What are you currently playing?
- Thread starter Nick Calandra
- Start date
Ah it's a ps4 exclusive? that would explain why I couldn't find it then. Also this might help scratch my "Kung Fu/Open World" itch I've been having from GOT. It feels a lot like Sleeping Dogs from that clip. At least the few moments I watched.
Last edited:
Just finished Red Dead Redemption. It's earned it's reputation IMHO though does have a number of flaws. For a rather large chunk of the game(notably Mexico) it feels like you're being jerked around by everyone you meet, but the 3 clowns you need to help to storm fort Mercer(Irish, Seth, and Nigel) have a fair bit of this as well. By contrast, the final arc, where you're going after Dutch almost directly is a lot more shorter and direct, but also more satisfying. Which is good, considering it took a very large amount of the game to get both Javier and Bill nearly back to back and going through all the same crap for Dutch would have been infuriating.
Along the same lines, Dutch is far more interesting and defined as a Villain then the other two who you spend most of the game on, because Dutch gets a hell of a lot more screen time for a much shorter stretch of gameplay, whereas Bill shows up a few times in short bursts and Javier you meet for like one mission and learn little about him.
Likewise, the fact Dutch's new gang are all Native American youths who have been driven to sheer desperation by the lost of their land and culture(not to mention the other indignities heaped upon them by the US government and Americans in general) gives them a note of sympathy, particularly because of they're desperate enough to follow a nutter like Dutch to their doom, either because of his philosophy or because they've got nowhere else to turn.
Ross basically acts as a second villian to boot, because an absolute jerkass to John pretty much the entire time. Does he have a point that John did awful things and was never punished? Yes. It's also true that he's outright forcing John to kill many, many people(by virtue of the assignment) to bring Bill, Javier and Dutch down, which I'm sure he also blames John for. And of course, eventually decides John is too dangerous to live, leading to the finale at the Ranch.
The homestead missions after Dutch is killed but before the last story mission is a nice counterpoint, giving the story a chance to breathe and the player a chance to get to know Abigail and Jack(also Uncle, but Uncle is kinda of an old annoying weirdo). Especially knowing what's coming after them(and by this point, it's almost impossible not to know), when it feels like the calm before the storm, especially when John keeps telling Jack he's not going anywhere(and John probably doesn't believe it's over, even if he really wants to).
As for Jacks post-game content, it's fine. There's not much to talk about because at that point pretty much everything is over and done with. Take care of any side missions and then go find Ross to take revenge for John(not that it changes anything) and I guess, keep playing if you're really not done with the world you've probably already seen the entirety of. Jack isn't as charismatic as John but it's pretty much an excuse to keep playing after the finale anyway.
I haven't played that many other Rockstar games, but I'm away enough of them to feel that John and his mission feel perhaps the best fleshed out and empathic of any of the games so far. John does the things he does because his family is held captive and he has no other way of getting them back, despite the fact it kind of goes against his desire to leave the criminal life behind him. He's not doing it because it's a sociopath who wants to take over(Vice City), He's not being exhorted for a murder he didn't commit, except then will commit a ton of other murders(San Andreas), He's not perpetually cleaning up after his idiot cousin(IV) or whatever the chuckleheads in V are doing. RDR2 I believe is some kind of plan involving "More Money" "Mangos" and "Tahiti".
I haven't looked into ALL the GTA side games or bully so if I'm missing one, then correct me, but John comes across as a bit more likable(even if it's partially due to the Rockstar writing trope of everyone else being nuts and/or an asshole) even if he's not a saint.
Other things:
-I like the fact they put some train missions in the game, but the fact they shoved them all into the Mexico section was probably a poor move, considering there's literally one stretch of track in mexico so you end up seeing the same thing like 3 separate times in a rather short period if you're mainlining the missions(and by that point in the game, it's easy enough to mainline everything considering you've probably got plenty of cash and guns).
-During the homestead missions it's mentioned a couple times that they're broke and the ranch is hurting, but by that point the player likely has hundreds of dollars saved up and likely little else to spend them on, unless you're saving up for some of the really expensive weapons for sale(but since by that point you've probably got a number of weapons for free, buying new ones is somewhat optional). And in 1911, a couple hundred dollars was a lot of money, especially on the frontier. It's not particularly hard to earn money either, especially if you loot as many corpses(or skin animals) as is feasible and sell off the skins and such. I played as nice marston, so no robbing outside of story missions and didn't bother with treasure hunting and I still had money to burn at the end.
