Written by IronAngel on 06.09.2018 at 10:50

All this just makes me sad I don't own a console (except my dusty PS2 which I just watch DVDs with). Bloodborne and Persona 5 are the only reason to get one, but they're a damn alluring reason. :/

Yeah, Bloodborne was the only reason I ever bought a PS4. Since then I've bought three other games just because I have the console anyways, but I would have probably never bothered playing those if I didn't already have a PS4. Horizon: Zero Dawn was pretty good though. Never completed it, but apparently that's a thing I do.

Written by IronAngel on 06.09.2018 at 10:50

In other news, D:OS2 is so much fun.

Can't wait for the moment D:OS2 is really cheap so my cheap friends and I can buy it We modded the first game to play it with 3 instead of 2 and I'm so glad the new one features 4 player co-op so we don't have to go through the hassle of modding.

Jumped back into D:OS2 again. Yeah, it's much easier when you're know what you're doing and know what skills to focus on. Having everyone with Restoration, Fortify and Armour of Frost is a Godsend. Also much easier second time round to cherry pick EXP to gain valuable levels before tackling harder fights (and knowing what NPCs to murder for extra EXP). Running an all-physical build: fighter for tanking, knockdowns and additional amour boosts for the party, and bouncing shield just gets more OP the further into the game you get, shadowblade for backstab DPS and stealing hideous amounts of items and gold, an archer (originally a wayfarer for the pet pal skill), which seems dangerously broken with the amount of damage you can put out, and a witch / conjurer hybrid for physical magic damage and handy summons, kitted out with weak bow skills instead of using wands. Made Fane this so he can keep his HP up so have to worry less about not having dedicated healing magic for him (i.e. some kind of poison spell). Various magic and support skills for the characters but they're all for supplementary buffing and healing. It's a bit cheap and doesn't require much in the way of planning and strategy, but very easy to focus on wiping out enemies quickly while keeping your armour topped up.

I need to remember to make use of teleport more to send enemies far away and make them waste their combat points in movement.

One thing I've noticed in the definitive edition is that when you steal you can no longer transfer items to another character to avoid the check after, and worse still now completely different characters will "know you commited a crime" when searching you, even if they're in a totally different location. It's a bit Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, but at least you can just scarper after stealing and get away with it.

I love the Persona games! Why anyone would give up on them is beyond me. Especially 5. It's now being considered as one of the best RPG's of all time.

I'm a minor modding girl so I like playing with older games and making them spectacular in my free time, as well as tweaking other mods to my liking. (Weapons, gore, player, and value improvements, etc) Everything from player sprites to shotgun spread. I mod the everloving s#$+ out of Doom things. <3 ( The GAME not the genre.

Written by [user id=190094] on 27.09.2018 at 14:59

I love the Persona games! Why anyone would give up on them is beyond me. Especially 5. It's now being considered as one of the best RPG's of all time.

I didn't want to, but after 85 hours with a very slow sense of progress and a lot of character repetition it becomes somewhat exhausting and the characters gradually end up feeling less life-like, especially when you complete their social links (which can be done quite early on with many of them). Repetition is probably the biggest killer in an RPG for me; it's a constant and ever increasing reminder that you're playing a video game, and not experiencing a new living world. I think the structure of Persona games is also a weak point at times. In other RPGs you have a sense of adventure through the exploration of different places, and a story which can play out in ways that you can't predict. While the way Persona games work can be good for exploring social links and such, the routine you're forced into can become a bit dull as you know exactly how the game's structure will work: School: discovery of antagonist: antagonist's dungeon; back to school again, and repeat. This happens many times over the game's 90+ hour journey, and only really shifts up after about 80 or so hours.

The other thing is that while the Persona games are fairly mature by JRPG standards, I don't think they get gritty and real enough to sustain a game of its length. There's really only so much you can do with characters in a story that will only explore social problems to a certain degree.

