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Started by Keef Monkey, 11 June, 2011, 09:35:35 AM

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Arkwright99

I reached Meridian in my playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn last night and, wow! it really put Bioware's 'big cities' such as Denerim and Val Royeaux in Dragon Age to shame. Guerilla's Meridian isn't just a random 'quarter' that gives you access to a few shops and plazas with citizens standing around spouting random dialogue. It feels like a really bustling environment with NPCs moving around creating a semblance of activity and big enough that you can get lost wandering down a random alley. My previous comment about not being able to enter habitats still stands though since then there have been a couple of plot-related dwellings that you do get to go into and have a snoop around. The game also gives you reasons (if you want them) to return to Meridian so while I feel I've only had a cursory glance at what's going on in the city I don't feel I have to explore it all now, I can take my time and wander around a bit further next time I visit. Very impressive.
'Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel ... with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.' - Alan Moore

The Enigmatic Dr X

Quote from: Satanist on 06 March, 2017, 10:44:01 AM
Quote from: Theblazeuk on 06 March, 2017, 10:25:00 AMI am playing Wolfenstein: New Order.

This has one of my favourite quotes from a game, Fergus says something similar to..."Blazkowicz you magnificent Twunt!".

"I'm on the melon-farming moon" is a goodie too.

I loved this and its prequel, The Old Blood (or maybe The New Blood, can't remember)
Lock up your spoons!

shaolin_monkey


QuoteThis annoyed me because you're supposed to be playing as an emotionally-stunted savage, but her story and the choices available to her preclude that ever having any bearing.

Still though, hunting giant robot dinosaurs eh? That's probably as much story as I need!  :D

Massively enjoying this game.

Professor Bear

I was miffed at it pretending there was some kind of complex storytelling going on when everyone is playing it for the dinobot-twatting.  I know I certainly was.
Also forgot to mention the game world, which is gorgeous - though the Arabian-inspired sections take it firmly away from post-apocalyptia and into fantasy territory even if the existence of car wrecks and streetsigns didn't already do that.

Totes forgot I took a weekend to play Uncharted 4 - and when I say I "took the weekend", I really mean it, as this is one slow-ass game.  The flashback vignette levels go on far too long, as do the cutscenes, and while it's nice to get closure on the characters of Nathan and Elena (I'm a huge fan of the series and have the triple platinum PSN trophies to prove it - yep, even got the online trophies and I never play games online), the story feels overly-indulgent in order to get to that closure.
The game itself is great - beautiful to look at, some clever and involving puzzles, and as usual the combat is fantastic, with the multiple options meaning you'll find a setting that suits your playing level, whether you want to enjoy the spectacle without ever dying, or - for whatever reasons - run a crucible of frighteningly competent gunmen who sniff you out when you hide and rush you if they hear the click of an empty magazine because they know you're reloading (which means you can also trick them into leaving cover and blast them by changing weapons, or push them into cover with blind fire and then toss a grenade behind them).  As always, the game is as challenging as you want it to be, and as always it has annoying and arbitrary button-mashing cutscenes where it feels like nothing you do has any effect on the outcome of events, especially the slightly-tweaked brawling system which makes encounters with one character in particular an annoyance.  The end boss is one of these encounters, harking back to the first game's much-loathed final battle, in which what should be a spectacular setpiece[spoiler] swordfight to the death in a burning pirate ship [/spoiler]is instead just you finally giving up and deciding to hammer one of two button choices over and over again until the 50/50 odds come up with a winning streak in your favor.  Then you don't even get to do an exciting escape[spoiler] from the ship[/spoiler], you just get an hour of cutscenes and playing a combat-free Epilogue [spoiler]where a tween girl walks around an empty beach rather than have to play a level of Crash Bandicoot.[/spoiler]
I sound a bit down on it, and to be honest, this was my least favorite of the Uncharted games - even less so than the gimmicky Golden Abyss - but it was really good fun, as well as occasionally spectacular to look at.

