Gaming General Chat Thread

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Kapol
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Kapol » 17 Jun 2016, 17:33

Playing through Mad Max. I have some thoughts on it, and I'd like to share them. As a note, I'm currently to the point, story-wise, where I'm just getting to Gas Town. I will not be talking about any major spoilers.

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So, Mad Max is a game that feels like it was made by committee to me. The combat feels quite a bit like Batman's free-flowing combat system. Open world and traveling feels like it's based on GTA to some degree. Environment is much like many post-apocalyptic games. It even has elements of base-building that's becoming prevalent in a lot of games as of late. Trouble is, it doesn't really do anything that well.

The combat system feels like a major step down from Batman. One of the major problems I have with the combat system is that you can easily be blindsided by enemies. There've been many times where I'm beating down an enemy, and I don't see an enemy about to attack me just besides the camera view. When you go into Rage mode, it's possible to be hit without being able to block too. More than one combo was broken due to not seeing an enemy about to attacking me when Max goes into some sort of sidewalk slam animation.

The trouble is that there isn't a ton of content beyond the battle system, in my opinion. Driving around the world is fine. I'd even say it's quite fun with the vehicle combat. But beyond a number of convoys that you have to deal with, there's not a ton of battles to do in the Magnum Opus. You can tear down snipers and towers. But they generally just involve using the harpoon to pull them down, or slamming into them and make them collapse. The multitude of camps you come across are basically either 'fight through camp to blow stuff up' or 'fight through camp to kill big boss.' Sometimes you just fight through the camp to fight through the camp.

There is one other thing to do to clear out a region. Minefields. I hate minefields. They're barely worth anything in terms of liberating a region. You're forced to take an entirely different vehicle to drive to them. Then, you have to follow vague directions to find the hidden mines. And when you do find them? All you do is get out of the car, hold A, get back in the car, and continue. These are required to unlock a non-insignificant number of upgrades too. It honestly just felt like a waste of time.

Death Races are a thing, and range from fun to frustrating. One of my main issues is that one of the two big modes does not allow you to use your customized vehicle. You're forced to use the normal cars enemies use. And, to be honest, they just aren't as fun to drive most of the time. The only way to drive the Magnum Opus is by driving an 'Archangel.' Pre-determined versions of the archangel that you can build if you have access to the specific parts required. Which, to me, takes away from the fun of customizing your vehicle at all.

So what about the world itself? It's... fine. There's not a ton to see or do beyond just driving around. You can have some nice little encounters. But, overall, it's just getting from point A to B. They try to expand on it a bit with some mementos from the old world. But the trouble is that the mementos don't tell you a ton. A lot of them don't really say anything, really. Basically 'people got sick. Shit got fucked.' The normal kind of thing for the this setting.

What about the base building? It's... eh. There are four bases. They all have the same upgrades. They more or less all improve as you get the upgrades. It all feels very basic to me. There's no real building and more just upgrading. It's honestly fine if it wasn't such a pain in the dick to get all of the pieces to upgrade. But overall the mechanic is fine.

One thing that really bothered me is the number of pointless stuff that just fills the world. A lot of scavenging locations that give you about 10 scrap, generally. A lot of, again not very interesting to me, artifacts of the old world. And some have pieces of projects. When you're going through camps, you can destroy the utterly pointless Scrotus symbols that I've seen literally no reason to exist other than to be a collectable. There's also a bunch of scrap to find. Though again, there generally isn't much in any given place. As a completionist, they drive me mad. Sometimes this stuff is hidden in tiny cracks that you just have to luck into seeing. I've searched camps for about 20 minutes, looking for the last collectable, just to fulfill my need to finish everything. All for absolutely no gain.

As for the story... there's not much to say. It's not really that interesting, in my opinion. Max isn't a great character. The zealous ally character isn't interesting to me. It's just... eh. This isn't a Fury Road type of tale. There are bits of interesting things to find. The beliefs of some groups, the needs of some characters, their desires. But they all just feel very insignificant to the main story.

The biggest issue with everything is that the game feels like it's just more and more of the same. Hour 2 felt a lot like hour 20 in terms of gameplay. Just more and more of the same. All things are destroyed in basically the same ways with slight variation (sometimes you shoot a rocket at them!). But generally, you just pull them with your line or shoot them with your gun.


TL;DR: It's fine. But repetitive.
Kapol
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Kapol » 27 Jun 2016, 19:37

I just finished two games I bought less than three hours ago.

The first was Pony Island. It was a pretty neat little game. The gameplay itself wasn't extraordinary. But it managed to be clever enough in terms of execution to remain fun. I actually kind of felt bad for the devil after reading some of the things in the game. I might go back to finish collecting the tickets. But overall, it was just a fun little experience.

Refunct was similarly a neat little experience. If I'm honest, it seems like it's too light on content for the price tag. Like, I got it for $1.50. I'm not going to complain too much. But I was able to 100% the game blind in less than 20 minutes. The world itself is only squares, pipes, switches, and water. The gameplay was fun, but not anything amazing... though this might be one of the better examples of first-person platforming.

I dunno. It just seems more like a tech demo than a full game to me. But I guess everyone deserves to be paid for their work.
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SAJewers
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby SAJewers » 13 Jul 2016, 04:05

found out last night Copy Kitty is making it's way onto steam in August. Bought it a couple years ago on itch.io, and had a lot of fun with it. Can't wait to see what the steam release brings.
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Prospero101 » 16 Jul 2016, 12:45

Recently rediscovered my love of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. My friends and I have started treating it like an RPG, creating backstories for our characters and story context for the endless hordes and objectives.

Also, I have FRIENDS to play games with! How totally rad is that!
It's all over but the crying. And the taxes.