Persona 5 would have benefited from being a fair amount shorter I'd say. It could have told the exact same story with a better sense of urgency. I would agree it's probably one of the best JRPGs in recent years, but I would also say that the quality of JRPGs has plummeted a lot since their PS1 golden-era so I'd say it's easier to get that crown these days. The Persona games are still high quality, but some of the SMT games speak to me a lot more.

Played a bit of The Last Guardian. It looks cool, but I wish Team Ico could make a game with good controls.

Also played a bit of Pyre and if I had known it was gonna be that kind of game I wouldn't have bothered. Guess I deserve this after blindly buying the game because I liked Transistor and Bastion so much. I'll give it a chance though, maybe it will grow on me.

Written by Mercurial on 27.09.2018 at 15:24

Written by [user id=190094] on 27.09.2018 at 14:59

I love the Persona games! Why anyone would give up on them is beyond me. Especially 5. It's now being considered as one of the best RPG's of all time.

I didn't want to, but after 85 hours with a very slow sense of progress and a lot of character repetition it becomes somewhat exhausting and the characters gradually end up feeling less life-like, especially when you complete their social links (which can be done quite early on with many of them). Repetition is probably the biggest killer in an RPG for me; it's a constant and ever increasing reminder that you're playing a video game, and not experiencing a new living world. I think the structure of Persona games is also a weak point at times. In other RPGs you have a sense of adventure through the exploration of different places, and a story which can play out in ways that you can't predict. While the way Persona games work can be good for exploring social links and such, the routine you're forced into can become a bit dull as you know exactly how the game's structure will work: School: discovery of antagonist: antagonist's dungeon; back to school again, and repeat. This happens many times over the game's 90+ hour journey, and only really shifts up after about 80 or so hours.

The other thing is that while the Persona games are fairly mature by JRPG standards, I don't think they get gritty and real enough to sustain a game of its length. There's really only so much you can do with characters in a story that will only explore social problems to a certain degree.

Persona 5 would have benefited from being a fair amount shorter I'd say. It could have told the exact same story with a better sense of urgency. I would agree it's probably one of the best JRPGs in recent years, but I would also say that the quality of JRPGs has plummeted a lot since their PS1 golden-era so I'd say it's easier to get that crown these days. The Persona games are still high quality, but some of the SMT games speak to me a lot more.

I have to disagree. Are you sure we're playing the same games? How many of the Persona games have you really played? I started with P2: Innocent Sin ( thanks to a friend in Japan ) and played every one since.

The Persona games have some of the deepest character development and one of the strongest and most provocative philosophical themes of anything I've ever touched in a console game.

Either you were highly distracted when playing, or you're not really interested in the message of these games and thinking about it.

Anyone who finds provocative philosophical themes in a video game needs to put down the controller and pick up a book instead, imho. That's not to say a cool theme isn't a nice bonus, but it's never going to compare to a decent essay, let alone an academic monograph, in terms of insight. The same goes for character development: if I really want to understand a person's pyschology, I'll read George Eliot, Proust, Joyce or some good (auto)biography. Or even good TV, like Mad Men or Heimat or whatever. A JRPG would be the last place to go.

The point is that vague appeal to deep themes seems pretty impotent against criticism that is actually specific and related to the medium of video games, like Mercurial's above. Based on these comments alone, of the two of you, I would be inclined to think that he has played and thought about the games more.

Written by [user id=190094] on 29.09.2018 at 21:03


I have to disagree. Are you sure we're playing the same games? How many of the Persona games have you really played? I started with P2: Innocent Sin ( thanks to a friend in Japan ) and played every one since.

The Persona games have some of the deepest character development and one of the strongest and most provocative philosophical themes of anything I've ever touched in a console game.

Either you were highly distracted when playing, or you're not really interested in the message of these games and thinking about it.

