[Mentalist]

Huh. Yeah, the original just drops you in without much of an explanation of anything.

Gonna get back to it. Spent a bunch of hours on Warlander yest- finished it for the first time, and got an ending. But not the true ending, apparently.

Not sure how many extra runs it'd take; got halfway through my repeat run (keep my perks, but EXP gets reset), and then I got shoved off a bridge.

Still, I've got a good handle on all the boss types now, so this should be more manageable.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 12 April 2020 - 03:40 PM

[Mentalist]

Starting to get burned out on Warlander, since the endgame is apparently broken, and the devs have gone silent on Steam and Discord, and I dunno if it's gonna get fixed. A shame, really- the basic gameplay, slicing up enemies is fun, but with perma-death, a successful run taking over an hour, and the game booting your run if you quit to the menu 3 times, glitches and progress-stopping clipping bugs become a real nuisance, and knowing that you're not making much progress isn't encouraging.

Might just try to grind out a few last achievements and give it a rest for now.

Went back to Halo last night, and man, that music in the end of the Silent Cartographer is god-tier. I don't think I died once blasting my way back up to the surface. Ofc, then I broke the level a bit, because I parked my Warthog with a minigunner right at the end of the corridor, so I basically avoided the last pack of Elites since we drove up the ramps to the exit, then did a circuit around the island before riding back up to the landed Pelican for the pick-up.

Also, why the hell didn't Noble Six use a rocket launcher against Hunters? How did Bungee have rockets originally, but then decided "you know what, having this weaker Spartan with less jump power face down hunters with only conventional small arms is probably more fun?"

[Mentalist]

Oh. Fucking. Hell.


HEADCRAB ZERGLINGS!!!

[Mentalist]

Halo mission 9 is getting tedious. Trying to sneak between 2 alien races fighting each other is not fun, since as soon as they spot me, they ALL tend to turn on me, even before I start shooting at them. This was ok in 8, because I could steal vehicles and murder everyone. Not nearly as much fun when I'm foot-slogging and one of then enemies is a never-ending spawning horde.

I've been alternating that with Warlander, trying to get a few more full runs in just to unlock the skill tree achievements. But I keep finding silly ways to die.
I probably need let the game go and accept that it'll likely remain broken.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 17 April 2020 - 04:33 PM

[Serenity]

Briar King, on 16 April 2020 - 05:48 AM, said:

Finished Xenoblade 2. What a fucking finale....

219 hrs gameplay in these 437 straight days of playing this bitch. It's just past midnight now so later on today it is going to feel so fucking strange not turning this thing on. Though I may just to get more Blades. I saw some names of Blades that made me curse so loud I'm furious I wasn't able to activate them. That shit became so boring and the ones I had just worked so I just stopped after a certain point. Anyway familiar names

Spoiler

KOS-MOS and Shulk!

I guess this game was more connected then I thought to the past.

Was going to start Cold Steel for my 4 PM game time but I'm now considering IF they are open going and getting that Wii U and firing up the Xenoblade X disc I bought months ago and just rolling on with the Xenoplay which has been 588 days of X1&2.

Why don't you go straight to Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country?

[Aptorian]

Playing more Borderlands 3.

I'm really trying to enjoy this game but everything about 3 just bothers me. I already complained about the outdated inventory and loot management earlier but it's more than that.

I've been playing for a few days now and I rarely find any weapons I actually want to use. Either it's a manufacturer I hate or it's a weapon that just doesn't handle well or is under powered. I shouldn't be picking up a current level shotgun that can't kill an enemy close up in one or two shots, a rocket launcher should always insta kill any normal mob but in this game they always suck. Same with sniper headshots.

It also baffles me that I can enter an alien vault, open these legendary loot chests and find fucking white, green or blue loot. Why is there not algorithms in place that make sure that the player always feels rewarded? Why doesn't the game recognise your weapon preferences and play style and catter to this? Why can't I tell the game to never ever give me a torque or jakob assault rifle or a Malivan shotgun?

Or if Gearbox is so married to the random loot experience why not give the player a tool bench to reconfigure or upgrade a weapon they're interested in?


I'm trying to power through the story in hopes that I finally unlock the guardian challenge system and find some upgrades that help the play style but I suspect that as soon as I finish the terrible story campaign I'm going to delete this trash.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 18 April 2020 - 03:05 PM

[Silencer]

Mentalist, on 14 April 2020 - 01:09 PM, said:

Starting to get burned out on Warlander, since the endgame is apparently broken, and the devs have gone silent on Steam and Discord, and I dunno if it's gonna get fixed. A shame, really- the basic gameplay, slicing up enemies is fun, but with perma-death, a successful run taking over an hour, and the game booting your run if you quit to the menu 3 times, glitches and progress-stopping clipping bugs become a real nuisance, and knowing that you're not making much progress isn't encouraging. Might just try to grind out a few last achievements and give it a rest for now. Went back to Halo last night, and man, that music in the end of the Silent Cartographer is god-tier. I don't think I died once blasting my way back up to the surface. Ofc, then I broke the level a bit, because I parked my Warthog with a minigunner right at the end of the corridor, so I basically avoided the last pack of Elites since we drove up the ramps to the exit, then did a circuit around the island before riding back up to the landed Pelican for the pick-up. Also, why the hell didn't Noble Six use a rocket launcher against Hunters? How did Bungee have rockets originally, but then decided "you know what, having this weaker Spartan with less jump power face down hunters with only conventional small arms is probably more fun?"

