General nonsense gaming edition.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Just now, BFTD said:

You couldn't make me sit through that even if it was about Bloodlines 2, with the promise of a release date at the end!  

I assume your vampire game isn't this?

 

[BFTD]

I seem to remember No One Lives Forever 2 having a decent snow level.

Now there's a game I haven't thought about in a while. Tempted to dig it out, but it likely won't have aged well  

[BFTD]

Just now, Miguel Sanchez said:

I assume your vampire game isn't this?

No. Good luck to anyone that fancies it, but that's absolute anathema to me. I'm interested in the deep RPG with an interesting story and (hopefully) multiple character classes that provide notable different playthroughs. And boobs, obvs.

Paradox are really milking the White Wolf licence - they must have brought out about a dozen titles so far. Don't think any of them have been particularly good so far, but it's better than fifteen years of nothing, I suppose.

[Mr. Brightside]

13 hours ago, forameus said:

You've reminded me of a particularly spiteful snow section in Death Stranding.  Won't go into the details (it would be baffling and sound fucking stupid) but you're without your main tool for sensing the game's enemies, and heading to a shack on a mountain to retrieve it.  A storm is rolling in that just keeps getting worse as you climb higher.  Towards the end of the section there is literally zero visibility as you're trying to pick your way through.  Effective, but utterly miserable.

Fucking hated that section of the game. The snowy bits in general were a pain in the c**t but that was the worst.

[NotThePars]

The snow sections sound like they're about to become much easier in the DS Director's Cut

[GNU_Linux]

Rumours that Microsoft have another ZeniMax size acquisition incoming.

[NotThePars]

Unreal how good Death Stranding looks with the upgrade on PS5

[forameus]

23 hours ago, NotThePars said:

Unreal how good Death Stranding looks with the upgrade on PS5

It's just fucking beautiful isn't it?  It wasn't exactly bad looking on PS4 but the framerate upgrade really helps.  Not sold on the haptic stuff though...are you finding it not really noticeable outside of a wee bit of stuff with whatever surface you're on?  Bit disappointing if that's it the way it was talked up.

Outside of that though, it's still an absolute masterpiece.  I'd encourage anyone with a PS5 to give it a go.  They've definitely made some steps to cut down a bit of the grind with the extra kit they've added (which I'll try and avoid).  Currently about 8 hours into a completely fresh run on the new Very hard setting, with the PS5 completely disconnected from the network.  No other people's structures, no help, just my own stuff to build.  It's brilliant.

[NotThePars]

30 minutes ago, forameus said:

It's just fucking beautiful isn't it?  It wasn't exactly bad looking on PS4 but the framerate upgrade really helps.  Not sold on the haptic stuff though...are you finding it not really noticeable outside of a wee bit of stuff with whatever surface you're on?  Bit disappointing if that's it the way it was talked up.

Outside of that though, it's still an absolute masterpiece.  I'd encourage anyone with a PS5 to give it a go.  They've definitely made some steps to cut down a bit of the grind with the extra kit they've added (which I'll try and avoid).  Currently about 8 hours into a completely fresh run on the new Very hard setting, with the PS5 completely disconnected from the network.  No other people's structures, no help, just my own stuff to build.  It's brilliant.

Aye I've noticed it more than any other game I've played (apart from Astro's Playroom). Can feel the distribution has worked quite well with the movement. 

I'm only on Hard and still connected online. You are mad. How is it on VH? I am already finding that Sam is nackered all the time and I have to think that bit more about travelling. Have also been caught a lot more by the BTs albeit w/ nothing disastrous happening. The upgrades are helpful. The maser gun is very useful.

[forameus]

53 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

Aye I've noticed it more than any other game I've played (apart from Astro's Playroom). Can feel the distribution has worked quite well with the movement. 

I'm only on Hard and still connected online. You are mad. How is it on VH? I am already finding that Sam is nackered all the time and I have to think that bit more about travelling. Have also been caught a lot more by the BTs albeit w/ nothing disastrous happening. The upgrades are helpful. The maser gun is very useful.

