Games Discussion Thread

[Stuffie]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Helldivers is awesome, as far as basic capabilities go. You can start up the basic game and both level and equip up, and get better. But eventually, you will figure out that some DLCs provide some advantage one might like to have.

Having options to further classes, weapons and tanks is fun, but you gotta buy those DLCs. And especially one DLC apparently provides you with unlimited sprint in "hard terrain", which apparently gives a HUGE advantage, therefore people keep saying "This is necessary for 'late game'!". Just like a keyboard with macro-keys that will help you to one-hit those key combos for any skills!

I still like playing HELLDIVERS, it's great fun, but it's the most fun if played when you have a(ny) friend(s) who fits any role in the little team of roles!

 

[PlatinumTH]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Also known as 'whoopsies we supposed to work out on release date but betatesters cost money.'

Good point ! But still, looks decent.

 

[XSI]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Another review
A game that doesn't know how to be a game, that doesn't understand world building, but has an interesting gimmick at least.
Beholder

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Spoiler

Beholder is an interesting game that pretends to be more than it is. A simple gimmick of spying on people and surveillance, but with a minimum of actual interaction to go with it. After the first few hours, most of the game is about finding out what the developers planned for you to do and then following the story they wanted to tell you. If you wanted to just spy on people and have a few renters to keep an eye on, you're in the wrong place.

Mostly, Beholder tells you a story. And this story demands that you are a dou-che to everyone and extort them until they have no money left to give you before forcibly evicting them so you can steal whats left of their stuff and pawn it for spare cash. If you do not do this, you will either be given a game over or your family will die. Multiple times at that. In my one playthrough so far my son has died three times and my wife twice, forcing me to pay for five funerals for two dead family members. Through all this, people still threaten me with hurting my family which already died, and there is a good chance that if I don't go along with it they will dig up the body just so they can kill it again and force me to pay for another funeral.

There is not a lot of choice to be had, there are a few stories, and you have to just follow them. Some stories appear to have multiple paths, but in the end only a few seem to have any effect on others at all. Coupled by a world that appears to be intended seriously but comes off as a satirical joke where people try to one up eachother on cynicism, dialogue options being vague ("Tell me" -200 reputation- Could mean threatening them, right? Nope. It's asking nicely.) and the fact that you don't really get to do that much for most of the time except wait for people to leave so you can rummage through their stuff makes this more suited to something you can watch someone else play rather than something you can play yourself.

Aside from all this, I've found there to be some serious issues with Beholder, family members dying multiple times, the game not recognizing them as dead, the complete lack of manual saving, barely functional tutorial that doesn't even explain the basics right and very harsh penalties on what is essentially trial and error gameplay makes for a sadly unsatisfying experience where I found myself deciding that I was done and got the good ending after a bomb killed everyone in the building.

Graphics are simple, but they are pretty good at what they do. Renters are different enough to distinguish between them and the music works well for most of the game. I don't think it was entirely necessary to hear the basement stove turned on nearly all the time though.

There are good things to be had in Beholder, but it feels very much like they had a story and a single game mechanic planned, and then just jammed them together hoping it would work.
It doesn't, or not very well at least. The start of the game is fairly well worked out and entertaining, but then after that it mainly becomes a hunt for finding the right thing or dialogue you're expected to find while at the same time bringing in renters just to extort them for money. A routine that encourages you to not care about any of your renters, your family, or the game as a whole. And all throughout this everyone will stress how everything is bad without ever having anything good happen.

The game claims your choices have consequences, but the only choices and consequences are "Do as we intended for you to do or you and/or your family will die" with nearly no room for error. Even if you accept the loss of one or two family members you do not have many meaningful choices, seemingly by design.

Take that as you will, but I can not in good conscience recommend it to anyone but those who are the most hyped about spying on people while also being a fan of passive gameplay.

