What Video Games Have You Been Playing #11: I should go

[aimeeandbeatles]

Spoiler More Mass Effect 3 stuff :

So I got the Geth and Quarians to stop fighting each other. Yay!

But then I went to get the Catalyst when the anime dude showed up again. For some reason he just stood there playing with his swords and none of my squadmates just shot him while I was talking to the Illusive Man. Then we fought him and just almost beat him when...suddenly a cutscene. Shepard pulled a crappy assault rifle out of her ass and was surprised that she couldn't hit him. Then he escaped. The hell?

 

[Arakhor]

You're not alone by any means in thinking that he was ridiculous.

 

[Akka]

I think the guy is the most hated character of the whole franchise. The fun thing is that he's been set up for being exactly that (the fact that he's cocky, dismissive of Shepard and hurting companions who are supposed to be dear to the player), but there is also additional reasons which are somehow different than the expected ones (i.e. : he looks out of place as an "anime ninja", and his plot armor drives people mad).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I legit do not remember this ninja character... :-/

He sounds dumb though

Edit:
Last night I beat Pokemon Y! It took almost 2 years but it's done, it's over. It is a pretty fun game and just now at the end I'm exploring some of its weirder quirks like special social powers you can gift to random people online.

Next up, I need to finish Mass Effect Andromeda. I think I'm 2 or 3 hours out; though last time I thought I was that close I unlocked another 20 hours of content. This game is looooooooooooooong. Even if you are a completionist, there is a lot missions to go through to get to the end. They built a solid universe and I hope they explore it again in the future.

 

[MaryKB]

I hated him, he's one of my main reasons why I'll never play Mass Effect 3 again.

Have any of you ever played a game called Fortnight? My niece asked me if I'd set up an account to play with her, but I have absolutely no idea about this.

Next up, I need to finish Mass Effect Andromeda. I think I'm 2 or 3 hours out; though last time I thought I was that close I unlocked another 20 hours of content. This game is looooooooooooooong. Even if you are a completionist, there is a lot missions to go through to get to the end. They built a solid universe and I hope they explore it again in the future.

I loved playing Andromeda, but I was so disappointed how it doesn't answer any of my questions.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Have any of you ever played a game called Fortnight? My niece asked me if I'd set up an account to play with her, but I have absolutely no idea about this.

It's all the rage with my wife's 4th graders. It's a battle royale shooter game. Basically you play in an area that is slowly shrinking over time and you have to kill your opponents and stay within the shrinking boundaries. You can build bases with some basic terrain editing tools as you play.

I loved playing Andromeda, but I was so disappointed how it doesn't answer any of my questions.

I am not that upset with the lack of resolution with the game. They stuffed a ton of minutiae and detail into that game and it's ripe for a sequel. What does suck is the way they dropped it like a stone when it didn't meet sales expectations. But I don't fault them for structuring it the way they did because they obviously weren't counting on a Mass Effect title flopping. I'm not sure it even flopped though, it just wasn't the massive hit they expected.

 

[Synobun]

Fortnite, and every other Battle Royale game, is straight trash.

That is my useful contribution to the topic.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Fortnite, and every other Battle Royale game, is straight trash.

That is my useful contribution to the topic.

As I prefer my trash diluted, this post was useful to me.

 

[H4run]

Fortnite, and every other Battle Royale game, is straight trash.

That is my useful contribution to the topic.

I really like this comment, and I encourage other people to do the same

 

[MaryKB]

It's all the rage with my wife's 4th graders. It's a battle royale shooter game. Basically you play in an area that is slowly shrinking over time and you have to kill your opponents and stay within the shrinking boundaries. You can build bases with some basic terrain editing tools as you play.

I am not that upset with the lack of resolution with the game. They stuffed a ton of minutiae and detail into that game and it's ripe for a sequel. What does suck is the way they dropped it like a stone when it didn't meet sales expectations. But I don't fault them for structuring it the way they did because they obviously weren't counting on a Mass Effect title flopping. I'm not sure it even flopped though, it just wasn't the massive hit they expected.

Hmm, she told me it's about fighting zombies??

I don't mind when they set you up for a sequel, but they didn't answer their main questions. Remember Mass Effect 1? You learn what the Reapers are and what kind of threat they're posing, even as you're obviously being set up for more games. I started playing Andromeda so excited to learn about these Remnant and everything, and that space plague thingy, but like nothing was answered for me in any satisfying way, and I felt hurt.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I picked up a decent understanding of who the Remnant were and what their motivations are through the game. If anything I was let down by how trope-y their backstory is but there was quite a lot there.

Basically the Remnant were trying to seed their galaxy with intelligent life. Part of that was in terraforming a lot of marginal worlds and they set about building a galaxy-spanning terraforming network to do that. Then they were suddenly attacked by an extra-galactic enemy that tried to turn their terraforming tools into weapons with partial success. The attack of the extra-galactic enemy coincided with the appearance of the scourge, though this is muddied because the Angarans also report that the scourge first appeared during their time many millennia later. Perhaps there was a subsidence of the scourge between when the Remnants were fighting the galactic menace and later when the Angarans had their society destroyed by a resurgent scourge. Or perhaps it's sloppy writing or maybe it will be explained when I finish the game. It is also unclear if the extra-gallactic menace caused the scourge or if it was purely coincidental, though this is an intentional obfuscation by the writers as they were probably saving that story arc for DLC or a sequel.

