Malleus on 18/4/2020 at 22:05
I played Blasphemous over the past weeks. I loved the world it takes place in, this twisted brutal catholic-ish setting was really unique and itriguing, even if the lore was quite vague. The visual style added to the atmosphere too, the areas, the enemy and boss designs, etc. were all great, and that's coming from someone who doesn't like pixelart. As for the gameplay, I think it was ... okay. The combat was quite simple, and I feel that most of the items and spells weren't strong and useful enough. At least the enemies had great variety and all fought and had to be fought differently, which was nice. Gotta say though, precision platforming with instakill drops is my bane, and there were plenty in this game. One of the reasons I'm wary of 2D platformers. On the whole, the game was difficult, but manageable, apart from some really hard bosses (the final boss was particularly ridiculous).
The metroidvania aspect was strange, as all the movement related abilities you get are not required to progress, they're just for finding secret stuff. There were many of those at least, and on the whole I liked the world design, which was huge, non linear and had lots to explore. Btw, I wish the game supported the mouse. It's not necessary, but I only used two buttons with my right hand anyway (attack/block) and it would've been more convenient to click. Anyway, I checked out both endings, and collected most stuff, the only thing left are the children of moonlight, but for those, even with a guide I would have to comb through the entire game world again, and I'm not sure I'm willing to do that right now. Still, I enjoyed the game. I do think that the world, visuals and the lore carried it, but it was a fun experience.
DarkForge on 19/4/2020 at 09:17
Quote Posted by Malf
@Darkforge, having been on a bit of a Dishonored binge recently, I though I'd give Mankind Divided another go too, but quickly ran in to framerate issues and the inability to invert mouse. My system's no slouch, so the tanking FPS on that first level is massively disappointing, and was reminiscent of the last time I tried to run it; that was with a GTX1070, this time was with an RTX2080 Super. I honestly can't remember performance being this bad the first time I played the game on release, but I think I did turn lots of stuff down to get it running.
The invert mouse thing however seems to be an ongoing problem, and as the game's not really being developed any more, probably unlikely to get fixed.
It was enough to make me think "Yeah, I can't be arsed with this."
Yikes! Thanks for the heads-up on that one, Malf. Yeah, a little concerning if you're still getting issues with it on an RTX 2080 Super - I've got a 2080 Ti so I'd imagine maybe a similar outcome for me?
To be honest, as long as I can actually play the game this time without it crashing to desktop every five minutes or so, then I probably won't be
too worried. In any case, a 2080 Ti has surely got to handle it better than the card in my last PC when I did get all those issues (a GTX 680) so hopefully the only way is up!
Thirith on 19/4/2020 at 09:39
I had similar issues, using a 2080 Ti, but with some tweaks it was definitely playable. Not that it should've needed those tweaks, but it seems the game is very badly optimised. I remember it getting better once you're past the tutorial, though I can't remember whether that was because of me changing some of the settings.
I enjoyed Mankind Divided well enough in the end, but I wasn't as convinced by Prague as some were. It didn't feel particularly alive to me and it all felt rather narrow.
Sulphur on 19/4/2020 at 11:00
For Mankind Divided, running with MSAA and contact shadows on is a pretty bad set of choices if you're just twisting all the dials to the right.
Kludging MSAA with a deferred renderer especially is a questionable choice from a programming point of view, never mind what it does to performance in any scenario. It runs fine at 1440p on a 1070 Ti if you turn that off, so I'm pretty sure 2160p is within spitting distance for the 2080x cards - there's just one point of weirdness with the takedown animations dropping the framerates.
RE: Prague, or any Deus Ex hub, I've never felt any of them as particularly 'alive' but Prague also didn't feel 'narrow' - that implies constrained, but I'd say that's not quite it. I've played through lots of hubs that were small in terms of real-estate but didn't feel small because they were riddled with paths to areas and made good use of verticality. If anything, Prague's pretty and decently wide, but for all the apparent traversable areas it's still fairly empty in terms of meaningful real estate - there's side missions but they don't really open up the city's areas in any way that adds to or reconfigures your mental map of it.
Thirith on 19/4/2020 at 16:03
Yeah, I think that fits my own impressions. Most Dishonoured levels feel bigger than they really are, because there's variation in terms of style, scale, horizontality and verticality. With Prague, I never really got that sense. Some of the individual levels, perhaps, but Prague itself felt smaller than it was in terms of virtual real estate. It feels corridory, even if it isn't really. It isn't quite "a maze of twisty little passages, all alike", but it felt like it to me.
Jason Moyer on 20/4/2020 at 07:47
A maze of twisty little passages with conspicuously placed air vents, all alike.
The further we get from the 3 Eidos Montreal games, the more I think fondly of the gameplay and the less I think fondly of everything else.
PigLick on 20/4/2020 at 09:50
Yeh HR is actually smaller than MD, but even going back and replaying it now it just feels bigger, somehow. I guess having two different city hubs helped.
Thirith on 20/4/2020 at 09:56
Almost done with Assassin's Creed 3, and I'd forgotten how stupid the writing gets, especially with respect to character motivations. Haytham Kenway would be interesting, but so much what he does makes little to no sense. It's even worse with Connor towards the end of the game.
It's where the game focuses on the homestead that it works best for me. The writing is still not great, but it's much more about small but meaningful character beats rather than supposedly grand plans that are as boneheaded as they come.
I have to say: sometimes I find it amazing how much bad work Ubisoft gets away with in their games. They have some things they do really well, but it's just so clear that in other respects they either don't have the talent or they don't give them the necessary weight and resources. There's always tons of potential, but so much of it is squandered every single time.
Malf on 20/4/2020 at 11:49
Yeah, I'm playing Origins at the moment. I've just finished the main story and have moved on to the first of the DLCs.
The world is stunning, but the story delivery is... bad.
I think the one that jarred for me the most was a quest shortly after picking the game up again. First minute I meet a family, second minute the little girl shows me the spot she plays in, then next minute she's dead and Bayek is eulogising like he's known her for years. All while being delivered with the dullest voice acting I've experienced in a while. Not outright bad, so to speak, but just boring.
I'm also really not a fan of them introducing levelling and bullet-sponges (for want of a better term). There's a lot of artificial difficulty which I felt the last game in the series I played (Black Flag) was missing, and better for it.
I think I'm going to have to cleanse my palate by spending some quality time with my favourite barcoded baldy before moving on to Odyssey .
Malf on 20/4/2020 at 12:24
Also, WTF is up with all the bad combovers in Origins?