Games Discussion Thread

[Rule 34]

The Outer Worlds has the RPG system of Fallout 3, the gameplay of Fallout 4 and an attitude right out of Borderlands. If you liked any one of these games for those aspects, ABSOLUTELY check it out. The open world maps are nice and constrained, eliminating the need for massive amounts of filler material that an Ubisoft game might throw at you. I got about 30 hours of gameplay out of a thorough playthrough and wasn't bored for one of them. Some more weapon variety might have been nice, especially in late game, but you can modify your guns enough to even that out somewhat. Your companions are good, but not outstanding - with one positive exception that I don't want to spoiler for you.

9/10 grains of salt from me. If you don't want to grab it from Epic, it's on the Microsoft Game Pass I believe. Or wait for the Steam release.

 

[super_slicer]

Oh it's already complete? I've been kinda out of the loop while playing some of last years releases I didn't get to. YS VIII for example which is a pretty fun ARPG with some JRPG mixed in.

 

[XSI]

Got a review done. Been over a year since I did that. Better late than never
Mordhau- So many little issues. And yet it's still good

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Spoiler

Mordhau is essentially similar to Chivalry and M&B warband's online mode, but does things better than both.
While it does have it's own problems which I will get into later, Mordhau does well at making melee combat feel like you are in control of your swings. Where other games like it only have preset swings and you pick from them, Mordhau allows you to aim your swing and stabs from any direction. Rather than a simple overhead strike, why not an overhead strike from a little to the left, far to the left, or anywhere to the right? Mordhau allows this control and that alone makes it an improvement over its competition.

While it may be hard to learn at first, it is rewarding when you end up capable of combat and notice that some people stop trying to engage you to go for easier prey. Similarly, if someone does engage you and you win against them one on one, or fight off multiple opponents without dying you know that you've actually become somewhat good at the game, and that is a feeling most games these days seem to be missing.

While generally good, with the main gameplay mode(Frontline/Invasion) full of people and allowing a lot of variety in combat, there are some things not as good as they can be. The only teams are red and blue, which renders most of your cosmetic customization pointless as you will be wearing red or blue to most players. It is possible to turn off team colours, but this is not practical in a game with 30 players on each team. The option to put a marker above teammates is not helpful enough to compensate for it either.
Similarly, at the highest levels of gameplay the mechanics that you are taught by the tutorial(Feint, morph, chamber, riposte, etc) are pointless, and it becomes more about twisting your hitbox and weapon hitbox into the enemy and around their blocks by staring at their toes or the sky while flicking your mouse around. Thankfully the people who enjoy this are given their own quarantined mode of ranked duels so you will probably not find them unless you go looking for them.
A few other light negatives include regenerating health making combat not feel like it matters half the time(Hits don't matter-Killing blows is all that counts, medkits are useless because you just wait 5-6 seconds and you're good to go), the map design being full of things and interesting places to fight that are ignored because only the (small and very centralized) objectives have players or a reason to be there, while the objectives themselves don't matter much anyway and horses being limited spawns that will always be taken by someone before you even load in, and some balance issues such as some weapons and their alternative modes not mattering(Notably the mordhau grip the game is named after never sees any use as it sucks in every way).

All these small things don't take away that Mordhau is very enjoyable and well worth the money. Sometimes things may feel a bit off, but more often than that it will be a good time during which you can feel like you're actually doing something rather than just controlling a character and telling it to go hit the HP sponge until something happens.
With the devs still working on it, it may get even better with the (many small) issues it has being addressed. But even if they were not I would recommend it at this state.
Mordhau lets you get into the combat like no titles before it seem to have managed, offering what is at this point a unique experience that is well worth investing your time in

 

[eXtractA]

I need

 

[XSI]

Reviewed a thing again, been a while since I did that.
It's a free mobile/idle game. Meh?

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Spoiler

Before the review, the monetisation in detail:
Premium currency (Can be used to skip timers, buy cosmetics, pay for anything, or get upgrades before you are high enough level)
Monthly subscription
Lootboxes
Exclusive timed offers
Paywalls(Some that can not be bypassed through ingame means)
And a slot machine that can pay out some premium stuff if you're very lucky(But probably won't)
There is a lot of the above, and it constantly reminds you of it all on practically every screen

The game itself is very simple, consisting mainly of timers that you wait for as you craft things to sell. They start small at under a minute and then get longer. You can send out heroes to go gather resources for you using gear you give them, which is a simple timer after which they fight the monster. Combat is entirely automated, so you can not affect it after giving the order to go on the quest. Half of the game's main loop is about letting the timers run down and then collecting your crafts/loot.

