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Videogames: Spooktober Season


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Wow, glad to see Dishonored 2 so high on that list, thought it was a masterpiece but didn't think it was really appreciated for it.

Also happy to see Thief II: The Metal Age there, a lot of fond memories for me from that game (and its predecessor).

Sad to see no Baldur's Gate II on the list.

Ha! The Last Express. I remember being freaked out by that game as a kid.

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8 hours ago, Proudfeet said:

Also, haven't played Civ VI myself, but the consensus amongst my friends was that V is still better even after the DLCs/expansions.

I think your friends are the outlier on that, having sunk a lot of hours into both I think 6 is a substantially better game. I'm pretty sure the player stats favour it as well.

For all it was memed on due to bugs, after diving into Cyberpunk 2077 after it's had almost a year I think the PC version at least belongs on there.

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11 hours ago, Kalsandra said:

Dishonored 2 is waaaaaaaaaaay too high. 

Hades is too low

Nah, Dishonored 2 is a masterpiece and I think it deserves to be up there in an annual list (so it'll certainly be lower next year). In a list of All Time Greats I think there'd be a stronger argument for it not being as high or maybe not on the list at all if a Thief game is on there instead.

9 hours ago, Proudfeet said:

Yikes. What a convoluted opening paragraph. Just call it a current popularity ranking and be done with it.

Rankings aside, is there a rule against multiple titles in the same series? Doesn't seem to have any repeats at first glance. Also, haven't played Civ VI myself, but the consensus amongst my friends was that V is still better even after the DLCs/expansions.

Yes. There's a few grey areas where they decided to bend the rules; since Half-Life: Alyx is the easily the best VR game ever made, they deemed it worthwhile to include both it and Half-Life 2 as a major FPS non-VR game. But generally if a series was worthwhile being on there, they'd select only one game from it. In fact, there's some genres where they decided to include only one game, which is presumably why Final Fantasy XIV is on there but not World of WarCraft.

The Civ series does seem to have evolved to this point of D&D Edition Wars, where people grumbling over the differences seems to be half the fun (for my part Civ II was my favourite and I haven't played one since Civ IV, which I found only okay).

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9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

RDR2 at 80 is offensive. 

Offensively high or low? The comments seem to have people expressing disgust either way, not to mention an annoyance that if you are limiting some series/genres to only one game, Rockstar should have either RDR2 or GTA5 on there, not both, and RDR2 is the far better singleplayer game.

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

Wow, glad to see Dishonored 2 so high on that list, thought it was a masterpiece but didn't think it was really appreciated for it.

Also happy to see Thief II: The Metal Age there, a lot of fond memories for me from that game (and its predecessor).

Sad to see no Baldur's Gate II on the list.

Ha! The Last Express. I remember being freaked out by that game as a kid.

Dishonored 2 had a poor early reception because it was bugged to fuckery on release (Deathloop has the same problem right now). Now it's been fixed and is flawless, people have been able to appreciate the absolute masterpieces of level design and the atmosphere more.

Baldur's Gate II should really be on there (certainly over Dragon Age 2), but I think they decided they wanted only one Infinity Engine-style game and went for Planescape: Torment instead (presumably also why no Pillars of Eternity 1 or 2).

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I think your friends are the outlier on that, having sunk a lot of hours into both I think 6 is a substantially better game. I'm pretty sure the player stats favour it as well.

For all it was memed on due to bugs, after diving into Cyberpunk 2077 after it's had almost a year I think the PC version at least belongs on there.

Cyberpunk 2077 had a shitty launch, though not as bad as a lot of other games and probably on about a par with how disastrous Dishonored 2 was at launch, so I can see why it's not on there. Whilst in a far superior state to launch, it's also not quite had enough time to get the reconsideration treatment, which will need a bunch more content updates/bug fixes and probably the expansions to come out. I estimate in another 2-3 years, you'll see it floating around the bottom of these lists as a No Man's Sky-style redemption story (which I'm also surprised is not on the list).

