General gaming discussion

kunst nugget

I really enjoyed Kona - basically a walking sim like Firewatch with some survival elements thrown in. Not as polished as Firewatch but it has an intriguing story.

Same for Virginia, well worth a look. It's maybe 2 hours long so you can sit down and get through it in one sitting, which is something I like from time to time.

Broken Sword is much longer, and wasn't for me. I found it a chore to get though. If you have played the old ones it's more of the same in terms if its gameplay and humour.

Zero-Cool

Yeah both of those appeal to me as I read they are for fans of Firewatch and Gone Home. Might go with those while they are cheap. Thanks lads.

Retr0gamer

Virginia is more like an interactive film. Which isn't a slight against it. It's very good.

Retr0gamer

So if you want to stop convincing yourself that Days Gone is a good game then the Castlevania collection came out yesterday which contains some of the finest games ever made.... and Simon's Quest and Castlevania: the Adventure.

Konami is also added the option to choose the Japanese versions of the games in a later update which means you can get the full awesomeness of Castlevania 3's VCR3 enhanced soundtrack and the full WTF'ery of Kid Dracula's first boss. This update is also coming to the Arcade and Contra collection.

kunst nugget

Retr0gamer wrote: »

So if you want to stop convincing yourself that Days Gone is a good game...

It is a good game, albeit one that went out of its way to hamper itself with a poor start, technical issues and some baffling pacing choices. It's unfortunate that the beginning is a bit of a slog because once it clicks in, it's a really interesting story imo with great characters that keeps me wanting to find out what happens next.

A lot of the technical problems seem to be as a result of memory leak issues which, given the amount of time I get to sit down and play these days, isn't an issue for me.

Retr0gamer

Just low level trolling. What I played of it seems like everything I hate about triple A games so staying away from it myself and story and characters seem bad and generic from what a friend told me about how it goes. Can see how people could have fun with it but reminds me of Mad Max which I found did not suit me.

Castlevania though is unarguably great. I'll fight anyone that thinks otherwise.

RasTa

Love seeing stuff like this

https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1128963886781227009

Zero-Cool

Absolute Bollox, Days Gone is a great game, my GOTY so far and I easily become burnt out from open world games without busy work, just don't have time for that nonsense. I have not once turned this off because of boredom, more that it was becoming stupid o clock and I gotta get to bed.

This has been a pure joy from the start.

Also, yeah seeing a lot of mad Max comparison but I got completely bored of that half way through and have up. That and days gone have been very different experiences for me.

Tempted by the castlevania collection. It's been so long, I can't even remember which ones I've played before so will keep an eye on that.

gimli2112

Looking between Retr0's screenshot and Days Gone I know which one I'd prefer to be playing. It's all a matter of taste.

kunst nugget

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Absolute Bollox, Days Gone is a great game, my GOTY so far and I easily become burnt out from open world games without busy work, just don't have time for that nonsense. I have not once turned this off because of boredom, more that it was becoming stupid o clock and I gotta get to bed.

This has been a pure joy from the start.

Also, yeah seeing a lot of mad Max comparison but I got completely bored of that half way through and have up. That and days gone have been very different experiences for me.

Tempted by the castlevania collection. It's been so long, I can't even remember which ones I've played before so will keep an eye on that.

I wouldn't say it was a pure joy from the start and it took at least 5-6 hours of play to hook me in and get a decent feel for the controls and the shooting mechanics but it just got better and better with each hour played. There are some pacing issues that are really dense and could have done with a bit of pruning and tidying and it is a real pity that cutscenes are so jarring at times but the rest of the game has been great. It doesn't feel like the Avalanche open world games at all.

ERG89

I like the sidescrolling Castlevania games but using the stairs in them are a bigger challenge than most of the enemies.
I don't know when it happened but I find most NES era stuff very dated now.

wotzgoingon

ERG89 wrote: »

I find most NES era stuff very dated now.

That's because they are dated. We are spoiled these days with amazing graphics.

Varik

wotzgoingon wrote: »

That's because they are dated. We are spoiled these days with amazing graphics.

