Videogames 2023 pt. II: Can We patreon This Man an Alienware Already?

[Werthead]

The Metroidvania aspect was somewhat illogical.

"Hmm, I can't climb this rockface to get to the next objective. Shall I:

1. Use my lightsabre to cut footholds in the rock?
2. Get my spaceship to hover above the cliff and I'll just jump out?
3.  Travel 17,000 light-years across the galaxy to another planet to pick up special rock-climbing boots and fly 17,000 light-years back to then climb the rockface?"

If you think 3 is a reasonable answer, then good news! This is the game you're looking for!

All of that said, I found Fallen Order to be a reasonably fun and not-too-long action game, and kind of respected its commitment to being a video game and not trying too hard to narratively justify gamey decisions. And I usually hate Metroidvania design (it put me off Control, which I really need to get back to, for example), but Fallen Order wasn't too bad with it, and later on is much fairer about allowing you to explore planets in one go and not have to pinball between them too much.

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The Metroidvania aspect was somewhat illogical.

"Hmm, I can't climb this rockface to get to the next objective. Shall I:

1. Use my lightsabre to cut footholds in the rock?
2. Get my spaceship to hover above the cliff and I'll just jump out?
3.  Travel 17,000 light-years across the galaxy to another planet to pick up special rock-climbing boots and fly 17,000 light-years back to then climb the rockface?"

If you think 3 is a reasonable answer, then good news! This is the game you're looking for!

All of that said, I found Fallen Order to be a reasonably fun and not-too-long action game, and kind of respected its commitment to being a video game and not trying too hard to narratively justify gamey decisions. And I usually hate Metroidvania design (it put me off Control, which I really need to get back to, for example), but Fallen Order wasn't too bad with it, and later on is much fairer about allowing you to explore planets in one go and not have to pinball between them too much.

To be fair, we’ve endured Resident Evil games where we’ve had to hunt for random keys rather than just blow uo a locked door with our grenade launcher.

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

All of that said, I found Fallen Order to be a reasonably fun and not-too-long action game, and kind of respected its commitment to being a video game and not trying too hard to narratively justify gamey decisions. And I usually hate Metroidvania design (it put me off Control, which I really need to get back to, for example), but Fallen Order wasn't too bad with it, and later on is much fairer about allowing you to explore planets in one go and not have to pinball between them too much.

It was also the slap in the face that EA needed to understand that "yes, we in fact *do* want single-player videogames (rather than exasperating online Games as a Service) and we will play the ever-loving sh*t out of them, you unbelievable morons!"

EA needed to be reminded of this staggeringly basic and simple fact because its executives thought no one wanted to play single player games anymore. And meanwhile, anyone living in countries with absolutely atrocious internet (points at map of Australia) thought otherwise.

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

To be fair, we’ve endured Resident Evil games where we’ve had to hunt for random keys rather than just blow uo a locked door with our grenade launcher.

To be fair, in a lot of games there is an internal logic to that: if you are looking for supplies or an objective, blowing up a door with no idea of what's behind it is a good way of destroying what you're looking for.

Where you're trapped in a building or something and you know what's on the other side of the door (there's a window or something), that's a different matter. Older games where ordinary office glass was bulletproof was an interesting choice.

[IlyaP]

Decided to try out a few games to see what caught my attention and stuck, so for the moment, it looks like I'll be finally settling in to try and play Arkane's Prey, which I'd tried before but failed to enjoy. Maybe second time's the charm?

[Derfel Cadarn]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

To be fair, in a lot of games there is an internal logic to that: if you are looking for supplies or an objective, blowing up a door with no idea of what's behind it is a good way of destroying what you're looking for.

Where you're trapped in a building or something and you know what's on the other side of the door (there's a window or something), that's a different matter. Older games where ordinary office glass was bulletproof was an interesting choice.

When I’m being hunted by an invincible zombie terminator, I’m taking out doors by the quickest means possible! 
 

