Written by [user id=142921] on 02.01.2018 at 13:27

How come not the legacy collection for Ps3?

Because:
A) I dont have a PS3 nor do I really want one
B) I just got the first 3 games and a PS2 from a friend

Played Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Solid as expected, about as good as Dragonfall (probably comes down to NPC/story preference).

Started Divinity: Original Sin. I was skeptical because of its popularity; that's usually a bad sign with RPGs. But holy shit, this is fun. The story seems inane and the humour a bit silly, but the gameplay is so fun and old school. You get to figure things out on your own and break the game, and it feels so satisfying. It's genuinely challenging, so you don't feel bad doing whatever you need to do.

Written by IronAngel on 06.01.2018 at 01:46

Played Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Solid as expected, about as good as Dragonfall (probably comes down to NPC/story preference).

Started Divinity: Original Sin. I was skeptical because of its popularity; that's usually a bad sign with RPGs. But holy shit, this is fun. The story seems inane and the humour a bit silly, but the gameplay is so fun and old school. You get to figure things out on your own and break the game, and it feels so satisfying. It's genuinely challenging, so you don't feel bad doing whatever you need to do.

I too am skeptical towards these "Divinity" games. As you say, popular RPGs tend to be either Bethesda-style giant sandboxes or new Bioware-style badly disguised action RPGs. As an old school computer RPG player I'm always looking for my next "Baldur's Gate" fix, maybe I'll give it a shot.

Video games I am playing? None at the moments, got exams to study for... Looking forward to Wasteland 3 and Pillars of Eternity 2 though.

Written by [user id=142921] on 08.01.2018 at 14:40

Don't torment yourself with Divinity OS 1. Divinity OS 2 is quite goodish. At times it's actually excellent, namely the first main area. Shit starts to derail quite quickly through late act 2 and act 3 imo. Don't expect everything to be full of exposition. Don't expect zombies (or the Divinity equivalent) to have a paragraph on how they have leather wrapping and nails holding their skin intact, or how they have a cloth hanging from their skull with the number 765 tattooed on their forehead. It's got some neat features like talking to animals.

Some people like the combat, some don't, some aren't fussed. I think it's alright but the problem for me lies in the fact that enemies (and your crew) have separate physical and magic armour stats. So essentially, if you mix your crew to do both physical and magic damage you're compromising combat effectiveness for variety.

At times creative, at times infuriating but in the end you can play as a lizard so I'd say worth my $30.

Haha, well I'm not looking for another "Planescape", last year's "Torment" was pretty good but nowhere near... I'm just happy if I get a decent story, mature writing (i.e. not ME: Andromeda even though the gameplay was pretty fun), immersive character progression and strategic combat. The recent "isometric revival" has been wonderful (and burned a wonderfully large hole in my pocket). It sounds promising, will definitely check it out. Also heard good stuff about its co-op capabilities!

It's not great writing. The characters are kind of funny but throwaway, and the PC character growth/personalisation (in terms of dialogue) is kind of superficial. Both your main PCs get personality traits based on their choices (they can disagree) but the actual lines you get to choose are usually pretty crude. The entire Divinity series is full of juvenile humour. I think it's charmingly old-school and I love getting to just play a good, high-fantasy romp without all the serious drama video games are recently jammed full of in an attempt to "grow up" and be "art."

I love the fact that it isn't overly wordy, like PoE or something. I don't mind reading a lot if the writing is good, but when it comes to video games, it very rarely is. It's short and to the point, flavored enough to give a general vibe and get the point across (not like early Final Fantasies!), but you don't have to read pages of second-rate Tolkiens fabulating about every peasant and tragic companion.

The real meat is the combat (don't see why anyone who likes turn-based RPGs wouldn't like it), character building, freedom in solving quests/problems and actually having to find the answers looking around the world and maybe even reading stuff. Very few quest markers or shit like that. A bit too much micro-management though (in terms of identifying items, shifting shit around in inventories etc.).

The comparison isn't exact (one being a party blobber and the other an isometric tactical turn-based), but in terms of atmosphere/genre I'd look to Wizardry rather than Black Isle or Troika stuff.

The first Divinity game is also quite fun, played it a bit. It's a Diablo-like but an actual RPG.