CP77 is certainly not so far behind The Witcher 3 in quality that TW3 should be a Top 10 game and CP77 not even on the list at all, though. The Witcher 3 being so high up does feel very 2018 as well (TW3 is still a very great game, but not quite that great).

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1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I think your friends are the outlier on that, having sunk a lot of hours into both I think 6 is a substantially better game. I'm pretty sure the player stats favour it as well.

Perhaps. I'm rather surprised that you think 6 is better myself. It's a first. I haven't heard anyone say that before. But that's just the company I keep I suppose. 

I would have tried it for myself, but the feedback after waiting for expansions and discounts was only okay so I decided not to. And also I'm currently at a point where I'd rather play quick games that can finish within five minutes per round or half hour to around an hour per round, or games where you spend tens to hundreds of hours a playthrough.

13 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Yes. There's a few grey areas where they decided to bend the rules; since Half-Life: Alyx is the easily the best VR game ever made, they deemed it worthwhile to include both it and Half-Life 2 as a major FPS non-VR game. But generally if a series was worthwhile being on there, they'd select only one game from it. In fact, there's some genres where they decided to include only one game, which is presumably why Final Fantasy XIV is on there but not World of WarCraft.

Ah. That explains things. Makes sense. They get to accommodate more games/franchises that way. It wouldn't look as good if a franchise dominates with multiple placements.

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Civilization V's metacritic score is 90 (critics) and 8.0 (fans), whilst Civilization VI is 88 (critics) and 7.0 (fans). Civ V has an Overwhelmingly Positive reception on Steam versus Civ VI with a Very Positive reception. However, a lot of the negative reviews of Civ VI are "it's not Civ V and they had the temerity to change these features" (a bit like reviews of Civ V and IV when V first came out).

So the two games seem to both be reasonably well-regarded, but VI seems to be doing better with people who haven't played a Civ game before whilst longer-term series fans seem to marginally prefer V at the moment.

I own both but have not got round to either.

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48 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Offensively high or low? The comments seem to have people expressing disgust either way, not to mention an annoyance that if you are limiting some series/genres to only one game, Rockstar should have either RDR2 or GTA5 on there, not both, and RDR2 is the far better singleplayer game.

Low. RDR2 is probably the best video game I've ever played. 

If you control for graphics and improved gameplay ease, is GTA5 even the best GTA game? Also, while I see there are some issues with the new GTA bundle, is it working okay for PS4/5? 

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32 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Civilization V's metacritic score is 90 (critics) and 8.0 (fans), whilst Civilization VI is 88 (critics) and 7.0 (fans). Civ V has an Overwhelmingly Positive reception on Steam versus Civ VI with a Very Positive reception. However, a lot of the negative reviews of Civ VI are "it's not Civ V and they had the temerity to change these features" (a bit like reviews of Civ V and IV when V first came out).

So the two games seem to both be reasonably well-regarded, but VI seems to be doing better with people who haven't played a Civ game before whilst longer-term series fans seem to marginally prefer V at the moment.

I own both but have not got round to either.

I'm embarrassed to say that I still pay Civ IV (with the Beyond the Sword expansion)

I tried Civ V when it came out, and Civ VI recently, but I think I didn't really give either of them enough time to pull me in.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Low. RDR2 is probably the best video game I've ever played. 

If you control for graphics and improved gameplay ease, is GTA5 even the best GTA game? Also, while I see there are some issues with the new GTA bundle, is it working okay for PS4/5? 

I think RDR2 is a very good game but it does have a lot of problems: the UI and controls are poor (I'm still fucked off my specialised sniper rifle just disappeared into the aether because the game wanted me to use Sadie's much shittier sniper rifle in one mission) and Rockstar seem to be making them worse with every generation of their games, and you have this vast stretch of the map with nothing to do in it.

