General gaming discussion

Potential-Monke · 20-01-2023 9:28pm

Not really...

Jordan 199 · 20-01-2023 10:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136135#Comment_120136135

One more word out of you and I'll get this man to sort you out:

Potential-Monke · 20-01-2023 10:24pm

I feel like I should know who that is...

Jordan 199 · 20-01-2023 10:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136367#Comment_120136367

Well, a Mr. N Bellic did work for him.

Retr0gamer · 20-01-2023 10:30pm

Days Gone 2 getting cancelled:

Mr.Saturn · 20-01-2023 10:47pm

Days Gone has finally drifted into 'so divisive I'm going to have to try it' territory for me. Whatever the argument, nobody ever seems to take a middling view of the game.

Retr0gamer · 20-01-2023 10:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136489#Comment_120136489

You either play it and think 'this isn't as bad as people say it is' and pin your mast to it and call it a hidden gem or you find the whole experience so mediocre that you tell people not to waste their life playing it over better games.

I mean there's terrible games and Days Gone definitely isn't one of them but it just doesn't even try to stand out on it's own and be anything special.

Potential-Monke · 20-01-2023 11:48pm

We rarely agree, but I agree.

That and the beer can size fuel tanks...

Penn · 21-01-2023 12:06am

Days Gone would have been a great game if it was half the length, double the hordes, and a quarter the dialogue (Shut up shut up shut up why the goddamn hell are you radioing me to talk I literally just f*cking left you 20 seconds ago after spending the last 5 minutes doing a mission with you just shut the goddamn hell up for a few minutes)

pixelburp · 21-01-2023 7:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120136849#Comment_120136849

I don't get AAA game's obsession with all this patter these days. Must only add time and money to development to add it all, and seems broadly unpopular with gamers

Zero-Cool · 21-01-2023 7:42am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137311#Comment_120137311

I get it with sports and GAAS where they're trying to show the investors his much time they can make players spend in their game but no idea with single player games. It's been proven time and time again over the last few years that just because a game has 50-80 hours worth of content doesn't make it good. I think maybe a lot of games were trying to capture that Witcher 3 gold and failed. I didn't play AC Valhalla but just reading about the padded play time put me right off.

I get devs want people to just keep playing their game but they border on Walking Dead Tv show territory where it just needs to end but they won't let it ( i know that eventually ended but with 15 spinoff shows).

Penn · 21-01-2023 9:40am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137311#Comment_120137311

With the likes of GTA, you have an open world which is full of life; things happening everywhere, people going about their business, you're listening to the radio etc.

With open worlds like Days Gone, Horizon etc, you have a large map, pockets of which are filled with settlements of people etc, but the rest is just empty map with various enemies and resource collection areas and challenges or whatever, and all you have to accompany you are the sounds of the environment or enemy noises. So they have to amp up things like the character talking to themselves, or side characters communicating with you the whole time, to try break up the monotony of traversing the open world.

But they need to dial it the f*ck back in a lot of cases. With Days Gone in particular, it constantly felt like having the exact same conversation with Boozer over the radio over and over again just worded slightly differently, or discussing something that literally just happened in the previous mission. NPCs would literally call you after you've just left their line of sight either during or after a mission and say nothing of value. And then of course you have Aloy in Horizon who has to vocalise everything she sees like she's trying to describe it to a blind person who's following her.

CastorTroy · 21-01-2023 9:56am

One of my main problems with open world is when they make you go on missions that involve going from one end of the map to the other repeatedly rather than just keep everything fairly local. Especially when they ask you to collect something a bit at a time rather than giving you the full list at once.

"Here's your snails from the North" "oh now you remember you also need 10 fox skins from the west where foxes apparently don't have skins since I killed a hundred and only got 2"

21-01-2023 10:10am

Yeah they have to keep you in the game for 120 hrs. I always do the bare minimum needed to get through the main story but even then it's usually not possible to level up without doing some of the tedious tasks.

I really do wonder sometimes why they are so popular. What makes people get excited for 120 hrs of.mostly tedious frustration. Is it just good marketing? People like the idea of the main story line and just blank out the other 90-100 hours of completely wasting your life.

21-01-2023 10:24am

Semi open world is a nice compromise. Open world, but small maps and to the point. Metro Exodus did it well. I'm not sure what else, possibly Gears 5 and God of War? Halo Infinite tried to do it and had the right idea, but their open world was lifeless and joyless.

