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Started by Spalls Hurgenson
Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:16
What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:16
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 05:16
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17737 bytes
Wow, it really is Autumn, isn't it? When November started it certainly didn't feel like it - we were still getting warm-n-sunny 65-degree days - but these last few weeks have been grey, cold and dark. And if the weather wasn't enough to keep us all inside, there's also the pre-Holiday influx of new games to keep us all busy. So once again, it's time for this newsgroups monthly tradition of detailing our play-lists for the last thirty days. Let everyone here know what games kept you occupied as we edged ever-closer to winter. Here's my list. -------------------- Short and Sweet -------------------- * Resident Evil 6 (new) * ADR1FT (new) * Gears of War 3 (XBox350) (replay) * Doom 4 (new) * 35mm (new) * Cities Skylines (replay) TL; DR ---------- * Resident Evil 6 (new) I am generally not a fan of the Resident Evil series; both the gameplay and storylines usually leave me underwhelmed. But far be it from me not to give credit where credit is due; Resident Evil 6 gives you /a lot/ of content. Its first campaign is probably as long as the whole of Resident Evil 5's campaign, and you get three more campaigns in addition to that (in fairness, the next three storylines are shorter than the first, but it still an impressive amount). I also enjoyed the characterization of the various protagonists; you are introduced to each of them in a preceding campaign where they come off as one-dimensional, but when you actually follow their stories you realize there is some depth to them. The four campaigns intertwine in an interesting way, although each has its own unique set of levels that only briefly intersect at certain points. Lacking in any eye-catching set-pieces, the maps themselves are well-detailed (although the texture work could use some improvement), with good variety in design, albeit as off-the-wall unrealistic as I've come to expect most Capcom (and indeed, Japanese) games. Resident Evil 6 also boasts an impressive variety of weapons and monsters. But while the above makes for an impressive list, the game fails in its actual gameplay. Its various campaigns offer some variety - the first is a pretty standard survival-horror in the vein of Dead Space or RE5, the second is more focuses on the shooting, the third campaign requires you to focus on your character's mobility more and the third has strong stealth elements - they all suffer from one common flaw: a huge over-reliance on quick-time events. You can't cross a room without encountering at least one QTE. They aren't even particularly good quick-time events that require skill; they are either incredibly easy (and thus pointless) or of the sort you can only master by dying first because the game doesn't give you any time to see what button needs be pressed before killing you. The developers also delighted in over-using the tired mechanic of having you run towards the camera while something deadly chases you from behind, complete with shifting camera angles (and controls) just to make things even less fun. None of these segments are difficult, and none of them are fun. The rest of the game is fairly standard shooting, albeit with monsters that tend to be a bit too resilient and with annoying multi-stage "puzzle bosses" (complete with the dull-as-dishwater glowing-orange vulnerabilities mechanic that should have been put out to pasture in the Playstation era). And the less said about the ridiculous storyline and characters the better; computer games may never win awards for best writing but why is it that Capcom games always seem to pull from the bottom of the barrel? All in all, I found the technical aspects impressive but while actually playing it I frequently found myself muttering "I hate this game" when it forced an awful camera angle on me, or for its sluggish controls, or when it dumped me into another dull quick-time event, or even made me endure FOUR unskippable end-credit sequences. For all its modern amenities, overall Resident Evil felt mechanically archaic, like its developers were still stuck in the SNES era and hadn't noticed that gameplay had evolved significantly over the past 30 years. * ADR1FT (new) It didn't really occur to me that ADR1FT (Adrift henceforth, because I refuse to speak type like that any more) was a VR game; it really wasn't advertised as such. Rather, I purchased it understanding it was a narrative simulator (a.k.a., a "walking game", in the vein of "Gone Home" or "The Stanley Parable"). But I guess it has to be judged solely on its VR capabilities, because it is so lacking in everything else. Oh, I suppose the graphics are appealing, at least for the first five or ten minutes. The problem is that there is almost no variety and almost all the modules are introduced immediately after the game starts. I very quickly got tired of slowly drifting through the same crew quarters, computer rooms and gardens I had seen a dozen times before. Ironically, there is no real narrative to this narrative game; no characters (and hence no character development), no structure to the story, no antagonist, not even a protagonist really. You muck about slowly picking up audio-diaries that tell you the back-story but it doesn't really matter since it plays no part in how the game ends. The gameplay is dull, even for a "walking sim". Because your air-supply doubles as your thrust (and because your space-suit apparently has all the ruggedness of a wet tissue), I was forced to fly at the slowest possible pace, every now and again grabbing an air canister to restock my supplies. You bob about from the center of the space station out to its outermost points and then back again, essentially pushing the same buttons and repeating the same task four times. The only real difference is the amount and type of debris that is littered before you (a genuine hazard to anyone wearing a spacesuit made out of Kleenex). It's dull and made unnecessarily confusing by the fact that your way-point's only show up for five seconds at a time and only when you are practically on top of them anyway. Possibly if I owned a VR headset (a waste of money, I've decided) the experience might have been different... but I don't think so. Certainly the 6-degrees of freedom would make for a nauseating experience that some might find enjoyable, but even so I think the lack of any real progression or any interesting goal would make even the most dedicated VR-head get much enjoyment from the software. It's a