jacob g

Quote from: Arkwright99 on 08 March, 2017, 01:12:27 PM
I reached Meridian in my playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn last night and, wow! it really put Bioware's 'big cities' such as Denerim and Val Royeaux in Dragon Age to shame. Guerilla's Meridian isn't just a random 'quarter' that gives you access to a few shops and plazas with citizens standing around spouting random dialogue. It feels like a really bustling environment with NPCs moving around creating a semblance of activity and big enough that you can get lost wandering down a random alley. My previous comment about not being able to enter habitats still stands though since then there have been a couple of plot-related dwellings that you do get to go into and have a snoop around. The game also gives you reasons (if you want them) to return to Meridian so while I feel I've only had a cursory glance at what's going on in the city I don't feel I have to explore it all now, I can take my time and wander around a bit further next time I visit. Very impressive.

What I love about Horizon is that finaly after years from Red Dead Redemption there's is sandbox game where I actually want to spend hours after hours just for fun of exploryng, wandering from quest to quest.

HZD is perfect patchwork of what works in every action and sandbox games without failures of modern pointless Ubisoft style open world games. It's not rpg (and I don't know why Sony advertise game as one) but 100% action game. I hope I continue to enjoy the game as I go further in story.

How can I not love the game where I am feisty female robohunter and world around me looks like that:

margaritas ante porcos

Professor Bear

My favorite part was when you had to conceal your identity when entering a certain area of the game by donning a domino eyemask, which is all you need to conceal that you are a seven foot tall redhead - the only Caucasian person on the face of the Earth, no less - walking around an Arabian city carrying a giant spear covered in glowing CGI glyphs.  Yes I am pointing this out about a game where you hunt giant robot dinosaurs in Planet of the Apes times, shut up.

Another couple of things: you can tame a Stormbird and Glinthawk, but you can't mount them and then fly around on their backs like you're on a mid-80s heavy metal album cover - that is bullshit, game developers - and Alex Garland didn't copyright his story for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, did he?  Not asking for any particular reason, just curious.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

#1806
Well, I just finished The Witcher 3, after (according to Steam) 168 hours, playing roughly 2-3 hours a day since October. This game has depth.

Me and this game didn't see eye to eye to begin with. The protagonist seemed ridiculously gruff, like he smoked 86 a day and gargled gravel. The opening dream sequence (yeah) had bits that seemed to be taking its cues from a post 11pm Channel 5 show circa 1998 with its crass titilating nudity. The controls and combat system weren't all that intuitive. To be fair I'd come off a Skyrim binge, it took me a while to realize I couldn't just mash the attack button and spam potions when my health got low.

BUT

By the end of the tutorial zone, I was astounded. Yes it had the typical RPG stuff. Go there, kill that, collect 23 of these, yet there was more to it than that. There were about half a dozen unrelated quests, where if you took the time to explore every branch of the conversation tree, revealed a hidden backstory. It made you feel like you were in a real place with real people. That was just the tutorial zone. Later in the game you meet these insignificant NPCs, and their stories had developed even further.

And none of this stuff had any baring on the main story.

The combat system I originally hated, became beautiful once I realised you had to be a bit more tactical and defensive. The whole thing is set up to oppose any kind of minimaxing. You have to learn the weaknesses of the HUGE variety of monsters. Beautifully grotesquely designed monsters. Of which there are many to kill. The thing is you're not a heroic monster slayer, you're just plying a trade, to little acclaim, and sometimes outright prejudice and hostility. There was a side quest where I thought I was hunting a werewolf, but it turned out I had to resolve a love triangle.

And none of this stuff had any baring on the main story.

The main story is great by the way. Geralt (the protagonist) grows on you too, once you realize he's a sarcastic bastard, fond of Dad Jokes. And the Trolls in this game are fucking adorable. I still can't figure out why everyone in this game wants to play Yu-Gi-Oh/Magic the Gathering.
You may quote me on that.

Satanist

Quote from: Mister Pops on 16 March, 2017, 12:26:04 AM
Well, I just finished The Witcher 3, after (according to Steam) 168 hours, playing roughly 2-3 hours a day since October. This game has depth.