Emphasis added, but yes, Marty O'Donnell's soundtrack is amazing in general, but sometimes it just kicks into extra gear.

And yeah, that Warthog at the end of the corridor thing is pretty much how most people ended up doing it. XD Especially in coop.

As for the rockets, I can't remember, but I think Hunters in Reach were 1) slightly weaker in attack power and more vulnerable to grenades, and 2) you usually had either a rocket launcher, a plasma caster, a vehicle, or another power weapon like a shotgun around whenever you had to take on Hunters in that game (plus, squad mates who didn't instantly die like those poor Marines). But you probably had to find/hold onto the rocket launchers in order to have them when the Hunters were around. I think Halo 2 gave you way less access to rockets when taking on Hunters than Reach did, haha. But yes, Noble 6 has a much shittier time of it in general than Chief.

Mentalist, on 15 April 2020 - 03:05 AM, said:

Oh. Fucking. Hell. HEADCRAB ZERGLINGS!!!

Hehehe. The Library was one of the most tedious missions on Legendary difficulty back in the day. Great time to change up the enemies pacing-wise (well, possibly a little late), but I have never enjoyed fighting the Flood.

Mentalist, on 17 April 2020 - 05:24 AM, said:

Halo mission 9 is getting tedious. Trying to sneak between 2 alien races fighting each other is not fun, since as soon as they spot me, they ALL tend to turn on me, even before I start shooting at them. This was ok in 8, because I could steal vehicles and murder everyone. Not nearly as much fun when I'm foot-slogging and one of then enemies is a never-ending spawning horde. I've been alternating that with Warlander, trying to get a few more full runs in just to unlock the skill tree achievements. But I keep finding silly ways to die. I probably need let the game go and accept that it'll likely remain broken.

Yeah, and there's the rub. Especially as the Covenant tend to be weaker to energy weapons, and the Flood weaker to kinetic weapons, keeping yourself stocked on both isn't easy, they use slightly different tactics making avoiding taking damage when both are after you simultaneously much harder, and they both have a bigger hate-boner for the Chief than for each other. If I recall correctly you generally want to let the enemies thin each other out as much as possible, then engage and focus on any melee units first, because otherwise they will run you down - provided you have cover from the guys with guns, because if there is still an Elite up hitting you with plasma, your shields will be down and on higher difficulties the Flood will one-shot your shieldless self.

The good news is, this eases up a little in the later games when they refined their level design further and tightened up the weapon drops, although there were definitely a few points in Halo 3 where, boy, did they just decide to make you hate the level. XD

It always amuses me when I think back on the Halo games, to realise how much of what I remember is accurate - but shaded by how much time I spent playing these games coop. Bungie are *fantastic* at scaling difficulty with the number of additional players, it is one thing they consistently did very well across the Halo series, but it nevertheless changes the tempo of combat and the tactics you can apply. I probably played each Halo game's campaign solo around twice. Once on Heroic, once on Legendary. The entirety of the rest of my time spent with those campaigns (literally dozens of playthroughs) was cooperative, and I honestly can barely remember what the experience is like solo sometimes, haha.

[Mentalist]

Yeah, I finished it on Heroic last night. Still not sure why Covenant show up in that last mission, but w/e.

Plasma pistol is the uber-weapon in this game, in terms of range and accuracy. I basically tend to hold that + assault rifle (useful for the tiny Flood pop-up).

That last level... it's good, but in the end it leans heavily into jumping and driving- and both of those are so awkward to control on M+K.

Anyway, done now, and waiting for Halo 2 to go live (testing is supposed to start this week)

[Serenity]

Over the past couple of days I've finished the second dungeon in Persona 5 Royal and the sixth dungeon in Persona 4 Golden. Both games are works of art IMO. Perfect lockdown entertainment for the JRPG fan in me.

[Aptorian]

Finished Borderlands 3. The ending to the story was about as disappointing as the rest of the game.

Decided to try out Killzone: Shadow Fall. It came out as a PS4 launch title and I thought it would be fun to try out now that we're near the launch of the PS5. It didn't age well. It sort of plays how you'd expect a budget tier Eastern European release. Awkward controls, poor animations, it feels like a game that needs polish.

I deleted it after the first real combat scenario. There's too many other modern titles to play to put up with something that feels that awkward. It's weird too because I remember Killzone 3 playing really well but that was a decade ago.

