Jump to content

Video Games: Shadow of the Rise of the Live Madden War III- HD Remaster


Fez

Recommended Posts

On 10/22/2018 at 1:31 AM, Meera of Tarth said:

:lmao:What a sense of humour, xd

And...genocidal assimilators?:mellow:

Btw, the names on the right are really interesting and basically confirm that a certain surname of Basque origin will still be in use in the future. Wow.:rofl:

Doesn't that fit the Borg as a description?

But... yeah, the Ojeda-system apparently is a thing. Don't really know where it is though... I think the USS Mississipi was somewhere near the galactic core at the time.

15 hours ago, RumHam said:

Rimworld officially came out this week. It's been in early access for years, one of my favorite games of all time. @Toth you'd probably like it if you have time to try it. It's kinda like a less intimidating Dwarf Fortress.  You crash on a planet and have to build up a colony. It has the same kinda emergent stories like you tell about Stellaris. Like one time everything was going great until two wild cats joined my colony and started breeding. I didn't pay attention to their population and months later realized they had gotten into my freezer and eaten just about all my food. I had over 20 colonists and it was the dead of winter so no crops. They all died :(

 

Mmh... the idea might be interesting and Youtube lately recommended a number of Let's Plays to me. But I must admit, I am really bad with roguelike games like this, even strategy games. Despite the premise, I don't think I will try it out if it doesn't randomly show up in a Humble Bundle some time in the future.

Regarding my Stellaris Playthrough... I think this pic shows how epic things had turned out: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/181024/juhcnpxa.jpg

Admittedly, after I broke the Borg fleets with that earlier exploit, they never really recovered from it. So they changed their strategy and became ever more defensive and frustrating to beat. They upgraded their starbases in every system, harrassed me with single spheres that were still able to take my own starbases and most of all the planets I conquered and tried to de-assimilate were constantly disrupted by Borg drone uprisings that forced me to keep my armies behind. Not to mention that it takes 20 years to de-assimilate a populated planet...

In the end, the whole war took me more than 65 year, though with one 10 year peace period in between where I was vary about that mirror universe incursion as well as the Cytherians, a Fallen Empire that actually woke up, only to do nothing at all.

But now, behold the pacified Delta Quadrant: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/181024/xcc4fiba.jpg

The Borg are no more! And the Federation has with the Skrreans as ally also gained a foothold in the Gamma Quadrant as well. I guess that's it. By the way, the Mirror Universe forces were beaten by the Klingons on their own. Who made an impressive comeback, with their fleet power raising from pathetic to inferior, as well as wiping out the Son'a.

Oh. And Lore is still my president. There were some terms where other won (mostly one female Tellarite scientist who reigned two times, among them in this 10 year time of peace, but also a somewhat amusing situation when Lore was beaten by a certain human named Irene Compton who mysteriously died of old age immediately thereafter... at the age of 163. Though I'm a bit frustrated with my immortal sociopathic android because his diplomacy sucks. I really want someone with a charismatic trait now that the Borg are gone and I can go about the peaceful integration of peoples again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Toth said:

Doesn't that fit the Borg as a description?

But... yeah, the Ojeda-system apparently is a thing. Don't really know where it is though... I think the USS Mississipi was somewhere near the galactic core at the time.

Mmh... the idea might be interesting and Youtube lately recommended a number of Let's Plays to me. But I must admit, I am really bad with roguelike games like this, even strategy games. Despite the premise, I don't think I will try it out if it doesn't randomly show up in a Humble Bundle some time in the future.

Regarding my Stellaris Playthrough... I think this pic shows how epic things had turned out: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/181024/juhcnpxa.jpg

Admittedly, after I broke the Borg fleets with that earlier exploit, they never really recovered from it. So they changed their strategy and became ever more defensive and frustrating to beat. They upgraded their starbases in every system, harrassed me with single spheres that were still able to take my own starbases and most of all the planets I conquered and tried to de-assimilate were constantly disrupted by Borg drone uprisings that forced me to keep my armies behind. Not to mention that it takes 20 years to de-assimilate a populated planet...

In the end, the whole war took me more than 65 year, though with one 10 year peace period in between where I was vary about that mirror universe incursion as well as the Cytherians, a Fallen Empire that actually woke up, only to do nothing at all.

But now, behold the pacified Delta Quadrant: http://fs1.directupload.net/images/181024/xcc4fiba.jpg

The Borg are no more! And the Federation has with the Skrreans as ally also gained a foothold in the Gamma Quadrant as well. I guess that's it. By the way, the Mirror Universe forces were beaten by the Klingons on their own. Who made an impressive comeback, with their fleet power raising from pathetic to inferior, as well as wiping out the Son'a.

Oh. And Lore is still my president. There were some terms where other won (mostly one female Tellarite scientist who reigned two times, among them in this 10 year time of peace, but also a somewhat amusing situation when Lore was beaten by a certain human named Irene Compton who mysteriously died of old age immediately thereafter... at the age of 163. Though I'm a bit frustrated with my immortal sociopathic android because his diplomacy sucks. I really want someone with a charismatic trait now that the Borg are gone and I can go about the peaceful integration of peoples again.

it does it does...!

ah no! I was refwrring to Echeverria (Echeverría) because in Basque where it comes from it's Etxebarria.

