Jump to content

Video Games: It's On Like Donkey Kong


Inigima

Recommended Posts

4 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

Unfortunately it's a digital copy, but no big deal. After Zelda and The Witcher 3 I was due for at least one letdown. I have Horizon Zero Dawn and Shadow of Mordor just collecting digital dust in my library so I'm gonna go with one of those next... and Bloodborne was free this month. 

I loved Horizon Zero Dawn. I don't think you'll be disappointed in that one...vastly superior open world experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I just pickled up Bloodborne off PSN+ too. Dunno when I'm going to get around to playing. I have way too many games now because of PSN plus, and I stupidly signed up for EA access just to get ME Andromeda. ME:A is all right. I'm playing the fixed version so a lot of what it got shit for on first release is not what I'm experiencing.

BB is one of my favorite all time games.  The story is weird, but amazing; the combat is fast and difficult like DMC; and the setting is just awesome and fits perfectly with the themes.  I might have to do a replay of it while I wait for DS remake on the Switch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

On a different note, I also picked up Tales of Berseria. I think I finally "get" Tales games now.

I'm currently playing Berseria as well.  Its my third Tales game.  (Symphonia on the GameCube and Zestiria on PS4).  This game took a turn for the dark pretty quickly.  Its an odd contrast for sure between the big heel turn early in the game and the uber cute characters like Magilou and Number Two.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Picked up Vermintide 2 over the weekend at the behest of a couple of my friends.  I didn't play the first game, so went into this one mostly blind.  Watched a video or two of a streamer I like playing the original, but that was the extent of my exposure to it.  The sequel is a lot of fun. 

I was surprised by how pretty it can be.  Some of the levels are absolutely stunning.  One of the levels takes place in a destroyed city where a massive chasm has opened in the center.  You fight along the edge of the chasm, with buildings ahead of you sliding down the side to provide you with a path forward.  It was one of the coolest moments in any game I've ever played just because it felt so damn epic.

This game is also the closest I've ever felt to playing as a Lord of the Rings character.  The massive battles really bring to mind the set-piece fights in Jackson's trilogy, especially when you've got an elf, dwarf, and human in your party and are fighting through one of the mine levels.  I've been playing as the elf primarily, and one of her weapons just allows some frankly absurd arrow output.  There's something really satisfying about facing down a wave of several dozen enemies rushing at you single-handedly by firing off a massive stream of arrows in a matter of seconds.

There are some issues, though.  I feel like the game is very inconsistent from a difficulty perspective.  On the standard difficulty level, some missions are laughably easy, while others find you fighting tooth and nail for survival.  I'll go a mission or two without getting downed a single time, then another mission on the same difficulty level will find me constantly getting my ass handed to me.  I think this is mostly due to the AI director.  It just doesn't seem properly balanced and doesn't seem like it does a great job of catering to your party's needs.  I'll go five to ten minutes without finding an ammo cache some levels despite being completely out of arrows, and in others we'll find dozens of health packs despite no one being hurt.  

Technical issues can be an issue too.  There's a bug when doing deeds in the game where some players in your party may not get the reward at the end of the mission.  Similarly, if the host of a game quits or his game crashes, everyone is disconnected rather than kicking the game over to someone else in the group.  So, if I were to host a game and leave right before we got to the level's exit, no one gets any payout for the mission.  Just poor design, especially since the game does crash from time to time.  

The missions themselves similarly have some design issues.  I've largely played with friends who had been playing the game for a couple of days before me, so it's been easy to follow their lead and just focus on murdering rats.  However, the levels often don't give you a great idea of where you need to go next, and the marker that shows you your objective tends to come and go.  Sometimes it will be a constant on-screen reminder.  Other times it will disappear and you'll be left wandering.

Overall, it's a solid game and I think I'll get a lot of mileage out of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Been playing a lot of Stellaris lately. Being an evil empire for the first time to try something different (the guilt and inner conflict are no joke). 

My sentient machines seek to bring permanent peace to the galaxy by way of purging all organic life from it. I started strong, the empire of slaver cats who spawned right next to me did not have much time to enjoy their ascension to the stars. But then I spent a long time deadlocked with my other neighbors to the North, a fanatically religious bunch of fascists. I've taken three of their planets including their capital but they expanded through a natural wormhole to the other side of the galaxy and continue to escape eradication. 

Meanwhile I had my attention pulled in another direction. The tiny band of mercenaries to my west (who I'd been ignoring because they were insignificant) all of sudden united under a new Khan and decided they were going to take over the galaxy. They rapidly expanded, nearly annihilating two other nearby empires (making one their vassal) and ultimately ending up at my borders. It was all I could do to hold them off. Their fleets were not as powerful as mine but they seemed to have an endless supply of them, and began to claim my systems by way of repeatedly throwing cannon fodder at me until I had to fall back to repair and regroup. This was made doubly aggravating by the raiders who began harassing me at the opposite end of my empire.