 

[Yoshiiki]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Another review
A game that doesn't know how to be a game, that doesn't understand world building, but has an interesting gimmick at least.
Beholder

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

Spoiler

Beholder is an interesting game that pretends to be more than it is. A simple gimmick of spying on people and surveillance, but with a minimum of actual interaction to go with it. After the first few hours, most of the game is about finding out what the developers planned for you to do and then following the story they wanted to tell you. If you wanted to just spy on people and have a few renters to keep an eye on, you're in the wrong place.

Mostly, Beholder tells you a story. And this story demands that you are a dou-che to everyone and extort them until they have no money left to give you before forcibly evicting them so you can steal whats left of their stuff and pawn it for spare cash. If you do not do this, you will either be given a game over or your family will die. Multiple times at that. In my one playthrough so far my son has died three times and my wife twice, forcing me to pay for five funerals for two dead family members. Through all this, people still threaten me with hurting my family which already died, and there is a good chance that if I don't go along with it they will dig up the body just so they can kill it again and force me to pay for another funeral.

There is not a lot of choice to be had, there are a few stories, and you have to just follow them. Some stories appear to have multiple paths, but in the end only a few seem to have any effect on others at all. Coupled by a world that appears to be intended seriously but comes off as a satirical joke where people try to one up eachother on cynicism, dialogue options being vague ("Tell me" -200 reputation- Could mean threatening them, right? Nope. It's asking nicely.) and the fact that you don't really get to do that much for most of the time except wait for people to leave so you can rummage through their stuff makes this more suited to something you can watch someone else play rather than something you can play yourself.

Aside from all this, I've found there to be some serious issues with Beholder, family members dying multiple times, the game not recognizing them as dead, the complete lack of manual saving, barely functional tutorial that doesn't even explain the basics right and very harsh penalties on what is essentially trial and error gameplay makes for a sadly unsatisfying experience where I found myself deciding that I was done and got the good ending after a bomb killed everyone in the building.

Graphics are simple, but they are pretty good at what they do. Renters are different enough to distinguish between them and the music works well for most of the game. I don't think it was entirely necessary to hear the basement stove turned on nearly all the time though.

There are good things to be had in Beholder, but it feels very much like they had a story and a single game mechanic planned, and then just jammed them together hoping it would work.
It doesn't, or not very well at least. The start of the game is fairly well worked out and entertaining, but then after that it mainly becomes a hunt for finding the right thing or dialogue you're expected to find while at the same time bringing in renters just to extort them for money. A routine that encourages you to not care about any of your renters, your family, or the game as a whole. And all throughout this everyone will stress how everything is bad without ever having anything good happen.

The game claims your choices have consequences, but the only choices and consequences are "Do as we intended for you to do or you and/or your family will die" with nearly no room for error. Even if you accept the loss of one or two family members you do not have many meaningful choices, seemingly by design.

Take that as you will, but I can not in good conscience recommend it to anyone but those who are the most hyped about spying on people while also being a fan of passive gameplay.

Whole idea of this isn't bad, shame that it's just few things slapped together and secured with a jelly, according to review.

Also,
I just love cleaning my image libraries and finding old gifs/pictures. GTAO, I was told by a friend that I can't kill npcs by throwing stuff at them.

Apparently, yes, you can (took me a try or two to get that hit xD)

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[XSI]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Oh yeah, the concept is neat. But they don't really go past that. The game gives you that concept, tells you to spy on people, and then the story goes the entire opposite direction.

You spy on people once or twice, and then from there on it's just trying to find what the devs intended for you to do by mostly trial and error and trying dialogue options.

It pretends to give you moral choices, but they're incredibly hamfisted. The game literally starts with "You have a daughter. She gets sick. Now go extort people for money to treat her or she will die."
And then if you don't extort people hard enough, she will die. Your wife will kill herself, and your son will suicide by cop. Also, the game doesn't tell you that you can extort people, so chances are you're going to just have everyone die because you never really got a choice in the matter.

All that in the first few hours of gameplay. You don't get moral choices, it's just a flowchart of "Do you think it's justified to fuck over random people for your family? If Y, proceed to next challenge. If N, your family dies, but proceed with the main story anyway."

