General gaming discussion

Retr0gamer

The Raging Bile Duct wrote: »

Have you actually played Ghost of Tsushima?

A bit of it with the brother. Enough of it to know it's not for me. It feels very derivative with some simplistic stealth and combat that's fine I guess. I feels very ubisoft. The side activities are very simplistic. Basically, I think the Eurogamer review was spot on.

Retr0gamer

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

I've avoided FC2 for years due to complaints about random weapon breaking, malaria and irritating respawning enemies. It sounds like a nightmare.

Like Silent Hill 2, it's meant to be an oppressive nightmare.

It's almost a classic.

To be honest the weapon breaking and malaria aren't annoying. Malaria is easily fixed and keeps you on your toes and weapon breaking can be avoided mostly if you keep your weapons maintained. Picking up a manky rusted weapon on the battlefield means you are taking a chance with weapon malfunctions (it's very obvious when a gun is in bad nick visually). The biggest annoyance is really the respawning checkpoints and it being too long. It's a game well worth experiencing. You'll probably be done with it well before the end but that's probably a good 20-30 hours into it.

pixelburp

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Like Silent Hill 2, it's meant to be an oppressive nightmare.

It's almost a classic.

To be honest the weapon breaking and malaria aren't annoying. Malaria is easily fixed and keeps you on your toes and weapon breaking can be avoided mostly if you keep your weapons maintained. Picking up a manky rusted weapon on the battlefield means you are taking a chance with weapon malfunctions (it's very obvious when a gun is in bad nick visually). The biggest annoyance is really the respawning checkpoints and it being too long. It's a game well worth experiencing. You'll probably be done with it well before the end but that's probably a good 20-30 hours into it.

Naw, they're annoying. Not because the idea was bad but the implementation lacked polish and a think through. You can do "oppressive" without the game actively fighting you from having an engaging, entertaining time. Breath of the Wild did weapon breakage much better, even if I hated it too lol. But in that case, it insisted on the need to explore, fashion new weapons and be proactive in the world. With Far Cry 2 the game just wanted you to suffer, without any real reward for your toil (see the constantly respawning checkpoints).

There's a clear path to making the game again, only better and less like a tech demo; as it was released, it felt like a suite of disconnected ideas lacking a cohesive whole.

johnny_ultimate

You’ll find very few people disagreeing about the problems the game has. For me the tragedy is that it sort of represents the end of an evolutionary track in big budget video games. The issues the game had could have been refined and the good ideas expanded on whether directly as a sequel or indirectly in a spiritual successor... but we didn’t really get any sort of follow-up to it. Far Cry 3 is infinitely more polished, but basically a theme park ride in comparison to the heart of darkness chaos of its predecessor. Almost all AAA games are power fantasies - FC2 made you feel weak and imperilled in comparison, and as far as I’m concerned that’s just as valid an approach to game design.

That said, you can certainly see some of FC2’s spirit in the emergence of survival games (although personally I find their thirst / hunger meters quite hard to get past). And FC2 itself definitely has a bit of a late 90s / early 00s PC vibe to it - peak experimental emergent sim era. But also striking how FC2 was very early in terms of the dominance and genrefication of the open world Ubisoft game, and how different it feels to pretty much everything that followed.

Robert ninja

FC2 is the only one I ever liked. I haven't really enjoyed anything else from Ubisoft in a looong time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx4eSkMBx-U

https://youtu.be/SZqKMd8MY20

Underground

Anyone play Oddworld Soulstorm? Looked for a thread and couldn't find one.

Oh boy, am I disappointed in this game. When I saw Oddworld Inhabitants were the developer for this and not the Just Add Water crowd that did New N'Tasty, I thought "great! The OG's are back, this game will be class". Not the case unfortunately.

Like N&T, Abe still controls like cr*p, the animations are awful, the sound is still mixed terribly and the game is buggy as all hell. Really feels amateurish which is not a nice thing to say about the same developer who brought us Abe's Odyssey

Add to that there's a number of other things that I just don't really think fit into an Oddworld platformer: a crafting system (seriously?), Abe's chant has what I suppose you would call a stamina meter, a double jump, checkpoints (I know these are par for the course in modern games but they really don't fit in an Oddworld game imo), the level based system (more subjective but I don't like it).

I'd hoped this would be a return to form but man, I'm very disappointed in it.

BlitzKrieg

really the respawning checkpoints was the only big annoyance for me with far cry 2.

But I get why they did it, just got to look fat far cry 3 and later where while clearing the camps is fun, it rapidly removes the tension of travelling after you cleared enough of them.

Having the checkpoints repopulate kept the tension

but because it was such a badly implemented system it became less tense and just frustrating. They needed a different system altogether for repopulating the map then just reflipping the checkpoints.