Ojeda is Castilian... :P from Burgos if I read correctly. So Castille.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Fez said:

I'm now 40 hours in to Assassin's Creed Odyssey and have seen maybe a quarter of the map, this game is exhaustingly massive. I've had a lot of fun with the game, but if Ubisoft wants the next AC to be a truly classic open world RPG, the writing needs to step up another notch. What's here is often fun, and there are individual really good moments, but the sum is a fairly basic, very drawn out storyline (so far at least). 

Also, the game desperately needs some more ways to interact with it beyond combat and stealth (and dialog choices). Not survival game-style crafting, please not that. But some minigames would really add some more variety to things.

I'm enjoying the story thus far.  It's nothing amazing, but it's at least interesting, which is a lot more than can be said about the stories in past games like Black Flag and AC3.  

But yeah I am about 24 hours in and just got to Athens, which is goddamn massive.  I laughed a bit when you meet the leader there, a person you've never met before, and after a ten second conversation he gives you three missions.  Barely even got my name first.  :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of all: Does Google know something I don't know? Lately I have gotten a lot of Youtube recommendations for Batman Beyond clips and somehow lapsed and watched a couple of them. And now suddenly Humble Bundle has a WB bundle including Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight with all DLC for the latter.

So... I gladly took that offer for 10 bucks, after having played Asylum and City after a previous bundle already. I now installed Origins and while I'm not very far in it, it already got me a bit thinking. Mostly about what makes a good Batman story. I'm not starting to bash Origins here, because as far as I can see it makes a really good job at being virtually the same as the previous titles (I really felt immediately familiar with all the controls and so on), but about why the Batman incarnation in the Arkham series irritates me across all games. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by how good Origin's Batman is voiced. Therefore my impression that they really didn't care much about the plot itself and focused more on drowning you in comic references and otherwise let Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill do their thing to create a great atmosphere, is a problem that goes beyond Rocksteady.

I guess it mostly boils down to it that to me the TAS Batman is the most interesting and well written version I can think of. I guess because it wasn't tainted yet by modern writers portraying him as an invincible macho god, but rather as a horribly broken person who tries to turn his pain into a force of good, only to be consumed by 'the mission' and grow increasingly bitter. TAS Batman has such a large fascination to me because ultimately it's a very strongly written tragedy that evolves throughout countless episodes of Batman, Justice League and ultimately Batman Beyond where Terry manages to remind him of what he initially set out as. I still remember fondly how triumphant "Return of the Joker" ended not just for Terry, but also with how Bruce reunited with Barbara and Tim Drake, trying to make amends for how he shunned them out of his life.

Enter the Arkham Batman. I give the games credit that they get the atmosphere of being the dark knight 300% right. They are a lot of fun, gameplay-wise. But this Batman also is a very one-dimensionally gruff asshole pretty much 90% of the time despite being also voiced by Conroy. His only moment of empathy I still remember is his "You are better than this!" line to Mr. Freeze in City that I really loved (and I guess was a crowning moment for the game's best boss battle). Otherwise he is just there to beat bad guys up and watch helplessly as his villains murder the entire town. His no-killing rule is pretty much a self-righteous joke, TAS Batman's conviction that he can help everyone, even some of his villains, is totally absent.

But interestingly, despite the Arkham series apparently not being quite aware of these flaws, it still brings them to their ultimate end. Because let's face it, Arkham Knight (and yes, I totally got myself spoiled there) portrays this Batman as a total failure in his crusade. That's something I noticed especially after I read that Origins takes place 8 years before Asylum and is the second year of Batman's appearance in Gotham. Therefore... with Arkham Knight being the conclusion of his story, he was active for just about 12 years at most and in this timeframe the whole city went spectacularly down the drain. Of course, much of that is just the serial escalation of the excuse stories that allow the player to punch his way through his entire rogue's gallery in single nights, but I'm also thinking that Arkham Batman's utter cluelessness in what he actually wanted to accomplish by beating up crazies had a large part in such a sorrowful outcome.

Compare that to TAS Batman: In the prologue of Beyond Bruce retires after 30 years of crimefighting and leaves the city in a noticeably better state than it was before. The mafia is essentially gone and with it the racketeering and most of the corruption of state officials. Gotham PD under the command of Barbara is a force to be reckoned with and while cyberpunk Gotham of Terry's era still has gang violence, drug abuse and the corrupt exec of Wayne-Powers to deal with, we catch more than a few glimpses into the comparably normal day-life of the city and it feels much, much safer. In fact, what little super-villainy there is focuses on high-profile hit-jobs that barely concerns the average citizen (enter 'Return of the Joker' and the stakes are suddenly put much, much higher). There is still a need for Batman, but this Bruce with all his personal sacrifices actually succeeded to a degree. And I think this is because his mission had a clear goal in mind and he started out very empathetic about his villains (noticeably Mr. Freeze, Harley, Baby-Doll or heck even Crane during 'Lock-up', with the first two being confirmed to have gone straight by the time of Beyond).