I've had this since before Xmas and this is exactly why I haven't started it. I'm scared. Same goes for Skyrim.
Hmm, just pretend I wrote something witty eh?

Professor Bear

Play modded Skyrim for a bit - you're practically guaranteed never to play the regular game again.

Alien: Isolation - I know a lot of people liked this, but by Cripes, this is one clunky game, choked by dated play mechanics.  Some of the puzzles hinge on your character not just stepping over knee-high obstacles and having to take a circuitous detour instead, and the character models and voice acting are gash and take you right out of the story.  The environments and aesthetics - recreating the industrial late-70s sci-fi look, down to anachronistic cassette tapes and cathode ray screens - are great, though it didn't take long to see why I abandoned this the first time I played it.
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst - fuck, what a mess.  There's a bit where I stepped onto a roof and saw the city for the first time and it was just a bunch of shapes and garish colors with no sense of depth or scale to separate them.  The thematically-appropriate antiseptic high contrast visual style of the first game has given way to something that looks like a Deviantart jam session by bored high school art students who just discovered that their copy of Photoshop does lens flares, and the lack of cohesion extends to the terrible control layout that shifts the combat controls from the shoulder triggers to the front buttons and doesn't let you remap, so you can't attack and turn at the same time, and all to include an utterly useless "focus shift" dynamic that's about as much use as a fart in a chocolate kettle.  Even the story is a bloody mess, discarding the simple and effective sibling drama of the first game in favor of some generic dystopian crime dross which retcons the main character from an adult to a teenager for some reason.  Highly disappointing.
This War Of Mine: The Little Ones - fab-but-drab mobile game This War Of Mine makes the jump to console and to add a little variety to watching your characters refuse to do what you tell them because you traumatised them when you broke into someone's house and knifed them to death over a tin of dogfood, kids are now added to the mix, so you can traumatise them and/or watch them die of starvation/dysentery after weeks of being depressed.  There's a whole gameplay dynamic which involves nothing more than you talking to a character that's crying in order to convince them not to top themselves.  More fun than it sounds.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Very Useful Dragons coupled with the one that replaces dragon roars with Macho Man Randy Savage trash talk are the best Skyrim mods.
You may quote me on that.

Professor Bear


Theblazeuk

I loved Alien Isolation. Play on a controller for force feedback with headphones on. Never had the niggles you did other than one or two CANT I JUST JUMP OVER THIS moments.

Tiplodocus

RESIDENT EVIL 4 on the WII (via the WII U).  I'd forgotten how much fun it is. Love the overshoulder gun mechanic - works a treat with the Wiimotes.

Tiny Tips also decided to play it. He thinks it's great too (but was expecting it to be a bit "meh!" because it is "such an old game").
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Keef Monkey

Played 10hrs of Mass Effect Andromeda over the weekend on the EA Early Access trial, and been absolutely itching for its proper release today so I can jump back into it. It seems to be getting a bit of a kicking (and yeah, some of the animations lack polish) but all the anger on the internet seems totally out of proportion and makes me feel like everyone is playing a different game to me. As a huge fan of the series I couldn't be happier so far. That goosebumpy thrill of playing Mass Effect again is great enough that I can (so far) look beyond the rough edges. Haven't seen anything broken or that would hamper my thrill power at all.

Multiplayer is great too, and I'm really enjoying the new prequel novel and can't wait for the new comic series to start up. They've always done a brilliant job with the extended universe (I rewatched the anime movie at the weekend and it's cracking) and as it's hands down my favourite series out there I'm always keen to devour anything ME-related so I'm buzzing that there's a bunch of stuff happening. Not sure there's another series that makes me feel this engaged and excited, I love it so much!

SIP

Yeah, was big fan of the first 3 and was looking forward to this but the reviews have been largely negative on many of the aspects of the game. Glad to hear you are enjoying it. Think I'm going to pick it up second hand as choke at the thought of paying £40+ for a game. Will pick it up for 30 in a couple of weeks.