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

[Slurktan]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

You're not living then! And as it turns out, I had a lot of guns. They were just at the camp. 

Ha, well I either end up dead or I've killed everyone else.  I did surrender myself to pay the bounty one time because I accidentally hit a dog with my horse though but that was just paying the fine and off I went.

[The Drunkard]

I haven't played Stellaris in aaaaages but I am really enjoying the new economy/population growth mechanics. You're no longer limited by the 'size' (or number of building tiles) a planet has in terms of growing your population, you're now only limited by housing and employment. I've been building city-planets and then dedicating adjacent planets to agriculture, mining or energy production in order to keep everything functional. Ringworlds should be stupidly useful when I can finally start building them.

Speaking of, I bought most of the old DLC on sale and it really fleshes out the mid-game. Plus, I'm looking forward to my dyson spheres, ringworlds and planet-busters when I can finally get the tech, particularly since I can contain them all to a handful of well-defended, highly-populated systems and cut off the rest of the galaxy. 

[A True Kaniggit]

6 hours ago, The Drunkard said:

I haven't played Stellaris in aaaaages but I am really enjoying the new economy/population growth mechanics. You're no longer limited by the 'size' (or number of building tiles) a planet has in terms of growing your population, you're now only limited by housing and employment. I've been building city-planets and then dedicating adjacent planets to agriculture, mining or energy production in order to keep everything functional. Ringworlds should be stupidly useful when I can finally start building them.

Speaking of, I bought most of the old DLC on sale and it really fleshes out the mid-game. Plus, I'm looking forward to my dyson spheres, ringworlds and planet-busters when I can finally get the tech, particularly since I can contain them all to a handful of well-defended, highly-populated systems and cut off the rest of the galaxy. 

Lol. Just came here to make a comment on this.

It took a couple false starts to get used to, but I'm enjoying the new economy as well. Really looking forward to repairing this ruined interstellar assembly I just found. 

The Union of Democratic Systems (UDS) shall bring freedom to the rest of the galaxy, whether they want it or not.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 hours ago, Guy Kilmore said:

I make my cash treasure hunting and stealing stagecoaches/wagons.  Play a little more into Chapter 2 to get access  to the fence.  (Hosea's missions specfically, it lets you sell those hot goods)

Go on about this stagecoach robbery business…..

11 hours ago, Slurktan said:

Ha, well I either end up dead or I've killed everyone else.  I did surrender myself to pay the bounty one time because I accidentally hit a dog with my horse though but that was just paying the fine and off I went.

My god I’ve died so many times. Last night I tried to fight a bear with a bow….

[A True Kaniggit]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

My god I’ve died so many times. Last night I tried to fight a bear with a bow….

And you won right?

I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio fought a grizzly, and he killed it. It might've f***** him up. But he won.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

52 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

And you won right?

I mean, Leonardo DiCaprio fought a grizzly, and he killed it. It might've f***** him up. But he won.

Sadly my horse bucked me off and when I got up the bear was two feet in front of me. I died much like Robert Muldoon did.

[A True Kaniggit]

25 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Sadly my horse bucked me off and when I got up the bear was two feet in front of me. I died much like Robert Muldoon did.

Well that's disheartening.

 

Edit: Sadly, I did not immediately get your reference. So for knowledge's sake I googled Robert Muldoon in order to educate myself. The first hit was a New Zealand politician who died in a hospital from some sickness or other.

It was only after 10 minutes of trying to figure out what you were talking about that I saw the second link that stated Robert Muldoon was the guy from Jurassic Park. Yep, that makes far more sense .

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

57 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Well that's disheartening.

 

Edit: Sadly, I did not immediately get your reference. So for knowledge's sake I googled Robert Muldoon in order to educate myself. The first hit was a New Zealand politician who died in a hospital from some sickness or other.

It was only after 10 minutes of trying to figure out what you were talking about that I saw the second link that stated Robert Muldoon was the guy from Jurassic Park. Yep, that makes far more sense .

Huh, I did not know that. I considered adding the JP reference, but thought it was funnier without it. Jurassic Park is my favorite movie, and Muldoon is arguably my favorite character in it. Plus I love the book and he’s hilarious in it. But the reference was dead accurate. I could see the bear crushing my skull in its mouth. I guess the article I read wasn’t  kidding when they said this game is super graphic.

[Guy Kilmore]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Go on about this stagecoach robbery business…..

It is silly easy.  Once you get access the the fence, you can ride up next to pretty much any wagon or cart, jump off your horse and onto the wagon.  You then push the person off and can steal the wagon.  While you are riding the vehicle, you can whistle and your horse will follow you.  It is pretty easy to ride out of the danger area and if you did this with a mask, no loss of reputation.

