General gaming discussion

Jordan 199

I am back playing Daytona USA on my Xbox 360. I love it.

McFly85

Last year I downloaded Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name purely to be able to play Daytona USA 2 for the first time since the arcades! I have a save in an arcade I still go back to from time to time.

Jordan 199

I like this!

https://youtu.be/X9eW2P2XAAk?si=O5rf-kyf3p5Rsz53

Truckin' gr8.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123132418#Comment_123132418

Spent another while with ME2 last night. Will give it another night to see how it goes, but feel like I'm having to force myself through it. The gunplay is just awful (yes, yes, a product of its time) and the general gameplay is just not that interesting. I know a huge part of the game is the story and characters, but… eh… Not sure I can be bothered.

Also, I did one mission with Kasumi and she's completely Loyal. I found and rescued Garrus, from the first game, and he's still just Neutral. What the hell, bro? I thought we were ride-or-die's! Normandy-1 OGs 4 Life, that sh*t meant nothing to you?

Retr0gamer

Mass Effect series is the most pretty good series I've played. Like it's probably worth a play but the way people go on like it's a classic when stuff like fallout 2, the witcher 3 and Baldurs gate exist baffles me. It's like the guys at Bioware thought they would get found out for copying Game of Thrones homework for years when the books became a big deal so decided to hide it by setting their next game is space.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123132529#Comment_123132529

Seems like Sony listened to these complaints. A bunch of the most low-effort games clogging up the store have been purged, particularly from one developer who had a bunch of games on it.

https://www.truetrophies.com/news/ps5-spam-games-delisted-february-2025

Retr0gamer

Hopefully Nintendo follow suit. Although I'm guessing life of black tiger is still up there with the rumours that the dev knows someone in Sony.

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123139689#Comment_123139689

From what i remember, each crew member has a recruit mission and then a loyalty mission. Kasumi was a dlc character which i think she only had 1 mission. Could be remembering it wrong but think that's why. Agreed though, Garrus should have been insta loyal 😊 ME combat was rough in 1 but more refined in 2 and 3, some load outs and powers were more fun to use than others but yupp, the power of that franchise comes from 'the friends we made along the way' and the awesome stories going on with each character. The whole genophage arc, specifically what you learn in ME 2 and what you can do in ME 3 is just masterful, made better by the bonds you have with the characters involved.

Retr0gamer

I carried my save over so Garrus was pretty loyal to me when I played it. Although it's been a while since then.

The Raging Bile Duct

I played the Mass Effect trilogy straight through a couple of years after the whole thing was released so was caught up in any of the hype that would have been around them when they were released. They're… grand. There was something about then that felt a bit juvenile about them but I couldn't really put my finger on why I thought that. The ending of the trilogy was such a letdown after the hours I sank into it.

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123142682#Comment_123142682

Yeah, even the DLC they released to cover themselves after the initial letdown was pretty meh tbh. They just genuinely hadn't a notion how to end it. Gives yet more weight to Retro's GOT mention a few comments back😂

Penn

Yeah I carried over my save from the first game (pretty easy with the Legendary Edition anyway). Just would have thought or hoped the ME1 squad members would have automatic loyalty.

I do want to experience the story, but How Long To Beat puts this and the next game at about 30 hours each and I don't think I enjoy the gameplay enough to go through it.

Luna84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123142815#Comment_123142815

I thought they weren't great either. I never played the Legendary Edition. But played all three games about 3 or 4 years ago. Maybe they were better back when they were released. Plus as I type this the markers were pretty bad for a large game. I remember searching for certain people and the marker never high lighted them. Bit annoying but not the end of the world. But that's not the reason I didn't like them. I just didn't think they were any good and for that reason I never played through the Legendary Edition even though I could for free with GamePass.

johnny_ultimate

Mass Effect 2 was by far the best of the series for me. It jettisoned some of the RPG cruft that made the first game more fiddly than it should have been, and wasn’t as weighed down by the technical annoyances of the first game (my main memory of the first game is that damn lift). The ‘we’re going on a mission’ structure and the focus on big, robust character-specific subquests really gave it purpose and momentum, and it didn’t overstay its welcome. The third game was fine but spent too long getting back up to speed and then had a dull finale that didn’t really reflect three games’ worth of decisions and consequences. Especially given the second game had a fantastic final mission where all the decisions you made throughout the game actually played out in a satisfying and entertaining matter.

Exclamation Marc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123142528#Comment_123142528

It's great but at the moment it's exclusively one developers games (albeit 138 of them).