I don't think this is a case of agree / disagree. The fact is that the game did not sustain me through its duration. The characterisation is fine for its limitations, well written and engaging to a degree, but given its length I don't think it was expansive enough. Another thing is that I'm fairly old, I've played JRPGs since the very early 90s (and perhaps more importantly watched a fair amount of anime) , so I feel like I've experienced a fair amount it has to offer, and while Persona 5 is a good solid game it doesn't really expand much beyond the well written, fairly standard anime trope. I'm fairly sure I've played at least one of the early Persona games on the PS1, I acquired foreign games through an importer at an exorbitant price, though it's been decades since I've played them so I can't recall them too well. However given my age at the time I'm sure I found them far more engaging and new and I seem to recall that they were less social sim-like and less watered down in terms of the prevailing concepts, and closer to SMT games. I'd like to play them again but mechanically I think they're too dated now for me. Persona 3 and 4 also felt less trite in its thematic presentation and characters, but again, I can't stand the idea of trawling through the Tartarus etc. again. I don't think it's just me. Despite the positive reception of 5 I've seen a few comments here and there of people who thought it was a let down plot / character-wise.

I don't find any of the recent Persona games especially philosophical. I think SMT Nocturne did a far better job at existential subject matter. I'd rate Xenogears, Nier Automata and others above them as well. Persona 5 is far more invested in solving social / mental problems in somewhat clear cut and idealised fashion that leaves little required afterthought, because every character is magically cured within the game's time frame. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, it works in a fantasy video game setting, but perhaps you can understand where my issue of predictability comes from, and a desire for something a bit more mature. I enjoy a grey fantasy setting where not everything is wrapped up in a neat little package and pain, turmoil and crime is something that can be the victor. I can't take much away from a saccharine ending for every character, and I don't think you can truly tackle some of the themes in Persona with black and white mindsets. I'm far more willing to suspend my disbelief in super happy endings with more pure fantasy games, Final Fantasy games etc. I think fairy tale narratives shine with that setting, but I think Persona games could go a step further regarding maturity and realism.

You can be dismissive if you like, but I was paying attention, I just feel like I've experienced it before in other media without the laborious length, which is my primary criticism. A good game can be marred by overlong length in which character exploration and story are diminished, which is precisely my issue with the game. That being said I'm not calling it a bad game, when it's good it's good. I just don't think it's quite the be all and end all of RPGs you think it is. This is a game with a near-silent protagonist who can romance any of the female characters with virtually no negative fallout. That's about as lazy as can be when it comes to writing good characters and highlights the limitations of the writing, which for me is about the lack of nuance and unwillingness to allow for resolutions that aren't idealised, romanticised and ultimately unrealistic, even when tackling themes like rape, murder etc.

Written by IronAngel on 29.09.2018 at 22:01

Anyone who finds provocative philosophical themes in a video game needs to put down the controller and pick up a book instead, imho. That's not to say a cool theme isn't a nice bonus, but it's never going to compare to a decent essay, let alone an academic monograph, in terms of insight. The same goes for character development: if I really want to understand a person's pyschology, I'll read George Eliot, Proust, Joyce or some good (auto)biography. Or even good TV, like Mad Men or Heimat or whatever. A JRPG would be the last place to go.

So, finding provocative philosophical themes in a game is inferior to finding it in another medium?

While I haven't played any games that have made me reconsider my place in the universe (well, aside from Pong, obviously) I don't see why it can't be possible. I'm convinced something like that is out there, or if not, that it will be at some point.

Books and movies and such have been around much longer and have had far more time to "mature" so of course it will be easier to find deeper meaning there, but there is enough schlock available as well. Gaming is still in its infancy, comparably. Not to mention the medium is still constantly evolving or changing, whereas the way we experience books has changed very little over the last few hundred years.

Wow, I really I need to find a place with people on my level. That is, well, entirely my fault. I apologize for joining here.
I originally joined because I wanted to find other musicians, but there's no one here anyway. Account deleted.

Enjoy your community. I'll happily go where I fit in a bit better and find people who it will be a mutual benefit all around to interact with..

Written by Zap on 30.09.2018 at 05:33

So, finding provocative philosophical themes in a game is inferior to finding it in another medium?

While I haven't played any games that have made me reconsider my place in the universe (well, aside from Pong, obviously) I don't see why it can't be possible. I'm convinced something like that is out there, or if not, that it will be at some point.

