General Gaming Thread

[Colly]

PS4. I'll have a look but might wait til next week since it's probably days of play coming up.

[apsham]

RE; my post earlier about getting back into Mortal Kombat 11. This just makes it so worth it, can't wait for next week.

 

[RPS]

2 hours ago, Colly said:

PS4. I'll have a look but might wait til next week since it's probably days of play coming up.

I would not pay 30$ for the game. I am playing it on GamePass.

 

[Baddar]

Mafia II and Mafia III Definitive Editions are available right now, 25 quid each.

The original Mafia remaster is coming in August. All 3 games will use the Mafia 3 engine.

[apsham]

1 hour ago, Baddar said:

Mafia II and Mafia III Definitive Editions are available right now, 25 quid each.

The original Mafia remaster is coming in August. All 3 games will use the Mafia 3 engine.

Ack. The original game is the one I'm interested in going through again. I will say that 3 was surprisingly good and very atmospheric but it's been too recent since I played through it.

[Baddar]

The early Steam consensus seems to be that they haven't done a very good job with the Mafia II "remaster". Not for the price point, anyway. 

[The Buscher]

The champion of EA's official Madden tournament did not complete nor even attempt a pass all tournament.  He made his intentions completely clear as he used offensive linemen as his wide receivers to provide additional run blocking, and he used a punter as his quarterback because it was a salary capped draft format for the tournament and using a punter at QB freed up a lot of money for him to line the defense with star players, as all he really had to do was play a good game defensively to guarantee a win.

The punter he chose was left-handed as well, which is important as his entire offensive strategy was based upon exploiting favorable animations.   Left handed QBs have a smoother handoff animation to running backs, and certain plays you can run are guaranteed to pick up positive yardage.  It doesn't matter if you play guys out of position, some of the animations are rooted specifically in that position. 

EA apparently had grounds to strip him of the championship but doing so would be them acknowledging that they've created a broken, easily exploitable game with pre-scripted animations.

[JasonM]

5 minutes ago, B-li Manning said:

The champion of EA's official Madden tournament did not complete nor even attempt a pass all tournament.  He made his intentions completely clear as he used offensive linemen as his wide receivers to provide additional run blocking, and he used a punter as his quarterback because it was a salary capped draft format for the tournament and using a punter at QB freed up a lot of money for him to line the defense with star players, as all he really had to do was play a good game defensively to guarantee a win.

The punter he chose was left-handed as well, which is important as his entire offensive strategy was based upon exploiting favorable animations.   Left handed QBs have a smoother handoff animation to running backs, and certain plays you can run are guaranteed to pick up positive yardage.  It doesn't matter if you play guys out of position, some of the animations are rooted specifically in that position. 

EA apparently had grounds to strip him of the championship but doing so would be them acknowledging that they've created a broken, easily exploitable game with pre-scripted animations.

I can understand why some would be mad, but at the same time I find that level of ingenuity to be quite spectacular. I know of money plays and cheese plays, but I would never think of building an entire team around solely a running game to the point where you straight up make passing a nigh impossibility.

Is there a link to this, because I'm fascinated at the level of gamesmanship this guy showed, because it goes beyond even ordinary madden cheesing like getting a 99 speed receiver running only corner posts that break cornerbacks and safeties almost always.

[OctoberRaven]

Wait, "pass all tournament"? So were the official rules passing game only or just an unofficial agreement between players? Because playing a rushing game instead is clearly cheating in the former and in the case of the latter, at worst he's a lying dick at best he never agreed to it and just meta'd his way to win which is a bit dickish but not as bad.

[Meacon Keaton]

No, he is saying he didn’t throw a pass all tournament. He literally ran the ball on every down.

There were no rules or requirements on what plays to call.

[Benji]

That is genius, the guy should be commended for it.

 

[Draevyn]

Clever use of game mechanics. Although companies tend to move the goal posts on what's considered a Clever use of game mechanics and what's considered an exploit that can get you banned from things like this.

[OctoberRaven]

So basically he Machida'd them. Good for him, then.

[Chris2K]

I've bought the Mafia pack for XB1 despite already having 3 on the PS4 from when it was free on PSPlus. I loved it and am happy to re-play it, and afterwards I wanted to play Mafia 1 and 2, so I'm glad I'm getting the opportunity to even if it costs a bit. Plus £25 for Mafia 3 and all it's DLC still seems like it's a decent deal.

