OT: General Video Game Discussion VII

[Vashanesh]

Is Dark Souls a first person shooter? If so I'll be playing keyboard and mouse. I can not stand playing FPS games with a controller.

Nope. 3rd person action game, with strong RPG elements with regards to character growth and customization.

The story is... difficult to describe? There really isn't one, unless you spend a lot of time looking for it. You could play the entire game and not understand why you're doing what you're doing.

The story is there, but you need to seek it out.

They wanted to strive for that old-school vibe where the onus is on the player to do anything and everything. There are no markers telling you where to go, there's really no quest log (ala skyrim, if that helps?). You're just supposed to go forward, get through dungeons, beat bosses, explore, etc.

 

[Avder]

Nope. 3rd person action game, with strong RPG elements with regards to character growth and customization.

The story is... difficult to describe? There really isn't one, unless you spend a lot of time looking for it. You could play the entire game and not understand why you're doing what you're doing.

The story is there, but you need to seek it out.

They wanted to strive for that old-school vibe where the onus is on the player to do anything and everything. There are no markers telling you where to go, there's really no quest log (ala skyrim, if that helps?). You're just supposed to go forward, get through dungeons, beat bosses, explore, etc.

I might be in the minority, but I kind of liked how Doom 3 made you read logs and stuff in order to actually get a lot of the backstory of it.

 

[Vashanesh]

I might be in the minority, but I kind of liked how Doom 3 made you read logs and stuff in order to actually get a lot of the backstory of it.

That's a good example, yeah. There's stuff hidden all around that explains things, but unless you're really looking, there's no benefit to finding most of it other than your own understanding.

 

[Avder]

That's a good example, yeah. There's stuff hidden all around that explains things, but unless you're really looking, there's no benefit to finding most of it other than your own understanding.

I'm one of those gamers who wants to know EVERYTHING.

Hell I was disappointed that there wasn't a longer explanation for what Lavos is and why he's in those forms in Chrono Trigger.

 

[Vashanesh]

I'm one of those gamers who wants to know EVERYTHING.

Hell I was disappointed that there wasn't a longer explanation for what Lavos is and why he's in those forms in Chrono Trigger.

I think other endings get into that a bit more? I wouldn't quote me on that, though, it's been a decade or more since I beat CT once, let alone multiple times.

Edit: Just googled it, there isn't a ton of depth to Lavos.

[spoil]Alien parasite, wants to use the energy of Earth to procreate.[/spoil]

There's SOME more depth in Chrono Cross (which I still haven't played), but it seems pretty vague.

 

[Sharppi]

My Finnish fellows, tomorrow Gigantti Forum opens and there is NHL 15 for PS4 for sale, 19,90€. PS4 is 299€ and Xbone 249€. Get your current gen consoles and the worst iteration of NHL series so far now, for cheap. It opens 7AM though so.

 

[gphr513]

Along the same vein of Avder's point about games not being hard anymore... I've been happy with the level of difficulty in the new Assassin's Creed. If you get into a scrap with a bunch of guards and you're not very cautious, they'll actually kill you, in one shot sometimes if you leave yourself vulnerable.

In past games they would all just sit there and wait to be attacked.

 

[StealthClobber]

Along the same vein of Avder's point about games not being hard anymore... I've been happy with the level of difficulty in the new Assassin's Creed. If you get into a scrap with a bunch of guards and you're not very cautious, they'll actually kill you, in one shot sometimes if you leave yourself vulnerable.

In past games they would all just sit there and wait to be attacked.

I agree, I've always been trying to avoid combat with a large number of guards. You really have to watch out for everyone around you when you're attacking someone, you never know when they'll strike and you have to be ready.

 

[llamapalooza]

Halo was super disappointing last night. Constantly crashing, impossible to find multiplayer games, and lots of other glitches and issues. Couldn't finish a single campaign mission. Even crashed on the menus and title screen a few times. It did seem to stabilize a little bit after the install completed, but that didn't finish until like 10 minutes before I was going to bed. I'm going to keep an open mind and give it another try tonight, but man, if it's not significantly better tonight between the install being done and the supposed server updates that MS is pushing today, I'm gonna be pretty pissed. The game I played (or rather, attempted to play) last night was not a finished retail product. In fact I'm not sure I'd be comfortable shipping something that quality as a beta product. But then I'm a lowly engineer--I'm sure their devs are fully aware of the issues and powerless to change the launch plans.

