Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
What do you like about Skellige? I grew tired of sailing/swimming to so many little islands or random spots in the sea.
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- Thread starter Onhell
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Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Finished up Moss: Book II on PSVR2, and while it initially felt like more of the same, it soon took some narrative chances and introduced several new gameplay mechanics that made the whole experience richer. The environments got better and better as the game progressed, too. It felt slightly longer than the first game, but still pretty short; probably 5-6 hours for a full playthrough. Still very high quality, though, and pretty mandatory stuff for PSVR2 owners.
I also finished up my second full round of Cursed To Golf, which was pretty straightforward with only Hole 17 making me sweat (again). I tried out the remix mode, but in addition to the hole layouts being particularly hard, it eliminated all of the statues on the courses that would normally grant you par increases if you hit them, so the difficulty increased a brutal amount and I couldn’t even finish the first hole after 5 attempts, so I gave up.
Going to take a brief detour to play through Star Trek: Elite Force II, then it’s on to God Of War: Ragnarok as my next PS5 game and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners as my next PSVR2 game.
I also finished up my second full round of Cursed To Golf, which was pretty straightforward with only Hole 17 making me sweat (again). I tried out the remix mode, but in addition to the hole layouts being particularly hard, it eliminated all of the statues on the courses that would normally grant you par increases if you hit them, so the difficulty increased a brutal amount and I couldn’t even finish the first hole after 5 attempts, so I gave up.
Going to take a brief detour to play through Star Trek: Elite Force II, then it’s on to God Of War: Ragnarok as my next PS5 game and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners as my next PSVR2 game.
KiDDo
Prowler
I don't know, first time I played the game I grabbed a boat and sailed through all of Skellige for hours until my boat crashed^^
Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
The Sirens destroyed mine.
Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
I'm still working through my second Witcher III playthrough and I've already bumped into some issues I either didn't notice, don't remember or didn't bother me upon my first playthrough. The biggest one is Priscilla, anybody get Green Lantern GF in the fridge vibes from how quickly she was just written out of the game? The other one is related to that... the serial killer you start hunting down, if you hunt him down before helping Triss, when you help her escape you find a body near by as you're hiding from witch hunters and comment on how the body has the M.O from the guy you caught, concluding, "Hmmm, it wasn't so so after all." Um, excuse me, but we caught so and so red handed... So we either have a copy cat or at the least we got someone who may have been innocent of one crime, but was clearly guilty of others. That off-handed comment bothered me and led me to ask, "Then who is it? I don't remember having to hunt an additional individual and the quest was marked complete when following the quest clues." Soooo.... is it an unmarked quest or we just stop caring there's a serial killer lose in Novigrad? Funny thing is, since it's my second run through of the game I kinda don't care. I'm the type of player that tries to do as much as possible on the first run through to either just do achievement hunts for later run throughs or get alternate results depending on dialogue choices, etc. So this time around I'm not doing any of the races and I don't go out of my way to hit undiscovered locations like bandit camps and monster nests. I am doing the fighting tourneys and Gwent stuff though.
Mega
Ancient Mariner
Being bad in a fighting game is what it's all about! If you're bad you can improve and that's where the fun is.
Blasphemous kicks ass, I should get back to it. I never finished my first playthrough.
Unworthy was kinda fun but not enough to hold my interest. Cool art style though.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Finished up Star Trek: Elite Force II from 2003. An improvement on the original game in almost every way, though the way they chose to spend their voice acting budget was a bit odd — they only got Picard, Tuvok, and Barclay to voice their characters, but then they hired the actors for Kern, Gowron, and Martok to do the Klingon voices (though not as those characters), and they got Admiral Forrest from Enterprise and Weyoun from Deep Space Nine to do other random unrelated voices. Seems like investing in more of the Enterprise crew would’ve made more sense (though I suppose Riker and Troi would have been on the Titan and Data would have been dead at that point, so the pickings would have been slimmer).
The graphics were quite nice for the Quake III Arena engine, with some pretty big outdoor environments and cool visual filters for the tricorder and night vision, with resolution support up to 1600x1200. The game mechanics were expanded a bit too, with a new hacking minigame and some very rudimentary stealth, as well as the new tricorder modes for seeing sensors and traps. That said, the enemy behavior is super lame, either running right at you or standing behind cover, popping up in the exact same place from time to time. Every once in a while you’d see some lateral movement or something, but not often. And the bosses are about the same, though they usually get some kind of bullet spread designed to hit you if you’re blindly circle-strafing, so you have to mix things up. The storytelling feels super lame by modern standards, too.
