[Tiste Simeon]

Mentalist, on 13 February 2019 - 05:21 AM, said:

Figured I needed to play something radically different.
Booted up Max Payne. My savefile is gone, so started from scratch. murdering tons of mobsters without a cover system is just pure catharsis.

At least until Metro Exodus preloads

Oh man I dunno how many times I played original Max Payne. Such a great game! Arvind I've was really good too though I never really played the third.

[Mentalist]

Soo, Metro Exodus.

That intro sequence... yeah, they're trying to squeeze the plot of Metro 2035 into an hour opening. But change it enough to make Miller somewhat likeable enough to explain what he's doing tagging along.

Since the interactions now vary between tapping the interaction button and holding it, controller-style, I don't see how it's possible to play this without the minimal interface prompts. Which kinda sucks.

So now we get to go totally off the Metro plot rails. Let's see how 4A does with that.
-so that "revelation" scene really doesn't convey how f-ed up the situation really is.

Beyond that, the shooting and the monsters are as decent as ever. I'll resume exploring Volga tomorrow

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 16 February 2019 - 06:23 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Uhhh if I recall, Jill has about 900hp, Chris has 1400.

Playing Crackdown 3. Don't get the hate. It’s basically the first game but polished up and with beefier gameplay. It's dumb, but fun.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Tetris 99 is a surprisingly good time.

[Aptorian]

Tetris 99 is awesome. And a bit frustrating.

I swear that the system randomly piles on extra opponents on you some rounds. 1 round I am in the top 10, next I don't break 80, even though my style doesn't change.

[Mentalist]

4 hours in now. Mostly just exploring the Volga level, stealthing my way through bandit-held ruins and doing a bunch of scavenging.

Basically, 4A went back to their GSC roots and made a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-lite. Can't say I disapprove.

[Mentalist]

Because the QuickSave function in Exodus isn't really working, I lost all my progress in the 1st open-ish area. I got my face mask 100% damaged (basically punctured through when I got mauled by a Watchman), and I couldn't fix it at a workbench, b/c I remapped some "crucial" keys, so the "repair equipment" key wasn't working.
Then I proceeded to follow the story and found myself falling into a radiated bunker, where the game promptly autosaved, leaving me with a checkpoint where I immediately starting to choke to death with filters that do nothing,

Bit of a disappointing finish to the weekend's session. I actually had a good time stealthing my way through bandit camps and trying to navigate my row boat while not getting killed by the mutated shrimp or devoured by the Tsar-Fish. That thing is terrifying, and it can jump surprisingly far up the shore to insta-kill you with a horrifying jump scare when its face suddenly fills your entire screen before you die. (Except it's not really a cheap jump scare, b/c you should have been paying more attention when it suddenly submerged in the shallow water close to the shore. That's kinda suspicious given its size).

Sigh. I'm really loving it, but the lack of a working quicksave is a bizarre omission, esp since the autosave checkpoints are far sparser now in the "open-ish" world.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 23 February 2019 - 07:42 AM

[Mentalist]

So, because of my OCD tendency to try to explore EVERYTHING, it took me about 7 hours to get back to the point where I was forced to restart the Volga level.

I did an even more thorough job exploring most of the level, finding a whole bunch of rest spots. I also incidentally found the bear. And solved the mystery of the central island, netting a sweet suit upgrade.

Trying to be methodical sure takes longer, but overhearing dialogues and finding audio and diary recordings helps to fill in the messed up backstory of the place.

Speaking of diaries- they aren't as clear-marked as in the past Metro games, which kinda sucks. There are apparently a ton of them, but I'm failing at finding most. That's all right, it'll give me a reason to re-run the game afterwards on an easier difficulty for a completionist run.

edit: but some of those tapes are pretty great. Instead of doing what the game told me to (steal a boat from some bandits and guide it to the railway terminal), I sneaked my way through mutant-infested ruins to a locked gate of the same terminal, and then fell in the water and surfaced inside the terminal. On my way to the terminal gates, I found a bunch of abandoned outposts with juicy background story that told the origins of the technophobia cult, which was pretty neat, and put the story in perspective.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 21 February 2019 - 03:53 PM

[Mentalist]

It appears I was hit by a bug that corrupted my auto-save. When you are hit and take damage while the game is auto-saving, apparently that screws up your save.

I was about 3/4 into Volga. Now I probably have to restart the level again. Le sigh.

[Aptorian]

Just finished Shadow of War. Well, I finished act 3 and reached the epilogue but I'm not going to play through the shadow wars just to see an end credit and a cut scene.

SOW was a lot better than I expected but I also played it long after Monolith patched it to fix complaints. The game ended when the story was getting very interesting. I feel like there should had been a fourth act.

I wonder if they had or still have any plans to make a third game. Feels like a third game would have to take place during the time of the books.