Books and movies and such have been around much longer and have had far more time to "mature" so of course it will be easier to find deeper meaning there, but there is enough schlock available as well. Gaming is still in its infancy, comparably. Not to mention the medium is still constantly evolving or changing, whereas the way we experience books has changed very little over the last few hundred years.

Well, finding new philosophy in a game would be inferior in the sense that it's not there, and if you thought it was, it probably only showed you didn't have a good grasp on what's out there in writing. The point I'm making is not that games are inferior per se, or indeed that "deep thoughts" are better than shallow ones. It's that you should consider mediums and genres on their own merits.

I don't buy the maturation argument at all. How mature were philosophical dialogues as a genre when Plato wrote? Besides, experimentation and evolution in games has been (in keeping with cultural and technological change in general) so fast that it's already caught up the first few thousand years of literature (so to speak). Maybe we're still waiting for the great modernists of gaming, I dunno, but game development reflects the same cultural context as literature and cinema right now: free experimentation, splintered subcultures, no great consensus, a divide between the mainstream market and what the aficionados are consuming, etc.

The fact is, mediums have their strengths and weaknesses. Thought (at least in this stage of our species' evolution, cultural and biological) is closely married to language. Literature is the most effective medium for manipulating language and constructing arguments. Multisensory experiences like TV and video games (which have the added bonus of agency) are generally better at evoking somatic and (possibly) emotional responses. A game can give something like the issue of eco-catastrophe or free will a sense of urgency and emotional resonance, so I guess that's good for engaging people in issues. But it's never going to be as efficient or transparent as an essay in laying out the arguments, weighing the alternatives and coming to a reasoned conclusion. If anything, too personal and emotional an experience with an issue (if only through a game) may just distort your view because you've only considered one side of the issue and it was "the best game ever!"

Deliberate, exceptional experiments aside, I don't think this is ever going to change. It's not impossible to make a game with actual, new philosophical substance. I guess you could have an interactive Socratic dialogue or a courtroom drama about some hitherto-unsolved ethical problem. Maybe there's something like that out there, already. But it's not very likely and, more important, it's not really what games are about. I would not disvalue a game for its lack of "philosophical themes" any more than I'd scoff at a novel for not being interactive! (Even though Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch is a cool experiment with that, just like literary game would be an interesting novelty.)

Take NieR: Automata, lauded for its "deep themes": "What is the meaning of life? What makes a person? Can a machine be alive? Is there an eternal return?" These are not novel philosophical insights. The meaning of life is the topic of the earliest surviving documents of our species, and the rights and consciousness of machines have been explored at least since mid-1900s sci-fi. Longer, if you consider the debate on a mechanistic view of the human body.

The game brings these ideas alive in a cool, classy way that adds flavor and gravitas to the experience. I do think it's nice when games evoke a contemplative atmosphere. It is aesthetically pleasing. But that someone had never considered these questions before, and N:A opened new conceptual ground for them? "Whaaaaat, machines might be capable of emotion!!!??" That's what I mean when I suggest picking up a book. If it's the ideas you actually care about (and not just appealing to them to make your favorite game seem deep and better than the rest), you'll get much, much more out of books on the topic.

Ultimately, though, I'm not very invested in this issue. Mostly I was just irritated at Ashe's holier-than-thou dismissal of an opinion that was, in the end, much more thoroughly articulated than hers.

Written by IronAngel on 30.09.2018 at 10:31

Ultimately, though, I'm not very invested in this issue. Mostly I was just irritated at Ashe's holier-than-thou dismissal of an opinion that was, in the end, much more thoroughly articulated than hers.

Well, in that case I will try to keep this short. I just want to clarify a few things though.

One is that I wasn't necessarily talking about novel philosophical insights. I agree that finding grand new ideas presented in a game that haven't been touched upon anywhere else is highly unlikely, but I do think that, if an idea is presented well (and I'm not saying it has been before, I don't play nearly as many games as most people here) in a game it doesn't matter to the person that they gained this insight from a game or a book. Even if the game took it from a book.