-The Stranger missions feel weird, in that it's unclear why certain ones spawn when they do, if it's related to other missions. They were also weird in general too, and it felt like few of them had a "happy" ending, not unlike something out of the Witcher where even the best intentions can lead to tragedy.
-The game's a little bit glitchy even now, a decade later. I had to restart one of the late game missions because I tried to loot a corpse when the game wanted me to grab the binoculars next to him and got stuck in an endless loop of John standing and squatting but unable to do anything else but quit and reload from the last save(at the beginning of the mission). I had a couple missions I failed unexpectedly at the start because "An Ally was killed", despite barely having a time to do anything, but it didn't seem to repeat upon restart from checkpoint(thank god).
-The campsite fast travel is useful(especially when I realized it can be sent to waypoints) but it's really finicky where it wants to activate. I'm also not sure what the "improved" campsite does over the normal one.
-I might have said before but one of my pet peeves concerning Open World games is how stuffed full of content they seem to be and it feels like a lot of the extra stuff is quasi mandatory at the risk of leaving you unprepared if you don't do the side missions. RDR, OTOH, more or less lets you just mainline the main quests if you want and the side stuff is truly optional. You do it if you feel like it or need a little extra cash, but you're probably good to go if you leave the optional stuff alone(I rarely gambled and still had plenty of cash).
Anyway, started on Undead Nightmare, which is awesomely cheesy so far. Johns reaction to the zombie thing is amusingly understated. I mean, yeah, he's concerned, but not nearly as much as one would think he would be considering his wife and son become flesh eating zombies before his eyes. He just ties them up, puts them in the house and gives them steaks before telling them not to eat people until he gets back.
Along the same lines, Dutch is far more interesting and defined as a Villain then the other two who you spend most of the game on, because Dutch gets a hell of a lot more screen time for a much shorter stretch of gameplay, whereas Bill shows up a few times in short bursts and Javier you meet for like one mission and learn little about him.
Likewise, the fact Dutch's new gang are all Native American youths who have been driven to sheer desperation by the lost of their land and culture(not to mention the other indignities heaped upon them by the US government and Americans in general) gives them a note of sympathy, particularly because of they're desperate enough to follow a nutter like Dutch to their doom, either because of his philosophy or because they've got nowhere else to turn.
Ross basically acts as a second villian to boot, because an absolute jerkass to John pretty much the entire time. Does he have a point that John did awful things and was never punished? Yes. It's also true that he's outright forcing John to kill many, many people(by virtue of the assignment) to bring Bill, Javier and Dutch down, which I'm sure he also blames John for. And of course, eventually decides John is too dangerous to live, leading to the finale at the Ranch.
The homestead missions after Dutch is killed but before the last story mission is a nice counterpoint, giving the story a chance to breathe and the player a chance to get to know Abigail and Jack(also Uncle, but Uncle is kinda of an old annoying weirdo). Especially knowing what's coming after them(and by this point, it's almost impossible not to know), when it feels like the calm before the storm, especially when John keeps telling Jack he's not going anywhere(and John probably doesn't believe it's over, even if he really wants to).
As for Jacks post-game content, it's fine. There's not much to talk about because at that point pretty much everything is over and done with. Take care of any side missions and then go find Ross to take revenge for John(not that it changes anything) and I guess, keep playing if you're really not done with the world you've probably already seen the entirety of. Jack isn't as charismatic as John but it's pretty much an excuse to keep playing after the finale anyway.
I haven't played that many other Rockstar games, but I'm away enough of them to feel that John and his mission feel perhaps the best fleshed out and empathic of any of the games so far. John does the things he does because his family is held captive and he has no other way of getting them back, despite the fact it kind of goes against his desire to leave the criminal life behind him. He's not doing it because it's a sociopath who wants to take over(Vice City), He's not being exhorted for a murder he didn't commit, except then will commit a ton of other murders(San Andreas), He's not perpetually cleaning up after his idiot cousin(IV) or whatever the chuckleheads in V are doing. RDR2 I believe is some kind of plan involving "More Money" "Mangos" and "Tahiti".
