Video Games: It's On Like Donkey Kong

[The Anti-Targ]

On 3/16/2018 at 7:03 PM, Rhom said:

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.

It is currently, and probably will remain so until some future video game movie comes along, the best reviewed video game of all time on Rotten Tomatoes. For more movie genres that would be a great feat, but video game movies have been so bad historically that Tomb Raider only needs 50% to take that crown. Seems to me that we should be looking at a 50% from 208 reviews as effectively a reasonable recommendation for this movie, kind of more like a 60-65% score for movies generally.

[Werthead]

Been replaying Company of Heroes (the first one). Man, I forgot how excellently made and balanced this game was (far better than the sequel). Also, still probably the best explosions ever seen in a game.

Holding out for Far Cry 5 next week. Hoping the game lives up to the series but is a bit better then FC4, which was a little too similar to 3. Also, enough of this "skin a tapir to carry two extra guns" BS, that's gotten a little ridiculous now.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 3/17/2018 at 5:56 PM, Pony Queen Jace said:

Paradox games can run pretty good on low end systems.

Not even sure what that is.

And what's the military game you keep prattling on about? 

[Werthead]

Paradox are a company that specialise in creating grand strategy wargames and political simulators, most successfully Crusader Kings II (set in the medieval period), Hearts of Iron IV (set in WW2) and Europa Universalis IV (the bit inbetween). They're more involved but somewhat less accessible than say Total War or Civilisation.

[Rhom]

Just noticed that Bloodbourne and Mighty No. 9 were free on PSN.  Put them both in the library.

[Jace, Extat]

On 3/21/2018 at 5:20 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Not even sure what that is.

And what's the military game you keep prattling on about? 

I left it alone because Wert answered, but I assume you were thinking Total War for ancient context or Hearts of Iron 4 for a WWII simulator.

Total War is easier to learn than HoI4, but Civilization is the easiest.

[Fez]

On 3/21/2018 at 6:40 PM, Werthead said:

Paradox are a company that specialise in creating grand strategy wargames and political simulators, most successfully Crusader Kings II (set in the medieval period), Hearts of Iron IV (set in WW2) and Europa Universalis IV (the bit inbetween). They're more involved but somewhat less accessible than say Total War or Civilisation.

They also have been growing as a publisher of high budget (relatively) indie games, plus Obsidian Entertainment's games.

[Fiddler]

9 hours ago, Rhom said:

Just noticed that Bloodbourne and Mighty No. 9 were free on PSN.  Put them both in the library.

I have been playing the shit out of Bloodbourne.  I don't know why, but when I played it before it never caught my attention.  With nothing to do all day, I've put way to many hours into the game, lol.  

[Hello World]

‘Street Fighter’ TV Series Based On Video Game Franchise In Works At eOne

Quote

Entertainment One/Mark Gordon has closed a deal to develop, produce and finance a TV series adaptation of the popular Street Fighter global video game franchise, with Joey Ansah, Jacqueline Quella and Mark Wooding, the team behind the live-action web series Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist, set to executive produce. eOne will handle international sales on the project.

I'd love to see a decent animated SF series but I can't imagine a live action series would ever be good...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 3/21/2018 at 5:40 PM, Werthead said:

Paradox are a company that specialise in creating grand strategy wargames and political simulators, most successfully Crusader Kings II (set in the medieval period), Hearts of Iron IV (set in WW2) and Europa Universalis IV (the bit inbetween). They're more involved but somewhat less accessible than say Total War or Civilisation.

Thanks! As to the bolded, are you talking about games like Starcraft, or something much bigger? I really haven't done a ton of gaming over the last decade outside of the occasional weekend binge of D3 or LoL. I'm pretty rusty, but I can finally start spending again. 

16 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I left it alone because Wert answered, but I assume you were thinking Total War for ancient context or Hearts of Iron 4 for a WWII simulator.

Total War is easier to learn than HoI4, but Civilization is the easiest.

What do you need to run those? It sounds like you're having a blast rocking out and playing some of these historical war strategy games. 

[Azzanadra]

I am so ready for this new God of War, TAKE ME. 

[Inigima]

14 hours ago, Hello World said:

‘Street Fighter’ TV Series Based On Video Game Franchise In Works At eOne

I'd love to see a decent animated SF series but I can't imagine a live action series would ever be good...

SF isn't exactly known for its thrilling plots. Live or animated will both be terrible.

[Rhom]

7 minutes ago, Inigima said:

SF isn't exactly known for its thrilling plots. Live or animated will both be terrible.

Whaaaat?  You aren’t compelled by the story of a beast like baby lost in the forests of Brazil who travels the world beating up strangers until he is reunited with his mom?!!?

[Hello World]

I'm sure they'll come up with their own plot. 

[Werthead]

20 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Thanks! As to the bolded, are you talking about games like Starcraft, or something much bigger? I really haven't done a ton of gaming over the last decade outside of the occasional weekend binge of D3 or LoL. I'm pretty rusty, but I can finally start spending again. 

What do you need to run those? It sounds like you're having a blast rocking out and playing some of these historical war strategy games. 

No, these are much bigger in scope. Paradox's games take place on massive world maps with you building armies and moving them around, but also engaging in politics (murdering your way to victory is very difficult) and diplomacy.

