JCC Gaming Förceboat Parté - JC G4m3z thr34d (Gaming General Discussion)

My HDR tour continues:

Mass Effect Andromeda: Voeld has never looked better for a frozen not-quite such a hellhole as it used to be.

Final Fantasy XV: OK, that water over there is actually fake, right? Yeah, it doesn't really exist, it doesn't.

Uncharted 4: So very pretty.

Uncharted: Lost Legacy: This really gets a boost that puts its predecessor in the shade. Exploring the rooftops and then the chase section that follows was stunning in the detail and the light / shadow effects.

And then I booted up The Witcher 3... Toussaint looked amazing, but it was a trip to Novigrad that sent things nuts. The light and shadow were through the roof. Novigrad has always been one of the gloriously well-depicted and designed crapholes of a city, but here it looks so much better. Only encourages me to eventually get around to the replay where that bastard Radovid dies this time.

 

Not to build it up too much but it’s literally the most satisfying moment in the history of video games.

 

So, I decided to give this horror game from last year, Remothered: Tormented Fathers, a go. Awful title, but it got decent reviews and it looked kind of Outlast-y. I gave up about in chapter three of . . . seven, I think, because the gameplay had gotten so tedious. Anyway, you play this mysterious woman who is investigating a mysterious disappearance in the mysterious house of this mysterious old man and his mysterious nurse. It’s mysterious.

First, the good. The graphics are pretty incredible, at least in terms of the environments. Colors are vibrant when they need to be, but the game also does light and shadow really beautifully. The game has a lot of atmosphere; the bulk of it happens in this three-story mansion and the game does a good job laying out the geography of the house, so that you actually know where everything is. I ended up watching a playthrough just because I was curious about the story and the story isn’t bad. There’s a twist that was pretty unexpected; it’s alsoi been kind of controversial, so if you intended to play this game and want the twist preserved, be very careful because a Google search for just the title of the game all by itself pulls up articles exploring the controversy that actually spoil the twist in the titles. I found the initial villain kind of lackluster, but there’s a new villain introduced about halfway through the game that I thought was genuinely really scary and she/it has a fantastic musical theme. And there’s a solid thirty minutes of this game at one point that is genuinely the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in a game. So, those are the good things.

Bad things? I gave up on the game because of some tedious and frustrating mechanics. There’s a lot of navigating through the house to solve puzzles and find objects and such and some of those puzzles are pretty difficult it seems to me. But you can only save at a save point, which is on the third floor. So, you might be down in the basement and finally find an object you’ve been looking for; now it would be nice to save so that, in case you die, you’ll still have the progress you’ve made. But in order to save you have to navigate all the way from the basement to the third floor all while avoiding dying. A huge improvement would have been to just have a save point on every floor. I don’t know why they didn’t do this because it makes the game frustrating instead of scary.

Also, the enemy encounters are pretty annoying because the game gives you too much to juggle in my opinion. So, if an enemy finds you, you’ll have to run, Outlast style, and try to find somewhere to hide. You have objects you can use to fight back. But you also have limited stamina, so if you’re not close enough to a hiding spot or can’t ditch the enemy fast enough, he’ll catch up to you and if he does so after your stamina runs out, you can’t use your weapons because . . . you’re too tired? Also, if you get to a hiding space, but your stamina is too low, you CAN’T HIDE. Because you’re . . . too tired to fall on the floor and roll under a couch? So you have to keep running which isn’t going to work because obviously your stamina is really low, so you’re moving very slowly. The stamina system basically ***** you constantly. And if you are lucky enough to get to a hiding spot then you have to do a minigame in order to be quiet so he doesn’t hear you and know where you are. The first time this happened to me, the minigame popped up and then gave me a Failed so fast that I didn’t even have time to register what I was supposed to do. I feel like this is kind of a “realistic” touch added to kind of comment on how in Outlast and Amnesia when you hide you’re still breathing so heavily that any enemy would know where you were even though they can’t see you. And, yes, that’s always been kind of silly to be just gasping for breath in the corner and a guy is standing three feet away and somehow can’t hear you, but this minigame was just annoying.

Part of all this may be that I’m not as good at games as a lot of people. Maybe others would find all these things easier to manage. Then again, I see from looking at my PS4 trophy list that fully two thirds of people who were playing this game on the PS4 quit this game in the same chapter that I did. So maybe it’s not just me. Of people who bought the game, around ninety percent of them played the first two chapters; then around thirty percent of them actually finished chapter three with the other sixty percent bailing at the same time I did. So, maybe the devs should take note of that. Also, I will say that the story got pretty ridiculous right at the very end to the degree that the game actually ends with a cutscene that’s about ten minutes long of two characters just talking to try to explain things. And it still leaves a lot up in the air. I guess the dev is saying this is the first game in a trilogy. The second one will supposedly be out next year and will outdo this game in the stupid title category by calling itself Remothered: Gone Porcelain.

Anyway, incredible environmental graphics, great atmosphere, some serious scares, some good story stuff; on the other hand, very annoying mechanics, frustrating level design, some silly story elements. So, you know, if you’re into lavish horror games and think you can handle the mechanics, you might like it. Though I will say that I got it on half-price sale on the PS Store and at fifteen dollars, it’s probably worth it, if you can hack the mechanics. At its original price of thirty dollars, I would say it’s way overpriced, even if it sounds good to you. On the whole, not recommended.

