Video Games: Keanu Re3ves Is Breathtaking

[A True Kaniggit]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

Been playing Napoleon: Total War. I'm finding the episodic story campaigns, where you have to do the Italian, Egyptian, Austrian/Russian and Waterloo campaigns in order on custom campaign maps, to be hugely fun. For a game based on sprawling empire-building, Total War does seem to be at its best when it's tighter and more focused.

The bayonet! Give em the bayonet!

 

Also canister. Did they ever fix hundreds of enemy soldiers marching straight into multiple cannons firing canister?

[Inkdaub]

14 hours ago, RumHam said:

I don't wanna go crazy or anything, Just something of good quality that will hold up. Now I'm considering some of those open air ones so I can hear what's going on around me better. But I haven't had a chance to really look into it. 

I have the Turtle Beach pair for both XBox and PS4.  Wireless but I haven't had any problems with them.  Comfortable and they sound pretty good.  They are about a hundred bucks if I remember right.  I prefer the wired controllers but the wireless headsets seem alright.  I'm not sure how durable they are compared to other brands but both mine are pretty beat up from being dropped and sat on and what not.  They haven't stopped working, though. 

I'll add here for no real reason that I love Horizon Zero Dawn.

Lately I have been playing Evil Within 2 and it's pretty fun and semi-creepy at times. 

I have been stuck on a certain section of Ori for months.  Sometimes it sucks being shitty at games.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

10 hours ago, RumHam said:

What Platform? I had lot of fun with that game when it came out on Xbox /PS4/ PC. I know it recently came out on switch.

The experience is far improved with the right people. Better thought of as a party game than a traditional multiplayer experience. 

PC (I got it on Steam). I like it a lot, but yeah, I've run into some people who make it not fun. When you get a fun lobby who sticks together for a few matches tho, it's been a lot of fun. One lobby I was in, I came back as Tommy Jarvis (because I died first of course), and I did what I was supposed to. Went around and helped people. Two people escaped, but before I could, Jason grabbed me. It glitched and I got away but Jason still registered the kill (this is happening about 50 to 60 percent of the time, and apparently it's been a glitch since day 1?). Jason then said to me over his mic, "come on, just let me kill you. I already got the kill." And I thought, "Fair enough. No reason to make spectators wait through another 5 or so minutes." So I let him (and I've seen others do this too). When the game ended, this guy in the lobby such is SO angry and starts calling me every racist remark he can think of. So that wasn't a ton of fun, but even then, the others in the lobby just laid into him, and when he was Jason, they killed him (not me, I died early and Tommy already came back). He was cussing them out as he quit. That was a fun. I bring this up because other lobbies I've been in, people are super cool. One Jason got 1 kill, and you could tell he was a bit embarrassed by that, but the others were so nice to him. 

So, long story short, I agree, the experience depends on good people who want to play the game.

[Toth]

Well, today I found some time to get back to "Shadow of Mordor". I still think I'm doing everything wrong, but at least I managed to solve a few quests without dying.

So after finishing that stupid 3-minute timer sidequest (and praying that other quests don't have such mechanic but they probably have -.-) I continued the main quest. I went to the orc camp at the Black Gate, killed the orc captain there (of course I didn't figure out how to interrogate him again) and then turned around to follow Gollum's tracks. Granted, I spent some time exploring the camp and grabbing collectables that totally aren't just repainted Riddler trophies. So when I wanted to get to the starting point of the main quest about Gollum, I had to cross the camp again (with the orcs having respawned for the third time while I was there, this is absolutely ridiculous). When approaching the first group of orcs one of them turned out to be another captain. Which should be fine...

... but as I was fighting him, I was suddenly blasted by a huge fireball that took out three quarters of my HP. Remember the crossbow dude that killed me the last time when I was glitching through the camp? Yeah, he was back. So I turned around to face him and as I did, an orc captain announcement triggered. But not for him, yet. There was a third captain! Whom I just ignored and went to deal with the awful crossbow dude first, but as I dueled him, even more orc grunts of the camp were attracted to fight... and among them was a fourth captain!