The other half is selling your stuff, which is equally simplistic. Customers enter your store, look around, and then try to buy an item if it matches their class. There is no real reason why they would want the item outside of it being of their class, and they will happily downgrade to newbie gear if that's what you're selling. You can spend energy to raise the price, and they will never say no. Prices are fixed with that one exception, so you can not control how much money you get for something.
The main gameplay loop is similar to idle games, with the exception being that you need to poke it occasionally to keep the timers going. Numbers go up but nothing really changes for your shop.

Even then there are two things the game almost does right- The guild system encourages communicating with other players in your guild and helping eachother. You invest part of your money into the town which helps everyone in the guild. You get to be together doing...Not much, since the main gameplay is still waiting, but it is a good way to encourage people to help eachother. Except it's a very limited number of people, since your guild size is limited by the size of the town hall, and you will need to invest millions in gold each to get the guild size up to a level where you can afford to have some more casual players. They make a great system for cooperation, and then limit you from being able to bring in people to cooperate with.

The second is cosmetic, letting you customise your shop interior. Place/move furniture, wallpaper, and flooring. There's a few neat things someone can do with this, and with some time and effort you can make your shop look really nice.
But it's also incredibly limited with 2/3rd of the cosmetics and skins being premium currency only or very expensive, leaving you with very little choice

All things considered, I struggle to think of people who I would recommend this game to. Although the guild system is interesting in how it encourages you to work with others, the rest of the game is decidedly uninspiring and simple. It is about waiting for the timers to run down at its core, and it does not even offer you any real reward for doing it or more than token interaction.
You can pay to get your timers down faster or to skip some of them, but there is no point to it all except to watch your number get bigger. The number does nothing, and in the end everything feels like that is exactly what you achieved- Nothing

 

[Rule 34]

After the disappointingly mediocre remake of Secret of Mana, I was a bit cautious going into Trials of Mana. Well, as I am delighted to tell you, that was entirely unwarranted. Rather than slap a new skin on an old game and call it a day, Trials of Mana is completely rebuilt from the ground up and all the better for it. It now plays a little bit like baby's first spectacle brawler (DMC, Bayonetta) with a few basic combos, an arena border that pops up when you enter combat, red danger fields you should dodge out of etc. At the same time, your leveling system matters a lot more now, since you unlock abilities to slot into your characters now. You also unlock your spells over that system. The class system of the original is back, allowing you to unlock massive upgrades at level 18 and 38.

Graphics are pretty good to great, keeping a distinctive anime look that mostly faithfully updates the designs of yore into 3D models. Voice acting is spotty, ranging from great (Hawkeye is a delight of a character on a whole) to almost amateurish (Riesz, THE AMAZON PRINCESS, is incredibly meek and often fails to hit the tone of a conversation entirely).

Now obviously this comes from a place of nostalgia for me. I absolutely adored Seiken Densetsu 3 back when it was nothing but a ROM outside of Japan. If you feel the same, getting this game is an absolute no-brainer. If not, maybe check it out when it's on sale.

Nostalgia rating: 9/10 grains of salt.
Best guess at sober rating: 7/10 grains of salt.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there are two notable additions to the game. The first is a cute little cactus that you can find hidden around maps that grants you pretty significant bonusses, the other is an awkwardly implemented bonus chapter that boils down to a combat gauntlet. It features a recurring villainness of the later games and introduces an "ultimate" class.

 

[Rule 34]

Xenoblade Chronicles (Definitive Edition) may be the most JRPG-ass JRPG that I ever JRPGed, and I've been around the block a couple of times. While its setting is interesting and the main character starts out promising - a tech geek! In a pink vest and a turtleneck! - they eventually devolve into a mashup of clichés, shouting phrases about destiny and friendship that every fan of the genre has heard a hundred times before. Also the ladies get less clothing the heavier their armour is, a trope I am never a fan of.

That doesn't mean it's all bad though. Before it goes into "fate of the world" territory, the plot is actually pretty good. The game is visually gorgeous, and its cast of monsters is a mix of familiar and cutely unique. The quality of voice acting is superb, though things tend to sound pretty British most of the time. Character interactions outside of destiny-shouty clichés is pretty good and unique, and this may actually be the first game I played where you can demote the main character to a bench warmer if you so desire.

The combat gameplay is very MMO-like, where managing who the enemy is targeting and where your character stands are the key to success. Shulk, the main character, doesn't handle very well when he's the focus, as his abilities profit from flanking and backstabbing. Luckily, you get a dudebro tank as a team member right from the start to take the heat, and combined with a healer as the third character you have a combo that can easily carry you through the entire game.

Just, you know, you have to be able to handle the clichéd writing once the endgame and the shouting starts. I'm so tired of characters doubting themselves when they handily and repeatedly take town building-sized mechs. The definitive edition comes with a post-end chapter that has significantly better writing from what little of it I played so far. If you're the type to value a game on hours per dollar, you won't be disappointed either. This is a chonky one.