About 3/5 into Xenogears, first time playing it. A wonderful game so far, though the story is complex and messy as hell. A couple of too long and boring dungeons though (sewers, that Babel tower).

Games I dugged in 2017:

Nier: Automata - Best story in a game I've played in ages, with possibly the best, most awe-inspiringly meta ending in any. Otherwise has great, fun mechanics, amazing music and generally does very little wrong. GotY.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 - The game I've spent most time on in a single playthrough in any game I've played. Finished at 110 hours I think and took me a month to finish. The combat and exploration / questing is the best in a PC RPG I think I've played, and the story is reasonably ok. Loses a bit of steam near the end and is buggy as hell but the core experience earns this a modern classic title for sure.

Night In The Woods - While it doesn't necessarily represent my youth it's hard not to relate to this in a roundabout way and gave off some Kentucky Route Zero vibes.

Zelda: Breath Of The Wild - I bounced off this pretty hard at first, thinking it was empty and aimless, but after returning to it I loved the vast, open and minimalist world. It's far from perfect though; the combat is a bit mediocre and the 4 dungeons are pretty poor, but I can't fault the overall experience. Also looks great played on a PC.

Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City - Great swansong for the series, and finished on the best and most fun boss in the whole series.

Everspace - Really fun roguelike space shooter with very pretty visuals. Can get boring after a while but it's great to come back to every now and then for a quick fix.

OneShot - Definitely for fans of Undertale, in fact I think I preferred this for some reason.

There were other games I liked: Hollow Knight and Dead Cells were good metroidvanias, and Resident Evil 7 was fun for a playthrough, even though it was basically Resident Evil 1 in first-person and did nothing new whatsoever outside of the perspective change. Generally though unless I like a game I won't play it to the end and just give up on it. Stuff like Sexy Brutale and Observer would probably earn high marks if I put the effort into them though. I got through most of Tales Of Berseria too, which actually had a story nearly worthy of a modern JRPG, but the Tales series need to up their dungeon and world art / level design game so badly it hurts. Cave. field, castle, forest with the most unimaginative rendering, recycle - repeat.

A few disappointments too:

Nioh - Think it's safe to say Dark Souls ruined games that ape it before they even come out. Nioh I wanted to like so much but the garbage art and level design, repetitive enemies and terrible Diablo loot system put me right off from the beginning. I can see why people like the combat system, but for me it was too mechanical and not fun to play.

Prey - A game with this level of high quality level design and visuals deserves a combat system that isn't this frustrating and counter-intuitive.

Torment: Tides of Numenera - Planescape: Torment is brilliant because it told a convoluted, fascinating story. T:TN sucks because it tells a mediocre story through verbose nonsense which constantly gets lost up its own arsehole. Shame because the visuals were very pretty and imaginative.

Written by Mercurial on 02.02.2018 at 14:16

Games I dugged in 2017:

Nier: Automata - Best story in a game I've played in ages, with possibly the best, most awe-inspiringly meta ending in any. Otherwise has great, fun mechanics, amazing music and generally does very little wrong. GotY.

I finished the game once with 2b, I don't know if I should keep playing it.

Written by Maco on 02.02.2018 at 17:33


I finished the game once with 2b, I don't know if I should keep playing it.

Hell yes you should. The next playthrough is with 9S, and is more of a slightly different perspective to 2B's playthrough, and is probably the weakest part of the game, but after that the plot blows wide open with a new character and story. It's worth playing the game to its conclusion.

Written by Mercurial on 02.02.2018 at 14:16

Games I dugged in 2017

If you're really THE Joe, then I owe you one. It was after I'd almost given up on gaming due to nothing living up to The Witcher 3 anymore (in my eyes anyway, I just couldn't get into newer games), that I remembered your quote about Xenogears that went: "Mmm, Xenogears. I think I may have spent more time thinking about the plot of that game than any other". I thought to myself if new games can't interest me, how about looking to the past? BOOM! 2-3 days of playing Xenogears and I was in love with RPGs once again. It's just so depressing that Square pulled the plug and forced the 2nd disc to be what it is.

