Written by BitterCOld on 05.04.2017 at 20:12

As a side note, a lot has been said/ about ME Andromeda.

My shortest way to describe it... if Mass Effect's original trilogy were the first three Star Wars flicks, Andromeda is The Phantom Menace.

Read the same things. I also see NieR:Automata is where it's at. But for 60 bucks?....debating.

Left 4 Dead 2 is so awesome. Just throwing that out there.

Anyone mess around with PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds? I have heard and read it's the shit.

I am just finishing Watch Dogs. I am not impressed. Did anyone play Watch Dogs 2? Is it better?

I play lots of games, or at least I used to. Recently been digging Shenmue II, as Shenmue I is my all time favorite game tied with FFVI

Also, at some point I want to try Metal Gear solid, but I'm not sure where to start... I doubt the games have to be played in order, right?

Written by [user id=142921] on 01.06.2017 at 16:04


What you do is up to you but I say play in the order they were released so you can see the growth in gameplay, pick up on the callbacks etc.

If it's too archaic for you then you can just watch the first game on youtube. There's a movie by KefkaProduction with all the cutscenes that lasts 4 hours.

I would love to do that eventually. It doesn't feel right but I might just watch the first one as a movie, and continue from there. I would also have to emulate them, which for me would be too much work. I don't know, I will play them eventually.

If by first one you mean the 1998 PS game, then that's perfectly playable today. You can skip MGS2, but I'd definitely play 1 and 3 (Snake Eater). Emulation of PS games is no trouble at all, just pick up ePSXe and PCSX2 or something.

I am set up for life with unplayed games, having all the classic games on all the classic consoles to emulate and a steam library of a few hundred. Too bad I haven't had the chance to play in a few months more than a few hours every second weekend or something.

I still haven't managed to beat Witcher 3, and I've played Valkyria Chronicles for almost two months now. It's a pretty good squad-based tactical game. A LOT of JRPG dialogue/cutscenes between missions, though, which might bother me under different circumstances (but pretty leisurely to watch while entertaining a baby at the same time anyway). Character turns are semi-real-time, over-the-shoulder, which I guess is a refreshing change but at the end of the day a gimmick that hampers the tactical aspect. Enemy AI and victory conditions are terribly designed, which bring it down a notch. Still fun but not a new standard for the genre.

To my great fortune, my vacation this year started just now when the Steam summer sale is happening. Bought 7 games today: Half-Life 1 and 2, Final Fantasy IX, X, X-2 and XIII and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Not sure which game I am going to start with quite yet. I've only played FF IX and X out of those before and never finished X (it kind of sucked), but as one of the hardcore fans of the classic SNES and PS1 FF games, I am doomed to keep playing all of the FF games, even though IX was the last truly great one. I'm also mildly curious as to how good or bad XIII actually is. Not expecting it to live up to VII, but hoping it is better than Spoony's review made it out to be. Half-Life 1 and 2 are classics of course. Can't really even consider myself a true gamer before I've played those.

I finally legally own an N64 and my favorite game of all time, The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask! (I had played it on a computer before.)

Been playing a few retro-RPGs lately... Tides of Numenera, Wasteland 2... I also bought Dishonored 2 but kind of got bored with it after a while unlike the first one. Don't know why.

Currently looking forward to Path of Exile 3.0 and Pillars of Eternity II.

L. A. Noire with my wife: it's OK for playing together, leisurely and the story is cool. Incredibly easy though, made impossible to lose so it breaks immersion constantly. And as fun as the interrogation idea is, reading facial expressions, the inability to see what your character is going to say next (you just get the options to press/doubt, accept as true, or accuse them of an outright lie) has many times made us choose something we didn't intend to say. And just what evidence is acceptable for a given accusation is sometimes quite obscure. It's a fun casual game though.

Half-Life 2. Ugh, I complained earlier about how the original was a mediocre let-down not worth its hype, and this is pretty much the same. I don't mind linearity, but this series makes zero effort to mask its railroading. And who the fuck thought the game needed MORE vehicle sequences, after that Rails level? The puzzles are dumb (especially after the brilliant Portal) and, along with the Gravity Gun, feel like a tech demo more than great gameplay. "Oh let's stop running down this corridor and shooting everything to weigh this ramp with bricks because PHYSICS!" It has its fun sequences, like Ravenholm, and I hope it gets better after the car levels.

