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[NerfedFalcon]

The problem with MW3 is that its plot goes really silly.... well the plot of MW2 goes really silly and 3 just continues it.

Put simply, that's the reason why I think the original Modern Warfare has the best plot in any Call of Duty game. It has a strong throughline rather than just being a series of vignettes held together by the timeline of the historical war like CoD2 and WaW (the only World War 2 ones I've played), but unlike its sequels or the Black Ops series it remains essentially plausible that something like that could happen or have happened, rather than swerving into the ridiculous and over-the-top. Not that ridiculous and over-the-top aren't fun in their own way, but MW will probably never be replaced in my heart for that reason.

 

[Worgen]

Put simply, that's the reason why I think the original Modern Warfare has the best plot in any Call of Duty game. It has a strong throughline rather than just being a series of vignettes held together by the timeline of the historical war like CoD2 and WaW (the only World War 2 ones I've played), but unlike its sequels or the Black Ops series it remains essentially plausible that something like that could happen or have happened, rather than swerving into the ridiculous and over-the-top. Not that ridiculous and over-the-top aren't fun in their own way, but MW will probably never be replaced in my heart for that reason.

Totally agree.

 

[Bartholen]

I played Darkest Dungeon 1 again for a few days, and then stopped when I hit the second third... again. I just never learn my lesson with this game, do I? It has one of the most frustrating escalation curves in any game ever. The first third is really fun as you explore different party comps, gain experience and loot and grow your roster. And basically as soon as you get to the Veteran level dungeons the game starts going "NUH UH" at every turn. The ramp up in the power of the enemies is just nuts: you'll start missing attacks far more frequently, at times seemingly arbitrarily. Enemies start hitting way harder, killing your characters more often, forcing you to abandon more quests, therefore reducing your income drastically while simultaneously upgrade costs shoot up. It slams the pacing of the game into a brick wall as the rate of gaining resources drops drastically compared to their requirement level, so you're just forced to keep grinding for them. And I'm playing this with pretty extensive inventory mods that effectively double the amount of stuff you can carry! I can't even imagine what an absolute slog this would be in the vanilla version.

The problem with permadeath in this game is that losing even a mid-level hero is a huge sunk cost loss that takes ages to recoup. It's not like in XCOM where you at least get to keep all their high level gear, most of the investment in characters is done with gold and can't be reimbursed. The game makes this a point of pride, but it's simply not fun.

I just got the level restriction removal mod on the workshop, maybe that'd even this frustration out.

 

[BrawlMan]

I am still kind of early into COD Vanguard (3rd mission; barely a quarter through the campaign), and I am loving the game's story and its characters. Funny enough, it's YouTubers (many of the grifters, but some of them not) who "hate or find the story boring", because "it has too much diversity, is not realistic, or is just another WW2!". Fuck these assholes. Anti-Woke grifters or not, It didn't stop these bitches from sucking Black Ops 1's duck 24/7. The last complaint I do get, but each of the playable characters have their own dedicated chapters, and either play differently from each other, or have special abilities unique to them. Arthur Kingsley can give squad commands for example. Polina Pertrova can do parkour and can easily crawl through tiny spaces the easiest and the fastest. This works great, as she usually has large arenas where she can flank Nazis while they're still trying to find her or lost sight of her.

Ironically, most the professional gaming critics, or those with YouTube pages, actually love the campaign, or consider it between good and fine (Yahtzee). I know you're tired of WW2 shotters, but I felt the need to share my thoughts. Thank you.

 

[Ezekiel]

Psychonauts 2, like the last new game I played, RE4 '23, appears to have adaptive difficulty. When I get hurt more, the enemies drop needed items more.

They also put in R3 lock-on, because every third person melee combat game needs to use shit button R3 for lock-on now, like Demon's Souls.

The game is okay. Story a little more boring than the first game, but I didn't love it either.

I remembered it wrong. Psychonauts did have lock-on. But it had it on the trigger, where it belongs! It used Z-targeting, the standard before Dark Souls. I just installed the game again to check and found that you can strafe even when there is no target. Of course you can, because when you can hold the button down, the function is just built in, like I said in my reply to Hansel.

 

[Worgen]

I played Darkest Dungeon 1 again for a few days, and then stopped when I hit the second third... again. I just never learn my lesson with this game, do I? It has one of the most frustrating escalation curves in any game ever. The first third is really fun as you explore different party comps, gain experience and loot and grow your roster. And basically as soon as you get to the Veteran level dungeons the game starts going "NUH UH" at every turn. The ramp up in the power of the enemies is just nuts: you'll start missing attacks far more frequently, at times seemingly arbitrarily. Enemies start hitting way harder, killing your characters more often, forcing you to abandon more quests, therefore reducing your income drastically while simultaneously upgrade costs shoot up. It slams the pacing of the game into a brick wall as the rate of gaining resources drops drastically compared to their requirement level, so you're just forced to keep grinding for them. And I'm playing this with pretty extensive inventory mods that effectively double the amount of stuff you can carry! I can't even imagine what an absolute slog this would be in the vanilla version.

