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Testamonial:  And i have actually gone to a bar and had a bouncer try to start a fight with me on the way in. I broke his teeth out of his fucking mouth and put his face through a passenger side window of a car.

Guess thats what the Internet was build for, pussy motherfuckers taking shit in safety...

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Unified Vidya Games thread

Started by Cain, November 21, 2013, 05:10:58 PM

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Cain

That's disappointing. It's not like a sequel needs any more promotion - the original was critically acclaimed.

altered

I feel like an Alan Wake sequel will end up getting panned by default. Honest. I feel like it is guaranteed to be a 7/10 game, for the same reason Dark Souls 2 was: by comparison rather than through any fault of its own.

Control is just so much better in terms of gameplay that going back to AW's flares and flashlights will be a severe downgrade. And not having the alien vistas and nightmare geometry of Control will do an Alan Wake sequel a serious disservice in terms of visual impact. It's doomed from the start.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Cramulus

Over the last few months


-Completed my second runthrough of Sekiro. What a hard-ass game. Definitely the hardest in the Soulslike series, IMO. Some of the bosses gave me fits - days of throwing myselves at them before I mastered the timing. When I beat this game, my face melted.

-My fiance insisted that I re-run through Dark Souls 2 so she could see the plot/story. Dark Souls 2 is the weird kid of the souls series. It's still a good game, but there are a few things about it which are kinda janky. You can really feel how heavily they struggled to make this thing - the whole game was tossed and rebuilt a few times during production, so the game has these vestigial design elements... like torches. You can tell they wanted to lean a lot of gameplay around carrying around a torch, and I'm guessing Miyazaki was like "no, I'm doing torches in bloodborne, take that back out", so torches have this disproportionate importance in a scant few areas.

And the plot of dark souls 2 is also pretty cool, but it's really back loaded. With most of the other games in the series, you're moving through these levels that are important to the setting, so as you pick up random items, you're discovering fragments of this big picture. A lot of the dark souls "story" is discovering why the world is the way it is, and how it comes from the relationships between these powerful beings... unfortunately, dark souls 2's story is very backloaded. There are a ton of fun levels, but most of them have scant few plot-details linked to them. So from a lore perspective, it's probably the weakest game in the series. It's got a bad rep for a lot of reasons, but I think it's still a good game. Worth running through if you're a fan of the style.

-Downloaded Dungeons 2 on a whim, because I wanted the nostalgia of Dungeon Keeper. Dungeons 2 is a RTS where you manage a dungeon--your job involves mining for gold, building rooms for your monsters, and eventually killing a bunch of adventurers and villagers. It's fun, but its a little slow... each level takes a few hours to play, and it's possible to fuck it up really bad at the beginning and not realize that until you're an hour deep. It's also really not meant to be played on console.. selecting units and moving around the map is awkward and cumbersome.




Faust

Very similar feelings about the Control DLC, subtracted from the game overall. Think the overall experience is better without. Haven't felt that since Bioshock Burial at sea. Control DLC was just bland tie inthough, I resent burial at sea.

Dark souls two is a very different beast to the first game but I still have a lot of love for it, it was the  first of the series I played and the atmosphere and world really give the world of ruin feel more than the other games in the series, I wasn't a big fan of dark souls 3, I cant bring myself to replay it but I could replay 2 lots
HBomberguy has a great video where he goes into a passionate defense of 2, I'm not sure I put as much stock in some of the stuff he portrays as deliberate but intentioned or not the effect is there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRTfcMeqhig


I finished vampire the mascarade bloodlines a couple of nights back, absolutely loved it, no other game has made me feel the way it has about its city and environ since Deus Ex
Sleepless nights at the chateau

chaotic neutral observer

Quote from: altered on August 30, 2020, 12:04:29 PM
I'm not happy with it. It actually actively degraded my enjoyment of the main game and The Foundation. I threw my brain at Nioh for a while thereafter: if I'm going to be abused by a video game, I want it to be on my terms.

If you can avoid AWE, avoid it.

My inner completionist demanded that I play it, despite the warning, but I took the precaution of skipping the cutscenes.  I haven't played Alan Wake, anyway.

The sidequests were unimaginative, and the "flavour" elements--the documents and tapes scattered about--were entirely bland.  I eventually stopped bothering to read them.  The whole thing felt like a token effort, only done to fulfill contractual obligations, and assigned to one of the writing interns as a "learning experience."

