Jason Moyer on 15/2/2021 at 11:47
With the DLC I think it took me around 40-45 hours, which is pretty normal for that style of RPG I think. Great game in any case, probably the most interesting narrative interaction ever even by Obsidian standards.
Attempting to play UVHM in BL2, which is kind of stupid. A game with exponential health/damage scaling probably didn't need a 4x multiplier on top of that for the enemies. Basic mooks have millions of hitpoints at level 50, it's not really massively fun trying to kill 1-3 people at a time with fully upgraded phaselock and properly levelled gear and then hiding or running away until phaselock recharges. I wish BL1/BL2 would just do normal enemy/item level scaling on the second playthrough (and let you reset missions) and not make you do this stupid shit in playthrough 3 in order to have endgame content.
I also made the mistake of being level 55 when I started UVHM, and gear caps at level 50 in TVHM so I ended up having to go to Sanctuary in TVHM and waste like 30 shift keys on the cheater chest to gear up enough to actually do any damage to anything at all.
faetal on 15/2/2021 at 13:32
Finished AC: Syndicate (which was really great) and am now playing AC: Oranges. Possibly the most beuatiful game I have ever played. Not sold on the gameplay yet - feels a bit like TW3 set in Ancient Egypt.
Still keeping me occupied though, so defintiely good. I think I may give the AC games a breather after this one though. I think 5 in a row may have been a bit much.
Thirith on 15/2/2021 at 14:53
Quote:
Not sold on the gameplay yet -
feels a bit like TW3 set in Ancient Egypt.I think that's exactly what they were aiming for, and for the most part it seems that their audience is happy with this. The later games,
Odyssey and (from what I've heard)
Valhalla, definitely go in that same direction. Me, though? I can play perhaps one of these every three to four years. These days, games that use the sheer size of their open world as the main selling point send me running in the other direction, more often than not.
Harvester on 16/2/2021 at 09:43
I've pickup where I left off in StarCraft: Remastered. Just finished the Terran campaign. I find base building and destroying enemy bases a bit more relaxing - though it has its tense moments, especially when you get attacked while you're still building your defenses - for after a workday than the hectic gameplay of the Halo games or similar fast-paced shooters.
It's a good remaster, but I think they could've taken it further. Like having the unit portraits and mission briefing portraits lip sync to what's being said, and they could've re-rendered the cutscenes in at least full HD quality. But those are minor complaints. So far I'm enjoying it.
henke on 16/2/2021 at 12:45
Speaking of old RTS games, I played a bit of Battle Zone 98 Redux. From that brief period of time when Action-RTS-games were the hot shit with titles like Ground Control and Hostile Waters also coming out. I liked, and even finished this game back then but I'm not enjoying it so much on this second go-around. It's quite difficult, but in a kinda bullshit trial-and-error way, where you gotta fail a mission a few times before you learn where the enemies are gonna come from and then set up defense turrets to counteract them. Eh, driving around and commanding units from a first person perspective is cool tho.
Also I did end up picking up AC Unity, on your recommendation faetal. :) Since I don't like the new AC games I guess I gotta go back and play the old ones I missed. Speaking of which, should I bother with AC Rogue?
Thirith on 16/2/2021 at 13:53
If you liked Assassin's Creed IV, you may well like Rogue. It is much more chilly in tone and aesthetics, but it plays like the darker twin to AC4, a bit like TIE Fighter vis-à-vis X-Wing. Also, if you liked the world and story (but not necessarily the main character) of AC3, Rogue does some nice things with it. If you can get it reasonably cheap and feel like an Assassin's Creed snack, you could do worse than Rogue.
Shoshin on 16/2/2021 at 15:57
I am gonna goddamn finish Black Mesa. On Interloper chapter now, think I'm close to the end but who knows. The Xen chapters have been a mixed bag for me. I liked the design of the earlier Xen stuff, though there wasn't much actual gameplay, just moving through a psychedelic alien landscape. But Gonarch's Lair onward has been a slog. Still, gonna finish and then move it to my done pile.
catbarf on 16/2/2021 at 18:01
Quote Posted by Shoshin
I am gonna goddamn finish Black Mesa. On Interloper chapter now, think I'm close to the end but who knows. The Xen chapters have been a mixed bag for me. I liked the design of the earlier Xen stuff, though there wasn't much actual gameplay, just moving through a psychedelic alien landscape. But Gonarch's Lair onward has been a slog. Still, gonna finish and then move it to my done pile.
Interloper is
long, and I agree with your assessment. The Black Mesa part of the game was great, the initial entry to Xen was great, but the Gonarch's Lair fight was about twice as long as it needed to be and then Interloper after that starts to feel less like a studio remake and more like an indie Source mod. If it weren't for the sheer spectacle of the first hour in Xen I'd be tempted to say I prefer the original HL Xen, just because it keeps you moving and gets itself over with.
Well, I've been replaying STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl using the Autumn Aurora mod. It's a bit of a mixed bag. I like the new equipment additions and that I can actually hit what I'm aiming at, but the gunplay changes go too far in the other direction, making armor and artifacts feel nearly worthless. I'm in the Red Forest now with a suit+artifacts combo that should be giving me 75% immunity to bullet damage, but I'm still getting one-shotted by Monolith snipers. The mod adds a ton of new weapons to play around with, but I've barely run into any enemies with NATO weapons and haven't seen any 9x39, so with just 5.45 and 7.62x54R available I've ironically been using less diverse weapons than the vanilla game.
I think if the mod had a little more diversity in NPC equipment and maybe halved damage (both for the player and NPCs), it'd be perfect. To my tastes, at least.
Fingernail on 17/2/2021 at 10:35
Been playing GreedFall which was on PS Plus last month and surprisingly got into it. It's got a lot going for it as well as lots of drawbacks, the main being its lack of polish - lots of moments in dialogues/cutscenes aren't animated, each palace/town hall of the three major factions have exactly the same interior (there are more examples of reusing interiors in quite a lazy way). The negative aspects of colonialism, whilst being explored to a degree (you discover your lead character is actually native by heritage and has been lied to about his parentage) are rather simplistically handled and lots of the quests can be resolved in a "keeping the natives and the colonists happy as long as both sides compromise reasonably" kind of way although there is a fair amount of choice and the companions you choose to bring also have an impact on the quests (you get a companion representing each faction including the natives). But there's something weirdly charming about its jankiness that has grabbed me in a way that the Witcher never quite did.
Got Control lined up next.
PigLick on 17/2/2021 at 10:38
Hey Fingernail, nice to see you are still kicking around. :)