Reply With QuoteIt's very difficult to make a foreshadowed twist that's obvious in hindsight but not guessed before it's revealed - and you can never "get" everyone.
Towards the end of the first half of the game, when it started introducing some stress to the story, I immediately went this is going to end up being some sort of illusion relating to Henry's own anxieties and possible mental illness isn't it and then right before the end there's a short radio conversation where he mentions that maybe he's suffering from the same disease as Julia and I was like "oh, god, are you kidding me" so I thought it was awesome when that wasn't where the story was going. Don't get me wrong, I like a good plot twist, like System Shock 2 the first time I played it or Gone Home/Tacoma where the ending was sort of "oh my god, why did I not see that coming" but I don't like when I can guess what the twist is going to be before it happens.Originally Posted by Sulphur
It's very difficult to make a foreshadowed twist that's obvious in hindsight but not guessed before it's revealed - and you can never "get" everyone.
By the way, Firewatch is on sale on GOG right now. For only €3.99 you can experience the totally (un)predictable plot twist and the "pretty good" ending yourself. I think it's definitely worth it!
Now that the Shattered Space expansion is out, I'm ready to continue Starfield after maybe 9 months of not touching it. Took maybe an hour to get my mod list updated for compatibility with the latest version.
SFSE latest for Shattered Space expansion.
Dat (modded) ass
I'm playing the Commandos: Origins demo on mouse and keyboard. Okay, it runs like dog doo. Expected. But this is a tutorial prompt:
I have big hands, but this might be the first game that's made me wonder if they aren't big enough.
Also, the first thing I see on the settings screen:
I'm thinking maaaaybe it needs some more time in the oven. Or maybe I should get bigger hands.
Wooow, that's pretty rough. Loved Commandos back then, but seeing as I haven't played/finished most of Mimimi's games I also think I might be over this genre.
Since it's the spooky season, I've been playing a bit of Conscript. WW1 survival horror. Looks great, good ambiance. Love how down to earth it is. No supernatural stuff. The real man-made horrors of WW1 are quite enough on their own. Sadly, the man-made horror of the checkpoint/save system drags the experience down a bit. The game gives you the option to enable unlimited saves at the start, but even with that enabled I too often end up dying and having to replay huge chunks of the game because of the sparse checkpoints. I dunno, man. Not sure I'll finish this one. For anyone in the market for a 2024 indie survival horror game I'd recommend Crow Country over this.
Nearing the completion of my co-op playthrough of Gears of War 3 on Xbox Series X. I had never played this game prior, it's pretty great. Playing the series on Series X is like getting free remasters:- whole series bumped up to 60fps + resolution bumps too. (GoW2 = 4k, GoW3 = 1440p.)
It's funny, I used to clown on the Gears Xbox 360 games heavily back in the day. The utter lowering of the bar of Western AAA gaming's quality over the last 8ish years makes games from that era seem like utter masterpieces by comparison.
I think I'm coming on the completion of Diablo IV's Act 3. I learnt today that game has 6 acts in total, oh yawn. Still making my way through this boring game, playing 20-30 mins almost every day to farm MS reward points to redeem for free Game Pass subs.
The thing with the controls feels like they just mapped the keys to various controller buttons and ported it over, that tooltip just furthers my belief that they didn't really do much QA on the game.
I think you're right. It feels a bit gamepad-first. This is probably a demo from a press screening that they went live with, if I were to wildly speculate. It's not shipshape, and if this is the state of the actual game builds they have, they've got some work to do.
Neither left control nor right control worked for me to shoot the gun, by the way. I think the game was confused by my having a gamepad connected at the same time I was using M+KB.
Diablo IV is noticeably better now! With the accompanying patch for the expansion's release they added two higher difficulties for first time runthroughs of the campaign. Playing on Expert difficulty now and I actually have to pay some attention to my health bar now + use healing flasks. I've actually managed to die a few times (prior I had never died). Enemies are also way more spongier.
My mount was unlocked from the get-go too, upon switching to Expert difficulty. Worked the leaping off horse into a ground pound move into my play repertoire already.
