General gaming discussion

J. Marston

Apex Legends isn't good for my blood pressure.

I just want to know what is the mind of someone who runs off on their own to take on a squad of three people. What is their brain telling them? And then they get angry when me or the other person can't revive them. Fúcking gowls.

Needed to vent.

Corholio

J. Marston wrote: »

Apex Legends isn't good for my blood pressure.

I just want to know what is the mind of someone who runs off on their own to take on a squad of three people. What is their brain telling them? And then they get angry when me or the other person can't revive them. Fúcking gowls.

Needed to vent.

Leeeeeeroy Jennnnnnkins!!!!

Retr0gamer

Started Thief 2 last night. Looks pretty decent with all the HD mods installed.

Very weird to go back and play a game with some actual level design. The late 90's/early 2000's were so good of these PC immersive sims and RPGs. Modern stuff like Mass Effect is just a load of arse in comparison. Only think that really comes close these days is Dishonored.

pixelburp

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Started Thief 2 last night. Looks pretty decent with all the HD mods installed.

Very weird to go back and play a game with some actual level design. The late 90's/early 2000's were so good of these PC immersive sims and RPGs. Modern stuff like Mass Effect is just a load of arse in comparison. Only think that really comes close these days is Dishonored.

I'd maintain a belief that the limitations of technology back then imposed a greater concentration on level design and flow than you often see nowadays.

It didn't always result in very "real" geographic spaces (eg, those S-shape corridors in Deus Ex used to hide loading transitions), but designers had to think very carefully about where everything was, lest the PC completely blow up.

That's not to say level design is a foreign concept now, but the relative absence of limitations in game engines absolutely contributes to the copy & paste approach seen today IMO.

johnny_ultimate

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Very weird to go back and play a game with some actual level design. The late 90's/early 2000's were so good of these PC immersive sims and RPGs. Modern stuff like Mass Effect is just a load of arse in comparison. Only think that really comes close these days is Dishonored.

I like a good immersive sim as much as anyone, but more than a little hyperbolic here. I've played lots of recent games with great level design (from Half Life Alyx to Ghostrunner to A Monster's Expedition, and countless in between). I mean, there's a strong argument to be made that the recent Hitman series alone has grown into one of the most indulgent, generous immersive sim of them all with *insanely* detailed levels.

pixelburp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I like a good immersive sim as much as anyone, but more than a little hyperbolic here. I've played lots of recent games with great level design (from Half Life Alyx to Ghostrunner to A Monster's Expedition, and countless in between). I mean, there's a strong argument to be made that the recent Hitman series alone has grown into one of the most indulgent, generous immersive sim of them all with *insanely* detailed levels.

Detailed yes, but do they funnel the experience to the same degree? Hitman's kind of the exception that proves the rule, against Ubisoft's increasing portfolio of "open world" sandboxes

Markitron

I don't think Ubisoft's standardised sandbox design is as widespread a problem as people think it is. It is mostly contained to their (admittedly numerous) games.

Retr0gamer

Can't really agree. I really think it comes down to marketing and money people. These games cost so much to make that the money men can't afford to lose audience so to make sure they don't lose anyone they make the games as simple and inviting as possible.

And you might think I'm screaming that the money has ruined videogames but there's hard science to back that thinking up. You will lose a lot of your audience if they find a game intimidating. We also live in a world when we have never had as many videogames to choose from and tonnes of sales so if someone gets stuck they won't power through it and figure it out, they will move to something else.

You can see it in how poorly games with good level design actually do or take a couple of iterations to actually click. Stuff like Hitman, Dishonored and the From Software games had very modest starts and still aren't big sellers.

I just prefer the approach of immersing yourself in this environments, figuring out how it works, discovering the nooks and crannys and then mastering it before you leave. Stage 2 of Thief 2 took me 2 hours to beat last night and it was an incredible experience.

I like a good immersive sim as much as anyone, but more than a little hyperbolic here. I've played lots of recent games with great level design (from Half Life Alyx to Ghostrunner to A Monster's Expedition, and countless in between). I mean, there's a strong argument to be made that the recent Hitman series alone has grown into one of the most indulgent, generous immersive sim of them all with *insanely* detailed levels.