As for the maturation thing, I meant gaming as a medium has had much less time to deliver something like this, and the focus of game developers isn't on doing that at all (which is fine by me, I agree that mediums are different and gaming doesn't lend itself easily to this kind of thing whereas writing obviously does. As you said, it's not what gaming is about.)

Quote:
It's not impossible to make a game with actual, new philosophical substance. I guess you could have an interactive Socratic dialogue or a courtroom drama about some hitherto-unsolved ethical problem. Maybe there's something like that out there, already. But it's not very likely and, more important, it's not really what games are about. I would not disvalue a game for its lack of "philosophical themes"

I definitely agree. The main thing I'm trying to say is that it isn't impossible, and while you think it's never goind to happen, I think it might. Sorry if I didn't do a great job at communicating that the first time, I actually wasn't really following the debate about Persona that closely, so I responded to your comment out of context.

Also, did she just delete her account because someone had a different experience with a video game than her?

Written by Zap on 30.09.2018 at 11:21

I agree that finding grand new ideas presented in a game that haven't been touched upon anywhere else is highly unlikely, but I do think that, if an idea is presented well (and I'm not saying it has been before, I don't play nearly as many games as most people here) in a game it doesn't matter to the person that they gained this insight from a game or a book. Even if the game took it from a book.

I agree with the gist of it and I was too sharp in my initial response. But I do think there is a difference here: I'm not just saying that novelty is the primary issue. (Although I do think it's good that an experience offer some new perspective to you.) You say it doesn't matter where the insight came from, but I would argue that you're not going to get the same level of specificity and clarity of argument from a game that you would from an essay or book on the topic. It's not just that books are better for this because they're books, or because they did it first, but because they can treat the topic more explicitly, more transparently, and more efficiently.

I don't think this really matters, in the sense that obviously we enjoy profound video game experiences anyway. But I do think that vague appeal to "deep themes" is a poor substitute for substantial video-game-related criticism. While you're talking hypotheticals, and I agree with you, in practice gamers are usually awed by anything that raises a remotely "profound" question and comes to some banal, predictable conclusion that affirms the players' emotional attitudes anyway. It irks me, because it just shows they're willing to lap up any basic question as profoundly philosophical, no matter how well the answer holds up to scrutiny.

I'm not shittalking ambitious themes in games, either. I do love Planescape: Torment, and I think it's a good mindbender of a spe-fi story. It's an imaginative acting-out of ideas in vivid, fantastical detail (largely thanks to the awesome tabletop setting). It's really cool that you have competing ideological factions like the Sensates. All that makes the game enjoyable. But really, philosophical insight? That someone never considered the possibility of appreciating sense-experience above all else, or wondered whether human nature is set in stone? I grant that someone may have gleaned something useful from it, but in that case I think they'd do well to educate themselves a little and read a few text books.

I guess I'm a bit stuffy, but I really think it's bad if people just play video games and think they can compensate for not reading an actual book. Okay, if your'e 13 and Persona makes you consider the importance of your social life, that's great. If you're 30 (which I'm almost, which may account for grumpiness) and you're still getting your mind blown by games, something probably went wrong with your education.

Been replaying Dark Souls 2. I never completed it so I just want to get it over with and finish so I can feel okay about buying 3 (now that that one is a lot cheaper,) but I must say I'm pretty close to quitting again.
It just doesn't do it for me. It looks ugly, most of the bosses are either lazily designed or extremely easy* (or both), the combat feels extremely sluggish (that might just seem that way because I played Bloodborne before it, but I feel like it's slower than DS1 en Demon's Souls.) Mostly minor complaints, but they add up. Worst of all though, the world doesn't entice me. It might be because everything looks like shit, but I don't feel the same thing I did while exploring other Souls games' worlds. The game just doesn't grab me by the balls as much as I would like it to. I like that it's different and not just a re-tread of DS1 though. At least there's that.