Age of Decadence. Now this is how you do an RPG. Multiple factions, real consequences for your choices, several solutions to problems (I am going for a completely non-violent first playthrough, investing in social skills). The downside, I guess, is that the developer seems to obsess over specialization. It's almost mandatory to choose a focus and stick with it, hybrid builds don't seem very viable. The combat (judging by the tutorial) seems OK, competent AP/turn-based stuff, but nothing very flashy. Still, alongside Underrail, this is a true gem among old-school indie RPGs. Recommended over Pillars of Eternity etc.

Uh, I rarely buy new games at full price, especially if they're anything close to AAA. But fuck, NieR: Automata and Pray both look worth playing.

I also kind of feel like giving GTA V a whirl with my wife; she doesn't care for the violence and criminal storylines but there seems to be much fun had in the city. And, although I didn't finish Assassin's Creed II yet, I'm itching to dig into Victorian London or even the pirate stuff. Dunno, triple-As usually turn out disappointing after a while, but they look so juicy in trailers.

Happy 20th anniversary, Final Fantasy VII. Still the crown jewel of the series and one of the best games I've ever played, a masterpiece of storytelling, characterization, and atmosphere.

Written by Metren on 07.09.2017 at 13:49

Happy 20th anniversary, Final Fantasy VII. Still the crown jewel of the series and one of the best games I've ever played, a masterpiece of storytelling, characterization, and atmosphere.

My all time favorite video game (tied with Shenmue)

Written by [user id=159927] on 08.09.2017 at 02:12

My all time favorite video game (tied with Shenmue)

I can't decide between FF VII, Baldur's Gate II and The Witcher 3, but VII definitely got the most emotion out of me.

Played Dishonored. What a lackluster game. Stealth was trivial, combat was disincentivized story-wise and very boring and easy regardless, and the much-advertised "different approaches" to levels were mostly irrelevant because you had to go back and forth via every route just to get all the runes and gold etc. (Admittedly, that is a problem with many games; the levels are clearly designed to reward completionism and there's no reward for choosing the best route. Would work better without bonus loot and maybe a reward system that balanced time, ruckus and damage taken or something.) And I fucking hate the cheat vision which also hampered Batman for me, not to mention the terrible idea of a floating quest marker pointing the way. In a game of stealth and infiltration through complex levels. Really.

It was a decent romp to pass the time and I liked that the story was at least a bit reactive. The setting was really cool, could have made more of it.

Also tried God of War (first one). Just played the hydra level. Not remotely interesting, unfortunately.

No idea what to pick up next, meh. Maybe Persona 4.

Written by Metren on 07.09.2017 at 13:49

Happy 20th anniversary, Final Fantasy VII. Still the crown jewel of the series and one of the best games I've ever played, a masterpiece of storytelling, characterization, and atmosphere.

So true, so true.

BTW, just started Vagrant Story all over again, just to relive the fantastic story and dark mood. This game is such a gem!

What JRPGs would you recommend, by the way? Must be PC or emulatable. Vagrant Story's on my list. Done FFs, CT, Grandia, Earthbound, Suikoden II, Kingdom Hearts, Valkyria Chroniles.

Things on my to-play list (that I might never get around to): Persona 3 & 4, a Mario game (RPG or Paper), Xenogears.

My problem with them is mostly that they're just too long and grindy. Anything that breaks that mold would be ideal. Also tactical is always better.


I needed to recover from Dishonored so I installed Thief 2. I haven't played it before, been saving it.

Just got a new PC with the following specs:

GTX 1060 6GB
Ryzen 5 1400
8 GB RAM
Directx 12
1TB HDD

Been playing a lot of games, such as:

-Max Payne 3: I finally ended the trilogy I started playing back in 2005. Fucking glorious game. (9.5/10)
-Battlefield 1: The campaign is decent enough and the multiplayer is huge. (7.9/10)
-Saints Row 3 and IV: The first two games were just GTA copycats. However 3 made a change for the better, it's funny and damn entertaining. IV push things too far and the result was even more brilliant. (8/10 and 9.2/10).
-GTA IV: Yaaa it was good to play again one of the best games ever. (10/10).
-GTA V: Overrated, the characters were not as likeable as Niko, the physics were not as good as the ones in IV, the story was crap and it left me disappointed after the end. GTA Online is good and made my purchase worth it though (6.4/10)
-Batman Arkham Knight: I'm still playing it, it's great until now and it might be even better than Arkham City, however the port is completely crap, I've got to turn down some graphic options to play decently at 48-90 fps. Battlefield 1's graphics are completely superior to the ones here and I can run it at 60 fps with no problems. (pending)
-Assassin's Creed Black Flag: Still playing it too, terrible port, It's a game from 2013 and I still have to disable some options so I can play with no problems. (pending)
-Overwatch: Great asses, I prefer Team Fortress 2 during its golden years though (7/10)