I thought fuck this and ran for it, immediately running into a fifth captain. I shouted at the PC "Are fucking kidding me?" and ran away further, turning back here and there to harass those coming for me. Which was a mistake. Because as I did so, TWO MORE CAPTAINS SPAWNED.

And so I died once again. Ganged up upon by 7 bloody orc captains. What the fuck has this game against me?!?

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, Toth said:

Well, today I found some time to get back to "Shadow of Mordor". I still think I'm doing everything wrong, but at least I managed to solve a few quests without dying.

So after finishing that stupid 3-minute timer sidequest (and praying that other quests don't have such mechanic but they probably have -.-) I continued the main quest. I went to the orc camp at the Black Gate, killed the orc captain there (of course I didn't figure out how to interrogate him again) and then turned around to follow Gollum's tracks. Granted, I spent some time exploring the camp and grabbing collectables that totally aren't just repainted Riddler trophies. So when I wanted to get to the starting point of the main quest about Gollum, I had to cross the camp again (with the orcs having respawn for the third time while I was there, this is absolutely ridiculous). When approaching the first group of orcs one of them turned out to be another captain. Which should be fine...

... but as I was fighting him, I was suddenly blasted by a huge fireball that took out three quarters of my HP. Remember the crossbow dude that killed me the last time when I was glitching through the camp? Yeah, he was back. So I turned around to face him and as I did, an orc captain announcement triggered. But not for him, yet. There was a third captain! Whom I just ignored and went to deal with the awful crossbow dude first, but as I dueled him, even more orc grunts of the camp where attracted to fight... and among them was a fourth captain!

I thought fuck this and ran for it, immediately running into a fifth captain. I shouted at the PC "Are fucking kidding me?" and ran away further, turning back here and there to harass those coming for me. Which was a mistake. Because as I did so, TWO MORE CAPTAINS SPAWNED.

And so I died once again. Ganged up upon by 7 bloody orc captains. What the fuck has this game against me?!?

I remember liking the game but I quit very soon into it story progression wise because it became impossible for me to do anything because high level enemies would come out from under wagons and shit as soon as I was spotted.

 

[Toth]

10 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I remember liking the game but I quit very soon into it story progression wise because it became impossible for me to do anything because high level enemies would come out from under wagons and shit as soon as I was spotted.

You honestly want to tell my that this somehow gets worse?

I'm already biting into my keyboard trying to bring down these two lvl 11 jerks among them.

[Jace, Extat]

27 minutes ago, Toth said:

You honestly want to tell my that this somehow gets worse?

I'm already biting into my keyboard trying to bring down these two lvl 11 jerks among them.

I once had to like capture this troll or something? And like a dozen guys who were way out of my level would just come wandering into the situation every fucking time. And from different directions and shit too. Cause I tried doing extra stealth for like an hour but they kept wandering up from behind me no matter what angle of ingress I took.

[Inigima]

Yeah, I liked Mordor at first but mechanically it became bullshit within a few hours. I quit and haven't looked back. 

[Toth]

1 hour ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I once had to like capture this troll or something? And like a dozen guys who were way out of my level would just come wandering into the situation every fucking time. And from different directions and shit too. Cause I tried doing extra stealth for like an hour but they kept wandering up from behind me no matter what angle of ingress I took.

 

58 minutes ago, Inigima said:

Yeah, I liked Mordor at first but mechanically it became bullshit within a few hours. I quit and haven't looked back. 

Yeah, I take your meaning. I now played a bit more. Tracking down Gollum was now considerably easy. Even the fight afterwards. I also had some fun riding one of these gurgle-word-beasts and knocking down a whole column of orcs with it. But then I tried continuing the main quest and things went south really quickly again.