Certainly the story, characters, music and general atmosphere when you're mid-story are exceptional, easily on a par with The Witcher 3. But the game's definitely a bit less reactive, with less choices and that increasingly outmoded Rockstar thing of going apeshit and failing the mission if you do something even slightly outside how they want you to do it despite it being logical in-game, which feels increasingly archaic as a piece of game design.

As for the new GTA bundle, it is properly fucked on every version of the game. Hilariously distended character models, appalling model swaps (CJ's first girlfriend Denise now looks like ET), vast amounts of spelling mistakes, large chunks of missing soundtrack and the rain effects make you feel like you're having a seizure. They also had to pull the PC version because it just didn't work.

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The last few iterations of Civ have increasingly had hardcore "fans" refusing to like the newest version. The primary legitimate criticism is that the AI isn't good enough which is largely down to the increasing complexity of the game mechanics which are the exact thing they're asking for aside from that. I strongly expect that CivVI will suddenly become acceptable to that cohort once CivVII comes out.

I've been playing Civ since CivII as well, I've played every iteration and have 700 hours in CivV, 1100 in Beyond Earth (which that particular group hated, and was unfortunately not well received despite some excellent innovations) and over 4000 in CivVI so I'm not just talking out my ass here. I remember how unplayable they thought CivV was, that one unit per tile was an abomination and CivIV remained the golden standard and probably always would - Firaxis had lost their touch.

The vanilla version of each new Civ do tend to have their flaws, but the expansions really flesh it out and 6 is excellent at this point. It's climate change mechanic isn't perfect, but it actually manages to capture my emotions around actual climate change to the point I refuse to build coal or oil power plants because it's my futile act of defiance at the real world complacency.

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Some major blind spot omissions; particularly of PC ports from consoles (which I don't think they had a rule against since there are games like Yakuza 0 on the list, which was ported over 3 years after its Playstation debut). Games like: Persona 4 Golden, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Saints Row III.

It's also missing a bunch of the classics if it wants to "the best ever" list, and at the same time is missing a bunch of recent great games if it wans to be "these are the games you have to own but maybe haven't played" list. Just very strange.

Also, some really bizarre choices like having '80 Days' be on the list at all, much less at #11. The game is fine, but there's nothing special about it at all.

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15 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The last few iterations of Civ have increasingly had hardcore "fans" refusing to like the newest version. The primary legitimate criticism is that the AI isn't good enough which is largely down to the increasing complexity of the game mechanics which are the exact thing they're asking for aside from that. I strongly expect that CivVI will suddenly become acceptable to that cohort once CivVII comes out.

I've been playing Civ since CivII as well, I've played every iteration and have 700 hours in CivV, 1100 in Beyond Earth (which that particular group hated, and was unfortunately not well received despite some excellent innovations) and over 4000 in CivVI so I'm not just talking out my ass here. I remember how unplayable they thought CivV was, that one unit per tile was an abomination and CivIV remained the golden standard and probably always would - Firaxis had lost their touch.

The vanilla version of each new Civ do tend to have their flaws, but the expansions really flesh it out and 6 is excellent at this point. It's climate change mechanic isn't perfect, but it actually manages to capture my emotions around actual climate change to the point I refuse to build coal or oil power plants because it's my futile act of defiance at the real world complacency.

Well I definitely wouldn't consider myself a hardcore Civ fan, but I guess I do have an attachment to Civ IV because I got so addicted to it when it came out, and I was in Varsity at the time so maybe there's some nostalgia around it too.

 

 

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I’ve played Civ 5 and 6, but a lot more of 5. I’ve not got to the end of a Civ 6 game, even if I like a lot of the changes. I’m not sure why, I just feel that it starts to run out of steam. I also don’t like what they did with the world congress.

Stardew Valley is a weird one in that people rave about it and my girlfriend loved it, but I just wasn’t fussed. It’s not my kind of game. Spiritfarer is better.

Glad to see Undertale and Obra Dinn on there, although Obra Dinn is very high. It’s excellent, but is it better than every game except Outer Wilds?

