Thirith on 1/2/2023 at 15:38
I would definitely agree that I found the tomb raiding bits best in Shadow of.... It's the stuff that they come packaged in that I could've largely done without. All of these games have taken bad lessons from Metroidvania games: it's simply not very interesting to have busywork gated off and having to return just to pick up an artefact here and a document there. To me, this feels so much more hollow than the actual Metroidvania thing, where you get the Thingamy Beam, which finally lets you open the Thingamy Door, which takes you to a whole new, distinct, interesting area where the plot continues and new gameplay elements are introduced. If you want me to backtrack, game, give me interesting, worthwhile things to find, not just three additional lore dump paragraphs.
nicked on 3/2/2023 at 20:19
Finally got around to finishing Cyberpunk 2077 and it was a mixed bag, but overall worth playing. The pros: the excellent writing, characters and setting. Any time you're in a main story mission, it's an engaging, exciting sci-fi story, and the depth of history and world-building is strongly immersive. The cons: it's still buggy, even now, and there's a general lack of polish to a lot of it. Usually it's nothing game-breaking, it just suffers a death by a thousand cuts with hundreds of little problems with animation, audio and physics. There's a lot of filler content. Outside the main missions, there's an awful lot of "Get a text message, go to the generic marker, incapacitate the six guys, find the explanatory chat log, receive thank you text message and cash reward". There's a huge overreliance on UI elements to plaster over noisy, unclear environment design.
Now that I've finished it, I can't help thinking that this is yet another game that gains nothing by having an open world. If the environments had been structured more like Deus Ex, with closed, discrete levels, there would have been a lot less pointless busywork, and probably a lot more room to polish within scope and budget...
Anarchic Fox on 3/2/2023 at 22:35
Quote Posted by nicked
Now that I've finished it, I can't help thinking that this is yet another game that gains nothing by having an open world. If the environments had been structured more like Deus Ex, with closed, discrete levels, there would have been a lot less pointless busywork, and probably a lot more room to polish within scope and budget...
Yeah, it seems like half the time open worlds are a detriment to the game. In particular they seem contrary to having a detailed story. (Backstory is fine.)
I am all sorts of obsessed with
Rain World. I beat it after days of effort, then immediately restarted on the easy difficulty, which has a slightly different story. After I beat that, I downloaded the "DLC" Downpour, which is a misnomer since it more than doubles the scope of the game. Halfway through its first story, I also started a game on the original's hard difficulty, and I'm glad I did, since even its first story beat reshaped my perspective of the original campaign. I see there's a thread for the game, I'm going to go gush over there.
WingedKagouti on 4/2/2023 at 21:25
GOG had a sale on Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition, so I grabbed it in order to not be reliant on the Steam version and started playing the game again (for the 4th or 5th time).
It is still one of the best crime based open world games ever.
Jason Moyer on 5/2/2023 at 03:49
I really need to replay that again. Or play the DE for the first time, actually, as I've only played the original+DLC. I really don't care for the GTA-style open world games much, but I thought it pulled it off as well as GTA3 or Saints Row 3 did. It had character and did its own thing in a lot of ways, whereas I usually just feel like I'm playing a crappier version of GTA3/SR3.
WingedKagouti on 5/2/2023 at 09:32
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I really need to replay that again. Or play the DE for the first time, actually, as I've only played the original+DLC.
The first major difference I stumbled across was that you don't have the various DLC outfits unlocked automatically in DE, but have to buy them at a new store in the Night Market. They cost varying amounts of money, with some being cheap enough to get early on (opening a briefcase or two will give you enough) and others being more expensive than many of the cars you can buy.
Yakoob on 5/2/2023 at 20:29
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
GOG had a sale on
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition, so I grabbed it in order to not be reliant on the Steam version and started playing the game again (for the 4th or 5th time).
It is still one of the best crime based open world games ever.
I never finished it but really enjoyed it. It was just such a nice atmosphere, driving through the town in the rain.
Right before the pandemic I was visiting Korea and then everything shut down. Sleeping Dogs was kind nice to scratch that foreign travel itch...
(and yes I know it's HK not Korea but the architecture and vibe is a lot closer and more nostalgic than, say, GTA set in the US)
Jason Moyer on 6/2/2023 at 04:00
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
The first major difference I stumbled across was that you don't have the various DLC outfits unlocked automatically in DE, but have to buy them at a new store in the Night Market. They cost varying amounts of money, with some being cheap enough to get early on (opening a briefcase or two will give you enough) and others being more expensive than many of the cars you can buy.
Yeah, all the cosmetic DLC stuff (clothes, cars, etc) were apparently integrated into the world in the DE.
Anarchic Fox on 6/2/2023 at 05:36
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Yeah, all the cosmetic DLC stuff (clothes, cars, etc) were apparently integrated into the world in the DE.
It's stuff like this that makes me like definition editions and remasters. EvaUnit02: it's not greedy, it's a flat claim that the game was valued correctly the first time, that it is as worth as much now as it was then.
henke on 9/2/2023 at 19:09
Been playing a lil video game called Thief 2 (HEARD OF IT?) and also The Dark Mod. Caught up on some quality FMs.
T2:
The Violent End of Duncan Malveine - This one's by nicked and it's a fricking huge murder mystery in a mansion, featuring some scripting I didn't even know was possible in Thief 2. I correctly identified the killer (which is randomized each playthrough), but didn't get all the optional extras, so for me the mission was over after a mere 4.5h. Highly recommended to anyone looking to get back to T2!
Affairs of Wizards - A really cool mission by Nameless Voice where you're hopping through portals into various locations to steal magic keys from magic dudes.
Compulsory Egress - Big city mission with some nice, spooky bits and a nice mystery at its core.
In TDM I played "Sneak & Destroy" and "Full Moon Fever". The first one is quite small but the second is a big ~2h mansion mission. It's been a while since I played TDM but each time I pick it up I'm impressed by how robust it is. New features like the lock picking and dynamic lighting and ragdolls add a lot. I'm the kinda taffer who wants to make sure the people I knock out are lying in a comfortable position before I move on, so being able to move individual limbs means I spend a silly amount of time making sure they're comfy.