shallow and empty adventure no matter how you experience it. * Gears of War 3 (XBox350) (replay) I didn't play Gears of War 3 out of any great desire to play Gears of War 3. Rather, I wanted a game that was rather straight-forward and simple, something I could whip through fairly quickly so it could be added to the monthly play-list; and also a game I' could play on my XBox so I wouldn't feel like I had wasted hundreds of dollars on the device. It just happened that GOW3 was one of the first games I came across that fit those criteria. It is not, per se, that there is really anything /wrong/ with Gears of War 3; it ticks all the expected boxes for a modern FPS. But it is so flavorless, lacking any real character of its own; it is a one-note game featuring improbably bulky examples of angry machismo facing off against shallow villains who might as well be grey cubes for all the detail they are given. The monsters exist solely to be shot, and the protagonist is there only to shoot them. Stripped down, it is mechanically the same game-play as Space Invaders and I suppose if that sort of condensed experience appeals to you it is a good game, but I prefer a somewhat less threadbare experience; something I'll actually remember ten minutes after I shut down the console. I'll grant that some of the architecture and detailing in the levels is impressive, not that the game gives you any opportunity to linger and enjoy the visuals. Unfortunately, that's about the best I can say for the game; GOW3 lacks any interesting set-pieces, with one battle running pretty much into the next without much difference between them. In fact, except for the addition of a little bit of green, I'd be hard-pressed to correctly identify whether any scene takes place in this game or the previous two iterations of the franchise (which were uniformly grey and dull). Still, I was looking for a basic shooter and I suppose that Gears of War 3 satisfied me in that respect; it's not memorable, but it let me while away a few hours. That's about as good a recommendation as I can give it. * Doom 4 (new) If Doom 3 was a reboot of the original Doom, then Doom 4 (or Doom 2016, or DOOM, or whatever I am supposed to call it) feels like a reboot to Doom 2. For all its gory and fast-paced action, the first Doom game was equally drenched in atmosphere; with its (at the time very sophisticated) lighting effects, it was at times a genuinely creepy game, with moments of quiet suspense that inevitably lead to balls-to-the-wall gunfights as soon as you crossed some invisible trigger. Doom 2, on the other hand, forsake much of this flavor in favor of gimmicky levels and a focus on the gameplay. Personally, I consider the former the better game, but I can understand the appeal of the second. Doom 4 is not without its own character and mood, but it is obvious that such played second fiddle to the combat. The story is shallow even for a Doom game (although interestingly, it appears to be a sequel of sorts to the first game), and its environmental design never seems to stretch much beyond the basic "hi-tech base covered in blood" motif. It's all very well detailed, but not particularly imaginative and it would have been nice to see the developers stretch a bit beyond those tired tropes that have been carrying the game since 1994. Instead, they focused on refining the gameplay, and I'm not sure it was to the game's advantage. In order to make the game play "faster", they added in a "glory kill" system (essentially, a coup de grace melee attack) which is the primary way of earning ammo and health pick-ups. Unfortunately, melee combat in first-person shooters generally sucks and it isn't any better in Doom 4; the only difference is that it is mandatory in this game if you don't want to die. I was never comfortable with the system and made as little use of it as I could, finding ranged attacks both more effective and less dangerous. Oddly, I found that while the glory kill system made the combat feel more hectic, it did little to speed up the game (much of which was slowed down by the inevitable after-combat crawl for power-ups and secrets). In another interesting similarity to Doom 2, Doom 4 also featured a tremendous amount of platforming. It wasn't any fun back in 1996, and it hasn't improved an iota in the two decades since. I was flabbergasted at how much jumping over bottomless pits this game contained, since first-person platforming is almost universally loathed; it just seems such an unusual addition. I was not particularly impressed by the graphics. Don't get me wrong; Doom 4 is a pretty game, but Id's tech has been the benchmark against which other engines and games are measured. Doom 4, on the other hand, was only average in appearance; there are far prettier games on the market. Having said that, Id does deserve kudos for how well it OPTIMIZED that engine; even running on a three year old GPU (and a five year old CPU), the game ran at a constant 60FPS with almost all the settings on Ultra. In the end, I found Doom 4 a mixed bag. Like Doom 2, I can understand its appeal to some people, but it felt far too one-dimensional for my taste; even Doom 3 - for all its problematic monster closets - felt a fresher and more interesting game. * 35mm (new) For all that I am constantly disappointed by the genre, I keep giving these so-called "narrative games" another chance. That's because when they work, they can be very powerful experiences (if only for the single pl ay-through). Unfortunately, Sturgeon's Law applies and narrative games that "work" are far and few between. Still, I was hopeful for 35mm. It had an interesting post-apocalyptic setting and was developed by some Russians, masters of the hopeless tale. Yet even before I began my quest there were hints of problems to come. The most glaring - but not the most serious - was the awful localization. Although I can forgive the lack of English dubbing (personally, I found the game more atmospheric in Russian), the English subtitles were rife with typos and misspellings. It made the game feel amateurish and consistently pulled me out of the experience. There were even several typos on the main menu screen. The gameplay mechanics were poorly explained; what was the goal? Where was I going? Did I need to manually eat the food I was collecting? Why is the screen going blurry? The actual gameplay was little better; like most narrative games, it consists of trundling slowly across the landscape and interacting with the environment to progress the story, except those interactions were far too infrequent to keep up interest. The grey and unsaturated environment, at first so appealingly atmospheric, quickly turned dull and - eventually - so dark it was difficult