I have played several Zelda like games and action RPGs and definitely find those more accessible. I just find the stories in traditional JRPGs to be kinda bland and not very interesting, with some exceptions like Earthbound where they mess with the formula.
I want to like JRPGs, it’s probably a matter of just finding the right ones. I’ll be giving some of the classics another shake, but right now I am enjoying the primitive NES style of games.
I reached the conclusion that Red Dead Online isn’t for me, and I didn’t really have any interest in cleaning up more post-game content in the main RDR2 game, so I finally went ahead and deleted the 100+ GB install.
Finally finished a full run in The Persistence VR, but by that point I’d maxed out my character stats and all the weapons, and I had some very nice suits available too, so I’m feeling like I’ve seen pretty much everything the game has to offer. I might feel the urge to dip my toe back in later to clean up a few things (I’m missing a crew member still, and some of the trophies look interesting since you need to gimp yourself a bit to get them), but it’s definitely going on the shelf for now.
Picked up Below on deep discount, and it’s OK in a minimalist roguelike kind of way, but I don’t know that it’s going to hold my interest for much longer.
Finally started in on Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War, a 5 year old game, which gives you an idea of how deep my backlog is! This sequel still has a strong core, though the traversal is stolen from Assassin’s Creed and the combat is stolen from the Batman Arkham games. The Nemesis system was always overhyped, and it’s not quite as interesting as it thinks it is, but it does provide some cool flavor to the game. One thing this series always did well was making you feel really powerful from the beginning, making you overconfident in fighting a dozen people at the same time, and then suddenly ratcheting up the pressure and letting you find yourself in a situation where three dozen grunts are attacking you along with 3 captains with complementary strengths while several archers pelt you with arrows, and now you’re crapping your pants trying to figure out how to escape without dying. It looks like the sequel has more of a meta-game going on too, but I’m not too far into it yet.
I gave Hell Let Loose a whirl, since it was a free PS Plus game this month and I haven’t had a chance to try many native PS5 games yet. This feels like a game that requires everyone to participate in voice chat to have any chance of being fun, and sure enough, no one was talking when I tried to play. Other than looking a little shinier, holding 60fps easily, and giving me some de rigueur haptic feedback, there wasn’t a whole lot to differentiate this from a PS4 game. After a few play attempts and no real enjoyment I deleted the thing.
I need to get back to Falcon Age on the VR front, which I put on hold when I got The Persistence. It also sounds like the November PS Plus free game lineup will include multiple VR games, so hopefully there will be some on offer that I don’t already own. I’d like to try out I Expect You To Die 2 when it goes on sale, too. And I suppose one of these days I should reinstall No Man’s Sky and see how the VR mode looks on a PS5 (and all the post-launch expansions, since I’ve only played the vanilla launch version before).
Just finished up the main game and DLC on Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War, which probably took about 55-60 hours total (a little over 40 for the main game, ~10 for Blade Of Galadriel, and ~5-6 for Desolation Of Mordor).
While the main game is largely more of the same from Shadow Of Mordor (but expanded to more areas with more options), the siege battles are the big new idea here, and they’re pretty cool. Some basic customization for offense and defense lets you pick weapons that are more likely to damage your specific opponents, and you can either take the long road by hunting down all the overlord’s warchiefs to remove all his support for the siege in advance, or you can jump right in and try to take the fortress down with full defenses. The story endgame lets you continue to do endless single player sieges if you want, and you can do online sieges against other players’ fortresses too, so there’s ongoing variety to be had if you want it.
The introduction of drakes as mountable creatures is a mixed bag. The flight controls are questionable, and show some pretty big physics issues when you start flying in areas with lots of obstacles. I also had a hard time summoning drakes in most situations outside of free roam, so their usefulness was limited.
Maybe it’s because I did most of the side missions in an area before tackling the story missions, but I felt like I’d already seen most of what the game had to offer by the 20 hour mark and started to lose interest. Thankfully I kept pressing ahead, and the more interesting sieges and harder missions came along later and reignited my interest. There’s also a pretty cool twist near the end of the game that I’m glad I stuck around for.
