Video Games: The Real Thread That Never Ends

[The Anti-Targ]

Finished my good playthrough of inFamous Second Sons. I may be being a little harsh on it, but to my mind almost the only improvement of ISS over inFamous 2 is the visuals. There are some aspects of the powers that I guess could be classed as improvements over the PS3 games, but mostly I would just say they are differences.

The visual improvement, over all 7th generation console games not just inFamous, is stunning. As an open world game the visuals are vastly superior to the most linear of on-rails games that exist on 7th gen consoles. It certainly kicks the arses, on a technical front, albeit not necessarily aestheticaly, of all the most visually sumptuous PS3 titles: Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us, Killzone. If PS4 can do open world like this, then corridor shooter/adventure games will be truly something...for consoles... and I think The Order 1886 might give us an early generation glimpse of what can be achieved when you close the world up a bit.

I have migrated back to PS3, now that I PS+ and have a shedload of "free" games on PS3 to play now. I'm currently going through the Tomb Raider reboot and I must say I am enjoying it immensely. If Uncharted took a lot of inspiration from Tomb Raider (and I'm sure it did) and the Tomb Raider reboot took a lot of inspiration from Uncharted (and I'm sure it did), then I hope this mutual admiration society keeps on going with Uncharted taking some inspiration from what this reboot has brought to the Indiana Jones inspired game sub-genre. I will certainly be disappointed if Uncharted 4 is merely more Uncharted without taking on boar anything that TR reboot as brought to the mix. That's not to say I think TR has improved on Uncharted across the board. There are numerous things I think Uncharted has done better, but I'm too lazy to go into detail. Thanks PS+ you saved me from forking out for the PS4 definitive version.

[Tony Soprano]

Hey, remember how good Watch Dogs looked at the E3 reveal a couple of years ago? It still looks that good.*

* - only on Master Race

[Mexal]

Anyone got Age of Wonders 3 yet? It looks awesome and I'm about to get it. I have pretty high hopes for it, I like Civ 5 but there's a few glaring things that hold the game back for me. From what little I've seen, I'm thinking this could be a lot more enjoyable than Civ 5 for me.

I've been playing this lately and enjoying it though I'm surprisingly terrible at it right now. Still, it's good fun and reminds me of the good old days of Age of Empires. I missed this series.

[Werthead]

Also, Randy Pitchford is kind of a dick.

He saved Homeworld, is giving us HD remakes and modern PC-compatible versions of the originals and is funding a new game in the series. He can go on being a dick in my book as long as that's happening.

[Fiddler]

I'm stoked about the Borderlands game. I absolutely love 1&2, so more of that will be fantastic.

Finally was able to pick up Titanfall(no xbone, so had to wait for 360 version) and I must say it is fun. All I have done so far is beat the two sided campaign to unlock the other two titan models, so I haven't put much time into it, but it is enjoyable.

Truthfully that is the thing that I think sucks about the game.

The campaign is a half assed joke. You play through a series of matches in which NPCs shoehorn dialog to make it seem as if you are playing some role in whatever the hell is going on. Basically you play either attrition(team death match) or hardpoint domination(domination) and that is it. No real story elements happen, besides some snippets of dialog, and I dont' even think winning or losing matters(I lost nearly the entire rebel side of the campaign). The only reason its there and people will play it is to unlock the other two titans.

Other than that, though, it is a fun game. The pilot movement is frantic and fast. You can run, jump and climb all over the place. The Titans are nice and beefy, but not to powerful that a skillful pilot can't take them down with some practice.

Overall its a nice, fun game. They should have rethought the campaign a bit and either made a single player/co-op or done away with it entirely. As it stands, its a pointless, frustrating(trying to get a campaign match can take a bit of time) waste of time.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Hey, remember how good Watch Dogs looked at the E3 reveal a couple of years ago?

.*

* - only on Master Race

God dammit, I just got rid of my Nvidia card in favour of AMD. But knowing Nvidia, it'll probably be a bunch of features that don't add much. PhysX never really took off, and isn't as promising as Mantle appears to be.

[Alcibiades]

Apparently the downside to FFX's expert sphere grid is that if you max everyone then everyone knows all the skills, and they're not differentiated. But, that's only a problem if you're a crazy person.

