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

It was looking good with the previous one but Origins has whacked it up majorly - on my new base there's all this undulating green bubble grass, loads of various creatures running around, while ships go back and forth at the trading post. It feels far, far more alive. It's quite uncanny.

The other big hook is I'm encouraged to go back to exploring as it feels like there's far more out there to find now.

 

I've got NMS on both pc and ps4 and I really liked it when it first came out, I was an initial supporter and to this day still love the idea of the game but over time found it to be a bit meh.



Is this update worthy of a new start because thats where I'm at?

Currently by game of choice is X3 Albion Prelude as I've not bought Foundations yet.


Bare in mind I need something that isn't an utter time sink as ill have Miles Morales and cyberpunk in little over 2 months and as im really struggling to get into Tsushima (I have a feeling this is my PS4 version of Arkham Asylum which took run 3 before it twigged and I loved it)



Essentially will the NMS update claw me back?

 

It could. I think it's worth a try - I mean, it's free, so why not?

At this point the game has features in of upgrading your ship and multitool class instead of relying on RNG, which is what it was about 2 years back. There's far better synthesis of various features, base-building and exocraft. They've added loads.

It can be a time sink but depends on what hooks you. I mean I wasn't planning to spend an hour building a new base but I just couldn't help it.

Ultimately, NMS is a game where you decide what you're doing - there's no plot to really be hooked by - although I think its limited story is one of the most covert hard SF tales in a game going.

Then again, I'm posting this having spent 350 hours in it, on and off, over the last four years. It's an easy game to put on hold and go back to.

 

Has anyone been watching the Dev diaries for Baldur’s gate 3? It’s only PC right now but that’s one game I hope is coming to console down the line.

 

Playing Serious Sam 4.

Just like the previous titles, more of the same with subtle tweaks.

Overall, I like it but there are some optimisation issues (i'm playing on a high end PC) and DirectX 12 requires a support patch as it crashes the game.

Enjoying the side-quest and skill system.

 

No Man's Sky: Origins

I have to admit, this was a pretty captivating update. I got about 10 hours out of it. There are times when the game looks incredible.

Also, standing untouched in a nuclear flamestorm in a mech is very, very cool. Though your mech is more Megatron than Optimus Prime, as you show up, blast all the resources to steal them and leg it. I still wish they hadn't nerfed the other Exocraft environmental protections to push the player into using the mech. Still, once you have that jetpack powered up, you get to do some quite crazy jumps. Also, summoning the mech is very Titanfall 2.

The one part that remains very, very broken by its terrible design is the Living Ships update. Even if you play in first-person view - I can't, it doesn't work for me at all, NMS only came alive for me when they enabled third person view - it still remains awful as you have these coordinates that are so unstable you can't tell where to go with any reliability. It also relies heavily on RNG mechanics that the game is moving more and more away from. Hopefully at some point, they'll change it so it can actually be played in a way that's actually fun.

One big change was the inventory and storage limits, both have been massively increased from what they were and it really helps the game.

I've also now got the hang of derelict freighters, despite the odd bug that prevents 100% completion. They are quite effective little sections but don't see the need for the block on saving while on-board.

The whole power business? I can work around it but still don't like it. They made it overly complicated and wired tech doesn't fit into the world at all. That said, the solar towers that are on a couple of my bigger bases are damn cool to look at. I also managed to stick in a set of powered floor light panels in the newest base - it looks good.

Finally, have found some of the new extreme volcano planets - they live up to their rep, you will need the mech for these.

What does it add up to? It's a better game overall, the collecting resources is easier, which makes basebuilding easier. There's some neat additions for the freighter - and mine is pretty much the game's version of a Super Star Destroyer. Flying up to your fleet is always cool - thugh a way to dismiss and recruit new members to alter the balance would be cool, as would be building your own space stations but who knows? Maybe that'll be in the future.

 

Paradox is having a sale, and I might have to give my copy of Europa Universalis IV a whirl, as I haven't play it much. Maybe I'll drop $8 or so for another add-on.

Finishing up Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light for finally going into playing Metro: Exodus. I've liked their storytelling format, as opposed to open world, and I'm keen to see if their 'mini open-world' format will work. It does remind me of the old STALKER games in that sense, and I'm keen to play those again as well (especially with STALKER 2 eventually coming out now)

 

Genshin Impact is out today on PS4... Basically a BotW ripoff that you can play co op or on your own... But it's free! I am downloading it because it looks interesting

 

I'll be nabbing it tomorrow, not out here until then.

 

Like many UbiSoft games, I've hit the point where I've probably taken Far Cry 3 as far as it is going to go. It's started inflicting timed missions which I never respond well to. Then there are the protect-this-****ing-moron missions. I don't enjoy either. There are times when it can be good, when you can actually see and tag all threats in the environment, but too often it likes to screw around with that. And when it goes bad? It does so to an unpleasantly difficult degree. I also find its "Easy" setting to be nothing of the kind, it's idea of assistance a bad joke - when you have enemies hearing suppressed weapons, it's hard to buy that they're human.

I'll likely try and take the final set of Outposts on North Island, as then I can always drop into for dossing around, maybe try one of the hunting or bounty quests from time to time, but that'll be it.

Meanwhile, for a free game, Genshin Impact is doing pretty well for itself so far. Is it the Zelda rip-off it is alleged to be? Well, the aesthetic style is pretty similar, but Zelda wasn't the first to use it for Breath of the Wild. But in how it plays? Pretty different - auto-scaling enemies, very much a focus on elemental attacks I'm far from working out.

