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Videogames 2023: Dreams of the Sandbox Kings


IlyaP
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4 hours ago, Darryk said:

Can someone please tell me why Jedi: Fallen Order is such a highly rated game? The level design is SHOCKING. Like something I'd expect of a 90s game.

Beware the Sith planet of Dathomir. A stunning number of people have reported frame rate issues with that planet, and even my beast of a PC had occasional dips on that planet. I don't know if it's an optimisation issue, texture loading, or something else, but ye gods, it's bewildering.

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I liked it, which made it by default one of the best games I'd played in years. 

More a reflection of gaming, and star wars in particular I think than the worthiness of the game itself I think. 

Not to say it's horrible. I liked it. It was like a better version of Force Unleashed. I felt like it was the base version of what could be a trillion SWs games of all genres. But I'm a crazy person and Disney and EA have forgotten more about ruining art than I'll ever know... God willing

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6 hours ago, Darryk said:

Can someone please tell me why Jedi: Fallen Order is such a highly rated game? The level design is SHOCKING. Like something I'd expect of a 90s game.

Every level is a goddamn labyrinth, it's like you need a ball of thread to find your way out. And the Holomap is USELESS.

Every hour or so you get some fun lightsaber combat but 90% is just running around trying to find your way out and constantly ending back where you started.

I'm gonna try YouTube to get out of this mess for the 2nd time, but if I get stuck a 3rd time I'm quitting. Thank naff I didn't pay anything for this game.

I gather this was seen as a feature rather than a bug, as it's highly influenced by the "Metroidvania" school of game design which purposefully gates off parts of the level for you to return to later on once you have new moves and equipment.

The main problem is that a lot of it is nonsensical drivel. You need a special climbing tool to access an outdoor high ledge, so to do that you travel thousands of light-years across the galaxy to another planet to get that tool, and then you travel back to use it...rather than just use your spaceship to drop you off at the top of the ledge.

I did like the game but it did suffer from 1) massive logic failures, 2) not being anywhere near as good a Star Wars action/adventure game as the 25+ year-old Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series, and 3) forcing you to spend 80% of the game fighting giant spiders for some reason.

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The main issue with Fallen Order is the map is a confusing mess.  It tries to be a Metroid-esque map but that doesn’t work nearly as well in three dimensions. 

Other than that, I found it to be a generally competent, reasonably fun game.  Not a GOTY contender but definitely solid. 

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5 hours ago, briantw said:

The main issue with Fallen Order is the map is a confusing mess.  It tries to be a Metroid-esque map but that doesn’t work nearly as well in three dimensions. 

It also borrows a bit from the Uncharted/Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy games, with in-game commentary, moving through tight passages, and over the shoulder combat. 

Except I don't think it does it all as well as it would like. 

But I'm willing to give Respawn the benefit of the doubt, as they did work there damn hardest with EA's destructive shadow lingering in the background, and proved without a doubt that there's still room in this world for single player games that don't include SaaS features.

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10 hours ago, IlyaP said:

The holo-map is admittedly fairly terrible, but the levels, from what I recall, tended to have a circular design to them, where going through the level would ultimately take Cal to a ledge or something that was near the entrance, and thus make it easier to get back to the Mantis. Interestingly, Shadows of the Empire and Jedi Outcast were cited as inspirations when making the game. 

I loved Shadows of the Empire, had huge impact on me since it was one of the first games I played on N64 and the Battle of Hoth mission at the beginning was mind-blowing. But I do remember the level design being quite linear.

But I played a lot of 90s games which had this kind of mazey level design that Jedi: Fallen Order seems to have.

I am reluctant to quit it, the lightsaber combat is fun. Guess I'll have to keep going to YouTube every time I get lost.

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3D Metroidvania design is tricky. Like, I'm a huge fan of the genre in 2D, as some of you might have noticed, but I'm playing Metroid Prime for the first time now. That's widely acclaimed as one of the greatest games of all time, so clearly it did things right, but even there I'm running into an issue of going out to explore a new part, but if it's not the actual route, you have to backtrack all the way to near the start. A good 2D Metroidvania rarely has actual dead ends. 

It's a balance problem really. Sounds like Fallen Order has the opposite issue, where they do try to do the 2D staple where you don't run into dead-ends as such, but instead if a route is blocked you loop round and find yourself lead back towards what you need or something else. But in 3D, it just becomes far harder to track.

 

There was an indie game a few years ago that actually did the world design very well. Blue Fire. Blatantly Hollow Knight-inspired, but in 3D, with Zelda components and a strong platforming element too. Its big spooky castle overworld is pretty excellently put together... but unfortunately the designers eschewed actually giving you a map at all, which means that when I took a pause for a few weeks, err, whoops. Will have to go back and go for it properly eventually though. I do recommend it for fans of this kind of thing. 

 

 

In any case, I'm never gonna play Fallen Order, sounds like :P 

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If you have Prime Baldur's Gate enhanced edition is currently free on Prime Gaming. If you feel the urge to replay that game but don't have that version I recommend it as it has a lot of solid quality of life upgrades. It's the first game in the upgraded engine of Baldur's Gate 2 though so it is not for you if you are a purist. 

In general Prime seems to have give away classic games quite often I got Starcraft Remastered and Morrowind GOTY Edition(lost the disc years ago) that way.