So I went to the west, on the way there killing my Nemesis, this bloody crossbowman, by stealthkilling him with a headshot (which is his weakness). But I barely managed to walk around the corner when he jumped me again, now a bit beefier and having lost his weakness to headshots. I dispatched him again.

Then I went to the camp where Ratbag was captured. While sneaking around "clearing the area" (it's beyond me why I even try, the fuckers respawn three seconds later anyway) I ran into a large number of orcs led by a captain. With them patrolling the area I had no choice but to tail them, sniping them away one by one. But while I was doing that I was suddenly jumped by my Nemesis AGAIN (unfortunately ambushes are one of his special moves). Of course while I was busy fighting him off, the guy I was tailing and a third captain came running. So I said once again screw it and ran back to the spawn tower, climbing it up and waiting there for them to grow tired searching for me.

These ridiculously persistant fuckers didn't. They just walked around at the bottom of the tower while I was trapped up there.

After several very frustrating minutes I went down and stealth killed one of them. The moment I turned my attention back to my Nemesis asshole with his exploding bolts, a fourth captain plopped up out of nowhere, kicking me over the moment I tried to do a melee attack to which is apparently immune. My Nemesis then killed me. For the second time. He is now level 16 and has lost all weaknesses that I was able to exploit before.

I see your gripes. This is utterly silly. There is absolutely no respite in this game, it is a constant onslaught. In Batman games you could at least take a view from a safe rooftop and plan your maneuvers, while the world in this game is just a giant enemy camp where enemies are constantly respawning in your back. Even getting to your quest objectives feels incredibly tedious right now and not fun at all...

[Werthead]

16 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Also canister. Did they ever fix hundreds of enemy soldiers marching straight into multiple cannons firing canister?

Canister is a bit OP in the game, but that bit about advancing straight towards cannon was somewhat historically accurate. You couldn't break up advancing lines (as enemy cavalry could tear you apart in seconds if you tried), so sometimes they really did just walk straight towards the firing guns. N:TW does have the cannons rate of fire be a bit faster than real life though, so the effect is worsened.

Having cannon standing there unprotected is stupid though, so normally you'd have infantry ready to jump in front of the cannons to protect them, at which point they can't fire any more (unless you're a lunatic).

[Jace, Extat]

44 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Canister is a bit OP in the game, but that bit about advancing straight towards cannon was somewhat historically accurate. You couldn't break up advancing lines (as enemy cavalry could tear you apart in seconds if you tried), so sometimes they really did just walk straight towards the firing guns. N:TW does have the cannons rate of fire be a bit faster than real life though, so the effect is worsened.

Having cannon standing there unprotected is stupid though, so normally you'd have infantry ready to jump in front of the cannons to protect them, at which point they can't fire any more (unless you're a lunatic).

Or you're like Jace and let them rush the cannons, get two volleys off of canister shot, and then fall on their rear with cavalry and the flanks with infantry.

When you think about it there's like 18 dudes in a cannon team. Letting, say, 4 of those get totally routed leaves you with fewer dead than two infantry regiments getting into melee suffering 40 percent casualties apiece.

[Toth]

Okay... I think I'm getting the hang of this Shadow of Mordor nonsense. Mostly by being lucky that today's run didn't involve a horde of Captains ganging up on me. The most I had was two and that ended with my victory, thankfully. Though my bloody Nemesis is still out there, doing his own stuff, while I was busy freeing Ratbag, learning how to poison camps and murdering/eating the native flora and fauna doing the ranger challenges (I can't believe you get XP for going Bear Grylls on fucking Mordor shoving every plant you find into your mouth XD).

[Luzifer's right hand]

I got Star Trek™: Bridge Crew and it is really fun in VR.

The voice command function works surprisingly well. 

"Raise shields! Fire phasers! Engage!"

 

 

[Ramsay B.]

I finished HZD yesterday.

Spoiler

Fucking Daniels. I knew he had something shady up his sleeve.

