I used to play TF2 a lot in my school years, but today I find it too intimidating. I’ve never been good at competitive games, and I’m even worse in my 30s :D But I like the idea that TF2 is still alive, people are playing, and I could return at some point. Alas, with the alleged development of a new hero shooter by Valve I don’t expect them to pay real attention to TF2.
I really enjoyed The Last Days of the Third Age, a lord of the rings TC for Mount and Blade: Warband.
It takes Warband’s medieval lord sim and focuses hard on the warfare side of things with lots of huge battles on giant maps, but even tiny skirmishes can affect a faction’s strength. (And with so many factions on both sides of the War of the Ring, you need to pick what to focus on)
Carts lasted ages longer than discs. Sure for some actually responsible adult player discs would probably have been better but for preteens fighting with their siblings on who’s turn it is and what will be played…?
(We once ruined a PS2 game because we had it upright and it fell and the disc took such a deep scratch it never worked past that point again. I still feel guilty and feel I missed out on HP2. And that was 5 years after we got a N64, so PS1 discs would’ve been even more at risk.)
The controller is weird by modern standards , yeah, but it wasn’t too weird at the time. It’s sort of like two controllers in one, a more classic form like the snes and the basic ps1 controller and a more modern one with a joystick with the middle-handle.
There was no weirdness at all using it when it came out. The “basic” model (think xbox controller) only came out a bit later.
But nowadays? Idk, I don’t have one, but we tried playing Goldeneye 64 with my brother and man the control schemes were all over the place and I couldn’t for the life of me get “in the groove” and we used to play 4 player deatmatch a ton for years and I was ace at it.
I lived through it, and even as kids we all agreed the N64 controller was weird and illogical. But we got used to it and it was not a hurdle or a detriment to the console. You could tell if people had played before if they held the center grip or the left grip.
It was weird in a Nintendo way, yeah, but imo there was hardly anything illogical about it. The triple handle setup was reasoned in the way that if there was a more “classic” control scheme in the game, you might use the d-pad instead of the joystick (which was shit in the way it wore out though). Most games did use the joystick, but not all, and not all the time.
I think the reasoning was to have more adaptability in traditional Nintendo sort of way.
Also, the Dreamcast controller looks very weird as well, has less buttons and came out two years after.
GoldenEye has terrible controls compared to modern controller and especially mouse+keyboard but in multiplayer it didn’t really matter as anyone is on even footing.
I believe the N64 was huge in the US, Canada, and Japan, but PlayStation dominated that generation overall. I always preferred the PS graphics, the library, and the controller personally.
It’s kinda weird that the N64 seems to have a much bigger legacy. I think it’s because of Nintendo’s ability to make timeless games that are remembered more fondly than PS ones, but I would argue that games like Spyro, Tekken 3, GT2, and SotN aged just as gracefully as the N64 classics like SM64, Smash, Mario Kart, and OoT. Plus you can play them on a normal controller.
I finished Quantum Break, I loved it! I’ve never really played a game with superpowers, especially like these. I also love games that give unlimited ammo in the starting pistol since I have the worst aim ever, I constantly find myself having no choice but to melee enemies in other games. And the slow motion after doing the dash was so nice!
The final fight was so bad, I could not understand why I was dying even when I was doing exactly what someone on YouTube was doing but other than that it was so fun! And I actually liked the story, usually I’m not a big story person, I just like running around causing chaos, it also probably helped that I finished the game in 3 days, so I didn’t forget what was happening.
I had to give up on Alan Wake Remaster, the visual bugs were just too much so I moved onto Control. I was expecting a more linear style, similar to Quantum Break so I ended up running around in circles being so confused, especially the elevator at the start, I spent way too long looking for that lol but having the force like a Jedi is super fun
I also started GoW Chains of Olympus and I kinda regret playing the series in chronological order instead of release order because going from Ascension to this is not so great, since it was Originally designed for the PSP but hopefully the original series will look better when I get there
Quantum Break got me to put down BG3 for now since I’m looking for shorter games that I don’t accidentally spend 10 hours on a Saturday playing
Its also convinced me to get back into RE4 remaster. I started it in November and got to the part where I’m in the little boat on the lake but I got a bit bored of it. I think my expectations were too high, I loved 0,1,2 and 3 especially 2 and 3. And since everyone always says 4 is the best, I just expected more. I still want to finish it and continue the series because they are fun games tbf
I kind of love Control’s navigation. The map is helpful enough to point you in the right direction, but also shitty enough that you have to pay attention to the diagetic signage. It’s uniquely immersive.
I’m the type of player that needs the bright yellow markings, that people seem to hate, to be able to get around! So I constantly have to read the signs in Control and even then I still second guess myself.
