General Gaming Thread

[9 to 5]

20 minutes ago, Ollie said:

Sounds like someone needs an introduction to Sky Pantos, eh @9 to 5?

The worst.

[Josh]

Are these airborne plays?

[=BK=]

Looking at UFC 3 on sale. Anyone have thoughts on it? I haven't played a UFC game since the PS3 one Brock was on the cover of but I always thought that was fun as fuck.

[probablyoliver]

 

7 hours ago, =BK= said:

Looking at UFC 3 on sale. Anyone have thoughts on it? I haven't played a UFC game since the PS3 one Brock was on the cover of but I always thought that was fun as fuck.

It's good. UFC 2 was better but the career mode in 3 is good fun and the roster is insane.

[Bobfoc]

On 23/11/2018 at 10:11, Ollie said:

 

It's good. UFC 2 was better but the career mode in 3 is good fun and the roster is insane.

Out of interest, how was UFC 2 better? I enjoyed that game, but I found the career mode to be its main shortcoming. I haven't played UFC 3.

[Ruki]

https://gematsu.com/2018/11/square-enix-trademarks-parasite-eve-in-europe

 

I hope this means remake!

[RPS]

I have never played an Assassin's Creed game. I picked up Origins because the location fascinates me. These games are weird. I have never played a game that felt so vast but simultaneously empty. I exit the tomb and I am given a camel. I go the opposite way of the mission and eventually glitches out and returns me to the mission. I decide to do the mission and go the village. After we arrive, I just start to climb a nearby mountain but the game makes strange sounds and I can tell its going to glitch me back to the mission as I am not supposed to be going here. 

So I decide to fuck around the village. I end up killing a random and... nothing happens. I am murdering him in front of people and no one cares. I murder around 30 people and two guards confront me and I murder them. 

It is just a strange game. Looks beautiful but is an arcade game that makes zero sense. I wish the entire map was open to me. 

[JasonM]

2 minutes ago, RPS said:

I have never played an Assassin's Creed game. I picked up Origins because the location fascinates me. These games are weird. I have never played a game that felt so vast but simultaneously empty. I exit the tomb and I am given a camel. I go the opposite way of the mission and eventually glitches out and returns me to the mission. I decide to do the mission and go the village. After we arrive, I just start to climb a nearby mountain but the game makes strange sounds and I can tell its going to glitch me back to the mission as I am not supposed to be going here. 

So I decide to fuck around the village. I end up killing a random and... nothing happens. I am murdering him in front of people and no one cares. I murder around 30 people and two guards confront me and I murder them. 

It is just a strange game. Looks beautiful but is an arcade game that makes zero sense. I wish the entire map was open to me. 

I've not played Origins, but the game itself is more like a soft-reboot for the franchise as they went into a more arcadey/RPG-ish style of game from that game going forward. The games prior to that were a lot more about the stealth-killing aspect of the Assassin's rather than having badass swordfights whilst riding a flaming unicorn into battle (Yes, there's flaming unicorns in the newer titles)

I've played Odyssey a bunch, that game is also vast and wide open, but I do feel the world is a lot more interesting and you can go to a lot of the places you see in front of you. Whether you find things there are hit and miss, but I feel the Greek world it portrays feels very much lived in, and downright gorgeous at times.

I feel the classic Assassin's Creed titles were a bit better in that the playing field was more concentrated, focused on historical cityscapes that focused on its verticality rather than how humongously large the playing world is.

I'd suggest you check out a playthrough of the Ezio Collection (or buy it for yourself if it's on sale), it's regarded by everyone to be the crowning moment of the trilogy, all three games give you wildly different areas to play in, but all of them are held together by a strong main character (Ezio, the much beloved franchise face) and a pretty strong story that will lead you through the world around you.

It might not hold up gameplay wise anno 2018, since Assassin's Creed 2 turned 9 years old as of last week. And it's significantly less action-packed and fighting oriented than Origins/Odyssey, but it's pretty much the high point of the franchise that they never really managed to get back to in later titles.

[RPS]

1 hour ago, Jasonmufc said:

I've played Odyssey a bunch, that game is also vast and wide open, but I do feel the world is a lot more interesting and you can go to a lot of the places you see in front of you. Whether you find things there are hit and miss, but I feel the Greek world it portrays feels very much lived in, and downright gorgeous at times.

I am enjoying Origins, but I wish the entire world was more reactive.

It is funny to think of a lot of these open world games in 2018 when you have two recent games which nailed it out of the park. On one hand you have BOTW. Once you finish that opening 2-3 hours, the entire game is open to you. BOTW was amazing like that. You see it, you go it. You are never restricted from doing something. In my first 30 minutes with Origins, I was twice warped away from where I was heading in this weird glitched out element of the game. Completely took me out of the experience and it is going to hamper how I play moving forward. Why explore when there is the risk that I will just be warped back to where I should be going. 

And you also have Red Dead 2. The detail, from what I have seen on videos, is insane. Just astounding. Everything seems reactive. It is insane to me Origins came out after BOTW and before RDR2. The game looks graphically fascinating, but everything else is lacking. 

[apsham]

To be fair - RDR2 and BOTW both guide you along in places. BOTW doesn't let you get off the starting plain until you've done enough tutorial to get the glider and at the start of RDR2 you pretty much have to follow along, although it does open up much quicker. I don't remember being that far into Origins until I was able to go wherever I wanted to (avoiding guards of course).

[RPS]

6 minutes ago, apsham said:

To be fair - RDR2 and BOTW both guide you along in places. BOTW doesn't let you get off the starting plain until you've done enough tutorial to get the glider and at the start of RDR2 you pretty much have to follow along, although it does open up much quicker. I don't remember being that far into Origins until I was able to go wherever I wanted to (avoiding guards of course).

