Videogames: Spooktober Season

[Darryk]

9 hours ago, karaddin said:

On CivVI I'll add to what HoI said with noting that some of the different civilizations have *very* different play styles and are dramatically better at some victory types than others. Romans are pretty much an all rounder Civ, they're not specialised into any particular victory type so are solid for whatever you want to do.

Babylon on the other hand are a science focused Civ that requires either being very familiar with inspirations (mini quests which boosts your progress for a particular tech, most techs have their own one) or detailed planning and following the plan. Babylon gets the entire tech from the inspiration rather than just a boost, but their normal science rate is halved, so you can chain together the mini quests to have crossbowmen and siege weapons absurdly early in the game. Or you can lose focus and wallow well behind everyone else.

 

Thanks, appreciated.

I like the idea that you have to pick a civ for a victory condition, I enjoyed that aspect of Civ IV.

I'm playing as the Romans because I like that it automatically builds roads, and I like the idea of having legionaries (probably because I loved having the praetorians in Civ IV). But based on what you said I might switch to Babylon as I do want to focus on science on my first few playthroughs.

[IlyaP]

Well, I tried playing Mass Effect: Andromeda, and I realised I simply couldn't. Though many of its more infamous gfx bugs and glitches have been resolved, nothing can make up for a horrifically clunky UI that defies all logic, gameplay mechanics that feel out of place and glorified time wasters, plots that don't make much sense, a clunky control system, excessive travelling time in a MAKO (there's no doubt a MAKO drinking game for every time the fucking thing falls/rolls over, swerves wildly, or fails to adhere to a player's given command), and a baffling map/waypoint system that for some inexplicable reason involves a fog of war in the map. 

I just...I gave it ten hours. And the first ten are moderately OK. But once the main plot kicks into gear, the game becomes stunningly obtuse. Where do I need to go? Why do I need to go to a place? How do I do that easily? Why the fuck am I doing mindless fetch quests? 

Despite the monumental level of disappointment that I felt playing Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, as games that completely ignored, or failed to understand (or both!) the first game and featured completely mindless plot twists that not even M. Night Shyamalan would dare use, I had hopes that Andromeda would recapture the spirit of the first [and only good - in my opinion] game in the Mass Effect series. 

There's a great exploration game somewhere in Mass Effect: Andromeda, but it's diluted and hidden by tedious fetch/assemble/shoot/scout quests, dumb dialogue, excess romance options (what the fuck for! Seriously I don't care about romancing in a game!), and no real theme or purpose behind its existence that I can see beyond perpetuating a franchise that should be buried and left alone and forgotten. Stop Bioware, just stop. You're a hollowed, shambling corpse, and not the company you once were, all those years ago. EA has gone all Reaper-like and made a husk of you. 

...That turned out to be longer than I expected it would be. 

Anyways, I'm going to try and see if I can get into Jade Empire in the meantime, as I do my catch-up of all the Bioware games I missed out on while in university. 

[karaddin]

Even as someone that really enjoyed Andromeda there are definitely plenty of issues with it. The part you were in is probably the worst part of the "main" story, although it's harder to define what the main story is in this case as it's a few distinct elements woven together. 

The Kett are the worst part, the remnant is variable, some of the growing the initiative and nexus stuff is pretty good but it's got the boring fetch etc quests as bottlenecks. I quite like searching for the other arks. Probably the worst quest in terms of game mechanics (your father's memory triggers) actually leads into the best storyline and where the story was going if it had gotten DLC/ sequels.

[IlyaP]

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Even as someone that really enjoyed Andromeda there are definitely plenty of issues with it. The part you were in is probably the worst part of the "main" story, although it's harder to define what the main story is in this case as it's a few distinct elements woven together. 

The gold beneath the varnish (is that the euphemism?) is clearly there. The roots of a good game, with good mechanics, and a focused plot are all there. But lawdy does the game work so hard at making it all a tedious chore. 

While I love the inclusion of a Skyrim-like waypoint integration into the main game screen, the quest log baffles me and is an aesthetic disaster. (Everything after ME1 pretty much botched the journal/inventory/quest screens, it would seem.)

The exploration concept is *great*. But ten hours in and no one's made a single meaningful comment about nepotism or colonialism? And SAM has me doing SEARCH QUESTS for its memory? It's an AI (or at least a VI) and I have to go running around for memories? 

Come. On. 

 

[IlyaP]

I've also learned that the initial goal was to make a procedurally generated open world. For...a Mass Effect game? 

I just...I weep for the complete and utter failure of understanding what Mass Effect was all about before it was turned into a Gears of War wannabe by the Imbecilic Overlords at EA. 

[Poobah]

Started a new XCOM: Long War campaign last week and so far it's going pretty well, though my roster is teetering very close to the edge of a fatigue spiral after a hectic back-to-back series of missions and a few wounds. I probably need more soldiers but I like getting invested in them and more than 40 or 50 and I begin to forget who's who and they just become interchangeable blocks of stats.

[Rhom]

8 hours ago, IlyaP said:

excess romance options (what the fuck for! Seriously I don't care about romancing in a game!),

Yeah... you definitely aren't the target market then.  Remember, the only real question the ME fanboys had when they first saw a Kett was "Can you #@%& it?" 

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, Rhom said:

Yeah... you definitely aren't the target market then.  Remember, the only real question the ME fanboys had when they first saw a Kett was "Can you #@%& it?" 

For a race that genetically borrows from other, they look rather goofy. And a bit like the main villain in Anthem...

[karaddin]

The exalted Krogan managed to be scary, or at least intimidating, but that's down to knowing Krogan lol

[IlyaP]

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

but that's down to knowing Krogan lol

Like...biblically?