*not a huge problem, but that Covetous Demon did give me a laugh. Had his boss arena been an empty room it wouldn't have changed my progress of the game at all. His abscence actually would have improved the game, since he was just an uninteresting (and ugly) worm thingy that you hit a few times before getting a bunch of souls. I did like some of the other bosses, like the skeleton army guys, the Smelting (do I remember that correctly?) Demon, the Pursuer, etc. Most of the bosses were really easy though, fun fights in general, but never really "boss-like." I never had the feeling I was going up against stronger than normal enemies. The hunters in Bloodborne feel more like bosses than most of these guys.

I think I'll clear 3 or 4 more bosses (since there seem to be so many) and if I don't feel like biting the bullet and finishing it by that time I'll just abandon it forever. In a way I do want to see the ending because I heard there's a good bit with a guy called Vendrick or something. I still have The Last Guardian lying around here somewhere though, so might just hop on that.

Is anyone here waiting for the upcoming Call Of Cthulhu? It's mainly inspired in the game from 2005, Dark Corners Of The Earth. A game I highly recommend because of its amazing atmosphere and story, it's one of the creepiest games I ever played. Criminally underrated.

Written by Maco on 29.10.2018 at 01:12

Is anyone here waiting for the upcoming Call Of Cthulhu? It's mainly inspired in the game from 2005, Dark Corners Of The Earth. A game I highly recommend because of its amazing atmosphere and story, it's one of the creepiest games I ever played. Criminally underrated.

Yeah I'm sort of interested. Visually it looks nice at least. Tbh I'm not sure what the gameplay is even like. Walking simulator + stealth I gathered.

Written by Mercurial on 29.10.2018 at 12:59

Written by Maco on 29.10.2018 at 01:12

Yeah I'm sort of interested. Visually it looks nice at least. Tbh I'm not sure what the gameplay is even like. Walking simulator + stealth I gathered.

Well, Dark Corners Of Earth was a combination of both, you finally find a gun after playing 2 hours and you lose your guns most of the time,
so you have to keep yourself hidden.

If you havent played DCOE u should do it. Outlast was heavily influenced by it.

Written by Maco on 29.10.2018 at 15:57

Well, Dark Corners Of Earth was a combination of both, you finally find a gun after playing 2 hours and you lose your guns most of the time,
so you have to keep yourself hidden.

If you havent played DCOE u should do it. Outlast was heavily influenced by it.

I checked the steam reviews and it looks like it's plagued with bugs. I'll consider it though

Written by Mercurial on 29.10.2018 at 16:07

I checked the steam reviews and it looks like it's plagued with bugs. I'll consider it though

Most of them are forgivable.

Written by Maco on 29.10.2018 at 01:12

Is anyone here waiting for the upcoming Call Of Cthulhu? It's mainly inspired in the game from 2005, Dark Corners Of The Earth. A game I highly recommend because of its amazing atmosphere and story, it's one of the creepiest games I ever played. Criminally underrated.

Yes, I've seen it mentioned on r/Lovecraft quite a few times. Thb it looks exactly like what you would expect from a game called Call Of Cthulhu, which is nice. Sadly, I never did play the original when I first became aware of it, and these days it almost feels like it's too late since it looks a bit dated. So it's nice to have a similar game coming out that I feel more inclined to actually try.

Horizon Zero Dawn - super pretty, like insanely so, and was fun for about 15 hours. After that though it just became another open world game with drab missions and too many Ubisoft elements. The fights are cool, for a while. The problem is that some of the bigger baddies are massive bullet / arrow spunges and after the thrill of beating them has worn off I started just avoiding them altogether. Another part of the issue is that you gain access to pretty much all the weapons and armour fairly early on, so the impetus to get stronger vanishes. Not bad, but I'll never come close to finishing it.

Dragon Quest XI - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Gave up after a few hours. It's basically just DQ8, which was already too fairy tale for my liking. It looks and feels like the most by the numbers JRPG possible.

