Video Games- At least 2023 looks like a banger

[RumHam]

4 hours ago, Slurktan said:

Nothing in that "report" says anything about any other condition other than potentially it being vertical. 

I'm not sure I'm sure what you're trying to say? 

No one was claiming a controlled study was done. I posted it because if I had one I'd want to know of the possible risk. The cost of laying it horizontal is zero. 

[Werthead]

Started playing Death Stranding. My sole previous Kojima experience is limited to playing the demo of Metal Gear Solid around 1998 and bumping into him in Cyberpunk 2077, so this should be interesting. I am aware of his reputation.

So far I've met a giant tardigrade-eating Lea Seydoux, been giving a ghost-repelling baby and been recruited to do jobs for Guillermo Del Toro. The actual gameplay seems to primarily consist of walking around and trying hard not to catastrophically fall over drops of about 0.5 feet.

Enjoyable nonsense so far.

[horangi]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Started playing Death Stranding. My sole previous Kojima experience is limited to playing the demo of Metal Gear Solid around 1998 and bumping into him in Cyberpunk 2077, so this should be interesting. I am aware of his reputation.

So far I've met a giant tardigrade-eating Lea Seydoux, been giving a ghost-repelling baby and been recruited to do jobs for Guillermo Del Toro. The actual gameplay seems to primarily consist of walking around and trying hard not to catastrophically fall over drops of about 0.5 feet.

Enjoyable nonsense so far.

I started it up as well due to the Epic free game release.  I was amused that they announced it was directed by  Kojima like 5 times in the first 10 minutes- ego anyone? Die Hard-man has to be about the stupidest character name for a game that otherwise seems to be taking itself seriously, I am guessing there must be some inside joke to it.  There is a bit of an odd frame of reference in that the single map that I've traversed so far apparently crosses hundreds of miles on the US while being in visual site range of the objects across those locations.  Otherwise, I agree, there is something cathartic about walking packages around a map. 

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, horangi said:

I started it up as well due to the Epic free game release.  I was amused that they announced it was directed by  Kojima like 5 times in the first 10 minutes- ego anyone? Die Hard-man has to be about the stupidest character name for a game that otherwise seems to be taking itself seriously, I am guessing there must be some inside joke to it.  There is a bit of an odd frame of reference in that the single map that I've traversed so far apparently crosses hundreds of miles on the US while being in visual site range of the objects across those locations.  Otherwise, I agree, there is something cathartic about walking packages around a map. 

Kojima is well-known for taking the piss out of himself and his games, so I suspect the "Die-Hardman" name comes from the overly-literal translations of Japanese names in his MGS series. I think he's also well-known to be quite grumpy on the subject of AAA open-world games (I gather he had to be convinced hard by Konami to start taking MGS down that route), so the North America of the game apparently being 250 km wide max and the game going to some lengths to let you know that might be a gag as well: I have reached a location roughly analogous to the location of Pittsburgh and the game is telling me it's about 7km from Washington, DC, and the terrain so far has been basically that of Iceland. I gather there isn't much effort made to map the terrain or rivers or anything else to reality (not even the very nominal nods that engine-mate Horizon Zero Dawn made), and the standby excuse is "the Stranding did it."

[IFR]

Since the show is about to come out soon and I like experiencing the original incarnation first, I'm contemplating playing The Last of Us. I'm hesitant because it seems like it will be something of a pain. Apparently it's not available on PC, so I'll have to harass a friend to let me use their Playstation. Also, the thought of playing a shooter is intensely disinteresting to me. Does anyone know if this game has an easy difficulty, and if so, is it easy enough that I can breeze through the annoying combat? If I have to make any kind of effort at all then I think the story may not be enough for me to enjoy the game.

[Dragon in the North]

4 minutes ago, IFR said:

Since the show is about to come out soon and I like experiencing the original incarnation first, I'm contemplating playing The Last of Us. I'm hesitant because it seems like it will be something of a pain. Apparently it's not available on PC, so I'll have to harass a friend to let me use their Playstation. Also, the thought of playing a shooter is intensely disinteresting to me. Does anyone know if this game has an easy difficulty, and if so, is it easy enough that I can breeze through the annoying combat? If I have to make any kind of effort at all then I think the story may not be enough for me to enjoy the game.

There is an easy mode, but I’ve never played it, so I’m not sure how it compares to the other difficulty levels.

As for the combat, I found it to be more stealth than shooter. That’s how I usually try and take out the enemies anyway and only use my gun if I’m discovered.