I just don't have time in my life to waste 120 hrs on especially when as I am playing it it feels like they are just intentionally wasting my time. I'm a COD fan and when I think about my time spent on that. It can be as little as 20 mins stints at a time but it is pure unadulterated gameplay. Oh and I can easily rack up 120 hrs no problem at all and not a second of that is wasted. Likewise for Forza. Oh there is another open world done well. Prospects look good for the new Fable if they pull it off.

Grumpypants · 21-01-2023 11:20am

They do that chatter for accessibility to help those that process information differently. Memory, perception, attention to detail etc. all impact someone's ability to retain what happened and having it repeated helps.

Penn · 21-01-2023 11:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137507#Comment_120137507

I play a decent amount of open world games (or probably used to play more than I do now). For me it's all about gameplay, particularly when it comes to doing all the side stuff or collection fluff.

So long as I'm enjoying the gameplay, combat and traversal, and especially endgame if I can feel like a badass just fully exploring abilities and powers, I don't mind the mindless wandering or side stuff. I only ever bother with it or try to platinum the game if I'm still enjoying the gameplay.

Whereas something like RDR2, that has one of the most incredibly beautiful open worlds, and I still see the odd video showing small hidden things that you're only likely to find by really exploring everywhere. But that gameplay was so dull that after I finished the story I just felt so little enthusiasm to keep playing, and even though I'd quite like to play through the story again I just can't bring myself to even try because I know all the things outside of the main story missions I'll have to put myself through.

Brush the horse so its stamina doesnt deplete so quickly.... f*ck off.....

Penn · 21-01-2023 11:46am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120137712#Comment_120137712

I'm sure it's a hard thing to balance, and there should definitely be different sliders in menus where you can tailor it to your own needs. But if you're 40 hours into a game and collecting your 11,538th twig to make arrows, I don't see how your character saying "Better keep this for later" is still of use to anyone.

johnny_ultimate · 21-01-2023 11:57am

Accessibility is wonderful, and should be encouraged at every opportunity. However, it’s possible to make an extremely accessible game and not compromise the gameplay in the process. Games like God of War and Horizon would benefit immensely from menu options that would tweak the amount of assistance or chatter the player receives. It’s more development work, yes, but given we’re talking massive, hyper-polished first-party games in this particular conversation I’m sure the extra little bit of dev work it would require could be achieved. The result would be that a wider range of players would be able to adjust the gameplay to their preferences and needs.

SuperBowserWorld · 21-01-2023 12:11pm

Speaking of easy changes and open world games.

Ghosts of Tsushima. Started this last night ...

I get to choose my horse, after escaping near death, and it tells me there is a digital deluxe version horse available.

Kicked me right out of the game, that was trying to suck me in admirably, and made me think I was booking a b & b room with full Irish breakfast on some travel website. 🤣🤣🤣

SuperBowserWorld · 21-01-2023 12:17pm

That's one really nice thing about a lot of Nintendo games, you get trained in the mechanics without even knowing. It's because they have 40 years+ experience behind them.

It's a hard thing to do on modern complex games. They did a great job on BOTW in training you with all the skills you need, then booting you out into the big bad world after 2 hours or so on the great plateau.

I kind of got this feeling with Ghosts of Tsushima last night. But it's a harder sell for me, cause I've burned through a lot of open world games since BOTW. Skyrim certainly has the same adventure spirit as BOTW. Hoping GoT is similar.

One thing that is very important in an open world game is the soundtrack. BOTW nailed this. Skyrim also has those great flourishes. The soundtrack on GoT sounds excellent so far.

Retr0gamer · 21-01-2023 1:19pm

Nintendo aren't always the best at it. Breath of the wild was a masterpiece but they probably put so much effort in because previous Zelda's were obnoxious with their handholding. Every time you booted the game up you would be reminded what every item was when first picked up and it reached the absolute worst with skyward sword.

Then again there's always going to be people that can't grasp even simple tasks, especially in today's gaming landscape where you are spoon fed. It leads to 'why can't Metroid duck?' moments. Hell, I was put off from playing system shock 2 for years because my friend told me it was awful. Turned out he thought it was awful because he couldn't figure out how to climb a ladder at the start of the game and never got further that the opening.