The problem with permadeath in this game is that losing even a mid-level hero is a huge sunk cost loss that takes ages to recoup. It's not like in XCOM where you at least get to keep all their high level gear, most of the investment in characters is done with gold and can't be reimbursed. The game makes this a point of pride, but it's simply not fun.

I just got the level restriction removal mod on the workshop, maybe that'd even this frustration out.

You might like Darkest Dungeon 2 more. Its more of a straight roguelike then the first game. You do a run, character stories and candles are what carries over, candles to give you more items and character stats, character stories for more skills.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I played Darkest Dungeon 1 again for a few days, and then stopped when I hit the second third... again. I just never learn my lesson with this game, do I? It has one of the most frustrating escalation curves in any game ever. The first third is really fun as you explore different party comps, gain experience and loot and grow your roster. And basically as soon as you get to the Veteran level dungeons the game starts going "NUH UH" at every turn. The ramp up in the power of the enemies is just nuts: you'll start missing attacks far more frequently, at times seemingly arbitrarily. Enemies start hitting way harder, killing your characters more often, forcing you to abandon more quests, therefore reducing your income drastically while simultaneously upgrade costs shoot up. It slams the pacing of the game into a brick wall as the rate of gaining resources drops drastically compared to their requirement level, so you're just forced to keep grinding for them. And I'm playing this with pretty extensive inventory mods that effectively double the amount of stuff you can carry! I can't even imagine what an absolute slog this would be in the vanilla version.

The problem with permadeath in this game is that losing even a mid-level hero is a huge sunk cost loss that takes ages to recoup. It's not like in XCOM where you at least get to keep all their high level gear, most of the investment in characters is done with gold and can't be reimbursed. The game makes this a point of pride, but it's simply not fun.

I just got the level restriction removal mod on the workshop, maybe that'd even this frustration out.

Yes, could not agree more. DD is oozing style, but the game just completely wastes your time in the worst ways. Not only does losing a character commit you to another 3-4 hours of slowly. walking. through. early. dungeons, but because, for completely arbitrary reasons, high level heroes cannot enter low level dungeons you need to level up an entirely new party every time. And then as soon as you have your character all leveled up and slotted into your original party they get hit with 3 crits in a row and fail their deathblow resist and you get to do it again.

And, yes. Without mods it's a slog. I played without mods. The only thing I did was go into the game files and turn up walking and combat speed by 300% or something. It also took me two attempts several years apart to get through the game, I can't say it was really worth it either.

You might like Darkest Dungeon 2 more. Its more of a straight roguelike then the first game. You do a run, character stories and candles are what carries over, candles to give you more items and character stats, character stories for more skills.

He might like it less, as it's a very meta-progression driven roguelite that also doesn't respect your time very much.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

He might like it less, as it's a very meta-progression driven roguelite that also doesn't respect your time very much.

I don't know Bartholen well enough to comment directly on his tastes, but not everybody shares your dislike of meta-progression. Not saying you're wrong out of hand, but until he gets back we can't know for sure. (I haven't played DD2 so I can't comment on its specific implementation.)

Anyway, OT, made it through Chapter 2 of Pirate Yakuza. As I thought, other than the first chapter there's fewer of them but they take longer, and the amount of faffing about I've done has made them even longer. You always need more money to get stronger, not to Yakuza 0 levels but certainly a lot more than I've ever needed in games besides that one. Unlike Yakuza 0, though, there aren't as many ways to get the amount of money you need all at once; it essentially comes down to either bounty hunts (including Devil Flags), Colosseum battles, or Crazy Delivery. And since you need money to upgrade both Majima and the ship, but reputation only upgrades Majima, you end up with far more of the latter than the former. I'm still enjoying the game a lot, but limiting progression this much is a bit rough.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I don't know Bartholen well enough to comment directly on his tastes, but not everybody shares your dislike of meta-progression. Not saying you're wrong out of hand, but until he gets back we can't know for sure. (I haven't played DD2 so I can't comment on its specific implementation.)

I'm not sure where you are getting this from, it's not like I hate every game with meta-progression. I could list a handful of games with meta-progression that I really enjoyed. They aren't roguelikes, though. And DD2 is barely even a roguelite. I just think that Bartholen should temper his expectations a bit if he's looking into it.

 

[Worgen]

He might like it less, as it's a very meta-progression driven roguelite that also doesn't respect your time very much.