[The Kraig]

I've been playing the most random stuff lately. Curiosities to pass the time, or revisits.

Civilization V (complete) on PC: I have yet to play the new games, but this series is still lacking a true world feel. It still feel arcadey and mostly fictional, but throwing in so many real elements it becomes bothersome. Tried playing a huge real globe based game as Venice (not knowing I can't settle new cities) and ended up taking over a good chunk of the world through warfare, espionage and mercantilism. Was definitely a unique way to play the game. I think I've ended my interest in Civilization games unless they completely change the details of trade deals and alliances, it seems all too easy to fuck up stuff without any way of saying "no game, you're an idiot". Europa Universalis IV is on my list, so maybe one day soon. Also, still having mods that crash the game? Fuck's sake.

Full Auto (360). I enjoyed the demo for this ages ago, so played the actual game for a bit. Shallow combat racing with none of the fun of a kart racer. The loading is meh, and the fact lots of the game is locked to begin with is a chore. I felt like I lost interest before I even got to the interesting game modes, weapons, vehicles, etc. I'll give Full Auto 2 a look at some point. I just have the feeling this is a crap version of Burnout...just give me Burnout.

Peggle (360). Ever play a game and it feels like the first time, but after about 20 minutes the tiniest shard of a memory blossoms forth into actual memory of doing this same thing before? I have no idea where I played it, but yeah...finished it. Fun, relaxing but not really my thing. I prefer stuff like DX Ball or Puyo Puyo.

House of the Dead (PC). I just realised this is abandonware apparently? Downloaded it and had a genuinely exciting arcade experience within seconds, half-baked with nostalgia and wondering why the entire HotD series hasn't been remade or updated. I guess Sega doesn't like money anymore. Definitely download and play this today, even for 15 minutes and you'll know what I mean. It also dawned on me that some of the enemies might have inspired the Valve team making Half-Life, although undead and occult enemies are obviously a horror trope no matter the case.

Decided to play through my physical gaming backlog and offload everything. Steam and a Pi machine will keep me happy and able to move around a lot easier.

[Krabby]

2 hours ago, The Kraig said:

I've been playing the most random stuff lately. Curiosities to pass the time, or revisits.

Civilization V (complete) on PC: I have yet to play the new games, but this series is still lacking a true world feel. It still feel arcadey and mostly fictional, but throwing in so many real elements it becomes bothersome. Tried playing a huge real globe based game as Venice (not knowing I can't settle new cities) and ended up taking over a good chunk of the world through warfare, espionage and mercantilism. Was definitely a unique way to play the game. I think I've ended my interest in Civilization games unless they completely change the details of trade deals and alliances, it seems all too easy to fuck up stuff without any way of saying "no game, you're an idiot". Europa Universalis IV is on my list, so maybe one day soon. Also, still having mods that crash the game? Fuck's sake.

Have you heard of Humankind? It's a Civ type of game being put out by the same team that does the Endless games (Endless Space, Endless Space 2, etc.)

https://humankind.game

[The Kraig]

1 hour ago, JMarushin said:

Have you heard of Humankind? It's a Civ type of game being put out by the same team that does the Endless games (Endless Space, Endless Space 2, etc.)

https://humankind.game

I had not! Hopeful, but getting Spore vibes.

[OctoberRaven]

BTW, coming soon is Mortal Kombat 11 having an expansion pack with a new storyline(!), the return of Sheeva(!) and Fujin(*shrug*) as well as a new guest figher... fuckin ROBOCOP.

[stokeriño]

15 hours ago, OctoberRaven said:

as well as a new guest figher... fuckin ROBOCOP.

Oh good, another weird link between Mortal Kombat and WCW.

[probablyoliver]

Started playing Ori and the Will of the Wisps today on gamepass and fuck, it's beautiful and lovely and it's going to make me cry.

I played the first one on Switch over christmas, but never played it in docked mode, so as lovely as it was, I don't know if I ever got just how truly pretty this world is. Playing this on a big screen is fantastic, and if anyone has gamepass or an Xbox, I urge them to check it out. It's going to make me cry so damn hard.