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The E wrote:Remember Me is one of those games where the idea of the game is much more interesting and engaging than the reality of it.

THIS.

Also, there's just tons of bad writing. Bad guys (and girls) whose motives are moustache-twirling evil are just boring, and rebelling against being labelled terrorists by COMMITTING ACTUAL ACTS OF GODDAMN TERROR is not making me care for my character and their well-being.

Also, screw the box art. Petty, I know, but I've grown tired of ass shot box art of female leads.

Boofinka wrote:

The E wrote:Remember Me is one of those games where the idea of the game is much more interesting and engaging than the reality of it.

THIS.

Also, there's just tons of bad writing. Bad guys (and girls) whose motives are moustache-twirling evil are just boring, and rebelling against being labelled terrorists by COMMITTING ACTUAL ACTS OF GODDAMN TERROR is not making me care for my character and their well-being.

Also, screw the box art. Petty, I know, but I've grown tired of ass shot box art of female leads.

Presumably the box art was a peace offering to the marketing department...but then again there's plenty of male gaze in the game as is.

I see a lot of missed potential in this combat system. Constructing your own combos would be kinda cool if they taught you how to do it organically instead of resorting to a poorly written infodump. The idea that a combo could do damage, heal, and reduce cooldowns according to your playstyle and needs is clever, and with better implementation I could totally get behind it.

And yes...Alex didn't notice that shooting the arm while its life bar was grey would be useless. But this was the first instance in the game of a red/grey life bar mechanic. In well designed games, such ideas are introduced when the stakes are low, allowing the player to clue in on them BEFORE it can cause them endless frustration. Plus there's no conveyance of why the attack is ineffective (although I assume it's because the line of sight to the weak point is blocked? I hope it's not just because the dev said so.) Not to mention the fact that regenerating health feels bullshit, even when it exists for a reason.

All in all, it's a pretty good first game from a developer, but it DOES have faults and room for improvement; here's hoping Dontnod learns lessons from this and the sophomore title reflects that.

It wants the world-running of Mirror's Edge, and conversely Mirror's Edge would have been fantastic with a tighter version of the build-your-own combo system. There's a lot of potential that isn't quite delivered on. Hopefully they learn from experience.

I really enjoyed the bonus House of let's IDDQNOPE stream.

I personally would love to see you finish Silent Hill Downpour, Alex.
Some thematic inconsistencies aside, I really enjoyed what I saw of it and would definitely like to watch more.

I'm a bit late, but I thought I should say that I'm really enjoying Remember Me. There are... enough errors of execution, but all the fundamentals of the game are bang on- a combat system that (although confusing) knows what it's doing, a strong central theme, a story with a brain of sorts and, as has been remarked upon, a superb world & setting. A really great game to watch IMO; moar plz!

BTW, Wolfenstein: The New Order is on the list to be Derped at some point, right?

Just watched the vod of Alex playing Farcry 3: Blood Dragon. And I must say the first 10 minutes of him being frustrated with Uplay was kinda therapeutic for me. It was really nice to hear some one else be so genuinely frustrated with stuff like that.

Yeah, I kinda still feel guilty for listening to and watching him rage against this horrible bloat/DRM/marketing tool and laughing my freaking ass off.

And on to the game itself - I think we're unanimous that FC3:BD is the game that everyone expected Bulletstorm to be - something that presented a story and plot and mission progression, and tutorials, and even weapon descriptions and then soak them in camp and cliche (in this case dated 80's c&c), and then hang ALL THE LAMPSHADES OFF OF THEM.

To be entirely fair, Uplay itself is not actually a terrible service, but packaging it with products on freaking Steam is the dumbest possible decision.

Anyway, I just managed to watch the VOD as the live stream was waaay too late at night for me and was super happy that Alex had pretty much the same sheer joy I experienced when playing Blood Dragon, it really is a fantastic thing.

That said, and hoping Alex actually reads this before today's stream, there are a couple things I think I should explain:

- The game is actually REALLY short, like there is only 1 more mission in it and you can complete that in about 45 minutes. Obviously up to Alex, but I would personally love to see that maybe before Remember Me, especially as the last 10 minutes or so of BD are the most amazing thing.

- There are a lot of weapon upgrades, and you unlock them by either doing hunting missions (which send you off to kill a specific animal), scientist rescue missions or collecting a certain number of the various collectibles (TVs, VHS tapes, notes, and hunting all the types of animals)

- As you've discovered, the red omega signs in the sky mark enemy garrisons. The idea is to go capture all the garrisons in order to reduce the number of enemy patrols in the area. Each garrison also causes friendly scientists with guns to spawn and patrol and fight the evil cyborgmans. Furthermore, each garrison contains at least 2 mission terminals that send you on hunt/scientist rescue missions, so that you can unlock more things for your guns.

-There are 3 ways to capture a garrison: shoot everyone in the face, disable the shield by pressing the disable shield button, or destroying the conveniently glowing blue shield generator that's outside the shield. Dropping the shield causes a blood dragon to come in and murder everyone.

