Video Games: No Man's Pie

[Werthead]

Excellent Polygon article on the making (and unmaking) of StarCraft: Ghost.

I'm surprised that no-one got a review copy of No Man's Sky. Feels very weird to have a major AAA game release (at least in hype terms) without a single reliable, big review of it out already, just 50 "reviews in progress".

[Rhom]

I wound up picking up No Man's Sky late last night and playing for a couple hours today.

Its okay... but anyone who got it thinking they'd be getting a space shooter is going to be greatly disappointed.  It doesn't hold your hand at all.  From the minute the game loaded I was on a planet with very little explanation of what to do.  Mostly I've managed to get my initial gear repaired, but I'm still getting the hang of what I'm supposed to do. 

The game is gorgeous though, which I suppose is the draw.   

 

[briantw]

12 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Excellent Polygon article on the making (and unmaking) of StarCraft: Ghost.

I'm surprised that no-one got a review copy of No Man's Sky. Feels very weird to have a major AAA game release (at least in hype terms) without a single reliable, big review of it out already, just 50 "reviews in progress".

From what I read they didn't send out review copies because they knew there was a massive day one patch coming out that changed a significant amount of the gameplay mechanics and fixed a ton of issues with the game.  Thus, the game any reviewers with early copies would be playing wouldn't be representative of the final product that gamers would be playing on day one after downloading the patch, and so review copies didn't make sense.

[Werthead]

That does make sense in this instance, but it's also handily convenient.

That said, it does mean that everyone is discovering the game at the same time, which is cool.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Rhom said:

I wound up picking up No Man's Sky late last night and playing for a couple hours today.

Its okay... but anyone who got it thinking they'd be getting a space shooter is going to be greatly disappointed.  It doesn't hold your hand at all.  From the minute the game loaded I was on a planet with very little explanation of what to do.  Mostly I've managed to get my initial gear repaired, but I'm still getting the hang of what I'm supposed to do. 

The game is gorgeous though, which I suppose is the draw.   

 

I don't understand how anyone could have that expectation of the game based on pre-release information. It always seemed to me to be a game primarily oriented towards exploration and discovery and a bit of commerce and sometimes shooting stuff on the ground or in the air or out in space.

Also, apparently Jim Sterling's website got DDOS'd because he gave NMS a 5/10 and didn't like the game. Fans aye? First misogynist gamers who threaten feminists for daring to point out how sexist a lot of game content is, then Suicide Squad fans want Rotten Tomatoes taken off line, now NMS fans are DDOSing reviewers who dare to not like the game. What next I wonder?

[Rhom]

I'm off the first planet and exploring the next.  Gradually getting more tech, but I have to assume there's better ways to get around.  I detected a signal on the planet I'm on, but at my highest available speed it's still 15 minutes away.  I've got it pointed in that direction while I'm surfing on my phone.  

[KiDisaster]

13 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Also, apparently Jim Sterling's website got DDOS'd because he gave NMS a 5/10 and didn't like the game. Fans aye? First misogynist gamers who threaten feminists for daring to point out how sexist a lot of game content is, then Suicide Squad fans want Rotten Tomatoes taken off line, now NMS fans are DDOSing reviewers who dare to not like the game. What next I wonder?

GeekBoyz are fucking pathetic. Is there a more whiny and entitled group in existence? 

[Reny of Storms End]

30 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I'm off the first planet and exploring the next.  Gradually getting more tech, but I have to assume there's better ways to get around.  I detected a signal on the planet I'm on, but at my highest available speed it's still 15 minutes away.  I've got it pointed in that direction while I'm surfing on my phone.  

This might be obvious, but if you're playing on PS4 you can boost while flying inside a planets atmosphere by pressing circle (you can do it in space too, but there is also a faster booster that only works in space, its R1+L1).

[Jasta11]

I heard that the boxed versions of No Man's Sky have a sticker covering up the ''online'' label on them. If true, that's incredibly shady move that borders on actual false advertisement. If multiplayer is cut from the game, actually say so.

The more I hear about this, the happier I am for my early skepticism. The game seems like a gigantic ocen with the dept of a puddle, you do nothing but wander around looking at proceduraly generated stuff, gathering prodecuraly generated stuff so you can go to more places and gather more proceduraly generated stuff, with some lame combat in between stuff gathering sessions from time to time. 

I mean, if some people like it, more power to them. It's a free world and all that. But to me it looks even more boring than Spore's space stage.

[Argonath Diver]

It definitely sounds like a style of gameplay that will rapidly bore a lot of people back to competitive gaming or more immediate-reward gaming in general. Not that that's a bad thing at all - I mindlessly dropped my weekend into silly-ass Diablo 3 (and promptly re-un-installed, as most D3 players do these days once the game becomes immediately boring). I also still play Counter Strike Source to boss around players ten years younger than me. Diablo and CS, my gaming literally hasn't changed since 1999. 

That said, NMS looks like it'll be right up my alley. It helps that I have an obnoxiously oversized projection screen in my city apartment. The game's gonna look fantastic. Will be odd, though - I have never been a console gamer, despite generally owning one or two since I was a boy. I simply have never gotten good at the standard two-thumb movement as opposed to WASD/mouse. That said, my PS4 will run it better, and it's about damn time. I wish I'd gotten Fallout 4 on PS4 as well, my dated gaming rig stutters on games pushing high framerates at 1080.

