Video Games: Grinding To Oblivion

[Werthead]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut upgrade extremely reasonably priced.

£3.49, €3.99 or $4.99, if you own the original game. Surprisingly decent.

[Clueless Northman]

Is it too much to ask for "evil" PC's who make rational decisions that occasionally pay off rather than illogical dick moves that barely give a good net profit in the grand scheme of things

Indeed, I have to say that I was severely disappointed in Bioshock when I noticed that you barely gained anything by harvesting the little sisters - the Evil choice obviously. If you choose to be good and free them, it's because of RP reasons, and this should come with a far more substantial cost.

As for my usual playthroughs, I tend to play quite close to my own positions/ideas the first time around. Then pick the sadistic or uber-goodie-good guy the next ones.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut upgrade extremely reasonably priced.

£3.49, €3.99 or $4.99, if you own the original game. Surprisingly decent.

I fail to see why people should have to actually pay to have a few changes in boss fights and removed contents. I mean, mods do this all the time for free for older RPGs, and Witcher Enhanced Edition was issued for free. This shit just deserves to be obtained through usual P2P ways.

Of course, assuming the people already bought the game; it's a good one deserving to be paid - unlike others.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut upgrade

extremely reasonably priced.

£3.49, 3.99 or $4.99, if you own the original game. Surprisingly decent.

not really, the witcher 2 added 2 hours of content along with graphical and game play improvements for free. These guys are just fixing certain issues not adding new content.

[Jon AS]

Indeed, I have to say that I was severely disappointed in Bioshock when I noticed that you barely gained anything by harvesting the little sisters - the Evil choice obviously. If you choose to be good and free them, it's because of RP reasons, and this should come with a far more substantial cost.

Why would evil necessarily pay off while good should be only for selfless altruists?

[Inigima]

I started up a second game of Skyrim, and despite telling myself I was going to play as a Stormcloak this time, I can't do it.

The Stormcloaks are the racists, right? I couldn't bring myself to work for them.

Indeed, I have to say that I was severely disappointed in Bioshock when I noticed that you barely gained anything by harvesting the little sisters - the Evil choice obviously. If you choose to be good and free them, it's because of RP reasons, and this should come with a far more substantial cost.

Why would evil necessarily pay off while good should be only for selfless altruists?

This bothered me too. The game purports to offer a moral dilemma: will you do horrible things for a gameplay advantage? Then it undercuts itself by wimping out. There's no reason, gameplay or RP, to harvest the Little Sisters -- you get more reward, eventually, by being good.

I fail to see why people should have to actually pay to have a few changes in boss fights and removed contents. I mean, mods do this all the time for free for older RPGs, and Witcher Enhanced Edition was issued for free. This shit just deserves to be obtained through usual P2P ways.

Of course, assuming the people already bought the game; it's a good one deserving to be paid - unlike others.

Like it or not, dev time costs and programmers and designers need to be paid.

[Jon AS]

This bothered me too. The game purports to offer a moral dilemma: will you do horrible things for a gameplay advantage? Then it undercuts itself by wimping out. There's no reason, gameplay or RP, to harvest the Little Sisters -- you get more reward, eventually, by being good.

I'd forgotten it was supposed to be a dilemma. That's a different thing then, I was just thinking of it as a simple choice.

[Merentha]

not really, the witcher 2 added 2 hours of content along with graphical and game play improvements for free. These guys are just fixing certain issues not adding new content.

CDPR is a fairly unique developer in that regard. I would call the DXHR upgrade a fairly reasonable price, in that I am willing to pay for it while thinking "hey, reasonable".

Don't say that guys these people are also making battlefront I have high hopes for it :(

Well, then, fortunately for you, their opinion doesn't seem to be the predominant one. BF4's beta has me very excited for the full game.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Well, then, fortunately for you, their opinion doesn't seem to be the predominant one. BF4's beta has me very excited for the full game.

Really? It felt exactly the same as BF3 (which I do like, to be fair) but with dodgy graphics (hopefully because it was a beta). I played the new game mode, obliteration or something, and nothing happened for the entire game, because nobody knew what we were supposed to be doing. I like Battlefield, but I am so far unimpressed.

