What Video Games Have You Been Playing, Part 10: Or; A Shameful Display!

[Synobun]

I think I've figured out why Mad Max has been bothering me, despite me playing it for longer than Shadow of Mordor and Arkham Origins.

It designs all of its systems to be intentionally frustrating. The gun mechanic is tres terrible. The car boomstick mechanic is so painstakingly extended. The game adds "difficulty" by simply negating your ability to use your tools, without giving you the option of working to make things easier. The project/stronghold mechanic is fun, but it gets increasingly annoying as you move into later stages of the map because they add tedium instead of variety.

I find myself rushing through the main missions now just so I can move on and be done with it because the game goes out of its way to make itself annoying to play.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

In Mass Effect Andromeda, I finally settled all of the available planets and terraformed them to 100%. That was a goal that I self-imposed before I would let myself continue to the end game in the main storyline. It turns out what I thought was going to be a semi-final mission set (the hunt for the Archon sequence/saving the Silarian Ark) turned out to be just another main mission. It also unleashed a flood of new side quests. I am a bit flabbergasted because I tend more toward the completionist side of RPG playing and I find it hard to resist side missions. On the other hand, I just want it to finally end so I can say I've finished it.

In Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, I got to a point where they added a ton of new battle mechanics and I find it less boring than before. I still unduly struggle with timing attacks and I found that part of my problem is that there are a lot of audio clues that I'm missing as I play almost exclusively on mute. I retain the option of turning down the difficulty but with all the new mechanics, I find I haven't had to yet.

I looked up how much grinding Final Fantasy 6 requires and it turns out it's considered one of the easiest games of the series. In fact they recommend against grinding for the first third or so of the game because when you equip Espers later in the game, they provide bonuses with each leveling up. This is great because I really didn't want to grind. The story's been good so far but I'm not yet seeing why it's so beloved other than the fact that it introduced more technology-focused themes, art work and storylines into the series. Before this game the series was pretty much exclusively set in Medieval-themed magic-only settings. Final Fantasy 6 gave the series the techno-magic hybrid character that it's retained to today and is seen as a hallmark of the series.

I'm a bit disappointed with Tetris Effect on PS4 as I near the end of the main level set. It turns out what I thought was a vocals-heavy soundtrack was actually just two songs. The rest of the music is ok but I haven't found most of the tracks all that catchy. The game also does not walk you through the use of the various power ups that are available and I have never learned them on my own so the final levels are crushing me and my overall scores are terrible. I need to make a point to learn how to use the special abilities but I literally forget they are there 99% of the time I'm playing the game.

I've been playing a lot of games lately.

 

[Synobun]

Tried to play Seven: Days Long Gone but performance is traaaaash. It also needed a workaround just to access the main menu. I ain't about that life.

Tried out Cultist Simulator. Very meh. Provides zero direction, boasting that you have to experiment to figure out how to play! But the gameplay is just timers and essentially playing a less intuitive Doodle God.

HITMAN's performance was almost as bad as Seven's, so I set that aside too.

So... now I'm playing Observer. Weird game, but it's cyberpunk and seems slightly compelling thus far. The main character's voice actor isn't very good, though.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Gapcha rate 2%
This is how Japanese games milk the whales, I have already dump so many cubes trying to get her. On suicide watch

 

[Yeekim]

Playing AC Odyssey and liking it so far.
The franchise sure has come a long way.

About 70 hours in, lvl 34 and allegedly 36% through main quest, my original optimism has been mostly replaced by disillusionment.
This is still an arcade-y game masquerading as an RPG.

Lovingly crafted world (always strong point of AC), but I feel ... disconnected from it.
The quests are bland and none of the characters feel significant.
If feels really doubtful whether any of the "choices" you occasionally have to make really have any impact on anything.
There is a war going on, but all you can do about it is indiscriminately kill people on both sides for no discernible reason: the "bad guys" I'm supposed to hunt seem rather demure compared to myself.
Does not help that I hate the danbrownesque "backstory/lore" of the franchise with a passion.
I'll probably see this through, (I'm no quitter damnit!) but it's feeling like a chore. Good I paid just half price for it.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, if you want a reasonable story with minimal Precursor plot points, just do the main story missions. I do agree that Odyssey is simply too big, though.

 

[Yeekim]

Well, if you want a reasonable story with minimal Precursor plot points, just do the main story missions. I do agree that Odyssey is simply too big, though.

This goes against my obsessively completionist soul, however.
You're talking to someone who cleared every question mark in TW3...

 

[EgonSpengler]

I started Eastshade this weekend, a non-combat, open-fantasy-world exploration game, in which you play a traveling painter.

