Video Games: Gears of Borderlands

[Vels]

10 hours ago, aceluby said:

Second is that some of the puzzles are stupidly hard to figure out on your own.  Very little visual cues to tell you how to solve them and the 'hints' that BD gives you are in fucking beeps and boops which tells you absolutely nothing.  I had to put it down for the night because I spent over an hour just fucking around before looking up how to solve it on youtube, which happened to be the second time I had to look up how to solve one of the mandatory puzzles.  

So yeah, some very questionable design decisions from the devs

Turn on subtitles - you can understand BD

[Inigima]

The subtitles for BD are also beep boops. The actual hint is Cal saying "You're right, we SHOULD try ____________."

[aceluby]

8 hours ago, Inigima said:

The subtitles for BD are also beep boops. The actual hint is Cal saying "You're right, we SHOULD try ____________."

The one I got stuck on all he said was "You're right, the metal casing will protect it"

[Luzifer's right hand]

While checking out the steam page for Half-Life: Alyx I noticed that it is already in my Steam library. I guess you get it for free if you own an Index.

[Liffguard]

I don't game much nowadays, but I'm really enjoying Subnautica Below Zero at the moment. I've never played early access before, but the first Subnautica was good enough for the developers to get some benefit of the doubt from me. I love these games for how eerily atmospheric they are, and base building is always fun.

[Werthead]

A third Half-Life game being announced is unexpected, but crazy props to Valve for making it a prequel spin-off and VR-only. That's got to take balls of steel.

It will be interesting to see if they use the Alyx HD and 4K assets to do a proper Half-Life 2 Remastered, which would be a good way of reinvigorating the franchise before finally getting to grips with Half-Life 3. And resurrecting the franchise to not make HL3 seems insane.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

1 hour ago, Liffguard said:

I don't game much nowadays, but I'm really enjoying Subnautica Below Zero at the moment. I've never played early access before, but the first Subnautica was good enough for the developers to get some benefit of the doubt from me. I love these games for how eerily atmospheric they are, and base building is always fun.

I’ve been playing the first game a lot recently, which I really like, but it scares the shit out of me. Those leviathans lurking in the distance are scary. I’m a somewhat experienced scuba diver in real life, and the depth alone in this game freaks me out.

[RumHam]

2 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

I’ve been playing the first game a lot recently, which I really like, but it scares the shit out of me. Those leviathans lurking in the distance are scary. I’m a somewhat experienced scuba diver in real life, and the depth alone in this game freaks me out.

I've played quite a few survival horror games and Subnautica is the only game I ever put down because I was afraid. 

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

A third Half-Life game being announced is unexpected, but crazy props to Valve for making it a prequel spin-off and VR-only. That's got to take balls of steel.

It will be interesting to see if they use the Alyx HD and 4K assets to do a proper Half-Life 2 Remastered, which would be a good way of reinvigorating the franchise before finally getting to grips with Half-Life 3. And resurrecting the franchise to not make HL3 seems insane.

Seems to me like it's just a gimmick to sell VR machines and then the games to use them with. Valve is not a game developer as far as I'm concerned, they're a platform custodian.

[Jace, Extat]

And a malignant one, at that.

[Werthead]

58 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Seems to me like it's just a gimmick to sell VR machines and then the games to use them with. Valve is not a game developer as far as I'm concerned, they're a platform custodian.

At the moment there are an estimated 4 million VR kits in homes worldwide. Take away the console and mobile gimmick things and it's more like 2 million Vives and Ocular Rifts that can actually run this game. If 100% of those people buy Alyx, it will probably barely break even, so yes, it's a hardware sell. The problem is that no matter how good the game is, it's not a hardware-shifter. If it was Elder Scrolls VI or Fortnight 2 in VR, yeah, that would probably sell a few million VR sets, but Half-Life is an old and effectively dead franchise for a lot of modern gamers.

I'm pretty sure Valve aren't that dumb that they think an interquel in an old franchise is going to sell millions of VR kits, so my suspicion is that this is part of a broader strategy that will incorporate other games for standard set-ups (and Half-Life 2 has had several visual updates already, another one to Alyx standards is quite likely).

The best news out of this is that a lot of the old Half-Life team who quit Valve over the last decade actually came back for this project, so if they do decide to do Half-Life 3, they can get the gang back together.

[Kalbear]

Valve doesnt have broad strategies. They basically have steam. Their studio is known for being incredibly dysfunctional with no leadership. The way this project worked was that enough people worked on it because they wanted to and it actually got done. And that alone is a miracle. 

But strategies? Like their shitty steam hardware? Please. 

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Valve doesnt have broad strategies. They basically have steam. Their studio is known for being incredibly dysfunctional with no leadership. The way this project worked was that enough people worked on it because they wanted to and it actually got done. And that alone is a miracle. 

But strategies? Like their shitty steam hardware? Please. 