[Jabronius Maximus]

Really? It felt exactly the same as BF3 (which I do like, to be fair) but with dodgy graphics (hopefully because it was a beta). I played the new game mode, obliteration or something, and nothing happened for the entire game, because nobody knew what we were supposed to be doing. I like Battlefield, but I am so far unimpressed.

The bolded part is why I'm not a fan of Battlfield. Whenever I log on and play (on ps3, sadly EA hates Steam), either I have no idea what I'm doing or my teammates have no idea, which takes the fun out of the game. Obviously the game can be fun, but the learning curve might be a little too steep for the casual gamer.

[Werthead]

I fail to see why people should have to actually pay to have a few changes in boss fights and removed contents. I mean, mods do this all the time for free for older RPGs, and Witcher Enhanced Edition was issued for free. This shit just deserves to be obtained through usual P2P ways.

It's something a lot of people asked for and they clearly spent time and money doing it, so I can see why they'd need to charge for it. There's also other changes, like better graphics (including a whole new lighting system for the game, apparently) and the integration of the DLC into the core game experience (which is less necessary, but still a nice touch).

As for the CDPR comparison, let's be clear here, The Witcher was bugged to hell and gone without the Enhanced Edition. Yes, it was very laudable and generous of CDPR to put a ton of new, other stuff on top of the bug-fixes and everything else, but it was alongside something they needed to do (the pre-EE Witcher was completely unplayable for me). Also, the release of the Enhanced Edition spurred sales of the game, which probably has a lot more to do with the decision to do a Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition as well (and maybe a Witcher 3 one?)

[Merentha]

Really? It felt exactly the same as BF3 (which I do like, to be fair) but with dodgy graphics (hopefully because it was a beta). I played the new game mode, obliteration or something, and nothing happened for the entire game, because nobody knew what we were supposed to be doing. I like Battlefield, but I am so far unimpressed.

Put the glowy white thing in the glowy red things while stopping enemies from putting the white glowy thing in the glowy blue things. Also shoot all the dudes without blue above them. The loading screen does tell you how to play the various game modes. Its Rush with one bomb that has to be carried to one of three bombsites, while you defend your own three bombsites.

Graphics are way better, class design appears better, commanders are back, VOIP is in, squads are up to 5 people which is a step in the right direction, I really like the map (I understand why some people might not) the gun mechanics are better some strange beta-related bugs that remind me of BF3's (and were fixed), destruction is insane and back to BC2 levels if not higher, the vehicle-infantry balance is great for the first time since BF2142, and...yeah. That's kind of it. Its a solid improvement to BF3 in every way, and seems to pull it back towards BF2142, which is still the best Battlefield.

And you can't patch stupidity. BF will always have idiot teammates, which is why friends or a good community are both necessary to play. Reintroducing VOIP is the only way to really attract people to your community, so you don't have to deal with weird teamspeak workarounds that only work to get people who are already included in teamspeak.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Put the glowy white thing in the glowy red things while stopping enemies from putting the white glowy thing in the glowy blue things. Also shoot all the dudes without blue above them. The loading screen does tell you how to play the various game modes. Its Rush with one bomb that has to be carried to one of three bombsites, while you defend your own three bombsites.

Now I didn't know there was a white glowing thing. I found a green glowing thing that looked like a bomb but no action with it was possible.

Graphics are way better

On the Xbox I thought it looked a bit crap after the building collapsed. The dust looked untextured (is that a word?).

class design appears better, commanders are back, VOIP is in, squads are up to 5 people which is a step in the right direction,

I haven't played it enough to have an opinion on these yet.

I really like the map (I understand why some people might not)

It felt very empty to me and the tower collapsed way too quickly IMHO.

the gun mechanics are better some strange beta-related bugs that remind me of BF3's (and were fixed), destruction is insane and back to BC2 levels if not higher, the vehicle-infantry balance is great for the first time since BF2142,

I hadn't noticed any of this stuff. I'll give the beta another go at some point.