I had nearly lost hope, realizing that I could not keep up with the apparently ridiculous amount of ships these mercs were able to pump out, when all of a sudden we received word that their Khan, the one who had united them under a single banner for the first time, had been assassinated. Their territory was shattered into warring factions once again, and now it's only a matter of time until I pick them all off and claim it for The Consciousness. 

This is a good video game. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Rhom said:

I'm currently playing Berseria as well.  Its my third Tales game.  (Symphonia on the GameCube and Zestiria on PS4).  This game took a turn for the dark pretty quickly.  Its an odd contrast for sure between the big heel turn early in the game and the uber cute characters like Magilou and Number Two.

Oh...Magilou. And number 2. I guess these characters are just the way it is in this genre, but you know, if anyone else is around, I almost feel like I have to mute my speakers. I'm almost 40.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Oh...Magilou. And number 2. I guess these characters are just the way it is in this genre, but you know, if anyone else is around, I almost feel like I have to mute my speakers. I'm almost 40.

I turn 40 in two weeks... my family is asleep upstairs and I’m wearing headphones.  Bring on the cuteness! :lol: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Been playing a lot of Stellaris lately. Being an evil empire for the first time to try something different (the guilt and inner conflict are no joke). 

My sentient machines seek to bring permanent peace to the galaxy by way of purging all organic life from it. I started strong, the empire of slaver cats who spawned right next to me did not have much time to enjoy their ascension to the stars. But then I spent a long time deadlocked with my other neighbors to the North, a fanatically religious bunch of fascists. I've taken three of their planets including their capital but they expanded through a natural wormhole to the other side of the galaxy and continue to escape eradication. 

Meanwhile I had my attention pulled in another direction. The tiny band of mercenaries to my west (who I'd been ignoring because they were insignificant) all of sudden united under a new Khan and decided they were going to take over the galaxy. They rapidly expanded, nearly annihilating two other nearby empires (making one their vassal) and ultimately ending up at my borders. It was all I could do to hold them off. Their fleets were not as powerful as mine but they seemed to have an endless supply of them, and began to claim my systems by way of repeatedly throwing cannon fodder at me until I had to fall back to repair and regroup. This was made doubly aggravating by the raiders who began harassing me at the opposite end of my empire.

I had nearly lost hope, realizing that I could not keep up with the apparently ridiculous amount of ships these mercs were able to pump out, when all of a sudden we received word that their Khan, the one who had united them under a single banner for the first time, had been assassinated. Their territory was shattered into warring factions once again, and now it's only a matter of time until I pick them all off and claim it for The Consciousness. 

This is a good video game. 

I've been meaning to get back into it. Do you think the huge changes in how the new version are improvements? How different is it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I've been meaning to get back into it. Do you think the huge changes in how the new version are improvements? How different is it?

I wasn't super familiar with the game before so I'm not sure how different it will feel for you. To me it doesn't seem that much different. The most noticeable change is that borders no longer expand automatically, you have to build outposts in every system you want to claim to put them in your borders. I really, really like this change cause I hated having to wait for my borders to grow to snag a nice system or burn monthly influence to claim them before. Now it costs a flat amount of influence (and minerals of course) to build with no ongoing influence cost. The flat influence cost increases pretty sharply the further the system is from a system you already own though. 

The new Casus Belli system for making claims on other empire's systems and declaring wars is cool too, and I really like how in the latest beta patch AI empires can't force you into white peace anymore (this is really annoying when you're playing dedicated exterminators). You just stop earning monthly influence and unity until you make peace once you reach 100% war fatigue. 

I like the changes overall. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Been playing a lot of Stellaris lately. Being an evil empire for the first time to try something different (the guilt and inner conflict are no joke). 

My sentient machines seek to bring permanent peace to the galaxy by way of purging all organic life from it. I started strong, the empire of slaver cats who spawned right next to me did not have much time to enjoy their ascension to the stars. But then I spent a long time deadlocked with my other neighbors to the North, a fanatically religious bunch of fascists. I've taken three of their planets including their capital but they expanded through a natural wormhole to the other side of the galaxy and continue to escape eradication. 

Meanwhile I had my attention pulled in another direction. The tiny band of mercenaries to my west (who I'd been ignoring because they were insignificant) all of sudden united under a new Khan and decided they were going to take over the galaxy. They rapidly expanded, nearly annihilating two other nearby empires (making one their vassal) and ultimately ending up at my borders. It was all I could do to hold them off. Their fleets were not as powerful as mine but they seemed to have an endless supply of them, and began to claim my systems by way of repeatedly throwing cannon fodder at me until I had to fall back to repair and regroup. This was made doubly aggravating by the raiders who began harassing me at the opposite end of my empire.

