Videogames: Perfect homies for the great indoors.

[Proudfeet]

On 5/1/2020 at 4:55 PM, Proudfeet said:

I'm probably going to regret it because its just not my sort of game anymore, but I'm going to purchase a remaster of .hack//G.U. on Steam because its on sale and also because you guys made me itchy for nostalgia sequels with all the FF talk. 

Yeah, its pretty boring. Combats pretty stale so far, the level limit on equipment makes for less variability (mostly upgrades with few sidegrades) than the previous series and being given big obvious waypoints is too much hand holding. Seriously. More of a chore than a game at that point.

Translation is pretty good from what I can understand. Localisation is total crap though. Amazing how the voice match the subtitles 100% from one line to 0% the next. The protagonist is a brat either way, but why do they turn dry sarcasm into brash idiot consistently?

Also, I've realised this a long time ago on multiple different games, but the steam controller is really shit.

[Gorn]

Inspired by the AC: Valhalla announcement, I finally started Assassin's Creed: Origins. I'm late to the party because I thought my PC couldn't handle it, but it runs surprisingly smoothly on high settings.

So far, I like it a lot. It reminds me more of Witcher III than the previous AC sequels, which is a good thing. I finished the first area, but based on the map the game world seems absolutely humongous in size, so I'm worried about burnout after a few dozen hours.

[briantw]

46 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Inspired by the AC: Valhalla announcement, I finally started Assassin's Creed: Origins. I'm late to the party because I thought my PC couldn't handle it, but it runs surprisingly smoothly on high settings.

So far, I like it a lot. It reminds me more of Witcher III than the previous AC sequels, which is a good thing. I finished the first area, but based on the map the game world seems absolutely humongous in size, so I'm worried about burnout after a few dozen hours.

Odyssey is basically a more refined version of the same experience, by the way.  I'd probably recommend just skipping Origins and going straight to it instead, especially since the main story outside the simulation hasn't really mattered in AC for about a decade. 

[Fez]

51 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Inspired by the AC: Valhalla announcement, I finally started Assassin's Creed: Origins. I'm late to the party because I thought my PC couldn't handle it, but it runs surprisingly smoothly on high settings.

So far, I like it a lot. It reminds me more of Witcher III than the previous AC sequels, which is a good thing. I finished the first area, but based on the map the game world seems absolutely humongous in size, so I'm worried about burnout after a few dozen hours.

That happened to me relatively quickly with Origins. It eventually happened with Odyssey too. Though that took longer because I was more invested with the story early on in Odyssey.

Something that may help though is that both games have entire areas where you absolutely do not need to visit them at any point. And I'd recommend not visiting them, precisely because of the burnout issue. I really think just doing the main story quests and the major side quests and ignoring everything else is the only way to get through those games sanely.

[Inkdaub]

I'm playing Vampyr and I love it.  I have had this game for a while and have no idea why I stopped playing before.  Fun game, great atmosphere and great music. 

[briantw]

3 minutes ago, Inkdaub said:

I'm playing Vampyr and I love it.  I have had this game for a while and have no idea why I stopped playing before.  Fun game, great atmosphere and great music. 

Pretty much the only thing that sucks about that game is the combat.

[A True Kaniggit]

5 minutes ago, briantw said:

Pretty much the only thing that sucks about that game is the combat.

The vampires don’t suck?

Are they Energy Vampires?

[Fez]

I'm starting to burn out a bit on Gears Tactics. I'm at the end of Act II now. And I love the combat, but I really think the game would've benefited from some other gameplay mechanic to break up the combat missions. It doesn't need to be the same kind of strategic layer as XCOM. But having something else in the game would've helped a lot.

I picked up Ni No Kuni II while it was on sale, and couldn't get into it at all. I am in the mood for a JRPG, but the art style just rubs me the wrong way. And I don't like the character designs. It's the same thing that's been holding me back from getting Dragon Quest 11 (also, I despise silent protagonists). I thought about picking up Trails of Cold Steel 3, but I had stopped playing 2 in the middle and would need to finish it first. I actually booted up 2, but its been almost two years and I can't remember how any of the game mechanics work or where I was in the story. But I do remember the main plot beats, so I'm not sure I want to restart the game either.

In the mean time, I picked up Lobotomy Corporation to pass the time. It's been out for a bit, but is half off right now to promote the fact that it has a new English translation that is actually decent now (its a South Korean game that previously relied on Google Translate; apparently the devs got scammed by a localization company). The game's steam page description is absolutely on point. It's a management sim that's Cabin in the Woods meets the SCP Foundation. You work for a power company, managing employees who run experiments on "Abnormalities", which somehow generates energy.

As you unlock gameplay-relevant info about the abnormalities you also unlock descriptions/short stories of them, which are un-ironic SCP/creepypasta-style short stories. And there's some sort of overarching narrative about the sinister AIs that help you run the facility. Their dialog is the least natural sounding, and it's also the first thing you encounter, so at first I thought the game's translation was still poor. But after seeing other text (which isn't always perfectly natural but is usually pretty close), I realized the AI stuff must be a deliberate choice. 

I'm not sure the gameplay is deep enough to keep playing to unlock all the stories. But at its current sale price of $12 its a solid way to pass the time.

[Inkdaub]

20 minutes ago, briantw said:

Pretty much the only thing that sucks about that game is the combat.

The combat is okay.  I find the response slow and movements a bit jerky but I'm okay with it so far.  Also you can't jump. 

[Poobah]

Picked up Slay The Spire again the past week or so. Fantastic game, even more polished than when I last played it; really loving the new (ish?) character The Watcher, her mechanics are really interesting and powerful when used correctly.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

On 4/22/2020 at 12:12 AM, Poobah said:

Which level is it / where? If you give me a screenshot or something I can at least tell you if you're missing some trick / solution that isn't just execution based.