Still had fun with it for what it was, though. Now it’s back to present-day gaming…
The graphics were quite nice for the Quake III Arena engine, with some pretty big outdoor environments and cool visual filters for the tricorder and night vision, with resolution support up to 1600x1200. The game mechanics were expanded a bit too, with a new hacking minigame and some very rudimentary stealth, as well as the new tricorder modes for seeing sensors and traps. That said, the enemy behavior is super lame, either running right at you or standing behind cover, popping up in the exact same place from time to time. Every once in a while you’d see some lateral movement or something, but not often. And the bosses are about the same, though they usually get some kind of bullet spread designed to hit you if you’re blindly circle-strafing, so you have to mix things up. The storytelling feels super lame by modern standards, too.
Still had fun with it for what it was, though. Now it’s back to present-day gaming…
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Heh, yes, that's a hidden questline, actually - you can catch someone and don't know the real killer got away or you can actually end the quest properly and catch and fight the real killer. That's actually one of the coolest part of the game for me.
I was playing the game completely blind, yet I managed to solve it in my first (and so far only) playthrough, but several of my friends who actually played the game several times have missed the entire quest altogether, somehow (I'm not even sure if it's possible)
Yeah, Skellige is a not-even-thinly-veiled "fuck you" to any completionist - I completely forwent all my efforts to clear the question marks there. From what I've heard, that's the usual reaction to it.
Anyway, since we're talking about Witcher 3... I'm kinda both looking forward and dreading the moment I get back to the game. I really enjoyed my first playthrough, it swallowed between 200-300 hours and there was a lot of stuff that was fun, memorable and genuinely great. I wanted to read the books and play all three games, so as to get the whole experience, but I'm currently stuck on the books - which I utterly hate - I've managed to read the entirety of Wheel of Time and start reading Sanderson and Gene Wolfe before I finished the fourth book, which is about 200 pages. Really, I can't stand Sapkowski, as a writer, as a human being (from what I gather about his worldview from the books and other stuff he wrote), it's just a tedious chore. Yet I haven't given up.
Nonetheless, the meantime made me reassess the third game a bit in my memory. These are things that I didn't notice or passed over in my first playthrough, but they actually make me want to postpone the replay now:
- the main story. The main conflict, the narrative of searching for the "MacGuffin Ciri", it's just strikingly mid. I asked my friends who played the game several times to name a single of the main bad guys and they came up blank. The game more or less incentivises you to dabble in the sidequests, to postpone the main story, because there's really no reason to do so.
(this is alleviated a lot by the main story of the DLCs - those are among the best stuff I ever saw in a game. Hearts of Stone in particular is on a level of a good book - it elevates the game almost to the level of Planescape: Torment or RDR2 for me. And yet, you get to these after such a long time, you have to do so much before you can play these...it almost kinda hurt the greatness of the DLCs when I played the game for the first time. Even with pauses and other games in the interim, after the absolutely insane behemoth of the main game I was almost not ready for "yet another adventure".)
- the choice and consequences in the main story. The game has absolutely amazing stuff regarding choice when it's something technically "inconsequential" - like the serial killer sidequest or the Blood Baron questline - but as for the main story, it's just stupid. The actions that are considered by the game to give you an ending don't feel significant, don't feel logically connected with the ultimate result, you have no way of knowing which ending you're playing for without reading a playthrough and the way the ending is presented feels ultimately random. Ciri has been mostly a Macguffin for the entire game and suddenly the Macguffin chooses the final ending of the game and the series? It just feels really random.
- I hate the engine. Or, more specifically, I hate the combat and movement - which is unfortunately a significant part (even a majority) of the game's playtime. Moving around is clunky on foot and clunkier on a horse and the way Geralt dies after falling from small heights has become memetic for a reason. For a game that's putting so much into the idea of exploration, that's an issue. Then Skellige hits you with the fucking islands and you almost don't want to move at all anymore.
Combat is better - it is at least average - but applying oils is a tedious chore, the signs are fine, but nothing to write home about, really, and spending a lot of time in combat switching between light and heavy attack... eh, that kinda discourages me from wanting to replay it. I admit that I've been spoiled by from software (where the combat is so addictive I can replay the games over and over again), but even in "lesser" games like God of War (where it is more unfair than in from and usually more of a RNG encounter) or Hogwarts Legacy (where the combat is fleshy, although really easy, so it gets boring after a while) I can see how it could have been done better.
The less is said about crossbows and stuff like that, the better.
