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

[Broken_Erika]

Spoiler :

Shepard is never going to live it down...

Shepard needs to invest in plastic fish.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Or a fish-feeder. ME3 thankfully lets you buy one.

 

[Akropolis24]

Basically just GTA V for like 2weeks straight xD

 

[cardgame]

Rumor has it that Borderlands 2 will be ported to VR soon™

I will definitely pick that up if it happens

Recently I have been playing Starsector (still crying internally that Alex changed the name from Starfarer)

 

[Akka]

Rumor has it that Borderlands 2 will be ported to VR soon™

I will definitely pick that up if it happens

Yeah well, if they could port it to GOG first it would be grand.

 

[Traitorfish]

Finished the main campaign of Far Cry: New Dawn, polishing off the various side-quests.

There's less meat to the game than Far Cry 5, although you do expect that; the price-point indicates that it should be taken as an expansion, rather than, like Primal, a stand-alone but out-of-series game. What bugs me a bit more is that there's even less to the main story campaign than this would indicate: the core of the story is essentially an epilogue to Far Cry 5, which is fine, but it means that a lot of the main campaign isn't really about anything, it's just some stuff that happens, and while the Twins are entertaining enough additions to the series' gallery of charismatic psychopaths, their relationship to the player is too loose to add a sense of genuine conflict. They feel like they've been added to the game because a Far Cry game requires a charismatic psychopath villain, rather than because the developers expected them to say anything.

More generally, I think the post-apocalyptic setting was under-explored. The shift from a cash-based economy to scavenging and crafting is smart, but the resources aren't clearly distinguished enough for it to feel like a genuine crafting system rather than just seven or eight different currency systems existing side-by-side. In particular, you buy ammunition with a single ubiquitous copper resource, so the conservation of ammo that you would expect the setting to apply doesn't really exist. They've also made the baffling choice to remove all weapons customisation, where the more thematically-appropriate move is clearly to expand it, to give the player a limited set of base weapons and invited them to customise and upgrade with scavenged materials- and, ideally, to extend the same mechanics to vehicles. While the equipment is all depicted as improvised, it's purchased as a series of discrete tiers of clearly-stated quality, with predetermined stats and functions.

All that said, I did enjoy the game, partly because I am an absolute sucker for this series, but also because it is fun, and it's an achievement in itself that it manages to present a post-apocalyptic setting that visually stands out from a very crowded field. But it very much feels like a filler between main-series entries, and it feels to me like a filler-game should either be more tightly focused on a new story, or on new mechanics, but in this case they've tried to do both and neither. It's something I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to fans of the series, but would be less confident about recommending as a point of entry.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I liked Far Cry, Far Cry 3 and Far Cry Primal.

2 had a promising setting, which I thought it ultimately wasted. The open world, the stricken hero needing to medicate himself periodically, the lack of obvious good guys and bad guys, and the game's implementation of fire and animals were all a hoot, but once the novelty wore off I drifted away and never finished it. I started 4 on the heels of finishing 3, which was maybe a mistake, and it couldn't hold my attention, probably just due to fatigue on my part. I found the crafting in all of the games aggravating and immersion-breaking (did the first one even have any crafting? I can't remember). The crafting worked better for me in Primal, because it fit the setting a little better.

Reviews for 5 were so all over the place that I couldn't divine whether I'd like it or not, and I can no longer spend serious money on a game I'm not 90% certain I'll enjoy. And right away, it sounded like New Dawn was for people who'd played 5, so I didn't even read any reviews (also, the color palette in the screenshots that I saw made me cringe a little - lots of pinks, it seemed like, which is not my favorite).

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I'm near the end of my Starcraft 2 Protoss campaign,
The writing isn't as bad as I expected. It's not very good eother, but I expected really bad.
I wish the missions were a bit longer.
Were RTS missions longer during the nineties or am I just finishing them quicker now because of better strategy ?

