[Cause]

Alternative Goose, on 24 February 2019 - 08:26 PM, said:

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.

For me the gameplay was fine but I reached a point where I just said fuck it and focused on the main storlyline quest and ignored everything else. Romance plotlines and loyalty quests lines can be 10 -30 missions long. I discovered I didn't care about any of my squad enough to care. I can name every ME2 squad mate, tell your ther backstories and the name of their father etc. I cant even recall the full roster for Andromeda. That's where the game failed.

I also reached a point where I could no longer care to terraform each world fully. Just didn't seem to have enough reward for the effort. Not enough reward for the effort would be my review tagline for ME Andromeda.

It als hurts that the villains are a slightly different take on the villains from ME 1-3. Seriously, similar threat, motivation, tactics just a slightly different reasoning.

[Mentalist]

Almost finished Volga for the 3rd (!) time. Hopefully, I can get through it this time.

Fingers crossed.

[Maark Abbott]

Morgoth, on 26 February 2019 - 08:17 AM, said:

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.

Mass 2 was absolutely the perfect blend of everything. It's quite hard for me to think of a better game in terms of the overall package it delivered. It was a good challenge on Insanity, the story popped, the characters popped, the combat popped, it was just everything you could have wanted.

[Mentalist]

W00t, got past the bridge last night, finally.

Was then treated to a long period of character-building, as everyone got good down time moving from one location to the next. Very Bioware-like moment. Good times.

EDIT: And now the wild goose chase begins. I'm in the Caspian, just got myself a car. another open level to explore? this should prove entertaining.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 02 March 2019 - 08:34 AM

[Aptorian]

Played 30 minutes of the Division 2 demo. Seems good. Feels like a big add-on rather than a true sequel. That's fine by me, I loved the first one.

The demo did have problems with slow texture loading though. Textures would pop in randomly and sometimes just be missing all together.

Hopefully that's just a demo thing otherwise it would be disappointing on a pro.

[Maark Abbott]

Crackdown 3 remains fun - for the most part.

My main beef with it is the Wanted level system. Much like in the first game, kill enough enemies and you get hit squads after you, except now there are three tiers of notoriety and three factions, so it's possible to have all three at level 3 alert, which is an absolute clusterfuck when you have two types of heavy mechs plus tanks on your ass (although you can pick the tanks up and throw them at the mechs, which is fun).

Additionally getting close to the middle of the island where the three faction bosses are instantly triggers a level 3 alert of whichever one's base you're close to, and it's entirely based on proximity, so some relatively benign missions will take you into that radius and set it off, and it takes a good ten-fifteen minutes of combat each time for it to die off.

[Mentalist]

Put a lot of hours into Caspian this weekend. It's a pretty good mix of wandering the wasteland, sneaking into outposts, and dodging monster packs. Then the story took me into an abandoned bunker full of those goddamn spiders. Total S.T.A.L.K.E.R. vibes from that section.

Oh, also driving around a rough desert in a barely-functioning ambulance vehicle, running over zombies to farm that roadkill achievement, while a gargoyle tries to divebomb my car. Until I get out of the car and shoot it with my air rifle-because I have modified ball-bearing ammo that sets the gargoyle demon ON FIRE!

Good times.

[Obdigore]

Been playing Anthem - really fun with a few frustrations. Warframe (the grind is real), and some Crackdown 3, although I'm really happy I got it through gamepass because I'd have been pretty frustrated if I spent money on it. Its an ok time waster but absolutely not something I'd go out and buy.

Looking forward to Division 2 in just under 2 weeks. Looks like they may have actually learned from the changes they made to Div 1, unlike Bungie and their shitty Destiny 2 launch.

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 04 March 2019 - 03:16 PM, said:

Put a lot of hours into Caspian this weekend. It's a pretty good mix of wandering the wasteland, sneaking into outposts, and dodging monster packs. Then the story took me into an abandoned bunker full of those goddamn spiders. Total S.T.A.L.K.E.R. vibes from that section.

Oh, also driving around a rough desert in a barely-functioning ambulance vehicle, running over zombies to farm that roadkill achievement, while a gargoyle tries to divebomb my car. Until I get out of the car and shoot it with my air rifle-because I have modified ball-bearing ammo that sets the gargoyle demon bitches ON FIRE!

Good times.

FTFY

[Mentalist]

been doing it a lot, actually. Setting the flying bastards on fire just as they swoop in to grab you is oh-so-fun. Except the one time an-already dead flaming one fell on top of me, setting me on fire. I died from that.

