What game are you playing?

[gabito]

IIRC the weird controls are present in all the MGS games from I to IV (or maybe III?). I mean: selecting weapons with the shoulder buttons, etc., etc. MGS III is the first one in the series were you can control the camera, and that's only in one of the two versions that exist.

It's an... acquired taste so to speak, from an era were controls weren't as standard as they are now. So you either play the games as they are or you don't.

And I did, it took some getting used to but I don't regret it.

I played both versions of MGS. I played Twin Snakes first, so I was not familiar enough with the original game as to care about the changes, but I played the PS1 version later and I think it was a little harder?

Anyway, these are archaic games, MGSV is almost 10 years old and probably the only one that could be considered "modern" by today's standards although I think IV is close and the gameplay is a weird mix between the "if they see you you're fucked" from the earlier games and "but you're free to do whatever you want" from V. It's more like a third person shooter in some ways, similar to Gears of War and games from that era of gaming.

Weird, the general vibe I've seen around MGS games is that IV is easily the worst and V is great

Maybe for the people who fell asleep watching 9 hours of cutscenes in IV (including a single 71min cutscene). If you're fast you can beat MGS twice while watching them.

 

[wankerness]

Maybe for the people who fell asleep watching 9 hours of cutscenes in IV (including a single 71min cutscene). If you're fast you can beat MGS twice while watching them.

To be fair I'd probably call a game with a 71 minute cutscene in it terrible too. Yakuza can test my patience sometimes and those actually have pretty good writers, unlike what I've seen of Kojima. And I think that there's only usually one or two cutscenes in a game that even might hit 30 minutes, let alone 71!!

 

[MFB]

Hey, wouldn't you know it, taking a break from Nioh lead to me beating her on the second - maybe third? - attempt this evening. THANK GOD too, because she is NOT that challenging of a move set, but god damn does she have quick job recovery and the ability to cover the entire arena while doing so.

I did the mission side mission after her, which was surprisingly annoying with all the damn mages everywhere, and then the Twilight mission in that area; only thing remaining is to fight the gimmick boss for REAL when he's not possessed, and you just have to destroy crystals to beat him instead of actually fighting. He has a spear like myself, now that I think the one in using was his, so he'll be a PITA because of that, plus his entire arena dash attack. Gonna hold off until I'm higher level since those mission types always require being generously over-leveled.

So now I'm in the final region of the game, the last five or so missions remaining, looking forward to being done with it honestly. Not sure if I'll jump into Nioh 2 so quickly, probably a good idea to take a palette cleanser between.

 

[wankerness]

A break is good, cause nioh 2 is definitely the best souls-like currently existing and being burned out on nioh before starting it would probably ruin it. On the other hand your muscle memory and ability to understand systems will all decay over time so taking too long of a break before Nioh 2 will result in the same experience outlined in the Dunkey video.

 

[brector]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard announced as releasing on Halloween: https://www.polygon.com/gaming/440347/dragon-age-the-veilguard-to-be-released-on-halloween

 

[wankerness]

Oh boy, another cinematic trailer! Who the hell cares about cinematic trailers for videogames? Give me gameplay or don't bother, IMO. (directed at bioware not you brector)

 

[MFB]

A break is good, cause nioh 2 is definitely the best souls-like currently existing and being burned out on nioh before starting it would probably ruin it. On the other hand your muscle memory and ability to understand systems will all decay over time so taking too long of a break before Nioh 2 will result in the same experience outlined in the Dunkey video.

Nah, definitely not long enough that I'd forget what I've learned from Nioh 1, just like a week or so off doing something else; plus it's not like it's the most complicated system in the world, high/mid/low stances that do high/mid/low levels of damage with a trade off being speed/ki recovery, and then the ki pulse is just ripping 'perfect reload' from Gears of War in an RPG setting.

 

[Mathemagician]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard announced as releasing on Halloween: https://www.polygon.com/gaming/440347/dragon-age-the-veilguard-to-be-released-on-halloween

Any early impressions from reputable sources? Would love a DA:O level game in terms of writing.

I didn’t play the second one, but was enjoying inquisition until my system froze, or file got corrupted. Idk it was like 7+ yrs ago. Still solid characters though from what I saw.