 

[Lexicus]

I'm near the end of my Starcraft 2 Protoss campaign,
The writing isn't as bad as I expected. It's not very good eother, but I expected really bad.
I wish the missions were a bit longer.
Were RTS missions longer during the nineties or am I just finishing them quicker now because of better strategy ?

I find RTS campaigns way less fun than I did ten years ago too, I recently tried to play Company of Heroes 2's campaign and just...had no interest in it.

 

[Traitorfish]

I found the crafting in all of the games aggravating and immersion-breaking (did the first one even have any crafting? I can't remember). The crafting worked better for me in Primal, because it fit the setting a little better.

Yeah, the crafting system in 3 and 4 was not very well implemented. It doesn't really gel with the rest of the game, and while I think they were trying to incentive hunting and engagement with the environment more generally, but it ends up just feeling like busywork. They seemed to have learned that lesson, because the stuff you crafted in 3 and 4- weapon capacity, ammo capacity, etc.- is handled entirely through the perks system in 5 and New Dawn (a really lightweight experience system, basically), although this does undercut the hunting mechanics, since all you can do with skins is trade them for cash or cash-like-resources.

As much as I love this series, there is definitely a running problem that the developer's aren't really sure what they think a Far Cry game is supposed to be. There's obviously a stealth focus, but they throw in on-rails shooter sections. It's meant to be more tactical than a baseline FPS, but they throw in boss fights with zero tactical dimension. They want it to be a wilderness game, but they've never really figured out how to make the wilderness a place in its own right, instead of just something to fill in the space between human settlements. I think that Primal probably represents the most coherent of the games, because everything is subordinate to the premise "u r caveman", which freed the developers to a make a game structured by its own internal logic more-so than by genre or series conventions.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Through the Citadel DLC, I just discovered a plausible guess on why nobody had to carry barf bags on the Mako in ME1: Inertial dampers.

The idea of everyone carrying barf bags is more amusing, though.

I'm still not sure how Barla Von (the volus banker) managed to get a top score at the Armax arena.

 

[MaryKB]

So I'm sort of liking this Fortnite .. I haven't played with my nieces yet, I've only just finished the tutorial, but basically you go on missions to save people after a zombie apocalypse. You collect resources by smashing just about everything, and then you build little forts and fight off hordes of zombies. I like building things, I wish the fighting was just a little less intense, but I can imagine how fun this would be playing with other people.

I'm playing as Sarah, because I like her special power to jump really high and not get hurt from falling. I have a sniper rifle, a pistol, and a sword, so I've got a variety of ways to fight bad guys.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The second to last Protoss main campaign mission was a good one, even though I made a strategic mistake before it even started.

Spoiler :

I chose Dark Archons only for the mind control. All enemies in the mission are immune to mind control.

The last one is "defend this thing until something".
I hate those.

Spoiler :

Also no Terran or Zerg allies. That's a bit disappointing.

I find RTS campaigns way less fun than I did ten years ago too, I recently tried to play Company of Heroes 2's campaign and just...had no interest in it.

I only played the first Company of Heroes and couldn't really get into it. I prefer a bit more resource management and base building. Isn't there a new Age of Empires coming this year ? They announced it in 2017 iirc.

 

[EgonSpengler]

American Truck Simulator: In what's supposed to be a laid-back, beverage-in-hand game of watching the scenery and listening to the radio, I took a job transporting a 118,000-lb excavator on an oversized, articulated trailer. What a mistake that was. I caused an accident just getting onto the highway, because the butt-end of my extra-wide, half-mile-long trailer was hanging out into the oncoming lane. Those things should have tillers in back, like the old fire trucks had. And parking that stupid thing was like pushing a string.

Yeah, the crafting system in 3 and 4 was not very well implemented. It doesn't really gel with the rest of the game, and while I think they were trying to incentive hunting and engagement with the environment more generally, but it ends up just feeling like busywork. They seemed to have learned that lesson, because the stuff you crafted in 3 and 4- weapon capacity, ammo capacity, etc.- is handled entirely through the perks system in 5 and New Dawn (a really lightweight experience system, basically), although this does undercut the hunting mechanics, since all you can do with skins is trade them for cash or cash-like-resources.