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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby SAJewers » 11 Aug 2016, 14:56

So I just picked up Copy Kitty and Holy Crap, is it amazing. 100% recommend.
Kapol
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Kapol » 20 Aug 2016, 00:08

Replayed Human Revolution (the Director's Cut, for the first time) to prep for Mankind Divided coming out next week. I forgot just how much I liked the game, though the DLC had one spot that really bothered me. As I always do, I did a pacifist run. And this time I actually got the pacifist achievement since nobody accidentally died. There might have been some changes to that system though.

Main reason I'm posting is because I remember how much I loved the ending. Mostly because none of the options are presented as bad. Each case is given an argument. And, most importantly, any option you pick is made out to be a good choice. Extoling the virtues on the benefits of picking it. The only one I had any real issue with was the destroy the structure ending. The sacrifice felt kind of counter-intuitive. But honestly, that's the only way that choice really works.
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SAJewers
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby SAJewers » 20 Aug 2016, 06:24

So a trailer for Monster Boy and The Cursed Kingdom was shown at Gamescom, and it definitely looks like something I'll have to keep my eye on.
Kapol
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Kapol » 12 Oct 2016, 20:18

Finished Bravely Second. I enjoyed it. Overall it wasn't quite as good as the first to me. Reused assets made it lose a lot of exploration value. But there were aspects I thought worked better and quite enjoyed. It also shares some of the problems of the first game. Though thankfully not the biggest issue I had, which was the first game's second half.

Gameplay was still great. The story felt a bit more forced in places and seemed like it had retcons. But they made for a more interesting tale. The characters helped make up for it too. I enjoyed the character dynamics a bit more in this one than the first, I think. The style of everything felt very good. The world is... well, more or less the same one from BD with some new towns and dungeons. So it looks good.

One weird thing is that the game replays the intro cutscene every time you beat a chapter. Not so much an issue as a weird decision. Maybe it changed between them and I just missed it?

I'd recommend picking it up if you enjoyed Bravely Default. If you haven't played BD, pick that up first for sure. It's a great jRPG and this one builds off of it in many ways.

Also it gave me a new favorite character in Yoko.
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 14 Oct 2016, 11:01

Ordered the Pokemon Sun and Moon 3DS XL.
Image

I have a job so I can afford it.
I only have a 2DS and I scratched the screen because it cannot fold.
I never owned one of these blatant attempts of being a collectible.
I actually like the design.
Both Legendaries appeal to me.

RRP same as a brand new XL.
Kapol
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Kapol » 15 Oct 2016, 02:44

Hopefully you enjoy it. I know I'm super excited for SuMo and have the steelbook on preorder. Also looking forward to the demo coming out Tuesday.
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 15 Oct 2016, 11:33

Haven't had a chance to hype for it since I have a 11 day vacation beginning in two weeks.
Kapol
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Kapol » 20 Oct 2016, 06:38

New Nintendo console announced. Looks to me like it's more replacing the 3DS than the Wii U, but we'll have to wait and see.
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Omega Lairon
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Omega Lairon » 21 Oct 2016, 14:58

Oh my glob

You guys

Civ 6 you guys

It's so good

Seriously
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SAJewers
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby SAJewers » 24 Nov 2016, 13:48

Robo4900
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Robo4900 » 26 Nov 2016, 06:55

It's probably a false positive, but better safe than sorry.
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby smoke108 » 28 Nov 2016, 17:35

Picked up Shardlight and Technobabylon during the Steam Sale so going through Shardlight right now. So far, another solid WadjetEye adventure.
twitter: @g1brent
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AdmiralMemo
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby AdmiralMemo » 30 Nov 2016, 23:38

Graham wrote:The point is: Nyeh nyeh nyeh. I'm an old man.
LRRcast wrote:Paul: That does not answer that question at all.
James: Who cares about that question? That's a good answer.

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ANeMzero
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby ANeMzero » 03 Dec 2016, 19:52

Got Hacknet in this months Humble Monthly and basically devoured it today. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of playing SlaveHack (a pseudo hacking/puzzle mmo thing) back in the day.. but slightly less stressful.

There is a bit of handwaving that usually comes with the territory, you mostly just use predetermined tools to break down specific blocks without the game spending any time to explain how these tools work or why you're using them. Still if you can get past that it is still a pretty enjoyable game. The devs set up some interesting challenges within the narrow scope of "hacking" they're working within.
and now; back to me.
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SAJewers
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby SAJewers » 12 Dec 2016, 12:43

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY3UZ9uPhM0
Can't wait the inevitable CtS stream of this :P
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SAJewers
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby SAJewers » 15 Dec 2016, 13:46

Robo4900
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Robo4900 » 16 Dec 2016, 07:50

That looks delightful.
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
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Merrymaker_Mortalis
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Merrymaker_Mortalis » 16 Dec 2016, 09:25

Planetcoaster is an amazing game if you loved Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Kapol
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby Kapol » 16 Dec 2016, 21:12

I'm finally playing through Skyward Sword, and... I can see why people dislike the motion controls. I don't mind the idea of them. But man do they feel forced in this game. And the execution feels clunky so far. Like trying to fly or fall just feels like a chore, and slashing the 'correct' way seems like it'll get unfun really quickly. I like the style and story so far, and only have a few issues with basic gameplay. But the motion controls are really hampering the game for me.
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Re: Gaming General Chat Thread

Postby unpronounceable » 16 Dec 2016, 22:19

I heard a leak saying the Steam winter sale is starting on the 22nd. In light of that, I've been thinking about how I'm going to limit my spending during this year's Steam winter sale. I think I'm probably getting some gift cards, so I'll spend those on myself. For anything else, I'm planning on only buying multiplayer games, and I have to buy a copy for a friend (or convince them to buy their own copy (but more likely the former)).

How is everyone else planning on curbing their spending?

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