Videogames Thread: Steaming Ahead

[Corvinus85]

I tried the demo for Stargate: Timekeepers. It's a stealth oriented real-time tactics game in the vein of Blades of the Shogun, which is to say it's not my type of game, but Stargate has been my among my favorite SF franchises for a long time. The game needs work, I gave up after 5 minutes. It's a bit buggy. The full release is in December.

Jedi Survivor has had a decent sale so I decided to pick it up despite the continued mixed reviews for PC. And wow, I thought right away I was going to have to return it. It often takes two tries to open the game from Steam because of the stupid EA launcher. Then it stutters through all the launch screens and then spends a couple of minutes optimizing. But that optimization must work, because once I am in the game, it's good. The game looks gorgeous and I haven't had any significant frame rate drops. The story is interesting enough. I got past the intro arc on Coruscant and I'm on Koboh now. I ran into the Rancor, and there is no way I can beat it with the few skills I have. 

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

For myself I did about 4 hours of Assassin's Creed 1, got bored with it and have never touched the series again since. I have been tempted by Black Flag though, everyone seems to say that's the best one.

Black Flag has terrific sailing combat that was first trialed out in AC3 and AC: Rogue (maybe? Haven't tried it yet). 

It also has The Best soundtrack out of all of them, courtesy of Brian Tyler. There is some debate over which is better: AC2 or AC: Black Flag. I still prefer AC3 the most as I like the setting and enjoy having both city and wilderness areas to explore. 

Out of curiosity, what exactly did Origins do that makes it different from Unity/Syndicate? It has levelling/stats and regions with enemies of differing levels, as in earlier games. (I own Origins but struggled to enjoy it, not quite sure why.)

[Caligula_K3]

 

1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

Black Flag has terrific sailing combat that was first trialed out in AC3 and AC: Rogue (maybe? Haven't tried it yet). 

It also has The Best soundtrack out of all of them, courtesy of Brian Tyler. There is some debate over which is better: AC2 or AC: Black Flag. I still prefer AC3 the most as I like the setting and enjoy having both city and wilderness areas to explore. 

Out of curiosity, what exactly did Origins do that makes it different from Unity/Syndicate? It has levelling/stats and regions with enemies of differing levels, as in earlier games. (I own Origins but struggled to enjoy it, not quite sure why.)

I didn't play Syndicate, but compared to earlier AC games that I had played, Origins feels much more like a Witcher 3 style RPG. There's much more in the way of sidequests, the world is much larger, you have a dialogue wheel, and the emphasis is on leveling up your character, rather than just your equipment. But maybe Syndicate was already on that path. The combat system is also overhauled, with much less emphasis on parrying and sneaking.

I liked Origins and Odyssey (though Odyssey was way too long), but Black Flag is by far my favourite Assassin's Creed game. The plot is never good in these games (I would say not even in AC2, which is often praised), but at least in Black Flag, your main character is someone who doesn't care about the Templar/Assassin nonsense and just wants to be a pirate. And the ship gameplay is so fun, while the world is immersive and the perfect size. You do have to do some boring assassin stuff every once in a while, but for me the true ending of the game is defeating the legendary ships, not doing the actual plot.

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

3 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Black Flag has terrific sailing combat that was first trialed out in AC3 and AC: Rogue (maybe? Haven't tried it yet). 

It also has The Best soundtrack out of all of them, courtesy of Brian Tyler. There is some debate over which is better: AC2 or AC: Black Flag. I still prefer AC3 the most as I like the setting and enjoy having both city and wilderness areas to explore. 

Out of curiosity, what exactly did Origins do that makes it different from Unity/Syndicate? It has levelling/stats and regions with enemies of differing levels, as in earlier games. (I own Origins but struggled to enjoy it, not quite sure why.)

AC Rogue came out after Black Flag, basically one last AC game for the xbox360/ps3 generation. It’s a reskin of Black Flag and leads into Unity.

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Out of curiosity, what exactly did Origins do that makes it different from Unity/Syndicate? It has levelling/stats and regions with enemies of differing levels, as in earlier games. (I own Origins but struggled to enjoy it, not quite sure why.)

Apparently Origins was a soft reboot of the series, with a ratcheting down of stealth as the main gameplay mechanic in favour of it being one option among many on how to proceed, and the game moved from being an action-stealth game to more of an open-world (light) RPG. Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla all fit into that mould and apparently the next AC game is similar (Mirage is a DLC for Valhalla that got too big and turned into its own thing).

[IlyaP]

8 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

But maybe Syndicate was already on that path. The combat system is also overhauled, with much less emphasis on parrying and sneaking.

Syndicate and Unity share the problem of the mounting being absolute garbage, with characters getting stuck on things, which drove me absolutely batty. Between that and the sluggish responsiveness and needless busy work (why do I need to level up my gangs exactly? What narrative purpose does this serve?), it was maddening, because conceptually they should both be good, but just feel unfocused, as though the story team and design team aren't quite talking the same language. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

(Mirage is a DLC for Valhalla that got too big and turned into its own thing).

They need to learn from CDPR where Phantom liberty and Blood and Wine were big enough to be full games of their own, they don’t get enough credit for this, meanwhile Ubisoft and CA get away with this crap practice. 

[Slurktan]

6 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

They need to learn from CDPR where Phantom liberty and Blood and Wine were big enough to be full games of their own, they don’t get enough credit for this, meanwhile Ubisoft and CA get away with this crap practice. 