So, on to Amazon prime

[Fez]

46 minutes ago, Jasta11 said:

I heard that the boxed versions of No Man's Sky have a sticker covering up the ''online'' label on them. If true, that's incredibly shady move that borders on actual false advertisement. If multiplayer is cut from the game, actually say so.

The more I hear about this, the happier I am for my early skepticism. The game seems like a gigantic ocen with the dept of a puddle, you do nothing but wander around looking at proceduraly generated stuff, gathering prodecuraly generated stuff so you can go to more places and gather more proceduraly generated stuff, with some lame combat in between stuff gathering sessions from time to time. 

I mean, if some people like it, more power to them. It's a free world and all that. But to me it looks even more boring than Spore's space stage.

It does look a lot like Elite: Dangerous. Focused on different aspects of gameplay, but just as wide yet shallow. I'm thinking I won't be playing it.

I would like to get something new though. I have a lot of games on my plate, but they're all nostalgic replays or indie games. Which are great, but I'd like a big AAA story-driven game to really sink my teeth into, and there just aren't that many of those anymore. I'm hoping the new Deus Ex will be good, but even that isn't really what want; what I really want is the new Mass Effect or something similar. Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't look like there's going to be anything like that this year. Dishonored 2 should be good, but that's about it (the Mafia series isn't my thing and I have no expectations for Watch Dogs 2).

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Reny of Storms End said:

This might be obvious, but if you're playing on PS4 you can boost while flying inside a planets atmosphere by pressing circle (you can do it in space too, but there is also a faster booster that only works in space, its R1+L1).

Yeah I was boosting, but still slow.  I accidentally drifted into space while I was afk and used the pulse boost.  Got me there much quicker.  It's tricky getting the hang of navigating around at first.  Now I have a warp drive and made some antimatter so I'm off and about.  Will see how I like it as I go off the rails even more.

[Ded As Ned]

After getting lost and wandering around aimlessly in Skyrim for a few hours yesterday (getting bitten by a vampire and killed several times by giants), I finally discovered the in-game map and fast travel. I should've probably paid better attention to the tutorial. 

[Werthead]

The new Deus Ex is out in less than a fortnight and Square's marketing has been pretty lacklustre so far. A lot of people seem unaware of it, which is startling for the highest-profile AAA story-based game coming out in the forseeable future. Maybe Square are giving it a few days for the No Man's Sky stuff to settle down before taking up the marketing a bit.

[GallowKnight]

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The new Deus Ex is out in less than a fortnight and Square's marketing has been pretty lacklustre so far. A lot of people seem unaware of it, which is startling for the highest-profile AAA story-based game coming out in the forseeable future. Maybe Square are giving it a few days for the No Man's Sky stuff to settle down before taking up the marketing a bit.

Most of the marketing for Deus Ex just seems to have pissed people off anyway.

[Muttering Bill]

23 hours ago, Jasta11 said:

The more I hear about this, the happier I am for my early skepticism. The game seems like a gigantic ocen with the dept of a puddle, you do nothing but wander around looking at proceduraly generated stuff, gathering prodecuraly generated stuff so you can go to more places and gather more proceduraly generated stuff, with some lame combat in between stuff gathering sessions from time to time. 

That's a fair description.  But did they ever play it up to be anything more than that?  I avoided all the pre-release stuff.  Thought it looked boring from the start and wasn't interested.  Only had a vague idea of what it was about, which sounds a lot like what you just described.

I only came to investigate it since release.  Looking at it just for what it is, and not wild speculation over what it could be or misleading developer promises (If there's one thing Destiny taught me...), and it seemed interesting.

Picked it up yesterday and spent about 2.5 hours with it.  It's been enjoyable so far.  Just left my first planet, but I'm not following the main story.

My daughter really enjoyed it too.  She had a blast just watching me wander around (she's not good on the controller), seeing what the planet had to offer, and coming up with silly names for them.

[Reny of Storms End]

On 8/11/2016 at 11:05 AM, Rhom said:

Yeah I was boosting, but still slow.  I accidentally drifted into space while I was afk and used the pulse boost.  Got me there much quicker.  It's tricky getting the hang of navigating around at first.  Now I have a warp drive and made some antimatter so I'm off and about.  Will see how I like it as I go off the rails even more.

Yeah navigating is a little tricky, it almost feels like there is a slight delay between pushing up or down and actually having your ship respond. In other news, I bought a bigger ship off a Gek trader, and went from having a hyperdrive that was 50% full to one that is empty. Oh well I like my new ship, but now I forget how to make antimatter. 

[Rhom]

South Park:  The Fractured But Hole introduces gamers to the "Nosulus Rift."

Its a device that goes over the nose and provides fart smells along with the game...

Quote

As such, Ubisoft has apparently developed the Nosulus Rift—a “fully-immersive” nose-mounted device which allows you to properly “experience the power of the new kid.”

(Also... I'm embarrassed to admit that I just now realized the play on words in the title of the game...  )

[briantw]

Apparently the PC version of No Man's Sky is an absolute disaster right now.  A lot of gamers can't even boot up the game, as it crashes at the title screen.  Alt-tabbing breaks the game.  The frame rate is terrible even on the best machines.  This could be an even worse PC launch than Arkham Knight, which would be goddamn impressive.

[Shryke]

10 hours ago, Muttering Bill said:

That's a fair description.  But did they ever play it up to be anything more than that? 

I don't know. I didn't really pay attention either. Mostly because, like basically everyone I know, I took one look at the release trailer and said "Vast quantities of shallow procedurally generated content". Anyone who's been around this industry for the last few years should've been able to call that.