I'll give you Hitman, and Half Life Alyx is very linear but each area is kind of it's own little immersive sim microcosm. But again as I said Hitman took a long time to get decent sales and the other games you mention are indie games. I was more referring to Triple A games.

I'm just imagining how much better say a game like Call of Duty would be if you had to, say, assault a hard point with multiple points of entry or a hostage situation you had to carry out stealthily in a office block.

Retr0gamer

Markitron wrote: »

I don't think Ubisoft's standardised sandbox design is as widespread a problem as people think it is. It is mostly contained to their (admittedly numerous) games.

The majority of Sony's first party studio output in the PS4 gen was ubisoft sandbox clones. Spiderman at least was a huge amount of fun to just move around in so the sandbox formula wasn't as big an issue but the Sucker Punch and Horizon. Horizon kind of stands out with decent combat but Sucker Punch games including Ghost (sorry, I just don't get the big deal with this game) were the standard ubisoft formula.

Markitron

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'm just imagining how much better say a game like Call of Duty would be if you had to, say, assault a hard point with multiple points of entry or a hostage situation you had to carry out stealthily in a office block.

Not that I am a massive fan of the series, but the whole point of those games is that they are basically action movies. What you are describing here is a completely different game.

Be like saying the AC games would be better if they replaced Ezio with an F22 Raptor and you assassinated your targets with long-range ATG missiles.

Retr0gamer

I'm not saying change the whole game but just add a bit of variety and experiment with the formula. And Call of Duty was just one example. A better example of a game that actually opened it's game world up would be what resident evil 2 REmake did with the Resi 4 gameplay in the police station.

BlitzKrieg

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I like a good immersive sim as much as anyone, but more than a little hyperbolic here. I've played lots of recent games with great level design (from Half Life Alyx to Ghostrunner to A Monster's Expedition, and countless in between). I mean, there's a strong argument to be made that the recent Hitman series alone has grown into one of the most indulgent, generous immersive sim of them all with *insanely* detailed levels.

I'd argue wit hat least Half Life Alyx this sort of back ups Pixelburp's point. A lot of Alyx's great level design was built from the limitations they faced putting it in VR. I'm replaying it now with the director's commentary, and the number of great set pieces in the game that are accompanied by a commentary of

"We found that X didnt work in VR but Y did so we built this area around expanding Y and limiting X, and we added this whole section to introduce Z because Z is going to be important later on but is really intimidating in VR so introducing Z now while Y is the focus allows players to get use to it and also bypass how little X is in the game"

johnny_ultimate

Monster Hunter Rise has totally sucked me in. I bounced off 3; played a bit of World and liked it but didn’t stick with it; but this I’m totally on board with. Get past the terrible onboarding and there’s just such a brilliant, satisfying gameplay loop at the centre. Delighted to finally ‘get’ the series after a few previous attempts - not the most welcoming of series, but thar be gold for sure.

pixelburp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Monster Hunter Rise has totally sucked me in. I bounced off 3; played a bit of World and liked it but didn’t stick with it; but this I’m totally on board with. Get past the terrible onboarding and there’s just such a brilliant, satisfying gameplay loop at the centre. Delighted to finally ‘get’ the series after a few previous attempts - not the most welcoming of series, but thar be gold for sure.

I have a weird blindspot for this series, like my brain just drops out trying to understand it. I've read reviews, watched videos etc and still can't figure out what this game is? To the conclusion of whether I'd enjoy it like. Is it just a RPG with some light Pokémon elements, a Shadow of the Colossus style game, or what?

Retr0gamer

It's got more in common with diablo or pso. Basically you take a hunt, go out into the wild and track down the monster and kill it for crafting materials.

The big difference is in how the beasties behave. Fighting them is dark souls levels of boss fight goodness. Very tactical, very deliberate and takes lessons from the very best of japanese boss design. The monsters will constantly surprise you and you have to track and trap them in elaborate ways. And then sometimes the local flora and fauna get involved, you could be trying to kill a certain beast and then a end game monster decides to join in and the two have a scrap while you wonder should you get involves or watch the madness.

Mr Crispy

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Monster Hunter Rise has totally sucked me in. I bounced off 3; played a bit of World and liked it but didn’t stick with it; but this I’m totally on board with. Get past the terrible onboarding and there’s just such a brilliant, satisfying gameplay loop at the centre. Delighted to finally ‘get’ the series after a few previous attempts - not the most welcoming of series, but thar be gold for sure.