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Decided to try out a few games to see what caught my attention and stuck, so for the moment, it looks like I'll be finally settling in to try and play Arkane's Prey, which I'd tried before but failed to enjoy. Maybe second time's the charm?

I found Prey excellent but a little obtuse. After running around in circles, unsure if I was in the right area, I did consult an online guide just to confirm I was where I was supposed to be. There were one or two other moments where I did that because the game's quest-tracking system is not as robust as it could be, but the game did get better at that as it went along.

[IlyaP]

I discovered this morning, after looking back at previous Arkane games, that there's an open source modernisation of Arx Fatalis, called Arx Libertalis, that looks interesting and might intrigue fans of the original - this version isn't being run via Dos, for one. 

[IlyaP]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

I found Prey excellent but a little obtuse. After running around in circles, unsure if I was in the right area, I did consult an online guide just to confirm I was where I was supposed to be. There were one or two other moments where I did that because the game's quest-tracking system is not as robust as it could be, but the game did get better at that as it went along.

I'm really enjoying it so far. I do wish the wrench wasn't quite so wheighty and slow-moving, but the design, the exploration, Mick Gordon's ace sound design, it's all pretty marvellous. It's definitely not a game for the impatient, either.

[Darryk]

I loved Prey but I found it quite difficult. Couldn't get far in it using human powers, had to go with the Alien skill tree.

[Jace, Extat]

I never finished Prey. Too scary. I am ascaredacat

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

I loved Prey but I found it quite difficult. Couldn't get far in it using human powers, had to go with the Alien skill tree.

Am about 11 hours in, and mostly sticking to the shooty bang skill trees, as I know dem shooty bangs. Plus, I figure, get through the story the first time around, experiment and try out different modes, approaches, builds, etc., with the second playthrough. 

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

I loved Prey but I found it quite difficult. Couldn't get far in it using human powers, had to go with the Alien skill tree.

I didn't do that because it makes the game too difficult.

Spoiler

Using the alien powers eventually makes the station's AI tag you as an alien yourself, and turrets and automated systems start trying to kill you as well as the Mimics. Not using the powers reduces the number of enemies you have to fight in the game by around a third.

 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Werthead

[IlyaP]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

I didn't do that because it makes the game too difficult.

Same. I go to games for stories, rather than combat challenges (always have), and though the idea of using one's enemies tactics against them is conceptually interesting, if it makes it that much harder to finish the game or artificially increases the length of the game, I'll simply get annoyed and walk away. 

As it is, I'm already kind of sick of the enemies in the game, as I'm more invested in the story than in the action beats or combat challenges. 

[Darryk]

13 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Same. I go to games for stories, rather than combat challenges (always have), and though the idea of using one's enemies tactics against them is conceptually interesting, if it makes it that much harder to finish the game or artificially increases the length of the game, I'll simply get annoyed and walk away. 

As it is, I'm already kind of sick of the enemies in the game, as I'm more invested in the story than in the action beats or combat challenges. 

 

The game does a good job of getting you to care about characters that you haven't even met yet.

[mcbigski]

On 4/25/2023 at 4:18 PM, RumHam said:

Oh well, can't win em all. I've only won one game of Stellaris in all my years of playing it. 

Can anyway suggest any interesting different setups? I'm gonna take a break but when I play agian I'd like to shake things up a bit. Like is it fun to play with very few empires or anything like that? I've never touched half the settings, like galaxy shape. 

Been playing a game with either the latest or 2nd latest DLC, with the Broken Shackles start.  You start as a crashed slave ship with something like 5 to 8 different races.  So pick egalitarian obv, and probably xenophile, though I went double egalitarian and one pacifist.  

You start further behind in the tech tree than even the base start.  And the corporate empire that captured your starting pops starts as an advanced but not fallen empire.

But it's as great a role playing start as they've come up with.  Tried it twice, first game I got boxed in, and when I popped the L-gates I got grey plague starting one system away and coming after me.