SuperBowserWorld · 21-01-2023 1:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120138110#Comment_120138110

Yep, I had my Nintendo rose tinted spectacles on. 😸

Yep, Skyward Sword was so bad in this respect. "Master, your batteries are about to die in your sword". And "you have picked up a flower" blocking dialogue boxes, jingle and animation, each time you picked up something. 😹

brady12 · 22-01-2023 1:34pm

Smyths still best bet get game releases on launch day in post ? Prob going pull trigger on Dead Space remake .

wotzgoingon · 22-01-2023 4:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141356#Comment_120141356

I will wait a long time before I play that game as I played once on PC and then again about two years ago on Xbox so it's still too fresh in my mind.

McFly85 · 22-01-2023 8:59pm

I really liked Days Gone, it had enough in it to keep me going and when I had fully upgraded my tank it got much easier to appreciate - especially as by that time you were familiar enough with the map to always stop and top up if needed. Taking on a hoard was genuinely fun.

The bike upgrade and weapons systems were nonsense, though.

It was fun if not spectacular, I felt there were enough obvious improvements there for a sequel so it’s a shame we wont get one!

Penn · 22-01-2023 9:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120143437#Comment_120143437

Even though the game genuinely annoyed me to the point where I couldn't finish (think I was about 30-35 hours in before i had to give up), I do think they could have made a great sequel by taking some of the criticism on board. They had a decent framework.

Grumpypants · 22-01-2023 10:49pm

Im on my third play through of days gone after buying it again on steam deck. 🤣

Upgraded the petrol tank in the first camp which is about an hour in.

It's one of the few open world games where exploring is enjoyable and rewarding by adding to the story/world building. The amount of stuff I found just wandering around in the most random of places was brilliant.

it could have been about 30 hours shorter and just had lots of dlc for those that really wanted it.

Zero-Cool · 22-01-2023 11:19pm

I felt the burn on my 3rd playthrough with all the unnecessary beck and forth, very hard to quickly progress the story but I absolutely loved traversing the world. I never spent much money on weapons so I'd buy petrol at a camp before leaving and fill up anytime i passed a petrol station, nero check point, etc. As long as you prioritise the camps that give you bike upgrades early, makes it much more enjoyable to get around..

The time i was cruising around, took a shortcut through a field, drove off a small ridge **** 10ft high but I didn't see what was below. Landed bang in the middle of a horde. That completely random non scripted experience will be extremely hard to be topped in another open world in my book.

Damn, might have to reinstall it again.

SuperBowserWorld · 22-01-2023 11:20pm

I'm thinking a lot of the content could be user configurable in these bloaty games eg. user could pick a short, medium or long version of a game. The same way you can pick difficulty levels.

JimBurnley · 22-01-2023 11:43pm

This thread just makes me want to play Days Gone again

McFly85 · 22-01-2023 11:47pm

Yeah, I’m currently reinstalling it. Been bouncing around a few games since finishing Dark Souls 3(and as amazing as the trial of TLOU part one was it’s still too expensive!), and cruising around a zombie infested Pacific Northwest is exactly what I’m in the mood for!

Jordan 199 · 23-01-2023 12:10am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144169#Comment_120144169

Go back Jim and play it again,

Wheel on the chopper goes round and round,

Go back Jim and play it again...

23-01-2023 9:00am

I've never played it and got it free on the Epic store recently. Its on boosteroid too so I might as well give it a whirl

Zero-Cool · 23-01-2023 9:23am

My biggest gripe is the nests you can clear out to open fast travel. It's actually fun and strategic clearing out multiple at a time but it's very annoying when it says 4 in the area and you're running around like a headless chicken trying to find all of them. They should all appear on the minimap when you are in the area. Also, it has THE worst mission/quest in the world where you have to drive to an area to ask your best bud if they're doing ok, they say yeah and three mission ends. They spend so much time on the radio, wtf did u have to drive all that way for absolutely nothing. It was like the devs were given a quota with how many missions they needed to add and that was absolute filler.

Penn · 23-01-2023 9:38am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144785#Comment_120144785

I remember doing a mission with one of the women in the 3rd settlement. On the way back we passed a petrol station and she said we should come back later and clear it out. Dropped her off at the settlement, ended the mission, rode out of the settlement, and she immediately radioed me to say to come back when I get a chance and we'll go clear out the petrol station.

Why was it not just one mission? There's a decent checkpoint system in the game that means it's not like you'd have to start the whole mission again or anything, and the optimal path back to the settlement meant we were pretty much guaranteed to pass that petrol station (or she could have even just said "I know of a petrol station that needs clearing out on the way back" and just make it part of the mission).