I had nearly lost hope, realizing that I could not keep up with the apparently ridiculous amount of ships these mercs were able to pump out, when all of a sudden we received word that their Khan, the one who had united them under a single banner for the first time, had been assassinated. Their territory was shattered into warring factions once again, and now it's only a matter of time until I pick them all off and claim it for The Consciousness. 

This is a good video game. 

This sounds like an incredibly fun Stellaris run, and I think I may have to try a machine empire for my next playthrough. What I love about Stellaris is that you can play it as a straight-up Civ-like strategy game, trying to conquer everything. Or you can really play it as a role-playing game with some weird species that you've created. Or a mix of both. 

I agree with your post that the game is much improved now. There are still a couple things lacking with the new war system, though. At the end of my last game, I tried to vassalize a much smaller empire. They were allied with a bigger empire. Despite the fact that I had wiped out the fleets of both empires, occupied the entirety of the empire I was trying to vassalize, and occupied more than half of their ally's empire, I still couldn't get them to agree to peace, which seemed just ridiculous. I hope their next update really fleshes out diplomacy- it's hard to go from the number of options EU4 and CK2 give you to Stellaris, especially now that the war system is so similar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure it deserves its own thread, because bugger all people will be interested in it.

So, the Tomb Raider movie seems like it's not complete shite. After over 100 reviews Rotten Tomatoes has it at 51%. That's almost a ringing endorsement for a video game adaptation, most of which languish in the 30s or lower. It hasn't broken the review curse, but I hope it does well enough at the box office to earn a sequel, so they can have a go and perhaps this time tell a completely original story rather than adapting the game. There's no reason a character like Lara Croft can exist as a completely separate film character from the game character. And a sequel, if it gets one, should make that break.

I'll be seeing it in theatre.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Not sure it deserves its own thread, because bugger all people will be interested in it.

So, the Tomb Raider movie seems like it's not complete shite. After over 100 reviews Rotten Tomatoes has it at 51%. That's almost a ringing endorsement for a video game adaptation, most of which languish in the 30s or lower. It hasn't broken the review curse, but I hope it does well enough at the box office to earn a sequel, so they can have a go and perhaps this time tell a completely original story rather than adapting the game. There's no reason a character like Lara Croft can exist as a completely separate film character from the game character. And a sequel, if it gets one, should make that break.

I'll be seeing it in theatre.

I’m interested in seeing it.  I don’t get out to a lot of movies these days though, so I don’t know if I will make it or not.  Hope it does well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I finally hit my savings goal for grad school so now I can start, ya know, buying things, so it's time to get a new game. Any advice on steam downloads on an i5 laptop? I bought GTA 5 a while back, and it runs just fine, but 9/10 times I can get the game started and am trapped on the menu screen. Additionally, I won't open a full screen, so I'm not sure what it's capabilities are (it has a pretty good video card though). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

So I finally hit my savings goal for grad school so now I can start, ya know, buying things, so it's time to get a new game. Any advice on steam downloads on an i5 laptop? I bought GTA 5 a while back, and it runs just fine, but 9/10 times I can get the game started and am trapped on the menu screen. Additionally, I won't open a full screen, so I'm not sure what it's capabilities are (it has a pretty good video card though). 

Paradox games can run pretty good on low end systems.

Speaking of which, great Stellaris breakdowns beget meager Hearts of Iron offerings.

So I got up to date on all the new DLC including Waking the Tiger. I've got a few equipment mods but it's mostly a vanilla game 'cause most mods aren't updated to 1.5.

So the new German National tree lets you perform a coup with the Wermacht when Hitler attempts to re-militarize the Rhineland, installing August Von Mackenson as the leader of a military Junta that establishes itself after the civil war you have to fight against the Nazis.

It's actually pretty dope, the Nazis are still in their early development in Germany but they go down like the fanatics they are. Hitler killed himself as I fought my way through the streets of Berlin and Borman took command and I hunted him down to Munich. Konigberg was the last bastion to fall and took severe damage.

After rebuilding and making a deal with the Poles in which I promised German support against the Soviets in exchange for Danzig. The German Empire was restored, and Kaiser Wilhelm II was returned to the throne from his exile in the Netherlands.

As the Poles solidified a Baltic alliance that included Romania, Germany was establishing bonds with Finland and separate pacts with Romania that would greatly increase her security.

Austria joined an alliance with Italy, scorning German offers of friendship. Sadly the great Kaiser was taken from us shortly after this insult, though he was able to celebrate the maneuvers of Heinz Guderian in the Romanian-Hungarian conflict which saw the up and coming tank commander use the Empire's only 5 Armored Divisions in a decisive engagement in the field that led directly to the capture of Budapest.

