General gaming discussion

Jordan 199

I finished Sniper Elite Resistance this morning. Not a very long campaign, but I enjoyed it more than Sniper Elite 5.

I spent 18 hours and 43 minutes at it doing main and side missions.

If you are a fan of the Sniper Elite games, it is worth picking up when it goes on sale.

The Raging Bile Duct

Finished Alan Wake 2 to find out I to replay it in 'Final Draft' to get the true ending... Feck that. Hate when games do stuff like that.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123125184#Comment_123125184

Pizza

johnny_ultimate

Two ‘sickos’ memes in a week. That’s the energy I like to see.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123128761#Comment_123128761

Johnny seeing someone else use the sickos meme:

Necro

Is Mafia 3 worth the effort? Been meaning to get back to it but good lord the driving is so awful in it I quit mid mission early on the last time I gave it a whirl.

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123129305#Comment_123129305

Change driving to realistic (i think that's the setting) gives it more weight and feels better when drifting. However, driving is one of the better parts of the game. Horrendous repetitive missions, same loop of missions in each district to unveil a boss and get to a good story mission. The dlc missions help if you have the expansions as they have decent missions and if your play them mixed in with the main story, is a nice blend of different things going on, keeps it from getting boring.

Saying that, i never finished the game as it was just going on and on. Pity as i absolutely love Mafia 1 and 2.

johnny_ultimate

Eerily timely clue in today’s NYT Crossword.

Retr0gamer

Im expecting Days Gone news to complete the unholy sicko trilogy.

Luna84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123129305#Comment_123129305

I played Mafia 1 recently and the cars handle the same as 3. Another game would be GTA IV with odd driving. Give it time you get used to it.

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123129341#Comment_123129341

Cheers. I've heard that the story is good but missions very repetitive which has put me off a bit alright. But haven't anything else really in the back catalogue so will probably give it a chance at least.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130270#Comment_123130270

Yeah it is a thing with the driving that it's quite clunky I just found this one particularly infuriating. Was doing a mission where I had to chase down some guy and I must have wrecked the car a load of times even starting the chase!

Retr0gamer

Theres a lot to read through there when the only answer to is Mafia 3 worth playing through is No.

Watch the story on youtube if you must. It's the same five missions over and over again.

Luna84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123130891#Comment_123130891

Ah now that's a bit harsh. There is some decent missions in there. Yes, taking over neighbourhoods are repetitive but for me personally I grew to enjoy doing that. But as I said there is some decent mission in there so worth the play through if you never done so.

Zero-Cool

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 doing quite well review wise!

https://twitter.com/shinobi602/status/1886447923258397136?t=I7Wip0Gzz0J4lH0L6YK8cg&s=19

J. Marston

Some of the platforming in Prince of Persia is giving the quick twitch fibres a workout.

Penn

Was stuck for something to play. Went to play Gears 5 on Steamdeck but a dialog box kept trying to open at the main menu. After a few tries of exiting and restarting the game, it finally loaded, and was a sign-in box to a Microsoft account. Didn't realise you'd have to sign in playing it through Steam. Ended up not doing it since I'm not fully sure what my password is and didn't want to risk having to try a few different passwords (especially not on the Deck keyboard). Might just wait to see if they announce Gears coming to PS any time soon.

Was also back and forth on whether to play Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill 2 remake, or Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. Ended up redownloading Mass Effect Legendary and booted up ME2. Had given it half an hour about a year ago but just wasn't in the mood for it, so have decided to give it another try. Took a while to figure out why my save file was missing. Then I remembered I'm on the PS5 Pro now and hadn't carried the save over, and then I couldn't find the cloud save until I realised it'd be under the PS4 cloud saves even though I played it on PS5. Got there eventually. About 2 hours in so far. Nothing special this early, but see how it goes.

Penn

Good article by IGN on the rise of nonsense crap in Playstation and Nintendo stores, and how so much of it gets "featured" at the expense of actual proper games.

https://www.ign.com/articles/i-could-make-fart-fart-boobie-fart-the-game-and-maybe-it-would-eventually-get-taken-down-devs-reveal-why-the-consoles-are-drowning-in-eslop?taid=67a150d1a263e80001e033cc&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Manual&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

"Critically, the games in question aren’t just run-of-the-mill “bad” games. Unremarkable games get released every day on every storefront and have just as much right to be there as any other game. What’s happening here is different: it’s a seeming flood of very similar-looking things that are crowding out everything else. The so-called “slop” games are usually sim games, almost always on sale perpetually, often play on themes used by other popular games or even rip off their concepts and names entirely, often use hyper-stylized art and screenshots that stink of generative AI, and usually in practice don’t look or play anything like what the storefront images promise. They are often janky, with poor controls and numerous technical issues, and often include very few features or anything interesting to do at all.

What’s more, as various users have pointed out, these games are often churned out mercilessly by a very small handful of companies. And as YouTube creator Dead Domain found out when they did a deep dive into the issue, these companies are seemingly impossible to track down and hold accountable, having little to no useful public websites or business information. Some even seem to be changing company names every so often to obfuscate things even further."

There are so many "XXXX Simulator" nonsense games on PS Store at the minute, or "The Jumping Ice Cube" or similar which is pretty much "mash your face against the controller and I don't know who gives a sh*t what happens life is meaningless anyway." I remember I kept seeing this game pop up as one of the first items in the Demos for You section:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyUs-ln6HE4

If it passes all required checks and stuff and it ends up on the Store, fine. But surely there has to be some level of curation that crud like this isn't being actively boosted or showcased at the expense of actual games from proper developers.

johnny_ultimate

Just at the tail end of Citizen Sleeper 2 which I’ve really enjoyed. Definitely feels like the challenge level has been evened out compared to the first. Dice rolls are ‘spicier’ and riskier which means there’s more to be worried about and conscious of. That includes dice that can break if your character is under sustained ‘stress’. A few slightly uneven quirks aside (had all my dice shatter in the middle of a major story mission as AFAIK you can’t repair semi-damaged dice), it all makes decisions more consequential on a moment to moment basis. I did get to the point finally where resources aren’t an issue - before that I was living from mission to mission - but it came way later where I was prepping for what appears to be the endgame and wrapping up the last of the major side quests. ‘Every action requires a dice’ is still an ingenious RPG system that feels great to engage with - even when the rolls inevitably **** you over (and aggressive auto save means no save scumming :)).

