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

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Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: Smith on 03 July, 2020, 11:11:07 AM
XCOM 2. Way more then I should.

Have you got the War of the Chosen expansion? Ramps us the difficulty, but also the satisfaction when you win. Plus there's a big chunk of the Enterprise D's bridge crew doing voices.

Quote from: wedgeski on 03 July, 2020, 11:48:04 AM
Man, I need to get back to that. I abandoned my game years ago cos I thought they'd ramped the difficulty into unfun levels, but I feel like giving it another go.

Yeah, I've always found that XCom games don't really have a difficulty curve. It's more like a wall you have to dash your soldiers against until you break through.
You may quote me on that.

Apestrife

#2506
Quote from: pictsy on 03 July, 2020, 10:49:19 AM
I have only played Bioshock 1 and Bioshock Infinite and only completed the latter.  The settings are nice, especially Infinite which looks fantastic (I love that style of architecture), but I found the gameplay to be utterly tedious.  It was really disappointing because I liked so much about it, but it didn't make up for the feeling that I was just slogging my way through.  I think I stuck with Infinite because of it's rollercoaster mechanics.

Which difficulty level did you play on? I found it to become much more fun when playing on hard. Basically forcing me to toy around with the vigors and weapons (rather than just using my favorites, the rifle and machinegun). Especially on the lady comstock ghost level. Made me come up with a brilliant combination.

Gave Bioshock 2 a try this morning. Tried at least. Constantly crashing on my PC, and I'm not a fan of the art direction they went with. Everything is more grey, and the enemy characters look more realistically proportioned compared to BS1 and Infinite. Also feels a bit samey to BS1. I didn't think playing as a big daddy felt that different from Jack outside new toys, heavier footsteps and being able to traverse the ocean now and then. Especially not with everyone making conversation to me as if I'm a person and not a big daddy: a scary and heavy diver suit clad frankenstein/minotaur who sounds like a drunk hellish cow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBHDPwJeO6g

pictsy

Quote from: Apestrife on 03 July, 2020, 12:48:22 PM
Which difficulty level did you play on? I found it to become much more fun when playing on hard. Basically forcing me to toy around with the vigors and weapons (rather than just using my favorites, the rifle and machinegun). Especially on the lady comstock ghost level. Made me come up with a brilliant combination.

I probably played on Normal because that's usually my default, but I honestly can't say for sure.  It was a long time ago.  What I remember with Infinite is there being a succession of set pieces over and over and over again.  I don't think a harder difficulty would have relieved the tedium for me.  It's not my particular cup of tea.

Apestrife

Quote from: pictsy on 03 July, 2020, 03:51:26 PM
Quote from: Apestrife on 03 July, 2020, 12:48:22 PM
Which difficulty level did you play on? I found it to become much more fun when playing on hard. Basically forcing me to toy around with the vigors and weapons (rather than just using my favorites, the rifle and machinegun). Especially on the lady comstock ghost level. Made me come up with a brilliant combination.

I probably played on Normal because that's usually my default, but I honestly can't say for sure.  It was a long time ago.  What I remember with Infinite is there being a succession of set pieces over and over and over again.  I don't think a harder difficulty would have relieved the tedium for me.  It's not my particular cup of tea.

I actually had some similar ideas about the combat in the game, but playing on a harder difficulty opened it up for me.

But as you say, might not be your cup of tea.


pictsy

I will say that I did really like Infinite's visuals.  The neo-classical art nouveau architecture and design is most definitely my cup of tea and I really appreciated it.  I also liked the class and race commentary, which probably has more resonance now than on it's release.  It is similar with the original Bioshock's.  I like art deco and I like a savaging commentary on the vile Randian psuedo-philosophy.  In some ways I'm a little jealous of people who enjoy the actual playing of the games, but I'm happy appreciating them for their design aspects.

