GAMES!

I'm starting to worry that Zanza may have suffered a head injury during his recent escapade.

 

Don't worry Smuel, you still murder cartloads of monsters in the mines of the game.

 

Red Dead Redemption 2 is coming out, so all is good with the world. I thought the first one was great, giving GTA style freedom but with a much more deadpan and serious story than you'd find in GTA. Plus, everyone likes cowboys.

 

Anyone played tyranny yet? I am considering getting it but I don't acknowledge reviews anymore because there is usually a paid agenda or trying to be funny these days.

 

I picked it up yesterday morning and played it pretty much all day. Finished the first chapter and reached level 5. The game is dialogue and lore heavy, so you'll be spending a good deal of time reading. The graphics are top notch. The UI is somewhat improved over Pillars, though some of it is still a little unhelpful. I like the magic system a lot, and the gameplay is generally smoother and more fun than Pillars. I won't say much about the story; just don't expect to start your career as a Fatebinder by killing rats in a basement or fetching a sword or potion for some lazy asshole. Your quests are all going to have some heavy implications, which can be a little stressful, but it's a welcome change from the standard RPG filler material. I'll probably make a more complete assessment of the game after I've finished it a time or two.

TL DR, so far it's better than Pillars of Eternity, solid recommend.

 

Awesome. I'll pick it up soon and have a play. I like when decisions matter.

 

Spotted this item description in Tyranny. Not sure if it's a subtle shout-out to TA or not, but I thought it was interesting:

 

Hey that would be nice if it was a nod to us. I picked it up and I'm onto Act 2. Loving the game so far, I like that although you guys are technically the bad guys, that doesn't mean you have to be senselessly violent and pure evil for the sake of it.

 

I'm irritated at Resident Evil VII so far. Very nice graphics, terrifying atmosphere and some good scares even as a first impression - but the toughest difficulty (and it's only one of three) is ridiculously too hard.

This difficultly, as far as I know, is one only unlocked traditionally by completing the game on normal - but there is only normal or easy to begin with. Additional unlockable difficulty is something I really resent about games, particularly about games like Resident Evil with a puzzle solving element, as any kind of new game plus mode should be enjoyable a second time round but with games where areas have a long fetch-questy element it just feels punishing to players who want a good challenge from the off.

Lucky me however, I bought a nice steel case that unlocked the hardest difficulty. However, playing that difficulty and free aim on, the first boss within the first hour or so takes 15/20 ammo accurate head shots (and they have a charging animation where their head sways frantically) as well as several hits from your axe when they are armed with a chainsaw that kills you in one or two hits. The area you are in is extremely small so your manoeuvrability is very limited, and with the difficulty of head swaying frantically (even with lock aim I think it aims for the body) it's just a damn nonsense difficulty that isn't feasible unless you want to hate the game.

So now I'll retry the game on normal (after 3 or 4 hours of the same crap), but I'm sure I'll find that way too easy. I've completed all the BioShocks on their hardest difficulties, so it's a little infuriating there's not anything more gradated here. While these sound like first world problems and it's obviously unreasonable to expect a game to fit precisely where you'd expect it to in terms of difficulty, it's also annoying to not have an in between as completing a game that's too easy feels very unrewarding and unmemorable in its own way and on the far end it's impossible.

Feel free to ridicule me for my sulky poutiness about the mean game that made me sad. I'll give normal a playthrough and see if my feelings change, but the current difficulty settings are whack yo.

 

I was all ready to ridicule you for your sulky poutiness about the mean game that made you sad, until I saw your invitation to do so.

 

I tried out the For Honor closed Beta over the weekend on the PS4. Besides never completing a 4v4 due to being disconnected the game was ok. Won't be recommending it till they decide on implementing servers. Peer to Peer is a terrible system.

 

Actually, I have some gaming news for this thread. I've been playing Arkham Origins, and (minor spoilers ahead) I thought it was stupid that, as Batman, you are able to beat Deathstroke in a straight fight. I know that Batman is Batman, and so on, but Deathstroke is an enhanced metahuman, and wouldn't go down that easy. Obviously the game has to let you win somehow, so maybe there could be a way of outwitting him, using one of Batman's gadgets, or something like that. But in fact Deathstroke is the one who uses gadgets (and guns, and a staff, and a freakin' katana) in that fight, and still just loses to Batman punching him in the face. It's lazy writing.

What worries me is that Lady Shiva and Bane are also in the game. I've yet to meet them, but if Batman is also able to beat those guys in a fist-on-fist fight too, then I'm going to be writing a very strongly worded post in the near future.

