Videogames Thread: Steaming Ahead

[Fez]

8 hours ago, Werthead said:

RPS has done it's reader-nominated Top 25 CRPGs ever list.

I'd probably agree, although I'm pretty sure last year they made it a Top 100 but whatever. Also, technically, Mass Effect 2 is on here twice.

1. Disco Elysium
2. The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
3. Planescape: Torment
4. Baldur's Gate III
5. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
6. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
7. Deus Ex
8. Dragon Age: Origins
9. Fallout: New Vegas
10. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
11. Divinity: Original Sin II
12. Mass Effect 2
13. Fallout
14. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
15. Elden Ring
16. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
17. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
18. Dark Souls
19. Chrono Trigger
20. Baldur's Gate
21. Fallout 2
22. Arcanum: Of Steelworks and Magick Obscura
23. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
24. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
25. Final Fantasy VI

Generally a strong list; though I'd bump up Pathfinder: WoTR a lot and probably push down BG3 at least a few spots. Also, I feel like Final Fantasy Tactics is a notable omission; maybe drop Mass Effect 2 since it already counts as part of the Legendary Edition (and bump that up a bunch).

[Werthead]

Ha, an amusing mission in Starfield where you have to design a ship for your Constellation colleague's staryard company and it's possible to make a ludicrous monstrosity that's not very practical. Pretty sure this was a homage to that episode of The Simpsons with Homer's brother.

[Ser Not Appearing]

27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Ha, an amusing mission in Starfield where you have to design a ship for your Constellation colleague's staryard company and it's possible to make a ludicrous monstrosity that's not very practical. Pretty sure this was a homage to that episode of The Simpsons with Homer's brother.

I don't think I finished that one yet but I chose the more reasonable option. What happens if you submit the luxury one?

[Corvinus85]

I find the ship builder UI for Starfield to be clunky and not really that intuitive. I haven't made a serious effort yet to build a ship yet, just made weapon upgrades to whichever is my home ship. I need to watch some YouTube vids on it.

[Caligula_K3]

All right, I'm going ahead and getting an X Box Series S. And now, the big question: which of the humongous games that I've missed out on over the last six years should I start with? Baldur's Gate 3 isn't out yet, so that'll have to wait.

Starfield? It's recent and included in Game Pass, so that's a plus.

Cyberpunk? New expansion just came out and I hear it's a lot better than launch.

Elden Ring? It's ELDEN RING, and probably the game I'm most excited about playing. On the other hand, Dark Souls games are stressful and should maybe wait for a vacation.

Red Dead Redemption 2?

[Ser Not Appearing]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I find the ship builder UI for Starfield to be clunky and not really that intuitive. I haven't made a serious effort yet to build a ship yet, just made weapon upgrades to whichever is my home ship. I need to watch some YouTube vids on it.

It's *rough* in my opinion.

[Ser Not Appearing]

2 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

All right, I'm going ahead and getting an X Box Series S. And now, the big question: which of the humongous games that I've missed out on over the last six years should I start with? Baldur's Gate 3 isn't out yet, so that'll have to wait.

Starfield? It's recent and included in Game Pass, so that's a plus.

Cyberpunk? New expansion just came out and I hear it's a lot better than launch.

Elden Ring? It's ELDEN RING, and probably the game I'm most excited about playing. On the other hand, Dark Souls games are stressful and should maybe wait for a vacation.

Red Dead Redemption 2?

Elden Ring. It's tough like Dark Souls but the fact that you can just go nope out and go somewhere else for awhile makes it so much less stressful. You do die a lot at the beginning but that passes with time.

I'm a huge Bethesda fan but I think Elden Ring is absolutely spectacular. Plus, then when you circle back to Starfield you'll likely have a better experience (UI and QOL changes and maybe mods and maybe DLC) than playing immediately.

[Fez]

8 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

All right, I'm going ahead and getting an X Box Series S. And now, the big question: which of the humongous games that I've missed out on over the last six years should I start with? Baldur's Gate 3 isn't out yet, so that'll have to wait.

Starfield? It's recent and included in Game Pass, so that's a plus.

Cyberpunk? New expansion just came out and I hear it's a lot better than launch.

Elden Ring? It's ELDEN RING, and probably the game I'm most excited about playing. On the other hand, Dark Souls games are stressful and should maybe wait for a vacation.

Red Dead Redemption 2?

Of your list, Elden Ring. It's amazing and way less stressful than most From games by nature of it's open world.

I'd also strongly rec (if you haven't played them): NieR Automata, The Witcher 3 (just in case you haven't, it is 8 years old now though), the entire recent Hitman trilogy, and Yakuza: Like A Dragon (if you like turn-based games) or Yakuza 0 (if you like action bralwers).

[IlyaP]

The first preview for Ionlands' next game, the absolutely gorgeous Nivalis, is now live: 

A sequel to Cloudpunk, the game looks to be something of a cyberpunk life sim, which basically means this is going to destroy my social life. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Has Jeremy Soule been cancelled permanently from the gaming industry than ? I always considered him to be the John Williams of gaming….Would love to hear his music again in some game

[IlyaP]

He's worked a little bit since 2019's numerous sexual, workplace, and financial allegations, but not much. 

[Jace, Extat]

Starting a Hearts of Iron 4 playthrough as Japan. Only change is I'm gonna try to make America stay neutral. 

Cheers

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

19 hours ago, IlyaP said:

He's worked a little bit since 2019's numerous sexual, workplace, and financial allegations, but not much. 