The Enigmatic Dr X

Control

Specifically, its first DLC - Foundation

For me, Control is THE game of the last generation. A heady mix of decent powers, gunplay, metrovania exploration (but not too much!) and hard core sci-fi story. With great visuals, great sound, and great little touches. Man, even collectibles have great little stories in them.

From a tooth point of view, I think there is an nice John Smith vibe to the insanity. Some of the set pieces - an inter-dimensional invasion of clocks for example - are straight from the comic, as is the Board (300 foot high maggots with a single rotating mecanical eye and spindly insect legs).

Really looking forward to the next DLC, which is an Alan Wake quasi-sequel.

If you have not played this game, you are missing a treat.

How much did I like this game? It is the only game for which I have made the effort to get all the achievements.

CAVEAT: Some of the optional boss battles are super hard but, gee, the satisfaction on taking those guys down,
Lock up your spoons!

Apestrife

Spec Ops: The line Heard a bunch of this one. Good things. Has an interesting setting (Dubai drowned in a sand storm) and scene or two which I haven't seen in other games, but I can't say it grabbed nearly as much as I hoped it would. Neither it's gears of war cover shooting or apocalypse now with a twist story. But I can appreciate what they set out to do with the game.

Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIoJnMT3yUI

Smith

Quote from: Mister Pops on 03 July, 2020, 12:27:30 PM
Quote from: Smith on 03 July, 2020, 11:11:07 AM
XCOM 2. Way more then I should.

Have you got the War of the Chosen expansion? Ramps us the difficulty, but also the satisfaction when you win. Plus there's a big chunk of the Enterprise D's bridge crew doing voices.

Quote from: wedgeski on 03 July, 2020, 11:48:04 AM
Man, I need to get back to that. I abandoned my game years ago cos I thought they'd ramped the difficulty into unfun levels, but I feel like giving it another go.

Yeah, I've always found that XCom games don't really have a difficulty curve. It's more like a wall you have to dash your soldiers against until you break through.

WotC and a bunch of mods.
With XCOM,you are always one step behind the enemy.Which makes sense.

NapalmKev

Erica which is currently free on PS4.

Not a game in the true sense, Erica is an interactive Horror film and it's pretty good, IMO.

The running time is only about 90 mins (2 hours if you factor in the odd cup of tea) so it doesn't outstay its welcome and gives some incentive for at least one more play through due to the limited run time and multiple endings. You can't skip anything though so if you're going to play more than once you'll have to watch a lot of the same scenes again.

Recommended highly and it's free.

Also free (on PS4) this month is Rise of the Tomb Raider which I haven't yet played and NBA 2K20 which can crack right on as I have little interest in Sportsgames and even less interest in Basketball!

Cheers
"Where once you fought to stop the trap from closing...Now you lay the bait!"

shaolin_monkey

Nice one! I'm going to try and persuade my partner to work through Erica with me.

One thing she was keen to try out was BOXVR on PSVR. She's a kickboxer anyway, so loved stuff like that, plus we've both been on a drive to get rid of the lockdown weight recently. She found that the game forcing her into a rhythm that ran contrary to her own style took a bit of getting used to, but she enjoyed it, and I eventually had to pry the move controllers out of her hands.

As for me, I adapted to it quickly. In terms of musical rhythm games this sure ain't my first rodeo! However, what I wasn't expecting was how bloody knackering it is! My legs are like jelly, and I'm struggling to hold up this phone. I only did an hour!

So a series of moves comes towards you in time to music, of which there was surprising musical variety and a good mix of genres. So hooks, jabs and uppercuts are combined with 'walls' you have to dodge to the left of right of, it duck under.

The graphics are reasonable - they do the job. There are only three gyms, one of which is a Tron-style area.

As a game designed to keep you fit I'd say it's pretty damn good. Daily targets, different classes, featured workouts, a calorie counter, and more. An hour of this daily will keep you ticking over nicely.

