Video Games: No Man's Pie

[Rhom]

8 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Im really into elder scrolls online right now mainly for the pvp war.

It's the first fully 3D MMO I've ever been into. Im trying to see how it's pvp stacks up against other MMOs. 

For those unfamiliar, It's pvp area servers have hundreds of people in 3 factions on a map playing sort of a game of Risk. Taking over enemy castles while still trying to protect your own. Taking over castles can typically involve 100+ people defending and attacking each other. After 30 days whichever faction had best scores wins that campaign and it starts over. (There are also 7 day campaigns).

Is that a normal MMO pvp experience as far as the number of people involved?

In my experience, no.  Most MMO's go for more of a traditional "battleground" type experience with some sort of Capture the Flag or King of the Hill type mechanic.

[Werthead]

Red Dead Redemption is getting the remaster treatment, according to unconfirmed rumours. The word is that it'll be coming to X-Box One, PS4 and PC next year.

The source is a Korean gaming magazine, so there is some scepticism over the idea. For the idea, a remastered version of RDR would sell a lot of copies on current gen, plus Rockstar have been petitioned, asked about and generally bugged about a PC version for six years solid. They also effectively remastered GTA5 for XB1, PC and PS4 and it sold hugely well. Against it, the game is getting on in age now, the original codebase was a complete mess that they'd effectively have to rewrite from the ground up to work on current gen (so a lot more work than most remasters) and it's questionable if they'd dedicate that amount of time to the game.

That said, Rockstar should be announcing their next game soon. It's been three years since GTA5 so I assume their several sub-studios have been working on other projects since then other than just expansions for GTA.

[Rhom]

30 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Red Dead Redemption is getting the remaster treatment, according to unconfirmed rumours. The word is that it'll be coming to X-Box One, PS4 and PC next year.

The source is a Korean gaming magazine, so there is some scepticism over the idea. For the idea, a remastered version of RDR would sell a lot of copies on current gen, plus Rockstar have been petitioned, asked about and generally bugged about a PC version for six years solid. They also effectively remastered GTA5 for XB1, PC and PS4 and it sold hugely well. Against it, the game is getting on in age now, the original codebase was a complete mess that they'd effectively have to rewrite from the ground up to work on current gen (so a lot more work than most remasters) and it's questionable if they'd dedicate that amount of time to the game.

That said, Rockstar should be announcing their next game soon. It's been three years since GTA5 so I assume their several sub-studios have been working on other projects since then other than just expansions for GTA.

The Red Dead games came out during a dark time in my video game playing days that I am slowly catching up on with things like the Mass Effect Trilogy release on PS3 and the recent Uncharted Collection on PS4.  Is Redemption the second game?  Wasn't there originally a Red Dead Revolver?  Is it available anywhere?

[Werthead]

Red Dead Revolver was on PS2 and the original X-Box. No idea if there's a modern version floating around.

I believe it's the same deal as the GTA games, though. There is no storyline or character connection between Revolver and Redemption, so it's not necessary to play the first game.

[Rhom]

34 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Red Dead Revolver was on PS2 and the original X-Box. No idea if there's a modern version floating around.

I believe it's the same deal as the GTA games, though. There is no storyline or character connection between Revolver and Redemption, so it's not necessary to play the first game.

Ah.  Good to know.  I thought they were connected.

With some PS2 era games making their way to the PlayStation Store, I wonder if that one might come over with an updated version of its sequel on the market?

[MerenthaClone]

Vlad the rad vampire dad is here to save the world from Chaos yet again, kids. Nice.  I wish I'd know they were releasing these two factions with a unit/hero pack first, though, since my first two campaigns were Empire and VC.  I'd probably have done Dwarves or Greenskins first otherwise.  

[KiDisaster]

I'm pretty sure there's been "unconfirmed reports" of a Red Dead Redemption remake/remaster/PC port at least once a year since that game came out. I'd love it if it happened but I'm not optimistic. 

[RumHam]

They only recently made Read Dead Redemption backwards compatible on the Xbox One. I was excited to play it again but found it didn't hold up too well. It was a great experience, but not one I'm eager to repeat. Too repetitive and too many unfun missions where you're doing things like herding cattle. The setting and production value were enough to keep me hooked the first time, but not again. 

I'd be interested in another game in the series though. Especially if they moved away from the GTAish aspects and made it more RPGy.

[The Anti-Targ]

I got about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through RDR then stopped. I enjoyed much of it, but I found myself not wanting to invest in the hours necessary to see the game to its conclusion. Probably partly because I developed no connection at all to Marston. I found myself not caring about his life, his story or his fate and the gameplay alone was not enough to keep me going.

[The Drunkard]

Within ~25 turns of a new campaign in Attila I beat an army of 4200 Romans with <2800 Visigoths while marching to sack Rome, which was one of the funner battles I've had in a while.

Their armies started at opposite ends of the map and one had zero cavalry, so while my infantry and artillery came together and formed up on a hillside I had my cavalry run over and take out most of their slingers and crossbowmen as they moved across the map. When they got in range of my onagers I tried distracting them with my cavalry, which blobbed them up. They then lost their remaining cavalry running straight into waves of arrows, and then their infantry blob ran into my pike wall while I had my remaining cavalry hit any flanking units. When their general died they basically collapsed.

