Video Games: Next Stop... Andromeda

[The Anti-Targ]

On 11/03/2017 at 0:29 PM, RumHam said:

In what sense is this a "Launch Trailer" if the game isn't out yet?

Last trailer before launch I suppose. And I think people with EA Access can play the game very soon.

 

On 12/03/2017 at 3:16 PM, KiDisaster said:

Still enjoying the hell out of Horizon Zero Dawn,

In related news, it seems like Sony will be releasing PS4 titles to play through PS Now. So now PC gamers can't be complaining so much that they never get to play the best PS4 games. But on the downside it looks like Horizon and other major PS4 titles will be ringfenced as a PS4 only, at least for a while. Probably most exciting for PC Souls fans will be Bloodborne if/when it becomes available through PS Now.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Jon AS said:

I assume that's literally in the intro cinematic.

Kinda weird when it's been so prominent in the marketing. Bait and switch? Still would prefer to find out as part of getting into the game.

[Jon AS]

9 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Kinda weird when it's been so prominent in the marketing. Bait and switch? Still would prefer to find out as part of getting into the game.

The focus was mostly in the in-universe marketing. Other stuff focused much more on mechanics rather than story.

I pretty much assumed this would be how the game starts, actually.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Yikes...that Adromeda trailer is terrible--mostly because of the music. Makes me want to take my preorder back. Except they gave us a Krogan this time. But they also let Kumail Nanjianaji voice a role, and he is a smarmy dick. But you get a Krogan. I don't know, Bioware.

[KiDisaster]

35 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

In related news, it seems like Sony will be releasing PS4 titles to play through PS Now. So now PC gamers can't be complaining so much that they never get to play the best PS4 games. But on the downside it looks like Horizon and other major PS4 titles will be ringfenced as a PS4 only, at least for a while. Probably most exciting for PC Souls fans will be Bloodborne if/when it becomes available through PS Now.

We'll still have plenty of FPS, resolution and latency issues to whine about

I haven't tried PS Now on my PC yet. I had an issue for the longest time where it told me my PS4 wasn't my primary PS4 so I couldn't activate it or something? And I couldn't deactivate whatever other PS4 somehow got activated as the primary one because there was no other PS4. That's now been resolved though. 

[DunderMifflin]

Am I the only one who likes the Andromeda trailer song? 

Rag'n'Bone Man -  Human

I think it's a great song as long as it's just for the trailer. I highly doubt it will be in the actual game.

[Werthead]

It's a good song but it's bloody everywhere right now (it's been used heavily here for the SS-GB series) and its threatening to get annoying through overexposure.

[The Anti-Targ]

53 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

We'll still have plenty of FPS, resolution and latency issues to whine about

I haven't tried PS Now on my PC yet. I had an issue for the longest time where it told me my PS4 wasn't my primary PS4 so I couldn't activate it or something? And I couldn't deactivate whatever other PS4 somehow got activated as the primary one because there was no other PS4. That's now been resolved though. 

That's PS4 remote play. You don't need a PS4 to use PS Now, PS Now is a subscription based game streaming service.

As it's game streaming then latency will depend on your internet speed and PS Now server proximity. But since a lot of people felt like OnLive gave decent game then PS Now should be acceptable to most people, and it won't be any worse that online multiplayer with high ping.

Any [US/Canada] PC gamer who doesn't at least get the PS4 Now 7 day free trial to play The Last of Us (PS3 version for now) is not right in the head. Your only excuse is that you are waiting until they put the PS4 remaster on PS Now.

[karaddin]

Don't have my headphones with me right now so can't watch the ME launch trailer, but all they'd need to do to sell me on another game musically is slap the Suicide Mission theme over it. In a series with some excellently matched music at times, that's still by far my favourite. A youtuber has done retrospectives on ME1 and ME2 ahead of the launch and had a snippet of an interview with the composer who regards it as his best work (or at least best game work, cant remember the precise wording).

[MerenthaClone]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

Don't have my headphones with me right now so can't watch the ME launch trailer, but all they'd need to do to sell me on another game musically is slap the Suicide Mission theme over it. In a series with some excellently matched music at times, that's still by far my favourite. A youtuber has done retrospectives on ME1 and ME2 ahead of the launch and had a snippet of an interview with the composer who regards it as his best work (or at least best game work, cant remember the precise wording).

Hard to disagree with that.  I think its a huge part of the Suicide Mission's absolute success.  

[karaddin]

Just now, MerenthaClone said:

Hard to disagree with that.  I think its a huge part of the Suicide Mission's absolute success.  

Both the retrospective, and the series of pieces by Shamus Young (that I think Wert linked earlier) are quite critical of ME2, and one of them particularly made the point that although the suicide mission was a new and excellent idea, the writing of it was poor - particularly the choice of "destroy all this tech OR give it to the illusive man" - but that the mission itself is a huge success on the back of superb cinematography and scoring. I find it hard to disagree with this perspective.

[Proudfeet]

17 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

In related news, it seems like Sony will be releasing PS4 titles to play through PS Now. So now PC gamers can't be complaining so much that they never get to play the best PS4 games. But on the downside it looks like Horizon and other major PS4 titles will be ringfenced as a PS4 only, at least for a while. Probably most exciting for PC Souls fans will be Bloodborne if/when it becomes available through PS Now.

Is there region lock on PS Now? I couldn't find anything definitive from a quick google. Doesn't seem like there are servers in Asia (outside of Japan), but time stamps were awhile ago.