for me to make out my surroundings (even with the brightness turned up both in game settings and on the monitor itself; it made Doom 3 appear brilliant in comparison). The puzzles were annoyingly random or trial-n-error, and the payoff was unrewarding. The world looks open at first, but is surrounded by invisible walls that hem you in to the straight and narrow. The end result was a narrative game that lacked both a compelling narrative and interesting (or any, really) gameplay. It didn't even benefit - as did the Vanishing of Ethan Carter - from breath-taking graphics. It was a literally lackluster game made by a team who thought a dreary atmosphere was enough to carry a game that lacked an engaging story, world, gameplay or technology. Well, it doesn't. * Cities Skylines (replay) I don't have much to say about Cities: Skylines' gameplay because, honestly, it isn't that much advanced from SimCity 2000, which was released 23 years ago. That's not a bad thing, of course; SimCity 2000 was a seminal game and it's just as fun to play today as it was back then. It is somewhat disappointing, however, that the genre hasn't significantly advanced in two decades, but credit to the developers for matching that classic gameplay. I could say a lot more about the graphics though, because man is this game gorgeous. I caught myself firing up the game a number of times just to look at my cities, which are even more gorgeous with the "After Dark" DLC. User-created mods only increase the beauty even more. Of course, that's also the biggest weakness of this game; that the developers are either charging for features - weather, disasters, a day/night cycle - or depending on end-users to mod them in when they should have been part of the base game is sort of disgraceful, and I can't honestly recommend the game until the inevitable Game-of-the-Year edition is released that includes them all in one convenient (and affordable) package. While I understand the developers are a small cash-strapped independent team, this is the sort of sad nickel-and-diming that should never be encouraged, no matter how good the base game. -------------------- And that's me, for this month. A mix of new and old games, generally impressed on the technological front and disappointed by gameplay and setting. Alas, that's more and more the usual for games these days... Anyway, enough of my muttering. Now it's your turn: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Toby Newman
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 09:06
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 09:06
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On 2016-12-01, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: > * ADR1FT (new) > It didn't really occur to me that ADR1FT (Adrift henceforth, because I > refuse to speak type like that any more) was a VR game; it really > wasn't advertised as such. Rather, I purchased it understanding it was > a narrative simulator (a.k.a., a "walking game", in the vein of "Gone > Home" or "The Stanley Parable"). But I guess it has to be judged > solely on its VR capabilities, because it is so lacking in everything > else. >[...] > Possibly if I owned a VR headset (a waste of money, I've decided) the > experience might have been different... but I don't think so. > Certainly the 6-degrees of freedom would make for a nauseating > experience that some might find enjoyable, but even so I think the > lack of any real progression or any interesting goal would make even > the most dedicated VR-head get much enjoyment from the software. It's > a shallow and empty adventure no matter how you experience it. In VR the game wrenches control from you every time you pass an O2 cannister, causing disorientation and nausea. It's the only game I've ever left a negative Steam review for. > * Doom 4 (new) > If Doom 3 was a reboot of the original Doom, then Doom 4 (or Doom > 2016, or DOOM, or whatever I am supposed to call it) feels like a > reboot to Doom 2. For all its gory and fast-paced action, the first > Doom game was equally drenched in atmosphere; with its (at the time > very sophisticated) lighting effects, it was at times a genuinely > creepy game, with moments of quiet suspense that inevitably lead to > balls-to-the-wall gunfights as soon as you crossed some invisible > trigger. Doom 2, on the other hand, forsake much of this flavor in > favor of gimmicky levels and a focus on the gameplay. Personally, I > consider the former the better game, but I can understand the appeal > of the second. > [...] > I was not particularly impressed by the graphics. Don't get me wrong; > Doom 4 is a pretty game, but Id's tech has been the benchmark against > which other engines and games are measured. Doom 4, on the other hand, > was only average in appearance; there are far prettier games on the > market. Having said that, Id does deserve kudos for how well it > OPTIMIZED that engine; even running on a three year old GPU (and a > five year old CPU), the game ran at a constant 60FPS with almost all > the settings on Ultra. I think they are to be commended for paying attention to optimisation. I'm tired of AAA games that think it's OK to dip the framerate during intenses scenes. The Doom engine is incredible and consistent. -- -Toby Add the word afiduluminag to the subject to circumvent my email filters.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 18:41
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 18:41
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On 11/30/2016 9:16 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: > * Resident Evil 6 (new) I rather liked the movies. So I tried an RE game a long time ago, I don't remember which one, but I absolutely hated it. It had some of the worst controls and angles of any game I've ever played, so never tried another. I kept thinking maybe I played the wrong one, and that one was just bad. It sounds like 6 wouldn't be for me either. > * 35mm (new) > For all that I am constantly disappointed by the genre, I keep giving > these so-called "narrative games" another chance. That's because when > they work, they can be very powerful experiences (if only for the > single pl ay-through). Unfortunately, Sturgeon's Law applies and > narrative games that "work" are far and few between. Which ones are good? I keep seeing these top rated on steam by everyone, but I worry they aren't for me, and haven't taken the plunge on one to see. > Anyway, enough of my muttering. Now it's your turn: Always a pleasure reading your reviews. You're much more eloquent then I could manage. > > What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016? _________________________________________ The Crew w/ Wild Run & Calling All