Toward the end, the spirit of Celebrimbor betrays Talion and abandons him for another host, so as Talion lays there dying again he decides to put on the ring of the Nazgûl he’d just killed to continue his fight. This gives him comparable powers to what he had with Celebrimor, but also lets him raise the undead and do some other things differently. In the end he finally falls under Sauron’s thrall and becomes a full-on Nazgûl, only to be freed in death after the War Of The Ring.
The Blade Of Galadriel DLC was pretty similar to the main game in feel, as Eltariel has the same innate elven agility that Celebrimbor conferred onto Talion (she jumps farther than him, actually). The main gimmick here is the new light element that allows you to blind enemies, stun them, and ultimately insta-execute them. All gem pickups for Eltariel are light gems, and she can get some other elemental weapons and armor from specific missions throughout the DLC. Eltariel doesn’t dominate orcs, so the Nemesis mechanics don’t amount to much in her case; but being forced to actually kill everybody makes some fights a bit dicier, as the orcs here have many more immunities than in the main game. Eltariel also has about 10 new skills with additional subskills, most of them light-related. An enjoyable romp in the end, with some nice endgame tie-in as well.
Eltariel ultimately gets sent to fight corrupted Talion, and during this final battle Talion succumbs to the darkness and goes full Nazgûl after being banished by her.
I was curious how they were going to handle playing as plain old human Baranor in the Desolation Of Mordor DLC, and I have to say it never occurred to me that they would turn him into a low-rent Rico Rodriguez from Just Cause. Yes, supposedly the Númenóreans created a bunch of anachronistic mechanized weapons and devices that a helpful dwarf wants to build for Baranor, so he can grapple hook and parachute all over this new desert area of Mordor, and shoot metal bullets and bombs with fire and poison payloads at anything in sight. And, of course, what desert doesn’t have giant man-eating sand worms? Yes, this all sounds preposterous, and it totally is, but somehow it manages to work after you suspend your disbelief and Tolkien stops rolling in his grave.
Traversal mechanics aside, Baranor’s other main differences are that he’s mortal, so you get health elixirs to use, and if you die it’s game over; he can hire mercenaries since he can’t draft orcs, and he can have up to 3 mercenary bodyguards at the same time; and captured outposts grant various bonuses to you and your men, like poison immunity or larger cash drops from killed enemies. Your overall goal is to make use of the local mercenary outfit to build your way up to a siege of the local fortress.
At first the idea of dying being game over added some extra thrill to the DLC, but in practice you can use a healing elixir at any time, you still get a couple of Last Chance attempts to stay alive, and there’s no shortage of weapon and armor augmentations that reduce the damage you take; so on Normal difficulty I never really came close to death. I could see this being more harrowing on higher difficulties, though. Also, if you die, you apparently don’t lose any accumulated skills or story mission progress, though you do lose all your equipment, mercenaries, cash, and outposts, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds.
In the end my run through the second DLC on Normal took about 5-6 hours, and I was careful to diminish all the fortress’s defenses and warchiefs and capture all the outposts first, so that was a pretty lengthy run. Thoroughly enjoyable, though the final siege was way too easy on Normal. If I wasn’t so burned out on the game I could see higher difficulty runs being interesting in this mode.
I think I bought this all-inclusive edition of the game for ~$10-12, so it was definitely a good value. Well worth the time if you enjoyed Shadow Of Mordor.
Oh man, Manifold Garden is great. Environmental puzzling in an infinitely repeating, non-Euclidean space where gravity flows in the direction that you deem to be the floor at that point in time. It’s a relatively short first playthrough (~6-7 hours), but the whole game space is apparently interconnected through other paths, so there’s a whole alternate playthrough possible where you intentionally skip the use of the so-called “god cubes” and try to fix everything manually. Looking forward to that. Well worth the $12 or whatever it was on PSN at the moment.
Some cool PSVR titles free from PS Plus this month that I’ll be checking out. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners has already made a good first impression.
Picked up Jedi: Fallen Order on the cheap as well, and it’ll sit in my backlog for the moment. Going to have to decide between it, Nioh, and Ghostbusters for my next action game.
