Videogames - Meanwhile in Poland.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Poobah said:

No riot necessary.

Cool. Although I'll play them again. A little disappointing though that it sounds like its just a remaster; I'd hoped they'd do a bit more to rework combat in the original game, bring it more in-line with 2 and 3.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

2 hours ago, Rhom said:

 

Some rumors out there of a new game in the Mass Effect world from a “veteran team.”  Have not seen any word on if it’s A2 or a step back to the Milky Way.

The announcement at least confirms that they’re working on something, which is encouraging as a fan of the franchise. 

[Rhom]

19 minutes ago, Fez said:

Cool. Although I'll play them again. A little disappointing though that it sounds like its just a remaster; I'd hoped they'd do a bit more to rework combat in the original game, bring it more in-line with 2 and 3.

Same

[dog-days]

Will be interesting to see ME1 with proper graphics. I don't really remember it very well since I haven't played it for ten years plus - I recall it having terrible graphics, and being rather short in comparison to most of the CRPGs I was familiar with. Really, I mostly remember it in terms of ME2 being better in every respect. 

Things seem to be really quiet at Bioware. I remember when it was Obsidian that seemed to be struggling and ready to go under, and Bioware that were the powerhouse. I'm glad they still have a veteran crew left to entrust games to. 

[Plessiez]

I've been replaying the original trilogy off and on for the last few months (well --technically only the first two games, as I don't have a copy of ME3 and with all the DLC included that would set me back about £50 on Steam, which seems excessive).  I honestly don't think the graphics are all that bad, given how old the game is (Knights of the Old Republic, on the other hand, has not aged well at all).  But I'll probably buy the remaster at some point if it comes out on new consoles, at least if it's not too expensive. 

(It seems unlikely that the rumoured new game will be Andromeda 2, doesn't it?  But I don't know what else it could be, barring some sort of prequel.)

3 minutes ago, dog-days said:

Really, I mostly remember it in terms of ME2 being better in every respect.

I prefer the way reputation and paragon/renegade choices work in ME1, I think.  Putting points into charm or intimidate skills directly rather than trying to second-guess what choices the game will let you make at key moments.  But yeah, ME2 is the high point of the trilogy for me, although I think you can argue that it's less ambitious than ME1 at times, maybe.  (Though the things that the first game is ambitious about mostly don't work very well.)  I thought ME3 was a lot worse than the first two, even aside from the ending issues (for one thing, I really don't like what the third game does to the geth).

Even if it's mostly going to be a simple graphical remaster, it would be nice if the Legendary Edition fixes some of the slightly irritating minor problems that can currently only be corrected with mods (like the bug that means Conrad can wrongly remember you having threatened him in the first game if you meet him on Ilium in the second game, for example).  Don't know how likely to happen that is, though.

 

 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, dog-days said:

Will be interesting to see ME1 with proper graphics. I don't really remember it very well since I haven't played it for ten years plus - I recall it having terrible graphics, and being rather short in comparison to most of the CRPGs I was familiar with. Really, I mostly remember it in terms of ME2 being better in every respect. 

I played Mass Effect a few years back with a graphics mod that brought it up to at least ME3 standards and it looked absolutely great.

It is really short though, even by the standards of the time. I remember the first time I played it, it took about 10 hours to complete, but I did have a bug that prevented me from talking to people on the Normandy which cut off a lot of story stuff. When I replayed it with the DLC and being able to do all of the side-stuff on the Normandy that expanded that out to about 12 hours. It's about half the length of the second game and even earlier BioWare games like Knights of the Old Republic (and about a quarter the length of Dragon Age: Origins).

I sometimes see people angrily claiming the game is much longer than that. I tried to work out how the hell they managed that, before realising.

Quote

Things seem to be really quiet at Bioware. I remember when it was Obsidian that seemed to be struggling and ready to go under, and Bioware that were the powerhouse. I'm glad they still have a veteran crew left to entrust games to. 

BioWare are getting bogged down in legacy maintenance. They have one team maintaining The Old Republic, another now on Anthem and one remastering Mass Effect (although reportedly an external team is also involved).

Their core team is now in full production on Dragon Age 4, after several years of fucking around with prototypes, and it sounds like another team is spinning up Mass Effect 5 (or Andromeda 2 or whatever it is).

[dog-days]

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

I sometimes see people angrily claiming the game is much longer than that. I tried to work out how the hell they managed that, before realising.

That does explain a lot! 

Anyway, glad it looks as if Bioware are still working on projects, even if they aren't talking about them much at this stage. 

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, dog-days said:

That does explain a lot! 

Anyway, glad it looks as if Bioware are still working on projects, even if they aren't talking about them much at this stage. 

Still hoping for Jade Empire 2.

[Rhom]

12 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Still hoping for Jade Empire 2.

I’ve not played that one.  Need to at some point.

[Werthead]

6 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I’ve not played that one.  Need to at some point.

Not sure how well it's aged (last time I played it was about eight years ago) but it was a lot of fun. It pulled out all the RPG elements in a way that made sense (moreso than Mass Effect 1, which was half-arsed) but still left behind the great characters and dialogue choices that BioWare were known for.

They also had a very snarky character taking the piss out of World of WarCraft voiced by John Cleese.

[dog-days]

13 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I’ve not played that one.  Need to at some point

Well, no one's played Jade Empire 2! Except me, in my dreams. 

Seriously, I'd also like a sequel. The original had a couple of really memorable sequences, and I loved the character design and artwork. Even if it was still too short. Definitely remember preferring it to ME1. It had tons of atmosphere and a sense of fun. 

Have a feeling that Bioware may have plagiarised themselves a bit by 'borrowing' a quest from JE for DA:I. (The drowned village one). 