After the Hungarian nation was absorbed by a more friendly Romania Kaiser Wilhelm III oversaw peace talks and established Germany as the premiere power in Central Europe, crippling the British attempts to extort the region.

 

The Empire had regained virtually all of her lost power from the treaty of Versailles without violating the stipulations of the punishing document. With her manufacturing power growing by the month, the slumbering nation sat upon stores of war materiel developed immediately after the disposal of Hilter with an undersized standing force.

With Britain's impotence exposed, a full military reorganization was set in motion under the leadership of Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck with armor enthusiast and critical hero of the revolution Erwin Rommel leading a focus on development of new types of tanks.

As her military strength began to return, Germany's sons were called upon when the treacherous Soviet Union invaded Poland and the Baltic states in early 1941.

The existing Polish alliance asked Germany and Finland's help, which had been promised in the exchange for Danzig.

Germany held her word.

With the Poles ferociously defending their borders as the Soviets swept into Romania and Latvia, the cries for action were deafening. But Kaiser Wilhelm III was unwilling to rush the still developing German army, which numbered at the time less than 700,000 men and only five armored divisions, into battle.

As 180 Soviet Divisions crashed upon 117 Polish Divisions in the Spring, Germany committed 27 Divisions to the defense of Poland. They established themselves as supporting units behind the Polish lines, occasionally moving in response to the front so as to prevent the collapse of the country should the line be ruptured.

Latvia was swallowed by the Red tide, as was Romania in the late Summer. The war rages, with the Soviet casualties already having eclipsed 800,000 while Poland has absorbed 130,000 losses. Germany has yet to actively engage the enemy, but the beginning of October will see a new offensive.

Eight well equipped and trained divisions of Panzers are prepared under Field Marshal Manstein, two armies composed of a pair of corps each, lead by Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian have been formed and are taking position to launch Operation Steele in the southern Ukraine to push towards the Black Sea and Sevastapol come the Early Winter and later to resume in Spring.

This armored fist will open the Southern Front so that Field Marshal von Rundstedt can liberate Romania.

Meanwhile, the following items have just been delivered to Warsaw to assist the Polish war effort:

360 Fighters

300 Bombers

500 Light Tanks

250 Medium Tanks

60,000 Rifles

20,000 Tons of Support Equipment (Radios, Bandages, etc.)

3,000 Anti-Aircraft guns

3,000 Anti-Tank guns

4,000 Trucks

 

German engineering will see the day.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Latvia was swallowed by the Red tide, as was Romania in the late Summer. The war rages, with the Soviet casualties already having eclipsed 800,000 while Poland has absorbed 130,000 losses. Germany has yet to actively engage the enemy, but the beginning of October will see a new offensive.

Egad! Is there no one that can save the peace loving workers of the Soviet Union?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, Lady Winter Rose said:

Anyone to recommend good female protagonist games on Humble store? That actives on steam.

Child of Light, Civ 5 depending on the Civ you select, Tomb Raider, Life is Strange.... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My Stellaris run ended due to a perfect storm of fuckery. Things were going well, I had wiped out a couple of empires and had almost half the galaxy under my control. Then The Unbidden (invaders from another dimension with an impossibly strong navy) spawned in the middle of my borders. While I was trying in vain to deal with their rapid expansion, the war in heaven began between two fallen empires at opposite sides of my borders, and one of the other AI empires who I'd been at war with off and on decided that was the perfect moment to strike and declared war on me. 

With foes both within & without and the war in heaven raging I just couldn't keep up. All we wanted was to bring peace to the galaxy. Stupid organics. :crying:

Oh well, next attempt will be peaceful science birds. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I picked up Sea of Thieves on a whim.  Well, more because my buddies and I have been having an awesome time in Vermintide II and I thought another co-op game would be fun.  

Disaster beset me on my maiden voyage.  I found the island my map was pointing me to and located the buried treasure, but rival pirates arrived and sank my ship while I was on land.  Further, I couldn't figure out how to drop the chest I'd just picked up, which left me defenseless (a google search tells me it's the X button for some reason).  With my ship sinking, I instead decided to swim for it.  I thought I'd made my escape, as the enemy ship didn't appear to know where I had gone. 

Unfortunately, the game apparently has sharks, and so I was eaten.  RIP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I unlocked the secret squad on Into the Breach.  Fairly underwhelming.  Going to play around with it some more and see if it improves. 

Spoiler

And definitely change the default color of all the mechs because they look too much like the opposition.

And my current favorite pilot is

Spoiler

Kazaaakpleth.  Turns that weakest mech in your squad into a decent attacking mech with a push, for no additional reactor cost.  Great in all the science mechs except maybe Frozen Titans, and especially nice synergy with the Nano Mech (? The one that heals when you make a kill.) 

So now I'm going to have to win on Hard for all three lengths and every squad.  Should keep me busy for a while!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...