I haven't looked into ALL the GTA side games or bully so if I'm missing one, then correct me, but John comes across as a bit more likable(even if it's partially due to the Rockstar writing trope of everyone else being nuts and/or an asshole) even if he's not a saint.
Other things:
-I like the fact they put some train missions in the game, but the fact they shoved them all into the Mexico section was probably a poor move, considering there's literally one stretch of track in mexico so you end up seeing the same thing like 3 separate times in a rather short period if you're mainlining the missions(and by that point in the game, it's easy enough to mainline everything considering you've probably got plenty of cash and guns).
-During the homestead missions it's mentioned a couple times that they're broke and the ranch is hurting, but by that point the player likely has hundreds of dollars saved up and likely little else to spend them on, unless you're saving up for some of the really expensive weapons for sale(but since by that point you've probably got a number of weapons for free, buying new ones is somewhat optional). And in 1911, a couple hundred dollars was a lot of money, especially on the frontier. It's not particularly hard to earn money either, especially if you loot as many corpses(or skin animals) as is feasible and sell off the skins and such. I played as nice marston, so no robbing outside of story missions and didn't bother with treasure hunting and I still had money to burn at the end.
-The Stranger missions feel weird, in that it's unclear why certain ones spawn when they do, if it's related to other missions. They were also weird in general too, and it felt like few of them had a "happy" ending, not unlike something out of the Witcher where even the best intentions can lead to tragedy.
-The game's a little bit glitchy even now, a decade later. I had to restart one of the late game missions because I tried to loot a corpse when the game wanted me to grab the binoculars next to him and got stuck in an endless loop of John standing and squatting but unable to do anything else but quit and reload from the last save(at the beginning of the mission). I had a couple missions I failed unexpectedly at the start because "An Ally was killed", despite barely having a time to do anything, but it didn't seem to repeat upon restart from checkpoint(thank god).
-The campsite fast travel is useful(especially when I realized it can be sent to waypoints) but it's really finicky where it wants to activate. I'm also not sure what the "improved" campsite does over the normal one.
-I might have said before but one of my pet peeves concerning Open World games is how stuffed full of content they seem to be and it feels like a lot of the extra stuff is quasi mandatory at the risk of leaving you unprepared if you don't do the side missions. RDR, OTOH, more or less lets you just mainline the main quests if you want and the side stuff is truly optional. You do it if you feel like it or need a little extra cash, but you're probably good to go if you leave the optional stuff alone(I rarely gambled and still had plenty of cash).
Anyway, started on Undead Nightmare, which is awesomely cheesy so far. Johns reaction to the zombie thing is amusingly understated. I mean, yeah, he's concerned, but not nearly as much as one would think he would be considering his wife and son become flesh eating zombies before his eyes. He just ties them up, puts them in the house and gives them steaks before telling them not to eat people until he gets back.
Last edited:
Well like I said, Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow isn't backwards compatible and neither Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance.
But if you already got it working then I should be fine, doubly so since its an Xbox Exclusive.
Though my worry is if it works at all.
Because
The main character’s actor has apparently also seen this clip
Speaking of on topic, I just noticed the online has a new pursuit, and it could be the most intriguing one yet.
On one side, you have a retired big game hunter who’s looking to entice you into supplying him with every legendary carcass you can so he can turn them into boots, clothes, rugs, wall ornaments, etc.
On the other, you have a conservationist that wants you to tranq and save them all so she can study them and collect samples.
There’s already a running joke as to which is more popular, but being an animal lover I see this as a chance to redeem my wicked deeds as a Trader.
You can also play both sides, but at what cost. Yet to be seen.
Zelda: BOTW
First Zelda I ever finished. That should say a lot
But my major gripe is the music. Who made this horrible music? Is this a new version of old game soundtracks? The only good one is the gloomy forest one, everything else can burn
Anyway, liked the Divine Beast dungoens. They were the highlight. It don't know why sending one into a volcano would help your cause but here we are. They were challenging enough that I struggled to puzzle out one terminal in each beast but not enough to get frustrated
Some shrine were cool but a lot were pointless. I don't know why there needed to be so many guardian battles
Finding beetles and birds were frustrating. The draw distance didn't seem to support this as when the animals came into view, they'd run away.