After what happened with Halo I'm waiting to open my copy of AC. I've heard it's even worse on the glitches and performance, plus it's riddled with other monetizing ******** (microtransactions, obnoxious app integration, etc). Have you guys run into any technical issues?

I have to say I haven't been impressed with this gen yet. It's getting more and more of the bad aspects of PC gaming--ridiculously long install times, online requirements, less and less local multiplayer, bafflingly poor performance on some games, microtransactions and content removed to be resold as DLC, and worst of all the mentality that it's OK to release a game before it works as long as you maybe patch it later. Meanwhile you don't get any of the advantages of PC games like mods or lower prices.

I'm still excited for Smash. Seems like Nintendo is maybe the only major game company left that genuinely believes that product quality is the most important key to success. Sometimes they'll omit some features or oversimplify things, and other times they'll delay a game if it's not up to spec, but at least by the time you get your hands on it you know it's going to be polished to hell and back.

 

[gphr513]

After what happened with Halo I'm waiting to open my copy of AC. I've heard it's even worse on the glitches and performance, plus it's riddled with other monetizing ******** (microtransactions, obnoxious app integration, etc). Have you guys run into any technical issues?

I've had absolutely zero technical issues with AC. Honestly, it seems like the goal is to tear down any game that comes out. The game runs great, and looks gorgeous for me.

I see people complaining about frame rate issues. I had one instance where the frame rate dropped (in my ~6 hours of game time so far), it lasted about 3 seconds, then was back to normal. Just a hiccup.

The microtransactions are nothing to be upset about. It's just there for people who don't want to put any time into the game upgrading their equipment. You can also upgrade your equipment through points that you get in game for things like finishing moves, vanishing, etc. I've just been playing the game naturally and I'm getting quite a lot of them.

And the app integration is just (as far as I can tell) for a few chests. There's some blue chests that you apparently can only open if you have the companion app. Again, not a big deal.

Having a blast playing it.

 

[StealthClobber]

I take back everything I said about the free-running being good in Assassins Creed. As the game goes on, it just gets worse and worse, more tedious than it is good.

Also doesn't help that the game crashed on me twice in 10 minutes. GG Ubisoft. GG.

 

[Generic User]

I wait 1-3 years to buy the "next"/current gen console after it comes out. If it's not a hardware issue from the original launch systems, then it's something else. For at least the first year, the graphics look like a stepping stone between the last gen and what the next gen will become. The difference between Perfect Dark and BioShock for the 360 was insane. Not only graphics-wise, but gameplay quality and the time-to-completion gets better. Just more value I guess.

Nowadays it seems to be server issues. Still, far too many 360 and PS3 games on deep discount that I wanna play before the current gen figures their **** out. System will be cheaper and the quality of games/selection will be way better.

Good for me, eh?

 

[Vashanesh]

I take back everything I said about the free-running being good in Assassins Creed. As the game goes on, it just gets worse and worse, more tedious than it is good.

Also doesn't help that the game crashed on me twice in 10 minutes. GG Ubisoft. GG.

I feel like they've pushed too hard to go with the annual releases.

Instead of fixing and refining their engine, they just keep pumping new stuff out.

That said, Black Flag was super fun.

 

[gphr513]

I wait 1-3 years to buy the "next"/current gen console after it comes out. If it's not a hardware issue from the original launch systems, then it's something else. For at least the first year, the graphics look like a stepping stone between the last gen and what the next gen will become. The difference between Perfect Dark and BioShock for the 360 was insane. Not only graphics-wise, but gameplay quality and the time-to-completion gets better. Just more value I guess.

Nowadays it seems to be server issues. Still, far too many 360 and PS3 games on deep discount that I wanna play before the current gen figures their **** out. System will be cheaper and the quality of games/selection will be way better.

Good for me, eh?

I wish I had your level of self control when it comes to video games.

My original plan was to buy Black Flag (I had it on 360, but only finished half of it before selling my 360 and upgrading to XB1) deeply discounted when Unity came out, play it, and then buy Unity on sale.

But I couldn't ****ing do it. Had to have the latest and greatest.