Early 3D aged worse than late 2D.

Could say the same about being spoiled at any time over the last decade, that's the thing with stuff ageing.

johnny_ultimate

A slight aside, but I've been surprised just how little interest I have in Days Gone or Rage 2, even beyond a usual apathy for AAA releases these days. I have finally gotten to the point where an open world sets of a major alarm bell in my head - with only a small few exceptions, I really can't tolerate them any more. It's a major design choice that more often than not kills a game's flow, adds so much unnecessary noise, and dilutes the good stuff to within an inch of its life. Part of this is just not having the time to play these big sprawling things any more (to Rage's credit at least it looks to be short :pac:) but equally it kills me how so many games have suffered from open world indulgence. I used to enjoy Assassin's Creed games not so long ago, but really can't see myself going near any of the recent ones even with their fascinating, lavish settings.

There's definitely some developer out there working on a BotW-like revolutionary take on the open world formula, and I'll always be fond of smaller, more controlled open environments. But at the moment I think an open world game would need to be widely regarded as something truly special for me to make that commitment again.

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

So if you want to stop convincing yourself that Days Gone is a good game then the Castlevania collection came out yesterday which contains some of the finest games ever made.... and Simon's Quest and Castlevania: the Adventure.

Konami is also added the option to choose the Japanese versions of the games in a later update which means you can get the full awesomeness of Castlevania 3's VCR3 enhanced soundtrack and the full WTF'ery of Kid Dracula's first boss. This update is also coming to the Arcade and Contra collection.

I was hoping to pick this up but the sound issues and no rebinding has me holding off until they sort it out. Konami's recent arcade shmup collection was quite a poor release too I think. I wish they'd do a little more than the bare minimum with these collections

eyerer

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

A slight aside, but I've been surprised just how little interest I have in Days Gone or Rage 2, even beyond a usual apathy for AAA releases these days. I have finally gotten to the point where an open world sets of a major alarm bell in my head - with only a small few exceptions, I really can't tolerate them any more. It's a major design choice that more often than not kills a game's flow, adds so much unnecessary noise, and dilutes the good stuff to within an inch of its life. Part of this is just not having the time to play these big sprawling things any more (to Rage's credit at least it looks to be short :pac:) but equally it kills me how so many games have suffered from open world indulgence. I used to enjoy Assassin's Creed games not so long ago, but really can't see myself going near any of the recent ones even with their fascinating, lavish settings.

There's definitely some developer out there working on a BotW-like revolutionary take on the open world formula, and I'll always be fond of smaller, more controlled open environments. But at the moment I think an open world game would need to be widely regarded as something truly special for me to make that commitment again.

I almost always check how long it takes to beat a game before I play it. I get bored if they're really long.
Surprisingly I played Assassins Creed Origins for 72 hours and loved it. I didn't expect to play for that long.
I hesitated with BotW as well because I knew it was so big. It turned out to be one of my favourite games, over 120hours played.

Try Crackdown 3, it's a small open world and I almost 100%'d it in 14 hours or so.

Retr0gamer

Cake of Tremendous Power wrote: »

I was hoping to pick this up but the sound issues and no rebinding has me holding off until they sort it out. Konami's recent arcade shmup collection was quite a poor release too I think. I wish they'd do a little more than the bare minimum with these collections

It's not the usual quality you get from M2 but they are still good. The arcade collection is getting fixed at least with the Japanese games being playable in western copies of the game instead of the sadistic western versions.

Retr0gamer

ERG89 wrote: »

I like the sidescrolling Castlevania games but using the stairs in them are a bigger challenge than most of the enemies.
I don't know when it happened but I find most NES era stuff very dated now.

Actually much prefer the better NES games to most newer stuff. Went on a NES binge and thoroughly enjoyed the short but sweet experiences. You just need a different mindset going in where you've got to put in the effort to get enjoyment out of these games whereas modern games pander to the player in an effort to not lose their attention. It's easy to throw the controller away on a NES game when the first stage destroys you and play a modern game that will not challenge you fir a couple of hours.