Written by Maco on 06.10.2017 at 02:29

Just got a new PC with the following specs:

GTX 1060 6GB
Ryzen 5 1400
8 GB RAM
Directx 12
1TB HDD

Been playing a lot of games, such as:

-Max Payne 3: I finally ended the trilogy I started playing back in 2005. Fucking glorious game. (9.5/10)
-Battlefield 1: The campaign is decent enough and the multiplayer is huge. (7.9/10)
-Saints Row 3 and IV: The first two games were just GTA copycats. However 3 made a change for the better, it's funny and damn entertaining. IV push things too far and the result was even more brilliant. (8/10 and 9.2/10).
-GTA IV: Yaaa it was good to play again one of the best games ever. (10/10).
-GTA V: Overrated, the characters were not as likeable as Niko, the physics were not as good as the ones in IV, the story was crap and it left me disappointed after the end. GTA Online is good and made my purchase worth it though (6.4/10)
-Batman Arkham Knight: I'm still playing it, it's great until now and it might be even better than Arkham City, however the port is completely crap, I've got to turn down some graphic options to play decently at 48-90 fps. Battlefield 1's graphics are completely superior to the ones here and I can run it at 60 fps with no problems. (pending)
-Assassin's Creed Black Flag: Still playing it too, terrible port, It's a game from 2013 and I still have to disable some options so I can play with no problems. (pending)
-Overwatch: Great asses, I prefer Team Fortress 2 during its golden years though (7/10)

That sounds awesome! I agree with most of your opinions on those games as well.

So broke down and got timesink FF7 for PS4. look forward to hours and hours of drinking watery south american beer-like lager and breeding/racing chocobos.

PS is running a special for Bioshock, $30 (down from $60) for the collection. Worth a go?

Written by BitterCOld on 20.10.2017 at 03:10

PS is running a special for Bioshock, $30 (down from $60) for the collection. Worth a go?

The first Bioshock is outdated, I played it last year and it wasn't as amazing as people say. However, Infinite blew my mind and improves the formula implemented in the first two games, it's a new story so you won't be missing anything important. Play that instead.

Written by BitterCOld on 20.10.2017 at 03:10

PS is running a special for Bioshock, $30 (down from $60) for the collection. Worth a go?

Maco is crazy. The original Bioshock is a genre defining game and totally worth the praise it receives. I replayed it over the summer and it hasn't even remotely lost its appeal. Bioshock Infinite, similarly, is an incredible game (particularly for people looking for a colorful and unique story). Bioshock 2 is trash though, so I would honestly just skip over it. I'm a massive Bioshock and System Shock fanboy though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Written by Alex F on 20.10.2017 at 18:55

The original Bioshock is a genre defining game and totally worth the praise it receives. --- I'm a massive Bioshock and System Shock fanboy though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Does not compute, to be honest. Since you've played SS you have a pretty clear frame of reference. How is Bioshock, for all intents and purposes a AAAified, watered-down copy of SS (2) "genre-defining"? I'm not saying it didn't have its original twist, but I don't think it brought anything substantially new or important.

I've only played the first Bioshock, maybe four years ago or something, but it didn't feel dated to me. It felt casual as fuck, though. It completely misunderstood the System Shock formula: despite superficial similarities the core gameplay of resource management, tension and avoiding fights if you can was replaced with ostensibly limited but practically endless ammo, waves of enemies and cookie-cutter FPS action. The oppressive SS fear of "Oh fuck I'm almost out of ammo and I don't want to go into that storage room to find a keycard because I know what's there, but I have to" is replaced with, well, jumpscares. "Oh shit maniac lunging at me. Ah right, shotgun, nevermind." It's not challenging, it's not tactical, it's not particularly tense and it's not very fun.

It's not a bad game despite all that criticism. The story is good (although the method of delivery through audio logs is forced, at times) and the setting is really atmospheric. If you want a straightforward, pass-the-time shooter with hilariously creepy characters and dark, outlandish tone, give it a go. Don't expect the spiritual successor of SS2, though.

Written by IronAngel on 20.10.2017 at 21:56

Does not compute, to be honest. Since you've played SS you have a pretty clear frame of reference. How is Bioshock, for all intents and purposes a AAAified, watered-down copy of SS (2) "genre-defining"? I'm not saying it didn't have its original twist, but I don't think it brought anything substantially new or important.