Phantom Liberty is not. Valhalla also had way more content than was actually needed and that's not counting the sizable dlc's. Is it good content? That's not the point.

But regardless Mirage actually changed from the system of Valhalla to something resembling the older games. It's an expansion in the same way ac 4 was. 

[Mexal]

Last Epoch out in February officially. Love this game, looking forward to full release with new classes. Good ARPG, in between PoE and Diablo. 

[IlyaP]

158 hours in, and I've finally finished Valhalla. I'm not remotely interested in the Siege of Paris or Ragnorok dlcs, but I did do the Wrath of the Druids dlc, which ultimately was not very memorable but did have a terrific score.

The map is still cluttered with busywork tasks, including collecting more armor, tomes, resources, and regional mystery investigations - all of which just seem like stuff for the sake of keeping eyeballs on the game, the Netflixification of Assassin's Creed, in a way.

[Argonath Diver]

On 10/29/2023 at 11:15 AM, Mexal said:

Last Epoch out in February officially. Love this game, looking forward to full release with new classes. Good ARPG, in between PoE and Diablo. 

I'm pretty excited. Did you try the Runemaster yet? Holy crap it's seriously some of the most fun moment-to-moment ARPG gameplay I've ever experienced. Just a total blast being able to cast dozens of spells depending on the combo. I didn't take him to endgame, as I think I'm just gonna wait to 1.0 before putting more hours in. 

I also liked their re-vamp of act 1 - the rest of the game could use a bit of a fleshing out as well and I hope that's part of their plan. Obviously the Monolith endgame system needs lots of help, and hopefully they can implement lots and *lots* of endgame stuff to do in general. The crafting system is so fun, and I really hope I can fully kit out a Runemaster come release.

[A True Kaniggit]

On 10/28/2023 at 7:41 AM, Corvinus85 said:

The story is interesting enough. I got past the intro arc on Coruscant and I'm on Koboh now. I ran into the Rancor, and there is no way I can beat it with the few skills I have. 

Luke killed one with a door and a rock. 

[Rhom]

5 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Luke killed one with a door and a rock. 

Tony Stark Luke Skywalker made killed one of these in a cave with a door from scraps and a stick!!!!

I'm not Tony Stark Luke Skywalker...

[Mexal]

10 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I'm pretty excited. Did you try the Runemaster yet? Holy crap it's seriously some of the most fun moment-to-moment ARPG gameplay I've ever experienced. Just a total blast being able to cast dozens of spells depending on the combo. I didn't take him to endgame, as I think I'm just gonna wait to 1.0 before putting more hours in. 

I also liked their re-vamp of act 1 - the rest of the game could use a bit of a fleshing out as well and I hope that's part of their plan. Obviously the Monolith endgame system needs lots of help, and hopefully they can implement lots and *lots* of endgame stuff to do in general. The crafting system is so fun, and I really hope I can fully kit out a Runemaster come release.

Yea agree with everything you’ve said about end game. My Runemaster is lvl 91. Been focusing on frostbite frostclaw. I had run a runic invocation build earlier when leveling but the unpredictability of it made it harder as I went. Fun class though.

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Luke killed one with a door and a rock. 

No doors available. Rocks are decidedly governed by the will of the devs, despite me having a lightsaber, Force abilities and being able to jump really high.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

I know that Hollow Knight is old news at this point, but I finally got the Steel Heart achievement, and I feel fucking magical.

[Poobah]

7 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I know that Hollow Knight is old news at this point, but I finally got the Steel Heart achievement, and I feel fucking magical.

Big congrats, that's a mighty achievement. Took me a lot of work anyway!

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

No doors available. Rocks are decidedly governed by the will of the devs, despite me having a lightsaber, Force abilities and being able to jump really high.

There are bones available to use as well similar to what Luke does in Jedi. However that fight is unlike most of the other fights in the game where it is much more of a bloodborne fight than dark souls. Don't block. Learn the moves, dodge, be aggressive.

[Caligula_K3]

About 60 hours into Starfield. I just discovered that if you are in your spaceship and press the scanner button (Left Button on Xbox), you can land on planets directly from space without having to deal with menus. This is actually a gamechanger.

I've finished up the Crimson Fleet plotline and Ryujin Industries. I really enjoyed both - probably the  best faction questlines in a Bethesda game since Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood? Now I've been working on Vanguard and the main quest.

Spoilers for the Vanguard plotline and main quest:

Spoiler

Wow, it really sucks to live on New Atlantis, doesn't it, especially with the way I timed my quests? First I inadvertently cause a terramorph attack, then like two days later the Starborn are blowing everybody up. The idiotic Constellation members should have perhaps listened to me when I said "HEY, MAYBE WE SHOULD STOP COLLECTING THESE ARTIFACTS NOW THAT WE'RE BEING THREATENED BY AN ADVANCED, POSSIBLY ALIEN, LIFEFORM."

Also, R.I.P. Sarah Morgan. You disapproved of literally everything I did in this game. I retaliated by giving a shitty speech at your funeral.

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Caligula_K3

[Corvinus85]

16 hours ago, Slurktan said:

There are bones available to use as well similar to what Luke does in Jedi. However that fight is unlike most of the other fights in the game where it is much more of a bloodborne fight than dark souls. Don't block. Learn the moves, dodge, be aggressive.

I find dodging to be challenging on PC with a keyboard. I know that this is a console game, but this is how I play. The big frog monster is also another ridiculous challenge which I have skipped over for now.