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Video Games Thread: For the Love of Zeus, Give Me One!


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Thinking about picking up The Witness after work today. I haven't played vidya games in weeks, been all board games lately. 

But with Tomb Raider coming out this week I dunno if I should bother or not cause I'm probably not gonna finish it. 

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8 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Thinking about picking up The Witness after work today. I haven't played vidya games in weeks, been all board games lately. 

But with Tomb Raider coming out this week I dunno if I should bother or not cause I'm probably not gonna finish it. 

I picked it up. I shouldn't have, because right now I'm juggling Warframe, an XCOM playthrough, the new Diablo III season, and Homeland: DoK, but so it goes. I got caught up in the hype I guess.

I've played for around 3 hours, and its and odd thing. I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. Few things to know though. One, all the puzzles revolve around LED panels where you basically are playing 'snake' while under different rule conditions that are never explained to you. Some of those rules you figure out from what else is on the panels and some are from environmental clues, and its iterative, with the panels starting very easy and eventually getting incredibly complex. There are 667 of these panels, and I've solved 90 so far (the save file lets me know).

Two, there's no story to speak of; at least yet. After a very brief closed intro area, you are free to go anywhere in the island (there are some locked doors, raised bridges, etc. that prevent you from getting into some places; but if you knew how to solve the puzzles guarding them, which you won't at that point, you could go through them) with no explanation. The island is kinda overwhelming big, and there's no direction on where you should go or what solving most of the puzzles actually does except maybe unlocking a puzzle that you previously couldn't get to (I did complete one very long chain of puzzles that very obviously did something more than that, but I'm not sure what the impact on the island has been yet).

There are some voice recordings you can find. But they aren't story related. They are recordings of people reading excerpts of writings by real-world scientists, philosophers, etc. The first one I found was some reading about 4 minutes of something Einstein wrote in the 1930s. I think there may be some deeper secrets somewhere, for instance I found a very well hidden room with a projector and a bunch of puzzles that I haven't been able to solve yet. I'm really hoping solving those puzzles turns on the projector and I see something, but the game hasn't done anything like that. On the other hand, I don't think that the fact that there's 667 puzzles is a coincidence, particularly with the philosophical mood it sorta seems to be going for.

Third, the island is huge. Possibly too big actually. And there's no minimap so it can be hard to remember where different areas are in relation to each other. Its the sort of game where I think you may actually want to play with a pen and paper to write down some of the things you see (diagrams and the like) which I suspect are related to solving puzzles down the road. Otherwise you may spend a very long time backtracking to see those things again anytime you think they may be relevant. And because the island is so big and you can basically go anywhere, it doesn't usually feel like your making much progression or what the reason behind solving the puzzles is.

Fourth, there's no music. Just the sound of breeze and your footsteps. I wish there was music.

Fifth, the game looks fantastic.

I'm sticking with it, but so far I like both The Talos Principle and Portal/Portal 2 quite a bit more.

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The next games I have my eye on are Life is Strange and Gravity Rush. But in reality I am unlikely to get around to getting them any time soon because I have Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones to finish off once I'm done with the Witcher 3, and MGSV (all of which I currently own). And most likely before I'm done with all those Uncharted 4 will come along and demand to be played. Hopefully though between Uncharted 4 and the next AAA game release I really want to play there will be time to get to Life is Strange and Gravity Rush. That's assuming I don't get my PS3 back and have several games on that I've yet to play.

I should never have bought the complete Resident Evil collection on PS3. How the hell am I going to get through all of them?

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Ended up deciding against The Witness. Looks cool and all but $40 for a game where you solve mazes over and over? Ehhhh...I dunno. Especially not when I'm probably gonna be spending full price on Tomb Raider in two days as long as the port isn't borked. 

Looks like it'll be a sale game for me. 

I reinstalled Darkest Dungeon instead. I'm so fucking bad at this game. Even on the apprentice level missions I have people dying constantly and have to use a brand new team almost every time cause all my people are always stressed.

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10 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Ended up deciding against The Witness. Looks cool and all but $40 for a game where you solve mazes over and over? Ehhhh...I dunno. Especially not when I'm probably gonna be spending full price on Tomb Raider in two days as long as the port isn't borked. 