Wish he had fucked up after making music for the Elder Scrolls VI. Personally find Inon Zur generic high fantasy guy, would’ve preferred Jack Wall if not Soule.

[Werthead]

On 9/22/2023 at 12:47 AM, IlyaP said:

The first preview for Ionlands' next game, the absolutely gorgeous Nivalis, is now live: 

A sequel to Cloudpunk, the game looks to be something of a cyberpunk life sim, which basically means this is going to destroy my social life. 

Cloudpunk was outrageously good. That reminds me I still need to play the expansion (although it's less of an expansion and a more a whole new game the same size as the original).

[Corvinus85]

On 9/16/2023 at 8:59 PM, Werthead said:

Starfield certainly took a turn.

  Reveal hidden contents

One of my companion characters was brutally murdered and then New Atlantis's spaceport was flooded with Terrormorphs, resulting in chaos on the streets, civilian casualties and UC marines being torn to pieces.

Well-played Bethesda, well-played.

 

On 9/17/2023 at 12:12 AM, Ser Not Appearing said:

 

Yep.

  Reveal hidden contents

I believe there's always two possibilities in that scenario. The first is that the companion you have the most affinity with will die or Barret will die. Depending on who's with you when you go to the lodge and what choice you make in that dialogue, that determines which dies. In my case that was Coe.

I got the little girl's dad killed.

 

 

huh

Spoiler

the only attack I saw was the Hunter trying to kill the Constellation people and take the Artifacts. Civilians were running around because of the shooting he and I were doing. 

Sarah got killed on the Eye, she was the only member for whom I completed their personal quest. And Barrett was my companion because of the quest with the collector.

After returning from the Eye, the Spaceport was briefly on lockdown with metal walls blocking the area but some gaping entrances in them. hmmm I don't know where there supposed to be creatures, or do I need to trigger something for that to happen?

The game does have some annoying bugs, like after I did the mission with the Crimson Fleet to go to the prison, the inclement weather warning became permanently stuck on my status.

[Maia]

On 9/20/2023 at 5:29 PM, Martell Spy said:

Much as I loved them, I do think it's good thing games have evolved past the old type of random encounters. It could be pretty frustrating to have half a dozen random encounters happen as you try to cross a stretch of overland forest, each with a loading screen.

Well, that's one of the things why I love the Etrian Oddyssey games - they do random encounters right. You have an indicator for how likely one is to happen, for instance, and for some steps after a fight you are completely safe. There are also skills and items that can stop them for a time if they become annoying. But you want to fight them for the most part because of the materials they drop and levelling. They are also not trivial during first exploration, but can be auto-fought once you out-level them. 

Anyway, this Wizardry re-master doesn't sound appealing. They should do the last one instead - I played a little of that and I seem to nebulously remember that it was much more fleshed out.

 

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

 

huh

  Hide contents

the only attack I saw was the Hunter trying to kill the Constellation people and take the Artifacts. Civilians were running around because of the shooting he and I were doing. 

Sarah got killed on the Eye, she was the only member for whom I completed their personal quest. And Barrett was my companion because of the quest with the collector.

After returning from the Eye, the Spaceport was briefly on lockdown with metal walls blocking the area but some gaping entrances in them. hmmm I don't know where there supposed to be creatures, or do I need to trigger something for that to happen?

The game does have some annoying bugs, like after I did the mission with the Crimson Fleet to go to the prison, the inclement weather warning became permanently stuck on my status.

I think it was the mission combo.

Spoiler

That mission came up at the exact time the UC Vanguard questline culminated. The terrormorphs show up in that storyline. It's just that I triggered the two missions right after one another, resulting in unexpected extra mayhem.

 

[polishgenius]

I decided to take aim at both my continuing post-Zelda-doldrums and my 'the Pokemon DLC was crap' irritation at the same time and get a game that kind of fits in between both: Dragon Quest Treasures. It's a spinoff of Dragon Quest XI where you play a young Eric and Mia diverted to a(n even more) magical land to search for treasure in partnership with monsters.

It's not gonna be Game of the Year material or anything, but all things considered, the amount of effort and polish and craft that has gone into what is essentially a child-targeted spinoff is surprising. It's not a deep game in terms of its story or its gameplay loop - find treasure, go back to base to unload, head out again, while managing a party of monsters you recruit and building up said base- but they haven't stinted at all on the world design and even though the loop and gameplay is simple it's well-balanced and there are underlying details to pay attention to if you want. 

 

Also: quite frankly even Tears of the Kingdom could have done with some of the fantastical joy-of-life they put into the design: sure, Zelda's world is much more polished and free and etc etc, but since you can't take a sky-train from your base in a giant egg to go paraglide a bat off a dead dragon's nose, DQT gets some points in that regard.  

[Ser Not Appearing]

21 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

 

Huh?

  Hide contents

the only attack I saw was the Hunter trying to kill the Constellation people and take the Artifacts. Civilians were running around because of the shooting he and I were doing. 

Sarah got killed on the Eye, she was the only member for whom I completed their personal quest. And Barrett was my companion because of the quest with the collector.

After returning from the Eye, the Spaceport was briefly on lockdown with metal walls blocking the area but some gaping entrances in them. hmmm I don't know where there supposed to be creatures, or do I need to trigger something for that to happen?

 

I read up on it after posting that and I was wrong on who it was limited to. I guess there are two pairs.

[AndrewJ]

5 hours ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

I read up on it after posting that and I was wrong on who it was limited to. I guess there are two pairs.

What I read was the person you have highest affinity with will be in The Eye (Andreja for me) and the person with second highest will be in The Lodge (Sarah).