Picked up a few things on deep discount from Black Friday — Iron Man VR, Marvel’s Spider-Man GOTY edition, The Last Of Us Part II, and the PS5 version of Resident Evil Village. (Still holding out hope that REV will get PSVR2 support when that launches late next year, but that’s looking less and less likely now.) I’d played through the Iron Man VR demo a few months back and enjoyed it, so I’m looking forward to trying that one out in full.
Got started on Jedi: Fallen Order, since I hadn’t really played a full-blown PS5 game on my PS5 yet. It certainly looks shinier than a PS4 game and has a better frame rate, but I think consoles have finally gone past the point of massive generational leaps in graphic quality unless you’re desperate to play in 4K. (Since my TV is still just over 50 inches and I sit 7-9 feet away on the couch, it’s literally impossible to tell the difference between 4K and 1080p under those conditions.) The game itself appears to be a mash-up of Sekiro and Uncharted with worse character animation, but it nails the tone pretty well and is fun so far.
OK, Iron Man VR kicks ass. Somehow they managed to make an agile VR flying game that never feels pukey (even with all vignetting turned off, like I prefer), and they totally nailed how you’d imagine it would feel to fly around in the Iron Man suit. Having to balance the use of your arms for both directional control and weapon aiming is unique and interesting, and once the control scheme all clicks it feels great. Dodging around the buildings in Shanghai, ground punching a giant tank and then shredding it with your repulsors as it flips over your head, then rocketing up into the sky and unibeaming the shit out of a swarm of drones plays out just like you’d hope. $10 very well spent.
Yeah, I finished 999 a couple of months ago and I'll definitely play Zero Time Dilemma right after this. This stuff is right up my alley. To be honest, I'm really surprised that anyone here is familiar with these games.
Finished up Jedi: Fallen Order, which was good stuff. Strangely, even though my A/V setup doesn’t support 4K, the game defaulted to its lower frame rate high quality mode instead of the 60fps locked mode, but once I switched over to 60fps I was much happier.
Got started on the original Insomniac Spider-Man game, which is good so far, but perhaps not as glorious as some reviews make it out to be.
I also recently discovered Portingkit for macOS, which does some magic with WINE and other tools to repackage Windows games as native macOS apps, allowing you to run supported sub-64-bit Windows apps on 64-bit-only macOS versions, even on Apple Silicon, apparently. Kind of hilarious that it’s easier to get the Windows version of an older game running on modern macOS than the equivalent macOS port. So far I’ve only tried out Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force from 2001, but it’s running just fine in full 1600x1200 glory with its sub-100-polygon character models and all. (The Windows 95 era is when I got out of PC gaming in general, so there’s some cool stuff from 1995-2005 that I should probably check out using this method.)
Still need to finish up Iron Man VR and a couple of other VR titles as I have time.
I also recently discovered Portingkit for macOS, which does some magic with WINE and other tools to repackage Windows games as native macOS apps, allowing you to run supported sub-64-bit Windows apps on 64-bit-only macOS versions, even on Apple Silicon, apparently. Kind of hilarious that it’s easier to get the Windows version of an older game running on modern macOS than the equivalent macOS port. So far I’ve only tried out Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force from 2001, but it’s running just fine in full 1600x1200 glory with its sub-100-polygon character models and all. (The Windows 95 era is when I got out of PC gaming in general, so there’s some cool stuff from 1995-2005 that I should probably check out using this method.)
99 is when I got into "Windows gaming" era. Reasons : Heroes 3 and Unreal Tournament. I was perfectly fine with DOS up to that point. (and after)
Elite Force brings some memories. I liked that game very much, EF2 is great too, way better graphics, EF1 seemed to flow better.
2001/2 was my maximum Star Trek era. Remember Starfleet Command 1,2,3? And Armada? or the DOS adventure games with the original crew? Yep back when there were actual genres, Star Trek had a representative in most of them.
About that porting kit, that looks like a Wine wrapper with a bad name (running over wine is not native, it's over wine, while porting is a process of making the source buildable on a different platform), and I'm getting a 403 on the site. But Wine supports mixed 32/64 environments out of the box.
