Video Games- Mess Effect: Andromeda

[Azzanadra]

2 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Started the new Prey yesterday. Pretty damn cool so far. Very reminiscent of Bioshock. 

Fuck mimics. 

...Which remind me I need to finish this damn game, I stopped playing and I think I am the halfway point. Level design was amazing, though the story was not as strong as say Bioshock, which it clearly takes inspiration from. 

[Fez]

I started Watch Dogs 2, one of my Steam sale games, and, uh, its been a while since I've bounced this hard off a AAA game. The only nice thing I can say about it is that the San Francisco skyline look real good; everything was dislikable to-outright cringeworthy. No thanks.

So I then started Dishonored 2, another one of my Steam sale games, and its exactly what I was looking for. Some of the main writing is a bit questionable (though the various journals and audio logs are better); but the gameplay just looks and feels so good and everything atmospheric is on point. I'm playing as Emily and am only a little way into the third mission, but its a good time. I went on a whirring dance of death the first mission (they all deserved it) and got saddled with an overall high chaos rating; second mission, I was much more careful (and plotwise didn't have the same killing motivation) and got back the low chaos. Both ways were fun, so I'm not going to worry about and just do whatever seems appropriate for each mission.

[KiDisaster]

I loved Watch Dogs 2. It was like Hackers The Movie The Game  

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Got the full pet build Necromancer built with all the ancillary pieces and am presently pushing Greater Rift 70. Fun build. Once I get it to 75-80 I'm going to try running the Bone Armor build that is OP at the moment. I think I have all but one piece I need to run it.

[Fez]

4 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

I loved Watch Dogs 2. It was like Hackers The Movie The Game  

I get that some of it is on my tastes; especially my problems with the characters and dialog, which manyfold. And my problems with the controls, core gameplay mechanics, vehicle handling (oh jeez, the vehicles), etc.

I also hate that I can fast-travel to any location in the game from the very beginning of the game, it destroys all sense of place and any wonder of exploration I might have.

However, I think there are also some objective issues with the game, at least in its current state. For instance, I don't know if it was always like this or because there's been a bunch of DLC released since the game came out, but the phone UI is almost impossibly cluttered. Especially the mission tracker, where after I got a cutscene telling me my first mission, I already of sudden had 5 other missions show up, with no clear explanation of what they are, except that they are 'online play' but only require '1-2 players.'

 

[Werthead]

Watch Dogs 1 was a bit crap, so I'm waiting on WD2 until it's super cheap. The general consensus seems to be that it's far superior to the first game, but it's best to play it without guns, just hacking skills, since shooting up the place throws the tone of the story out of the window.

 

Got quite far into Arkham Knight and after a rough opening couple of hours it's settled down quite nicely. The open world city format works much better than it ever did in City or Origins because you can get around so much faster in the Batmobile. The tank battles are...weird and not very Batmanesque. Some of the Riddler missions with the Batmobile doing crazy things like hanging off ledges and driving upside down are much better fits for the crazy world of Batman. Combat is still good and the optional detective side-missions work quite well. Also John Noble is absolutely fantastic as the voice of Scarecrow. If I did have a complaint it's that the game has a few too many characters, puzzles, missions and ideas and doesn't seem to always know what to do with them.

[KiDisaster]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

I get that some of it is on my tastes; especially my problems with the characters and dialog, which manyfold. And my problems with the controls, core gameplay mechanics, vehicle handling (oh jeez, the vehicles), etc.

I also hate that I can fast-travel to any location in the game from the very beginning of the game, it destroys all sense of place and any wonder of exploration I might have.

However, I think there are also some objective issues with the game, at least in its current state. For instance, I don't know if it was always like this or because there's been a bunch of DLC released since the game came out, but the phone UI is almost impossibly cluttered. Especially the mission tracker, where after I got a cutscene telling me my first mission, I already of sudden had 5 other missions show up, with no clear explanation of what they are, except that they are 'online play' but only require '1-2 players.'

 

Yeah the vehicle handling is shit and I had issues with the quest tracker as well. It was always full of multiplayer missions that I didn't care about. Fast travel didn't bother me as I just didn't use it much. 

My biggest issue with the game though is the ready availability of a ludicrous arsenal of lethal weapons, and the way that completely clashes with the overall tone of the story and the cast of characters. You could go out on a massive murderous rampage, killing a bunch of security guards who are just doing their damn jobs, then come back and celebrate with the crew at the hacker cave like nothing happened. Personally I didn't do that, I played through the game 100% non-lethally mostly using my drones to complete objectives so I could remain outside and never be seen (which I thought was pretty cool, as was hacking the police database to put an arrest order out for targets and some of the other fancy abilities you can get). I think I've posted about this before but I would really, really like to have seen Ubisoft take a risk (lol) and lot include guns in the game at all. They just don't fit the narrative. Or better yet, make some guns available but introduce some actual consequences for using them. Your hacker crew doesn't trust you anymore and doesn't feel safe around you because you fucking killed someone and that's a big deal. 

Overall though I had a good time with it. I thought the self-aware cheesiness of the hack-a-thon and other moments like that really worked. 