It was the penultimate level, Urdak. I did it last night after a few more failed attempts, and it was just the game being shit I think. I just didn’t have enough momentum and got lucky in being close enough to the wall for it to trigger the “press RS to grab” function. It was definitely far harder than it ought to have been and there were others like it.

 

I’m actually wondering if this is because I haven’t got the faster monkey bars suit upgrade, which had just seemed like a waste of time.

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

I’m actually wondering if this is because I haven’t got the faster monkey bars suit upgrade, which had just seemed like a waste of time.

Oh that's possible, by then my obsessive completionism had secured me all the suit upgrades.

[Werthead]

Fallout 76 has some of the best elements of any Fallout game released under the Bethesda banner, but also some of the most tedious and frustrating. It's quite remarkable. I did find a really good quest today though:

Spoiler

A space capsule falls out of the sky carrying an astronaut who was in experimental cryosleep in orbit and missed the war. You have to help her recover bits from her ship whilst she is dealing with the horror of the knowledge that civilisation has ended. Later on she agrees to live at your camp and help defend it, which is kind of cool.

 

[Zelgrath]

If that's the jump I'm thinking of in Doom I failed it like 15 times and then realized that I could jump directly to the endpoint and grab the final ledge using the rune that gives you better control while in the air. Basically skipped 3 jumps in between with associated wall hangs and their floating platforms that fall a few seconds after you touch them.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

9 hours ago, Zelgrath said:

If that's the jump I'm thinking of in Doom I failed it like 15 times and then realized that I could jump directly to the endpoint and grab the final ledge using the rune that gives you better control while in the air. Basically skipped 3 jumps in between with associated wall hangs and their floating platforms that fall a few seconds after you touch them.

The aerial control rune helped me a bit, but the jump I had the most trouble with was literally just a jump to some monkey bars and then a swing to a grab wall. Really really simple, but it was just too far away. Done now anyway.

[Werthead]

A strong argument that The Mandalorian is actually a CRPG masquerading as a TV show.

Now I want a Mandalorian video game.

[Luzifer's right hand]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

Fallout 76 has some of the best elements of any Fallout game released under the Bethesda banner, but also some of the most tedious and frustrating. It's quite remarkable. I did find a really good quest today though:

  Reveal hidden contents

A space capsule falls out of the sky carrying an astronaut who was in experimental cryosleep in orbit and missed the war. You have to help her recover bits from her ship whilst she is dealing with the horror of the knowledge that civilisation has ended. Later on she agrees to live at your camp and help defend it, which is kind of cool.

 

I did that quest but I kinda lost interest again. Played a few levels with a melee character but leveling is annoying. I forget the fact that level 50 weapons are not useable for low level players... Makes defeating high level enemies as a low level character unrewarding.

[Fez]

Cyberpunk 2077's ESRB rating is out. M+ of course, but it's one doozy of a description.

Quote

This is a first-person RPG/shooter in which players assume the role of a mercenary named V trying to make their way through the open-world of Night City. Players can explore futuristic locations, interact with citizens, perform missions, and engage in combat to complete various objectives within a storyline. Characters use handguns, machine guns, rifles, and explosives during frenetic firefights with humans and cybernetically enhanced enemies; players can also use melee weapons (e.g., wrist-mounted blades, enhanced limbs) to stab enemies and, in some cases, dismember them. Combat is frenetic, with frequent gunfire, cries of pain, explosions, and blood-splatter effects. Some locations depict mutilated corpses with open chest cavities and/or exposed organs/entrails. During one quest, players assist a character by hammering nails through his hands and feet; screaming sounds and blood effects accompany the scene. The game contains nudity and sexual material: Players can select a gender and customize their character; customization can include depictions of breasts, buttocks, and genitalia, as well as various sizes and combinations of genitals. Players can encounter events where they have the option to engage in sexual activities with other main characters or prostitutes—these brief sex scenes (from a first-person perspective) depict partially nude characters moaning suggestively while moving through various positions. Some scenes contain brief depictions of thrusting motions; other scenes depict a character's head moving towards a partner's crotch. The game contains frequent depictions and references to fictional drugs, including characters taking puffs/hits from a state-altering inhaler/stimulant; an animated billboard ad depicts a man snorting speed. Some sequences allow the player to drink alcoholic beverages repeatedly until the screen distorts; player's character can also drive cars while drunk. The words “f**k” and "c*nt" appear in the dialogue.

Definitely some envelope pushing stuff (in the AAA space at least) here. Conan Exiles let you customize the size of genitalia, but that's more an AA game than something this mainstream. And I've never heard of a big game that you customize combinations of genitals. That could either be really inclusive or an absolute shitshow. The Secret World had your main character getting oral sex all the way back in 2012, though the graphical fidelity made it a bit unclear what was happening. I doubt the rest of the sex is all that boundary pushing, the reference to "partial nudity" means it'll probably Witcher 3-sytle.

On the violence and gore front, I doubt there's anything visually grosser than the RE2/RE3 remakes (it would hard for there to be), and combat violence is something most games have been pushing forward for a long time. It does sound like there might be a particularly bad torture scene your character participates in, which is probably really rough since it's the one violent act called out by the ESRRB

Drugs and language, I don't think there's been a boundary anymore for a long time. 

[Gorn]

37 minutes ago, Werthead said:

A strong argument that The Mandalorian is actually a CRPG masquerading as a TV show.

Now I want a Mandalorian video game.

Isn't Old Republic basically this for certain character classes?

[Mark Antony]

https://youtu.be/vhII1qlcZ4E