Written by Metren on 04.02.2018 at 16:58


If you're really THE Joe, then I owe you one. It was after I'd almost given up on gaming due to nothing living up to The Witcher 3 anymore (in my eyes anyway, I just couldn't get into newer games), that I remembered your quote about Xenogears that went: "Mmm, Xenogears. I think I may have spent more time thinking about the plot of that game than any other". I thought to myself if new games can't interest me, how about looking to the past? BOOM! 2-3 days of playing Xenogears and I was in love with RPGs once again. It's just so depressing that Square pulled the plug and forced the 2nd disc to be what it is.

Glad you liked it, I'm due for a playthrough of that and currently working my way through a bunch of PS1 RPGs on my PSP (I find games with pre-rendered backgrounds look prettiest on that). Just finished FF9 and just started Chrono Cross.

I didn't mind the 2nd disc fiasco as much as some. There's still something like 10 - 15 hours of gameplay on disc 2 and the first I think is about 35 - 40 so it's still a 50+ hour game. If they had fully fleshed out disc 2 it might have even made the game overly long. I'd recommend the Xenosaga games too. They're not as immense but the stories in them still go beyond what most games do, though beware Xenosaga 2 is a bit of a chore to play but necessary if you want to follow the plot to it's end.

The only other JRPG that made me think as much about it afterwards was SMT: Lucifer's Call (called SMT: Nocturne in the US) but it tackles very different themes to Xenogears where the ideas of good and evil are largely grey, and explores personal motivations to an extreme degree. If you like the Persona games but want a more esoteric and unusual story with a waaay better and more varied battle system then it's worth playing. No social link system though but has proper dungeons and exploration anyway. The version I played, Lucifer's Call (the SMT: Nocturne Maniax version I think it's called in the US) also has Dante in from Devil May Cry in, which is weird but somehow kind of works in the universe it's set in. That version also has an extra dungeon and bosses which is tackled slowly over the course of the game, as well as a "true" ending so I would always recommend that version.

Written by Metren on 30.01.2018 at 03:22

About 3/5 into Xenogears, first time playing it. A wonderful game so far, though the story is complex and messy as hell. A couple of too long and boring dungeons though (sewers, that Babel tower).

Story is complex and messy exactly, but it's an absolutely amazing game.
First key word of the story is the panspermia theory.

Don't forget to work those finish moves by practicing.... the game doesn't tell you how to do it directly, it lets you discover (by just repeating the combinations many times)

Playing/enjoying Skyrim, thought Dawnguard has me pretty pissed. Discover the castle before you do the quests and you're not only locked out, you have that one being following you around like a lost puppy. can't get rid of her, she won't carry anything... and occasionally attacks your sidekick.

Wish I could just remove Dawnguard from the PS4 super edition entirely.

About to finish now (level 55, already beat Dragonborn... only reason I haven't finished the game is was stupid and bumped archery to Legendary, so have to grind it up another 18 levels or so to regain max) so at least on my 2nd playthrough will skip exploring the castle, save before the quest encountering tagalong and if it fucks up again then, just reverting and leaving them were they originally were.

So fucking stupid Bethesda hasn't fixed this. The game has been around for ever, recently upgraded for ps4 or other platforms, now VR... so still raking in the cash. It's not some sidequest, it's a key step to an entire expansion.

Just gotta advertise, there's a ridiculously good Humble Bundle out now: 15 bucks for the Dreamfall: Chapters, Torment: Numenara, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun trilogy, Age of Wonders III, Xenonauts (like old-school X:COM revived) etc. I had just grabbed Dreamfall last week on Steam sale, because I'd finished DF:TLJ, but I asked for a refund immediately.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/classics-return-bundle

I've been playing some story/adventure games with my wife lately. They are surprisingly fun together, like watching TV, although I probably wouldn't enjoy them so much solo. Life is Strange, DF:TLJ and The Wolf Among Us, most recently.

On my own, apart from D:OS, I'm almost done with The Mark of the Ninja. May be the smoothest stealth game I've ever played, although it doesn't quite have the immersion of Thief or such 3D sneaker. May try Invisible Inc. next, to see how a turn-based stealth game works out.