 

The HDR tour concludes:

Assassin's Creed Origins: Very, very nice. Had forgotten how much fun having a flaming sword was.

Horizon Zero Dawn: At first, this looked very, very good, far sharper and all round better. Some practice combat with Chargers, Scrappers and Lancehorns and it's really looking smart, with the tech destruction, sparks going everywhere. Then, a short time later I'm going through a wood at night and see a Watcher pack. The light effects were off the scale. Put down a few explosive tripwires, took one out, shot another in the eye - if anything, the biggest problem is it looked so damn good it was distracting in combat!

I have, but have not gotten to, God of War. Spiderman is also on the to-buy hitlist. So, while there might be a new HDR top dog in the future, for right now? It's Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

I still have yet to play HZD in the highest difficulty level. I've heard it's a crazy fun experience; albeit challenging.

 

HZD is hard enough on normal difficulty (what with a lot of one or two hit kills from machines)... I don't wanna play it on a hard difficulty

 

Can you imagine fighting a Deathbringer, Thunderjaw or Stormbird on hard?!

Also I got back to The Walking Dead and played episode two. I’ve seen more messed up stuff in that two hours of gameplay, than I have in every game I’ve ever played combined. It was bloody intense and I loved it. Can’t wait to play episode three tonight.

 

Finished up a third run through of Marvel's Spider-Man earlier today, and now just dusted off the 360 to play Dragon Age: Origins for the first time in five years.

 

Episode one is really good. But episode two is for sure when the game just goes into the stratosphere.

 

I just booted Warframe for the evening to find that my foundry has finished work on the Frost warframe!


I also have enough nightwave credits to get myself a spiffy space-ninja hat for my new frame.

 

So, back on Odyssey, doing stuff on Crete.

It's generally been pretty good, except tonight's run was farcical in the worst way. The game says 'you can resolve things peacefully', before going about that in the most uneven, half-arsed way possible. Because it's bollocks. Resolve it peacefully? You get a bounty put on you, I should have killed that guy for it. Try to engage with the soldiers? They always end up as a fight, but in these fights the idiots I was defending would run in front of the blade, get hit and then attack, so killed them too. With another set of soldiers, I killed them and the person they were bullying the hell out of decided to grab a weapon and attack! Fine, they get offed too. Even when I took out the Captain, who did the whole 'come face in a fight!' trick but had about five guys with him, so one overpower arrow, then booted him off the roof a couple of times and random, unarmoured dude decides he must defend this super-bastard.

What irritates about this is that they have the mechanics to do a more involved conversation system that is more than tell people what they want to hear. As it is? Everyone is instantly ready to take on a fully armed and armoured Kass, regardless of lacking either at the drop of a hat.

There was more fun stuff - took out a Cultist, did a couple of bounties, one light and one proper one that paid 3780. Killed a leader. Did an Overpower arrow strike on a camp and killed all 5 enemies there in one go.

Visually, it remains brilliant, it gives you a wide array of options but ultimately it's not as deep as Origins, despite wanting to be. Whatever the next AC game is, they need to spend time on depth of play as well as size of gameworld and latitude of action.

 

I agree, Origins is just a bit better. But I'm still enjoying Odyssey 9 months later so it is obviously still good. The mythological DLC provides the most stunning stuff. Wait until you see that (if you have the DLC).

 

Oh, don't think I'm not enjoying it - tonight's run had at least 10 'how the hell is this looking so good moments'. Crete has a ton of viewpoints, so have nabbed those for Ikaros, got about 4 to go for his next upgrade.

Here's the nuts point in all this: I reckon I might, might, have gone round maybe half the world map and am just under 70 hours! It's crazy. And I know in the parts I have uncovered, there's still a load of sea question marks to get.

Given some the online chatter around the Hades fight and my own experience with Curse of the Pharaohs, I'm a bit wary of the DLC. I really didn't enjoy the Pharaoh fights. Everything else was very good, but those boss fights weren't fun.

 

Hmm I mean I beat Hades on the second try. Just drop it to easy like I did

 

I just hit the second to last boss of Hellblade and I am hoping to God that this strategy works for me.

 

Continuing my AC tour, I'm on Black Flag right now. It's a fun game, but why is it so ****ing difficult to upgrade your ship armor?

 

Because it is a major, major upgrade.

 

So I just picked up the PS4 version of Wolfenstein: Youngblood. It includes a buddy pass where I can play the game in co-op with someone, and they get to see the game completely for free.

Any fellow Nazi killers want the buddy pass code?

 

Oooh that's so tempting. I would say yes but I'm deep in Red Dead 2 right now and I don't want to hold you back

 

I'm playing solo right now, so nobody is holding me back. If you change your mind just let me know, I'll send the code over PM.

That said, code is still open to everyone who wants to play.

 

There's a small temporal problem. I'm probably 5 hours aheadrive and not great at FPS.

 

I'm always playing on Easy! That's why the Pharaohs were such a pain in the arse on Origins.

 

Oh I played Origins on Normal. I managed the Pharaohs. But yes they were tricky. I thought Medusa in this one was a much harder boss than Hades though, FWIW.