It's weird that I have such mixed feelings about Jedi Survivor.
On the one hand, it's a Star Wars game that feels bland and rote, with combat that's exactly in the worst place it could be: it controls somewhere between God of War's heft and tactility, and Sekiro's razor-sharp precision, meaning it's the worst of both worlds. It's not physical enough, and it's not precise enough, leaving every encounter without the complete dopamine burst you get from cleaving enemies at either end of that spectrum. This is a problem because at least 65% of the game is spent squarely on sabering people and things.
On the other hand, the exploration and environments are magnificently done. These places feel sprawling yet intimate, and part of it is because of how you're made to thread through them and engage with Cal's moveset to really push into the unlit corners of the map to your next goal. The architecture starts to feel intricately connected with each shortcut unlocked, like the bits in Dark Souls where your mental map of an area suddenly snaps pieces into place with that jolt of enlightenment as you kick a ladder down. The platforming is sort of fussy at times, but more often than not it's the right kind of demanding, and more importantly, once Cal starts getting his repertoire of moves expanded, it feels good.
Graphically, it employs some of the nicest use of coloured lighting I've seen in anything since forever. Polygon density is high, effects work is great, characters are nice enough: it looks like an evolution from JFO into next-gen. It also feels liable to fall apart at any minute, because they pushed UE4 so hard that every time you rotate the camera, bits of geometry flash white at the edges, and in some areas there's screen tearing when performance isn't quite at 60 FPS (this is on the PS5).
As for the story... it exists, I suppose. I'm still fairly early in, so it wouldn't be too fair to judge it yet. So far it's transparently something that functions for Cal to ping around maps and revisit old friends primarily than placing any importance on a greater narrative theme, and the antagonist seems a bit random. But we'll see. It's still a 7.5/10 for me so far, but with qualifications now.
While I found Jedi Fallen Order barely mediocre as a game, there was something about the characters and the locations in particular that gave me really strong Star Wars vibes. I think no other game has managed to capture that Star Wars feeling as well as it did, and that alone made the game worth playing for me. I've been looking forward to playing Jedi Survivor for a while now, but if it's just "more of the same", it'll be a disappointing.
Meanwhile I'm having my space adventures in Mass Effect (Legendary Edition) instead. It's a nice game, but I also got to say that it isn't quite as spectacular as I expected it to be. The story makes it all worth it, I suppose, but the whole morality system and any consequences of my actions have all felt a bit too black and white so far. The NPCs aren't particularly interesting either, and you'd think that my crew members for example would have at least something new to say every now and then. The combat is pretty typical BioWare combat - it's way too chaotic, the AI is terrible, it's badly balanced, and not challenging at all. My character is an Adept (sci-fi mage) and even on the Veteran difficulty I've managed just fine with my pistol and my Throw skill. Hopefully ME2 and ME3 are better in this regard.
The planetary exploration is something that I should love, but I find it just dull. Why are the vehicle controls relative to the camera and not the vehicle itself, like in just about every other game where you drive a vehicle? It's okay most of the time (because the camera automatically stays behind the vehicle), but whenever I have to drive in narrow spaces or make quick turns, it's just horrible. The whole planetary exploration is clearly just pointless filler content anyway, and it's a shame, because it has potential to be something more. I've often spent a good amount of time trying to climb to the highest mountaintop on a map mainly because I like the challenge, only to find that there's absolutely nothing of interest at the top. All this could be fun and interesting, but they've somehow managed to make it extremely boring.
I'm glad that I decided to give Mass Effect a try at last, but I don't think it has aged particularly well.
Tomi, regarding comparing Fallen Order to Survivor, Fallen order feels more Soulslite, while Survivor feels more Ubi-open-worlder after a while. It still has the same Soulslite elements, but they're less pronounced, especially after the opening few sections. I think because the world is more open and because the bonfire equivalents are more available and closer together, it feels easier to recover from dying or quickly get back to places you need to explore next.
Mind you, those opinions are possibly tainted by time and distance, as I haven't played either recently.