I didn't actively hate it, but it was quite pointless.
Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.

altered

I mean, there is legitimate fun in it! The first boss encounter was incredibly frightening, and the Fra Mauro area (including the boss encounter, remember the very moment the door opens and you're staring at the boss in the distance?) was creepy in an entirely different way. There's all sorts of hidden stuff that isn't even side quest tier, apparently — Altered Vending Machines I have heard about, apparently an extremely secret area that completes an in-game ARG that was started at the time of release that gets you a bit of information on the main plot of Control, new golden mods for EVERY WEAPON PLUS A PERSONAL MOD, and so on.

But the MEAT of it sucked. It was only the surrounding sidebar shit that was any good.

Oh, and I liked the AW version of the Hiss fluid art and Polaris angular rings (seen when you enter the Oceanview and the spiral door is cracked open). It was anxiety inducing in a way that had me very on edge for the coming fights I was expecting. Shame that it was only more FUCKING hiss, I was hoping they'd introduce the Taken as a new enemy class (like the mold zombies).

Honestly, considering that, I feel like I would have even enjoyed it more if they made it Alan Wake 1.9 instead of Control with Alan Wake special guest appearances. The best parts were almost all pure AW, the crossover stuff had no appeal at all and the Control stuff was ... well, fun but kind of old, given they added almost nothing new.

Obviously the best combo would have been NEW Control stuff as the focus and hidden bonus Alan Wake stuff.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Cain

Just announce the Mass Effect remaster already, Bioware. I want to play Mass Effect 1 with a jetpack and flamethrower and I cannot tolerate these delays.

Cramulus

is that on the docket?? hell yeah

Cain

Bioware keep teasing that they have a Mass Effect announcement, then shying away from actually saying anything.

It's almost certainly not a new game, unless it's in pre-production, because everyone of importance is on Anthem or Dragon Age 4 (which sounds like an epic clusterfuck on the project management side). And they don't really do expanded universe style promos unless it can be tied into an upcoming game, so it's likely not a comic or book or anything. Only thing left is a remaster.

Honestly, if they even upgraded the combat in 1 & 2 to the level of ME3, that'd be enough. ME3 was fairly good looking and had a very, very solid combat system (there's a reason I spent over 900 hours on that damn multiplayer, other than trying to max my manifest). I'd argue Andromeda's combat was even better but there could be difficulties porting the AI and some of the abilities into Frostbite, I don't know. Frostbite would definitely be a winner from a visual perspective though. Also ME3 Multiplayer, remastered? Fuck yeah.

Faust

The planet exploration sandboxes could do with a bit of flavour added to them, but they were one of my favorite parts of 1 but have aged
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Cain

I think so long as they improve the handling on the Mako, they won't be too bad. They add a certain ambience to the game, IMO - you're out here on the frontier, and people are up to suspect stuff in the hidden corners of the galaxy, so they're naturally harder to get to.

But if they want to improve on them further - perhaps ME2 style subplots linking certain areas to new locations with harder challenges and subsequent chances at better loot, such as some of the armours and weapon mods that were not included in the original game - I certainly wouldn't complain.

Cramulus

brace yourself for
ANDROMEDA: REMASTERED
this time, with eye movements!

Cain


Faust

Quote from: Cramulus on September 04, 2020, 04:42:22 PM
brace yourself for
ANDROMEDA: REMASTERED
this time, with eye movements!

We weren't able to master eyes moving at the same time as the rest of the facial features, so each piece of dialog will play, followed by a silent sequence where the eyes play out the corresponding movements, this vastly improves the experience
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Cain

So, I have heard some positive things about ESO: Markarth from someone I trust (they offered spoilers, but I asked not to be spoiled).

Apparently the vast majority of the focus in the DLC will be on the Reachmen and not the Gray Host, which is good to hear. I also hear that the Despot of Markarth, the Worm Cultist, worshipper of Molag Bal and friend to Mannimarco may actually be...a  good guy?

There is also a new solo trial in the DLC, the first since Orsinium and it's very Reachman based. Arenas based on Hircine, Molag Bal, Mehrunes Dagon and a final boss based around Namira.

Also datamined gear and furnishings mean the next chapter being Nibenay (Leyawiin and a possibly rebuilt Bravil) seem increasing likely. The Potentate Crown Crates invoke it with the name alone, but there will a new Akaviri Potentate Style (which is awesome), and the Ancestral Akaviri style and Ancestral Imperial style have been datamined. Given the game has been moving to a position of "Meridia is actually a bad guy as well", the 15th anniversary of Oblivion coming up AND Imperials having more reasons than most to hate Meridia (ie; Umaril the Unfeathered), this would be a good time to introduce both the region and that plot line.