[Fez]

30 hours in to my Stellaris campaign and I have now fully become the Covenant from Halo; what started as an accident became a goal. My militarist, fanatical spiritualist empire is now a 'Transcendent Empire,' which gives me a bunch of bonuses, but more importantly means that all my leaders are now titled 'Saint [name]'. Through aggressive military expansion (though only against other nations that brought it on themselves by declaring rivalries against me) and targeted uplifting of primitives there are now members of 11 different species in my empire. My founding race (who are the only ones who I allow to become leaders) are less than a quarter of my total population and are only found on my sacred home worlds (i.e. the ones that I rule directly instead of through sector governors) and one other planet in one sector.

I'm still only 1 of 7 roughly equal empires though, alongside over 20 weaker ones, so I've got aways to go before my rule is complete. There used to be an two other greater empires, one fell apart in civil war, and the other has been greatly weakened after a series of wars with me. Stellaris uses a modification of the warscore system from the Europa Univeralis games; which makes it impossible to annex too much territory in a single peace treaty.

I'm hoping to have it finished off before Mass Effect comes out. Its a different enough game though that I'd be fine playing it alongside ME (assuming I play anything alongside ME). I've also got my eyes on that new Nier game; but the timing there is tricky.

[KiDisaster]

17 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That's PS4 remote play. You don't need a PS4 to use PS Now, PS Now is a subscription based game streaming service.

As it's game streaming then latency will depend on your internet speed and PS Now server proximity. But since a lot of people felt like OnLive gave decent game then PS Now should be acceptable to most people, and it won't be any worse that online multiplayer with high ping.

Any [US/Canada] PC gamer who doesn't at least get the PS4 Now 7 day free trial to play The Last of Us (PS3 version for now) is not right in the head. Your only excuse is that you are waiting until they put the PS4 remaster on PS Now.

Last of Us was fantastic. I've been meaning to try the PS4 version eventually. 

Any streaming game service I've ever tried has felt laggy to me, even the Steam Link I bought to play PC games on my TV. I have a pretty good connection (80mbps down) but I always feel the input lag. Also for some reason streamed games just never look quite right to me, in a way I can't put my finger on. 

---

Just watched the launch trailer, I thought the music was pretty good. First time I've ever heard the song personally. 

[KiDisaster]

On 3/10/2017 at 6:31 PM, Werthead said:

Banner Saga 3 smashed its Kickstarter target, so we'll be seeing the end of the saga (probably in about 18 months).

Sweet, I'll be looking forward to it. Almost wish I'd waited till all three were out so I could play them all back to back. 

20 hours ago, Werthead said:

Thanks to an unexpected tax rebate, I've started looking at a new gaming PC to reply my system which exploded three months ago (I've been on a laptop since then).

It's not going to be a monster system, but it'll be a 1060 nVidia and 16 GB of RAM along with a reasonable SSD. What's annoying is that I can't go all out as much as I'd want (ideally a 1070 and 500 GB SSD). but I do have the scope to upgrade in another year or so.

Sounds like a pretty good build to me. The 1060 is a great card for 1080p games. What CPU are you getting to go with it? 

 

[Werthead]

21 minutes ago, KiDisaster said:

Sounds like a pretty good build to me. The 1060 is a great card for 1080p games. What CPU are you getting to go with it? 

I was initially thinking the 7400 but by dropping back on the OTT heating solution I was after (I forgot how much less power and heat the new generation of hardware generates compared to the last) I can ratchet that up to a 7600 (not a K though).

I did consider dropping the 1060 from the 6GB to 3GB models but it was pointed out that if I keep the 6GB I could get 2+ years out of the card, rather than having to upgrade again before the end of this year.

[KiDisaster]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

I was initially thinking the 7400 but by dropping back on the OTT heating solution I was after (I forgot how much less power and heat the new generation of hardware generates compared to the last) I can ratchet that up to a 7600 (not a K though).

I did consider dropping the 1060 from the 6GB to 3GB models but it was pointed out that if I keep the 6GB I could get 2+ years out of the card, rather than having to upgrade again before the end of this year.

Good call on both counts. Most new games seem to be chewing through VRAM. I have 4GB and I've been starting to feel its limits. At higher res though. 

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, Proudfeet said:

Is there region lock on PS Now? I couldn't find anything definitive from a quick google. Doesn't seem like there are servers in Asia (outside of Japan), but time stamps were awhile ago.

It's only available in the North America at present. I don't think Sony has announced anything about roll outs in other regions. If/when it comes here I would probably take up intermittent month subscriptions to play some legacy games I was always interested in but never got around to buying. But would be nice if PS Now had some modest discount for PS+ subscribers. I don't think it would ever be worth having a permanent subscription unless I decided to never buy anymore games and only play games that become available through PS Now. And I don't think I could possibly have that sort of detachment and discipline.

[Rhom]

Getting close to finishing up ME3 now.  I didn't have any responsibilities this morning, so I did all the Leviathan DLC and am at the last stage of Omega DLC.  I had forgotten just how big those two packs were.  I'll finish Omega tonight and depending on how late, I'll do the Citadel DLC.  After that, its off to the disappointing finish to what has been a great game.  Then I'll be all set and ready to go for Andromeda!

Despite all my concerns about how the Renegade options would piss off too many people, I'm still wayyyyy past any readiness thresholds.

[The Anti-Targ]

I re-played ME2 as preparation for Andromeda. It seems more likely that the Andromeda initiative left the galaxy before the Reaper invasion kicked off. That, and I got ME2 for PC for free and since I'm moving my ME play across to PC I needed to do some keyboard and mouse drills in preparation.