Starker on 4/11/2021 at 21:45
Might want to try Burnout Paradise Remastered. I'm not a big racing games player myself, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. There's no story, but it's all city stuff.
Aja on 4/11/2021 at 23:10
Quote Posted by henke
Out of the probably 100 times I've been caught I've successfully countered maybe 3 times?
The voice in the game tells you it calculates a 99 percent chance of you not succeeding a parry, so you've tripled the odds!
henke on 5/11/2021 at 05:56
Wow turns out I'm a PRO GAMER after all!
Also I finished the game. It was good!
<Username> on 7/11/2021 at 14:28
Completed Fallout Tactics yesterday. This was a big milestone for me because it was the last boxed game in my possession I had never finished before. I used a couple of days off in the last three weeks to power through the campaign. In the last missions, my squad was fully equipped with energy weapons and power armor, able to obliterate anything in its path. At that point, I didn't care much for cover anymore and could instead just charge into rooms, firing from all cylinders, leaving heaps destroyed robots behind. This was very satisfying. In the first half of the game, the campaign felt a bit repetitive at times and could have benefitted from more interesting plot points, but overall, I enjoyed the game a lot. Furthermore, it is surprising how well the graphics hold up. The environments and models still look great.
WingedKagouti on 9/11/2021 at 12:45
I nearly finished up the campaign of Aven Colony (weekly EGS freebie) and it's not written well. There's a story unfolding across the individual missions and either the colonists were the stupidest "scientists" on Earth or the writers just thought the audience didn't know anything at all about stars. At one point they find what looks like an archive, which mentions something about aliens comming to warn the previous inhabitants of the planet about their star turning into a supernova. At least one of the leaders asks whether the previous inhabitants died to the supernova.
They're in orbit of the planet that was supposedly endagered by the nearby star going supernova. The star that for the last couple of missions has provided ample power to the various solar panels.
While a later chapter reveals it to have been a test by the unknown aliens (ie. those that gave the warning), the scientists among the Earth colonists should immediately have shot down on the idea that there ever was a supernova. But until the "reveal" the colonists (including the scientists) all treat the supernova as if it actually was something that happened in the unskippable dialogue. Dialogue which generally happens at the end of each mission and you have to let it play before you're allowed to click the Win Scenario button.
The gameplay itself is ok for a citybuilder, but the UI feels like it was made functional and then never looked at again. If you grab it as a freebie you can get several hours out of it, but I can't honestly reccomend paying for it.
Harvester on 13/11/2021 at 20:41
Finished Serious Sam 3: BFE on PC. That final level was a slog for sure, waves upon waves of enemies in a not very interesting environment. I got through it (on Normal difficulty) by save scumming, I'm sure I'd have given up if the game only had checkpoint saves. For the end boss I looked up a let's play on how to beat it, I get frustrated easily with boss fights, I never cheat but I often resort to looking up walkthroughs and let's plays to get the fights over quickly. I got the achievement for beating the game, and it's a rare achievement (with the sparkling border). Only 8% of players beat the game, which makes me wonder if Croteam made the final level and boss fight too hard for most players. There's also an expansion, Jewel of the Nile, but I think I'll go play some PS4 games from the comfort of my couch for a while. I sit at that desk all day during work hours, I prefer the couch (and being outside) on my time off to playing PC games at the same desk where I work. So that's why I bought a second hand PS4 Pro, might exchange it later when PS5's are in normal supply.
demagogue on 14/11/2021 at 06:23
I finished off Sable. You probably all already know that the art direction is top notch. It's like you're in a Moebius strip. Quite a lot of images were actually ripped almost exactly from his work; so much so I bet he (or his estate) would have a pretty good copyright claim. But anyway they seem to have given it a pass & all the better for us, because his art is iconic for a reason.
I actually went into the game not knowing anything about it aside from a few screenshots, and I think it added to the experience, not knowing what was coming. So I'd play it before reading the rest of this, if you're thinking of playing it at all.
The story is cool enough. It's really boiled down to a few lines of dialog, and it isn't even all that deep, but that's better for it as a game anyway. You're just out there, alone in this world, and the world itself speaks to you more than anything else. That's the important part, and that's the part it does well. But there were some memorable characters along the way too, and the whole thing is a coming of age story about exploring different lifestyles & finding yourself, which did the job, but again did it best by just having you in this world with total freedom to make if it what you want.