Games I played lately:

Half Life 2: The best PC game has aged awesomely well. 10/10
The Witcher 1: Shit, I skipped it after a while and went directly to the sequel 4/10
Prototype 1: I played the game a long time ago when it was released in a shitty laptop, I decided to play again. It's fun at the beginning but it gets repetitive. 7/10
Tekken 7: The story mode was short but it has good graphics and the combat system hasn't changed that much. I'm still a fucking pro in that game. 7.5/10
Assassin's Creed Origins: Ubisoft always with their shitty PC ports. I can't play this game the way it should be. Damn shame because it looked quite fun. Uninstalled.
SOMA: Great game, not really scary but the story was awesome. 8.5/10
Left 4 Dead 2: Fuuun as always 8/10

GTA 4: After that big clusterfuck that GTA 5 was it's amazing to remember again how brilliant the previous one was. 9.8/10

Written by [user id=142921] on 09.05.2018 at 14:40

boo get off the stage!!!

Ugh u like GTA 5!!!!!

GTA V is actually really fun. I don't even play much of the story, I just go around and do whatever I want. I love the freedom. The graphics are great, the attention to detail is pretty good, overall it's very enjoyable.

I enjoyed San Andreas a bit and tried to get into V. It's pretty decent to waste a few hours on, but the whole series is just so... meh, the more you spend time on it.

I got a new graphics card so I could finally get back to Witcher 3 to play the expansions. I gave the main game a lot of flak, and it's well deserved, but taking a long break made some of the illusion come back and some of the issues (boring combat, mediocre plot, lack of puzzles) have been fixed in the expansions. At least I really enjoyed Hearts of Stone, it was compact and had three worthwhile fights. The characters were great, the pacing excellent and there were was no unnecessary bloat. Now somewhere through Blood and Wine and while it suffers some of the problems of the original (yet again the lack of focus, shit exploration, chasing red dots etc.), it is a really refreshing change of scenery. For three games we've trudged in swamps, slums and muddy battlefields - it lost its edge - so getting to frolick with unicorns in a fairytale garden is surprisingly sweet. Beautiful world.

Still, though, at least 70% of this game is cutscenes, ugh.

I am in the middle of Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2, too. Surprisingly, I think W2 is actually the better game once the initial charm of D:OS gameplay wore off. The story just isn't there, there's no motivation to push forward. Gonna grab D:OS2 when it's cheap though, since it apparently improves massively on the one aspect that makes D:OS disappointing. W2 is hardly reinventing the wheel, but it's very solid, bread-and-butter isometric fun that just always works for me. Still, I'd recommend Underrail and Age of Decadence over either of these big names.

Played a bit of Bioshock Infinite. Kind of pretty but not impressed with gameplay so far. Didn't really like the first game either.

Also bought Nier: Automata, but I'm still at the beginning since I'm playing with my wife when there's time. Looks awesome though. Thinking about Dishonored 2 or the other title, since they're supposedly better than the first. I played it as a stealth game which sucked, but maybe I should try a newer title as a superhero action game instead. Seems designed for that.

Dark Souls: Remastered - It's Dark Souls. Looks slightly better, plays just as jankily as ever. Already have a +3 Black Knight Sword and have only killed the Taurus Demon so am already hideously overpowered. Somehow managed to nab a Baller Swag Sword though against all luck so maybe I'll play with that instead. Don't buy this if you already own the Prepare To Die Edition, unless you can't or won't mod it with the DSfix and texture packs or are having serious performance problems. The refreshed multiplayer will be dead again in a couple of weeks.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire - Have played maybe 12 hours, which doesn't really feel much to be honest so can't comment on the story or much in the way of characters. Seems pretty good though. Visually it's much improved from the first and the full voice acting gives it a much more expensive feel than the first which belied it's comparatively cheap production. Combat feels pretty much the same though maybe a bit easier. Hate the ship combat and don't like having to constantly have resources and money to keep the ship and crew going, it puts me on edge. I just wanna play it at my own pace and not have to worry about that. The exploration aspect feels quite nice though.

Ni No Kuni II - I put a few hours into it back when it came out on PC and it seemed nice. I like the combat; it's such a massive improvement over the first. For some reason I haven't carried on with it but I'm sure I will at some point. The lack of voice acting is a let down though. Some parts are voice acted but most of it isn't and I think a Ghibli-esque game really needs full voice acting.