I guess my rant just means that I'm tired of Bruce being portrayed as an emotionless 'badass'. He seems obviously far more effective as a flawed human being that sacrifices his entire self for the greater good. Likewise, given that Origins takes place early in Arkham Batman's career, I then went and watched "Batman: Year One" yesterday evening to see whether that might have inspired this portrayal. And indeed, the Batman there (while also being horribly voiced and prone to ridiculously pretentious monologues) was a bland, one-dimensional idiot as well. But then again, he barely qualified as a side-character anyway, given that this was essentially Gordon's story. And even that was... odd, to say the least. Him playing the good cop vs. the corrupt GCPD was par of course, but everything about his personal failings and how they were resolved just annoyed me. So I'm basically fine with blaming Frank Miller for this nonsense. XD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I picked up Thronebreaker. I shouldn't have, since I'm way too deep on multiple other story-driven games right now, and I've never been able to juggle multiples of those successfully, but its too late now. I've played a few hours and its fantastic. The rules of Gwent seem radically different from what they were in The Witcher 3 and in the original beta of the standalone game, but almost all the battles so far have been one-round puzzles anyway, so its hard to get a feel for what the base cardgame feels like. 

But that's kind of secondary to the main point, which is that its more Witcher; albeit in isometric form. I don't know who exactly at CDPR was working on this, but it seems clear to me that not all of their A-tier staff moved over to Cyberpunk, some of them stayed to create this. The writing, the card mechanics, the graphics (yes its isometric, but its a real beautiful inked look), its all great. Supposedly its also a pretty massive game, and I'd believe it; I'm about 3 hours in and less than halfway through the first overworld map (which is clearly setting itself up for an Act I climax at the end of it).

My only complaint, and its nit-picky, is that some of the voice acting (everything is fully voice acted) is extremely deliberately paced. I don't mind for the characters, but I'm often skipping through the narrator because I've long since read all the text on screen already.

My biggest takeaway of all though actually is to get even more excited for Cyberpunk 2077, since this proves to me that The Witcher 3 wasn't just a fluke (I hated the first two Witcher games). Though admittedly I have no idea if this is an original CDPR tale or based on another one of the Witcher books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I played about an hour of Red Dead last night. It starts slow but looks great. I do with they'd let you remap buttons though. Isn't X/Square usually reload? Having to hit B/Circle for that is really throwing me off. 

If anyone's bored at work waiting to get home and play it may pay to read wikipedia summary of the first game's plot to remind yourself who a couple of the characters were.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wish I was interested in RDR2, but I just can't get excited for it. It seems so... plodding I guess is the word; also, I haven't been impressed in Rockstars' writing ability in a long time.

I'll probably give it a shot at some point though; when I haven't played any other open world games in a while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Fez said:

I wish I was interested in RDR2, but I just can't get excited for it. It seems so... plodding I guess is the word; also, I haven't been impressed in Rockstars' writing ability in a long time.

I'll probably give it a shot at some point though; when I haven't played any other open world games in a while.

My biggest worry is it's plodding and I hear that it might be given the lack of fast travel. We'll see how long the story holds me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Plodding is a great word to describe the first game (or second one if you count Red Dead Revolver) and at least the opening of this one. The first two missions are basically an interactive movie. But the voice acting (Dutch especially) is great as as the graphics and level of detail.  

I'm exited about the lack of fast travel. I always tell myself I'm not gonna use it in games like this but I have no self control. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I started playing Life is Strange and now I have to find out what's going on.  The little cinematics at the end of each chapter practically force me to keep going.

I'm still at the beginning of Red Dead 1 so 2 will have to wait a bit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Super minor tiny RDR2 spoilers.

I appreciate that the opening chapters for RDR2 are about lying low and doing miscellaneous missions with your companions while your gang recuperates. Gives you a chance to explore the world, accustom yourself to it and do minor tasks without having some major quest pressuring you and making doing the side-content feel out of place, like in most open world games.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, The Drunkard said:

Super minor tiny RDR2 spoilers.

  Reveal hidden contents

I appreciate that the opening chapters for RDR2 are about lying low and doing miscellaneous missions with your companions while your gang recuperates. Gives you a chance to explore the world, accustom yourself to it and do minor tasks without having some major quest pressuring you and making doing the side-content feel out of place, like in most open world games.

 

Only downside to this is it's a slow start. Looks gorgeous though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is RDR2 infested with microtransactions and forced grind to steer you towards the microtransactions, like almost every 3rd party AAA game seems to be these days? Or has R* stayed away from that persistent revenue, live services, stuff?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Is RDR2 infested with microtransactions and forced grind to steer you towards the microtransactions, like almost every 3rd party AAA game seems to be these days? Or has R* stayed away from that persistent revenue, live services, stuff?

I know Odyssey has microtransactions, but I haven't really felt like the grind forces me into wanting them.  I already feel like I'm leveling up faster than I'd like to.  After about forty hours with the game I'm at level 28, which is over halfway I think, and it doesn't really seem to be slowing down much if at all.  

I thought Witcher 3 was a much rougher grind than Odyssey, and that game didn't have microtransactions.  It also took me damn near 150 hours to finish.

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...