-Also if it was unclear, capturing the garrisons is entirely unnecessary to finishing the game, and in fact you go into free roam mode after the end and can just go on doing all the sidequest stuff at your leisure, not that there's much point.

-There is an FOV slider in the video settings menu, please for the love of all that is good and right in the world, use it! I've never been so entertained while also having incredible headaches and nausea in my life!

Also, I'd like to point out that, if you do like the gameplay, Far Cry 3 is also a solid game. It's more of what you'd expect of a AAA game in terms of story and setting. But it has a beautiful setup, interesting characters, and a lush world to explore. I don't think it'd work great for streaming unless they were casual bonus streams to just play a game. It's just worth a look once everything is said and done for people who enjoyed Blood Dragon

Twitch problems aside, watching Alex beat Blood Dragon was fantastic. Like ch3m1kal said, it's great too see someone else having just as much fun if not more with a game as you did.

Also been enjoying Silent Hill with Susie and Charlotte, they really add to the stream and watching them react to Alex...well...being Alex is hilarious.

Praise the pan! \[T]/

Oh just in case anyone missed it, the uhhm vehicle at the end (i guess it's not much of a spoiler, but whatever) was called "Battle Armored Dragon Assault Strike System" or B.A.D.A.S.S. Because honestly what else would you call it?

If Blood Dragon had Bulletstorm's powerslide mechanic this would be even better. If there was a level where you played inside a pinball table, I'd get this in a heartbeat and wouldn't stop playing it.

Thank you for capturing that moment, Can'twearhats. That was a hilarious bit of serendipity. And I also like how the community has figured out an emote for Solaire.

Alex, if you like Child of Light's combat system, you should look at the Grandia games. They also have the concept setting your command and having that timer where the character or enemy could be interrupted. So it was like, do I attack here, try to interrupt that enemy's attack, or defend cause I'm about to get nailed. It's slightly different in that Grandia also had movement on the field, which would effect timing, as people had to move to the target to attack them.
Personally, I'd recommend Grandia 2. I thought it was much more entertaining.

I'd like to nominate Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons for a future IDDQDerp. Seeing how much you enjoyed Child of Light, I think you might like it. I've heard mixed opinions from people about it, but I personally enjoyed it thoroughly - it's got a gorgeous art style and a rather powerful third act. I'm still feel a bit gut punched whenever I use something IRL, though I won't spoil what exactly. It's short enough that you should be able to power through it in a single session, so it might work for a one-off between longer games.

I am so, so sad that I missed Alex trying to fight Artorias.

Here's my advice for you Alex: for a dodge-rolling character, Artorias is the hardest fight in the game. He's fast, several of his attacks are stamina-depleting chains, the motion tracking on his attacks is insane, his reach is also insane, and he can power up until he can oneshot you.

One piece of advice I can give you is that Artorias can be beaten down while in his power-up mode, and if you succeed his power-up doesn't trigger. You need to hit very hard in this fight or it won't work.

Wait what, when did Alex try to fight Artorias? Which stream was it on?

ArchieO wrote:Wait what, when did Alex try to fight Artorias? Which stream was it on?

Yesterday's
Here you go: http://www.twitch.tv/loadingreadyrun/b/527135452
It's right at the start, and it goes about as well as you can expect.

Ahh Ok i didn't realise Alex had taken over House of Stark for the Night, I was assuming I'd missed a bonus IDDQDERP at some point, I pretty much always have to watch house of Stark afterwards, I just can't stay up that late with the timezones issue and a job

I don't know if Alex reads this forum at all, but it's also worth noting that a +15 Bastard Sword is very nearly a strict upgrade on a +5 Silver Knight Sword (same base damage, better stat scaling). Similarly a +15 claymore has very close base damage (257 vs 262), better stat scaling and (I think) longer reach.

If Alex is going heavy dex, you pretty much can't beat the +15 Balder Side Sword, my personal favorite weapon. Relatively light, very good dex scaling, better reach than a longsword, and a pretty good variety of attacks.

Bastard sword is slower, so it isn't *strictly* better. It seems fine, but I have a Zweihander for my big bazooka sword already and I love that stupid thing.

Alex Steacy wrote:Bastard sword is slower, so it isn't *strictly* better. It seems fine, but I have a Zweihander for my big bazooka sword already and I love that stupid thing.

Huh. I thought swing speed was based mostly on weight, which they're equal on. It's certainly easier to get/use twinkling titanite than the pile of titanite chunks and the titanite slab needed for +11 to +15 though.

I'm still having trouble remembering how I beat Artorias as a dex-rolling character, it's all one giant mass of swearing. Not being able to hit him hard enough during his power-up phase made the fight awful.

I have yet to find anything thats better than the ridiculous reach on my Silver Knight Spear, I made and upgraded the Dragonslayer Spear but ended up thoroughly disappointed

Demon Spear, which drops from the demons in Anor Londo (albeit rarely), is absolutely frikken' amazing and straight better than the dragonslayer spear.