Pokemon Moon - sucked away quite a few hours capturing pokeymans and leveling them. My team became hugely overleveled though in the course of trying to get every one I came across, so most battles were done in one hit. Got maybe halfway through the game, maybe I'll go back to it at some point. My team, all at about level 32 was: surfing psychedelic Raichu, the big red cat you get at the start who was fully evolved, the evolved poison / fire black lizard dragon thing, the fabulously gay pink Eevee evolution, the angry toucan, and Kadabra, who will never evolve because I'm playing it on an emulator so no trading for me.

The Last Guardian - damn this game runs poorly. It seems to hover around 20 - 25fps on the vanilla PS4, and if HZD can hold a solid 30fps then there's no excuse. It's also pretty janky control wise. All that being said I'm really enjoying the few hours I've put into it. The art style is glorious, even if the bloom effect is just too damn white, and Trico is amazingly adorable and endearing, and quite well animated. I like the approach to the puzzles too. I'll probably finish this one.

Chrono Cross - slowly making my back through it. Still a perfect example of the PS1 golden era of JRPGs. It may not have the character camaraderie of Chrono Trigger, but the sense of adevnture beats it hands down. It's a shame no other games took inspiration from its leveling system, It's nice knowing you never have to grind.

Written by Mercurial on 02.11.2018 at 14:00

Horizon Zero Dawn - super pretty, like insanely so, and was fun for about 15 hours. After that though it just became another open world game with drab missions and too many Ubisoft elements. The fights are cool, for a while. The problem is that some of the bigger baddies are massive bullet / arrow spunges and after the thrill of beating them has worn off I started just avoiding them altogether. Another part of the issue is that you gain access to pretty much all the weapons and armour fairly early on, so the impetus to get stronger vanishes. Not bad, but I'll never come close to finishing it.

I was playing that a few months ago and never finished it either. Starts out great but loses steam once you've got some high level gear and have fought most of the dinobots at least once. I think I played a bit longer than you, but not that much.

That's nice to hear about HZD. Makes me less sad having no consoles. I thought as much looking at trailers and gameplay, to be honest, but I'm still not immune to being pulled in by pretty, high production value stuff now and again.

Played the first two Blackwell games and enjoyed them. Finally bought Stardew Valley and I've been addicted for a few weeks. I don't know if it's just nostalgia (played the shit out of HM: Back to Nature), but there's something very appealing about symmetrical fields of moolah as far as the eye can see.

I also bought the Humble Bundle with, uh... some Batman games I think, Shadow of Mordor and Injustice. I mainly just wanted Injustice, although I know I'll probably play it very little. I am wondering whether it's worth my time installing (gotta check)... Arkham Origins, Mad Max or SoM. They all seem like the kind of (HZD-like) games that lure you in with sleek gameplay and lots of shit to do, and before you know you've wasted 30 hours of your time without realizing you're not getting much out of them.

Written by IronAngel on 02.11.2018 at 21:31

That's nice to hear about HZD. Makes me less sad having no consoles. I thought as much looking at trailers and gameplay, to be honest, but I'm still not immune to being pulled in by pretty, high production value stuff now and again.

Yeah, I'm not always immune either. Still glad I played it though; it was fun while it lasted.

Playing Hearthstone for the first time. My wife gifted me 60 packs of cards, so I've got a pretty good mage deck already. Good light-hearted and well-designed fun.

Red Dead Redemption 2...far more akin to Witcher 3 than, say, Fallout 4. More of a "need to be in a certain frame of mind, pay attention, serious" vibe to it. Every two steps forward are followed by a big one back for me. Rockstar controls and I don't really get along, so I'm near terribad at gunfights. Mostly on the significant delay between aiming/hitting shoot and the reload/shot fired actually occurring. Movement is, like Witcher 3, a bit odd, and the controls all too often have me accidentally hitting the wrong button/doing the wrong thing. Imagine I'll improve over time, but for early on it is frustrating. Riding around is fun, hunting is fun.

Causing chaos has all sorts of issues. Was scouting a target's house when someone passed me on the road and talked shit. So I shot him. Bang.

(Cue Yakkety Sax/Benny Hill theme)

And was spotted. So had to chased down and kill the witness.