[Toth]

Despite the fact that I have no time whatsoever, at all, I had the sudden itch to go try out a modern Total War game. Due to the Total War: Troy giveaway a while back, I'm right now downloading that one in the background while doing my work. Wish me luck. If I end up actually playing it at some point, I will tell you how it is.

[Slurktan]

I started playing Teardown last night it was quite fun. Well the real mission was. I've done three and I suspect the first two are just tutorial. But I really enjoyed having to smash/plan my way through the factory stealing keynotes in 60 seconds. I love that you can seemingly do whatever your heart desires to the map so that you can make things work.

[Toth]

Okay, to get a bit of a break I did play a turn of Total War Troy. I will regret this soon enough, but okay.

Also in a game with heavy infantry focus I chose with Penthesilea the only faction who has cavalry. And relies entirely on heavy shock troops. And is the only horde in the game. I'm weird like that. But I wrote quite a bit from Penthesileas POV in my stories, so I know her myth well and wanted to see how well they do her justice.

It's... a bit iffy though. The character selection screen sprouts nonsense about her wanting vengeance for the murder of her sister. Did... did they miss that she killed her sister? And that she went to Troy as a suicidal crusade of penance? But the name of the dead sister is also wrong... while at the same time the Hippolyta of the myth is still there as a playable character for a settled Amazon faction.

Okay, so they have thrown the myth entirely out of the window. I then groaned when I saw at the goals and was shown the "Total War" set of goals include sacking Troy. For fuck's sake, why?!? They should be my allies! But rejoice, it turns out they are and in the "Homeric" set of goals I only have to kill Greeks. By sacking their cities. In Greece. Far away from Troy. Bummer. I thought the game was set around defending the city instead of doing a ludicrous counter attack across the sea.

[Werthead]

I used to have a habit of only playing games when the sequel had come out, which I thought I'd mostly broken but today fired up Watch_Dogs 2, so clearly not. Quite fun so far. It feels like they stripped out a lot of the Ubisoft Standard Bullshit to focus on a more fun, less overwrought game and so far it's working. Much better than the original Watch_Dogs so far, although it only really feels like it makes sense if you play non-lethally. Having these cool, lighthearted teenagers stunning people and hacking into things makes sense, having them whip out heavy machine guns and mow down fifteen innocent security guards, not so much. Shame they didn't have the balls to make the game more non-lethal by design.

[Caligula_K3]

It's hard to believe that Dragon Age: Inquisition came out in 2014, and we're probably not getting the sequel until 2022 at the earliest. Especially after Inquisition was a critical and financial hit for Bioware (yeah, yeah, I know, lots of people didn't like it and it's not the Witcher 3, etc...).  With the way the Tresspasser DLC sets up a sequel, I was thinking that we'd get it by 2019 at the latest. I guess the Andromeda and Anthem flops and the turmoil at Bioware didn't help...

I'm excited to hear another Mass Effect game is in the pipeline, and that with the remasters EA is recommitting to the brand. Let's hope it comes sooner than 2027...

Edit: as for Mass Effect 1, you could spend a lot of time in it if you explore every world they let you explore, go into all the identical buildings they give you to enter, and aim to complete a lot of minor sidequests. Looking at Steam it looks like my playthroughs have been about 15-16 hours, and that's with doing only major sidequests and exploring a few planets here and there. If you wanted to do more, it could definitely get to the 25-30 hour range, especially if you play on high difficulties. But god knows why you'd want to explore every planet in this game...

[Clueless Northman]

If you want to be thorough, like I tend to be, and check every planet and every base, then indeed you might spend 45 hours on ME1 playthrough. Same for ME2 by the way. I like both and can't really pick one over the other. ME2 is more polished, but the whole plot is way less ambitious than ME1 and doesn't have anything coming close to the famous meeting with Sovereign - of course, the ME2 sidekicks are more developed, numerous, and interesting.

Jade Empire is good as well. Not sure I'd like a sequel, the game doesn't make it really necessary at all. But a new game of that kind would be nice. Some good characters, some more bland of course, but at least you really had fun or interesting characters, as expected from Bioware. Maybe not as awesome as the best in KOTOR, but still some quality level, the Black Whirlwind probably being my favourite (and I hadn't yet read Water Margin when I played the game). As for its length, Jade Empire is definitely shorter, less than 30 h, and there aren't much side stuff to waste your time on, unlike planet exploration in Mass Effect 1.

[karaddin]

Yeah I think the difficulty is the least intuitive explanation for the differences in play time in ME1. On insanity the hp pools are massive, from memory a bunch of them have the soldier immunity skill, krogan warlords are as hard to kill and dangerous as the story tells us they are. It adds a ton of time to how long it takes to play as you're just there blazing away at even low level mooks.

[Plessiez]

My most recent ME1 playthrough took just under twenty hours, apparently.  Did most of the sidequests, but didn't explore much beyond that (I probably explored less this time around than I did when I first played the game).  In contrast, once I finish the Arrival DLC I'll have spent about twice that on the current ME2 run, though I think I might actually have done everything I could have done in that game.

12 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

It's hard to believe that Dragon Age: Inquisition came out in 2014, and we're probably not getting the sequel until 2022 at the earliest.

Yeah, and I'm not very optimistic about 2022...

[Luzifer's right hand]

I enjoyed all 3 Mass Effect games(the multiplayer in M3 was more fun than I expected). My last replay of the first game was a few months before the third game came out. If the remaster looks good I will give it a try. I liked that you could play a proper sniper on the big maps. 

I did not even play Dragon Age 2 because it seemed way too consolified to me. I never finished the Awakening because my characters were always way too OP at that point and the game stopped being fun. It is a bit like BG2: Throne of Bhaal in that regard. 

The buzz around BG3 seems to have died down. I refuse to get early access games though.