 

[wankerness]

Nah, definitely not long enough that I'd forget what I've learned from Nioh 1, just like a week or so off doing something else; plus it's not like it's the most complicated system in the world, high/mid/low stances that do high/mid/low levels of damage with a trade off being speed/ki recovery, and then the ki pulse is just ripping 'perfect reload' from Gears of War in an RPG setting.

It's more all the stats, all the ninjutsu and spells and knowing what they do, how damage types interact, how the blacksmith works, how the teahouse works and the "prestige stats," and then the additional systems Nioh 2 drops on top of that (enemies can drop "cores" which allow you to use one of their abilities,, there's a super parry ability for red attacks sorta like mikiri counter in sekiro). Plus just the general twitchiness required for avoiding enemy attacks and how to pressure/keep your ki up/cleanse pools while moving out of range etc. I think it might be easier than Nioh 1 but it's a LOT for a new player.

 

[wankerness]

Any early impressions from reputable sources? Would love a DA:O level game in terms of writing.

I didn’t play the second one, but was enjoying inquisition until my system froze, or file got corrupted. Idk it was like 7+ yrs ago. Still solid characters though from what I saw.

I like Inquisition. I've played through it a few times (360, PC, PS4). It has a lot of filler and crap sidequests, but the characters IMO are up to the level of Mass Effect 2/3 and the party interactions are great and the combat is far better than Dragon Age 1. This just looks terrible from what little I've seen, I hate the whole presentation of it, plus Bioware hasn't done anything good in like 15 years and has none of their original staff people anyway.

 

[Werecow]

Veilguard has a party number of three, you can't take control of other party members, each party member only has 3 skills.
As someone who's favourite in the series is Origins, and i'd use a mod to extend the hotbar to a second page (with god knows how many skills/abilities that is), and how i love to micromanage everything every party member is doing in each battle, it doesn't look like i'll be continuing with what was my favourite RPG series
I've hated every second of the promotional videos they've put out as well. It's looked like some lame hero shooter that's releasing simultaneously on mobile.

For me, the combat on Inquisition was okish, but not a patch on Origins when playing as, or fully utilizing a mage. There are just so many skills/builds/combos/tactics you can do in Origins, and it can be as complex as you want it to be. The combos were highly tactical, like being able to shatter (and insta-kill) frozen enemies. I think the best example of the difference in the combat between the two games, is that if you do a freeze combo in Inquisition, all it does is an ice shattering animation, but the effect on the enemy is just slightly more DPS for that brief moment. Almost everything in the combat just boils down to "slightly more DPS" , apart from effects that hold enemies in place for about a second or two. Origins has a huge amount of combinations of spells and skills you can do (both on one character and in combination with other party members), which all have huge beneficial and tactical rewards, that aren't just simply more damage. It makes it really rewarding and interesting to replay in different builds.
Even something as simple as a fireball was highly tactical and interesting in Origins, with fireballs having physics that threw enemies around and knocked them down for a while. The equivalent in Inquisition was dumbed down into the fire trap spell that only did (you guessed it) damage, or increased DPS with upgrades.

I did get some joy in finding synergies between the party members, but as previously mentioned, that was always just "see how much DPS i can get". The maps and lore in the game were great still, but the quests in each region felt incredibly uninvolving compared to Origins, often just being dumb fetch or kill something errands. I still liked the game enough to have played it 3 or 4 times.

 

[SalsaWood]

Tried playing CP2077 on Xbox One. It was limping along until I drove a vehicle and the FPS dropped to about 2. No idea why it was released for this console, it's not a bug, the hardware literally can't handle it.

Finally got around to playing Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm finding it pretty boring and mechanically underwhelming so far, have only gotten to the first town though. Outside of Max Payne I've thought very little of all the Rockstar games. Seems like in this one they spent a lot of time fleshing out everything except how to have fun.

 

[wankerness]

Veilguard has a party number of three, you can't take control of other party members, each party member only has 3 skills.
As someone who's favourite in the series is Origins, and i'd use a mod to extend the hotbar to a second page (with god knows how many skills/abilities that is), and how i love to micromanage everything every party member is doing in each battle, it doesn't look like i'll be continuing with what was my favourite RPG series
I've hated every second of the promotional videos they've put out as well. It's looked like some lame hero shooter that's releasing simultaneously on mobile.