I've only played the first Bioshock, maybe four years ago or something, but it didn't feel dated to me. It felt casual as fuck, though. It completely misunderstood the System Shock formula: despite superficial similarities the core gameplay of resource management, tension and avoiding fights if you can was replaced with ostensibly limited but practically endless ammo, waves of enemies and cookie-cutter FPS action. The oppressive SS fear of "Oh fuck I'm almost out of ammo and I don't want to go into that storage room to find a keycard because I know what's there, but I have to" is replaced with, well, jumpscares. "Oh shit maniac lunging at me. Ah right, shotgun, nevermind." It's not challenging, it's not tactical, it's not particularly tense and it's not very fun.

It's not a bad game despite all that criticism. The story is good (although the method of delivery through audio logs is forced, at times) and the setting is really atmospheric. If you want a straightforward, pass-the-time shooter with hilariously creepy characters and dark, outlandish tone, give it a go. Don't expect the spiritual successor of SS2, though.

I think the unique game mechanics, flawless story, and phenomenal ability to create atmosphere all play to Bioshock's (both 1 and Infinite) advantage. They obviously aren't as good as SS2, but SS2 is pretty much in a league of its own along with the original Deus Ex. I generally try not to compare the two directly. I can't think of many story based "FPS" type games that can really compete with Bioshock aside from maybe Half-Life and the Metro games. I'm a sucker for a game with a story that draws me in, and to me Bioshock has been able to do just that. I don't think a game has to be overbearingly difficult (or even remotely so) to be fun or achieve tension. Horror games like Outlast for instance are super easy, but still tense as all hell. Also, to be fair, I've become a far less intense gamer than I used to be, which may factor into my enjoyment for Bioshock recently. SS2 is in my top 5 games while Bioshock isn't though, so don't think I don't agree with you that it's certainly not as good.

I guess it's somewhat atypical, yeah. The FPS aspect is pretty mediocre though, and the superpowers aren't all that fun.

I haven't played them yet, but maybe Dead Space? Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though not as action-oriented. Dishonored felt potentially quite similar too, although of course less gun-toting. Only I made the mistake of playing it stealthy instead of having fun with the powers. I dunno, it's not my genre of game to begin with (I also was not too impressed with Half-Life 1 or 2), I only seem to really get into FPS when it's stealthy, tactical or RPG (i.e. Deus Ex, Thief, bit of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., New Vegas, SS2) so maybe I'm not judging fairly.

I still have to try F.E.A.R. and Metro. I have both on Steam for some reason, must have been a bundle.

Written by IronAngel on 21.10.2017 at 00:43

I guess it's somewhat atypical, yeah. The FPS aspect is pretty mediocre though, and the superpowers aren't all that fun.

I haven't played them yet, but maybe Dead Space? Deus Ex: Human Revolution, though not as action-oriented. Dishonored felt potentially quite similar too, although of course less gun-toting. Only I made the mistake of playing it stealthy instead of having fun with the powers. I dunno, it's not my genre of game to begin with (I also was not too impressed with Half-Life 1 or 2), I only seem to really get into FPS when it's stealthy, tactical or RPG (i.e. Deus Ex, Thief, bit of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., New Vegas, SS2) so maybe I'm not judging fairly.

I still have to try F.E.A.R. and Metro. I have both on Steam for some reason, must have been a bundle.

The F.E.A.R games are fairly mediocre in my opinion, but I enjoyed them somewhat. Both Metro games are absolutely phenomenal in my opinion (particularly when you play on harder difficulties). The storytelling is, in my opinion, superb, and the general mechanics of the game are so perfectly implemented. The gun selection is a bit limited, but for a ~10 hour game it's not too bad, and the modification system is pretty cool. I would definitely recommend playing the redux versions on the "survival" game-type (instead of "spartan", which is more guns-blazing action oriented).

I'm almost always more interested in a game if there's an RPG element like in the STALKER games. I honestly never got too into Thief, though maybe I should revisit that and see if my opinion has changed. I've also never played Dishonored so might consider buying that if it goes on sale on steam.

Written by Alex F on 21.10.2017 at 21:30

I'm almost always more interested in a game if there's an RPG element like in the STALKER games.

Have you seen Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979), or read Roadside Picnic?

So continuing my old game splurge, got FF7 for PS4 ... thank fuck for the 3x speed mode, so the horrible post-Midgar 30 minute sequence was trimmed to like 10. still some annoyances and bugs.

Aslo got Fallout, Fallout2 and Fallout: New Vegas for the lappy.

These and the MSAs hould keep my occupied for a while.