I got this weird urge to pick up all free games even if I don't play them but I have played more games from Prime Gaming than Epic at this point.

I'm surprised that Epic keeps doing it although I noticed the some of the free games repeat.

EA gave it up pretty quickly when the tried to push it's old Origin launcher.  That was really nice though as it had true gems like Dungeon Keeper, Red Alert 2, Theme Hospital, Syndicate and Jade Empire. If you unlocked those games back in the day you can still play them because the library transitioned to EA Play. I played a few levels of Dungeon Keeper just a while ago.

Edited by Luzifer's right hand
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10 hours ago, IlyaP said:

It also borrows a bit from the Uncharted/Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy games, with in-game commentary, moving through tight passages, and over the shoulder combat. 

Except I don't think it does it all as well as it would like. 

But I'm willing to give Respawn the benefit of the doubt, as they did work there damn hardest with EA's destructive shadow lingering in the background, and proved without a doubt that there's still room in this world for single player games that don't include SaaS features.

Moving through tight passages is just background loading, I think.  Same as elevator rides.

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I've been playing Metroid: Zero Mission for the first time. It was a nice suprise that the game kept going after the game it was remaking ended. I can't think of another example of that. This sequence without the suit is pretty tense too. 

After this I'll probably do that 3DS Metroid II remake that they didn't port to Switch for some reason. 

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Never played the FF games. 

I totally admired the scope of it, from what all the dweebs at school never stopped babbling

But yo I had Halo

Which is like the videogame crystal-meth version of Aliens + every great sci fi series I'd be rediscovering for the next quarter-century 

Your Golden Chokobo or whatever is cute I guess. 

I got the "Gods Must Be Strong" achievo :bs:

AND 

A MONUMENT TO ALL YOUR SINS

 

And I didn't go on the fucking internet crowing about it like some kind of fucking loser neither 

Didn't go telling all the two-faced fucks I ever met about it like I'd solved some grand design neither 

I built a new game 

 

YOU don't wanna play games with ME???? 

:devil:

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Decided to finally do some PC upgrades; went from a 1070TI to a 4070TI. Though I don't really have any games to test it out right now, the games I've been playing recently are all indie. But it was good to future proof for some of the games coming later this year.

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Paradox announcing three new games next week including latest from Cities: Skylines dev
Plus new titles from Harebrained, Rod Humble.

https://www.eurogamer.net/paradox-announcing-three-new-games-next-week-including-latest-from-cities-skylines-dev

Quote

A number of Paradox studios will be on display, including new games from Harebrained Schemes (Shadowrun developer). Cities: Skylines will also have some news on display from Colossal Order. Paradox Tectonic will also have news on tap. Crusader Kings III, Europa Universalis IV and Surviving the Aftermath are all going to release news on games and updates. Finally, there will be news on the company’s new studio Paradox Arc and the game it is working on. As of now, we have no information on this game so it will be a brand new premiere of information.

 

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37 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Paradox announcing three new games next week including latest from Cities: Skylines dev
Plus new titles from Harebrained, Rod Humble.

https://www.eurogamer.net/paradox-announcing-three-new-games-next-week-including-latest-from-cities-skylines-dev

 

Hmm. I'm very interested in hearing whatever Harebrained is working on. And in fact, I wonder if they're actually the developer that has VtM:B2? Paradox has never said which developer was working on it after the game got pulled from the original devs.

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For the first time I was able to finish XCOM: Chimera Squad. I had a hard time getting into because some of the gameplay was frustrating and the feel of desperate urgency wasn't as strong compared to Enemy Unknown and especially XCOM 2. But the characters were interesting. I enjoyed the banter and as I went along, I gradually became more immersed. Interesting nugget at the end of the story, setting some plot for XCOM 3 I guess.

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2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Paradox announcing three new games next week including latest from Cities: Skylines dev
Plus new titles from Harebrained, Rod Humble.

https://www.eurogamer.net/paradox-announcing-three-new-games-next-week-including-latest-from-cities-skylines-dev

 

I'd like to see a Battletech 2 with a bit more focus on the strategic layer of the campaign (there are some mods like Roguetech that attempt it, but I've found to be a bit of a mess).  Also, as much as I've loved EUIV, I'd think its time for a new, more modern version (though I would dread the endless money I would be spending on DLC).

Edited by horangi
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Hmm. I'm very interested in hearing whatever Harebrained is working on. And in fact, I wonder if they're actually the developer that has VtM:B2?

That's the rumor I heard, yes. I guess we're about to find out. I will probably pick up that game if that's the case, but what I really am hoping for is more Shadowrun and Battletech games. I guess either way, if they got put on this game at least finishing it will free them up.

I'm pretty interested in another Crusader Kings game, too.

Edited by Martell Spy
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I was feeling nostalgic and started up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

At first I was like "nah, these graphics are way too dated, no way am I gonna stick with this", but after about half an hour it had sucked me in. Shows what a timeless classic it is albeit having aged badly technology-wise.

Can't believe I first played it in 2004. Where does the time go?

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19 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I was feeling nostalgic and started up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

At first I was like "nah, these graphics are way too dated, no way am I gonna stick with this", but after about half an hour it had sucked me in. Shows what a timeless classic it is albeit having aged badly technology-wise.

Can't believe I first played it in 2004. Where does the time go?

Didn't go nowhere baby

It was always where it was 

:kiss:

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