Units Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon The Deadly Tower of Monsters Downwell Fable 3 _________________________________________ The Crew (PC/Xbox 360, continued MMO RACING). Mostly. Still. I bought and tried the xbox 360 version, which looked horrible compared to even the lowest settings on the PC, and was dead for online play, as the PVP was the part I enjoyed the most that made that version useless to me. Then I finally broke down and bought a new MB, CPU & Memory and it plays well now. More on the Wild Run DLC: I thought you would be able to PVP in the new Monster, Drag and Drift specs but you can't. There's only single player skills/trials rated against other players. I've been playing the Summit, and found I do actually like the FD challenge, I've been able to get up to level 30 on it and could've gotten higher, but it takes a lot of time, which I don't have in a single session, and you have to start over if you stop playing. I can tell I suck as a driver as I'm usually last or near it on the summit PVP in which everyone has the same cars, and low fps isn't to blame any more with the new computer. I don't really like the Summit PVP compared to the regular PVP, for the reason there's not much choice in races, they only give you 7, and my favorites aren't usually there. I usually only play it once for each 7 to try the different cars out. That still eats up most of my play time though. I was starting to find this disheartening that I was so bad at it, I may be getting better, but very very slowly, It'd probably take me a year to get up to the skill of the average person I run across in summit PVP. I also find that I'm next to last most of the time, but only because there's somebody who isn't even trying and probably just randomly hitting buttons so they don't get kicked and get the rewards while watching TV or something. I admit I kind of half-assed some races myself while semi-watching some music videos. There's absolutely no penalty for losing in the Summit PVP, while in normal PVP you lose rank (not that rank seems to do anything other than put a rank next to your name in races and let you buy rank number stickers). Just as a funny story in PVP from yesterday. In a dirt race (my worst pvp skill, and most hated) which I was last, the next to last person was going off saying "I've never seen so many bad drivers! Especially that brown Cherokee." - I was driving the brown Cherokee. Lol! I think he was implying I was causing him to lose somehow. The next race on street he was last and I was 2nd, then he blamed his new controller. I laughed! ---------- Calling All Units - DLC for The Crew. I bought it yesterday and got to play with it a couple hours. I mostly got it because you have to to raise the level cap to 60, and if you don't you can't be competitive in PVP stuck at 50, not to mention the game keeps nagging you to go pick up your free cop car every 2 minutes, which isn't free as you have to get the DLC to get it. I gave in as I've been playing this game for months, and there's no sub fee, and it was only $25 so I figured I play it enough to give back that much, and maybe they'll be something I like in it. It looks like getting to 60 will be quick, I'm already 57 - all in the new cop missions, which look to be the way to make money/xp fast now. I get $7k & 20k xp per mission, and you can do the first one really fast most time - probably less than 30 seconds, possibly under minute with overhead (pressing buttons/loading pre & post mission), especially now that I found out you can skip the cutscene (which you can'd do in PVP normally). PVP with all the overhead was the best previously which when good was about $2.7k a minute on the best races, so perhaps 2-3x as fast. Doing the missions over and over could get boring pretty quick, but I've managed to keep myself entertained by trying to do it faster/better score each time, and switching to dirt mission after my street car was maxed. There's only a few (7?) cars that can be bought as cop cars, only one is new - the Jeep Wrangler. Which is a Dirt Spec, which is my least favorite of all the specs, with the possible exception of Drift. All the cop cars are of the previously available specs, but are special cop cars which you have to have to do the cop missions & cop PVP. I'd mention if you do get CAU don't bother to upgrade your cop cars, you get huge part bonuses doing the cop missions, I was getting something like a +64 level part each time, and had my Street cop car maxed out in an hour of doing that, while you normally get something like +8 doing skills. I made the mistake of blowing $350k on upgrades for the circuit one before I realized that, and the parts were level 50 instead of 60 so will be useless when I get to 60. Which brings up another point, it looks like they added a new type of part, which has a diamond, and gives bonuses to all of the stats, so it looks like there's no more having to decide between a bonus to braking, grip, acceleration or speed. I've mostly (perhaps only after 50?) been getting diamond parts, so it looks like they won't be hard to get. I'm sure that'll piss some people off who liked their secret perfect combination of bonuses that gave them just enough of an edge, but it means less grinding and a fairer playing field, I'm all for it. The PVP part of CAU I didn't like so far. I got invited to chase some guys as a cop (which it seems you are every second in free-drive), but It didn't seem like I had the slightest chance to catch them. I'm not sure if it's again just that I suck, or it needs some re-balancing. I did it before trying the missions, which is the same situation only against an AI, now that I've had some practice, I might be better. I'll have to try it again and on the bad-guy side. Apparently you can get some cars through the PVP of CAU, but I haven't looked into it yet, and I'm not going to try it again until I'm level 60 and maxed out on parts at least for my circuit cop car. I still have a hard time believing I'm enjoying and hooked on a PVP MMO driving game, as I've never been much for PVP (though I did play the original counterstrike back in the day with a friend for a couple years). I gave up on MMOs after City of Heroes was killed, and usually avoid them because of the time suck, grind, crafting crap that I hate, and requirement to be online at certain times for guilds and raids (which is why I gave up Star Wars - Galaxy of Heroes recently, and that's a phone game!). Fortunately this one has very little of any of that. I've never really been into driving games either, unless you count GTA & Spyhunter. But enough about The Crew, Here's the games I tried to try to wean myself off of it... ------------------------------ Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon (PC FPS, first play) Hey, it was free on Uplay, so I tried it. I didn't get very far. The beginning was pretty cool, ultra-80's machismo & the main character complaining about the tutorial. But after I got into the real game-play I found it just a bit of pretty standard FPS with really bad visual art that made finding enemies difficult and the controls felt sluggish. For some reason I was getting really bad frame rates in this older game too. All that just turned me off, and I wasn't into it enough to bother trying to troubleshoot all that. I wouldn't recommend this one for more than $1, but for free the intro was cool enough to play for a bit. ------------------------------ Deadly Tower of Monsters (PC, indy, new) A 50's Sci-Fi movie parody 3rd person view shooter/fighter/puzzle/platformer. I don't know I'd really call this a platformer/puzzle game as the puzzles were so easy I never had a single problem with any, and there was only one spot that was even slightly difficult for platforming. So mostly a 3rd person iso view fighter/shooter sort of Diablo-like without random loot. It's 50's Sci-Fi movie parody was the best part of this game, There's a 'DVD commentary track' over the game which is mildly funny too. I'd note the commentary is mostly while you're playing which makes it less intrusive. There are cut-scenes, but they were short and infrequent enough they actually felt like they added to the game instead of taking away from it. The gameplay itself was just o.k. The 'tower' aspect is kind of innovative, you can jump off it to get down to certain things you can't otherwise get to and fall slowly looking down (low gravity?) and can see everything below you. You can collect and upgrade various weapons, I chose to go with the energy whip mostly for melee, which upgraded to a red energy whip then to a tentacle whip, and liked the taser upgraded to the Tessla gun best for ranged. The energy sword (lightsaber) was probably the best melee weapon, but you get it last, and you have to spend limited resources to upgrade weapons so I didn't get to upgrade it by that time having spent them on previous weapons. That was my one real complaint with it. I don't think it's worth playing again to get the other upgrades. It's not terribly long either, steam says I played it for 12 hours, but some of that I may have left it on while I was interrupted by the kids for this or that. I briefly tried survival mode, but didn't find it enjoyable. A bit too hard. I can't really recommend this game, the gameplay being just o.k. the humor likewise, and little to no replay value and not terribly long. It was a fun little distraction though and perhaps worth checking out if you like parodies of 50's Sci-Fi. It was on sale for $5 when I got it, and I did get more than my money's worth for that value. ------------------------------ Downwell (8-bit (or is that 4-bit?) indy 'platformer') $1. You jump down a well and can shoot stuff below you to collect gems. The difficulty is very arcade like. I died having to start over probably within 10 seconds on my first try, I might have been up to a minute by my 3rd and last play. Again platformer is questionable as you mostly jump down. The mostly black and white old Computer CRT graphics would probably put most people off. I can see myself playing this for a few minutes while something is downloading or loading slowly off and on as I'd been doing with Bit blaster before. ------------------------------ Fable III (xbox 360, 3rd person RPG) I rather enjoyed the original, so I thought I'd give this a try as it was in the bargain bin. I haven't played II, and am feeling like I'm missing something as they keep referencing 'Your father the Hero' It's a bit different than the first as it's set in beginning of the industrial age, steampunk perhaps? As it started off I rather liked it, I was shaking everyone's hands to get them to like me. Going on quests, etc. But it started waning after the first couple towns, the magic system is pretty one-dimensional, and combat too, I pretty much just sit in the middle of a battle raining lightning down on everything, and waiting for them to die. Boring. I got tired of shaking (now dancing, hugging, etc.) everyone's hands, feels grindy. The quests keep sending me over the same territory, and teleport points 'close to your destination' are sometimes farther than you at your original location, or other teleport points in another city next to the exit. Everything respawns all the time, so I keep having to fight my way through the same monsters over and over. It looks like some of the quests require online multi-player too, which I really don't want to get into with this game. There's been some high points, I especially liked the garden gnome quest line - at least to begin with until it turned into a collection quest (find the 50 gnomes in the world). I would also complain about constant loading and times, but the loading screens have a bunch of funny posters to keep you entertained. I may try switching to melee/ranged instead of spells to make it more interesting and quit the 'make friends' aspect of the game for the moment and see how it goes down the main story path. I think The Crew has me for the moment, but when that wanes this will be at the top of the list to pick up again. ------------------------------ I wish I'd bought a couple more games on the black friday steam sale, I saw Dark Souls 2 & 3, & Tales from the Borderlands, but held off. I almost bought one, then decided to yesterday to do so, but the sale was off, and couldn't bring myself to do it at full price, and bought that Crew DLC instead. - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Rin Stowleigh
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 19:25
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 19:25