Started up Outer Worlds instead. I played this a bit in November but I think I dropped it to play more Destiny 2. Loaded up the game in the thermal power plant in the first area. No idea what I was doing there. There are corpses and broken machines everywhere... Wasn't me, Officer.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 April 2020 - 03:07 PM

[Mentalist]

Picked up a Chinese hack'n'slash release called Sunwards. Tried it, but wasn't really feeling it. Movement's hardcoded to WASD, so it's another game I'll shelve until I pick up a keyboard I can program to switch WASD and arrow keys

Messed around with Warlander a bit, but gonna move on slowly. Will go back to Resident Evil and play as Jill, see what's the difference from Chris' path.

Edit (April 21st): Jill is very squishy (2 mauls= GG). Feels like she gets more cutscenes, too. The grenade launcher is pretty OP, though, and she gets that, PLUS the Assault shotty before even leaving the mansion.

Cleared up zombie-less paths through large chunks of the second floor. Reloading to maximize headshots and burning corpses judiciously means I've got clear paths between the save rooms in the 2 opposite wings. Not a ton of ammo, but I think I should be all right outside. Hopefully by the time I get back the doorknob o n the 1st floor gets fixed

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 21 April 2020 - 02:21 PM

[Aptorian]

Got a lot further into Outer Worlds. This is an excellent Bethesda/Fallout-like set in space.

Assuming Obsidian want to go further with this project Microsoft would be fools to not just give them a blank check and tell them to do what they want. If Obsidian hit a window outside Bethesda's releases, hell if Bethesda continues to shit the bed, then they have a strong system selling franchise opportunity on their hands that can compete with Bethesda IMO.

[Traveller]

Aptorian, on 21 April 2020 - 07:27 PM, said:

Got a lot further into Outer Worlds. This is an excellent Bethesda/Fallout-like set in space.

Assuming Obsidian want to go further with this project Microsoft would be fools to not just give them a blank check and tell them to do what they want. If Obsidian hit a window outside Bethesda's releases, hell if Bethesda continues to shit the bed, then they have a strong system selling franchise opportunity on their hands that can compete with Bethesda IMO.

Its a lot of fun. Very heavily aimed at the Firefly fan market, with added extras - the Shrinking Ray gun was a nice B Movie touch.

I like the slightly unpredictable mission conclusions based on your choices. Not just good and bad.

Was lacking in something though - maybe just the gameplay itself.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 22 April 2020 - 06:37 AM

[Aptorian]

I think depth or perhaps scope is definitely a limiting aspect of the game. There is depth there, in your relationship to your crew, namely Parvatti so far for me, and the culture of capitalism you're uncovering but there's not much more outside the narrative path. A lot of the destinations you travel to are limited to one, two or a handful of buildings and points of interest that you can then explore. It's not a real problem but it prevents that Bethesda feeling of endless possibilities. Combat is also very basic but that's honestly how I prefer it. I don't play this kind of game for the fighting.

I think the biggest plus for Outer Worlds is that Obsidian has proved that you don't need to create a buggy mess to make one of these types of games.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 22 April 2020 - 10:31 AM

[Traveller]

Yeah it's kind of the 'lite' version where they kept all the best bits. Have you finished the first mission with the option to redirect the generators?

The story options are definitely the core, the rest is fairly light in order to support them. Good balance overall though.

[Aptorian]

I just arrived on Monarch after doing every sliver og side content I could.

[Maark Abbott]

I didn't think much to Outer Worlds.

Preorder for Trials of Mana is on, drops Friday. Looking forward to this.

[Serenity]

Briar King, on 22 April 2020 - 04:22 AM, said:

HOLY SHIT THIS IS FUN!

Just have to suffer through Japanese teeny bopping school class mumbo jumbo but it is so worth it when it is time to do battle! I don't think an RPG has ever made me feel so strong right out the gate(not counting the prologue) jumping into the shit. I'm blasting my way through with complex strategy already with balling magic and melee moves. Hits just the right spot for an RPG.

Told ya!

[Mentalist]

Finished Resi as Jill. Yep, there's certainly "easy mode" elements to this, but it also feels like she's got more story.

Not sure what to play now. I think I should finally play Max Payne to the end. Then maybe dip into another RPG.

[Maark Abbott]

Briar King, on 22 April 2020 - 10:49 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 22 April 2020 - 12:10 PM, said:

I didn't think much to Outer Worlds.

Preorder for Trials of Mana is on, drops Friday. Looking forward to this.

Have you ever played Cold Steel? I think it maybe right up your alley!

I haven't and my JRPG pile is stacked pretty high but if I get chance I'll check it out, looks decent.

I am going to play Trials on normal with Riesz, Hawk and Duran, then put a meme team together for a hard playthrough which I'll stream (probably Angela / Duran / Kevin with Kevin as healer).