And it doesn't get any better from there on, I might go watch someone play it on youtube or something sometime to see just how bad it gets. But I just couldn't care enough - The main draw of surveilance and spying on people just doesn't come up often, and you're left with just poking dialogue choices.
And if you select the wrong one you might just die because that's what the devs think of when they say 'difficulty', while you can't actually save your game manually.

 

[Yoshiiki]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Tbh, whole concept reminded me of this game:

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I know I tried many times to complete it, but decade ago my PC could barely handle it. But I also do remember this being very interesting, maybe I should reserve few hours and give it another try... after buying digital version, because my physical copy is useless, I don't have cd/dvd drive xD

Back to Beholder, it is a shame. Not the first time I see a nice concept getting mowed down by poor design. I have met with many people that wanted to go into making games, because it sounded profitable.
From "I want to make a game and get money but I don't know anything about games/gaming industry" to "I have this great idea and this should be enough to make it".
I don't know what reason was behind this one, but still... It's a shame because I like this concept.

 

[noman]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Tbh, whole concept reminded me of this game:

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I know I tried many times to complete it, but decade ago my PC could barely handle it. But I also do remember this being very interesting, maybe I should reserve few hours and give it another try... after buying digital version, because my physical copy is useless, I don't have cd/dvd drive xD

Just buy a USB DVD drive. Those things are cheap.

I had the physical version too. Bought it from GAME for dirt cheap as a second hand game. It was entertaining for the first 10 hours or so but then the novelty wore off.

 

[XSI]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Did another review.
Maybe this one doesn't count since it's just a beta

Steep Open Beta
Pretty good, really.

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Spoiler

Simple open beta review!

Steep- It's honestly pretty good. Yeah, you need Uplay. Yeah, the multiplayer system has issues for some people. And some parts of the map are not quite finished looking just yet. But that's what a beta is for.

It's difficult to do the tricks on jumps until you figure out exactly how and the timing for them seems to be a bit rough, but there are plenty of good places to practice, and a large open world with a lot of varied and good rides down the mountain. Plenty of time and amusement just going around and finding things, with a lot of good places and tracks if you put some effort into it, and you can just ride or glide down with friends to relax and mess about as well.

I can't say much on the physics, as I dont often do these kind of sports myself, but I can say that controls often felt difficult. Not in a bad way, but more like you have to get used to them. The camera is often pretty poor- Mostly inconsistency and being in the exact wrong spot for what you're trying to see, but this can be fixed with a different camera mode so it only annoys until you find what works for you.
Multiplayer is sadly limited to only 4 people in a group, very clearly not many with how big a world it is, but you can share your challenges(Which you can make yourself) with as many people as you want.

Customization appears good, though I found myself not really liking most of the options. A little more variety would be nice, but it has enough to be functional and fun as is.
Worth 60 euro fun? I don't know. I feel like I need to get a bit more out of it before I'd feel comfortable with 60 euro. But as for someone not usually into sports games, I can say that Steep's Open Beta looks like it promises good things for the full version.

 

[XSI]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Another review
World of Fishing
It's honestly nothing special. If you really have nothing better to do, go for it.

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Spoiler

World of Fishing is not bad, but then not good either. It is a very simple fishing game in which you cast a line and then spend a while trying to tire out the fish so you can reel it in. The fishing is not realistic in any way, so do not expect a simulator.

That said, it would certainly be nice if it had some more depth to it, at times even literally depth- Your bait is always at roughly the same depth, and fish all swim at the same depth. Not that you will notice much of that, you only get limited uses of limited time to look underwater, which is not even useful to you because you have no control over what happens once you have cast but before the fish bites.

It is quite repetitive, with almost every fish the same but at a varying difficulty. You cast your line, swipe once and then the fish is hooked(or gets away), at which point you have to try to manage your line's tension to keep the fish struggling. But if the fish gets too far away, or too close your line will immediately break. That said, it is not bad, and you can amuse yourself by turning on some music and just fishing for a while.