I agree with Hector Salamanca regarding the learning curve. I didn't really like Bad Company 2's multiplayer because I just couldn't get into it and I had to stick at BF3 to enjoy it. I'm going to get BF4 regardless, but I wasn't that impressed with what I've seen so far.

[kungtotte]

BC2 has exactly the same game modes as BF3 does, playing it should be virtually identical to BF3 in terms of game modes (Conquest and Rush). BF3 has even more modes when you consider the stuff added by the DLC (Domination, CTF, Assault, Gun Master, Scavenger, Air/Tank Superiority).

I won't be buying BF4 on release anyway. Partly because the price is ridiculous and partly because I don't like the direction they're going with the map designs. However, the BF3 beta map was pretty different from most of the other maps in the game so I will wait and see what the rest of them are like. The digital pre-order costs 599 SEK for me ($92.75, what the fuck?!) and all you get for that is the China Rising DLC. If I buy the non-digital version that also includes China Rising it's 495 SEK/$76...

[Merentha]

I have no idea what the xbox looks like or plays like, but expecting a game to play well and look good when its being run on 8 year old hardware is weird. No, its not going to look great, because it really shouldn't be running on the system at all. While DICE does do downscaling really well, there's no way a top of the line computer from that era could come close to running the game. They also, wisely, do not appear to have gone to great lengths to try to make it extremely pretty at 360-levels of graphics power, because that would take tremendous time trying to optimize for a grossly outdated system. Also, I never played any of the games on console, so my BF experience and what I expect out of a BF game may be totally different from yours. I cannot imagine being capped at 24 players on any map, ever, and still calling it a BF game. (Close Quarters BF3 DLC excepted, and that was really a mappack for fun CoD-like quick pickup games)

I agree that the area at C looks pretty bad once the tower comes down, though the tan effect everywhere is kind of cool.

I won't be buying BF4 on release anyway. Partly because the price is ridiculous and partly because I don't like the direction they're going with the map designs. However, the BF3 beta map was pretty different from most of the other maps in the game so I will wait and see what the rest of them are like. The digital pre-order costs 599 SEK for me ($92.75, what the fuck?!) and all you get for that is the China Rising DLC. If I buy the non-digital version that also includes China Rising it's 495 SEK/$76...

Make sure you're not accidentally getting the digital deluxe edition or whatever the fuck. Origin store has the preorder standard edition for 59.99 for me, including China Rising.

edit:vvvvv Huh. That's...dumb.

[kungtotte]

The digital deluxe edition (China Rising, some battle packs and the vehicle shortcut pack) is 699 SEK/$108.23 for me.

[Fez]

Well, I grinded it out and beat FFXIII in just under 41 hours. I've got a sense of accomplishment from moving another game out of my unbeaten pile, but, like I said before and like I think everyone agrees, its a flawed game. Although my main complaint is actually not the linearity (although that is a problem), but rather that the plot basically stops at the mid-way point and never really starts back up again except at the very, very end. In fact, forget plot, there's barely any character-interaction cutscenes after the midway point; which means that the last 17 or 18 hours are nothing but an endless stream of battles broken up only by a few hours of really simple exploration near the start of that and a handful of very pretty cutscenes.

And the battle system is not nearly engaging enough to sustain that kind of slog. I ended up listening to podcasts and playing the game on mute, and only turning the sound back on when there was a cutscene of some kind, and went hours at a time before I had to do so.

ETA: Still, I'm glad I beat it. And FFXIII-3 does look interesting enough to get when it comes out (gonna skip -2).

[fuseprime]

Fez,

I agree with you regarding XIII's plot, but I would give -2 a shot before you pull the trigger on -3. -1 is not memorable at all. Actually, -2 had a worse story, but I thought it was a much more enjoyable game (if that makes sense). I also thought it was a deeper game, the battles are more enjoyable, the "pokemon" you collect and build make the game interesting, and the fact that there are only 2 "main" characters (with cameos from the 'ole gang) helps avoid "filler". I'm just a sucker for JPRGs and FF in particular (even though I haven't enjoyed any since X). I'll be getting -3 on launch, but I'm not really excited for it.

FFXV on the other hand...