Rating: 7/10 grains of salt.

 

[124rqwf64t]

What did people think about mass effect: andromeda. Can Bioware save it or did they sink their own boat? Toughts?

 

[super_slicer]

I played through it like 6 months after release. Wasn't anything special TBH. Gameplay is the same, story didn't interest me outside of a single plot point, bland characters.

 

[Zepheral]

If they actually put effort on the story, make the custom characters not look like ducks and fix the gameplay. Maybe , just maybe they can save it.

Side note, does anyone like phantasy star online 2. Cause I’m enjoying it a bit.

 

[noman]

What did people think about mass effect: andromeda. Can Bioware save it or did they sink their own boat? Toughts?

I downloaded it when EA gave out the free Origin subscription trial, and played it until I met the rabbit aliens. There are some good things about it, like the free exploration and the constant unease between the different species. But what made me finally quit was the constant need to jump. Yes, I know there's a jetpack, and I know you want players to use it, but would it kill you to put some staircases in the game so that I don't have to jump my way through the entire map?

 

[AceofWind]

Microsoft has purchased ZeniMax Media which means they now also own Bethesda Game Studios.

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[noman]

Microsoft has purchased ZeniMax Media which means they now also own Bethesda Game Studios.

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Microsoft presents.... yet another Skyrim port

 

[XSI]

To those worrying whether that means Bethesda games will no longer be optimised for non-windows and non-Xbox systems, don't worry.
They never were optimised at all so you're not losing out on anything

 

[super_slicer]

Right? And we were going to get at least another 5 skyrim ports before they manage to put out anything new anyway. Oh that and trying to salvage their shit mmo.

 

[Ninja_Named_Bob]

Microsoft has purchased ZeniMax Media which means they now also own Bethesda Game Studios.

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[Zepheral]

Playing Mario 3D all stars here. Still shouldn't be 60 bucks....

 

[Tewi]

Got really hooked with Genshin. Man is the gacha harsh on this one but it's still pretty fun.

 

[super_slicer]

Balls-deep in Nioh 2 here. Not overly keen on the elemental weapon ( super mode ) replacement. Overall a pretty good game though. Hate axe and odachi though, crap slow move-sets without the damage to justify using them over any of the weapons that don't leave you open to hits forever.

 

[XSI]

Been a while. Made a review again

I liked this game.

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Mars Horizon

Spoiler

Mars Horizon is a nice game about running a space program, doing important space missions and eventually landing humans on Mars. It tries to combine two genres and does so quite well. It is a turn based strategy where you decide your long term strategy for the space program and it is a puzzle game when you handle the individual missions.

The gameplay then consists of two parts.
First there is the space program management, where you get to plan launch dates, choose payloads, what rocket parts to use, research, and build out your headquarters. This part works very well, and it is good at making you want to go another turn as you race 4 other space programs to get to Mars first.
The second is a small resource management puzzle about gathering tokens while on a mission. You spend your resources to get more resources and try to get a certain amount of these tokens before you run out of turns. Though it tries to be varied by adding in more and different types of resource/token, it does get repetitive after your first playthrough and you've seen all the combinations it offers.

Both parts of the game rely partially on chance, and give you tools to at least partially negate bad luck. In the space program management, it is your choice of rocket parts, upgrades, and buildings constructed that will let you change the odds to be more favourable. Though the odds here are only for rocket launches. They don't come up often, but when they do it is more tense as a failure could mean your expensive rocket becomes expensive fireworks.
For the puzzle on a mission, you can spend one power point to turn a failure into a normal success. And you're expected to do this fairly often. Every action you take in this has a chance to fail based on the payload's reliability, and you take a lot of actions so some failures are just going to happen. Thankfully this won't explode your payload. A failure on a mission action will usually just inconvenience you with something such as the action giving less resources, or costing more.

The graphics are nothing amazing. They're good for what they show, but they aren't good enough to get people to play this just for its looks.

There are some light negatives. Mostly related to the mission solving minigame. It gets repetitive after a while, and doing many missions will get annoying as the variation isn't really enough to make every mission special. Most of the time they are easy enough to plan out from turn 1 and often things will not go wrong enough to make you reconsider.
There is an autoresolve for the mission part of the game, but it is not a good choice. It is much more likely to make your mission fail than if you were to do it yourself, and it will often fail to do bonus objectives even for the most easy of missions. Using the autoresolve is generally not worthwhile.
The AI cheats a little, but this only becomes noticeable on hard difficulty or above, and some things are unclear unless you double check everything.

Mars Horizon is well worth the asking price and will offer you a pleasant experience. Its flaws only begin to show on second or third playthroughs or if you raise the difficulty. As a whole, it might not be the most amazing game you've played. But it is a good game, and I would recommend that you give it a try if you enjoy puzzles or games about long term planning.