I started the DLC and it’s like going north of the wall into wilding territory. The Northern Lights, combined with all the snow, look amazing. I’m already thinking about doing a replay in the near future, but on the hardest difficulty.

I tried Shadow of Mordor a few months back and found it dreadfully boring.

 

[Mexal]

2 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

I finished HZD yesterday.

  Reveal hidden contents

Fucking Daniels. I knew he had something shady up his sleeve.

I started the DLC and it’s like going north of the wall into wilding territory. The Northern Lights, combined with all the snow, look amazing. I’m already thinking about doing a replay in the near future, but on the hardest difficulty.

I just finished Gaia Prime and got the Shield-Weave Armor. Getting there.

[Toth]

On 7/20/2019 at 11:57 PM, Werthead said:

Having cannon standing there unprotected is stupid though, so normally you'd have infantry ready to jump in front of the cannons to protect them, at which point they can't fire any more (unless you're a lunatic). 

Ah, good ol' Napoleon. My "Funnel of Doom" deployment of having the cannons in the center, infantry forming a funnel at the sides and light infantry/cavalry covering the flanks never stopped breaking the enemy AI. Just watch the enemy march into their doom.

Also: How come absolutely everybody here tried out Shadow of Mordor and dropped it? Did you all take the WB Games Humble Bundle to get the Arkham games?

In any case, I just came back from a pretty strange game. So I started up, went for a mission about killing ghuls that I had just unlocked and was killed twice doing that because I still can't figure out how to kill those damned ghul matriarchs. They are just nasty strong and I can't seem to get my combo modifier up when I'm swarmed by hundreds of ghuls interrupting me with their scratch damage.

Unfortunately while I was wasting my time getting murdered my nemesis was busy succeeding missions and leveling up to lvl 18. I must admit, that made me a tad nervous. So I tracked him down to a fortress where he was hiring more orcs. As I was approaching him once again I had to deal with two other captains, but thankfully not all three at once. This means yes, I managed to kill him, again. But I because I was swarmed by orcs shortly before that and made an, ahem, tactical retreat to a healing plant behind a tower, I just went and sniped him from afar instead of executing him like my initial idea was. So... whether "Zhugdush the Handsome" stays dead remains rather doubtful.

Funnily enough, as I was already in this camp where a warchief was hiding, I went out of my way to attract him by brutalizing his favorite follower. As I tried to do there were two captains respawning in the camp. Because I am an idiot skipping quest descriptions I didn't know that his favorite follower was a random orc and not the captains, so I brutalized both in short order before noticing my mistake. Hey, they were lvl 5, come on! Barely different from regular orcs! XD Interestingly, when the warchief was attracted, I noticed he was deadly afraid of caragours (or whatever you spell those things), so I figured the easiest way to get rid of him was to free one of the caged ones, mount it and run him over. This was the most hilariously one-sided boss fight ever and I must say, that was fun. Especially when the two other captains accompanying him then just made a run for it after I dispatched their chief in less than 20 seconds.

 

[aceluby]

On 7/20/2019 at 12:18 PM, Jace, Basilissa said:

I remember liking the game but I quit very soon into it story progression wise because it became impossible for me to do anything because high level enemies would come out from under wagons and shit as soon as I was spotted.

Same here, I did so many of the 'kill the captain' missions that any time I died 6 of them would get promoted.  By the time I quit I had guys that were WAY out of my range to deal with on what should have been 'regular' missions.  The concept was novel, but ultimately poorly executed.

[Caligula_K3]

That's what I loved about Shadow of Mordor. The beginning was the best part, when I was constantly dying to and being taken out by orc captains who were growing more powerful than me. It forced me to learn how to be stealthy and clever in taking them down, and led to some amazing emergent storylines with orc captains. Later in the game, once you get so powerful that you can basically kill everything without trying, the game loses a lot of its charm.