FFXIII: The Zodiac Age - Another fairly barebones remaster of the Japanese variant, but honestly it's just as good as when it was released back in the day. I thought restricting the classes would make it more difficult than the original version, but they seemed to have rejigged the balance to compensate and makes character stat and skill progression much more fun, although I did find I kind of more or less maxed my characters fairly early on in the game, other than the level they were on. But yeah, I'm glad it seems to have been better received reception wise with the player base than when it was originally released. Vaan is still as superfluous. He literally doesn't need to be in the game after the opening few hours. I still find the combat immensely satisfying and it can get really tense in some of the boss battles. The speed-up option is a God-send too.

FF XV: What a load of arse. I couldn't play more than half an hour each time before getting utterly bored with it. Lame-ass characters, boring story and side quests, empty and artless world, sluggish unsatisfying combat and so on. Needless to say I didn't get very far.

Ghost of a Tale: I've plunked a few hours into this but not gotten too far. It's really pretty for an indie game, very charming and the rudimentary stealth mechanics work well, and the level design is brilliant and very Souls-ian, but the bugs have put me off playing it further. I can usually deal with bugs fine but the game is riddled with all sorts of technical issues that just make it a chore to persist with. I'll go back when it's all smoothed out. I also got kinda lost in what I was supposed to do so that's partly why I didn't carry on.

Titanfall 2: One of the best single-player campaigns in an FPS I've played in years. It's a tad shorter than I would have liked but it's hella fun, had clever level design and pretty to look at, and the story was adequate enough.

Hyper Light Drifter: I bounced off this a while ago but sat down and played some while my house mate was hanging out and I think I finally broke into a bit. Again, haven't got very far but it definitely started to appeal to me. Great visuals, combat actualls works really well and the open ended feel of the exploration has a nice structure to it. Will definitely carry on at some point.


Contemplating getting a PS4 again now, to replay Bloodborne and because it seems to have enough quality exclusives to justify it: Persona 5, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4, The Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2, as well as the Shadow of the Colossus remake and Last Of Us remaster (which I haven't played at all yet). God of War too I guess but I suspect I won't like it. It does have Teal'c voicing Kratos though so might get it purely for that reason, lel. Also for Death Stranding when it comes out. That game looks like it'll be gnarly. Where the hell are the Xbox One exclusives though? The console's 4 and half years old now and only Halo 5 seems worth it. Even Sunset Overdrive is coming to PC.

Titanfall 2: Very good campaign and the multiplayer was entertaining for a while but that's it. (8/10)

Doom (2016): Best FPS I played from that year. The single campaign was excellent, brutal with no sign of rest, like the old ways. Multiplayer was kinda unnecesary but I still play it from time to time. (8.5/10)

Red Dead Redemption: Played it for the first time and ended the single mode last monday (10/10)

Yakuza 3: I loved the first two games from the PS2 era, however since I couldn't afford a PS3 for many years I forgot to check the sequels. I found the game in a cheap store along with the fourth game. (8.5/10)

Resistance 1: Outdated and boring (6/10)

Gameplay from FromSoft's new game Shadows Die Twice (Dark Souls, Bloodborne devs). Looks kinda great: action-y ninja /samurai goodness, possibly with stealth stuff. Nioh was a bit rubbish and left me really disappointed so can't wait for this.

Cyberpunk 2077 trailer was completely underwhelming, as a natural pessimist, I am setting my expectations really low at this point.

I didn't find it very Blade Runner-esque. Blade Runner is fairly dark and dingy. The trailer looked bright and colourful. I saw someone somewhere outline this, that it's a different vision of cyberpunk relating to something, though I can't remember what they were referencing.

Ghosts of Tsushima looked kinda great too. Seriously pretty. Death Stranding gameplay looked a bit boring but still interesting theme wise. Resident Evil 2 remake will probably be nice too. Metro Exodus is obviously gonna be great as well, and definitely intrigued by Platinum games new one too, looks a bit Dark Souls-ish potentially.

I've been playing a low level Wild Arms (the first for PSX) challenge.
The rules are: I can earn exp only on bosses. Optional bosses are ok (except for the arena ones, since they respawn)
Also, absolutely no usage of apples (because it kinda counts as leveling up) and the worst one: No goat dolls o.O
Can one finish the game with that? I don't know... To my knowledge the only low level wild arms challenge was done with goat doll usage, which makes the later game very easy.