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On Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:16:56 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >* Cities Skylines (replay) >I don't have much to say about Cities: Skylines' gameplay because, >honestly, it isn't that much advanced from SimCity 2000, which was >released 23 years ago. That's not a bad thing, of course; SimCity 2000 >was a seminal game and it's just as fun to play today as it was back >then. It is somewhat disappointing, however, that the genre hasn't >significantly advanced in two decades, but credit to the developers >for matching that classic gameplay. > >I could say a lot more about the graphics though, because man is this >game gorgeous. I caught myself firing up the game a number of times >just to look at my cities, which are even more gorgeous with the >"After Dark" DLC. User-created mods only increase the beauty even >more. > >Of course, that's also the biggest weakness of this game; that the >developers are either charging for features - weather, disasters, a >day/night cycle - or depending on end-users to mod them in when they >should have been part of the base game is sort of disgraceful, and I >can't honestly recommend the game until the inevitable >Game-of-the-Year edition is released that includes them all in one >convenient (and affordable) package. While I understand the developers >are a small cash-strapped independent team, this is the sort of sad >nickel-and-diming that should never be encouraged, no matter how good >the base game. I picked up City Skylines Deluxe Edition for $10. It had been on my wishlist for a long time. The reason I did is because I made the mistake of buying SimCity (2013) on Origin, and it reminded me of some of the fun I had with the original back in the day. It was so buggy that everytime I quit the game I had to reboot my PC -- couldn't even get into Task Mgr to kill things, and no other application has ever had that effect on this PC. So that got promptly refunded, and it made me check the price of C.S. which I had remembered got better reviews anyway, and it was on sale. I had fun getting started with it (not having played a city sim in a very long time and having forgotten most of what I ever knew), it was instantly fascinating. However these games do end up becoming huge time vacuums for me, so I doubt I will ever give it proper attention. Thankfully it was a tenner. In terms of the DLC pricing model, I can kind of relate to what you're saying but for folks like me their pricing model works well. They could have spent much longer developing the game before release, including everything plus the kitchen sink, then charged a AAA price for it, but they didn't, wasn't it originally only $30 or $40 upon release? So not long after that, the game was available for $15. The folks who want all of the other content can easily get everything now for less than a full price game. In my case I probably won't ever get deep enough into it to touch all the areas that the DLC goes. One of my peeves with buying a discounted "complete" edition of a game is that you often get smothered in popups telling you about all the stuff that was just unlocked immediately after running the game for the first time. Stuff that there is no way you care about during your first few hours with the game.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:39
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:39
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On Thu, 1 Dec 2016 10:41:19 -0800, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com> wrote: >On 11/30/2016 9:16 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: >> * 35mm (new) >> For all that I am constantly disappointed by the genre, I keep giving >> these so-called "narrative games" another chance. That's because when >> they work, they can be very powerful experiences (if only for the >> single pl ay-through). Unfortunately, Sturgeon's Law applies and >> narrative games that "work" are far and few between. > >Which ones are good? I keep seeing these top rated on steam by >everyone, but I worry they aren't for me, and haven't taken the plunge >on one to see. The best of the bunch, I think, is "The Stanley Parable", because it narrowly straddles the line between "narrative game" and "real game". More than just leading you through a badly-paced story, it actually involves the player in the plot; your actions affect the course of the story. It is also pretty well written (and even better voice-acted), and is genuinely funny. I also had another similar game in mind when I wrote my 35mm review, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is at the moment. ;-) But 'Parable' is probably the best of the bunch - and even then, I'd not call it flawless, with one of its biggest problems being that it has no real replayability, which extremely limits its value.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Tim O
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:56
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:56
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On Thu, 01 Dec 2016 00:16:56 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote: >* Doom 4 (new) >If Doom 3 was a reboot of the original Doom, then Doom 4 (or Doom >2016, or DOOM, or whatever I am supposed to call it) feels like a >reboot to Doom 2. For all its gory and fast-paced action, the first >Doom game was equally drenched in atmosphere; with its (at the time >very sophisticated) lighting effects, it was at times a genuinely >creepy game, with moments of quiet suspense that inevitably lead to >balls-to-the-wall gunfights as soon as you crossed some invisible >trigger. Doom 2, on the other hand, forsake much of this flavor in >favor of gimmicky levels and a focus on the gameplay. Personally, I >consider the former the better game, but I can understand the appeal >of the second. [snips] >In the end, I found Doom 4 a mixed bag. Like Doom 2, I can understand >its appeal to some people, but it felt far too one-dimensional for my >taste; even Doom 3 - for all its problematic monster closets - felt a >fresher and more interesting game. >And that's me, for this month. A mix of new and old games, generally >impressed on the technological front and disappointed by gameplay and >setting. Alas, that's more and more the usual for games these days... > >Anyway, enough of my muttering. Now it's your turn: > >What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016? > Rocksmith Remastered is it. I haven't played a regular PC game in a few months. I bought the necessary missing Skyrim DLC (Hearthfire, blech) to get the upgraded version, but still haven't fired it up yet. When Doom was $20, I almost crumbled. The amount of melee killing in demos stuck with me as something I really didn't want to do, so I sat there a second and the impulse passed. Maybe as the weather really turns and I have more inside time, I'll revert to old habits. This is probably the longest stretch where I haven't played console/computer games since I got my drivers liscense. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Anssi Saari
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 13:51
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 13:51