And that was witnessed, so had to chase down and kill this new witness.

And THIS murder was spotted so had to hunt down and kill another person.

I can ride for 30 minutes without encountering more than one person, but the moment I do something nefarious, everyone in the territory is using that backwoods path for their morning commute.


I somehow escaped all that chaos with out getting identified, but a short bit later I happen on a train robbery, someone calls for help... so I start shooting the robbers. And suddenly I'm wanted for murder..

So as a whole I just play 30-40 minutes at a time, trying to explore new things but avoiding any quests (you get locked in once they start) like the plague. I want to feel more adept at what Im doing before it really "counts."

And thus the wife gifted another 60 packs of cards to her husband in Hearthstone, resulting in the man losing a few games less. But still mostly getting his ass handed to him because he makes the wrong moves and always runs out of patience.

I love Hearthstone.

After many years of meaning to play it, I finally got through the horrendous Temple of Trials tutorial of Fallout 2. Emboldened, I, the Chosen One, set out from the Temple, spoke to the village Shaman who entrusted me with an important task. I embarked on a journey of at least 5 metres and was unceremoniously cut down by a plant in his garden patch. War. War never changes.

Isn't it depressing? The current state of AAA games I mean, we have RDR2 but that's it. Battlefield V is such a mediocre game. Activision is shitting on both Diablo and Call Of Duty fans (nothing new in that regard tho). Ubisoft as always treads their PC users like garbage with their ridiculous anti-piracy system. Bethesda delivers their worse game in years with Fallout 76. Valve more focused on a fucking card game. Etc. etc.

Not sure why everyone has their panties in a twist with Fallout 76. bugginess? sure. I can get that. i've rather enjoyed it on PS4. granted, I didn't expect FO5, which is apparently why a majority of the haters are up in arms. was a one off side adventure to give the new studio they bought in Austin a test drive.

from my perspective, playing on a shit Colombian connection...

1. Some lag, but nowhere near the rubberbanding of Battlefront2, Mass Effect Androgynous multiplayer (4 players, small map) or even fucking Strong Bad's Cool Game (PS3 release) streaming. Disco'd maybe twice in 30something levels. Including playing during prime evening hours when I wouldn't even bother with BF2 or ME:A

2. Bugs - one resource center couldn't be claimed because an enemy was invisible/ghost. I couldn't complete one quest for a whopping one day before it was fixed. Third and worst I had was one stretched out hostile dog at my spawn point near my camp that couldn't be killed and chased me forever. That was annoying. Ran like hell the third time, died far enough away to spawn elsewhere, grab my dropped shit and moved my camp.

3. Mode of storytelling. Lack of PC's bothers some. Sure, I get that. On the other hand, the story is intriguing (through my current progress) despite being delivered in Bio Shock style.

4. Massive map plus #3 means I can roam around for hours on end without "Another settlement needs your help!" or, worse, being knee-deep in a campaign quest to save my son - say chasing Kellogg - without having to bail out some settlement of useless people who can't farm a carrot without my express direction, let alone defend their homestead while being armed with combat armor, laser weapons and an obscene amount of turrets in said settlement.

5. Storage does suck on a "save everything and break it all down to components" kinda game. Seems I am regularly questing for adhesive, aluminum or ballistic weave.

not the greatest game ever, sure, not horrible either. easy to pick up and just explore and blow shit up for a while without having to worry about consequences (a la 4, RDR2, or Witcher 3) ... at 31 or 32 or whatever, still feel happy about surviving an encounter with a legendary, looting it to find a missile launcher... was "fuckin wow!" and because of weight/space limits, as well as condition, rather than just dumping it in storage like I do with dozens of Fat Men, Gatling guns, laser Gatlings and missile launchers in FO4, I stripped some stuff to get under my weight, went back to something that annoyed me and rocketed the hell out of it.

I am rather enjoying it and will get a hell of a lot more out of it than the $60 or whatever I spent on it. hell, even based upon US minimum wage, not what I make, easily already cleared value out of it.