Didn't appreciate weaker weapons breaking so easy. It just made things frustrating. But good equipment was easy to find and plentiful
The map feels weird and unnatural. This doesn't feel like a real place where people live
Overall a good game 7/10
First Zelda I ever finished. That should say a lot
But my major gripe is the music. Who made this horrible music? Is this a new version of old game soundtracks? The only good one is the gloomy forest one, everything else can burn
Anyway, liked the Divine Beast dungoens. They were the highlight. It don't know why sending one into a volcano would help your cause but here we are. They were challenging enough that I struggled to puzzle out one terminal in each beast but not enough to get frustrated
Some shrine were cool but a lot were pointless. I don't know why there needed to be so many guardian battles
Finding beetles and birds were frustrating. The draw distance didn't seem to support this as when the animals came into view, they'd run away.
Didn't appreciate weaker weapons breaking so easy. It just made things frustrating. But good equipment was easy to find and plentiful
The map feels weird and unnatural. This doesn't feel like a real place where people live
Overall a good game 7/10
Yeah a lot of the gathering stuff was annoying to me too. And all the different shrines were annoying. I didn't need 300ish shrines, they became very tedious.
And yes, the equipment fragility was just stupid. I hated it so much. I don't mind gear durability in concept, but BOTW went WAAAAY too far in the wrong direction about durability.
It was a very beautiful game, and I loved all the verticality to it, as it really let you capitalize on your glider for getting around, which was super fun. Plus I loved the challenge of finding alternate routes around dangers, by being a rock climber.
Overall I found it a fun game, but nothing mind blowing. Then again I've never been a huge nintendo fan. I played the zelda/mario games back in the day, but once I switched platforms, I didn't really miss the various other titles in the franchises. BOTW was really good though. I would say a 7/10 is a reasonable score, that I would agree with. Fun enough for me to keep wanting to play it, and explore, but not fun enough for me to want to try and do everything.
Oh shit, I just remembered people trying to cancel Jim Sterling over giving BOTW 7/10 years ago. Welp, I’m cooked
As to visuals, yeah looked really good but the shadows on people didn’t look right at all.
- Feb 7, 2011
- 8,599
- 3,121
- 118
- Country
- 'Merica
- Gender
- 3 children in a trench coat
First impression of Horizon Zero Dawn: Movement feels janky.
Second Impression of Horizon Zero Dawn: Shooting the bow at robot dinosaurs feels very good.
Second Impression of Horizon Zero Dawn: Shooting the bow at robot dinosaurs feels very good.
I had less of a problem with the durability and more of a problem with the fact that you can't prevent this process, other than straight-up not using it. Like, with the shields you prevent degradation by parrying, but with the swords and the bows there's no such thing.
The other problem is that the more item slots you get the more picking up a new weapon turns into musical chairs. You fill up on weapons quick, and when you have 8 to 10 weapon slots, with each new weapon you find you'll be compelled to compare it to what you already have, how much stronger or weaker it is, and which of your current weapons have already been used to an amount, which you can't even properly gage unless they're close to gone. Then there's the numerical buffs which only serve to make it harder to judge whether what you have or what you just picked up is stronger or weaker, unless you go into the item screen and argh, I'm already getting tired just writing this down.
Bloodborne: Defeated the last boss of The Old Hunters. Holy crap, that was insane. Took me about two and a half hours (closer to three) of straight attempts, and more deaths than probably all the other bosses in the game so far put together. But I felt like a god when I finally managed to beat it. Overall, I'd say The Old Hunters is probably the best part of the game, and I definitely don't regret doing it like everyone said to, even with that last boss being that difficult.
Just a couple more bosses to go before it's time to move on to Dark Souls 3. And some Blood Vial grinding just to make sure.
Just a couple more bosses to go before it's time to move on to Dark Souls 3. And some Blood Vial grinding just to make sure.
Finished Bloodborne. Beat Gehrman the First Hunter on the first try (using all my Blood Vials and QSB, at level 93), got that ending. Time to move on to Dark Souls 3.
That's a weird title for a gameplay video when the actual game only runs at sub 30 fps most the time.
Yeah the movements take a bit to get used to. I wouldn't call them the most fluid of controls, especially climbing and jumping from yellow thing to yellow thing
Playing Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.
