Videogames - The definitive Edition, remastered

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 10/1/2020 at 1:17 PM, Toth said:

I wonder whether you already have looked into it. Because today the first episode of the remake of Higurashi's Anime aired and of course Steam is celebrating that with a 50% discount on the first four chapters.

I haven't yet--I have a ton of games in my back log, and I'm trying to hold out on buying any new games until after Christmas. It's on my list though!

I looked over my backlog (including my Xbox pass for PC), and I have so many games I'm bouncing between right now.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I cancelled my game pass for PC because of my huge backlog . It his been a long time since I felt the urge to game more than a few hours per week. Good in a way I guess but it is a bit sad that games don't spark as much joy as they used to. They last game I could not stop playing was Stellaris and the way they changed the game mechanics ruined that for me. 

[AndrewJ]

On 10/2/2020 at 3:37 AM, Jace, Basilissa said:

I'm not sayin' I will, I'm not sayin' I won't. But if a cold hearted bitch were to believe in hope again and wanted to have the virtual reality starfighter dream, what's the proper Occulus thingy to buy? Everything I know about virtual reality comes from Silicon Valley.

Sorry for the late reply (busy week last week) and I'm not sure the question is still relevant.

But... I think Oculus Quest 2, which is being released right about now, would be the one to go for. It's a stand alone head set, which you can play without a PC. But you can also get a link cable and use it for PC based VR as well. You basically get the best of both worlds with the convenience of stand-alone while still being able to use a PC to run more demanding stuff.

I will say I've only recently become aware of it myself and am considering trying to sell my original Oculus Rift and getting one of these, as I almost never use the Rift any more (for several reasons - one of the main ones being all the hoops I need to jump through to get it up and running each time). So I'm by no means an expert.

[Fez]

Started yet another CK3 game, this time as one of the two Icelandic counts in 867; the catholic one. I got lucky and had my initial ruler live all the way to 92; she outlived all her children, all but two of her grandchildren, and half of her great-grandchildren. Though, to be fair, most were killed in battle (3 in a row had their heads ripped off by an enemy berserker), not old age deaths. But because she lived so long, it gave me plenty of time to solidify my rule and not have to deal with confederate partition breaking up the realm. I found a new kingdom consisting of Iceland, the northern isles, and the Norwegian coastline.

I'm currently in her grandson's reign, and things are going to smoothly generally. Although there is an issue where almost all the rest of Scandinavia has been conquered by Sweden, who is far more powerful than me. I've consistently stayed allied with Alba, and I guess that gives me enough defensive manpower to deter Sweden for now, but I remain worried. I plan to conquer Ireland next to give me more breathing room. Although I need to be careful to not conquer too much of Ireland and have it break away next time there's a succession. Which is a little gamey, but I'm not sure I have any other options. I need to look closer into the rules around the optional Scandinavian Elective succession laws.

I also played Elite: Dangerous for the first time in 6 years. Got a hankering for space combat after not picking up Star Wars Squadrons. And promptly put the game back down after a few hours. I have the same impression I did back in the day; which is that there's a great skeleton of a game there, but there was never enough meat added. Also I totally suck at the space combat on controller.

And, since I was bored Sunday afternoon, I broke down and bought Baldur's Gate 3. I played for a couple hours, enough to decide that there's the potential for a great game there, but it needs a lot of improvements and I don't want to ruin things for myself so I'm not touching it again until it's out of Early Access. So basically I pre-ordered the game, which goes against everything I believe in, but I can justify it to myself by saying i'm just supporting a developer I really like who is working on a game I really want to see succeed. The one super annoying thing I found in the game is that they went with a silent main character in conversations. Which is bad enough as is, but what's worse is that all conversations are Witcher 3-style back-and-forth headshots. Which means there's tons of shots of the main character making detailed facial expressions and reactions, but never saying anything. It's very weird looking and I really hope that's something that changes before release.

[Toth]

23 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I haven't yet--I have a ton of games in my back log, and I'm trying to hold out on buying any new games until after Christmas. It's on my list though!