I did the part where you have to answer the phone at the end of the hallway thingy. The amount of times I just walked off the edge because I didn’t understand I had to pull the chord is embarrassing. And then trying to get back from the motel thing I genuinely thought my game was bugged, I was so comfused lol
Quantum Break was really fun. I’d love some more time travel games like that.
While Remedy don’t own the rights and it can’t officially be “canon” to Alan Wake and Control, there are some things that the community has kind of put together which establishes how it’s a part of the wider universe/multiverse.
Yes! I feel like there really aren’t enough games like it! Just a fun little linear shooter with some cool time travel/ superpower elements.
I heard there were references to each other, that’s why I wanted to start with Alan Wake before playing Quantum Break but tbh I’m so bad with names and stuff I probably wouldn’t even notice them anyway lol
I didn’t know Remedy didn’t own the rights to it, that’s unfortunate because its such a good concept but at least we got Control after it, hopefully they continue with more games like them
I wanted to love Quantum Break so much but it was just a buggy mess on my pc, I spent hours messing with settings but it just wouldn’t run smoothly. I still managed to push through to mission 4 or so. Maybe I’ll give it another go.
Ah damn, I know how you feel! Alan Wake remaster kept going black screen every few seconds for me and the only way to fix it was to pause it for a few seconds every time so I had to give up.
Maybe updated drivers or something could have fixed the bugs since then, I definitely recommend checking it out again for a fun linear single player game that doesn’t take weeks to finish
Loaded up The Outer Worlds yesterday because I wanted some first person Obsidian RPG goodness after finishing New Vegas a couple of weeks ago.
Forgot how absolutely fucking saturated and vibrant the colours are. My old monitor must not have had the saturation turned up or something because, as someone super sensitive to bright or intense anything, I don’t remember it immediately hurting my brain like it did last night.
Anyway, used ReShade and toned down a ton of shit. Then I realised I’m not actually feeling it all that much, so I’m going to start a new playthrough of New Vegas instead. I think this time I’m not gonna fuck Benny and kill him in his sleep. Well, maybe I’ll still rock his world because it’s hilarious, we’ll see.
Edit: Oh, also I’ve been playing a bit of XDefiant. It’s not terrible, honestly. Like, I’m not paying for their battle pass and I’ll definitely lose interest fairly quickly, but it’s not a bad distraction.
Just beat Catherine Full Body last night. There are a lot of things I like about the game, and some things I both like and dislike. It's really more of a "this is the main character's story and you're mostly along for the ride" than it is a narrative experience where you choose every move the protagonist makes.
Because of that, I think how you feel about the story will be determined by your own stance on relationships and the morality of them, hedonism, marriage, and things like that. For me, I felt familiarity with my experience watching Breaking Bad in its painful spectation of characters who make questionable decisions and their creation of damning consequences.
Easy mode treated the puzzles well, just takes away the time pressure of the blocks falling away (save for the boss battles where you're being chased). I ended up quite enjoying the puzzles! In the end, I don't know if I'd recommend the game. If you're interested in games doing something neat and novel with the topic of relationships then I think you'll find value in it.
I am finally completely finished with We Happy Few, DLCs and all. It was a lot better and more fun that I really thought it would be, especially story-wise. The characters are surprisingly complex and gray while still be likeable. Sally and Ollie's stories were great. They weren't as long as Arthur's, and they didn't have as many side quests (that I could find), but it was still a good time. With differences in encounters between the main characters and going through the same areas, it kind of felt like playing the B story in Resident Evil 2.
As for the DLCs, They Came From Below gives the game a fun little sci-fi twist. I liked seeing more of Roger and James. Lightbearer was surprisingly super short, and I wasn't expecting to hear Neil Newbon. We All Fall Down was by far the best DLC. It was pretty heavy, but did wrap up the ultimate fate of Wellington Wells pretty nicely.
Also have to add that the music is so fun. I actually sat through the entirety of the credits each time because there were some great jams.
Right now I'm dabbling around in Sandbox and Survival mode while I try to figure out what game to play next.
Not sure if many will join me on it, but with Microsoft going on the death march for studios, this might be the first of their major releases I don’t even bother with on Game Pass. After all, they fired Tango Gameworks, who knows when they’ll cut these devs loose.
I finished the first one only last week. I almost dropped it over the puzzles especially the finding runes in the environment one. That one broke the momentum of the narrative/plot for me as you’d be going through an area and you’ve the narration going on or you’ve just been through a big action sequence and now you’ve hit a wall until the puzzle is solved. So I’m in no rush to play this one, I did think the last third was great though and definitely less repetitive.
I do agree that a lot of the find-the-symbols puzzles felt like an afterthought, but overall they didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the game. The story and presentation were fantastic and I thought the blind trial was extremely well done and one of my favourite video game levels.
bin.pol.social
Ważne