If you don't want to solve maze puzzles over and over, yeah, its probably not the game for you. I did want to solve maze puzzles, and I'm still not sure its the game for me (I really wish there was more of a story and didn't feel so aimless). I will say though, the game does some very interesting things with the puzzles, and not just the increasingly complex symbols on them that describe various rule sets (e.g. the line you draw from the start to the finish has to cut these symbols off from each other but keep these other symbols together, but only two at a time; etc.).

Its hard to talk about since the biggest draw of the game I think is the sense of discovery you get when you figure out some of these things. So, spoilers, and I wouldn't recommend anyone interested in buying the game looking at them. I'm only four hours but some of things I've discovered are:

Spoiler

 

One of the basic rules of the puzzles is that you can't draw a line in space that you can't see. So you'll often puzzle panels that have a plank over part of it that you need to remove by solving another puzzle elsewhere; because until you do the plank is blocking the start from the finish. Eventually you find puzzles in three dimensional space, where there's things like trees blocking part of the puzzle, and you need to find the right perspective to position yourself at so you can see a path that isn't being blocked.

There are starting to be puzzles that aren't panels at all; but sides of buildings, sides of fences, actual mazes you walk through, a boat with a map and a throttle that you control via line drawings, etc.. Some of these lead to secret easter eggs, like one near the beginning where if you line up a pillar of light with the sun, you can 'solve' a very basic puzzle that leads to a hidden "ending" (still no story though).

There are puzzles where the solution is something you need to find nearby; like a puzzle that is a drawing of a tree and the exit to the puzzle is indicated by a nearby tree that has an apple on it.

There are puzzles that do things like open a door on a timer, and the trick isn't solving the puzzle (which thus far has always been easy) the trick is finding the right place to stand when solving the puzzle so that you can reach the door before it deactivates. Because you don't actually need to be standing in front of a puzzle to solve it; you just need to be able to clearly see it and you can activate your cursor anywhere.

My autosave's name is currently 133 +1. I know the 133 means I've completed 133 puzzles so far, I have no idea what the +1 means. I've completed a couple puzzles that I'd consider very special, so I assume one of them triggered that; but I don't know which.

 

And that's just after 4 hours. It supposedly takes around 20 hours to "beat" it (since you only need to complete half the island areas to open up the final area) and can take a lot more than that if you try completing all the areas plus try to complete all the hidden puzzles and puzzles not connected to the main progression in each area. So I'm sure things will get even more complex.

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My grandmother and my mother are full on hoarders.  Mom isn't quite as bad, but I swear my grandmother is just a banana peel away from qualifying for the show Hoarders.  They have passed it to me in small quantities and only the extreme lack of any emotional attachment to anything by my wife saves our house from slowly suffering the same fate.  (My wife is so meticulous that people have actually commented our house could be in a home magazine... so pretty much the polar opposite of my natural tendencies.)

I am trying to combat these seemingly genetic predilections and I constantly encourage my mother and grandmother to just pull up a dumpster and have done.  They are both slowly working on cleaning their houses and show up at my office with the most random of stuff they think I would want to keep.

Well, today my grandmother showed up here and slapped down a couple of things on my desk.  One of them appeared to be a random video game poster/map for some game called Code Name: Viper.  I was ready to toss it, but figured I'd look to see how it managed to get saved and when I opened it up; this is what was on the other side:

IMG_5779_zps0vtxbtll.jpg

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I couldn't get the reply to type anything after the picture was inserted... but anyways, I can't throw that away!!!!  Final Fantasy was my first RPG and then my grandmother renewed my subscription to Nintendo Power and I got Dragon Warrior for free.  The obsession stuck and I've been in ever since.

The other cool thing she showed up with today was this:   (And yes... I recognize that by referring to things I haven't seen in 30 years as "cool" and not "trash," I am reinforcing my hoarder habits!)

IMG_5780_zpsvv9ys2vz.jpg

 

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20 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

I reinstalled Darkest Dungeon instead. I'm so fucking bad at this game. Even on the apprentice level missions I have people dying constantly and have to use a brand new team almost every time cause all my people are always stressed.

Don't worry about that. In the early game it's more cost efficient to just let those stressed characters fester, and grab new arrivals off the stagecoach. Often times you'll find that the skill presets on the new arrivals are better than your initial recruits anyway. On top of that, if you just hold onto some of those stressed out originals, you will eventually have the resources to de-stress them. And it will be cheaper as you improve the various businesses that perform those tasks.