Looks to me like Homura or PlayOnLinux, which are Wine launchers dedicated for games that automatically apply some configuration etc. so the game runs better or at all.
Citra, the open soruce Nintendo 3DS emulator, does a great job with Samus Returns, the game I finally decided to play through. You can set an internal resolution multiplier, texture filters and the overall display shader. The first increases polygon count, second enhances the textures on models and the third usually applies antialiasing to the entire game.
Citra, the open soruce Nintendo 3DS emulator, does a great job with Samus Returns, the game I finally decided to play through. You can set an internal resolution multiplier, texture filters and the overall display shader. The first increases polygon count, second enhances the textures on models and the third usually applies antialiasing to the entire game.
^ meanwhile I even found a "cheat code" that enables 60 FPS in the game, the normal game is locked on 30. The camera scrolling is a tiny bit less smooth, everything else runs great.
Quite interesting that Citra is not a complete emulator, a lot of games lag or still don't work while MR runs perfect even enhanced.
Only option I would really love is two monitor fullscreen.
^ meanwhile I even found a "cheat code" that enables 60 FPS in the game, the normal game is locked on 30. The camera scrolling is a tiny bit less smooth, everything else runs great.
Quite interesting that Citra is not a complete emulator, a lot of games lag or still don't work while MR runs perfect even enhanced.
Only option I would really love is two monitor fullscreen.
So Citra varies per game, then. Hopefully, more people code for it. Maybe theres an editable batch script for plugging certain runtime holes or assisting emulation processing somewhere.
What does everyone think of the new games trend, and micro-transactions, streaming only and not owning a game, constant online DRM stuff all the major companies are pushing hard, especially in this new year already? To be honest, I never liked it, and and I'm not sure I'll ever get anything above a PS4 console wise.
Older consoles and open source are the future! (for me) So many great open-source engines out there for people to play with. I've played better fan-made non-monetary shooters on things like GZDoom then anything the so-called AAA gaming industry has produced in over 7 years. Same for RPGs on stuff like Scrumm and EXECreate, for example. Its the difference between a labor of love, and exploited labor for profit.
If any of you would like any links to cool free stuff, just let me know. Sounds like Zare has some knowledge here as well, maybe he can help.
What does everyone think of the new gaming trends, and what they're trying to accomplish this year? All these microtransactions and half-finished products, not owning games only the right to play by streaming, DRM, IAP, data-mining, only-online, etc.
I personally hate it. I'll never buy any console newer than my PS4. I've played better fan-made non-profit games on opensource engines than 90% of what the so-called AAA gaming industry has put out in the last 7 years. We all have new reasons to hate them (especially women) but putting that aside, all their work, it's just not impressive to me anymore, nor is it very cool. I think its the difference between a labor of love and exploited labor for profit.
If anyone here is new to opensource and wants to try some awesome stuff, just say the word. Sounds alot like Zare knows his stuff here too, so maybe he can help with suggestions.
What does everyone think of the new gaming trends, and what they're trying to accomplish this year? All these microtransactions and half-finished products, not owning games only the right to play by streaming, DRM, IAP, data-mining, only-online, etc.
I personally hate it. I'll never buy any console newer than my PS4. I've played better fan-made non-profit games on opensource engines than 90% of what the so-called AAA gaming industry has put out in the last 7 years. We all have new reasons to hate them (especially women) but putting that aside, all their work, it's just not impressive to me anymore, nor is it very cool. I think its the difference between a labor of love and exploited labor for profit.
The software as a service is a thing. It has some customer benefits for several software areas. Like anything it can be exploited for profit. You can have a massive multiplayer freemium game where the purchases are largely cosmetic and you can have a paid triple A title that needs additional money to unlock full functionality.
It's obvious that the former is an attempt to utilize new trends (MMO), and it is obvious that the latter is just a cashgrab. Because in the golden age, you'd have a complete AAA title for $50 and not just a fifth of it.