Adyx

Weapon degradation is an awful and lazy game mechanic. I first encountered it in System Shock 2 and there was so much outcry at the time, the patch included a config file to reduce it (and enemy respawn). That said, it kind of made sense in FC2. The malaria got boring fast though. They have been basically remaking Far Cry 3 for the last few years but you could say that about any number of highly regarded games these days. Far Cry 2 and Assassins Creed 2 were the last times I paid full price for an Ubisoft game apart from Fenyx Rising so they get what I think they're games are worth.

Potential-Monke

That's one of my biggest issues with FC5 and ND, everyone attacks you on sight. They must have amazing eye sight to recognise me regardless of what I look like or what I'm driving. It's not fun. Just like 5 (and 4 before it), I can't get into ND. It's all just very meh, and I feel like I've done it all before. 3 was the best, with Blood Dragon getting special mention simply for being awesome. Not sure how 6 will fare out tbh. The city could be interesting.

Jordan 199

Potential-Monke wrote: »

That's one of my biggest issues with FC5 and ND, everyone attacks you on sight. They must have amazing eye sight to recognise me regardless of what I look like or what I'm driving. It's not fun. Just like 5 (and 4 before it), I can't get into ND. It's all just very meh, and I feel like I've done it all before. 3 was the best, with Blood Dragon getting special mention simply for being awesome. Not sure how 6 will fare out tbh. The city could be interesting.

The headcase that's Vaas. Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is?

Jordan 199

Far Cry 6 trophy/achievement: Find a unique coin wedged between some dead fellas arse cheeks. Silver Trophy/20 GameScore.

I was going to play FC2 last year and there are mods that help fix a lot of the annoyances. Might look into it again.

Zero-Cool

Potential-Monke wrote: »

That's one of my biggest issues with FC5 and ND, everyone attacks you on sight. They must have amazing eye sight to recognise me regardless of what I look like or what I'm driving. It's not fun. Just like 5 (and 4 before it), I can't get into ND. It's all just very meh, and I feel like I've done it all before. 3 was the best, with Blood Dragon getting special mention simply for being awesome. Not sure how 6 will fare out tbh. The city could be interesting.

6 will be interesting. It's their chance to really mix it up and start fresh for new gen but i have a feeling underneath the serious looking story, it will be more or less FC 5/ND. FC 2 is the only game in the series i never played and really want to now with all the comments in here. I don't mind weapon degradation in games, one thing i can't stand is tailing missions whether it's on foot or in a vehicle. In my decades of gaming, i don't think I've ever played one tailing mission and thought "this is fun!". One actually made me quit Judgment and sell it.

Jordan 199

^ I wasn't fond of the eavesdropping in the excellent Ass. Creed Black Flag. There was a circle with a wavy line you had to keep in to listen to the convo.

Adyx

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

People say Ubisoft has been remaking FC3 but I disagree. FC4, yes but FC5, New Dawn and Primal are nothing like 3.
They encourage progression through exploration unlike FC3 and its awful towers. FC3 also feels oppressive just in its structure. It pretends that you can go anywhere but the entire island is held hostage to outposts and towers until you clear them.
The one thing that needs to improve going forward though is the frequency of the enemy spawning. You can't go 5 seconds without combat. It's especially irritating in FC5 when a quest giver keeps getting attacked by some wild animal preventing you from taking the quest from them.

Well I haven't played FC5. I tried to buy it for cheap in a Humble sale a few months ago and the key gave me a not available in my area error. Same with a replacement key. They ended up just refunding me. Still wouldn't pay full price for a FC game.

dreamers75

Fc5 and ND only redeemable features are the coop but the tethering is very annoying.

Jordan 199

I like the bright and colourful world of FC New Dawn.

Zero-Cool

I dunno what it is about sunny days that makes me want to stay inside and play Everybody's Golf.

Jordan 199

Zero-Cool wrote: »

I dunno what it is about sunny days that makes me want to stay inside and play Everybody's Golf.

It's a great game. I just need to work on my putting.

Vicxas

Jordan 199 wrote: »

It's a great game. I just need to work on my putting.

Got you covered

Jordan 199

Vicxas wrote: »

Got you covered

The ball is in the parking lot

In case ye missed it, there's a big new Portal 2 mod out called Portal Reloaded. It's being called the unofficial Portal 3, and even adds a new gun where you play with time. Looks great and is free if you own the game.

Jordan 199

I much prefer to play Bonestorm. Got it at the Valley Vista Try-N-Save.

Mr Crispy

https://twitter.com/AliensFireteam/status/1386712139830898691?s=20

Jordan 199

Played Forza Horizon 4 on the Series X. It looks absolutely stunning. Very very impressed with it. Having the SSD is a massive benefit too.

marcbrophy

Jordan 199 wrote: »

Played Forza Horizon 4 on the Series X. It looks absolutely stunning. Very very impressed with it. Having the SSD is a massive benefit too.

Fast travel is ridiculously fast now too

Jordan 199

marcbrophy wrote: »

Fast travel is ridiculously fast now too

It is. I can't see myself playing it on the One X again.

Retr0gamer

Pokemon Snap getting great reviews. Sometimes I wish they'd slow down with the great releases on that system!