What I said to my Witcher loving-friends "The devs hated combat and hated movement, yet expected people are going to love those and put them in the game disproportionately" may be an exaggeration, but there's a grain of truth to it.
- The sidequests are a bit "too much of a good thing". At first, it's just great, there's so much content, the sidequests (and Witcher contracts and so on) are just so interesting - more than the main story, actually, see above - and complex and cleverly written ... but after a while the cleverness and the subversiveness also becomes tedious a bit. I mean, after playing through 2/3rds of the game, I could almost predict how the sidequest/contract will develop almost to a T, including the twists. That's definitely a less serious complaint than the rest, but still worth mentioning
- Connected with the previous two complaints, while there are some interesting and unique solutions to a quest, way too often a problem is solved by holding down your "witcher sense" button and running through the woods in a weirdly coloured fog and filter. That also gets really tedious after a while.
- Myriads and myriads of loot junk, texts in books you collect and so on. It's almost as if the devs wanted to give you some mental health issues. NeverKnowsBest already mentioned this in several of his videos, including Outer Worlds, Cyberpunk and elsewhere, but in Witcher it's possibly the most annoying to me, the management of the inventory is a nightmare and the weird scaling of stuff you collect (or even obtain in quests) makes most of the stuff useless anyway.
- The characters are definitely better than in the books, though some not much - Yennefer is just terrible and while Geralt might not be the edgy emo teen of a protagonist he is in the books, I'm not sure the difference is significant enough - but even though the games are somewhat distanced from the books, the main point still stands - Sapkowski writes terribly about terrible people in a terrible world, because that's the way he sees the world.
The game tries to throw some curveballs at you - the whole question of siding with or against Djikstra is IMHO terribly forced and railroaded and makes little sense... and it should not influence the rest of the world as much as it does - but in the end, it's hard to care if this or that faction wins. I wanted to kill Djikstra, because he was an arrogant cunt in the books and in the games as well and I'm not even sure what it resulted in.
Thing is, the books were from the very beginning "personal" - when I said to my Sapkowski-obsessed friend that I couldn't quite remember what is where who is the king of what and that the geography is completely confusing while reading the books, he admitted that many people feel that way, that the politics were originally mainly a window dressing, a background which was not really immaculately thought out. It feels that way even in the games - I just didn't find a reason to care.
I mean, even reading the books doesn't help me, really. Don't know. Don't know what I'm doing wrong.
People sometimes call something "the best game I never want to play again" - that's not me. Witcher 3 to me is "the best game I really want to play again... and I also really don't."
Since I already mentioned him, I will once again recommend NeverKnowsBest as my favourite video game youtuber.
I don't agree with everything he says, in fact with some things I disagree very much and with utmost rage - there is one weird part in the Hearts of Stone critique where I'm literally disappointed a bit in him as a person (I'm overexaggerating a bit, but yes, I think that particular issue is important - but overall, I think it's worth watching.
Shit, my graphomania stroke again!
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
I was really excited back when they announced the port of Witcher III for the Switch, because it had built up such a reputation and I am generally a fan of that type of game.
I didn't (and still don't) get the hype. The shield spell trivialises all of the game that I have played, and the difficulty settings didn't make it harder, just longer. The forced cutscenes every time a piece of dialogue starts is incredibly jarring, and the less said about the sex quests, the better.
I think I just about made it to Novigrad before packing it in, and that was only to play the Gwent tournament there.
I didn't (and still don't) get the hype. The shield spell trivialises all of the game that I have played, and the difficulty settings didn't make it harder, just longer. The forced cutscenes every time a piece of dialogue starts is incredibly jarring, and the less said about the sex quests, the better.
I think I just about made it to Novigrad before packing it in, and that was only to play the Gwent tournament there.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
I'm a few hours into God Of War: Ragnarök, and so far it's more of the same, but in a good way. And noticeably prettier on PS5. Kind of hilarious that they modeled Odin after the voice actor Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing), since he doesn't really seem imposing in any way at first glance, though I'm sure that will change as things develop.
I also put a couple of hours into The Ascent, which is a cyberpunk twin-stick shooter that looked interesting when it was released, but I couldn't really handle any more cyberpunk milieu at the time after putting in 90+ hours on Cyberpunk 2077. I'm glad that I waited, not only because I got the game for less than $10 as a result, but because it really feels a lot like Cyberpunk 2077 in its aesthetic, all the way down to its menuing system. The gameplay is more old school ARPG (think Fallout: Brotherhood Of Steel on PS2), but with some simplified augmentation mechanics and a fully connected world map. I plan to play through the game solo, though it supports online and couch co-op too.