Wow, didn't know that. Yeah, screw that. I hated that in Mass Effect Andromeda, but it mattered a bit less with how much of a shooter those games always were. With Dragon Age, that seems like a deathknell, unless you can program "gambits" like you could in 2 (and maybe the other ones, I don't remember).

For me, the combat on Inquisition was okish, but not a patch on Origins when playing as, or fully utilizing a mage. There are just so many skills/builds/combos/tactics you can do in Origins, and it can be as complex as you want it to be. The combos were highly tactical, like being able to shatter (and insta-kill) frozen enemies. I think the best example of the difference in the combat between the two games, is that if you do a freeze combo in Inquisition, all it does is an ice shattering animation, but the effect on the enemy is just slightly more DPS for that brief moment. Almost everything in the combat just boils down to "slightly more DPS" , apart from effects that hold enemies in place for about a second or two. Origins has a huge amount of combinations of spells and skills you can do (both on one character and in combination with other party members), which all have huge beneficial and tactical rewards, that aren't just simply more damage. It makes it really rewarding and interesting to replay in different builds.
Even something as simple as a fireball was highly tactical and interesting in Origins, with fireballs having physics that threw enemies around and knocked them down for a while. The equivalent in Inquisition was dumbed down into the fire trap spell that only did (you guessed it) damage, or increased DPS with upgrades.

I did get some joy in finding synergies between the party members, but as previously mentioned, that was always just "see how much DPS i can get". The maps and lore in the game were great still, but the quests in each region felt incredibly uninvolving compared to Origins, often just being dumb fetch or kill something errands. I still liked the game enough to have played it 3 or 4 times.

I really hated Origin's combat, mainly cause your character felt so damn sluggish. Walking felt like struggling through quicksand, and fights usually were this chaotic mess right at the beginning where I'd have to use whatever that "locks enemies in place and deals X damage over time" spell was to try and knock out a couple dudes before they'd get up to melee range and pretty much instantly kill me. The other thing I hated was how all the characters basically felt the same to me. 2 and I think Inquisition had character-specific skill trees so every character had SOME unique gimmick, but in origins it was much more like every character had roughly the same skills available. I never finished the game, I think I was probably about 50-60 hours in, and at this point with how buggy it is on newer hardware I can't continue. Plus, that was over 10 years ago so I barely remember anything!

Anyway, finally go tthe platinum on Dave the Diver, and then bought the DLC for Cyberpunk so I can try that game again. I really hated the two hours I played the first time, but then today I was kind of enjoying it. I don't know if your character background determines a different game opening or if I just completely forgot most of what I did the first time, but this time I'm a Nomad instead of a "corpo" and I think I'm going to try hacking. I am very impressed by how well it runs. It feels great, looks great, and is a rock-solid 60 FPS. Also the first person melee combat is night and day better than any other game I've played with that. Actual dodges?! After suffering through Resident Evil Village? Amazing! Plus the dialogue is actually engaging and doesn't feel wooden as you respond to conversations.

 

[gabito]

Tried playing CP2077 on Xbox One. It was limping along until I drove a vehicle and the FPS dropped to about 2. No idea why it was released for this console, it's not a bug, the hardware literally can't handle it.

I know you said you have some problems with data caps, but you DEFINITELY need to install the last patch they released a few years ago to play that thing. I played and finished it on a regular PS4 and it works mostly fine, but not without the patches.

Finally got around to playing Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm finding it pretty boring and mechanically underwhelming so far, have only gotten to the first town though. Outside of Max Payne I've thought very little of all the Rockstar games. Seems like in this one they spent a lot of time fleshing out everything except how to have fun.

The first few hours are VERY slow and it can be very boring, yeah. Also the controls are terrible, I don't know what they were thinking. I don't think the controls are good or intuitive if you have to read what they do on the bottom right of the screen all the time. I think there's like 100 missions you have to complete to finish the game, so it can take a while...

That said, I finished the game twice and I still think it's a good interactive experience but probably not a good game. If you're mostly interested in gameplay there are better games out there.

 

[SalsaWood]

That's still great news that the 2077 updates optimize things a little, I had been reading up on how they stopped at update 1.6 on the One and figured they just gave up. I also remember how broken it was on launch for everyone so I just guessed that's all the updates were for. I'll have to drag it over to a buddy's house and download it, the game seemed pretty cool.