Whereas the first game was all set on one space station, here you’re hopping around a galaxy. This change works really well I reckon, alongside a more elaborate mission structure. You can also assign crew (all of whom have specialties) for bonus dice rolls in missions - this has some really fun story interactions, though it sometimes feels like a crapshoot whether you’ll pick people who are well qualified for the job at hand.

Writing is still excellent. Need to wait to see the final stretch before deciding if its thematic through lines are as well realised as the first, but the characters are still really well realised. Love some of the themes and ideas explored in individual locations, like a co-op greenery community or a hidden asteroid colony where money isn’t accepted.

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123121843#Comment_123121843

Finished it this evening, and found the sections leading up to the final boss really irritating too which put me in the mood to just get it over with, which is a bit of a shame because the rest of the game was absolutely brilliant. A really great metroidvania with some of the best boss fights I’ve ever faced in any game.

CatInABox

Ah, EA. Always able to miss the point.

https://www.eurogamer.net/ea-suggests-dragon-age-the-veilguard-might-have-sold-better-if-it-was-live-service-so-what-does-this-mean-for-mass-effect-5

Apparently Veilguard should have been a live service game……

Jesus wept.

Retr0gamer

Sure that's what we all want when we spend 70 euros on a new game, to spend more.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123135428#Comment_123135428

Spoiler Warning

The slow-panning corridor with no UI…. that just irritated the hell out of me. That and the respawning spikes on the ground which kept respawning right when I hit a talisman on someone meaning I'd go straight into the spikes… coupled with trying to hit a talisman on the green guys who explode but other enemies kept getting in the way… And then the game blocking off a few of the exits but not telling you which exit you were supposed to go to…

Yeah, that whole section bugged the hell out of me. Tough enough just because of some of the enemies, but it really felt like the game went out of its way to just try and annoy you.

I suppose Sekiro kind of did similar at the same point in that game, but that felt more challenging, whereas in Nine Sols the challenge was just built out of compounding elements which could frustrate you.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123136631#Comment_123136631

Nah, I don't want to spend more. I just want to play 50% of a game, then return every three months for another 10%, then once more for a final 12% because the game didn't do well enough to spend more resources on finishing the full 100% they promised.

"Roadmaps" - Bringing you from 'A' to 'as close to B as we can be bothered without being accused of not fulfilling what we advertised'.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123136664#Comment_123136664

I really enjoyed that hallway fight actually. Read it more as a homage to Oldboy than anything. That's one of the things that really cemented Nine Sols for me as something special - how it has also these amazing visual and directorial flourishes throughout that really pushed it above and beyond. It largely manifests through the animations and dramatic backgrounds (which are stunning throughout) but I liked that they were willing to throw in things like that gameplay sequence as well for dramatic and 'cinematic' effect.

Beyond that, the ending section wasn't so bad for me (other than having to repeat a chunk of it after dying), though it was a) short and b) completely overshadowed by how relentless and epic the final boss was.

The only bit I really disliked was the forced stealth section in the prison, which just didn't gel with the rest of the game IMO. Was also playing it at night before bed and just kept stumbling because I was trying to rush through it. Thankfully it's also pretty brief (20 mins out of a 30 hour playthrough).

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123136788#Comment_123136788

I think if that hallway section was just minor goons you could get through fairly easily, it wouldn't have been as bad. But those cloaked ninja enemies, and the goons who fired red arrows (who for me kept hiding behind something in the foreground meaning I could barely see them) just kept taking enough health that (because I had no health bar), meant I kept dying. I had to do that section about 10-15 times. After that, the shine of what they were trying to do visually (which was pretty cool), was gone.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123136852#Comment_123136852

Ah 10-15 attempts is different for sure. Think it was just 2-3 tries for me so was able to appreciate the intent of the scene without being annoyed trying to get through it. Can easily see it being more frustrating than cool if you have to do it over and over.

McFly85

Spoiler Warning

I don’t think the hallway or the closing off of areas in the map added anything that late in the game. I was ready to face the final boss at that point and it was annoying to go from what looked like the start of that fight to a drawn out sequence that was more frustrating than challenging. It felt like an idea they really wanted to put in the game but couldn’t quite figure out where to put it(and it would have worked better escaping the prison with less annoying enemies imo). Same with closing off exits on the map, it was just inconvenient more than anything to find the correct way to get to where you needed to go.

These are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things, but I do think we would have lost nothing by going straight into the last boss fight.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137477#Comment_123137477

Spoiler Warning

In theory I didn't mind it, as I liked the idea of the Pavilion being attacked and having to rush back to it, and I liked the concept of the aforementioned hallway fight, but I think if they'd made it a bit simpler so it was more a case of just cutting through simple goons along a more linear or signposted path, it could have worked better. Though as Johnny points out, it probably would have landed better if it hadn't taken so many tries, which is what ended up souring it for me.

PopePalpatine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123136683#Comment_123136683

On this note, the new Tokyo Xtreme Racer is a refreshing alternative to live-service BS.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123137745#Comment_123137745

Been getting great word of mouth. Sounds like a sold piece of arcade racing and the old school fans of the series love it.