Still completely and unhealthily obsessed with F1 Manager 2023, nearing the end of my second season as Aston Martin. Hard/Hard difficulty has felt about appropriate thus far, at least on a team starting in a good position like AM. I was sweating at the start of this season since the board expected me to get second and I started the year a little slow, but it looks like I will pull it off. Still couldn’t touch Red Bull or Max this year, though I have taken a couple of race wins.
The development race has been tight so far, with Mercedes roaring back after a dismal 2023 season and Red Bull refusing to let me outdevelop them.
It’s a little sad that the first two installments didn’t sell well and F1 Manager 2024 looks like it will be the last entry in the series. Sure, the game has its issues, but there are a lot of good things here too, and a lot of systems that could be refined with time. I didn’t play F1 Manager 2022, but it seems like a lot of the problems with it were addressed in 2023, as well.
Overall, I still recommend the game if you’re an F1 fan, especially if you can find it on sale. You probably have to at least like racing (if not F1) to enjoy it though, as the main draw here is the race-day experience.
That’s about what I figured. I’m not that great with strangers, and English is my second language. I’ve tried other squad based games that rely on voice comms to be enjoyable, and I only really enjoy them when playing with a group of people I’m comfortable with.
What metric are we using? The developer whose games I like the most? The developer who treats their employees best? Or treats their customers best?
Valve has produced mostly bangers, seems to treat customers well and is by all accounts a great place to work. They’ve also been pushing development for gaming on Linux. Hard not to go with them, even though it’s debatable whether they could be classified as a game developer anymore. But that’s fine.
Remedy deserves a shout-out for sticking to their guns, and continuing to produce weird artistic games that push the envelope in the AAA space.
I’m not as high on BG3 as most people (though it’s obviously a great game), but Larian also belongs in the discussion surely. I only ever hear good things about them.
Finally, the developer who inspires me the most is probably Lucas Pope. I love his ability to think outside the box and find entertaining gameplay loops in seemingly mundane things, but moreover I am just so impressed by how multitalented he is. I still can’t believe Obra Dinn was a one-man production. I love his artstyle and the music he makes as much as the games themselves.
Great! Did you finish 1? The two games are narratively independent, but there are references to events and things from 1 in the sequel.
Any combat skill that is a good go to OP one? Im usually most interested in speech skills, maxing them before anything else.
Stay away from Throwing unless you install a combat rebalance mod. All other combat skills are viable, through some peak at different times. Melee is great early but falls off a little bit. Still viable all game though. Unarmed can be great, there are some awesome Unarmed-only perks, but you can raise it to like 100% for free if you want to min/max. Big Guns and Energy Weapons are great late and very fun, but it might take a while to find one. Small Guns is the easiest way. You’ll find plenty of them early, and the late game options scale well.
I recommend starting with high INT, tagging Small Guns, Lockpicking and Speech and going from there. If you want more build advice just ask. Also the Nearly Ultimate Fallout 2 Guide is basically the Bible when it comes to looking up solutions to frustrating problems. It contains basically anything you could possibly want to know about the game. Tons of spoilers though, of course. So beware.
Makes sense. And I have heard those terms before. I guess i just need to update my internal definition. All this time I thought boomer shooter meant “slow FPS for old folks who can’t keep up in Valorant anymore”. Which is a group I probably belong to myself, to be honest.
Fallout 2 is one of my favourite games of all time, but it is OLD. By that I don’t mean its graphics are ugly but rather the design philosophy is old school (some might say outdated). The stats and skills and perks are not balanced (some really suck and it’s very possible to gimp yourself). There are some unintuitive puzzles and interactions you might need a guide for. Most of all though it’s HARD and unforgiving. Save constantly and be ready to reload. The start sucks. Be prepared to hate the first hour(s), when you have to walk through the desert with just a stick and fight off brutal random encounters.
It eventually opens up, especially when you get access to a certain Highwayman, and becomes fantastic. As for Fallout 1 or 2, it’s mostly a matter of preference. 1 is much shorter, smaller in scope, but also has a slightly more serious tone. It leans a little more into the whole harshness of the wasteland thing. 2 is much bigger, with so much more you can do in it, but it’s also goofier. It leans more into the Fallout humour, pop culture references and sometimes just absurdity.
Also, look for some mods. I always recommend Restoration Project, Updated at a minimum, it’s a combination unofficial patch and cut content restoration that is very unintrusive. I have a couple other suggestions if you’re not against a sprinkle of mods. Most are on Fallout 2 Nexus I think. Mainly convenience stuff. There is a FANTASTIC Talking Heads mod that perfectly captures the original artstyle, but it’s obviously not vanilla. Same for the fan made voice acting mod.
Lastly, you can’t talk your way out of the final fight in Fallout 2. I just want to save you from frustration, since you can talk your way out of most other situations. Don’t brick your save by investing nothing into combat stats.
Phew, sorry for the rant. I’m really passionate about this game.
Fallout 2 is basically a mediocre main story existing as an excuse for you to wander the desert and stumble onto all the phenomenal side quests. The murder investigation for the Wright crime family might be my favourite, but all the intrigue in New Reno is so good. And that’s not even getting into the crazy Scientologists and their space ship, a shotgun wedding, uncovering the origins of Jet, becoming a pornstar…
It’s so curious, I swear I heard “boomer shooter” used to refer to another type of FPS… But then again I guess the definition has changed. What term do people use nowadays for slow FPSes that are more tactical, rather than twitch-reflex reliant, like ARMA?
I stopped playing FFXIV because I didn’t like the direction CBU3 was taking it in, and because of that I was also unexcited for FFXVI last year. From reading about it (both in this thread and over that past 6 months) it sounds like it was a correct skip, for me at least.
I had some really good times in FFXIV and have fond memories, and it still is a good product for what it is. But hearing FFXVI having simplistic combat, shallow RPG-mechanics and a slow story full of filler quests that ruin the pacing does not surprise me at all.
I got predictably burned out on RDR2 after trying to complete a bunch of challenges before proceeding (I wanted to look cool in all the cutscenes!), so that is on the back burner for now. I also had some personal events that made me less able to focus on story games. Or maybe less in the mood. Take your pick.
Found a good deal on F1 Manager 2023 instead, and that has been a perfect distraction. Not least since I’m not really getting my F1 fix from watching the races so far, this year.
I didn’t play the predecessor so I don’t know how much it improves year-on-year, but I’d say it’s solid if you are an F1 fan. The presentation is awesome, especially thanks to the official licensing, with stuff like radio clips of the actual drivers and engineers adding a lot of immersion during races.
As a management game it seems fine. As someone who’s put a lot of hours into Football Manager, this isn’t on that level in terms of depth. But it seems perfectly adequate. I’m having fun juggling the budget and striking a balance between long term investments and short term development. There are a lot of little considerations to fiddle with. The setup-sliders minigame is fun.
I’m playing as Aston Martin on Hard Race AI/Hard Development AI and it hasn’t felt too easy (yet). Red Bull is leading and I’m not catching them, Ferrari is thereabouts and I’m just behind, with Alonso usually beating Ferrari (but not always), and I even managed to sneak a win when Verstappen crashed out in Baku.
If you’re an F1 fan and can find it on sale I think you’ll enjoy it.