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Spalls Hurgenson <spallsh...@gmail.com> writes: > What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016? Just Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Completed it for the first time which took over 40 hours. Although I think some of that time the game was paused. Interesting game. I guess I like the world even though the main story doesn't really do much for me. Augmentations are rather hit-and-miss, some are good, others quite useless. Compared to the previous it seems AI is maybe a little smarter, at least they don't stand around dumbly while you hide in a vent and shoot everyone in the shins... I think I got the next-to-worst ending, at least I saved a few thousand civilians from fiery deaths but other than that everyone died and things went badly for augs in the world. I think I'll try the ending again at least, I should be able to save some dignitaries and take the main bad guy alive, dunno if that's enough for a "good" ending.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Justisaur
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 16:49
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 16:49
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On 12/1/2016 10:41 AM, Justisaur wrote: A couple corrections & updates on Calling All Units DLC for The Crew. I wouldn't have replied here for the updates, but the misinformation I had is pretty glaring, so needed to be corrected. > Calling All Units - DLC for The Crew. I bought it yesterday and got > to play with it a couple hours. I mostly got it because you have to > to raise the level cap to 60 The level cap was raised to 60 for everyone even if you didn't buy it. I wasn't seeing any xp from PVP, but there's been a number of display bugs that are fixed now, that might have been one of them. > It looks like getting to 60 will be quick I'm 60 now. :) > I'm already 57 - all in the > new cop missions, which look to be the way to make money/xp fast now. I > get $7k & 20k xp per mission, and you can do the first one really fast > most time - probably less than 30 seconds, possibly under minute with > overhead (pressing buttons/loading pre & post mission), Best I've done is 14 seconds on one of the cop raid missions, and it's maybe 30 seconds of overhead, so it's even better than that. > > I'd mention if you do get CAU don't bother to upgrade your cop cars, you > get huge part bonuses doing the cop missions, I was getting something > like a +64 level part each time, and had my Street cop car maxed out in > an hour of doing that, while you normally get something like +8 doing > skills. I made the mistake of blowing $350k on upgrades for the circuit > one before I realized that, and the parts were level 50 instead of 60 so > will be useless when I get to 60. There was a complete overhaul of the reward system, even for those who don't have the DLC. So all missions will give better rewards, all rewards are scaled to your car & (supposed) difficulty of the mission or skill. Jumps which can be spammed quickly will give small (+2?) rewards. I imagine the cop mission rewards will be reballanced eventually as getting a +64 level part and $7k from a 14 second mission seems way too easy, but it's a nice reward for those who bought the DLC. I'm not sure if there's any missions/skills that can do this if you don't have the DLC, as I've only been working on my cop cars so far. > > Which brings up another point, it looks like they added a new type of > part, which has a diamond, and gives bonuses to all of the stats, so it > looks like there's no more having to decide between a bonus to braking, > grip, acceleration or speed. I've mostly (perhaps only after 50?) been > getting diamond parts, so it looks like they won't be hard to get. I'm > sure that'll piss some people off who liked their secret perfect > combination of bonuses that gave them just enough of an edge, but it > means less grinding and a fairer playing field, I'm all for it. There's some complaints that the new level 60 diamond parts can actually make some of the cars worse. I saw one complaint that dragsters are worse with them than the old level 50 acceleration part, which shouldn't be the case. the diamond parts are for everyone again, not just the DLC owners, so this affects the entire user base. > The PVP part of CAU I didn't like so far. I got invited to chase some > guys as a cop (which it seems you are every second in free-drive), but > It didn't seem like I had the slightest chance to catch them. I'm not > sure if it's again just that I suck, or it needs some re-balancing. I > did it before trying the missions, which is the same situation only > against an AI, now that I've had some practice, I might be better. I'll > have to try it again and on the bad-guy side. Apparently you can get > some cars through the PVP of CAU, but I haven't looked into it yet, and > I'm not going to try it again until I'm level 60 and maxed out on parts > at least for my circuit cop car. I've read a lot of complaints about the new PVP from the cop side, also I didn't realize before, but anyone without the DLC can do the bad-guy part of the cop PVP, and only those with the DLC can do the cop part, so typically you'll have 3 or 4 bad guys to one cop, and the bad guys can just spam their flashbangs, and make it near impossible for the cop to win. I hope this gets fixed, or it'll make the cop side PVP useless. I'll also add I found the voice & scripts of the new character you play, an English female cop extremely annoying. She always sounds snobby and trying to be clever but failing. You play her whenever in a cop car instead of the previous male criminal-turned Fbi protagonist. I went so far as to change the audio language so I didn't have to listen to her so much, but some of the annoying still creeps through. I'm going to look through the settings and see if I can find a way to turn the speech audio off. Part of the issue with her voice is probably the repetition, as with 14 second missions you have to hear her say the same things over and over. Even the FBI agent you worked with before is getting annoying with all the repetition. This is the only game that has a female voice I hate that I've ever played. The only reason I can see to buy the DLC at this point is if you want to grind cop car missions for money at 3-4x what you could get from PVP (previously the best payout), which frankly will get boring really fast, I'm already bored with it after around 2-3 hours, but have managed to keep it marginally entertaining by trying to beat my best times. Or you just want to have some cop car skinned cars with sirens. Wee-Ooo! Wee-Ooo! - Justisaur
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: rms
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2016 18:44
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2016 18:44
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>What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Mass Effect 2
It's hard to shake a comfort-food image looking back at Mass Effect 2.