Anyways, the Remnant were basically driven to extinction by this extra-galactic menace and their terraforming systems were thrown into disarray and in some instances turned hostile. The Angarans built their society in the ruins of the Remnant and could manipulate that technology to some extent. Then the scourge showed up (or rather re-appeared) and massively disrupted the Angaran civilization. Concurrently, the Kett (who are also possibly extra-galactic) showed up and took advantage of the weakened state of the Angarans to enslave and mutate them into Kett soldiers. During this process, the Kett realized the Remnant terraforming network could be weaponized and began searching for the key to operating that network.

Onto this scene, the Milky Way crew crash-lands into the galaxy and further stirs the pot. I also believe the game hints that the Angarrans themselves might be the Remnant but I'm unsure.

I think the problem is not that the game doesn't answer questions, it's that it floods you with a ton of extraneous world-building information and does so in such a way that you can't easily pick out what's part of the overall story arc versus what is just background filler. This obfuscates a lot of the information. Also, to get this level of understanding, you have to sink a ton of time into all of the side quests as they droll out this important information as much in the side quests as in the main story. For past ME games, this approach worked because there simply wasn't as many side quests. I'd say MEA has as many side quests as 2 or even all 3 of the ME mainline games combined - and definitely as much lore as those other games combined.

I got all of that information from the game itself, I have not done any web searches for supplementary material or fandom guides.

One other brilliant/terrible way this game does story telling is through informal interactions. All of the characters, from your core team to the random NPC on the street corner, are extremely chatty. A lot of core information about the main story arc is only revealed through random chatter between characters in the background. This is brilliant because it does make the game world feel more alive and real but it sucks because when you're already having to have 10 million conversations and read multiple long encyclopedia articles to learn about the world, you're going to mentally filter out a lot of this chatter. It's overwhelming.



On Fortnite - I'm unaware of any zombies in that game but I don't know much about it. I do know it is like how I described though.

 

[Synobun]

I think they added a zombie mode recently to compete with Call of Duty (who also jumped into the Battle Royale scene).

 

[Takhisis]

Well, I'm finally getting back onto DotA 2.
As long as I have to use a Strenkth-based hero it's OK because damage, HP and regeneration go hand in hand. I tried and agility hero after aaaages and the AI bots soundly thrashed me. I must have spent too long playing turn-based games.

Something something Notre Dame. There has been a fair amount of news articles about AC Unity due to Ubisoft offering their models of Notre Dame to aid in the reconstruction.

Bleh.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

There must be something in the Normandy's air-filtration system.

Spoiler :

Joker and EDI hooked up, I caught Ken and Gabby making out in engineering, and now Tali and Garrus are flirting with each other!

EDIT:

Spoiler :

Also, in the hospital on the Citadel, I heard this asari soldier talking about how she went to Tiptree and ended up having to kill a teenager named Hilary after everyone else got indoctrinated. Then Joker mentions his family is in Tiptree...and mentions later that his younger sister's name is Hilary. Oh.

 

[Arakhor]

That was later confirmed by one of EA's writers.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Ouch. Poor Joker.

I forgot to save before going into the cockpit and got stuck in the floor again. I thought that saving and then using a save editor to change my coordinates would work. It did, but I changed it too much and ended up stuck outside the Normandy, before falling down to the lower levels.

Spoiler :

 

[Takhisis]

Have any of you ever played a game called Fortnight? My niece asked me if I'd set up an account to play with her, but I have absolutely no idea about this.

I don't know how (non)toxic the playerbase is these days. Since it's an MMO game, be prepared for flaming.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I just started the Citadel DLC because I heard it's best to do it just before the final mission. When I went into the sushi restaurant, the first thing I thought is "what if this place gets attacked? The glass might break and it'll start flooding."

Guess what happened a few minutes later. No flooding, though. Maybe the fishtank is just a hologram?

EDIT: Now Shepard fell through the floor and there's water. I'm not sure how the fishtank floor works now.

 

[Dachs]

Have any of you ever played a game called Fortnight? My niece asked me if I'd set up an account to play with her, but I have absolutely no idea about this.

Hmm, she told me it's about fighting zombies??

Fortnite has two components.

The original game was part horde mode, part looter, part building game where you (and, optionally, friends) had to fight off waves of NPC zombies by building defenses. It was okay.

The more famous iteration of the game is the battle royale mode that released shortly after that, which rapidly became one of the most popular games in the world and the default game of many if not most Western teenagers. Building things, which set it apart from most other battle royales, made it an easy jump for kids who grew up with Minecraft. Its other main draws were that it was free to play, that its graphics were cartoony (making it an easier sell to inattentive parents), and that it was heavily marketed by streamers.

If your niece wants to get you into the part of the game that is just a horde mode vs NPC zombies, you might have some fun. Fortnite Battle Royale is a different beast. It's definitely not for everybody.

I just started the Citadel DLC because I heard it's best to do it just before the final mission.

Yes. I always exhaust every other mission in the game before Citadel.

Spoiler :

...up to and including Priority: Horizon.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I did Priority: Horizon. That was really creepy. I remember earlier in the game there was a volus talking to a woman and convinced her that Sanctuary was a scam. I think he probably saved her life.

I'm doing the Citadel DLC now. I don't trust the lady after she told me to contact Commander Bailey. Also, how would the mercenaries know to find me at the skycar lot?

Also, it was funny to see her talking about he somehow killing 100 mercenaries with that little pistol. No, not really. I just turned on tactical cloak and ran away as fast as I could.