Video Games- Game of the Year

[RumHam]

Game-sharing is great. My niece got a switch lite for Christmas and by linking our accounts she now has access to all my switch games. The only catch is we can't play the same game at the same time. (while the switch is online so even that can be subverted for single player.) 

[Inkdaub]

Origins is near identical to Odyssey and that's a good thing because I love Odyssey.  I love Origins now too.  I hear Valhalla is also very similar so I'm glad to have that to look forward to. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Just completed the full story of RDR2. I swear it was more depressing playing it as the black hat the first time through. 

I'll have to try RDR, but GTA5 is up next.

[Slurktan]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Just completed the full story of RDR2. I swear it was more depressing playing it as the black hat the first time through. 

I'll have to try RDR, but GTA5 is up next.

I agree its far more depressing as Bad Arthur but obviously that's by story choice as it's not called Red Dead Murderer 2.  I do like that when you are black hat the endings just summarily have him killed instead of a heroic last stand to get John away.

[Heartofice]

Crusader Kings 3 has become my favourite game, it took a while to really grab me but I can’t think of another game that has gotten me so engrossed in its world and it’s ability to create characters and narratives in its little sandbox is brilliant.

Currently I’m playing as the count of Genoa, but after 3 generations I’ve managed to become king of Itay and spawned a line of sneaky backstabbing, cruel and sadistic murderers. It’s great.

Ive developed a real hatred for the previous King who I overthrew but who’s family are still dukes in my realm. He’s Orthodox Greek somehow and has had numerous attempts at murdering me and over throwing me. So I had great fun throwing him in jail, torturing him. Then doing the same to his family members later on. 
 

Watching my own characters become slowly more twisted, and ugly over time has kept me going. I married one slightly Homely woman and ever since my kids look like frogs. Italy is now ruled by frogs. 
 

Such a great game 

[Fez]

Started playing Troubleshooter again; it's a Korean XCOM-ish game. I played it for a few hours almost a year ago and had to stop due to the poor quality of the English translation. The translation still isn't perfect, but it is significantly improved. A few of the more esoteric tooltips are still hard to follow, and some of the dialog is a bit stiff; but so far it's been pretty minor issues.

There's a huge number of gameplay mechanics, meters, and timers; enough to fit right in with a free-to-play live-service game. But it's not that, it's a one-time purchase single player game; so it all feels a lot more fair. It's also an extremely long game, apparently 80+ hours is standard. So having so many different mechanics might actually be a good thing; a way to keep from anything getting too stale (which has been my big problem with a lot of XCOM-ish games).

Characters get active abilities from jobs (and there's a bit of mix and matching you can do, like Final Fantasy Tactics), stats from equipment and leveling up; stats and passive abilities from a really complex "mastery board" system; and even more stats and passive abilities from friendship synergies, party settings, and food/drink. You also get combat bonuses from completing the enemy bestiary, and from a civilian support system (depending on settings, they might give you gold or other non-combat bonuses instead). There's a bit of budget management system too.

There's a few nameless, guest NPCs who you control early on before you've recruited enough people to form a full party. Other than them, all the party members are named, plot-relevant characters. There's no perma-death, but some missions you do have to start over if certain characters are defeated.

The writing isn't incredible, but it is above-average, even with some lingering translation issues (mostly in that there's a few jokes that I think rely on Korean idioms that need some localization help). It's a solid, futuristic, quasi-dystopian setting, and the game does some ambitious stuff with flashbacks and time skips (including an in-engine training montage near the beginning that I think is really neat). The graphics are nothing special, but I like some of the character art.

[akh]

On 1/8/2021 at 12:48 AM, Werthead said:

Started a replay of the Metro series ahead of playing Metro: Exodus for the first time. The Redux edition of Metro 2033 does make the game marginally less insane than the original was and certainly a lot prettier, but it's still a tough game, but also a really superb, atmospheric one. Luckily this time around I knew how the stealth system worked (or even that the game had one; Metro 2033 seems to regard the notion of telling people how to play it with complete contempt) which has made the various enemy base assaults more manageable.

Metro has been on my list for such a long time but once I'm done with Dying Light, I'm thinking of picking up either the Metro games or RDR2.

Anyways, I checked, there's several versions out there. Do you know if getting Metro Redux and then Exodus is sufficient or should I get something else to fill some gaps too?

[Werthead]

32 minutes ago, akh said:

Metro has been on my list for such a long time but once I'm done with Dying Light, I'm thinking of picking up either the Metro games or RDR2.

Anyways, I checked, there's several versions out there. Do you know if getting Metro Redux and then Exodus is sufficient or should I get something else to fill some gaps too?