He also might get into a car wreck if he doesn't play Darkest Dungeon 2, did you ever think about that? Maybe deciding to do 'one more run', would have caused him to be late and not get hit.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I'm not sure where you are getting this from, it's not like I hate every game with meta-progression. I could list a handful of games with meta-progression that I really enjoyed. They aren't roguelikes, though. And DD2 is barely even a roguelite. I just think that Bartholen should temper his expectations a bit if he's looking into it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As I said, I haven't even played DD2 because I disliked the first one so much for all the reasons everybody's listed, so for all I know I could be talking out my ass.

 

[Drathnoxis]

He also might get into a car wreck if he doesn't play Darkest Dungeon 2, did you ever think about that? Maybe deciding to do 'one more run', would have caused him to be late and not get hit.

No... I didn't! Well if it will save his life, I guess he'd better!

 

[BrawlMan]

More COD Vangaurd. I am going through Wade Jackson's two chapters. Once again, Sledge Hammer doesn't do flying sections well, but it's the least worse one. It doesn't last too long either. His on ground chapter is much better. Another thing about the "forced diversity" complaint YouTubers were making: America's and UKs/Europe's racism against those with skin color is either implied or out right stated. So political correct history and forced diversity on the blackest part of my fucking ass! This is why I am so glad not to trust a majority of these fuck heads a long time ago!

@Worgen, believe it or not, but I am already in the halfway point of the game!

1. Phoenix
2. Operation Tonga
3. Stalingrad
4. The Battle of Midway
5. Numa Numa Trail
6. Lady Nightingale
7. The Rats of Tobruk
8. The Battle of El Alamein
9. The Fourth Reich

Currently in the second half of mission 5.

EDIT: On Mission 6 now.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Speaking of CoD -

 

[BrawlMan]

Speaking of CoD -

That is a new achievement which will never be surpassed.

Chapter 5 is good chapter, but there are cheap moments with the one hit kill bayonet enemies who spawn out of nowhere, if you get sighted in the stealth parts. The second half is much better. Though they contain a few those bayonet chargers, but they at least don't spawn out of nowhere. Wade Jackson's special ability is bullet time and instantly snapping to the next Japanese Imperial soldier. I will do a little bit of Lady Nightingale, and quit for tonight.

 

[BrawlMan]

1. Phoenix
2. Operation Tonga
3. Stalingrad
4. The Battle of Midway
5. Numa Numa Trail
6. Lady Nightingale
7. The Rats of Tobruk
8. The Battle of El Alamein
9. The Fourth Reich

Currently in the second half of mission 5.

EDIT: On Mission 6 now.

Lady Night is complete, and is the best chapter in the game. Vanguard may only have 9 chapters, but most of them are pretty lengthy and keep mixing different varieties in environments and arenas. It may have the least vehicle sections/segments (not a bad thing), but makes up for it by having level variety.

 

[BrawlMan]

@Worgen, @laggyteabag, and @NerfedFalcon:

COD Vanguard is now complete! Now that is a fantastic and entertaining single player WW2 FPS campaign. I do wish the game had at least one more
chapter, but I get they had to wrap it up. So better to finish, than to pad things out. Besides, the last chapter is pretty good and is a final exam of all the characters you had been using throughout the campaign.

My only complaints are the UI is too clean and blends in with bright and sunny backgrounds using white text. It doesn't happen much, but when it does, it get annoying. There are some graphical bugs and funny glitches where enemies die in the air and stay stuck in mid air. I am surprised a glitch like that exists in a usually polished AAA COD game. Lucas's first mission in North Africa I had to restart, because he got stuck on a piece cover at the last check point. Thankfully, it was at the near beginning, so there wasn't much for me to redo. Otherwise, I am having a great time with this game!

It gets an 9/10 for me when talking about the campaign.

I can't believe I completed 4 different COD games within a few weeks of each other. Shit, I might get COD4: Modern Warfare Remastered since it is on sale for cheap on Amazon.

 

[Worgen]

I can't believe I completed 4 different COD games within a few weeks of each other. Shit, I might get COD4: Modern Warfare Remastered since it is on sale for cheap on Amazon.

Might want to try out the blops series, at least 2 and maybe 3.

 

[BrawlMan]

Might want to try out the blops series, at least 2 and maybe 3.

I won't make any promises, but I never found the Blops sub-series interesting as a whole. Aside from the bonus modes like Dead-Ops Arcade. I might pick up BLOPS2 only, since it has more open ended level design and selection.

 

[Worgen]

I won't make any promises, but I never found the Blops sub-series interesting as a whole. Aside from the bonus modes like Dead-Ops Arcade. I might pick up BLOPS2 only, since it has more open ended level design and selection.

I enjoyed Blops 2 and 3, felt the first one wasn't that interesting, but I only got the first one after playing 2 and 3 and long after the multi was mostly dead.