[Aptorian]

Started up Mass Effect Andromeda.

My God they weren't kidding when they said the characters look retarded. I picked fem-Ryder and she just has this slightly cross-eyed smirk on her face constantly. Brother is in life or death danger? Stare smiling into space. Colony potentially being lost? Let's stare at the bridge of our nose.

The tension is completely lost when the main character looks like she's emotionally uninterested in what is going on.

[Aptorian]

Played through the initial prologue-ish mission and rendezvoused with the Nexus hub station.

The character issues aside. Andromeda us actually really good. It feels like a better playing Mass Effect. Not too sure about the writing though. But overall I'm impressed considering the shit storm that surrounded the games release.

[Morgoth]

I tried to play some ME: Andromeda at a friend's place and the writing made me cringe so hard I never felt the need to touch it again. Which is quite the feat considering ME2 is one of my favourite games of all time.

[Morgoth]

Civ6 with the two expansions is now a good CIV game. Not perhaps as great as CIV5 at the end of its cycle, but still great.

[Maark Abbott]

Morgoth, on 25 February 2019 - 07:53 AM, said:

I tried to play some ME: Andromeda at a friend's place and the writing made me cringe so hard I never felt the need to touch it again. Which is quite the feat considering ME2 is one of my favourite games of all time.

I'd need to defer to the take of that one member who is an ex-Bioware employee, but my understanding of almost all of Andromeda's issues is that EA diverted most of the resource into Anthem.

It's worth comparing to Dragon Age Inquisition as well, given the similarity in how those games are presented. With DAI you have characters like Krem, and Bull, who feel natural. Then Andromeda tries to expand on that and jams an inclusivity NPC into the mix, but very badly (that one in the security bit of the main hub).

It also expands on DAI's sense of scale with the maps - except ramped up to 11. The maps are huge expanses of largely nothingness for the main, which feels like a wasted opportunity. The actual core gunplay and feel of the game is good, but it's just let down by having too great an ambition to match the resource put into it.

[Tiste Simeon]

I really enjoyed Andromeda, warts and all. Had a lot of fun bombing round the big planets helping to make them livable.

[Maark Abbott]

I'd certainly agree it was fun. It has undeniable issues, but it was still enjoyable. My prime gripes now are that the ending sequence was lacklustre and it then teased an expansion that never came.

[Morgoth]

Maark Abbott, on 25 February 2019 - 08:32 AM, said:

Morgoth, on 25 February 2019 - 07:53 AM, said:

I tried to play some ME: Andromeda at a friend's place and the writing made me cringe so hard I never felt the need to touch it again. Which is quite the feat considering ME2 is one of my favourite games of all time.

I'd need to defer to the take of that one member who is an ex-Bioware employee, but my understanding of almost all of Andromeda's issues is that EA diverted most of the resource into Anthem.

It's worth comparing to Dragon Age Inquisition as well, given the similarity in how those games are presented. With DAI you have characters like Krem, and Bull, who feel natural. Then Andromeda tries to expand on that and jams an inclusivity NPC into the mix, but very badly (that one in the security bit of the main hub).

It also expands on DAI's sense of scale with the maps - except ramped up to 11. The maps are huge expanses of largely nothingness for the main, which feels like a wasted opportunity. The actual core gunplay and feel of the game is good, but it's just let down by having too great an ambition to match the resource put into it.

Bioware are bad at big open worlds. They should go back to the systems of ME2. Smaller, more compact and well developed areas.

DA:I was a decent game when it came to storytelling I thought. There were great moments there, and some satisfying dialogue, though there were a lot more mediocrity than previous Bioware games. My main issue with Inquisition was the combat being boring. In Andromeda I found the storytelling, and especially the dialogue, to be laughably bad at times. And as Apt mentioned, the ridiculous facial expressions made it even worse.

[Serenity]

I finished the main story of Dragon Quest XI last night. What a wonderful game. I had a brief look at (as in I watched the opening cut scene of) the post game but will take a break before doing any more, or might even wait for the Switch version with all the extras. Loved it, though. Absolutely loved it. It felt like a grand adventure from start to finish.

I think my next undertaking on pc will probably be Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC.


My next main project, though, is Persona 5, which I re-started a week or two back. I played 40 hours or so when it first came out then got distracted (by W3 Blood & Wine, iirc), so it's high time. I've been dabbling in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth on 3DS during my lunch breaks and it got me interested again (I really like the combination of Etrian Odyssey exploration and Persona-style combat). I may also have treated myself to a second-hand Vita so I can play Persona 4 Golden. Don't tell anyone.

This post has been edited by Serenity: 26 February 2019 - 08:26 AM

[Aptorian]

Like a proper mass effect game I spent two-three hours yesterday just running around the space station talking to people before I went into space.

The mass effect experience is certainly intact.