I’ve still not got far into Outer Wilds, I normally play games with my girlfriend and we both had trouble with the flight controls, to the extent that she was put off from playing further. Interesting that it’s ranked so high.

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50 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The primary legitimate criticism is that the AI isn't good enough

Curious, has the AI ever been good enough? My impression of Civ 5 is that they've given up on the AI which is why the difficulty levels are just a production multiplier. Which is an interesting challenge, but I'd get why people get frustrated. Not sure if that applies throughout the franchise.

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

As for the new GTA bundle, it is properly fucked on every version of the game. Hilariously distended character models, appalling model swaps (CJ's first girlfriend Denise now looks like ET), vast amounts of spelling mistakes, large chunks of missing soundtrack and the rain effects make you feel like you're having a seizure. They also had to pull the PC version because it just didn't work.

Such a bummer to hear that. I would really love to revisit the older games with GTA5's gameplay. 

As to your RDR2 critiques, you raise some fair points, but I just love the game for what it is. The story is excellent and you can color outside the lines in so many ways. Plus the characters and graphics are great!

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3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Civilization V's metacritic score is 90 (critics) and 8.0 (fans), whilst Civilization VI is 88 (critics) and 7.0 (fans). Civ V has an Overwhelmingly Positive reception on Steam versus Civ VI with a Very Positive reception. However, a lot of the negative reviews of Civ VI are "it's not Civ V and they had the temerity to change these features" (a bit like reviews of Civ V and IV when V first came out).

So the two games seem to both be reasonably well-regarded, but VI seems to be doing better with people who haven't played a Civ game before whilst longer-term series fans seem to marginally prefer V at the moment.

I own both but have not got round to either.

Most Civ Games seem to take about a year or so to become 'good', Civ VI I think now is in a very good place, except for maybe its preponderance of DLCs. I wonder if that affects user scores as most of these games get a roasting when they come out. 
 

18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Such a bummer to hear that. I would really love to revisit the older games with GTA5's gameplay. 

As to your RDR2 critiques, you raise some fair points, but I just love the game for what it is. The story is excellent and you can color outside the lines in so many ways. Plus the characters and graphics are great!

I think RDR2 looks fantastic, its beautiful. But I barely consider it a game. I tend to feel like that about most console games to be fair. There is such a lack of freedom and choice compared to say.. I dunno, Skyrim. Red Dead 2 is really just a matter of wandering around, finding the next mission, doing the next mission, watching a cut scene and repeat. It really feels on rails.

Everything else in the game is just a mini game. Hunting, fishing etc. It doesn't really feel like you can just inhabit the world at all. 

It might be the most over rated game I've ever played.

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40 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think RDR2 looks fantastic, its beautiful. But I barely consider it a game. I tend to feel like that about most console games to be fair. There is such a lack of freedom and choice compared to say.. I dunno, Skyrim. Red Dead 2 is really just a matter of wandering around, finding the next mission, doing the next mission, watching a cut scene and repeat. It really feels on rails.

Everything else in the game is just a mini game. Hunting, fishing etc. It doesn't really feel like you can just inhabit the world at all. 

It might be the most over rated game I've ever played.

Do you enjoy giving bad takes? I've heard people who've never gone fishing or hunting before talk about how they spent dozens of hours doing so in the game. I personally spent loads of hours riding around murdering people, good or bad, because why not? Westworld bitches! 

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5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Do you enjoy giving bad takes? I've heard people who've never gone fishing or hunting before talk about how they spent dozens of hours doing so in the game. I personally spent loads of hours riding around murdering people, good or bad, because why not? Westworld bitches! 

I don’t think I’m alone in thinking the game is overrated. Hunting and fishing is basically a staple of any open world game. I never bothered with it because .. I don’t care about getting some new hat or something. Everything you do in the game is pointless and inconsequential.. including going around murdering people. The only thing to really do in the game is just follow the main story missions. Most NPCs can’t be interacted with, entire towns are  full of lifeless nobodies. It’s boring. There is literally no point exploring or going off to do your own thing 

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