[briantw]

6 minutes ago, IFR said:

Since the show is about to come out soon and I like experiencing the original incarnation first, I'm contemplating playing The Last of Us. I'm hesitant because it seems like it will be something of a pain. Apparently it's not available on PC, so I'll have to harass a friend to let me use their Playstation. Also, the thought of playing a shooter is intensely disinteresting to me. Does anyone know if this game has an easy difficulty, and if so, is it easy enough that I can breeze through the annoying combat? If I have to make any kind of effort at all then I think the story may not be enough for me to enjoy the game.

It's not a shooter by any stretch of the imagination.  You do have guns and you will use them from time to time, but it's a survival horror game that focuses heavily on stealth.  Trying to get in big firefights with armed enemies will likely end with you dead.  Ammo and resources are scarce and you're definitely motivated to deal with as many enemies quietly as possible and saving your ammo for emergencies, those encounters where stealth isn't an option, and boss fights.

[IFR]

1 hour ago, Dragon in the North said:

There is an easy mode, but I’ve never played it, so I’m not sure how it compares to the other difficulty levels.

As for the combat, I found it to be more stealth than shooter. That’s how I usually try and take out the enemies anyway and only use my gun if I’m discovered.

 

1 hour ago, briantw said:

It's not a shooter by any stretch of the imagination.  You do have guns and you will use them from time to time, but it's a survival horror game that focuses heavily on stealth.  Trying to get in big firefights with armed enemies will likely end with you dead.  Ammo and resources are scarce and you're definitely motivated to deal with as many enemies quietly as possible and saving your ammo for emergencies, those encounters where stealth isn't an option, and boss fights.

So you have to memorize enemy patrol patterns and patiently wait for the right moment to strike or sneak past?

That sounds even worse. I'm fairly certain now that I would hate it.

Oh well, I guess I will just go into the show cold.

Thanks!

[briantw]

1 hour ago, IFR said:

 

So you have to memorize enemy patrol patterns and patiently wait for the right moment to strike or sneak past?

That sounds even worse. I'm fairly certain now that I would hate it.

Oh well, I guess I will just go into the show cold.

Thanks!

Have you considered watching a playthrough of the game?  I do that sometimes with games I am interested in but don't want to play myself, or are on hardware I don't own.

[Corvinus85]

I too am debating if I should watch the show or wait until I finally play the game. Steam apparently has a release date in March.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I tried the Forspoken demo and I must say I like the movement and combat a lot. Might buy it at some point although not on release.

[horangi]

21 hours ago, Werthead said:

 I have reached a location roughly analogous to the location of Pittsburgh and the game is telling me it's about 7km from Washington, DC, and the terrain so far has been basically that of Iceland.

This actually fits so well that I wonder if it wasn't the original design intent and then was changed up for marketing reasons.  In one of the intro scenes right before the 'bad thing' happened, you can see a volcano in the distance that I had originally thought might be Mt. Ranier (with a PNW starting location).  However, Iceland (or Greenland, Svalbard etc) fits the terrain, and would make both the short distances less immersion breaking, the idea of walking cross country more realistic (where did all the highways go), and the small scale of the 'cities' with the last remaining remnants of humanity clinging on in a remote location away from society.

[Werthead]

18 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I too am debating if I should watch the show or wait until I finally play the game. Steam apparently has a release date in March.

Yeah, I'll watch the show first and then play the game when it arrives on PC which should be a fairly novel approach.

[Werthead]

Gamer completes Elden Ring by playing two instances of the game simultaneously, one on controller and the other on dance mat, besting the end-of-game boss almost simultaneously on both.

Impressive.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

23 hours ago, IFR said:

 

So you have to memorize enemy patrol patterns and patiently wait for the right moment to strike or sneak past?

That sounds even worse. I'm fairly certain now that I would hate it.

Oh well, I guess I will just go into the show cold.

Thanks!

In most sections you can't sit and memorise patrol patterns, because often one enemy will patrol wherever you happen to be hiding in cover. The main stealth mechanic is listening mode where your hearing can pinpoint enemies that are reasonably close. It's a cross between a cover-based 3rd-person shooter and stealth survival horror for dealing with baddies / monsters. But really, if you are feeling ambivalent about playing this style of game, as described, why bother? I somewhat envy those who are going to watch the show with completely fresh eyes.

I personally prefer it that way. I enthusiastically watched the Halo TV series despite no knowing a thing about it, except that it is a highly regarded, by critics and gamers, video game. It wasn't a particularly good TV series, but at least I didn't get pissy about game stuff that was massively changed, lefty out or just plain wrong (from the game lore perspective), or the fact that Master Chief spent 95% of the time with his helmet off. I didn't care about all that stuff so I got to assess the TV series on its own merits. It did get me curious to play the games so I bought the MC collections when it was cheap. FPS is one of my least favourite genres so I only finished the OG game and about 10% of Halo 2 before I gave up, because the story didn't grab me enough to convince me to push through my aversion to FPS, plus for me the warthog driving mechanics were worse than the Mako. I suspect the same would apply to you re. TLOU game.