Or reminisce like a Galaxy Quest actor about your time onboard: "hay
remember the stag party in the bar on Illium? Those guys were a hoot! And
the seen-it-all world-weary bartender, har!"
And like an actor slipping back into a well-worn role, it felt natural
resuming a routine of completing a small mission, checking mail, researching
tech upgrades, then making the rounds and chatting up each of my crew, maybe
sauntering back to the map to skip around to a few planets and drop some
probes.
If I had one complaint it would be this sense of routine, and with the loss
of my beloved Mako in the wreck of the Normandy, planet-scanning in
particular became a vestigial, mindless task: I still liked reading the
detailed planet descriptions while imagining what the surface was like under
the clouds, but the Mako and surface exploration really needs to return in
ME3. Recent ME3 trailers imply that 'fighting for resources' is emphasized:
Good, but --
Combat itself I'll admit to paying little attention to -- playing on easy --
other than heeding hints about expected enemy types and their
strengths/weaknesses & checking weapon loadout. Most of my time was enjoyed
going through conversation trees surrounding loyalty missions, and hearing
the crew's stories. This is where ME2 really shined, learning the gameworld
culture through reading and character interaction. And choosing who to
pursue romantically, of course (as femshep I went for Thane; Samara asked
repeatedly not to be pursued, had to respect that)
Building this gameworld, fleshing out these characters, and doing all this
writing takes much investment in talent and effort, and I could easily see
Mass Effect 4 doing a mediocre job of it, in favor of console-friendly
combat or mini-game, as occurred with Fallout 4.
As far as practical matters go, it never occurred to me to use Nexusmods.
Rather I installed MEIUTM manually, with a tiny batchfile fix to make it and
TEXMOD work with the Origin client (A modern installation howto using
ME3Explorer & NMM I'll leave to others). The only persistent crashes I
saw -- namely when returning from the Shadow Broker base to the Normandy2 --
were fixed with the following tip:
"The fix, is to rename the original 'MassEffect2.exe' to
'MassEffect2Launcher.exe' and rename the original 'MEGame.exe' to
'MassEffect2.exe'
THEN you create a shortcut to the new MassEffect2.exe, and add
the -nomoviestartup parameter to the target line. Run as Administrator, and
voila - no loading movies and I was able to complete the Kasumi DLC mission
just fine."
To those playing ME2 for the first time, be sure to do all the 'loyaly
missions' for each crew member, and purchase all the story-related DLC, in
particular The Shadow Broker: Hearing Ali Hillis' hypnotic voice-over of
Liara once again, is not to be missed :)
rms
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Metal Guru
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2016 21:29
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2016 21:29
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On Thursday, December 1, 2016 at 7:39:41 PM UTC-5, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: > The best of the bunch, I think, is "The Stanley Parable", because it > narrowly straddles the line between "narrative game" and "real game". > More than just leading you through a badly-paced story, it actually > involves the player in the plot; your actions affect the course of the > story. It is also pretty well written (and even better voice-acted), > and is genuinely funny. > > I also had another similar game in mind when I wrote my 35mm review, > but for the life of me I can't remember what it is at the moment. ;-) > But 'Parable' is probably the best of the bunch - and even then, I'd > not call it flawless, with one of its biggest problems being that it > has no real replayability, which extremely limits its value. Those kind of games are not exactly my cuppa tea either but I've quite enjoyed Dear Esther, Oxenfree and Firewatch - only about an hour into the latter but it looks promising. Didn't like the teen angst angle of Life is Strange (I have a 19yo son and that's more drama than I can handle, thank you very much) nor the time rewinding gimmick so I never managed to finish it. Still playing and loving every minute of Hitman 2016, a very strong candidate for GOTY as far as I'm concerned.
Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN NOVEMBER 2016?
Author: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:47
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:47
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On Tue, 6 Dec 2016 13:29:33 -0800 (PST), Metal Guru <themet...@gmail.com> wrote: >On Thursday, December 1, 2016 at 7:39:41 PM UTC-5, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: > >> The best of the bunch, I think, is "The Stanley Parable", because it >> narrowly straddles the line between "narrative game" and "real game". >> More than just leading you through a badly-paced story, it actually >> involves the player in the plot; your actions affect the course of the >> story. It is also pretty well written (and even better voice-acted), >> and is genuinely funny. >> >> I also had another similar game in mind when I wrote my 35mm review, >> but for the life of me I can't remember what it is at the moment. ;-) >> But 'Parable' is probably the best of the bunch - and even then, I'd >> not call it flawless, with one of its biggest problems being that it >> has no real replayability, which extremely limits its value. > >Those kind of games are not exactly my cuppa tea either but I've quite enjoyed Dear Esther, > Oxenfree and Firewatch - only about an hour into the latter but it looks promising. Didn't > like the teen angst angle of Life is Strange (I have a 19yo son and that's more drama than I > can handle, thank you very much) nor the time rewinding gimmick so I never managed to > finish it. Working on Firewatch; it's another example of how the genre can get it right (but you'll have to wait until the end of the month for a fuller review but its pretty damn positive ;-). I had the same reaction to Life is Strange; for all that it has an interesting story, the teenage interactions did not resonate with me at all. Partly, I think, because my age has given me enough of a vantage point to see how ridiculous all that angst is but mostly because I didn't experience that sort of turmoil myself when I was growing up ;-)
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