Here's a review of Crusader Kings II which explains what the game's about quite well (the game's been massively expanded since then, though). There's also a fantastic ASoIaF mod for it.

[Werthead]

Killing time before payday (and either Far Cry V or Final Fantasy XV, probably the former), I went through my backlog and picked out Grand Ages: Rome, a city-builder using the same engine as the Tropico series, which I'd enjoyed. Alas, whilst it looks great and it's fun to build up a Roman metropolis, it has a really awful combat mechanic stuck into the game which doesn't work very well and it's far too easy to enter a paradox where your city grinds to a halt (usually because you can't build houses because you need bricks, you can't build bricks without wood, you can't built a sawmill because you don't have any houses QED). A shame, because it had the potential to be quite entertaining.

Still got another week before payday, so I'll pick something else out of the backlog. I have quite a few indies I should have gone through before now (hi, Firewatch) so I might try a few of those.

[Yukle]

Following the recommendations of a few people, I played Civ V a few times now.

Here are some takeaways:

1) The game's tutorial must be the absolute worst in history. It's not even remotely user-friendly. At the very least, it should tell you about mechanics in advance or introduce them gradually. Instead, it just says, "Your people are unhappy. This is because of something you already did." It discourages creative play styles because I was nervous about doing anything.

2) It is a very slow game. I don't mind that, necessarily, but there are heavy penalties for trying to buck this trend. Starting a new city, or aiming to expand quickly is - in and of itself - a risk, as you're very spread out. But the game outright discourages expansion. I found it was less of a loss to have idle workers for about 10-15 turns than to expand.

3) The combat system works well. I like how units are useful all game through upgrades and promotions. I also like how you must organise units so that melee are in front and ranged behind.

4) Pick a Civ with an early-game special unit. An early lead is nearly impossible to lose.

5) It takes about 5 hours to finish a game. That was a lot of sessions for someone like me who doesn't have time to play for long periods.

6) Nuclear weapons were oddly satisfying to use. I found that in my first ever game, which I won because I was playing on easy, I held off conquering the last civ for about half an hour while I developed the tech. Then I declared war. And their city was razed. And then my populace hated me for it, so fair enough, but I also won, so stuff them.

7) I love the historical accuracy of the leaders. Theodora, for instance, is based on a real mosaic of her. Montezuma is the correct ethnicity and is wearing the correct garb. I haven't seen all of the leaders, yet, but it seems that they're based on known descriptions of them.

8) I found the game fun, but I definitely prefer real-time to turned based games. StarCraft is free, now, and I have played through the whole campaign again. I have found it much more rewarding to be able to play for 20-30 minutes, clear a mission and then that's all the time I often have at once. Civ really requires a large, uninterrupted session. Over several days I found that I cared less and less about winning.

Edited to add:

9) Island maps suck.

[Werthead]

Firewatch was phenomenal. Excellent game. Obviously on the short side, but that was to its favour.

[briantw]

Been playing Sea of Thieves like mad.  I fucking love this game and I have no idea why.  You basically just do the same menial tasks over and over again, but I absolutely love the sailing and team play aspects of the game.  When you get a good four man crew where everyone has a mic and wants to work together, the game is an absolute blast to play.  Just working together to get the ship full speed, or keeping it alive in combat through teamwork and communication...it's just fun.  I've made about a dozen friends playing this game so far.  Just randoms I ended up on a crew with who had mics and play the game the right way.  

The ship combat is also fun and, at times, incredibly tense.  The other night, I got into a major battle with three other galleons (the four man ship) over a skull island.  It was me, a friend, and two micless randoms, and yet somehow we worked together and fought everyone else off.  We beat the skull fort and, while we didn't get all the loot (another galleon was coming back and we had no repair supplies left), we got the most expensive stuff and ran like hell to safety.  That battle was awesome.  Just constant cannon fire and boarding enemy ships.

I also sank an enemy galleon earlier tonight by sneaking onto their ship while they were engaging with mine.  I brought a barrel of gunpowder with me, ran down to their hold, and blew it up.  They were so focused on fighting us that they didn't even realize their ship was going under until it was too late.  They came back at us a couple of times after they respawned with their ship, but we threw them back each time and kept our ship floating.

This game clearly isn't for everyone, as evidenced by how polarizing it has been thus far, and it's certainly not a single-player game.  But with a good team, it's one of the most fun games I've played in years.

[KiDisaster]

I tried a bit of Sea of Thieves. I had a bit of fun with my friends for a couple hours but I have no desire to go back to it. I feel like I've seen everything the game has to offer in the short time that I played it. Glad I didn't pay for it. I got a 14 day free trial for the Xbox Gamepass.

Far Cry 5 is out tomorrow and Austin Walker put up a really fantastic review at Waypoint https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/qvxbeb/far-cry-5-review

When this got announced (or was being hyped) around the same time as the latest Wolfenstein game I was kind of hoping that we were gonna get two big games from major publishers that had something to say about America's racism problem. Wolfenstein delivered thankfully, but I guess FC5 does not. Not really surprising coming from Ubisoft but oh well. 

Still, the core gameplay of the later Far Cry games has always been appealing to me and it sounds like this is the best one yet in that regard so I'll probably still pick it up for a podcast/audiobook game if nothing else.