 

[BurnsyMN]

Halo can now be considered a monumental disaster of a launch. 3 days in and you have to wait 45 minutes or more to find a match. Once you do it's uneven teams and players getting booted. You can't find any games with a party of friends. If you do, it splits you into different teams. If you care about achievements, those are also broken in campaign. They have released 2 server patches already, none of which fixed anything. The 3rd patch was supposed to be launched tonight but is now delayed with no ETA.

343 has been an epic disaster since acquiring the Halo series from Bungie. Halo 4 was a disaster and destroyed the competitive community. This Halo MCC was supposed to revive the series in time for Halo 5. I don't even know why I would buy H5 now. 343 has not gained any trust. An absolute joke.

 

[Vashanesh]

Halo can now be considered a monumental disaster of a launch. 3 days in and you have to wait 45 minutes or more to find a match. Once you do it's uneven teams and players getting booted. You can't find any games with a party of friends. If you do, it splits you into different teams. If you care about achievements, those are also broken in campaign. They have released 2 server patches already, none of which fixed anything. The 3rd patch was supposed to be launched tonight but is now delayed with no ETA.

343 has been an epic disaster since acquiring the Halo series from Bungie. Halo 4 was a disaster and destroyed the competitive community. This Halo MCC was supposed to revive the series in time for Halo 5. I don't even know why I would buy H5 now. 343 has not gained any trust. An absolute joke.

Sounds like these problems fall on M$, not 343. They were basically thrust into this situation after Bungie left MS's in-house development.

343 is a first party team, which means they're not remotely responsible for server issues. I find it very odd that this didn't get caught, though. MS rails on 3rd party devs for not testing their games enough (charging huge fees for patching, etc), seems odd that they wouldn't hold themselves to the same standard.

 

[llamapalooza]

Halo can now be considered a monumental disaster of a launch. 3 days in and you have to wait 45 minutes or more to find a match. Once you do it's uneven teams and players getting booted. You can't find any games with a party of friends. If you do, it splits you into different teams. If you care about achievements, those are also broken in campaign. They have released 2 server patches already, none of which fixed anything. The 3rd patch was supposed to be launched tonight but is now delayed with no ETA.

343 has been an epic disaster since acquiring the Halo series from Bungie. Halo 4 was a disaster and destroyed the competitive community. This Halo MCC was supposed to revive the series in time for Halo 5. I don't even know why I would buy H5 now. 343 has not gained any trust. An absolute joke.

Halo 4 changed a lot, and I can see why people didn't like it (though I personally quite enjoyed the MP...). But it was far and away one of the most technically solid games on the 360. Maybe the best graphics on the system, great physics, super stable netcode, and I don't think I ever ran into a serious bug. So it's a total shock to me that they've managed to botch this so horribly.

 

[elnewby]

I've been playing hours and hours of AC: Unity the last few days. It's pretty fun. We've had some issues with the Ubisoft servers but the last two days have been so much better. The party system is humangously bad, if you do manage do successfully get to do some co-op with some friends the game is a blast.

It's Assassins Creed, the game hasn't changed much, but the co-op mode is pretty fun

 

[Minnewildsota]

If a series is engaging enough to keep me occupied for 125 hours, I'm probably going to be satisfied with it.

I'll probably start on it tomorrow after I get home.

If you want to spend 125 hours playing a game, I suggest playing FF7.
Must get items:
Golden Chocobo
Knight of the Round

 

[this providence]

The new Far Crybis pretty damn awesome so far.

 

[Victorious Secret]

The new Far Crybis pretty damn awesome so far.

Gonna have to pick that up tonight. Finally sold MAdden and NHL on ebay. Destiny is still awesome. Haven't played through as much as I want, yet. Not to mention GTA is out, too.

 

[this providence]

No idea how the iPhone corrected that...

I got burnt out on Destiny. I'll circle back at some point in sure. If you ever want to play coop on Far Cry, get at me.

 

[Victorious Secret]

You can count on it. I'm surprised how much I enjoyed Far Cry 3. Wasn't expecting that. Don't think 4 can have a better story.

 

[Dee Oh Cee]

extremely excited to start playing Dragon Age 3 today. Great reviews and it just looks great. (visually)

 

[StealthClobber]

Far Cry 4 is pretty good. Initally it seemed pretty similar to FC3 in gameplay, but as the game went on it really came into it's own. I like it. (The "Buzzer" gyrocopter is just great, best means of transportation in any Far Cry game ever made lol)

I picked up GTA5 for XB1 after work tonight. So far, it's taking forever to install.