You then ride the cart/wagon/stagecoach to the fence and sell it.  A covered wagon was like $50.

[Slurktan]

40 minutes ago, Guy Kilmore said:

It is silly easy.  Once you get access the the fence, you can ride up next to pretty much any wagon or cart, jump off your horse and onto the wagon.  You then push the person off and can steal the wagon.  While you are riding the vehicle, you can whistle and your horse will follow you.  It is pretty easy to ride out of the danger area and if you did this with a mask, no loss of reputation.

You then ride the cart/wagon/stagecoach to the fence and sell it.  A covered wagon was like $50.

Do you honestly need that money though?  Even if you don't find any of the treasure maps there's tons around (There is a gold bar in the ruined town right near Horseshoe Overlook for example that's $500 once you have the fence open.)  I have never robbed a wagon outside of a story mission cause I just didn't need to.  Loot all the bodies you murder you will generally get  $5-10 worth of jewelry/watches/buckles off of every single one.  That's even more fun when other gang members are near cause they will also loot the bodies so you have to race them.

[Guy Kilmore]

17 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Do you honestly need that money though?  Even if you don't find any of the treasure maps there's tons around (There is a gold bar in the ruined town right near Horseshoe Overlook for example that's $500 once you have the fence open.)  I have never robbed a wagon outside of a story mission cause I just didn't need to.  Loot all the bodies you murder you will generally get  $5-10 worth of jewelry/watches/buckles off of every single one.  That's even more fun when other gang members are near cause they will also loot the bodies so you have to race them.

No, not really, but it is kind of fun and a good return rate for the effort involved.

 

I mean, if you really need the money, you can do the Gold Bar duplication glitch from the spot you found that gold bar.

[mcbigski]

So I finished all of the XCom 2 legacy pack missions.  Good value for free to be sure.

The scavenge mechanic is a little wonky.  I mean why are there Chosen level weapons available at that point?  And would have liked it better if the player's squads were less powered up and they kept out the avatars, codexes, gatekeepers etc that Bradford is so surprised to see in the main game.

I definitely LoLed on Tygan's rescue mission when you learn his call sign, and Bradford is a right bastard with his shaggy dog story in the last Lazarus Project mission, but amusing enough payoff at the end, for what it was.

I just wish I could get any of my mods to work.  I'd like to do a replay with the additional unlocked stuff but even though my mods are showing up on the start screen, they aren't working when I get to the game.  Pretty much all of them are to speed the game up.  If there's one thing I'd like to see in XCom2 , it would be to streamline a lot of the interface and animations.  When replaying, it gets pretty old watching the cut screen from the avenger to the global map, for instance.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Guy Kilmore said:

It is silly easy.  Once you get access the the fence, you can ride up next to pretty much any wagon or cart, jump off your horse and onto the wagon.  You then push the person off and can steal the wagon.  While you are riding the vehicle, you can whistle and your horse will follow you.  It is pretty easy to ride out of the danger area and if you did this with a mask, no loss of reputation.

You then ride the cart/wagon/stagecoach to the fence and sell it.  A covered wagon was like $50.

I Googled the fence and it sounds like I can have access to one soon. I’ll keep an eye out for the mission that opens it. I know I’ve been to that farm, because I killed the farmers to steal a horse after mine died.

Also, how much does reputation matter? Mine is awful right now due to many killing sprees.  

[Guy Kilmore]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I Googled the fence and it sounds like I can have access to one soon. I’ll keep an eye out for the mission that opens it. I know I’ve been to that farm, because I killed the farmers to steal a horse after mine died.

Also, how much does reputation matter? Mine is awful right now due to many killing sprees.  

It has an effect.  I'm not sure what negative reputation does, but I know that everyone sees me as a "good" guy so I get like nice discounts and people offering to buy me free stuff.

ETA:  The effect is small.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

I just wish I could get any of my mods to work.  I'd like to do a replay with the additional unlocked stuff but even though my mods are showing up on the start screen, they aren't working when I get to the game.  Pretty much all of them are to speed the game up.  If there's one thing I'd like to see in XCom2 , it would be to streamline a lot of the interface and animations.  When replaying, it gets pretty old watching the cut screen from the avenger to the global map, for instance.

Those cut scenes are actually loading screens. The game holds the global map and the Avenger in different cells and flips between them, which requires a brief loading pause. On PC with an SSD installed this is pretty brief, but I've see it on console and the longer pause is slightly annoying (that's also why we get those long shots of the dropship taking off and landing, they're hiding loading information in the background).