[The Anti-Targ]

I'm stoked about the Borderlands game. I absolutely love 1&2, so more of that will be fantastic.

Finally was able to pick up Titanfall(no xbone, so had to wait for 360 version) and I must say it is fun. All I have done so far is beat the two sided campaign to unlock the other two titan models, so I haven't put much time into it, but it is enjoyable.

Truthfully that is the thing that I think sucks about the game.

The campaign is a half assed joke. You play through a series of matches in which NPCs shoehorn dialog to make it seem as if you are playing some role in whatever the hell is going on. Basically you play either attrition(team death match) or hardpoint domination(domination) and that is it. No real story elements happen, besides some snippets of dialog, and I dont' even think winning or losing matters(I lost nearly the entire rebel side of the campaign). The only reason its there and people will play it is to unlock the other two titans.

Other than that, though, it is a fun game. The pilot movement is frantic and fast. You can run, jump and climb all over the place. The Titans are nice and beefy, but not to powerful that a skillful pilot can't take them down with some practice.

Overall its a nice, fun game. They should have rethought the campaign a bit and either made a single player/co-op or done away with it entirely. As it stands, its a pointless, frustrating(trying to get a campaign match can take a bit of time) waste of time.

I think they will have a proper SP campaign in a sequel. The world they've built for TF would seem to lend itself to some interesting stories. And as these guys were the lead on Modern Warfare 1, which I hear has the best SP campaign of all the post CoD3 games you'd think they have the ability to make a pretty decent SP campaign.

I guess Respawn may thought that 90% of CoD players never even start the SP campaign, so why bother? But I don't think the world is quite ready for a full priced multi-player only game. On multiple platforms Titanfall has to compete with Destiny as a new FPS franchise, and on Xb one it also has to compete with Halo, which while it might have peaked in popularity it will still be the most popular exclusive franchise on Xb one for some time yet.

TF is off to a good start, but I think its status as a premier FPS franchise is a bit fragile. It's also benefiting from being released during a period where there's not much else going on, so it's able to grab attention right now.

[fuseprime]

Apparently the downside to FFX's expert sphere grid is that if you max everyone then everyone knows all the skills, and they're not differentiated. But, that's only a problem if you're a crazy person.

You can max out your characters much quicker with the Standard Grid.

I finished the airship fight with Sin, and the only character I maxed out was Auron because I always use Auron. From what I remember, I maxed out all my characters by then years ago. Except Kimahri. He's useless. I could be wrong though.

Anti-Targ,

TF is off to a good start, but I think its status as a premier FPS franchise is a bit fragile. It's also benefiting from being released during a period where there's not much else going on, so it's able to grab attention right now.

I'm definitely on board with this statement. I think once I regenerate all the way through 10, I'm sure I'll move on to something like Halo or Destiny. Perhaps I might give Battlefield another chance. I think what keeps me going back day after day is the challenges and what-not. The game-play is fantastic, but I like to experience a whole plethora of games. Shooters aren't really something I stick with for more than a few months.

I am kind of relieved that they edited the Gooser Challenge however. It wasn't that the challenge was "hard", it was that it was really ruining games for me. You had a bunch of heroes sabotaging the team in order to complete the challenge.

[Reny of Storms End]

Shryke,

Would you elaborate further on way you dislike the UI of the Borderlands games so much? Like what in particular you find so bad about it. Just curious is all.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

I think they will have a proper SP campaign in a sequel. The world they've built for TF would seem to lend itself to some interesting stories. And as these guys were the lead on Modern Warfare 1, which I hear has the best SP campaign of all the post CoD3 games you'd think they have the ability to make a pretty decent SP campaign.

I guess Respawn may thought that 90% of CoD players never even start the SP campaign, so why bother? But I don't think the world is quite ready for a full priced multi-player only game.

I think you're overlooking the primary reason Respawn didn't implement a singleplayer campaign: cost. As is, it's a sixty person studio. To bolt a proper campaign onto the multiplayer, they would need to double or triple their staff, and therefore their expenses. Given that you're arguing they're on shaky financial ground, I'm sure not you should also be arguing that they (and their publisher) spend a lot more money and make it that much harder to sell enough copies to break even.