It was a complete Pyrrhic victory though, as my pikes and swords were exhausted and I had to return to friendly territory to replenish.

 

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

13 minutes ago, The Drunkard said:

Within ~25 turns of a new campaign in Attila I beat an army of 4200 Romans with <2800 Visigoths while marching to sack Rome, which was one of the funner battles I've had in a while.

Their armies started at opposite ends of the map and one had zero cavalry, so while my infantry and artillery came together and formed up on a hillside I had my cavalry run over and take out most of their slingers and crossbowmen as they moved across the map. When they got in range of my onagers I tried distracting them with my cavalry, which blobbed them up. They then lost their remaining cavalry running straight into waves of arrows, and then their infantry blob ran into my pike wall while I had my remaining cavalry hit any flanking units. When their general died they basically collapsed.

It was a complete Pyrrhic victory though, as my pikes and swords were exhausted and I had to return to friendly territory to replenish.

 

 

I find the AI is often quite stupid when it comes to defending its more vunerable units like that. Sometimes it will leave a cav unit nearby to guard but mid battle its easy to swing cav around and wipe out the army from behind. I think Warhammer, or modded versions of most games tend to fix stuff like this.

Speaking of mods, usually I only play those games modded. Rome 2 I had the Radious mod installed, which is normally fantastic. But the other day I was playing a greek campaign, my huge army of phalanx's and citizen cav up against a smaller army of sword and spear infantry. I basically encircled them, rammed my cav into the back of them several times. Again and again I kept doing it. But nobody broke. 
Their general died.. nobody broke. 

I ended up getting a costly victory, despite doing almost nothing wrong. I decided to uninstall the mod because sometimes the game can just become ridiculous. 

[Corvinus85]

I, too, play with the Radious mod. I have it for Attila, and recently got it for Warhammer, but I have not tried it yet.

I recently started a campaign with one of the Slavic people. Hardy folk, but the campaign is challenging due to all the nomads passing through, especially the Huns. I got to the year 400 without problems, and then I made the mistake of going to war with the Huns. I don't know about you guys, but I find it incredibly difficult to win a battle where the enemy has me 2:1 outnumbered, especially against the Huns, since you generally just can't outmaneuver their cavalry. I was forced to retreat, which then resulted in the destruction of one of my only 2 full stack armies (the Huns have 4-5 of them at least). That's one feature of the game that I have always disliked in TW, that when you refuse to give battle and decide to retreat, you have no control of where your army goes. Retreating ahead of the enemy should not be treated the same way as being routed off the field.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

17 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I got about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through RDR then stopped. I enjoyed much of it, but I found myself not wanting to invest in the hours necessary to see the game to its conclusion. Probably partly because I developed no connection at all to Marston. I found myself not caring about his life, his story or his fate and the gameplay alone was not enough to keep me going.

Glad I'm not the only one. I liked a lot of the gameplay, but never got invested in the story.

[DunderMifflin]

omgomgomg

Mass Effect:Andromeda gameplay tease

 

[The Anti-Targ]

Mmmm and there will be an official Andromeda trailer in November. Some people were getting antsy about lack of Mass Effect information. Hopefully the Nov trailer will come with a launch date.

I just saw Lords of the Fallen as one of the free PSN+ games this month, and Journey which is great. It looks like it might be pretty good. Anyone here played Lords of the Fallen already?

[KiDisaster]

Lords of the Fallen is alright. The PC version was plagued with performance issues at launch unfortunately, but the game play is fine. It's Dark Souls but everything is slower and heavier.

Story and setting and atmosphere don't compare to the Souls games though. Never really grabbed me so I never finished it. 

[The Anti-Targ]

I like the Souls games, even though I've only played Demon's Souls. And it's "free" so I won't feel bad if I end up not liking it and only putting in a couple of hours before deleting it.

[KiDisaster]

Definitely worth trying if it's free

I've actually never played Journey, always felt like I missed out. This sounds like the perfect time. If it's free this month there should actually be other people playing  

[Fez]

Its great to see something from the next Mass Effect, I just wish it was something more interesting. Clearly they picked a section of the game with a lot of high contrast lighting because this was part of the PS4 Pro reveal, and Sony's entire selling point on the Pro was about 4k and HDR visuals. It would've been great to see some combat or snippets of cooler cutscenes or something, though I'm sure that will come.

In the meantime, confirmation that there's an Asari party member is something at least.

[Corvinus85]

I honestly was not impressed with the gameplay they showed for Andromeda. Up until this point I've been excited for everything they showed. And sure, I like good graphics and detailed environments as much anyone, but I will play this game on my PC, so there will not be a 4k monitor for me any time soon (or ever). So that aspect of the video did nothing for me.

But the bad part of the video, and yes I understand this is pre-Alpha, is the cut scene integration. You see the player alone without a squad, and then the cut scene introduces the squad members + another character. This just brought back painful memories of the lazy cut scene coding from ME2 where everyone had the standard rifles, no matter what weapons the characters actually had. I hope they do a better job of that with this one.