I also put a couple of hours into The Ascent, which is a cyberpunk twin-stick shooter that looked interesting when it was released, but I couldn't really handle any more cyberpunk milieu at the time after putting in 90+ hours on Cyberpunk 2077. I'm glad that I waited, not only because I got the game for less than $10 as a result, but because it really feels a lot like Cyberpunk 2077 in its aesthetic, all the way down to its menuing system. The gameplay is more old school ARPG (think Fallout: Brotherhood Of Steel on PS2), but with some simplified augmentation mechanics and a fully connected world map. I plan to play through the game solo, though it supports online and couch co-op too.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Although I had decided to not buy any more games apart from the Elden Ring DLC (if it comes out this year, which I find more and more improbable) and either Baldur's Gate 3 or Starfield for Christmas or something (depends on which will have better reception... though I'm more inclined to go the BG3 route, since fantasy >> sci-fi)
I couldn't restrain myself and bought Blasphemous 2. Nothing revolutionary, mostly "more of the good thing" and I love that. The gameplay is a wee bit more complex and the bosses have been so far somewhat harder, IMHO, but every fan of 1 will probably like this one too.
Though I don't like the change in the cutscenes - these aren't pixelated, but instead use normal, smooth graphics - it's kinda jarring, contrasted with the rest of the game. But that's not that serious a complaint.
I couldn't restrain myself and bought Blasphemous 2. Nothing revolutionary, mostly "more of the good thing" and I love that. The gameplay is a wee bit more complex and the bosses have been so far somewhat harder, IMHO, but every fan of 1 will probably like this one too.
Though I don't like the change in the cutscenes - these aren't pixelated, but instead use normal, smooth graphics - it's kinda jarring, contrasted with the rest of the game. But that's not that serious a complaint.
Edington
Last Son of The Miracle
I am gutted this is only available on next-gen consoles, this and Jedi Survivor were the only two games I've really wanted to play this year.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
It is? That's bizarre, especially for an intentionally "retro" game (it took, like 2gb of space or so?
)I bought this for PC, just like the first one. I've played or will play enough stuff on the XBox recently (from software replay, Hogwarts Legacy and possibly the Elden Ring DLC or one of the other two RPGs I mentioned before the end of the year), so I wanted to switch it around.
DJMayes
Ancient Mariner
I'm surprised too - it's definitely on Switch, as I've been considering getting it to fill the gap between now and October 20th, when the new Mario releases.It is? That's bizarre, especially for an intentionally "retro" game (it took, like 2gb of space or so?
I bought this for PC, just like the first one. I've played or will play enough stuff on the XBox recently (from software replay, Hogwarts Legacy and possibly the Elden Ring DLC or one of the other two RPGs I mentioned before the end of the year), so I wanted to switch it around.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Still plugging away at God Of War: Ragnarök. About 45 hours in now, and it looks like I might finally be approaching the endgame...maybe. I do like how the game lets you play directly as Atreus for some sections, and how the companion characters get changed up over the course of the game. And how Atreus's skill upgrades apply regardless of whether he's the main character or the support character at the time.
I felt like the Muspelheim challenges were noticeably easier this time around -- I cleared them all in one session, most of them on the first try. But the Surtr armor in this game isn't as much to my liking as the set from the previous game -- I'm actually still using the Raven Tears bracers and girdle for health boosts and the Sol's Spaulders to allow the Rage gauge to enhance regular melee damage and serve as backup health. None of the other options have looked appealing enough to switch away from this setup yet.
I'm also still plugging away at The Ascent, with probably a similar amount of time logged on that one. There are some interesting tactical wrinkles showing up in the gameplay there, with the interaction between cover, stairs, enemy height, and aiming height creating both opportunities and blind spots that keep you on your toes. There's also a steady drip of new enemy types with different tactics (the introduction of enemies who try to hack you in battle and start deploying shield drones to protect their comrades makes things pretty tense), but at the same time the structure of the game is starting to feel a bit samey, and the random encounters while moving through the world can become tedious. I don't have a good sense of how far along I am in the game, though I've maxed out a couple of stats and don't encounter new armor and weapons very often anymore, so I'd guess I'm past the halfway mark at least.
My backlog is getting deeper again, as Phoenix Point just dropped to $15 and Sifu dropped to $20, so I had to snap them up while I had the chance. That makes 8 games in the backlog now (well, 9, since I haven't really restarted Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners on PSVR2 yet), plus the Resident Evil 0 through 3 remakes/remasters as lead-up for whenever the VR update for the RE4 remake gets scheduled. Yeah, first world problems...