There were just way too many "meeting that could have been an email" missions in the game that just really padded the whole thing out to the point of frustration.

One of my main gripes though were the open-world ambushes, whether by sniper or wire traps which knock you off the bike. There were never fun, never interesting, never difficult, and only in the game to have stuff happen in the open world. All they did was make me want to fast travel as much as possible.

Zero-Cool · 23-01-2023 9:55am

Meeting that should have been email is the best way to describe a lot of the meetings. Also the question marks were useless. Random map events where the q mark appears for a sec and you have to trek around wondering where it was only to be ambushed. It was never anything positive or interesting so q marks became things to avoid instead of investigate.

BUT it was so damn fun biking around the map. I loved upgrading it and taking care of it, treated it better than the usual horse in other games. A sequel had so much potential, such a waste of a great premise of biking around the apocalypse.

Penn · 23-01-2023 10:29am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144858#Comment_120144858

Yeah the ? stuff that appeared in the open world was usually either something bland, or in a lot of cases it was over by the time you got to it due to having to try find your way to it on the bike. Half the time I got to them it was just a few freakers wandering about because whoever I was trying to save had already been killed. They happened and disappeared so quickly that after a while I stopped even trying to do them unless they were literally at the roadside (survivor trapped in a car or something).

I would have enjoyed biking around the map more if not for the ambushes and just non-stop radio calls with Boozer and others. Just have some ambient music playing in the background instead, because that game had a decent soundtrack.

Like I said, if the game was half the length, double the hordes, and a quarter the dialogue, for me it would have been a damn good game.

johnny_ultimate · 23-01-2023 10:32am

Back to Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and there's a bit where the characters have to sneak into a heavily fortified base. The characters overtly say they need to sneak in, and they need to be quiet doing so - they repeat this consistently during cutscenes and in-game dialogue. But there are no mechanics allowing you to do so, so you just have to play the game as normal - meaning the entire 'stealth' section consisted of big, loud battles against seven-storey-tall mechs that were just roaming the base 😅

brady12 · 23-01-2023 6:09pm

any word on dead space remake review embargo

SuperBowserWorld · 23-01-2023 10:06pm

Packed away the "next gen" game consoles and those huge open world games away! 😛

Have a ton of stuff to do and they are not helping. My covid lockdown was going on a little too long 😹

Plus I need to decompress before the next Zelda and Starfield comes out. 🤪

Have some excellent and much smaller and focussed 3DS and Switch games to complete in case of emergencies. 👍

Retr0gamer · 23-01-2023 11:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120148147#Comment_120148147

I've started to enjoy videogames again since I've started to actively avoid these games last year.

24-01-2023 8:38am

On the topic of time wasting open worlds with annoying dialogues.....Forspoken is out.

Thinking about picking up Stray as my next game. Meow 😺

Vicxas · 24-01-2023 10:55am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFvRXyPAyf8

As we feared Forespoken is a pile of dogshite

J. Marston · 24-01-2023 11:49am

Yeah, those time-wasting colossal open worlds with a million markers are a pain.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Skellige in The Witcher 3.

Cordell · 24-01-2023 2:27pm

Excuse me, it's been a good while since I bought a AAA game at launch from a non grey market vendor, is 80 euros the new normal?

Penn · 24-01-2023 2:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150626#Comment_120150626

Pretty much, yeah. 70-80euro. Prices jumped a bit this generation, even though games have so many additional forms of revenue built-in.

McFly85 · 24-01-2023 2:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150626#Comment_120150626

Yeah, between €70 and 80 is the the usual price for standard editions unfortunately.

Unless it’s something that I’m completely desperate to play I’d usually wait for a sale which doesn’t usually take that long, maybe 6 months and you can get it for less than €60 anyway.

Cordell · 24-01-2023 2:44pm

Yes that's what I'm usually doing, I almost never buy at launch and from the main distributor. I was jus curious seeing Forspoken on Steam for 80 euros - 49 on CDkeys if anyone is interested, I'm not anymore, I'll wait for more PC reviews especially the DF one.

Retr0gamer · 24-01-2023 2:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150626#Comment_120150626

Depends on the publisher. The scummiest ones like Square Enix, Sony, EA, Bamco are charging 80. There's still a few hold ours at 60 on PC but probably will be the new normal. It's much worse on the closed off markets on consoles.

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