I looked over my backlog (including my Xbox pass for PC), and I have so many games I'm bouncing between right now.

Ah, sorry to hear that. But I hope you already have claimed the first game! The free giveaway is kind of a limited thing after all.

Anyway, yesterday to accompany the latest Formula 1 race I fired up F1 2018 again... and the next race of the calendar was Monaco. -.-

I thought Azerbaijan was bad, but now I see why everybody in the internet seems to complain more about Monaco. God have I cursed through practice, rewinding every damn corner! There were some moments where I got a fragment of something resembling a flow and managed to get the best times on the track, but even there I had to rewind a few times. There is absolutely no way I survive this damn track for 20 laps...

My favourite part was when I was doing the fuel practice program, was in the purple area with my fuel but was barely scraping by with the timer. So I rewound the very last section about a dozen time to get absolutely perfectly through it... and when I finally did I accidentally followed the car in front of me when it swerved off into the pitlane! I'm such a goddamn idiot, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

And then when I finally made it through agonizing practice and qualifying (where I placed on pole after several attempts, mind you!), I decided screw it, my wrists won't survive a full length race (and it would have ended with full race distance through all the rewinds) and decided to try out the race simulation...

... and somehow ended up sixth, disappointing my whole team. God damn it!

 

[Werthead]

Went back to Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock and am having a grand old time. They've heavily revamped the game since the last time I played it three years ago, adding DLC which increases the total number of playable single-player campaigns from 1 to 6 (!), hugely upgraded the graphics (it now looks amazing, and the quality of the backdrops has improved immensely), added a photo mode, added all the modern BSG ships (the Mercury, Valkyria etc, although they can only really be played in multiplayer or skirmish) and so on. There's also a dynamic "Anabasis" campaign modelled after Homeworld and the BSG TV show, where you have a persistent fleet and have to keep fleeing ahead of incoming ships. You have no repair ability and persistent damage between battles, so it turns into a slow and steady grind. Absolutely fantastic stuff.

[Poobah]

I'm having an absolute blast in Hades, another massive success in my eyes from Supergiant. Only Pyre really didn't land for me and that was only because of the bizarre pyreball games, rather than the art, writing, music, etc. which was excellent as usual. Anyway Hades yeah it's really great, I love the character designs, the writing, the voice acting, the music, the story that gradually unfolds as you play is definitely the best done narrative experience and story I've experienced in any roguelike or lite game, by far, and as for the gameplay... it has a very compelling and tight roguelite loop where you're always raring to jump back in to another escape attempt, it's rare that any instance of damage or a death feels anything other than entirely preventable and fair, rather than random, out of my control, or unfair, as I have felt in some other similar games occasionally. I think that's a good deal a result of how generally tight the controls and how responsive Zagreus feels. I don't think it's quite on the level of Dead Cells when it comes to near-perfect combat fluidity, responsiveness, and feel but it's certainly excellent.

The only thing I'm a bit down on some of the sorta in-between run resource management type stuff that the game shares with other Roguelite type games because even more than Rogue Legacy or Dead Cells which only have a single currency type to dump into your upgrades, progression stuff, and cosmetics (gold, and cells respectively), Hades has like idk... 7 or 8 different currencies? for unlocking various different things which are at various levels of availability in your runs through, and which you can also trade at differing exchange rates back at the House of Hades. This stuff really sets off all sorts of fomo, completionism, and decision/optimisation paralysis, and to be honest it feels kinda overly complicated for no real reason.

[Fez]

16 minutes ago, Poobah said:

The only thing I'm a bit down on some of the sorta in-between run resource management type stuff that the game shares with other Roguelite type games because even more than Rogue Legacy or Dead Cells which only have a single currency type to dump into your upgrades, progression stuff, and cosmetics (gold, and cells respectively), Hades has like idk... 7 or 8 different currencies? for unlocking various different things which are at various levels of availability in your runs through, and which you can also trade at differing exchange rates back at the House of Hades. This stuff really sets off all sorts of fomo, completionism, and decision/optimisation paralysis, and to be honest it feels kinda overly complicated for no real reason.