Also on another game I have tried getting forgetfullness on bosses as well in order for it to be the lowest level possible, but it turns out the game is impossible ( I reached Pleasing Garden at level 5 and the boss rekts the party with a single attack, plus he attacks first because of speed, so... no way)

So this is kind of an experimental thing. So far the game is running smoothly. (The hardest I've faced is actually managing to avoid random encounters) The bosses give surprisingly a very good amount of exp early on the game. Now I have beat mother and the party is LV 17. Can't wait to reach the Boomerang/Luceid fight and get beat up =)

Cyberpunk looked like a loud action game. Of course, that's what Wild Hunt was, too, but it pulled off the atmosphere. Looking forward to it, sure, but I'll probably have more fun with Elex when I get around to that.

Finished Dreamfall Chapters. What a disappointment. Every game in the series was a step down from the previous, and this one was outright upsetting. Awful pacing, mostly just watching people talk badly written lines (not that the dialogue wasn't always cringy, but there was less of it), no puzzles, inconsequential choices. The story was at the same time predictable and pulling things out of its ass at last minute, with plenty of inconsistencies or unexplained things, and worst of all, it changed the thematic scope and lore of the series completely. It covered just enough gaps to tie the series together if you're charitable, but it didn't come together as a satisfying story.

Now playing Dragon's Dogma and Nier: Automata. DD is mostly fun. I enjoy the tougher boss/big monster fights, and getting to cutomize your team. I do not enjoy the filler mobs, and spamming flashy abilities in boring action sequences, nor the MMOesque tasks. Reminds me of Kingdoms of Amalur in both respects. I enjoy the world so far.

N:A is really good so far, enjoyably old school/Japanese. Story feels driven by gameplay and not vice versa, like modern western games. I play it on normal difficulty, though, because I'm not very good at these restless action games. Since the idea seems to be to keep shooting while you fight and since there's so much else going on, it's really hard for me to see and play the fights smart, specifically timing dodges and counterattacks. I don't really play it for the action, though, so that's fine.

Cyberpunk is going to be an FPS incidentally, so we can probably expect a Deus Ex-alike to a large degree.

Written by Mercurial on 13.06.2018 at 12:08

Cyberpunk is going to be an FPS incidentally, so we can probably expect a Deus Ex-alike to a large degree.

Superficially, maybe, but not to the degree that's relevant: pacing, level design, efficient scope, flexibility of approach to designated goal. The CDPR approach to open worlds and cinematic storytelling is antithetical to Deus Ex's gameplay-first philosophy and doing one thing right. It's not like this is a surprise, of course; we know what the current trend is and where CDPR's strength lies.

Written by IronAngel on 13.06.2018 at 12:19

Superficially, maybe, but not to the degree that's relevant: pacing, level design, efficient scope, flexibility of approach to designated goal. The CDPR approach to open worlds and cinematic storytelling is antithetical to Deus Ex's gameplay-first philosophy and doing one thing right. It's not like this is a surprise, of course; we know what the current trend is and where CDPR's strength lies.

Well I very much had Human Revolution and Mankind Divided in mind rather than the original, and I don't think those games were especially strong in any approach. I don't especially like CRPR's open world philosophy much; far too much filler, but if they like reign it in, perhaps with mini-sandboxes then I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with this one. I suspect an FPS format will force them to focus on the details, rather than the scope.

Written by Mercurial on 13.06.2018 at 12:24

I don't especially like CRPR's open world philosophy much; far too much filler, but if they like reign it in, perhaps with mini-sandboxes then I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with this one. I suspect an FPS format will force them to focus on the details, rather than the scope.

Hopefully, but I suspect you'll be able to wander around the city after Points of Interest, shooting up gangs and intervening in robberies and racing cars and whatever, and they've hyped that it's gonna be even bigger than W3 (as if that was a good thing, jesus). Probably like GTA meets Witcher world design with Deus-Exesque character flavor.

Haven't played the new one, but Human Revolution was fairly concise. I liked that about it, at least. They also didn't show any real vertical dimension in the trailer, so probably there's not going to be a lot of climbing and jumping and shit.