On one hand, I really am enjoying the cheesy nature of the cutscenes and side quests. Seth is having a blast with the newly risen undead, the Marshal in Armadillo is treating this as just another really shitty day(and aren't most of them), the moviemaker who wants to make a zombie movie(with real zombies) and Nigel West Dickens, who really can't seem to turn the salesman thing off. The Sasquatch mission is nice too, even if a bit tragic. Also, seeing Herbert moon getting eaten just after engaging on a conspiracy laden, racist rant was heartwarming.
OTOH, it feels padded, even for a game this short. Most of the gameplay is either glorified bandit camps(the town defense missions), or repatitve and annoying quests(Seth wants me to cleanse 3 graveyards and NWD wants me to fetch flowers from opposite sides of the fucking map) which all feels like the worst and laziest of Open World mission types and while earning new guns is nice, it doesn't matter much when more bullets and faster reloads trump everything(unless you're on a rooftop, then you can use whatever you have the most bullets for). Having bullets be the prenium resource is a nice twist and removing cover based shooting is a nice change up but beyond that the nature of the gameplay feels a bit thin.
I'm sure I'll finish it up before moving on to something else since it's fairly short.
On one hand, I really am enjoying the cheesy nature of the cutscenes and side quests. Seth is having a blast with the newly risen undead, the Marshal in Armadillo is treating this as just another really shitty day(and aren't most of them), the moviemaker who wants to make a zombie movie(with real zombies) and Nigel West Dickens, who really can't seem to turn the salesman thing off. The Sasquatch mission is nice too, even if a bit tragic. Also, seeing Herbert moon getting eaten just after engaging on a conspiracy laden, racist rant was heartwarming.
OTOH, it feels padded, even for a game this short. Most of the gameplay is either glorified bandit camps(the town defense missions), or repatitve and annoying quests(Seth wants me to cleanse 3 graveyards and NWD wants me to fetch flowers from opposite sides of the fucking map) which all feels like the worst and laziest of Open World mission types and while earning new guns is nice, it doesn't matter much when more bullets and faster reloads trump everything(unless you're on a rooftop, then you can use whatever you have the most bullets for). Having bullets be the prenium resource is a nice twist and removing cover based shooting is a nice change up but beyond that the nature of the gameplay feels a bit thin.
I'm sure I'll finish it up before moving on to something else since it's fairly short.
I never played that content myself, but I watched a few let's plays. The bit that I loved the most, was just how they didn't give a fuck with the cutscenes with the characters. You'd get stuff like "Ok well, I'll see you in a few minutes! I'm just going back to my store first, by way of this loooong....dark....isolated alley....all by myself! Cya later..." *whistles as he walks off camera, zombies grab him* "Oh god! Help! Who could've foreseen this?!"
And Jon just sort of shakes his head and moves on. Loved that stuff.
I just finished that Carrion game. Its meh. Its not a 'reverse horror game' its a puzzle game with a tentacle theme. And while you do get to kill scientists every now and then(with humans being your primary health source) the majority of enemies are robots with guns, floating drones, and humans in mini-gun armed walkers.
And about half way through the game the robots get flame throwers, which are just delightful. They have huge range, can shoot through grates and floorboards, through doors, almost instant lockon, and once on fire you can't put it out unless you dive in water, and this is a game with more than a few mandatory stealth sections where you simply have to burn and reload.
Oh and did I mention they cyborgs have a shield that shocks you from trying to grab them unless you get them from behind? Yeah they're a deeply frustrating enemy.
Overall the game was meh. No map, no real story, finished in a bout 5 hours, no replay value whatsoever.
And about half way through the game the robots get flame throwers, which are just delightful. They have huge range, can shoot through grates and floorboards, through doors, almost instant lockon, and once on fire you can't put it out unless you dive in water, and this is a game with more than a few mandatory stealth sections where you simply have to burn and reload.
Oh and did I mention they cyborgs have a shield that shocks you from trying to grab them unless you get them from behind? Yeah they're a deeply frustrating enemy.
Overall the game was meh. No map, no real story, finished in a bout 5 hours, no replay value whatsoever.
I do not know why the user labeled it that way. I guess they were hoping an unsuspecting viewer would not know despite the information already being out in the open.