[Werthead]

An enormous and fantastically well-made retrospective on Half-Life. Given they couldn't talk to anyone at Valve (who refused to talk, as normal), it's amazing how much access they to other people heavily involved in the game and the surrounding fan scene.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Guy Kilmore said:

It has an effect.  I'm not sure what negative reputation does, but I know that everyone sees me as a "good" guy so I get like nice discounts and people offering to buy me free stuff.

ETA:  The effect is small.

Good to know. I've got a taste for blood this evening, and will have to sneak some gaming in before the football game.

Sorry yoga practice and LSAT studies, you will be ignored.

I knew this would happen when I bought the console......

23 minutes ago, Werthead said:

An enormous and fantastically well-made retrospective on Half-Life. Given they couldn't talk to anyone at Valve (who refused to talk, as normal), it's amazing how much access they to other people heavily involved in the game and the surrounding fan scene.

Man I used to love that game when I was a kid. The mods were amazing. 

[Guy Kilmore]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Good to know. I've got a taste for blood this evening, and will have to sneak some gaming in before the football game.

Sorry yoga practice and LSAT studies, you will be ignored.

I knew this would happen when I bought the console.....

The mask helps, you can buy specialized ones at the fence. Like I have a silver skull mask. 

[briantw]

Finished up Shadow of the Tomb Raider last night.

Such a weird game.  You have this vast upgrade tree with so many skills you can unlock, but the bulk of them have to do with combat or stealth, and there's just so little of that in the game that it makes the whole endeavor feel a little pointless.  Whereas in the past two games, Lara would go on regular killing sprees, decimating foreigners at a rate that only Nathan Drake would scoff at, in Shadow, there are only a handful of combat sequences in the entire game.  

And while I found this to generally be an improvement, as by far the best part of these games has been the puzzles, platforming, exploration, and occasional ridiculous set-pieces, the problem is that I found myself staring at the upgrade screen wondering what the hell the point of it all was.  

Similarly, the lack of combat makes the sheer amount of guns you gain access to a bit ridiculous as well.  I only ended up using two assault rifles the entire game, starting out with a silenced one before realizing there wasn't enough stealth in the game to bother when you always have a bow and arrow anyway and then switching to a louder, more powerful option for the end-game.  I think I used a pistol like once in the entire damn game.  The shotgun was more useful, although really only when you fight a certain group of enemies that largely just rush mindlessly at you.  Against enemy soldiers a rifle is just far more efficient.

The puzzles were a lot of fun, though, as I believe I mentioned here previously.  I was disappointed by the end-game segment primarily because I was hoping it would involve another of the game's fun tombs, which were a blast to work my way through.  Instead, it was a pretty generic linear action set-piece, of which the game has several better earlier on, including an awesome one to cap off the prologue followed by similarly generic combat and a lame "boss" fight that mostly just involves shooting a guy a shitload of times.

The story was dumb as hell.  It begins with Lara doing her thing, desecrating a tomb and taking a knife from an altar, which inadvertently begins the Mayan apocalypse or something.  Naturally, the knife is stolen from her minutes later, as once again she does exactly what the bad guys want by finding something for them and then getting caught (which I think happens around five times in each of these three games).  The only way Lara can save the world is to travel into the Amazon to track down the knife and the box it can be inserted into, which can restore the sun or, in the wrong hands, give the holder a godlike power to remake the world.  

You can pretty much figure out how things go from there.  None of it is even remotely surprising or unpredictable.  The writing isn't great, the acting is pretty poor across the board, and the character models don't emote particularly well.  

Overall, I'd give it a 7.  It's a fun action/adventure/platformer that seems to have finally figured out the proper balance among those three things.  The puzzles were creative and occasionally a bit difficult despite there only being a handful of game mechanics involved, and the platforming is mostly fun as well outside of occasionally dying because Lara decides she'd rather not grab that ledge right now, thank you very much.  Also, it can sometimes be confusing as to where you're supposed to go next, which is an example of occasional poor design.  If you liked the first two but thought they could have used more puzzles and platforming and less shooting dudes in the face, this one's gonna be for you. 

[mcbigski]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Those cut scenes are actually loading screens. The game holds the global map and the Avenger in different cells and flips between them, which requires a brief loading pause. On PC with an SSD installed this is pretty brief, but I've see it on console and the longer pause is slightly annoying (that's also why we get those long shots of the dropship taking off and landing, they're hiding loading information in the background).

No doubt some of the are, but several of the mods I like do speed up the interface.  Instant Avenger Menus, Stop Wasting my Time, and Quicker Reload are all mods that IMO improve the experience by speeding things up where they can.  Also highly recommend the New Promotion Screen, which defaults the left to right promotion screen and saves you from clicking back and forth through the Training Center facility without affecting game play at all.  Evac All is nice to save a few clicks and animations too.