[Pliskin]

20 hours ago, Werthead said:

The tank battles are...weird and not very Batmanesque.

The tank battles almost threw me off the game.

I was torn between wanting to play in Hard for the main meat of the game (because that's why I bought a Batman game ; infiltration and cool fights and gadgets and gliding as in the first couple games), and crying at the difficulty for the terrible tank battles. So much suffering. I just didn't pay for this. Why did they inflict this upon us in a Batman Arkham game? I still managed to get through it without switching difficulty, because the rest is still so good. But oh god, what a pain in the ass those tank battles were.

I mean, I'm calling it terrible, but it's not terrible, it's just not Batman Arkham. If I wanted a tank game, I would have bought a tank game.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

I don't mind the tank battles in Arkham Knight as an idea but they should have been kept to one or two of the side missions, not woven throughout the story and definitely not

used as the final battle with Deathstroke. I remember cheering when the Batmobile got destroyed and groaning when I found out there was a spare.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

I don't mind the tank battles in Arkham Knight as an idea but they should have been kept to one or two of the side missions, not woven throughout the story and definitely not

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used as the final battle with Deathstroke. I remember cheering when the Batmobile got destroyed and groaning when I found out there was a spare.

 

  SO.  MUCH. THIS.

I did exactly the same.  I was so excited.   

[Pliskin]

Well, you know what, I think it happened to pretty much everyone...

[briantw]

The Batmobile would have been fine if it were primarily used for solving puzzles and getting around, with occasional combat sprinkled in.  The massive problem with Arkham Knight, other than the performance issues at launch obviously, was that the car combat was the bulk of the game.  They largely did away with the complex, awesome interiors filled with puzzles and fights and replaced those great, Batman-esque segments with tank combat, which is not something anyone has ever associated with Batman.

The fact that Batman's enemies, knowing he doesn't kill, intentionally sent unmanned tanks after Batman that he could easily destroy guilt-free was beyond stupid as well.

[KiDisaster]

The best part of Arkham Knight is the thousands of people you totally don't kill by running them over because the car automatically electrocutes them before colliding with their bodies at breakneck speed and sending them flying. The miracle of electricity indeed. 

[Pliskin]

The second best thing is how you destroy the entire city just by running on your "car". But I guess, that makes more investments from the city towards real estate (win win for Wayne Industries).

Seriously, even when I try to roleplay the good Batman, I still end up destroying at least five buildings in a row (well, destroying them  in my head canon where the physics of the real world are respected, i.e. the building drops when its foundations are destroyed...).

[A True Kaniggit]

Put in Skyrim for a little bit today. Still funny how someone can say "must've been nothing", when they have an arrow sticking out the side of their head. 

[mcbigski]

8 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Put in Skyrim for a little bit today. Still funny how someone can say "must've been nothing", when they have an arrow sticking out the side of their head. 

Just a flesh wound.  Not nearly as bad as the dreaded arrow to the knee.

[Rhom]

Ahhhhh the most wonderful time of the year on the board... GoT premiere.  

So yesterday I wanted to post about the Ataribox.  I don't even want to attempt posting a link right now, so suffice to say all the reports are talking about how good the case looks.  Classic fake wood Atari styling, etc.  Very little detail about any games or specs.

Right now, it feels like a beautiful failure to me.

In about 15 minutes, the Destiny 2 Beta goes live on PS4 for preorders.  I plan to fire it up at the office before appointments start to show up.  Will give impressions.

[Fez]

Finished up Dishonored 2. I really liked that game a lot. There wasn't much to the plot or writing (though some of the more environmental stuff was pretty good), but damn was it fun to play, and beautiful to look at. Some real good music too, the few times it plays.

I've still got a pretty solid backlog from the Steam sale (though less than I'd thought; which partly due to my extreme aversion to Watch Dogs 2), but I'm really intrigued by Children of Zodiarcs which just went up today.

[Rhom]

Fired up a Titan on the Destiny 2 Beta.

Played through the intro and then you are given three options.  Two different multiplayer matches or a strike.  I played the strike.  It was fun with some intense areas including a giant drill where you are dodging the drilling arms as they come around while still fighting off Cabal.

All in all, it was fun... but I have no idea why its a sequel and not just an expansion.  The game feels exactly the same with very little to distinguish it from prior offerings to me.  And maybe that's why its not an expansion; that would imply that there is something to expand and from what I've seen on the Beta it seems to contract the game.  You have the same three classes, but where you had three subclasses in each for the last two expansions; you now are back to essentially the same two subclasses that you started the original Destiny with.  In fact, unless they plan to drastically increase the skill tree for the live version... its actually much smaller than the original.  Maybe some streamlining was called for, but unless things are drastically different in the live version it just seems like too much.

In the end, it was Destiny.  And I like Destiny.  I'll play through the single player and I'll get on for some random strikes; but I won't be running crazy amounts of stuff.

[The Anti-Targ]

All hail Netflix! The video game adaptation curse has been smashed

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/netflix-castlevania-broke-rotten-tomatoes-record/ ...

...though not for feature films, yet.