[Toth]

4 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

That's what I loved about Shadow of Mordor. The beginning was the best part, when I was constantly dying to and being taken out by orc captains who were growing more powerful than me. It forced me to learn how to be stealthy and clever in taking them down, and led to some amazing emergent storylines with orc captains. Later in the game, once you get so powerful that you can basically kill everything without trying, the game loses a lot of its charm.

I think that problem of why the game is so frustrating at times is not the powerful captains themselves. As emphasized in my post above, it was actually pretty fun for me to track down and dispatch Zhugdush before he becomes unstoppable. However the game becomes ridiculous when every minor encounter contains the risk of turning into a clusterfuck of more orc captain introductions than title announcements of Daenerys. I was about to drop the game when one of my earliest encounters about 30 minutes into the game ended with seven captains ganging up on me and that's just absurd. I understand that you should get swarmed if you fail to prevent an alarm sounding inside a fortress, but this was just at a tent 40 meters away from a spawn tower that suddenly turned into a clown car spewing never ending hordes of bosses.

I guess it would be significantly better if there at least was a mechanic to limit the number of engaged captains somewhat to your level. Which should be easy to do, given that the game already does keep track of their number in order to give all of them a power increase if you get killed. Just to prevent completely hopeless situations that make just traversing the map a gamble.

[Fez]

Gongsun Zan has united the empire (which, honestly, was not that long divided). My vassals and I crushed Shu-Han relatively easily and Liu Bei abdicated, giving me another 9 or so counties and several worthless all-militia armies; plus one good army that him and his sworn brothers. At this point, including my vassals and my coalition partner Cao Cao, I controlled pretty much all of historical Wei, plus northern Yi and a foothold in southern Jing; and was only missing a couple two far western counties Gong Du still held and the Ru Nan area.

I was all set to invade Wu and end the game. Unfortunately, Cao Cao decided to be dick and leave the coalition while several of my armies were still in his borders. This gave me massive diplomatic penalties for trespassing, and I had no choice but to declare war before he could stab me in the back. It was a slaughter; I didn't realize how weak he was. Or maybe how strong I was. At this point I had 14 armies, filled with cavalry, trebuchets, crossbows, sword guards, and the Imperial archers and guards. Two guarded my western border in case my vassals ever got ideas, two were on my south eastern border inherited from Liu Bei, one was in Yizhou, and the other nine were already near Cao Cao. I crushed him in under a year and he became my vassal with less than a third of his territory remaining.

I began moving my armies towards the border with Wu, but, before I was even ready, war began. Wu's vassal Liu Yao attacked my vassal Ze Bu and that pulled everyone in. It took a few turns before my armies were in Wu lands, but once they were, it was another quick wipeout. There was almost no resistence as I seized settlement after settlement in the south east (I didn't have enough troops in the West, so I mostly guarded my borders). I'm not sure where Wu's main strength was, I only ever saw a handful of armies. The killing blow came when a force of 2,000 elite troops under my grandson, Gongsun Yi, defeated a combined militia and garrison force of 6,500 under Sun Ren. I graciously released her after the battle and Lady Wu abdicated her throne to me that turn.

And thus the Empire was united. Technically Gong Du, Jia Long, and Shi Hui all exist as independent powers still, but I imagine they'd be crushed relatively quickly by my united might. Something would also need to be done about LuBu, who had inherited Dong Zhou's lands, he's too untrustworthy to hold Chang'an and so much other land. Also, with four sons, seven children, and a daughter married to Zhao Yun (my Prime minister), there's definitely the potential for dynastic problems. Hopefully Yan does better than Jin did.

It took 165 turns and honestly was not that hard at all. Once I united everything north of the Yellow I had an almost impossibly good position, easily defended and extremely wealthy. I think I spent more than half the game just taking that area, and it was almost all mop-up after that. In some sense I guess it speaks to how many advantages the historical Yuan Shao had, and how much of a failure he was for losing to Cao Cao.