I’ve also been playing some Diablo IV. I’ve been taking my time - there is a lot to enjoy in that game. I just teamed up with my brother to finish the last act of the main story.
If you are concerned about privacy, don’t use Plex or any other software which use central servers to collect your data. They can literally see where you click on the screen, let alone what kind of hosting you use. Jellyfin on the other hand is open source and don’t phone home. Also if a software is free, it doesn’t mean it was easy to create it in the first place. So please consider donation or support the project.
The other option is Emby. It’s based on the same code, and is just another division of the same project. You pay for it, but it gets tons of support and more features as a result. Both projects have pros and cons but I’m leaning further to Emby than Jellyfin myself.
I was close to the end last week, but I’ve finally finished Pillars of Eternity. It only took 8 years. I’ll not start with the expansions right away, but to do them I’ll have to load a save before the final dungeon, which kinda sucks.
I’m also taking a break from Quake 2 currently, although not by choice. It’s because of a bug halfway through the second mission pack, Ground Zero, where my game would crash consistently. Maybe restarting the level could help, but I’ll just wait. An internet comment I read mentioned that the devs are aware, and it’ll get fixed in a patch, hopefully that’ll happen soon.
Next, I finished two more games, first Shadowrun Returns. It wasn’t that good. I’m not a big fan of tactical turn-based RPGs, and this game didn’t help. As for the story, it’s like they got two completely separate scripts and stuck them together. After like two thirds or something, the game takes a sharp turn and goes completely off the rails. The first part was really clichéd and predictable, but I still enjoyed it, and I wish it could have ended there. The “class” I chose also sucked, I guess, a melee hacker (or Decker in this universe). The hacking is 90% useless in the game, and melee feels like it’s just massively disadvantaged, compared to ranged attacks. The game is also a bit buggy at times and the UI can be really clunky. I don’t think I’ll play the other two games in this trilogy unless I get really into TRPGs in the future.
The final game I finished was Katana Zero, which was a bit mediocre, with some bright spots. It’s an action side-scroller where you need to kill every enemy in a room, without getting hit, to move forward. Dying resets the current room, and you have to start from the beginning, à la Super Meat Boy. However, there was a bit too much randomness in enemy placement and movement, to really get that perfect run done. The story could be interesting, but I didn’t like the way it was told at all, however I did like the dialog system. When talking to someone you get a timed response, which you can hit, while the other is still talking, interrupting them, or wait for them to finish and choose from a few options. I really liked that. The game also looks great and has very good music. It’s pretty short, I clocked out after less than four hours, but you’re supposed to play through it at least twice I guess, because of the story. I didn’t care for the basic gameplay enough, so I’m fine with just my single run.
How do you feel about/have you played Andromeda? I love the ME trilogy, and I was a quarter through ME2 doing a trilogy replay as well, but then Starfield released. I'll get back to it eventually though. I haven't played Andromeda myself, but I feel like it couldn't possibly be as terrible as the kickback it got on release.
I’ve played Andromeda - quite a lot, actually, because before I started PC gaming, and after my PS3 broke, the only way to get my Mass Effect fix was to play Andromeda.
I think Andromeda got a bad rap. Or rather, people were a lot harder on it than it deserved, because the game was rough and, more importantly, Ryder wasn’t Shepard. Ryder is a very different character and folks wanted Shepard in a different skin. They wanted Paragon and Renegade when BioWare went with a more Inquisition feel to developing how Ryder can react. Add to that how the beginning act was easily the least polished section of the game at launch, and so people just dragged it. And once The Gamers as a collective decide a game is only fit to be made fun of, that’s it.
Now, Andromeda wasn’t perfect at all. The facial animations are not the best, and I still have no idea why they thought Ryder’s running animation was ok. I also really think the writing needed at least another two rounds of editing. But. The game play is really solid, easily the best of any Mass Effect game, and there was something there in the story (it just needed some rewriting). BioWare also made the mistake of putting in more for the sake of more - Inquisition was too big, and they decided to try to make Andromeda bigger, and there’s a lot of filler quests that shouldn’t be there.
I actually really enjoyed playing Andromeda, for all I got really irritated by a lot of the things I mentioned here - and I got irritated because I could see how close they were to something really, really special, and how they needed more time to get there, but didn’t have because of the mess they made of early development. There were enough things and decisions that I really wanted to see how they played out down the line, and I’m sad I probably won’t get to.
The best way to enjoy Andromeda is to go in thinking of it as less of a “Mass Effect” game, and more as a game set in the Mass Effect universe, if that makes sense.
It seems like it was cursed with "how the heck do you follow that up?" Syndrome. And sadly the facial animations seemed at the time to be the critical anchor that all the general issues surrounded and were exemplified by.
I hope in the future Bioware steps back from adding those "MMO side quest" style side content they began including for Inquisition, it did really change the feel of the whole game having those there.
Interesting to hear about the first act dragging, I actually think this is a problem echoed by Starfield, whose first 12 hours are confusing as you don't understand where and how to access the different types of gameplay at will, and it's too early on in your character's development to be able to really fully engage and figure out the ship and outpost construction. By then the people who don't have patience or weren't interested in the game to begin with have likely already had their opinions begin to solidify.