The trial sequences with the other party characters don't work well if you've worked out how to enhance your characters, as you then get stuck with these characters you have to use but can't power up. Afterwards, however, you can do that and it gets far better.

It is a very pretty game, well-designed and is very much the action JRPG it sells itself as.

 

It's strange that the only Far Cry games I really enjoy are their offshoots - the goofy 80s Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, or the post-apocalyptic apology for FC5, Far Cry: New Dawn.

 

I loved the original Far Cry. I have Far Cry 3, but I only got a few hours into it before I got to a bit that irritated me too much to continue.

 

force boat

 

So has anyone jumped on the Among Us bandwagon? It's definitely fun when you play with friends or family. With randoms not so much.

 

My WoW guild is talking about running some games...

 

I was selected to be one of 500 people on a zoom call with Geoff Keighly tomorrow. I have submitted some questions about new Game Awards categories and some other stuff..

I am excited

 

Cue Man With No Name GIF.... "Get three coffins ready."

In other news....

Your Game Sucks: Episode Who-the-hell-knows: Genshin Impact

Here's the Too Long, Didn't Read version: It's ****, don't waste your time.

Oh, the world design is excellent, its aesthetics do make for a nice coat of paint but beneath that? A very cheap, ****** game.

I put up with its cheap bull**** up to the first Stormterror boss fight - recommended Lv 26. Before going further - always ignore those and go in with a way, way overpowered party. Back to the main point - What happened then? An awful, on-rails, manual shooting of a jerky target, limited movement ability, the utter epitome of a mundane, boring boss fight. But it was after that that the game killed itself. Instead of using the party you are accustomed to and have powered up and equipped, you get a trial character - for who you can't do any of that. On top of this, the cheap bastard decided to do:

• During what looks like a cutscene, your character will be taking damage - lots, even if you got them to Lv 40. The trial character you have is Lv 26.
  
• I did what I was supposed to - dragon falls to the floor, right on top of my character! What then happens is the character cannot move, as they are trapped in the boss' body! - and is taking damage.
  
• After putting up with that twice, I got to the last part and the boss unveils OHKO attacks! At this point I played the "**** this game" card.

It's a damn shame that the game is so cheap in this way, but it's not limited to boss fights. You might be exploring the world, have your characters powered up, you come across a big enemy but it's Lv20 and your party is Lv40, should be easy, right? Wrong. If the game decides levels matters, you will kill enemies very quickly; but when it decides they don't, you won't and it will flip between these settings in seconds. As a demonstration of empty leveling, this is a perfect example - there's no sense of achievement to leveling up. It's collect load of crap, use that load to crap to quickly level up. But don't expect that upgrades to translate in the might you might expect.

Then there is the game's obsession with manual searching. I have about four quests that boil down to the game saying: Go find this ****. Where is it? How the **** should I know go find it yourself. To which my response is: Go **** yourself.

It's very, very find of teleporting enemies in. Very find of deciding its elemental combat matters - until it doesn't. It loves its timed **** where it'll do things like requiring that you take three enemies in 60 seconds, all with a barrier that will take at least 20 seconds to take. Oh yeah, barriers - seems to be a plague in game design currently, lots of games are going for giving enemies a second health bar you have to take out and which the enemy regenerates. Makes for very boring fights. The cooldowns? Pretty severe. Defence and evasion options? **** all.

The Zelda comparison? Let's talk about that. Zelda has a parry system, this doesn't. Zelda's elements matter consistently, this game is inconsistent across the board. Zelda's world was pretty and dense, this one is just pretty but often empty. It can be beautifully so, but beautifully empty is still empty.

The quests? They are all fetch quests of one kind or another, probably involving some timed ****.

Is it possible to feel ripped off by a free-to-play game? Yes, it is. It is an exasperating game to play as it mixes good stretches with sections of utter exasperation and cheap ****. Combat needs both lock-on and actual defence options, not least as charging enemies have the ability to swerve and change direction while in mid-charge. Its UI needs a major overhaul, as does its food system which will frequently say 'this heals all members' - it lies, it doesn't. If you gave someone a load of disparate game systems to combine without giving them any real understanding of how they work this is the game that would result.

It is a shame because it has clearly had some money spent on it, I do like the world design a great deal, it's what kept me playing. But at the same time as there was a 'good' meter running, there was an 'exasperating, cheap ****, difficulty spikes' meter also running and it has now overtaken the 'good' one. There are other games I have to play that are far better than this. That play fair and have consistent systems and don't lie to me.

It is graphically fantastic but that's all it has.

 

While an entertaining read, I'm left wondering what's a genshin and how did it get impacted in the first place?

 

Who da **** knows?

 

Has Infinity Ward forgotten how to do file compression?

 

That's ****ing ridiculous what with both next gen consoles still having 1 TB or less of internal storage.

 

Yeah, I've already but £100 aside for the inevitable SDD expansion I'll need for My PS5

 

It certainly sounds it at first but SSD drives look far pricier and smaller. If it was 2TB? Price point would likely be +£500.

I suggest holding fire for now, as from what I can tell there is currently no confirmed PS5 compatible external SSD.

Hopefully PC and PS5 SSD sales drive capacity up and price down but might take a couple of years.

 

They apparently have some in the pipeline. They're the latest model M2 SDD's though so not many around.

I'm not expecting to need one till next year, the money's just been put aside for now.