For anyone who hasn't played TLOU I would say don't play it, watch the TV show, and then if the story really grabs you go straight to playing TLOU 2. I personally hope Season 2 of TLOU TV, if it gets one, would spend almost the entire time telling a story of what happens between TLOU and TLOU 2, that way the game side has the time to get TLOU 3 out to give the TV series more source material to adapt for perhaps a 4 or 5 season total run.

[Jace, Extat]

This is an interesting highlight in the different things different people expect to receive from different media 

 

It never once, since I was like eight or something, occurred to me to have any issue with, like, the gameplay parts of Halo (or for TLoU for that matter, but for simplicity's sake let's constrict to Halo because my comment here goes for both of them). Or Mass Effect and its dreaded Mako, for that matter

Like, I just never cared. I see bad. I pull trigger. I reload or reload depending on how the exchange went and try again or continue on as the situation merits. It always BOGGLED my BRAINZ whenever I'd be, like, playing co-op (especially on HIGHER DIFFICULTIES) and folks would skip the 30-60 second (very well written, animated, and vocally performed) cutscenes because they like physically couldn't wait another minute to send electrical signals through the nerves of their [R] index finger that somehow equated to fulfillment when that interaction coincided with certain expressions of digital reaction as catalogued and transmitted by their eyes

[Jace, Extat]

Not to DP, but this is a whole separate thought I think:

Like, to me, I never considered the puzzle-part of the videogame experience (this is what I MANY YEARS LATER learned is called the "gameplay loop") to be more than incidental to the rest of the artistic product. 

Like, KotOR has what every nerd I've ever known derides as various versions of "the worst character-player and computer-unit interaction mechanics in the history of binaries" 

And I don't even understand why you'd play that game if the "gameplay loop" to you is the parts where you're fighting the goons in-between magnificent spectacles of divergent storytelling opportunities, all of which were meticulously crafted to make YOU feel like YOU could express YOUR personality -or as nearly as possible, because like somebody else did write it- in a setting that was both Star Wars and completely novel and free of the character-motivations you may have been predisposed to in your youth. 

[briantw]

2 hours ago, BBB Jacelyn said:

Not to DP, but this is a whole separate thought I think:

Like, to me, I never considered the puzzle-part of the videogame experience (this is what I MANY YEARS LATER learned is called the "gameplay loop") to be more than incidental to the rest of the artistic product. 

Like, KotOR has what every nerd I've ever known derides as various versions of "the worst character-player and computer-unit interaction mechanics in the history of binaries" 

And I don't even understand why you'd play that game if the "gameplay loop" to you is the parts where you're fighting the goons in-between magnificent spectacles of divergent storytelling opportunities, all of which were meticulously crafted to make YOU feel like YOU could express YOUR personality -or as nearly as possible, because like somebody else did write it- in a setting that was both Star Wars and completely novel and free of the character-motivations you may have been predisposed to in your youth. 

It depends on the game.  Some games are the gameplay loop.  Like, if Slay the Spire weren't fun to play, what would be the point?  There is no real story there.  The visuals are nothing to write home about.  What makes the game good is the puzzle that is the card-based combat.  Figuring out your build through choices based on random chance.  Fighting the RNG and occasionally winning.

But other games are about the story, like KOTOR.  You can suffer through the mediocre gameplay because there's a story there worth telling in a universe many of us grew up with and love.  Hell, some games are just glorified visual novels.

Then there are games like Portal 2 that perfectly merge the two with brilliant gameplay and a compelling, funny narrative.

[RumHam]

3 hours ago, BBB Jacelyn said:

This is an interesting highlight in the different things different people expect to receive from different media 

 

It never once, since I was like eight or something, occurred to me to have any issue with, like, the gameplay parts of Halo (or for TLoU for that matter, but for simplicity's sake let's constrict to Halo because my comment here goes for both of them). Or Mass Effect and its dreaded Mako, for that matter

Like, I just never cared. I see bad. I pull trigger. I reload or reload depending on how the exchange went and try again or continue on as the situation merits. It always BOGGLED my BRAINZ whenever I'd be, like, playing co-op (especially on HIGHER DIFFICULTIES) and folks would skip the 30-60 second (very well written, animated, and vocally performed) cutscenes because they like physically couldn't wait another minute to send electrical signals through the nerves of their [R] index finger that somehow equated to fulfillment when that interaction coincided with certain expressions of digital reaction as catalogued and transmitted by their eyes

My older brother used to play the Final Fantasy games and jam on the A button to get past all that pesky dialogue. Most of the battles were also just pressing A with the occasional bit of healing. People are weird.