Second game, started next to some flavor of determined extermintor robots who I was able to barely overcome and then they all got friendly software updates.  Probably the biggest single race in my very big democracy, but also very helpful plastic pals.

There was a religous purge group just past them, that happened to wipe out two of my starting species's homeworlds, but I've brought them into our glorious democracy.  Funny thing is that my power is way larger than the corporate slavers that are supposed to be my enemy, except that they have already cried uncle and become someone else's vassal.

The strengths of the start are that you get so many different starting bonuses for your various species that your workers should be close to optimal job versus job though I didnt actually check that.  You should have habitabiliy of 60% nearly on every planet though.  I happened to roll a tomb world species as part of my starting mix, I think which might help that, but still every habital planet should have at least one decent species to settle on it.

[RumHam]

I'll have to try broken shackles next. I did "on the shoulders of giants" and then I forget the name but the one where you start with two planets and one of them doesn't want to explore space. They were alright. I'm curious if the unique events always play out the same way or if there are variations. 

[IlyaP]

14 hours ago, Darryk said:

 

The game does a good job of getting you to care about characters that you haven't even met yet.

The game has a banger of an opening, an odd, and the first third of the game is probably the strongest, with the mandatory/frustrating combat in later segments prior to the ending being the most "meh" bits of the game, and the ending manages to tie up with what was established in the beginning fairly nicely. 

Going to do a new game+ replay to do all the side missions, and explore some more, as Talos-1 is a breathtaking architectural experience, and Arkane's artists and designers deserve all the praise in the world and more for the exceptional work they did. 

Shame the title, Prey, is terrible - and apparently caused considerable confusion and resentment from Human Head Studios upon release. But for that we can blame Bethesda and Bethesda exclusively. 

A fun experience, albeit one that never quite ties together thematically as strongly as might be hoped, and the twist ending never quite felt particularly strong, though I understand the metaphysical ideas they were trying to gamify with immersive sim/0451 stylings. 

It really does feel like the artistic love-child of System Shock 2 and Doom 2016, but without the robust RPG mechanics of the former and the thrilling arena gameplay of the former. It's clearly a game that's wildly ambitious, which - hey, what are Arkane if not exactly that? A great attempt that doesn't quite stick the landing, whose parts are more interesting than the sum or the whole of the thing. But damn if it doesn't aim gloriously high and remind me why I love 0451 games so much.

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, IlyaP said:

The game has a banger of an opening, an odd, and the first third of the game is probably the strongest, with the mandatory/frustrating combat in later segments prior to the ending being the most "meh" bits of the game, and the ending manages to tie up with what was established in the beginning fairly nicely. 

Going to do a new game+ replay to do all the side missions, and explore some more, as Talos-1 is a breathtaking architectural experience, and Arkane's artists and designers deserve all the praise in the world and more for the exceptional work they did. 

One of the things I liked about Prey was going outside and the external structure of the space station matched the internal structure, and being able to fly around in zero-gee outside the station from one airlock to another and going inside and being in exactly the right spot. Apparently there's only one area they had to cut corners, where one structure's level geometry should clip through the roof but there was an architectural kink in the station it would have taken too long to fix so they had to hope that fans wouldn't try to 1:1 measure the whole thing for accuracy, which obviously they did, immediately.

I think Talos-1 and Sevastopol from Alien: Isolation immediately become the coveted Best Space Stations in a Video Game. Although to be fair, not a massive amount of competition (maybe the Coriolis station from Elite and the Tiqqun from Ixion).

Edited May 9, 2023 by Werthead

[IlyaP]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

One of the things I liked about Prey was going outside and the external structure of the space station matched the internal structure, and being able to fly around in zero-gee outside the station from one airlock to another and going inside and being in exactly the right spot.

This was SO fun. But oh gods, the motion sickness from loss of any notion of up or down. Like, that extra bit of realism - I didn't necessarily want it but appreciate them putting it into the game.