[Stalker]

God dammit, I just got rid of my Nvidia card in favour of AMD. But knowing Nvidia, it'll probably be a bunch of features that don't add much. PhysX never really took off, and isn't as promising as Mantle appears to be.

Of course the PC version will be better on max settings, and that's not Nvidia only. The things they talked about in the video may get you a few fps extra, but game will ook pretty much the same on AMD cards.

But. They will also use uplay on the PC.

[Jabronius Maximus]

I thought they came out and said no Uplay? Or was that AC4?

Edit: never mind, they announced Uplay for it a few days ago. Maaann

[KiDisaster]

Are games finally being optimized for NVidia again? Fuck yes. It seems like every major game for the last couple years or so has been AMD optimized. But that's probably just confirmation bias or whatever you wanna call it.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Are games finally being optimized for NVidia again? Fuck yes. It seems like every major game for the last couple years or so has been AMD optimized. But that's probably just confirmation bias or whatever you wanna call it.

I think because the consoles are AMD, optimization for that will continue. That said, Nvidia can keep throwing money at devs for optimization too. You're good either way.

But now I'm in a bit of a pickle. I can still take back my 280x to the local shop and basically get my 770 back. They both run pretty much identically (both MSi), I just went AMD because of Mantle. But once I installed the AMD catalyst software, I remembered my poor experience with drivers on my old 6870, and wondered if that would continue with AMD going forward (I'm not really sure how they've been lately). So I'm not sure what to do here.

[Tony Soprano]

I thought they came out and said no Uplay? Or was that AC4?

Edit: never mind, they announced Uplay for it a few days ago. Maaann

Apparently, UPlay will only be required to activate the game. That's pretty vague, though. After you activate it, does it go through Steam, or do you still have to have UPlay running to actually launch the game? I don't even know, but this dual-DRM is a real inconvenience. But I don't want to split my games into multiple libraries, so I'll probably buy it on Steam anyway. Just saying, UPlay kind of sucks.

[Alcibiades]

Apparently, UPlay will only be required to activate the game. That's pretty vague, though. After you activate it, does it go through Steam, or do you still have to have UPlay running to actually launch the game? I don't even know, but this dual-DRM is a real inconvenience. But I don't want to split my games into multiple libraries, so I'll probably buy it on Steam anyway. Just saying, UPlay kind of sucks.

For all it's faults, at least Uplay will let you launch with Steam and use the overlay. Both Origin and Battle.net are very hostile to Steam. The only way I've gotten Origin to work with the Steam overlay is to use Steam to launch the Origin client itself. Then Steam things I'm running the game until I close origin. Pretty clunky.

I guess Blizzard won't take as much shit for it as EA does because they're Blizzard and put out fewer games.

[palimpsest.]

Finished South Park: The Stick of Truth a week or so ago, and I found it really enjoyable. Even the horribly offensive parts where I felt terribly guilty for laughing. I think it was a well-executed game that achieved exactly what it wanted to. Not much replayability value though.

As for my next game, I'll probably just finish my current Skyrim or Fallout 3 playthroughs. I'm afraid they're the only two games on my to-play list right now that can be safely abandoned for a few weeks and then picked up whenever I feel like it.

[Whiskeyjack]

Anybody have any recommendations on a good third (or first) person shooter to play on PS3 or 360? Preferably something with a good story, if possible.

I've only really gotten back into playing games over the past year. So far, I've played (and really enjoyed) Last of Us, Bioshock: Infinite, all of the Uncharted games, and I'm currently half way through Tomb Raider. Is there anything else out there that fits into that similar style?

[Werthead]

So now choosing the best joystick to buy is a thing again, thanks to the return of the space sim.

I wish there was a good, modern equivalent to the Microsoft Sidewinder, which was awesome. The Saitek thing mentioned in the article looks great but is way, way too expensive.

Are games finally being optimized for NVidia again? Fuck yes. It seems like every major game for the last couple years or so has been AMD optimized

Really? In my experience it was the opposite: AMD were repeatedly coming out with more impressive and more interesting cards, which were usually noticeably cheaper, but games didn't run that great on them, negating the advantage offered of the superior tech. That's why I've stayed with nVidia: it may cost a bit more for slightly less, but games are 100% guaranteed to work on them. I've heard a few horror stories about getting games working on AMD cards from friends.