I think a lot of it, especially the House Contractor and how much stuff he has, is the one downside from the game being in Early Access. I think Supergiant was trying to find stuff to keep players motivated to keep playing for almost two years, and maintaining such a large number of in-effect beta testers. They did tone it down some in the 1.0 release, the price of most contractor items was cut by about 2/3rds; but it's still a lot.

I also think they were trying to establish a difference between early game currencies and late game currencies, to maintain a sense of progression. But I think it would've been simpler to just have fewer currencies and make the prices much higher for late game things. In addition to being a complex system, it can also be unsatisfying late game. I'm at the point where I have no need for darkness, keys, or nectar at all (and I barely need ambrosia or titan blood, except for completionism; the only things I want are gems and diamonds), so when I'm in a run and end up having to get one of them, its just unsatisfying.

Overall its a very small complaint, but it is a flaw.

[Heartofice]

On 10/12/2020 at 3:34 PM, Fez said:

 I plan to conquer Ireland next to give me more breathing room. Although I need to be careful to not conquer too much of Ireland and have it break away next time there's a succession. Which is a little gamey, but I'm not sure I have any other options. I need to look closer into the rules around the optional Scandinavian Elective succession laws.

You know I only play CK3 in ironman mode so that I can get the achivements, and I always tell myself I will continue the same game no matter what happens. However my Rurikid takeover of the slavs keeps ending because I always cock up the succession. At one point I had 3 kingdoms under my belt and had converted to the Scandinavian Elective Laws which I thought would save the breakup on my death, as I can nominate my one son for everything. Something happened though, or I misunderstood, because when I died everything got split up between my 3 sons. 

... to be fair I did play on for a bit, and murdering my brothers was a lot of fun.. or trying to. Wiped out one easily, but the other one was a tricky sod, got into an alliance with Estonia and I couldn't even beat him in a war and I lost my claim to his Kingdom

[Fez]

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

You know I only play CK3 in ironman mode so that I can get the achivements, and I always tell myself I will continue the same game no matter what happens. However my Rurikid takeover of the slavs keeps ending because I always cock up the succession. At one point I had 3 kingdoms under my belt and had converted to the Scandinavian Elective Laws which I thought would save the breakup on my death, as I can nominate my one son for everything. Something happened though, or I misunderstood, because when I died everything got split up between my 3 sons. 

... to be fair I did play on for a bit, and murdering my brothers was a lot of fun.. or trying to. Wiped out one easily, but the other one was a tricky sod, got into an alliance with Estonia and I couldn't even beat him in a war and I lost my claim to his Kingdom

Was it before or after the 1.1 patch? My understanding is that the elective laws were straight up broken before the patch, so if this was the first couple weeks after the game released it could be that.

If its after though, yeah, I dunno. One guess would be that you didn't have enough voting power to outvote all your vassals and they went with someone else for two titles. That almost happened to me in my Anjou game when I was a juggling 5 duchies with Feudal Elective, but I figured it out in time and solved the problem. I'm not entirely sure how Feudal, Scandinavian, and the Irish elective one all differ though. 

I wouldn't mind having a realm split up so long as my playable character was still relatively powerful. The problem in my current game is that I'm incredibly weak compared to Sweden right now, and I really can't afford to take any steps back. Especially since you can't get more in a corner than Iceland, I don't have any options for spreading in a different direction if anything goes poorly.

[argonak]

25 minutes ago, Fez said:

Was it before or after the 1.1 patch? My understanding is that the elective laws were straight up broken before the patch, so if this was the first couple weeks after the game released it could be that.

If its after though, yeah, I dunno. One guess would be that you didn't have enough voting power to outvote all your vassals and they went with someone else for two titles. That almost happened to me in my Anjou game when I was a juggling 5 duchies with Feudal Elective, but I figured it out in time and solved the problem. I'm not entirely sure how Feudal, Scandinavian, and the Irish elective one all differ though. 

I wouldn't mind having a realm split up so long as my playable character was still relatively powerful. The problem in my current game is that I'm incredibly weak compared to Sweden right now, and I really can't afford to take any steps back. Especially since you can't get more in a corner than Iceland, I don't have any options for spreading in a different direction if anything goes poorly.