Because I am a hopeless completionist, and I missed a collectible post card on top of the lighthouse and then got locked out of it after the story progressed, I had to restart the Caspian level. On my second sweep, and with the experience of many deaths from various wildlife and bandits, I'm now getting quite good at clearing the desert of everything. I've also got a much better "flow" of interspersing exploration with safehouses/rest areas, where I can reset the day/night cycle to night again and stealth my way through more bandit lookout posts. And coming back to the train (as one of the few places with a workbench) gives me more story dialogue, which is pretty nice.

When the game comes out on GOG I'll have to try doing an evil run, murdering every bandit and see what happens. So far I've been trying to be non-lethal, which makes things more challenging, as instead of using my silenced shotgun of death I must sometime rush enemies and hammer the knock-out button before they can raise their gun and shoot me point-blank.

[Maark Abbott]

Finished Chapter 8-E (Emergency Difficulty, basically hard mode) on Girls' Frontline.

Man, this version of Dreamer is a proper dickhead. High base damage with the usual run-up, but she also has a laser that cuts through an entire row of your units. And the damage off of it is nutty, so getting hit by it once is pretty much dooming your units to a nil hit point total.

The story's ramped up, too. I love me a tale of androids with fully functional AIs exploring self-determinism, asking those questions that trouble us meatsacks.

[Serenity]

I'm currently in chapter 2 of the First Chapter (figure that one out . . .) of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. It's absolutely wonderful, so engrossing and fun. The characters, the story, the world building, the combat are all fantastic. Why have I not played this game before now??? It's been sitting in my Steam library since 2015

[Mentalist]

Mostly finished Caspian, did the Oasis and the shootout after that- and while I was getting the briefing for my next mission... I think I got shoved into a barrel by an NPC. And I might be stuck in said barrel. And (of course) the game autosaved at that point.

I didn't bother investigating further/ trying to reload and I just stopped at that point. I'll see how bad the situation is in the evening. If I need another restart... sigh.

[Mentalist]

Yay, managed to jump out of the barrel I got clipped into by a "cutscene". Then I died (got rushed by some angry rodents), and reloaded there again.

Had to quit back to menu, reload, and figure out how to jump out again. Then proceeded to a resting spot and fast+forwarded the time to get a different autosave.
I'll probably finish Caspian tomorrow, hopefully get into the next big map on the weekend.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 14 March 2019 - 02:36 PM

[Aptorian]

Got up early this morning to plsy some division 2, playing some more this evening.

This is really good. No big changes but lots of quality of life improvements, new UI, new upgrade oaths, etc. If you didn't like Division 1, I doubt this will change your mind but if you like third person shooters this is a really solid game.

Playing the first instance, grouping up and clearing out the buildings felt like getting back in the groove. I can already see myself getting back into the daily missions.

[Mentalist]

Taiga is an interesting level. I'm not playing this properly, b/c I'm trying to do a sneaky playthrough to get a ghosting achievement. Once I do that, I'll go through it again properly, knocking people out and collecting all loot.

It's much more linear, since the valley is plot into stages, and it's difficult to go back to a zone once you've gone past it.

I do like how 4A keep switching up their levels. Variety is good.

EDit (Mar 24) failed to get the dhosting achievement. There's gatehouse that makes it super difficult, and I was sick and tired of retrying it, so I finally just ignored it.
-powered through the rest of the game, with a good ending, naturally. Hit credits after 78 hours, but I need to replay Taiga one more time to collect all the stuff I missed.

After that, gonna move on to Onimusha

Edit (March 30th): finished hovering up all the collectibles in Exodus. The only way to bump down the difficulty is to start a new game. Not worth it for 2 achievements @ this point.

Moving on to Onimusha.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 30 March 2019 - 03:38 PM

[Mentalist]

Started Onimusha: Warlords yesterday. Controls are a bit finicky (I'm moving with arrow keys, but the dodge is tied to tank control's "back" , which is WASD), but otherwise it's ok.

Looks very decent graphics-wise. Old-gen chunky, for sure, but totally bearable.

[acesn8s]

After I finished GoW I took a break from gaming, nothing felt as engaging. I just recently started Apex Legends. It's my first Battle Royal type game...I suck, but its fun.

[Mentalist]

I think I might be on the last boss in Onimusha.

Missed some collectibles and didn't finish the Dark Realm yet, so might play it again afterwards. Pretty fun game, even if the controls for dodging are pretty atrocious.

Afterwards, I'm not sure if I'm gonna jump into Sekiro, or do a some kind of shooter or imsim next. Not really motivated to get back to Thi4f, might move onto Dishonored 2. Or maybe some pure shooter like Doom 3 or Shadow Warrior

[Mentalist]

Finished my first run of Onimusha, with "B" grade. I won't be buying Sekiro til next weekend when I get paid, so I'm debating replaying to grind out some more achievements, or move onto something totally different.