It can be hard to get into that NES mindset.

eyerer

I still like Megaman and Contra and I completed Zelda 1 recently, for the first time in almost 20 years.
They are different games but I've always been nostalgic. Sometimes it does feel like todays games are too big.

Zero-Cool

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Hey lads, any thoughts on the below games? Going cheap on PSN, trying to figure out if any are worthy of a playthrough. Looking for short indie cheap relaxing games. Thanks.

Virginia - 3 euro
Broken Sword: Serpents Curse 5 euro
Serial Cleaner - 4 euro
Kona - 4 euro

Thanks for the suggestions, I've decided on Virginia, Kona and Dear Esther.

Onto another recommendation, I'm looking to fill my summer gaming as there's not many games coming out other than Judgement that I'm looking forward to. I'm no fan of wrestling (since the ultimate warrior days anyway) but I'm tempted to try WWE 2k19 (20 euro in smyths) or Fire Pro (30 in GS). Haven't played a wrestling game in over 10 years but interested in a good career mode for created character.

They any good? Would you have to be a fan of wrestling to enjoy?

Retr0gamer

I'd skip WWE and just go for Fire Pro wrestling. It's pretty much the only wrestling game worth playing according to wrestling fans with insane customisability and fan creations.

ERG89

Zero-Cool wrote:

They any good? Would you have to be a fan of wrestling to enjoy?

For the WWE ones they are like a bad simulation of the real thing. It's a pretty big roster but not fun to play imo. It has more gimmick matches like Ladder, Table & Hell in a Cell if that's your thing. Fire Pro has Cage, Deathmatch, MMA rules & multi man variants.
Fire Pro is more arcadey to play but also more realistic in many ways as wrestlers tire, you need to learn timing on grapples, strikes & arial offence (some wrestlers won't have any of the latter).
Fire Pro on PS4 gives you at least 1000 slots for wrestlers. You can find practically everyone past or present from America to Japan on there. Try choose English named one's & be wary some are hidden behind the Junior Heavyweight DLC.
Much more easy to use the online portal to download wrestlers than the in game one. The community makes some pretty decent ones but the logic (how realistic they perform) is a big up & down.
I'll always pick the latter game as I play it enough to know the limit on usable wrestlers is 1000.
The create a wrestler is nearly too deep in Fire Pro, you can see that in the community creations. The career is pretty long too. It's cheesy in a weird kinda Japanese humour way too. Even tho its set in New Japan you know the guy writing it enjoyed himself in the same way the Ace Attorney writers do.

Retr0gamer

I've heard wrestling fasn say even losing in Fire Pro is fun as the fights play out very like a real match with lots of comebacks and has the same flow.

Jerichoholic

I actually really enjoyed 2K19, if you haven't played one in years absolutely go for it. Fire Pro is very hardcore, very steep learning curve.

Zero-Cool

Wish there was a demo for fire pro. I see WWE 2k18 is on ps now which I could at least trial with a new account to test it. Because I don't watch WWE or haven't played a game in years, I'm not sure how I'll find either, just looking for a fun game and even online reviews are very divisive in which is better. 2k19 being 20 euro, cex will give me 14 cash if I don't like it where as I'm stuck with fire pro at a heftier price tag but it does look/sound more fun.

Jerichoholic

2K19 has a silly story mode to go through and a mode where you go through the career of a real wrestler replaying his famous matches and trying to do what happened in those matches to progress. There's also the created wrestlers, rings, stadiums, arenas, logos etc that you can just download and they all look fantastic.

It's well worth 20 quid, and I usually hate WWE games, this one was good.

Royal Rumble mode is also amazing.

dreamers75

Fire Pro is excellent, constantly being updated on PC and has a massive workshop.

Incredibly disappointing that RE4 on switch won't have gyro controls

Lazy from Capcom and the price is too high

Back to the Wii version I go

wotzgoingon

Fred The Red wrote: »

Incredibly disappointing that RE4 on switch won't have gyro controls

Lazy from Capcom and the price is too high

Back to the Wii version I go

It would be too awkward trying to aim. I'd say that implemented it but scraped it after testing.