Weird about the haptics.  Maybe I'm just expecting more, but I'll take a look into the settings and see if anything's gone wrong.  The controller needs an update too which I usually just ignore, so maybe that'll help.

I did Hard on the PS4 and it was weirdly balanced.  Fairly easy in parts, but certain parts were an absolute nightmare.  Main difference seems to be wear on materials and stamina.  I've just done the trip to the Wind Farm and couldn't do the trip back as he was completely wiped out. Sense I'm going to have a bad time later on.

I always intended the unconnected part.  I know what they're trying to do with it, it's a nice idea, but I always found that once you connected a region you got structures placed in perfect locations and you never really needed to do anything  yourself.  Really useful at times if you're stuck out there and some kind soul has built something, but you often don't really need to think about routes, just use that 8million like bridge someone built.  

[NotThePars]

6 hours ago, forameus said:

Weird about the haptics.  Maybe I'm just expecting more, but I'll take a look into the settings and see if anything's gone wrong.  The controller needs an update too which I usually just ignore, so maybe that'll help.

I did Hard on the PS4 and it was weirdly balanced.  Fairly easy in parts, but certain parts were an absolute nightmare.  Main difference seems to be wear on materials and stamina.  I've just done the trip to the Wind Farm and couldn't do the trip back as he was completely wiped out. Sense I'm going to have a bad time later on.

I always intended the unconnected part.  I know what they're trying to do with it, it's a nice idea, but I always found that once you connected a region you got structures placed in perfect locations and you never really needed to do anything  yourself.  Really useful at times if you're stuck out there and some kind soul has built something, but you often don't really need to think about routes, just use that 8million like bridge someone built.  

It might just be because I haven't had much experience of good haptic feedback yet so it being noticeable at all is decent for me. I agree with what you're saying about the building it does largely negate itself once you connect areas to the chiral network. I think my main objection is the road building which is torturous without some outside help. I get why they don't but an option to pick and choose how much connectivity you want would be helpful.

[BallochSonsFan]

I'm trying to hold off playing another Witcher 3 playthrough until they release the enhanced edition so I decided to install Witcher 1. I know it's a now 14 year old game but I planned on playing 1 and 2, by which point I'm hoping CDPR have release the enhanced version of 3.

Man it's a tough one to get into.

I was prepared for the graphics to be significantly poorer, but not THAT poorer. Character design is almost laughable. FF7 looked better on the PS1, and it was cartoony. The voice acting is shockingly bad compared to what I remember of Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2. Combat is an absolute lottery.

I'll stick with it for maybe the next week to try and get into it, but so far the poor experience of playing Witcher 1 isnt making me want to play Witcher 2.

I really hope CDPR get Witcher 3 enhanced sorted soon.

[Stellaboz]

Stick at it. It might be clicky clicky click click but it's worth it. 

It also might look a bit rough but so what? 

[BFTD]

On 07/10/2021 at 21:27, BallochSonsFan said:

I'm trying to hold off playing another Witcher 3 playthrough until they release the enhanced edition so I decided to install Witcher 1. I know it's a now 14 year old game but I planned on playing 1 and 2, by which point I'm hoping CDPR have release the enhanced version of 3.

Man it's a tough one to get into.

I was prepared for the graphics to be significantly poorer, but not THAT poorer. Character design is almost laughable. FF7 looked better on the PS1, and it was cartoony. The voice acting is shockingly bad compared to what I remember of Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2. Combat is an absolute lottery.

I'll stick with it for maybe the next week to try and get into it, but so far the poor experience of playing Witcher 1 isnt making me want to play Witcher 2.

I really hope CDPR get Witcher 3 enhanced sorted soon.

Believe it or not, it was quite a good looking game fourteen years ago. I'd recommend downloading the Rise of the White Wolf mod, as it makes an awful lot of upgrades to the game.

If you think the voice acting is bad in the Enhanced Edition, you should have heard the original release! They obviously didn't have a proper translation team back then, so you'd have one-word replies to sentences that ended up being replaced with a whole paragraph. Very much bare bones.

