Video Games: In the Grim Darkness of licensed Games.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

So I started playing Assassins Creed: Odyssey, because everyone kept telling me how it isn't an Assassins Creed game...

And hot damn! Literally 3 minutes in I kinda just 'Got' the combat controls and started zipping around the battlefield spearing fools. I fucked the tutorial mini-boss UP. Which isn't impressive in itself so much as how I just really figured out the controls and how creative they are. 

Great first impression. 

Then we get to the future storyline bullshit and I wanna put a drink coaster through my brain. Also I heard that Ubisoft degraded XP gain unless you buy a fucking booster to get it back to a reasonable level. Like an MMO! That's what fucking MMO's do to free-to-players!!!!!

So we'll see. I gots 5 days to return it.

Following on what other's have said, I just finished Odyssey a couple weeks ago and XP gain is definitely still plentiful. I never felt the need to buy boosters or do any of the repeatable or grindy side quests. All I did were the story side quests (which have little gold outlines on the map) and the main quest and was leveled more than enough to do all the main quests.

And I do recommend skipping a lot of the grindy side stuff, otherwise I suspect this is something like a 300 hour game (I put in 79 hours) and burnout would set in long before getting to most of the cool stuff. On the other hand, the side story stuff is often the best written and most interesting in the game; including stuff I legit haven't seen in games before

Spoiler

(like the time you help an older woman cuck her husband and everyone treats this as a positive thing, including the husband).

The future stuff I think happens a total of 3 times all game, one of which is literally less than a minute long (if you don't bother exploring) and one of which is the most gloriously stupid things I've seen in a long time in video games.

[briantw]

No idea why Assassin's Creed won't just ditch the future shit considering they stopped going anywhere with it after about three games and literally no one likes it.

[Inkdaub]

PS4 is a fucking piece of shit.  I have no idea why it outsells Xbox like it does when Xbox is better in every way.  Except of course I do.  The games.  That's the reason I bought the thing in the first place.  I read an article a few days ago about Sony skipping EA so Microsoft was going to go really huge and show up with a new Gears of War and plans for a new Forza.  I made it through that last bit without completely nodding off.

So my PS4 has had problems since I bought it.  It finally ate a disk so I took it to Best Buy where they pried my disk out and gave me a new PS4.  Now I'm playing Last of Us...Sony exclusive...and it's pretty good so far. 

[l2 0 5 5]

17 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

PS4 is a fucking piece of shit.  I have no idea why it outsells Xbox like it does when Xbox is better in every way.  Except of course I do.  The games.  That's the reason I bought the thing in the first place.  I read an article a few days ago about Sony skipping EA so Microsoft was going to go really huge and show up with a new Gears of War and plans for a new Forza.  I made it through that last bit without completely nodding off.

So my PS4 has had problems since I bought it.  It finally ate a disk so I took it to Best Buy where they pried my disk out and gave me a new PS4.  Now I'm playing Last of Us...Sony exclusive...and it's pretty good so far. 

Have had my ps4 for 5 years with no problems. Last of Us is great. Enjoy.

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

Have had my ps4 for 5 years with no problems. Last of Us is great. Enjoy.

Same.  Zero problems.  

[briantw]

20 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

PS4 is a fucking piece of shit.  I have no idea why it outsells Xbox like it does when Xbox is better in every way. 

Clearly someone didn't have multiple consoles suffer from the RROD.

[Inkdaub]

5 hours ago, l2 0 5 5 said:

Have had my ps4 for 5 years with no problems. Last of Us is great. Enjoy.

I had my ps4 for about two months with problems every time I turned it on.  I agree Last of Us is pretty great. 

[Inkdaub]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

Clearly someone didn't have multiple consoles suffer from the RROD.

No I didn't. 

I am pretty new to these consoles and this XBox and PS4 are the first ones I have played so my frame of reference is pretty small.  My XBox turns on and off as you touch the button.  My PS4 has to be unplugged, at times over and over, to get it to respond.  That rrod would drive me insane I think.

Hopefully the new PS4 Best Buy gave me will be alright.   

[briantw]

1 minute ago, Inkdaub said:

No I didn't. 

I am pretty new to these consoles and this XBox and PS4 are the first ones I have played so my frame of reference is pretty small.  My XBox turns on and off as you touch the button.  My PS4 has to be unplugged, at times over and over, to get it to respond.  That rrod would drive me insane I think.

Hopefully the new PS4 Best Buy gave me will be alright.   

Sounds like you just got a bad console.  There are always going to be defective units.  You were just unlucky enough to get one.  

And as you said, the reason people get a PS4 over an Xbone is because of the games.  I have a gaming PC, so there's literally zero reason for me to own an Xbox, as every Xbox exclusive is also on PC.  In contrast, basically zero PS4 exclusives are on PC.  Thus, the choice between consoles is easy.  