I felt like the Muspelheim challenges were noticeably easier this time around -- I cleared them all in one session, most of them on the first try. But the Surtr armor in this game isn't as much to my liking as the set from the previous game -- I'm actually still using the Raven Tears bracers and girdle for health boosts and the Sol's Spaulders to allow the Rage gauge to enhance regular melee damage and serve as backup health. None of the other options have looked appealing enough to switch away from this setup yet.
I'm also still plugging away at The Ascent, with probably a similar amount of time logged on that one. There are some interesting tactical wrinkles showing up in the gameplay there, with the interaction between cover, stairs, enemy height, and aiming height creating both opportunities and blind spots that keep you on your toes. There's also a steady drip of new enemy types with different tactics (the introduction of enemies who try to hack you in battle and start deploying shield drones to protect their comrades makes things pretty tense), but at the same time the structure of the game is starting to feel a bit samey, and the random encounters while moving through the world can become tedious. I don't have a good sense of how far along I am in the game, though I've maxed out a couple of stats and don't encounter new armor and weapons very often anymore, so I'd guess I'm past the halfway mark at least.
My backlog is getting deeper again, as Phoenix Point just dropped to $15 and Sifu dropped to $20, so I had to snap them up while I had the chance. That makes 8 games in the backlog now (well, 9, since I haven't really restarted Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners on PSVR2 yet), plus the Resident Evil 0 through 3 remakes/remasters as lead-up for whenever the VR update for the RE4 remake gets scheduled. Yeah, first world problems...
Saapanael
Ancient Mariner
Alright, computer nerds, perhaps you can help me out here. I bought a new monitor yesterday - LG 27GP850P (1440p, 165 Hz) - and upon connecting it to my MSI laptop there was no picture on the display. After changing the HDMI from input 1 to 2 back-and-forth and disconnecting/reconnecting the signal cable, the image randomly appeared at one point. Beautiful image, really like the display but it started to go black at random times. When I tried to play games, the going black became more frequent. When I restarted my computer, it took another 10 minutes of reconnecting cables to get the display working again. Same thing happened today so I took it back to the shop to get it checked. Faulty HDMI cable? Probably not as I tried two different ones without change. Faulty laptop HDMI port? Probably not as my previous monitor worked without problem for about 7 years. GPU problem, I suspected, but my computer-knowledgeable friend said that the monitor is probably the culprit. Faulty HDMI port on the monitor itself or something internal, he suspects, because if it were the GPU, it would’ve acted up with the previous monitor as well. I did install all new drivers for the monitor as well as the GPU (which is an Nvidia 1660 Ti), none of which seemed to help with my problem. I thought of using a DisplayPort to USB-C connection as well but I don’t know how many Hz that allows for at 1440p. With the HDMI, I had 144Hz, not the full 165 but that doesn’t really bother me.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
My best guess is that you're using an older HDMI cable instead of an actual HDMI 2.0 cable, but you're trying to have the older cable carry an HDMI 2.0 signal, which is in no way guaranteed to work. It would be like plugging an old USB cable into a USB 3.0 port and expecting USB 3.0 signals to work over it.
Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
A while back I played The Messenger, a Ninja Gaiden inspired Metroidvania which blew me away. Great Soundtrack, amazing story (not going to spoil it), with great 8-bit AND 16-bit graphics and plataforming. It was exactly what I like about modern games inspired by old games. Take what worked from those old ones and infuse it with modern game mechanics. It's brilliant.
I bring it up because I am playing the prequel game Sea of Stars. This one is a turned based RPG inspired by classic SNES RPGs, but again, it is infused with modern mechanics. Since it's a prequel to The Messenger you see old levels, old enemies and new remixes of older songs. It is both new and a nostalgia rush at once. I highly recommend both
I bring it up because I am playing the prequel game Sea of Stars. This one is a turned based RPG inspired by classic SNES RPGs, but again, it is infused with modern mechanics. Since it's a prequel to The Messenger you see old levels, old enemies and new remixes of older songs. It is both new and a nostalgia rush at once. I highly recommend both
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Looks like 144Hz max via HDMI is to be expected.I used the cable supplied with the monitor. The other HDMI cable I tried was indeed an older one but the one supplied surely has to be a new one.
From LG's page:
What res/Hz were you running your previous monitor at? Are you running a dual monitor setup, and if so, is this new monitor the primary or secondary monitor?
Also, does your laptop have a docking station? Sometimes you have to use the docking station HDMI connector to get the full spread of res/Hz options -- my wife's Dell work laptop is stupid like that.