There's three games, the first two having been remastered. The correct chronological order of the games is:

1. Metro 2033 Redux
2. Metro: Last Light Redux
3. Metro: Exodus

[RumHam]

A friend of mine just reminded me that years ago when the Wii U mario maker came out I didn't have a wii u so I got drunk and made Zelda Dungeon Maker. saving and loading doesn't work because the site I had him make to save and load the levels hasn't existed for years. I've asked him to fix it but I'm not holding my breath anyway here it is in all it's amature glory:

heylookoverthere.github.io

Edit: since the level server is no more you have to hit new level and then enter a level name to play. E switches between play and edit modes. Right click in edit mode to select what your are placing, like blocks/items/floor

Also hit M for the music. 

[Fez]

Turns out Troubleshooter also has an excessively complex equipment crafting system that just unlocked around 15 hours in. Which really feels like a step too far. Fortunately, so far it appears to be totally optional; by selling all my excess equipment instead of breaking it down into crafting parts I've been able to afford totally serviceable equipment so far.

[Werthead]

Disney have reinstated the Lucasfilm Games brand, eight years after it was dissolved.

At the moment it seems to be a branding exercise for EA's Star Wars games, but some rumours that they may be gearing up to start developing games on their own again.

A lot of people asking if this means Lucasfilm will start Star Wars inhouse development again in 2023 when the EA contract expires. Real people asking if this means that are we finally getting Loom II.

[Slurktan]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Disney have reinstated the Lucasfilm Games brand, eight years after it was dissolved.

At the moment it seems to be a branding exercise for EA's Star Wars games, but some rumours that they may be gearing up to start developing games on their own again.

A lot of people asking if this means Lucasfilm will start Star Wars inhouse development again in 2023 when the EA contract expires. Real people asking if this means that are we finally getting Loom II.

To be fair the Lucasfilm Games brand was dissolved in the late 80's to turn into Lucasarts which then got dissolved because Disney sucks.

[Inkdaub]

I was going to play some Shadowlands tonight but my headphones are really getting bad and sound terrible.  Instead I'm headed back to Tsushima for a while.

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

Disney have reinstated the Lucasfilm Games brand, eight years after it was dissolved.

At the moment it seems to be a branding exercise for EA's Star Wars games, but some rumours that they may be gearing up to start developing games on their own again.

A lot of people asking if this means Lucasfilm will start Star Wars inhouse development again in 2023 when the EA contract expires. Real people asking if this means that are we finally getting Loom II.

I started and completed Loom on the Amiga one quiet Sunday in the late 90’s. Loved it.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Outer worlds is so much fun, obsidians best since Alpha Protocol ( yeah I'm like that one person who loved that one). Up there with hades as my GOTY. 

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, Slurktan said:

To be fair the Lucasfilm Games brand was dissolved in the late 80's to turn into Lucasarts which then got dissolved because Disney sucks.

There was a weird thing where "Lucasfilm Games" still existed but "LucasArts" was the name they used to publish things. They were the same entity where the same people were working at both (I vaguely remember a story that Ron Gilbert didn't even know they'd been rebranded until they received boxed copies of Monkey Island II and asked what the hell "LucasArts" was) and it didn't affect anything other than what was on the boxes and the loading screens.

Disney shuttering LucasArts was silly. They'd put out some good games, they were working with other companies and devs and 1313 was looking really good, and had only been delayed because Lucas kept sticking his oar in and asking for sweeping changes, not understanding that you can't do that on a video game because it causes months or years of new work, unlike a movie where you can re-edit the whole thing in a couple of weeks.

Quote

Outer worlds is so much fun, obsidians best since Alpha Protocol ( yeah I'm like that one person who loved that one).

I enjoy both games - and Alpha Protocol is hugely underrated - but I feel this is doing a disservice to the very fine Tyranny and Fallout: New Vegas.

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Disney shuttering LucasArts was silly. They'd put out some good games, they were working with other companies and devs and 1313 was looking really good, and had only been delayed because Lucas kept sticking his oar in and asking for sweeping changes, not understanding that you can't do that on a video game because it causes months or years of new work, unlike a movie where you can re-edit the whole thing in a couple of weeks.

 

Yeah Lucasarts put out a lot of good games (also a whole lot of stinkers but those were mostly SW rush jobs.  Surprisingly EA actually has done a good job with the last 3 SW games (BF2 post release is actually awesome, Fallen Order, Squadrons) but I will be glad if their exclusive deal ends which this news seems to imply.  Maybe we can get some different IPs than Star Wars too from them.

[Ran]

Not a coincidence that the Lucasfilm Games brand was announced revived today, I see. Bethesda (first?) out of the gate by revealing an Indiana Jones game with an original story, Todd Howard (Elder Scrolls, Fallout) as exec producer.

[Kalbear]

Again, no insider info yadda yadda

BUT

It would be so fucking cool if Indy was an Xbox exclusive

[Werthead]

59 minutes ago, Ran said:

Not a coincidence that the Lucasfilm Games brand was announced revived today, I see. Bethesda (first?) out of the gate by revealing an Indiana Jones game with an original story, Todd Howard (Elder Scrolls, Fallout) as exec producer.

I suspect Howard will be a PINO. He's got two massive single-player CRPGs he's leading development on.