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Like...biblically?

Come hang out on this Mass Effect Facebook page I’m in… that’ll be the least of what you see.  

[IlyaP]

31 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Come hang out on this Mass Effect Facebook page I’m in… that’ll be the least of what you see.

I will take a look. I can promise you that. What's the page?

[karaddin]

4 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Like...biblically?

Superficially  

[Rhom]

3 hours ago, IlyaP said:

I will take a look. I can promise you that. What's the page?

Just called Mass Effect

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thereapersarecoming/?ref=share

It’s a pretty decent group overall.  Lots of thirsty people though… cosplayers posting their Miranda outfits getting several hundred comments… people posting birthday selfies… 

And don’t dare make a connection between the synthesis ending and anything close to rape.  They are pretty close minded about seeing the parallels to being violated.  Too worried about seeing EDI and Joker have metal babies or some such.

[Werthead]

Finished Aiko's Choice. A particularly tough game, but rewarding when you finally crack it.

Despite many reservations, I cracked and got FF7Remake on PC.

[KiDisaster]

I'm all in on the new FFXIV expansion lately. Servers are completely packed with players leading to queues that last upwards of four hours in the evenings on the higher populated worlds, and that is assuming you don't error out and end up getting send to the back of the line again. Thankfully the frequency of those errors has been trending down and they say they've identified the cause now and will be rolling out a fix soon. I feel bad for the devs. An absolute perfect storm of shit has led to a situation they can't really fix. I'm lucky to be working from home most days still, so I can login in the morning when there's no queue and just stay in game all day. 

Aside from all that, the game itself is fantastic. It has become by far my favorite MMO of all time and just keeps getting better with each new installment. It's honestly incredible how far it has come. From one of the biggest failures in gaming on its initial launch to now being so popular that they are suspending sales and advertising because there are too many people trying to play.

17 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Finished Aiko's Choice. A particularly tough game, but rewarding when you finally crack it.

Despite many reservations, I cracked and got FF7Remake on PC.

The remake is really good. Much better than I ever would have expected. It's the first time since they abandoned the traditional turn based style of combat for FF games that the combat system has actually felt good to me. Like they finally nailed what they've been trying to do since 12 or 13. 

 

[Fez]

I will eventually get FFVII remake, but between FFXIV Endwalker, SMT V, and a whole lot of Legends of Runeterra I'm pretty swamped with gameplay. I still have several games I actually do want to get back to as well (as opposed to my backlog, which are almost entirely games I'll never touch again).

Speaking of Endwalker, I know Final Fantasy always has some anime DNA in it, but FFXIV has become extraordinarily anime at near the midpoint of Endwalker. And not always to its benefits either. Some of it is good; but after a particularly climactic moment I then spent the next several hours stuck with an overbearingly "cute" race doing nonsense quests. I totally get the concept of rising and falling action, but this brought the narrative to a screeching halt for the sake of some real bad comedy.

Overall, Endwalker has been a bit of mixed bag so far. The high points of the narrative are great, but there's a lot of weird pacing issues; not all as bad as the one above, but there are many valleys. Also, the age of the game is really showing through as well. The new dungeons and trials in the main story are incredible (the new solo duties are...interesting; so far I liked one but despised the other), both visually and in gameplay. But there aren't many of them, and almost the entire main story in between them is practically a visual novel, complete with the same limited amount of canned animations being used over and over. Plus some awful escort and stealth sections. When the story is good enough, like Heavensward and Shadowbringer, it's easier to overlook these faults. When it's not, it becomes very frustrating. And Endwalker keeps swinging back-and-forth between great moments and bad ones.

Outside the story, the game remains the same hyper-polished MMO it has been since 2.0 launched. But I've done the vast majority of the existing content that I want to do (and have no interest in leveling every class up max), so there isn't that much for me besides playing through the main story right now.

The music is incredibly good at all times. Knocked it out of the park good.

[Poobah]

My XCOM roster, now largely named for various gaming friends (though there're some spots open still if anyone's interested) continues to soldier on. One particularly harrowing trapped UFO landing took over an hour and chewed up a large part of my A-Team as a relatively small UFO turned out to be a clown car of semi-active pods hunting for their blood leading to what amounted to a siege as I was pinned in my landing zone for most of the mission.

On the plus side I've unlocked MEC troopers now, and volunteers are lining up to get their limbs chopped off so they can become cyborgs!

[Werthead]

FF7 Remake looks absolutely amazing. The 1998 me is squeeing over playing a version of the game where the basic gameplay graphics are 10x better than the CGI cutscenes from the original. It's also impressive how much they replicate the original game and story within the new engine.

I'm not a massive fan of the control scheme. It feels, a bit like Rockstar's last couple of games, that the controls are cumbersome for the sake of it on PC, and there's been jack shit work done on the port, which is a huge surprise given the lead time they've had and the immense number of options FFXV had on the PC port. The graphics adjustment options are almost non-existent (I can't get the game to default to my big monitor and have to manually drag it over every time I start the game) and there's some massively non-intuitive controls (I still haven't figure out how to actually take a picture in Photo Mode; the controls tell you how to everything but take the actual photo). Also, hilariously, the default options/setting menu isn't Escape, like every other game since the dawn of recorded time, but M. You can't rebind it to Escape either. Weird.

Within those confines, the game is pretty decent.

[Ran]

Epic is back to giving out free games on a daily basis, for one day each. First up is Shenmue 3, which apparently has a real cult following. Also they've brought back the $10 off any games priced at at least $15, and they even have a handy filter to list games at that price or higher that you can then sort to show cheapest up just to get a sense of what you can get on the cheap. Horizon Zero Dawn would be down to $15 with the coupon, for example.