I think that's been true whilst they had no competition. But now the other online services are starting to rival them, either through being mind-bogglingly cheaper (X-Box Game Pass for PC) or ruthlessly locking down exclusives (Epic Game Store), that's not such a given.

I suspect Valve now have to change and adapt to the marketplace where they have much stronger competition than previously, or Gabe better accept the cheque next time Microsoft or EA come calling.

It's also worth noting that Valve lost a lot of the Half-Life team in recent years and they had to specifically go and make offers to them to come back to work on this game, they didn't just do it because they felt like it. That's a different approach as well.

[Luzifer's right hand]

On 11/23/2019 at 9:36 PM, Werthead said:

I think that's been true whilst they had no competition. But now the other online services are starting to rival them, either through being mind-bogglingly cheaper (X-Box Game Pass for PC) or ruthlessly locking down exclusives (Epic Game Store), that's not such a given.

I suspect Valve now have to change and adapt to the marketplace where they have much stronger competition than previously, or Gabe better accept the cheque next time Microsoft or EA come calling.

It's also worth noting that Valve lost a lot of the Half-Life team in recent years and they had to specifically go and make offers to them to come back to work on this game, they didn't just do it because they felt like it. That's a different approach as well.

I just wish those companies would copy how steam works. The other stores were always complete and utter garbage(except GOG) and the XBOX app for PC is even worse. It is the same problem I have with Netflix. I would prefer paying more for one service if the competition has only horrible software.

[Inkdaub]

On 11/21/2019 at 12:16 PM, aceluby said:

The one I got stuck on all he said was "You're right, the metal casing will protect it"

Just don't tell me there's a way to hear BD's jokes.  I love them just as they are.  BD beep boops and Cal reacting is great. 

[Caligula_K3]

Damn I want to play Jedi: Fallen Order so badly. It's been so long since I've played a good Star Wars game... And nearly all the good ones are pretty heavily dated at this point and hard for me to go back to.

I'm not a Half Life person, but this project does seem really cool, and potentially a big step forward for VR. Fingers crossed it turns into something good.

[Jace, Extat]

Finished the Fallen Order game. There was some big patch or something that fixed a lot of the bugs. I hate that that's the world we live in, that I have to wait for a patch to get a working game, but waddaya gonna do?

Anyway, recently while watching the Mandalorian I had a kind of Come to Abaloth moment and just embraced Star Wars again. A lot of the new stuff is silly or stupid, including massive chunks of The Last Jedi, but it's okay. Massive chunks of Star Wars have always been silly or stupid, even in the Holy Trilogy and while I despise a lot of Disney I'm gonna take everything for what it's worth.

With that said, and the patch fixes in mind. I'm going to revise my Fallen Order score to 6.5

It's pretty good, it hits all the right notes. But it's not great, and whether it's fair or not we deserve great. It's not often I feel like the basket of deplorables that is videogamers deserve a damn thing, but in the case of Star Wars we deserve a videogame that goes down on you while you tell Darth Vader all the things you wish your father wouldn't need to be told.

And it's not that. But it's pretty good. Above average, with distinction. 6.5

[A True Kaniggit]

7 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

 It's not often I feel like the basket of deplorables that is videogamers deserve a damn thing,

Yo! I may be deplorable, but to say I am in a basket is going too far!

Cask would be the appropriate term if you want to be politically correct. 

 

For some reason I got the Fallout 4 itch. Been playing in survival mode, just trying to build up the Commonwealth while ignoring my missing child completely. 

Been enjoying myself, in-spite of the regular bugs/glitches that pop up.

About to go clear out a hospital taken over by some hostile Super Mutants.

 

[Gorn]

Fallout 4 is the only Fallout game (haven't played 76) that I've had zero interest in replaying. I've replayed even Tactics twice, but 4? Nope. Just the thought of trying to align building walls in the Creation mode is giving me shivers.

Speaking of Fallout, there have been some major user game-sized mods that sound really interesting to me. There's "Fallout Nevada" mod for Fallout 2, which is sort of an unofficial prequel for 1, Fallout: Resurrection (also for 2) which takes place in New Mexico between the events of 1 and 2, Fallout: New California for New Vegas (guess where it takes place) and Fallout: Frontier, also for New Vegas, which takes place in Oregon. There's also the Old World Blues mod for Hearts of Iron IV. I've downloaded Fallout Nevada, and I'll give it a try tomorrow.

[Inkdaub]

3 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Yo! I may be deplorable, but to say I am in a basket is going too far!

Cask would be the appropriate term if you want to be politically correct. 

 

For some reason I got the Fallout 4 itch. Been playing in survival mode, just trying to build up the Commonwealth while ignoring my missing child completely. 

Been enjoying myself, in-spite of the regular bugs/glitches that pop up.

About to go clear out a hospital taken over by some hostile Super Mutants.

 

How important is the big armor suit?  Can you just ignore it and then grab it for anything too heavy?  Can you ignore it completely?