 

[gabito]

That's still great news that the 2077 updates optimize things a little, I had been reading up on how they stopped at update 1.6 on the One and figured they just gave up. I also remember how broken it was on launch for everyone so I just guessed that's all the updates were for. I'll have to drag it over to a buddy's house and download it, the game seemed pretty cool.

Yeah, they gave up eventually but they fixed and added a lot of things up to that point. The game should run OK, except for a few glitches and - probably- sporadic crashes (I think it crashed maybe once or twice while playing it, but so did the PS5 version...). Don't expect top performance and super crisp graphics, but it looks very cool anyway and it runs OK.

I didn't like it that much the first time I played it but I only played the main missions back then. But when they released the one and only DLC I played it again on PS5 doing everything (every secondary character related mission, plus some of the minor tasks you'll find on the map) and it's a much better game that way. I don't think the main story / missions are enough, you should do your friends / allies missions too and it'll feel like a more interesting experience.

 

[Werecow]

Wow, didn't know that. Yeah, screw that. I hated that in Mass Effect Andromeda, but it mattered a bit less with how much of a shooter those games always were. With Dragon Age, that seems like a deathknell, unless you can program "gambits" like you could in 2 (and maybe the other ones, I don't remember).

I really hated Origin's combat, mainly cause your character felt so damn sluggish. Walking felt like struggling through quicksand, and fights usually were this chaotic mess right at the beginning where I'd have to use whatever that "locks enemies in place and deals X damage over time" spell was to try and knock out a couple dudes before they'd get up to melee range and pretty much instantly kill me. The other thing I hated was how all the characters basically felt the same to me. 2 and I think Inquisition had character-specific skill trees so every character had SOME unique gimmick, but in origins it was much more like every character had roughly the same skills available. I never finished the game, I think I was probably about 50-60 hours in, and at this point with how buggy it is on newer hardware I can't continue. Plus, that was over 10 years ago so I barely remember anything!

Anyway, finally go tthe platinum on Dave the Diver, and then bought the DLC for Cyberpunk so I can try that game again. I really hated the two hours I played the first time, but then today I was kind of enjoying it. I don't know if your character background determines a different game opening or if I just completely forgot most of what I did the first time, but this time I'm a Nomad instead of a "corpo" and I think I'm going to try hacking. I am very impressed by how well it runs. It feels great, looks great, and is a rock-solid 60 FPS. Also the first person melee combat is night and day better than any other game I've played with that. Actual dodges?! After suffering through Resident Evil Village? Amazing! Plus the dialogue is actually engaging and doesn't feel wooden as you respond to conversations.

I think Origins can give very different experiences depending what you want from it or how you play it. Did you play it on console? Because i think i remember only PC had this option to zoom out to a very traditional from-above CRPG viewpoint. That's where i played every battle from. I very rarely moved characters in battle from the over-the-shoulder cam, it was all click to move to a spot from above in my battles. I guess it'd be a completely different game without being able to do that.

 

[wankerness]

I think Origins can give very different experiences depending what you want from it or how you play it. Did you play it on console? Because i think i remember only PC had this option to zoom out to a very traditional from-above CRPG viewpoint. That's where i played every battle from. I very rarely moved characters in battle from the over-the-shoulder cam, it was all click to move to a spot from above in my battles. I guess it'd be a completely different game without being able to do that.

I had it on PC. It worked similar to 3, where you could like, freeze time and move the camera around and plan out all your moves.

 

[Werecow]

I had it on PC. It worked similar to 3, where you could like, freeze time and move the camera around and plan out all your moves.

Yeh, was just checking, because i imagine the standard movement would be horrible to navigate a big fight in Origins.

I just read the director of Veilguard's only previous experience in games are Tiger Woods golf games, and The Sims, then moved straight to a director role in a dark fantasy RPG series. The out of touch style of the promotional videos so far maybe makes sense now

 

[wankerness]

I saw today that there are multiple special editions of the game including three different artbooks. Oh, and you can even buy special editions of the game without the game (yeah, yeah, I know it's directed at people that are going to buy the game on steam). They're just trying to fleece as many whales as possible I think.