I wonder if Bioware will try an Andromeda 2 down the line, I think that universe deserves another shot.
I wonder if Bioware will try an Andromeda 2 down the line, I think that universe deserves another shot.
Sadly, with the closure of BioWare Montreal and them deciding to go back to the Milky Way for 5, I don’t think we will. Which is a really shame, because I still think Andromeda 2 could have really been special, because the Montreal devs said they learned a lot from Andromeda and had big plans for 2 and improving things.
A lot of people also compared Andromeda to the entire ME trilogy, which really wasn’t fair to it.
BioWare had a good idea with trying to do something new, but sadly, often times True Fans don’t want something new; they want the exact same thing. They couldn’t - or wouldn’t - let Andromeda be Andromeda.
That's sad news about the studio. I suppose some people forgot that the original Mass Effect had quite a few issues and it wasn't until 2 that it got real good, and having that bar set at a payoff that was only possible through three games of narrative choices and carryover was impossible to hit for Andromeda.
Finished up my time with Starfield for now. If you’d told me a month ago that it would be the main story that would keep me playing, I wouldn’t have believed you. The story was way better than I was expecting and far and away my favorite one in a Bethesda game. As for the rest, ehhh. There are a lot of steps back here, and I really don’t like the visuals. Felt like my character was smoking inside her helmet or something. Having framerates regularly dip into the 40’s even with DLSS and tons of other tweaks really didn’t help.
I will say this: aside from some sounds with oddly harsh high frequencies (there’s a mod for that), the audio team really nailed this one. The voice acting is phenomenal, and I’d love to hear this soundtrack performed live.
Feeling non-committal at the moment. Was considering replaying Disco Elysium, but really I’m just waiting for the new Cyberpunk content.
Yeah. I think I can understand the complaints people have. But dang I’m just so into it. It’s hitting all the right notes for me. I absolutely adore everything about it. I wish space stuff was more important. But that’s really it for me. I love surveying planets. Going all around and exploring different places. I love the aesthetic. So far for me all the quests have been interesting and cool, and do a great job showing you places you may not otherwise have come across.
I’ve never played Far Cry, but you’ve described the kill-spree momentum I used to enjoy in games - specifically the outcome of a previous action being the entry point for another, with no slowdown - making it feel fluid and dynamic.
The closest thing that matches that sheer freedom of gameplay, was the swing physics of Spiderman 2 on the PS2. No other spiderman game has come close to that, and I’ve played then all.
Started playing RDR2 after playing almost all games from the top of my backlog. Folks kept telling me RDR2 would ruin other games for you, so I saved it for the last. I’m still in the first chapter and I like it a lot. I like how it’s slow paced, feels more like a simulator so far. I’m also bit worried as folks told me you can miss certain side quests if you advance too fast, so I want to ignore all the main quest missions as much as possible. This caused my horse to die due to harsh winters right in the beginning coz I thought I should venture out a bit :p
I’ve also started playing Metro 2033, it’s a slow start and the controls are a bit wonky, but seems like a simple linear game so far.
I’m also bit worried as folks told me you can miss certain side quests if you advance too fast,
Yeah if you’re wanting to do as many side missions as possible, it’s best to do all the white colored missions first. The yellow one’s aren’t going anywhere and they are sometimes chapter milestones that can lock you out of side missions. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. A. There are so many quests that are only available at a certain time/place or after certain events, you’ll never hit them all in one play through. and B.
spoilerYou can play a lot of the side missions you missed in the epilogue. Albeit with different dialog.
Take your time and enjoy it, definitely worth it.
Now I’m going to have to fire it up later just to spend a couple hours roaming the wilderness camping, hunting, and fishing with my “Never leaving chapter 3 Arthur”
A good post reminding me why I love Far Cry games! I got bored playing FarCry 5, but had lot of fun on FarCry 6. Unfortunately the bases were a bit too easy in that game…
Still working on seasonal stuff for Diablo 4. I got all my world bosses done, now I'm just trying to level up for the rest of it. I got a weekly game plan for myself, so I think I might finish it before the season end on Oct 17.
In the meantime I've been replaying (again) 2015's Mad Max. I've had a lot of irl stuff going on that sucks and it's been very cathartic to play. Just drive around and punch mutherfuckers? Hell yeah.
Been thinking about picking up Gungrave G.O.R.E since it's on Xbox Game Pass. There's an anime that goes with it I guess? Nobody I've talked to know a lot about it, so I think that might be my next game to play just for the hell of it.
The main missions were definitely soft and the games overall have their warts, but that base mechanic was pure art.
You could take all the care in the world and special ops the shit out of it, or you could go in there and Rambo the shit out of it, and each would work or wouldn’t for various reasons and the difficulty scales well enough that you don’t just automatically pick the latter every time.
Only other games that have scratched that itch have been MGSV, Ghost of Tsushima and Sniper Elite.
Most games have some variety of this now but those three along with Far Cry build and scale it well enough that feels like an accomplishment over the course of a whole game.
MGSV was another one I loved that felt very similar. Unfortunately I kinda stopped liking it right after the Africa part starts. Afghanistan was super fun though.
bin.pol.social
Najstarsze