You can keep fish in your aquarium, so you can look at them any time you want. But your first fish from the tutorial will be released. After that you can keep your fish, but aside from a few very specific quest fish it almost seems pointless- These fish are all similar.
Speaking of- Another thing you need to be aware of when you decide to play is that the odds are most likely manipulated when you play. If you get a quest for 3 fish of a specific kind, it will take over 50 fish to find the ones you are after, even if those you are after are marked as very common and you use the perfect bait for them. Not that the bait matters most of the time- As most fish you encounter all take the same bait you generally don't see results from changing it. Overall, the game has a feeling of not letting you effect things, you can only hope for the slightest of chances that things go your way.

Since it is free, you will undoubtedly want to know how they make their money. Simple enough, they sell premium items. You may not like the idea, but I can tell you that they are not essential and must-haves. You will not be locked out of things when you don't want to buy them. But that said, they have a noticeable effect compared to your basic free stuff, and quests will provide you with enough to give them a try without having to buy them. Cosmetics wise there is essentially nothing. It is very basic, and you will look similar to everyone else.

All this is, essentially, nothing too bad. There is not much to be had here, but also nothing really terrible. If you have time to spend and are bored then give it a go- You won't lose out on anything, but it isn't going to be amazing either.
Worth a try sometime to see if you like it, but don't get invested or expect much.

 

[Yoshiiki]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

KSP, what the...

I think I went too wild with mods xD

 

[Bearhook]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

What, naaw, RAM is made to be used!

 

[Rule 34]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

So... No Man's Sky has received a new update, putting in a bunch of things that should've been in there from the get-go. The two biggest changes are base-building (including auto-miners) and the ability to buy large freighters.

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[XSI]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Too little, too late

By now people are using No Man's Sky as a joke, they messed up really hard and just base building isn't going to solve things

 

[AceofWind]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

You guys watching the Game Awards tonight? Any particular game you expect to win an award?

 

[B00marrows]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

You guys watching the Game Awards tonight? Any particular game you expect to win an award?

No many sky = biggest disappointment award?
Tho i would give that to fallout 4 too...

 

[super_slicer]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

No many sky = biggest disappointment award?
Tho i would give that to fallout 4 too...

Huh? Fo4 was pretty good, aside from weapon diversity (really, really wanted to see more) it was a standard fallout# experience. Sure the basebuilding was underwhelming, and buggy as fuck, but on a whole it's a solid addition to the numbered fallouts. Next spinoff should be what you've got your eye on for a polished and varied game!


FFXV just showed up so... fuck you guys I'm going on a homoerotic camping trip supplied by coleman and I might not come back!

 

[zakuzaku116]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Friends got me back into TERA online and Overwatch. Before that, I was spending most of my time playing Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Dragon Ball Fusions, and Pokemon Moon. Should really get back to playing Moon, though. So many cute girls in that game. That, and it would be nice to know more of the story. Ahaha

 

[Rule 34]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Mass Effect Andromeda got its gameplay trailer. It looks like they combined the world of Mass Effect with the open world/gathering system of Dragon Age Inquisition, which makes me ROCK. HARD.

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The combo of Jet Pack/Biotic Charge seems especially nice. I said "NOICE!" like 10 times when I first watched that trailer.

 

[B00marrows]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

Huh? Fo4 was pretty good, aside from weapon diversity (really, really wanted to see more) it was a standard fallout# experience. Sure the basebuilding was underwhelming, and buggy as fuck, but on a whole it's a solid addition to the numbered fallouts.

Its yet another step down into the "modern bathesda". Neither fallout 4 or skyrim pleased me on a RPG point. They are both dull and shallow games.
Infact i think of them both as FPS games with a bathesda paintjob.

check this out:

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[Yoshiiki]

Re: Games Discussion Thread

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Ubisoft is giving Assassin's Creed 3 for free on Uplay.
Personally not a fan of the series, but maybe someone will save a buck :]