I think BOTW just handles the limitation better. It is up front about why you are restricted and it makes sense. If you jump off island in the sky, you die. Someone has something to get you off the island, you just need to do four tasks. With Origins, I was walking around for 5 minutes and all of the sudden I am being warped back to where I started. I was praising RDR2 more so for it being completely reactive. It seems like everything in the world matters, from what you to do to what other people do. 

[Josh]

I NEED more tutorial from RDR 2. I’m finding the control scheme very difficult.

[MDK]

2 hours ago, RPS said:

I have never played an Assassin's Creed game. I picked up Origins because the location fascinates me. These games are weird. I have never played a game that felt so vast but simultaneously empty. I exit the tomb and I am given a camel. I go the opposite way of the mission and eventually glitches out and returns me to the mission. I decide to do the mission and go the village. After we arrive, I just start to climb a nearby mountain but the game makes strange sounds and I can tell its going to glitch me back to the mission as I am not supposed to be going here.  

So I decide to fuck around the village. I end up killing a random and... nothing happens. I am murdering him in front of people and no one cares. I murder around 30 people and two guards confront me and I murder them.  

It is just a strange game. Looks beautiful but is an arcade game that makes zero sense. I wish the entire map was open to me.  

AC: Black Flag is my favourite one. I love the pirate theme.

[Josh]

I don’t know if it’s from the rust of not playing video games for years or a genuine steep learning curve, but I’m finding the RDR 2 controls very difficult. Am I alone in this? Did anyone else have this experience? Did you improve?

[Maxx]

What in particular are you finding difficult?  I wouldn't say I've had trouble with the controls but there are definitely some things that are awkward and downright un-intuitive.

[Ruki]

1 hour ago, That Ol’ Josh Joint said:

I don’t know if it’s from the rust of not playing video games for years or a genuine steep learning curve, but I’m finding the RDR 2 controls very difficult. Am I alone in this? Did anyone else have this experience? Did you improve?

I would say it has a steeper curve than most games. But you do get used to it! 

[JasonM]

22 hours ago, MDK said:

AC: Black Flag is my favourite one. I love the pirate theme.

I really liked Black Flag, but to be honest the vast open world of the Caribbean grew weary on me sooner rather than later. You're spending a lot of time in the game just sailing from one point to another just to do stuff, and whilst the experience of captaining a pirate galleon is extremely entertaining and liberating in the first 2-3 hours or so, afterwards it's just needless busywork that keeps me from actually doing cool stuff.

Need money or loot? Sail off into the ocean for 5 minutes, have a protracted naval battle with other ships, board them, then repeat that process with as many ships you can find, maybe fight a pirate hunter or two because your bounty increases because of your piracy. In the end it just felt a bit too samey and whilst I finished the game, I was kinda done with all the ship stuff well before I was finished.

Not to say the ship stuff isn't great, because especially the challenge ships for extra ship upgrades were really fun and challenging, having to outmaneuvre huge vessels that could turn you inside out if you didn't know what you were doing. But ultimately, everything outside those ship battles kinda sucked as far as seafaring goes, just needless busywork. I appreciate a big open world as much as the next one, but it was all a bit empty, beautiful but empty. 

The AC2 trilogy had big open worlds, but they felt lived in, you were mostly in cities or the surrounding countryside, and everything was just a little bit better populated and managed to keep you doing something other than traveling for most of it. There was something to do all over the maps.

 

[Josh]

30 minutes ago, Maxx said:

What in particular are you finding difficult?  I wouldn't say I've had trouble with the controls but there are definitely some things that are awkward and downright un-intuitive.

 

30 minutes ago, Ruki said:

I would say it has a steeper curve than most games. But you do get used to it! 

I’m getting more accustomed to the weapons wheel, but I had to switch to auto-lock. I’m tuuuurrible at free-aiming. Certain things like crouching or getting into cover sometimes happen accidentally or don’t when I need them to. Navigating on a horse or shooting while I’m on one is probably the hardest. I’m also still figuring out if I prefer classic or inverted controls. That one will probably come in time. Perhaps they all will.

[Ruki]

Shooting on a horse is tricky, especially if they are behind you. 

[MDK]

42 minutes ago, Jasonmufc said:

I really liked Black Flag, but to be honest the vast open world of the Caribbean grew weary on me sooner rather than later. You're spending a lot of time in the game just sailing from one point to another just to do stuff, and whilst the experience of captaining a pirate galleon is extremely entertaining and liberating in the first 2-3 hours or so, afterwards it's just needless busywork that keeps me from actually doing cool stuff. 

Need money or loot? Sail off into the ocean for 5 minutes, have a protracted naval battle with other ships, board them, then repeat that process with as many ships you can find, maybe fight a pirate hunter or two because your bounty increases because of your piracy. In the end it just felt a bit too samey and whilst I finished the game, I was kinda done with all the ship stuff well before I was finished. 

Not to say the ship stuff isn't great, because especially the challenge ships for extra ship upgrades were really fun and challenging, having to outmaneuvre huge vessels that could turn you inside out if you didn't know what you were doing. But ultimately, everything outside those ship battles kinda sucked as far as seafaring goes, just needless busywork. I appreciate a big open world as much as the next one, but it was all a bit empty, beautiful but empty.  

The AC2 trilogy had big open worlds, but they felt lived in, you were mostly in cities or the surrounding countryside, and everything was just a little bit better populated and managed to keep you doing something other than traveling for most of it. There was something to do all over the maps. 

 

Yeah, but I enjoyed all that ship nonsense. GTA: West Indies.