As much as I love this series, there is definitely a running problem that the developer's aren't really sure what they think a Far Cry game is supposed to be. There's obviously a stealth focus, but they throw in on-rails shooter sections. It's meant to be more tactical than a baseline FPS, but they throw in boss fights with zero tactical dimension. They want it to be a wilderness game, but they've never really figured out how to make the wilderness a place in its own right, instead of just something to fill in the space between human settlements. I think that Primal probably represents the most coherent of the games, because everything is subordinate to the premise "u r caveman", which freed the developers to a make a game structured by its own internal logic more-so than by genre or series conventions.

I think I liked Primal the most. I like the variety, but you're right, it doesn't always gel, and sometimes it's unclear which game you're meant to be playing. There was one Primal boss fight that defeated me 4 or 5 times until I realized that I was supposed to stop being clever and sneaky after getting into the enemy HQ and just run around like a lunatic.

I only played the first Company of Heroes and couldn't really get into it. I prefer a bit more resource management and base building.

The first CoH remains my favorite RTS game of all time. But, then, I only tolerate the resource management and base building aspects of most RTS games. I loved CoH's more intricate combat and relatively slower pace. I didn't get as involved in the sequel. I went from Company of Heroes to World in Conflict to World of Tanks, and got kind out burned out on the competitive multiplayer games.

 

[Takhisis]

Were RTS missions longer during the nineties or am I just finishing them quicker now because of better strategy ?

Many games now are tailored to people with short attention spans, who consider a session of two to five levels of Bejewelled while riding the tube on the way to work to be ‘gaming’.

Winning a mission of Dune II or Warcraft (the original one), in spite of all my tactical prowess, still takes a looong time.
Never mind the original XCOM: UFO game (Enemy Unknown) where hunting down enemies is a… let us say pain.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Been doing some Hollow Knight recently. Fun game, nice change of pace from strategy/grand strategy and DCSS.

 

[Synobun]

Many games now are tailored to people with short attention spans, who consider a session of two to five levels of Bejewelled while riding the tube on the way to work to be ‘gaming’.

Many games in the past were tailored to people with no life, who consider a session or two of 8-hour Quake matches while sitting in the basement to be 'gaming'.

See, we can be elitist too! So much fun.

 

[Takhisis]

Quake? It was AOE and it was NINE hours.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

The last one is "defend this thing until something".
I hate those.

And another one in the epilogue campaign.
I really hate those.

Many games now are tailored to people with short attention spans, who consider a session of two to five levels of Bejewelled while riding the tube on the way to work to be ‘gaming’.

Winning a mission of Dune II or Warcraft (the original one), in spite of all my tactical prowess, still takes a looong time.
Never mind the original XCOM: UFO game (Enemy Unknown) where hunting down enemies is a… let us say pain.

Many games in the past were tailored to people with no life, who consider a session or two of 8-hour Quake matches while sitting in the basement to be 'gaming'.

See, we can be elitist too! So much fun.

Not 8 hours, but a typical RTS mission used to take at least half an hour. In Starcraft 2 I can complete many in less than 20 minutes. Some even in 10.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I don't think it particularly spoils anything so I think I can tell you.

It's the most exciting subgame ever, where you have to try and beat someone's chin up record of a hundred and fifty seven gazillion chin ups, by pressing the paragon and renegage buttons over and over again for about half an hour. For no reason whatsover as far as I recall.

That seems like a good way to get repetitive strain disorder. Can't be any worse than planet scanning, though.

It's not like you have to hammer the buttons Track & Field-style or anything, it's quite leisurely. That just adds to the boredom though.

I finally got to this. I didn't get repetitive strain disorder, but I did manage to almost fall asleep.