the new FIFA and:



This is apparently applying to their other sport games as well.

Is it 2007 again already?

The 'machine' in that case would be your Steam account. There's an edge case it blocks but that's all. It just means that even if you Steam Refund Fifa, they still get paid.

The edge case is how you can use 'Family accounts' on Steam to lend each other games.

[Ian]

So why are they saying 'machine' then?

I'm not saying you're wrong, it just seems a stupid way to word it when it's literally not what they mean.

[phonics]

They pay a lot of lawyers to do things.

[Pepe]

SOR expansion out today.

[Pepe]

Any opinions on that Steam Deck thing?

[Shindig]

Looks good. I bet it gets really hot. Seems like Valve want it to be flexible although I don't really want my PC gaming on the go.

[Pepe]

Yeah, after posting that I was thinking that I never use my Switch in handheld mode.

[phonics]

The buttons look like a fucking joke.

[Shindig]

I play it handheld but on my arse at home. Mainly because I can't be arsed to dock it and plug another console up to this TV. And unhook the joycons so they're in the grip.

[Baz]

I might get one.

[Yevrah]

AOTennis 2 is not great. It seems almost impossible to keep the ball in court when going for a winner.

[Pepe]

Still haven't managed? Shame, I've been itching for a tennis game for a while. I guess Super Tennis is still the best the genre has to offer.

[Ian]

I dunno that I've played any tennis games since the Wii one that had Andy Murray on the box.

Have there been (m)any good ones since Virtua Tennis 2?

[Yevrah]

Still haven't managed? Shame, I've been itching for a tennis game for a while. I guess Super Tennis is still the best the genre has to offer.

It's tragic, isn't it.

I also don't understand why tennis seems impossible to license properly. I get why a game might not have one of the big 3, but this doesn't have two of them and is also followed by a selection of other wank that despite being real players, you'd struggle to ID from a police line up.

[Baz]

Any opinions on that Steam Deck thing?

[Shindig]

It's tragic, isn't it.

I also don't understand why tennis seems impossible to license properly. I get why a game might not have one of the big 3, but this doesn't have two of them and is also followed by a selection of other wank that despite being real players, you'd struggle to ID from a police line up.

Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament 2 on the PS2 managed to fill a World Tour with 150 fake ones. Worked out surprisingly well. The licensing is one of those scenarios where the players aren't covered by one single entity. Hell, Tennis doesn't have a union so you can't do that deal. It has to all be done on a player by player basis and that will always get expensive.

[Pepe]

I think that I would prefer all fake players than having one top player, a handful of mediocre ones, and a bunch of fake ones.

[Shindig]

I just want the numbers up so you're not playing the same people. From what I remember, the World Tour was pretty fluid with some of the fake ones developing over time. I got upset after winning a couple of slams which feels kinda awesome. I want to say Virtua Tennis 4 kept you largely with the licensed crew so you were playing Gael Monfils every week.

[Baz]

Add a horse racing game to the list of “why isn’t there a properly licensed game of X” too.

G1 Jockey + licenses with real race courses and jockeys omfg

[Ian]

Rhythm action "shoot the horse" minigame to a knockoff Channel 4 racing theme.

[Vercetti]

I remember playing a Virtua Tennis years ago, and being really irked that it scored things 2-1, rather than 30-15, etc.

The series was dead to me, after that.