Even if you don't have a gaming PC, I can't imagine many people picking the Xbox exclusives over the Playstation ones.  I think you could only politely even call it a competition.  

[Mexal]

I have no issues with my PS4.

[Week]

Same -- zero issues with my PS4 over the last ... 5 years? I forget when I bought it.

[KiDisaster]

Sunless Skies is out of early access as of last night. It's really fantastic, if you liked Sunless Seas or were interested in trying it I highly recommend jumping in to this one. They added some great accessibility options if the difficulty (especially in the very early game) was off-putting, and you can turn the perma-death off. 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, KiDisaster said:

Sunless Skies is out of early access as of last night. It's really fantastic, if you liked Sunless Seas or were interested in trying it I highly recommend jumping in to this one. They added some great accessibility options if the difficulty (especially in the very early game) was off-putting, and you can turn the perma-death off. 

I picked it up when it was on sale in Early Access, and played it a bit of it, restarted last night and played a bit more. It's more Sunless Seas basically, which is good. But besides some quality of life improvements, it also makes some frustrating changes from Sunless Seas.

For instance, the commerce system was simplified so that every trade good can be sold in the central hub of region and none bought, and each smaller port in regions each sell a single trade good and can't buy any. Also, so far, every single port that has supplies and/or fuel has sold them at the exact same price. It simplifies things, which I'm fine with, but makes the world feel far more lifeless and gamey. With Sunless Seas, there was frustration that you needed a guide or copious notes to keep track of which places bought and sold which goods at which prices, but it felt like there was an actual economy happening that you were a small cog in (even though everything was static).

On the other hand, the systems for keeping track of quests, qualities, and inventories is more esoteric than ever, spread across way too many menus and generally without explanation for which menu is responsible for which type of thing. These systems were hard to follow in Sunless Seas and could definitely use some simplification, but they went in the opposite direction.

But the writing is fantastic, just like it was Sunless Seas, in Fallen London, and in Cultist Simulator (which one of the lead writers created after leaving the company that created the other games). I just wish, like I wish in all these games, that the gameplay lived up to the writing. 

[Inkdaub]

10 hours ago, briantw said:

Sounds like you just got a bad console.  There are always going to be defective units.  You were just unlucky enough to get one.  

And as you said, the reason people get a PS4 over an Xbone is because of the games.  I have a gaming PC, so there's literally zero reason for me to own an Xbox, as every Xbox exclusive is also on PC.  In contrast, basically zero PS4 exclusives are on PC.  Thus, the choice between consoles is easy.  

Even if you don't have a gaming PC, I can't imagine many people picking the Xbox exclusives over the Playstation ones.  I think you could only politely even call it a competition.  

The only good XBox exclusive is Ori.  The only good one I have seen, anyway. 

All these replies saying no problems on PS4 gives me hope.  I've turned my new one on three times now without the thing freezing up or whatever the last one was doing.  So far so good.

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, Inkdaub said:

The only good XBox exclusive is Ori.  The only good one I have seen, anyway. 

All these replies saying no problems on PS4 gives me hope.  I've turned my new one on three times now without the thing freezing up or whatever the last one was doing.  So far so good.

Yeah, like briantw said, you had a bad unit. The odds of you getting 2 in a row have to be pretty small.

 

Been playing some Hearts of Iron IV in preparation for the next update. Trying to get the accomplishment of having Canada invade the U.S. and conquer Washington D.C. I've turned Canada communist and allied with the Soviet Union in pursuit of that goal.

The Sickle and Leaf shall rule this continent from sea to shining sea!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I have to be nearing the end of GTA V. I’ve sunk at least 30 hours into the game, have most of the map revealed and the missions I’m currently doing require me to bounce between all of the characters. I’ve really enjoyed this game, and Trevor is a blast to play with. Beating people to death while just wearing a diaper is hilarious.

Since I’m still fairly new to the current gaming world, can anyone suggest other open world games worth checking out? The aforementioned and RDR2 have both been huge treats.

[Rhom]

I've been staying up late trying to hammer out the last part of Dragon Quest XI.  Its wonderfully nostalgic and I have a soft spot for the cell shaded graphics.  

[briantw]

56 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

The only good XBox exclusive is Ori.  The only good one I have seen, anyway. 

Which is also on PC.

I think Halo is pretty much the only exclusive they have that hasn't gone to PC, and Halo hasn't been relevant in like a decade.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

9 minutes ago, briantw said:

Which is also on PC.

I think Halo is pretty much the only exclusive they have that hasn't gone to PC, and Halo hasn't been relevant in like a decade.

This is precisely the reason I chose PS4 instead of Xbone. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

This is precisely the reason I chose PS4 instead of Xbone. 

Same. There isn't a huge difference with the systems themselves, but the sheer number of exclusive games alone sold me on the PS4. Now I just have to figure out which one is up next.