Hopefully it is the complaints and not just a coincidence with that one developer.

Retr0gamer

I can come across very harsh on Mass Effect but it just does a lot wrong and it's so very close to being amazing but just fumbles the ball a lot. Being so close to greatness frustrates me a lot so I tend to be harsh to those types of games like mass effect and last of us when what I'm really doing is just nitpicking.

For all its flaws I played through them and enjoyed them all and after getting into a bit of D&D and then playing Mass Effect, it was the game that finally made western RPGs click with me and made me understand them, even if the paragon/renegade bar and the achievements do their very best to funnel you into a play style that is way less fun than just rolling with the decisions you make yourself.

Retr0gamer

Really enjoying Ace Combat 6. Such a shame that it's been removed from digital storefronts and as a result the price of the disc is now stupid money. Thankfully I got it before that happened.

The focus on this game is taking part in massive battles with multiple objectives and supporting ground units that are having their own battles on the ground. There's a bit of that in AC7 but it's a big focus here as the NPCs aren't (entirely) useless and the enemy can wipe them out if you take your time. On the other hand while there are only 18 missions each one is very long and that can cause issues as there's a lack of checkpoints.

Still the Ace Combat gameplay is still just as good as it's ever been. With the focus on protecting ground units, air to ground weapons are way more effective and fun to use as are your guns. In particular the A10 warthog is an absolute beast, in the stages I used it I shot most planes down with its cannon rather than missiles.

After how good the story was in AC4 and hearing how AC5 and Zero are even better in that regard I was hoping for a good story here but it seems AC6 is were the anime-ification of the series started happening. It's not bad, following multiple characters on both sides of the conflict and how they deal with it but the melodrama has been dialed up to anime.

Jordan 199

Retr0, you should rename yourself Ace_Combat_Fan.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123144148#Comment_123144148

I accidently ended up playing it. I'm selling off all my games and was looking for infinite in discovery as disc 1 was missing. It was either in my 360 or XBone. Set up the XBone and found ace combat 6 in the drive and decided to give it a quick go. 5 missions later I was hooked.

Zero-Cool

PSN down for anyone else?

Edit: nevermind, message days are doing maintenance on psn at the moment.

Zero-Cool

PSN still down with Sony just saying they're aware it's down. Cool..... Coolcoolcool

https://twitter.com/AskPlayStation/status/1888041723831484682?t=-zC8xE6TOmQsxaWGiLz7oA&s=19

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123147493#Comment_123147493

Still down. Can't even play offline games because I have them all digitally. Maybe I should go outside, maybe for a walk or something. Or I could catch up with family and friends.

Oh wait, I have a Steamdeck! Cool, will just play that instead.

Potential-Monke

It's funny reading about all the people who are losing their sh!t over it. Like technology is infallible. Must be something fairly serious at this point though, global issue affecting everything. Not sure if I have a game I can play… PC will get a spin for the first time in a while I suppose.

Retr0gamer

Welcome to the digital future.

Potential-Monke

Yup. Thanks, all-digital pushers! I have Hogwarts Legacy on disc, wonder will that play…

Meanwhile, I've decided to punish myself by downloading 9Sols. Have Mechwarrior 5 and Indy downloading too, for the inevitable giving up of 9Sols.

Luna84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123148901#Comment_123148901

Indy is very good. I'm currently playing it. It's mostly stealth based but you can get clothes to move through certain places freely.

Potential-Monke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123148917#Comment_123148917

That's what's making me reluctant to play it. I'm not a massive fan of stealth based games anymore, I'm an action junkie. So I'll probably hop off Mechwarrior 5 first.

Would rather go back to playing Atlas Fallen on the PS5, the new additions change it up somewhat and it's a straight up action game so right up my street. Saw a comment comparing it to Darksiders last night, and they're basically right.

TitianGerm

Can you not play PS5 in offline mode when you have it set as your home console?

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123148931#Comment_123148931

It gave me a message that I could play in Offline mode by changing a certain setting in the menu. Trouble is, it wouldn't let me change that setting, because it was offline.

Potential-Monke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123148931#Comment_123148931

Well I'm an idiot… so what happened was, when PSN went down, it appears Atlas Fallen crashed, but I assumed it was due to PSN going down and it being a PS+ game. Crunchyroll is also down, so I assumed everything is down. When I was checking online about PSN, I saw others mention their games crashed when it happened too and now they can't play, so I put 2+2 together and got -6.

Crunchyroll is still down, can't play online games, but Atlas Fallen loaded so back to that I go! Thanks for the unintentional fix!