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Been playing Bloodborne alot lately man does it really wear you down to be more conservative gameplay and points wise. I also finished Tales from the borderlands last week (the feels :'( hope theres a season two.)

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I'd like to try Darkest Dungeon at some point, but there's just too many games on my plate right now. I'm up 212 puzzles +5 in The Witness, and I've figured out what the +s mean too. Also, the puzzles are now making changes to the environment (and so besides just figuring out the puzzles, you have to figure out the right order to solve them in) to the point where its clear what Jonathan Blow was trying to do, he was trying to make a modern day Myst. 

 

Rhom,

Its not hoarding. That Final Fantasy poster is really cool (and something I never saw before. I didn't start gaming until around '92).

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I feel like there is a need to petition the Nilfgaard Emperor, King Radovid and the Jarls of Skellige to recognise trolls as non-humans rather than monsters and accord them what little legal protections non-humans enjoy over and above monsters.

The case for Troll non-human status:

They can talk - most monsters can't talk, even monsters in the same class as trolls seem to be incapable of talking, or at least unwilling to.

They can be reasoned with - in virtually every encounter you cant talk your way out of conflict with trolls, they can bargain and strike deals. Even when they perceive a threat or are antagonistic they can recognise non-aggressive behaviour and be willing to talk rather than keep throwing rocks.

They are obedient - When they agree to do something they will do it, with almost single minded determination

They can think laterally and logically - See Trollolol's figuring out how to guard the boats, very creative  and lateral thinking.

They have a moral compass - Trollolol seems to be troubled by the fact the soldiers took the peasant's boats and he has to prevent the peasants from taking the boats back. But he's an obedient soldier.

They have artistic / aesthetic sensibilities - Trollolol likes to sing, and he can paint.

They seem to be less brutish by nature than some human societies - Skelligs in particular. Indeed it seems like the only brutish trolls are the ones that live in Skellige, so perhaps they reflect somewhat the societies around them.

They cook their food - cooking is a sign of sophistication, monsters don't cook.

They can aspire to higher levels of sophistication and civilisation - Ogg, Pogg and Rogg want to wear shoes, like humans do. So they acknowledge a certain more refined civilisation and aspire to that greater degree of refinement.

They can build things - again ref Trollolol's solution to being able to guard the boats is to build a fence, and he builds a fence.

Yes, they eat people. But I'm sure if they were more integrated into human and non-human societies they would agree to not eat people. They also need to be trained to wear pants.

 

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Finished Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. Very enjoyable game. Not quite as good as Homeworld 1 and 2, but still a really good game.

This is a prime example of the relativity of time passage applying to video gaming. :P What I mean to say is the game felt very short when I finished it, I completed the campaign in 10 hours. But then I looked back on my playing time for HW1&2 Re-mastered, the play time was the same. However, at same time in the middle of the campaign, I was feeling exhausted, wondering how much more do I have to suffer. That is thanks to the intense gameplay, the many desperate defenses, and the struggle to acquire resources - to be clear, these are marks of a great RTS.

The game does bring all the feels of the old games. A powerful story, a great soundtrack (I cheered when one of the old themes played), and solid visuals and sounds. Actually that radio chatter was amazing, not just your run of the mill voice prompts. 

Despite not being set in space, the mission maps are still sizable and diverse (despite all of it being a desert), allowing you to move around not just with your little vehicles, but with everything you got. I moved my carrier around a map much more often than I did with the mothership in the old games. But then again, the carrier seemed better equipped to handle attackers than the mothership was. Also using the terrain to your advantage does come into play considerably, if not quite from the beginning.

It does suffer from one of the things that almost all RTS games suffer - unit movements, and unit getting impeded by terrain. Which is one thing that the predecessors avoided because... space. 

The vehicle models were not as impressive as the spaceship models from the old games. But in a way that is not a bad thing, as I didn't have to be distracted by them.

Also I didn't quite like the ending, it felt rushed.

 

Spoiler

Where was the discovery of the stone tablet with the word Hiigara? Where was the discovery of the hyperspace core?

After playing this game I want:

1) Homeworld 3 - make it happen dammit!

2) A Homeworld game set on a watery planet with navies. Because calling sand vehicles cruisers is amusing.

3) A new Dune RTS game.

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