Yeah, inheritances are still weird.  The Kingdom of Syria inherited by Kingdom of Bohemia, and then changed the damn inheritance law to match Syria, rather than Keeping Bohemia as it was (seniority).  

Of course, only a few minutes after that I hosed my whole run by accidentally clicking "I wonder what kind of King he'll be like" for the crusade for two counties in muslim spain.   Whoops.  Now I'm a nobody "king" with two counties who hate me.  This needs an "are you sure dialog box" damn it.

And somehow despite being the "Crusader King of Aragorn" I don't actually have the Kingdom of ARAGORN, so I can't even expand the two counties I got.   Only bright side was I was able to join the HRE as they bordered me. But the avenue to even get back into Bohemia is going to be so long and BORING I think I'm just calling it quits on the campaign.   Best bet is just seniority succession and hope the King gets to be an old bastard one of these days, but he's only 20 right now, and so am I, and I just don't fancy playing out a century in complete boredom, while the AI ruins everything I was working on.  Grumble Grumble grumble.

[dog-days]

Feeling psyched for Baldur's Gate III though I don't want to be. Have to remind myself that I'm not fourteen years old anymore! It can't possibly be as good. (Naturally, I wish the best to Larian Studios, hope they succeed and never get bought out by Electronic Arts). 

Also found out that some stuff happened with Chris Avellone back in June, which depressed me. I didn't love Planescape and Mask of the Betrayer as much as I loved BG2 and NWN2, so it doesn't feel like a huge blow, and these games, unlike books, are very much shared creations. Still, I was sad. 

[Werthead]

I forgot the glory of getting proper battlestars in Deadlock (starting with the Artemis-class, based on the 1978 OG Galactica, before moving up to the Jupiter-class, or 2003 vintage). As well as their meaty Viper complements and absolutely massive railguns, their flak batteries are a thing of glory, particularly useful when Cylon Arachnaes (missile destroyers) try to unload their ordinance and discover they can't reach my ships.

I also unlocked the Assault Raptors (which I think are a DLC addition, I don't remember them from my first playthrough) and discovered the not inconsiderable delights of the massive Assault Raptor missile volley, although it only really works if there aren't any enemy basestars or carriers in the mission,

For some reason I have more problems this time around with Colonies trying to withdraw from the alliance, and keep having to park battle fleets in orbit around planets that are flaky (particularly Canceron, who should know better; Gemenon and Sagitarron freaking out every five seconds is at least canon), which feels a bit more sinister than it really should.

[Fez]

"Deep dive" trailer out for AC: Valhalla: 

It makes me way, way more excited for the game than any of the various hype or "gameplay" trailers they've shown before. Really curious about how deep the strategy layer is; I assume not very much, but that's a cool addition.

Gonna be real rough, with this coming out only 9 days before Cyberpunk.

[Werthead]

15 minutes ago, Fez said:

"Deep dive" trailer out for AC: Valhalla: 

It makes me way, way more excited for the game than any of the various hype or "gameplay" trailers they've shown before. Really curious about how deep the strategy layer is; I assume not very much, but that's a cool addition.

Gonna be real rough, with this coming out only 9 days before Cyberpunk.

I'm surprised Ubisoft thought it was a good idea to load both Watch_Dogs: Legion and AssCreeHalla into the same release window, and both just before CP77. Completing one of them before CP77 comes out seems doable but both? Maybe for countries which are going into a second lockdown.

[Fez]

15 hours ago, Werthead said:

I'm surprised Ubisoft thought it was a good idea to load both Watch_Dogs: Legion and AssCreeHalla into the same release window, and both just before CP77. Completing one of them before CP77 comes out seems doable but both? Maybe for countries which are going into a second lockdown.

Maybe they figure the games have diverged enough that they aren't cannibalizing each other's audiences. Both are still big, open-world games; but Valhalla appears to have gone even further down the story-driven RPG rabbit hole, whereas Legion seems to be entirely open world chaos; to the point where there isn't even a main character.