The last sentence is what it's about though. The first post I wrote, forgot to post and lost to reboot was on that trail. I can connect to that guy sitting in front of his screen making his game deep in the night. Check the pictures from id software from the mid 90s. Happy faces everywhere. No one looks stressed out. I cannot connect to the corporation at all, I was not surprised about recent developments on harassment of women in Blizzard(and they're full of PC shit and quotas and everything), because I know how corporation treats developers - material for exploitation. These are ape brains.
I try to not get down by it. It's not like this is a morale last stand only. It's also about product. Their product is not good. It's not like the rapist company just released something revolutionary like Doom.
The most important thing are hardware/software ecosystems. As long as there's a living breathing open source system that is able to utilize latest graphics hardware the situation is OK. The passion can't fight money but it can fight for its little private spot under the sun. Having a vendor wallgarden implies that if you want to develop for the platform, you need a business relation to the vendor. This is exact opposite of the things that brought us the revolution, home computers, IBM clones. You never had to have any relation to the Commodore to program and release for Amiga.
Citra, the open soruce Nintendo 3DS emulator, does a great job with Samus Returns, the game I finally decided to play through. You can set an internal resolution multiplier, texture filters and the overall display shader. The first increases polygon count, second enhances the textures on models and the third usually applies antialiasing to the entire game.
Just a bit of semantics, but increasing resolution does NOT increase polygon count, it just increases pixel count. If you have a ball made of 10 polygons, it'll always be 10 polygons, but in a higher resolution the image will be sharper.
The software as a service is a thing. It has some customer benefits for several software areas. Like anything it can be exploited for profit. You can have a massive multiplayer freemium game where the purchases are largely cosmetic and you can have a paid triple A title that needs additional money to unlock full functionality.
It's obvious that the former is an attempt to utilize new trends (MMO), and it is obvious that the latter is just a cashgrab. Because in the golden age, you'd have a complete AAA title for $50 and not just a fifth of it.
The last sentence is what it's about though. The first post I wrote, forgot to post and lost to reboot was on that trail. I can connect to that guy sitting in front of his screen making his game deep in the night. Check the pictures from id software from the mid 90s. Happy faces everywhere. No one looks stressed out. I cannot connect to the corporation at all, I was not surprised about recent developments on harassment of women in Blizzard(and they're full of PC shit and quotas and everything), because I know how corporation treats developers - material for exploitation. These are ape brains.
I try to not get down by it. It's not like this is a morale last stand only. It's also about product. Their product is not good. It's not like the rapist company just released something revolutionary like Doom.
The most important thing are hardware/software ecosystems. As long as there's a living breathing open source system that is able to utilize latest graphics hardware the situation is OK. The passion can't fight money but it can fight for its little private spot under the sun. Having a vendor wallgarden implies that if you want to develop for the platform, you need a business relation to the vendor. This is exact opposite of the things that brought us the revolution, home computers, IBM clones. You never had to have any relation to the Commodore to program and release for Amiga.
I know right? I miss the days when we could get a FULL game when buying it. When they make the switch to streaming only, I'll have a stockpile of all my favorite games and systems of past. I know I can do everything on my pc, but I like my consoles for many games. For PC though and emulators:
I love PPSSPP (a simple and directory-based emulator for PSP with massive functionality) With a bit of intermediate to advanced knowledge, you can also source code edit and have quite a bit of fun.
I feel bad for the kids of the new generation who dont know any better and get taken advantge of by these AAA goons. If people buy it, it just further encourages them to keep up this terrible behavior in general to everyone.
Speaking of ID software, I also love GZDoom (a special standalone opensource game engine that started as a Doom emulator) There's literally thousands of full games using the engine, as well as heavy doom mods that completely change the gameplay, levels, enemies, guns, graphics, etc. Everything from jokes and fan made universe total conversions, to insanely brutal and serious mods exist. (The community varies, so content is never guaranteed, but the good ones are truly gems) Plus, the code is easy to edit and learn with a little experience playing around, which you can lose countless hours in tweaking your own game and mods as much as you like. It's also directory based, so no install necessary.
I also really like EXECreate, since I'm a big old school RPG fan, but that's pretty basic. Still, if you like PSX era RPGs it's an amazing little creator and engine. A good example of a great game done with it, is Asdivine Cross by KEMCO.
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R runs perfect even enhanced.