Aaand I'm done with Mass Effect 1 already!Great story, somewhat shoddy gameplay - I think that sums up my Mass Effect experience so far. I'm tempted to jump into ME2 already, but I think I'll play some other games in the meantime. ME1 was much shorter than I expected, even though I did all the side quests that I could find, but that's only a good thing if I want to get through this trilogy. And there's a fourth game too, right?
I'm sure you all, like I, remember the days when gfx were a big deal for games. But shots like that say to me that we've reached peak graphical ability. Every one of those pictures is kind of amazing, even just the damn shadows. I'm now so impressed with graphical ability that I'm totally unimpressed by graphics as a draw for a game; it's all gameplay now because everything looks so lush, or quirky or just cool AF.
Survivor has an even stronger sense of place than Fallen Order thanks to how they flesh out the locations. But it's very much in the vein of 'more of the same but bigger' in terms of sequel philosophy, so take that for what you will.
RE:ME1, it's definitely an interesting beginning with some big flaws. Few people liked the Mako, and fewer liked the ridiculous inventory management. ME2 trims away the rough edges and also sands down the RPG aspect (slightly unfortunately, IMO) into what people described as 'guns 'n conversation' from that point on, I'd say it's very much good to get into if you want more of that universe in a tight package with better combat. The main story thread is quite underwhelming, but the companion stories are where it's at, they're markedly better than a lot of ME1's side quests. The Shadowbroker DLC is also very, very good, and a high benchmark that few other DLCs in the series manage to achieve (I'd say only Citadel from ME3 manages to do that, but for quite different reasons).
As for Andromeda... well, it's not as bad as people made it out to be, but it's not as good as the overcorrections in opinions make it out to be, either. It's mostly all right, but it patterns itself after Dragon Age: Inquisition in terms of mechanics, and both make a habit of giving you dry, arid locations to waste your time in a perfunctory crafting loop and empty side errands. The story's quite mid-tier and doesn't hit the highs of anything from ME1 to 3, but it doesn't hit the lows either, and the combat's the best in the series.
Last edited by Sulphur; 10th Oct 2024 at 04:57.
I'm sure Eva is well chuffed to hear that!
I haven't gotten an erection for a videogame since Mass Effect 2, IMO things have gone backwards.
Happy Birthday, Doom2. 30 freakin' years.
I liked the mako, apparently there was inspiration from the old game Starflight, which I absolutely love. (the sega genesis version)
Recently beat Cloudpunk, which started as a strong 9/10 and ended as a bit more limp 6/10. This is definitely a game to play for the ~vibes~ and it nails those perfectly. The visuals, the ambiances, the music, the flying - all of it just clicks together! But it is more style than substance, and where things falter is... the story and characters.
The gameplay is fairly trivial, but I don't mind it being "walking sim but flying car" and found the combination of "mindless flying + listening to audio" worked really well. At first. However, soon, I started to find many of the characters really annoying, particularly the detective guy (in a very "haha he talks in third person that was a fun gimmick - oh wait, he's back and I need to listen MORE of this???"). And, worst of all, the main protagonist. She's pretty bratty smartass who quickly turns out to be kind of rude (particularly to her own friend Camus). There's a plot point centering around saving lives of a few key characters and I honestly didn't like any of them, so couldn't care less what happened to them (and found it weird both protagonist and Camus cared about them all of a sudden?). The deeper cyberpunk themes also felt very undercooked and the finale didn't land for me, forcing me to arbitrarily make a poorly-explained big decision™, about a world and people I honestly just didn't care about.
And prolly the most annoying issue - people talk WAY too much. There were many times I had to literally sit and wait for a dialogue to finish before I could proceed. The whole thing would have worked perfectly if they just gave you navpoints to fly to instantly and cut some dialogues by half. Maybe it's just something they didn't end up having time to polish, especially with the overhead of doing VA (and one reason why adding VA into my own games scares me haha).
Overall, I think it was worth experiencing, even if just for the first few hours for the ~vibes~
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