Very tempted to get it now, but part of me wants to wait for the PC release. Decisions decisions.

johnny_ultimate

Mr Crispy wrote: »

Very tempted to get it now, but part of me wants to wait for the PC release. Decisions decisions.

I will say it’s easily the most technically accomplished game I’ve played on Switch outside of Nintendo first party stuff. It looks outrageously good for a game on the system. But it is of course 30fps (pretty darn stable in general, but still) so if that’s a dealbreaker hold out for PC.

johnny_ultimate

pixelburp wrote: »

I have a weird blindspot for this series, like my brain just drops out trying to understand it. I've read reviews, watched videos etc and still can't figure out what this game is? To the conclusion of whether I'd enjoy it like. Is it just a RPG with some light Pokémon elements, a Shadow of the Colossus style game, or what?

It is the most literal game title of all time: it really is razor focused on hunting monsters! The other major thing as Retr0 mentioned is the gear loop - just constantly improving and diversifying your load out so you can handle particular fights better. Although the game’s difficultly curve eases you in fairly well before particular loadouts are really necessary.

What doesn’t ease you in well is the tutorial - it assaults you with text boxes and systems at first, without really giving you the proper space to explore the concepts it teaches you. It doesn’t even really actively encourage or force you to try out the different weapons, which will make a big difference to how you play (there’s an invaluable training area where you can test em all out, but you have to go find it yourself after it’s briefly referenced as an aside). But the basics are easier to grasp in the end than that avalanche of pop-ups suggest. I know there’s nothing less appealing than hearing ‘it starts rough’, but thankfully it’s just the first maybe two or three hours rather than dozen of hours. Get to grips with the quirky controls and complex menus and there’s actually a really accessible and fun central loop that’s really easy to grasp and enjoy. A game that works just as well in 30 mins burst as three hour bursts.

But then again I hear the real game starts after the credits roll

Retr0gamer

It's also worth experimenting with different weapons as the game plays vastly different depending on the weapon.

gimli2112

I got MHW but like Johnny said the beginning is confusing. I quickly went back to COD.

pixelburp

Ok, so sounds like something I might indeed like, or at least be vaguely in my area of interest. Now if only we still lived in an era of demos. Unless there is one?

johnny_ultimate

pixelburp wrote: »

Ok, so sounds like something I might indeed like, or at least be vaguely in my area of interest. Now if only we still lived in an era of demos. Unless there is one?

There’s actually a pretty generous demo! Has the training missions, a couple of full quests and all the weapons available.

pixelburp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

There’s actually a pretty generous demo! Has the training missions, a couple of full quests and all the weapons available.

We'll shoot, no excuses now. Honestly I'd just assumed demos were dead with the dodo. With this kind of luck I should buy some lotto cards

Zero-Cool

I must give monster Hunter world a go since it's free on ps plus collection.

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

We'll shoot, no excuses now. Honestly I'd just assumed demos were dead with the dodo. With this kind of luck I should buy some lotto cards

Well we can probably resurrect the dodo at this stage so demos too I assume. :P

Jordan 199

What are the Bioshock games like to play? I'm considering picking up the Bioshock collection in the Easter sales.

recyclops

They are very good shooters, great environments and stories to push them along. Well worth picking them on the cheap. I would play it in this order

1, infinite, infinite dlc and then 2 but that's just me, 2 dlc is also excellent.

Robert ninja

The 1st bioshock is legendary, played it probably 20 times across multiple platforms now. I played the rest reluctantly and hated almost every second of em'. As far as I'm concerned, bioshock is a one hit wonder game.

pixelburp

Infinite was a fantastic story and setting, utterly ruined by generic level design and tonally jarring violence. All the Bioshock games would make for a great TV series, the worlds are so rich and topical, it's funny how it has never taken off as an idea (IIRC, there was a Bioshock movie planned, to be helmed by Gore Verbinski I think?)

CatInABox

I thought that Bioshock had an excellent storyline with an excellent setting, but not much else. The gunplay was awkward, the minigames stupid, and the enemies could be really annoying, those stupid flying drones in particular.

If you've got nothing else on, go for it, if only to experience a game that's rated really highly by some.

The others weren't as good, partly because the story wasn't as good, and partly because having played the first you're expecting a twist to come.