If I could summarize what kind of game it is, the closest thing would be Breath of the Wild. There's vast, largely empty regions of gorgeous scenery that you're cruising through and exploring, and every so often you'll see something that looks interesting in the far distance and try to make your way there, and then there will be jumping & parkour puzzles. It reminded me of a little of Knytt Stories in that kind of way too. It's non-lethal, I couldn't really find a way to injure or trap myself if I wanted to. You just have to do the jumps & find the right angles and directions if you want to make progress.
It's exploration and doing tasks couched in pretext of a coming of age ritual; which actually explains the tasks you're doing better than most games, in the sense they're purposefully contrived for the protagonist to have something to do in the game world too.
I personally love this kind of gameplay, especially coupled with the ambient music & nice environment. So this game really worked for me. I spent a lot of it just cruising the world in the bike for its own sake too. So you'd get it if that sort of thing does it for you.
So all of that said, it is a really janky game, and there are a few bugs still in the UI and objective logic, even like managing simple conditional state flags that sound like game coding 101 stuff. But I believe the actually bugs will get fixed over time, and there's always a way to get around them I found if you look them up. And then some of the jank appears to be by design, the intentionally slide-show like animation cycle, the kind of janky way the gliding, running, jumping, and mantling work.
It does create an aesthetic that I could appreciate as the game went on. It's like you're literally in a comic, and practically every other frame is worth a screenshot. On occasion it messes with the gameplay, but at some point you learn the system and it's fine. And by the end, I think it added to the whole experience of the thing. But if someone is a sticker about jank in their gaming, this would probably drive them mad.
And it is an experience. Actually the game it reminded me most of was Outer Wilds. I think someone here mentioned before about Outer Wilds, there were certain scenes where you were just left in complete wonder or awe at what was happening around you, the sense of vast scale and innumerable little details, the colors and the atmosphere and the surrealism, the amount of craft that went into it, and it all has a cleverness to it. Sable has lots of scenes like that, lots and lots of them. It's just a joy exploring this world, and a lot of moments of discovery were really incredible. That's something games don't offer much anymore. And it makes all of the little foibles or jank not really matter in the grand scheme of the game. I loved it.
Malf on 15/11/2021 at 16:05
So I'm currently replaying Deus Ex Mankind Divided and Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
Manky really does do a lot I appreciate.
Prague as a location to poke around in freeform immersive sim style is stupendous, and one of my favourite immersive sim locations ever. I said over Mumble to some of you guys recently that I think Manky's Prague is the closest anyone has come to Warren Spector's "One City Block" idea.
Character progression is, for the most part, well thought out and pretty balanced (although some aug upgrades do suffer from just being number increases).
The voice acting is fab, and Jensen's at his growly best.
And if there's one thing I wish there was simply more of, it's the Social Enhancer / C.A.S.I.E event conversations. Yes, I know it just comes down to keeping count of which indicator triggers the most, but I find it a lot more convincing as an interesting way to influence a conversation than a lot of other systems out there.
I'd love to see it expanded, especially as a way to antagonise the opponent or otherwise direct a conversation as opposed to just being a way to "win" it.
There are things I think it does badly, such as achievements and the aug energy system, but overall, it's a very enjoyable experience.
I started on Mass Effect Legendary Edition yesterday, and started at the very beginning.
Previously, I'd played the first and second games, but not the third, so I'm looking forward to that. A long enough time has passed now for me to not be pissed off at the reviled ending.
It looks good, and the bants are still top notch. And I've very quickly slipped back in to being Space Asshole Shepard.
But the controls and claustrophobically close camera angles take a LOT of getting used to. I did initially try playing using the Steam Controller through Steamlink on my new telly, then quickly changed to an Xbox pad, but eventually ended up back at the PC, as it just feels better with mouse & keyboard. But a lot of the controls are still arse-about-face, and it does little if nothing to tell you how to do certain things.
Still, it will be interesting to play through again.
Thirith on 15/11/2021 at 18:16
Just got started on The Artful Escape, which a lot of people seem to have liked. First impression: it feels a bit like what I'd imagine Night in the Woods to be if it was done by DoubleFine. It's definitely not a game that'll be remembered for its gameplay, from what I can tell so far. So far it's mainly charming but also perhaps a bit slight and clichéd, but hey, I've just played the first 20-30 minutes.