On a PSVR-related note, Super Stardust Ultra VR is currently less than a fiver in the PS Store, which is an absolute steal if you ask me.


pictsy

Shadow of the Colossus

Just finished this.  It has some issues which I clearly let slide in previous play throughs due to having more patience for video games in the past than I do now.  The camera can be your enemy at times and the puzzle element isn't always as intuitive as I would have liked (mostly due to my lack of patience).  It still looks good on the ol' PS2 even though the blurring gets a bit much at times.  I'd have to play Ico again to determine if I still think that is the superior game, but I feel it probably is.

The soundtrack is great, the atmosphere fantastic and aside from a few niggles here and there it still holds up as a great game.  It doesn't go on too long, either.  I've largely been put off more modern games (and a few older ones) because of the time investment involved.  6 hours for a game is definitely more up my alley.

Professor Bear

Rush Rover, Thunder Paw, and Super Destronaut Land Wars, which I lump together because they're all games from the same publisher that cost buttons to buy on PSN, and I got all the trophies after an hour or so of playing.
Ratalaika Games are infamous for cheap titles that will award you easy platinum trophies after a pretty short period of time, and while I can see that as a clever hook for gamers whose social media profiles are intertwined with their hobby, I feel it probably sells a lot of cheap and enjoyable games short, because these basic, pointless games are actually perfectly fine, mechanically speaking, and I thought Rush Rover especially felt like it was plumbing a retro vibe, replicating the feeling of old ZX Spectrum games where you just wandered around the map shooting radiantly-generated enemies and looking for pickups.  Super Destronaut Land Wars is great if you just want to wander a neon wireframe maze shooting bitmap enemies with your brain turned off - no goals to speak of, no leveling up, just walk and shoot forever because sometimes that's all you want from a game.

Quote from: NapalmKev on 12 July, 2020, 07:37:37 AMNBA 2K20 which can crack right on as I have little interest in Sportsgames and even less interest in Basketball!

I actually played this as "re search" - which is a thing you do when you want your hobby to stop being enjoyable - and it was utterly fucking baffling.  Not quite as impenetrable as that baseball videogame PSN gave away a while back, but I think I have a theory why the people buying yearly update editions of sports franchise videogames are a small and insular community.
I can't say I like sports games, but I did get along just fine with FIFA 2017 thanks to a combo of costing 2 pounds to buy and a very light RPG story mode.  The game actually gives you a trophy if your player is a massive prick in interviews, which is the kind of meta commentary that the constraints of the official license has sadly denied from the game's highly-sanitised storyline.

JamesC

I bought one of those 2K NBA games a few years back and could barely understand it. It had unskippable cut scenes IIRC. When I eventually got somewhere it wasn't very fun.

I went back to NBA Jam on the Megadrive.

Professor Bear

It was using game slang to describe what it wanted me to do, but also using slang to describe how it was done, so it just sounded like "apply some doffle to the gaffick to fargle the narf" and then rather than walk you through this process it immediately moved on to another playing tip like "wingdog from the outer joff zone to increase wobwob" and I just went "fuck this" and deleted the game data.
It was actually a tutorial that you could play while the game data was installing, so I ended up deleting the game before it had even installed.  These things cost millions of dollars to develop and make, you'd think at some point they'd show it to someone normal.

Keef Monkey

Played through the recent DLC for Control, called The Foundation. An enjoyable chunk of content that opens up a new area in the house, a couple of new abilities and probably 3-5hrs of encounters to play through with them (depending how much of a completionist you are). I enjoyed it, the game has a wonderful aesthestic which I enjoyed revisiting, even if I don't love the navigation or checkpointing enough to really dig too deep beyond the critical path in that game. It pains me to say that because I'm a huge Remedy fan and have played all their previous games to 100% and aimed for all achievements etc. but the way this one is laid out just made that all too fiddly for that to seem fun.

Still, for something to blast through it's brilliant and the DLC was a good excuse to go back for some more.