 

A major let down with Batman franschice now adays (IMO, it aint honest, but it's mine) is that it's very much focus on "batman is badass! NINJA! WOAH" and very litte on the fact that Bruce Wayne is in fact one of the smartest humans on the planet. I mean, being able to fight is nice, but having masterad dozens of different skillset and always being able to outsmart your opponent is what gives him the advantage.

 

Exactly. Batman should be sneaking around gathering intel and grabbing mobsters from the shadows, not somersaulting into the middle of an armed gang and then shrugging off their assault rifle rounds because he upgraded his armour during the last level up.

Also, since Batman's superpower is that he can find a way to beat anyone, given enough time to prepare, the Deathstroke battle wouldn't have required much change. When Batman finds out at the beginning of the game that Deathstroke will be coming after him, he could say "Hmm... I'd better pack my anti-Deathstroke Batspray", and then when the fight starts, he can mutter "Even with Deathstroke's abilities dampened he is still a challenging opponent" and then the rest of the battle mechanics can proceed as before. Pow! Smash! Zoink!

 

What gets me is he is meant to be a young and inexperienced Batman going up against the hardened veteran that is Deathstroke. Even then Deathstroke is all "my god what power!" as if they are in an episode of Dragonball Z

 

You're not going to like it when you get the electric gauntlets then, which take any strategic difficulty out of combat (they allow you to hit armoured enemies and shield enemies as per normal). The hand-to-hand combat is at least fun in the game, to remove any challenging aspect to it seemed like a very stupid move.

Overall I still like Asylum the most, with City being almost as good, then Origins being a bit of a mess (with Rocksteady not developing it, and most of the cast not returning though I found Troy Baker to be good as a character I won't mention for the sake of spoilers) and Knight had a lazy story with way too many gadgets (including the Bat Mobile which was extremely over-used and tedious to put it mildly) and meaningless missions (all the ones to take out control towers, mines and lieutenants in cars, as well as saving all those damn firemen). I think Asylum had much more of a stealth element as you were creeping round a single location, whereas when you make it sand-boxy you're naturally going to have to take down more meaningless bad guys hand to hand as you can't sneak up on a guy in an open street. Seems like the series peaked pretty early.

 

Apparently there's a campaign for Pillars 2, completely slipped under my radar: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire

 

That also took me by surprise and I do think it's a bit odd that previous backers didn't get a notification. Would have missed it if it wasn't mentioned in the latest Torment update. Pledged for just the digital copy.

 

It seems doubly stupid considering it's a direct continuation of the first game as far as I can tell, using the same protagonist. If you're going to take that route for a game as a company, then it seems like repeat business should be your priority as you're capitalising on the same character and story as the first of the series - and not just the setting like most sequels. Personally I think they could have done with a fresh break and not a direct continuation, some of the grandiosity of the first one felt a bit hammy for my tastes (or at least, your character's overblown reactions to the key revelations) and with a completely separate sequel they could have broken away from the same main character and toned it down a little.

I've now revised my opinion of Resident Evil 7 having completed it (I know, me running my mouth off based on a wildly ill-conceived opinion, how out of character), apparently you can unlock items and abilities to help you beat that toughest difficulty (e.g. completing it on normal, completing it under 4 hours, getting all of a certain collectable, will all unlock things to help you out). However, all these things are only made available straight after that initial fight I discussed - so you're probably still facing an extreme difficulty curve where the opener to the game is way harder than most of anything else you'll experience. Though that difficulty setting as a whole now doesn't seem like such an exercise in masochism, that opener is still going to be pretty dreadful, and personally I find those kind of difficulty curves pretty tedious in games (a la Pillars, with the nonsense Bear Cave).

The game as a whole is good though, it has a good mix of jump scares as well as a lot of unsettling creepiness to satisfy both ends of the horror spectrum, as well having bosses that are a bit bombastic in a sort of comedic vein. Most reviewers point to the crazy family being the big draw of the game, and once they're dealt with the game isn't quite so strong and the zombie enemies are a bit boring, still overall it's decent.

To me the main drawbacks were that the game is very linear and the combat a little stale. Unlike survival horror games like BioShock that have RPG elements that keep replays fresh on replays, here there's no such luck. The replay value comes in gearing up to take on that highest difficulty that I mentioned earlier for the challenge, meaning a lot of repetitious playthroughs to get to the stage. If that's not your kind of thing you'd probably be best waiting until it's cheaper and just playing it through once.

 

I've been playing Nioh. It is fun.