Combat takes practice, but the main criticism of it back in the day was that it was too easy, with the rhythm-action style of clicking. If you find yourself getting your arse handed to you, go somewhere else until you level up a bit more, as the game just doesn't tell you when you're under-levelled for an area. I remember the swamp in Temeria suddenly becomes murder after a certain point in the story, with plenty of beasties you just need to run past for a while. The Giant Centipedes in Murky Waters are to be avoided until you've been there for a bit too.

Witcher 2 is a very different game. I've never been able to get into it, as the combat's totally different to the first game, but is an absolute fucking arseache. Maybe some people enjoyed it more, as it seems like there's more skill involved, but the tutorial just doesn't give you enough opportunity to practice, and the start of the game is surprisingly dull to play, considering it begins with a massive siege and an attack from a fucking dragon.

Here's my favourite bug from the original release of Witcher 1:

 

[GNU_Linux]

Bit late to the party but one of the interesting things from the recent twitch data leak is amazon working on a steam competitor known as 'vapour'.

With the deep pockets amazon have I wouldn't be suprised to see the platform get big exclusives if it comes to fruition.

[BFTD]

7 minutes ago, GNU_Linux said:

Bit late to the party but one of the interesting things from the recent twitch data leak is amazon working on a steam competitor known as 'vapour'.

With the deep pockets amazon have I wouldn't be suprised to see the platform get big exclusives if it comes to fruition.

They've sold digital downloads for a long time, so I suppose it shouldn't be too much of a surprise, but I don't think anyone will be too excited about the prospect of installing yet another launcher (right now I've got Steam, GOG Galaxy, Origin, Uplay, Epic Games Store, and probably more that I've forgotten).

Epic Games Store was supposed to be great for consumers, with the other platforms slitting each others' throats to compete, but I don't think that's really happened, has it? Epic's amazing for free games, but they all seem to be sticking to the usual rotation of special offers, and I don't think prices have dropped. It's probably just going to end up being an arseache, with the big AAA releases exclusively on different DRM platforms. All the big studios pretty much have their own one now, don't they?

[BFTD]

Sounds like this is going swimmingly: https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/bloodlines-2-came-close-to-being-cancelled-completely/

"We were actually prepared to close the production completely. But we got a pitch that we thought was convincing enough to run, played on, and we have very good hopes that it will be a good game that meets the players' expectations."

Alright, I'm on board now; this is going to be an absolute shitfest. Thank God I didn't pre-order the collector's edition or anything...oh, I did?  

[forameus]

On 27/09/2021 at 10:42, NotThePars said:

Aye I've noticed it more than any other game I've played (apart from Astro's Playroom). Can feel the distribution has worked quite well with the movement. 

I'm only on Hard and still connected online. You are mad. How is it on VH? I am already finding that Sam is nackered all the time and I have to think that bit more about travelling. Have also been caught a lot more by the BTs albeit w/ nothing disastrous happening. The upgrades are helpful. The maser gun is very useful.

Wee update on that Very Hard playthrough...

f**k me is it spiteful at times.  Playing on Hard just seemed to amp up the annoying parts - more timefall, more wear and tear - without really making it much more difficult.  Combat was still pretty easy and you never really got into much trouble if you knew your way around.  Very Hard laughs at such things and truly hates you.  The big trip up to Mountain Knot the first time drained everything, and I completely forgot that at the end of it, you get punted out and have to go all the way back down.  And the battles with Cliff are utterly brutal (just about smashed the controller against the wall at the WW2 one last night)

 

[NotThePars]

1 minute ago, forameus said:

And the battles with Cliff are utterly brutal (just about smashed the controller against the wall at the WW2 one last night)

I died four times on the first go at him. The combat is the weakest part of this game and I totally get that it's amplified the higher the difficulty. 

[Steve_Wilkos]

I only recently realised that there was a version of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance available on the PS4. 

Pretty steep at £25, and a disappointing lack of online co-op, but worth it for the nostalgia alone.