 

In other games, I'm intrigued by Partisans 1941; it seems to be another Commandos/Desperados/Shadow Tactics game, only by a different developer and with a bit of a strategy layer slapped on it. I'd definitely be up for another game like that, but I'd want to be sure its up to the same quality as Desperados 3 or Shadow Tactics. Also, it's the eastern front in 1941, and you play as the *Russian* resistance, not the *Polish* resistance. It sounds great to be killing Nazis left and right, I'm all for that; but the Russian resistance were not the greatest folks either. The game was made by Russian developers, and I worry that the Russian atrocities against the Polish are going to be completely whitewashed.

[Heartofice]

On 10/13/2020 at 4:09 PM, Fez said:

Was it before or after the 1.1 patch? My understanding is that the elective laws were straight up broken before the patch, so if this was the first couple weeks after the game released it could be that.

If its after though, yeah, I dunno. One guess would be that you didn't have enough voting power to outvote all your vassals and they went with someone else for two titles. That almost happened to me in my Anjou game when I was a juggling 5 duchies with Feudal Elective, but I figured it out in time and solved the problem. I'm not entirely sure how Feudal, Scandinavian, and the Irish elective one all differ though. 

I wouldn't mind having a realm split up so long as my playable character was still relatively powerful. The problem in my current game is that I'm incredibly weak compared to Sweden right now, and I really can't afford to take any steps back. Especially since you can't get more in a corner than Iceland, I don't have any options for spreading in a different direction if anything goes poorly.

Actually I think what happened was that I converted to the Russian culture, not remembering that they aren’t Scandinavian! In reality there seemed to be very little advantage to swapping culture as it meant I lost so many techs, including the ability to raid overseas 

[aceluby]

Picked up Vigil on my Switch yesterday.  Pretty much a Salt & Sanctuary clone, but feels a bit clumsier than S&S.  About 2-3 hours in and don't have any magic yet and have only upgraded my HP and Stamina so far.  It hasn't really stuck for me so far, but I'll give it a few more hours

[l2 0 5 5]

Just finished a replay of the Lou2. There's no doubting the brilliance and scale of the game. It really is the first game on steroids without the acne and roid rage. It does drag on a bit at the end when you go from rain to sun, but I blew through that a lot quicker this time. Something I noticed more so this time was the music/score is less embedded in the game than it was for the first. Maybe an odd thing to point out, but it seemed like at every big moment in lou1, Gustavo Santaolalla's guitar was there with it. He was involved in this game, too, but noticed it far less, which is a shame. 

Also listened to a pod with Druckmann about the making of the game and a certain plot point:

 

He brought up the Joel death and how they were going to go about it. He did consider having Abby infiltrate Jackson and play the role of a common survivor looking for a home, and trying to get close to Joel so she could kill him when she gained that trust circle. This would allow for more present Joel screentime opposed to him dying a couple hours in. Was an interesting thought, and I'm sure they coulda made it work, but people still woulda been pissed. The death doesn't bother me at this point, as I think it was the only thing to motivate Ellie and her story for this game, just sucks how quickly he died. He was there for a cup of coffee and then gone. You wait 3 years or so from the game announcement for this story and he dies immediately. That's what gets me the most, so a curious thought from Druck.

[Soylent Brown]

On 10/12/2020 at 3:08 AM, AndrewJ said:

Sorry for the late reply (busy week last week) and I'm not sure the question is still relevant.

But... I think Oculus Quest 2, which is being released right about now, would be the one to go for. It's a stand alone head set, which you can play without a PC. But you can also get a link cable and use it for PC based VR as well. You basically get the best of both worlds with the convenience of stand-alone while still being able to use a PC to run more demanding stuff.

I will say I've only recently become aware of it myself and am considering trying to sell my original Oculus Rift and getting one of these, as I almost never use the Rift any more (for several reasons - one of the main ones being all the hoops I need to jump through to get it up and running each time). So I'm by no means an expert.

It should probably be mentioned that you need a Facebook account in order to use the Oculus Quest 2, so anyone looking to avoid having their data and organs harvested will need to find another alternative.