Pros: Great graphics and sound. Laid-back gameplay with almost all threat removed. Very nice world design, architecture. Cast of anthropomorphic animals (monkeys, bears, stags and owls) works better than I thought it would. It's a nice alternative to the usual humans, elves and dwarves, and it isn't too Disney-cute. It's more like Brian Jacques' Redwall books. I'd like to have seen more than just the four species.

Cons: Voice acting stumbles. Another pseudo-Shire gameworld - I find it frustrating that we don't get much cultural variety in pop culture, but I try not to judge any individual game, movie or tv show on what it isn't. I encountered one bug early on that had me roadblocked until I figured it out, and the game hiccups once in a while if I rotate my POV too fast; but since there's no combat, there's no downside to being more deliberate. In fact, I find the base walking speed just a wee bit too fast for enjoying the scenery. I have to stop periodically, just to look around. They should add a "walking speed" slider in the options.

Recommended, provided you enjoy 'walking simulator' exploration games, and provided that another, fairly standard, fantasy realm doesn't make you want to bang your head on the table.

 

[Arakhor]

This goes against my obsessively completionist soul, however.
You're talking to someone who cleared every question mark in TW3...

We have similar souls - I have 100% completion in AC2, three times over, after all.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Has anyone played Phantom Doctrine? I noticed it's on sale for $20, which is around my threshold for trying something I don't already know I'll enjoy.

 

[Lexicus]

Inspired by Napoleon TW campaign I jumped back into Empire: Total War as the Prussians. After a few abortive attempts I managed a successful campaign by allying with Poland-Lithuania, which I know, seems kinda stupid, but they actually have held to the alliance. They've even gotten really thicc by conquering most of Eastern and central Europe, and they even occupied France on the last turn of the campaign (after I destroyed all the French armies single-handedly and captured Paris and then had to withdraw to replenish my army, allowing the French to retake it, but still). I have control of almost all of modern-day Germany (minus Saxony, which is allied to both me and Poland and a few other neutral one-region states) plus the Low Countries, and my troops invaded France.

Unfortunately every time I end the most recent turn, the game crashes to desktop during AI Quebec's turn and there is no slightly earlier save to fall back on, I would have to go back like 20 years so I'll most likely just start a new campaign. Not sure if I'll ally with Poland this time, it seems like it might be necessary as every game where I go to war with Poland I end up at war with Russia as well which is kind of unsustainable what with all the stacks that get sent to Konigsberg.

I also started playing the original Warhammer 40K Dawn of War, having fun trying to work out good ways to play Skirmish mode. I also started a campaign in Dawn of War 2 last night, I have played the Last Stand game mode (where you and 2 other humans play against 20 increasingly-difficult waves of AI enemies) a lot but never really the other game modes.

DoW2's campaign seems like it will give at least a few tens of hours of fun. Nice mixture of RTS and RPG elements.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I found this while cleaning out a bunch of old FRAPS videos:

 

[tjs282]

Awww... now I'm nostalgic to play Half-Life again.

But not sufficiently nostalgic to pollute this computer with the Steam-client...

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

You can try looking for a WON/retail copy.

 

[tjs282]

You can try looking for a WON/retail copy.

I thought Valve stuff was (still) only available through Steam...?

What does 'WON' mean in this context? (DuckDuckGo wasn't helpful)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

World Opponent Network. It's a pre-Steam copy of Half-Life.

Another treasure found in my FRAPS folder:

 

[Broken_Erika]

I found this while cleaning out a bunch of old FRAPS videos:

Looks like Gordon had of LSD with a side of Magic Mushrooms for breakfast....

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I thought Valve stuff was (still) only available through Steam...?

What does 'WON' mean in this context? (DuckDuckGo wasn't helpful)

The original Half-Life predates Steam. Valve parleyed their success there into dominating the DRM market with Steam by including Steam in the release of Half-Life 2...with no real warning. If you read the fine print on the packaging you might figure it out, but most people didn't recognize what they were getting into until they went into the installation and were greeted with a smarmy "we are gamers and we love providing gamers with games and without this DRM we invented we'll just not be able to keep doing that" message. The disk in the packaging installed Steam, not Half-Life 2.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Looks like Gordon had of LSD with a side of Magic Mushrooms for breakfast....

I'm pretty sure I was playing around with the Source Engine Randomizer. If you look closely, it's actually Half-Life: Source.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Speaking of Steam and Half-Life 1, there's an amusing little glitch/feature/oversight. In the GoldSrc version at least, if you have an audio CD in the drive, the game will play whatever music is on the disc instead of the actual game music. It's a bit of an artifact from when the original game CD was Red Book-compliant and held the game soundtrack. Quake does this too, and at least one other game that I can't remember.