Coelacanth

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu

The ride definitely continues in Alan Wake 2, so you have lots to look forward to! Remedy are such a beacon of hope in today’s AAA landscape.

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu

Like the other poster said, Epic financed and published AW2 and paid good money for exclusivity. I doubt you’ll see it on Steam anytime soon. The only way to play it without Epic Games Launcher and all that is on console.

The game is worth it though. One of my most memorable gaming experiences over the past few years. And if you’re planning on upgrading I’ll tell you it looks absolutely gorgeous. One of the few games where ray tracing actually has a noticeable impact, too, in my opinion.

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu

I know the fan mod project for FF8 is jokingly named Demaster in protest of the official remaster, but I never thought a large company would release an honest to god demake of a game - and charge you for it!

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu

It still has some kinks that need ironing out, and it could for sure use a bigger roster, but they’re cooking with this one. The MOBA core and superb movement mechanics just complement each other so nicely, and with both powerful easy to use active items and ability-based heroes available it’s possible to perform even if you’re not an aim god.

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu

I haven’t played it (yet, it’s in my extensive backlog) and I don’t think it’s exactly the same, but have you checked out Slay the Princess?

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu

I’ve never actually played through AW1 on Nightmare as I was afraid the challenge would be unfun, but maybe I will in the future based on your testimony. Though I find it increasingly hard to go back and replay games these days with the size of my backlog…

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu (edited 8 miesięcy temu)

Thank fuck, that’s definitely one of the game’s more detrimental flaws. I hope they also work on varying their quest design more, as well as mixing up the tone of the writing and acting more frequently.

I enjoyed the beautiful locations, solid combat and often great boss fights, but the game in general was too monotone for me to be truly captivated by it. Towards the end I felt worn out by it, having to mentally steel myself to even finish it. I get that the serious samurai trope is what they’re going for, but while that might work in a 2-hour movie it becomes incredibly one-note over a 50-hour game. Kenji alone is not enough to break up the flow with some variety. Especially with the gameplay being very repetitive too - so many missions are simple walk-and-talk, ride-horse-and-talk and go-to-spot-kill-mongols.

Coelacanth, 8 miesięcy temu

How much of AW2 do you remember? I strongly suggest starting over so you have everything fresh in your forebrain - it’s a game that wants you to pay attention to detail. Same reason I advocated for playing only it in the other thread and not both in parallel. Though you seem to have an impressive capacity for keeping track of multiple story-games at once (something I can’t even begin to relate to) so your mileage may vary.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

They all must go. You wouldn’t even believe the loss of revenue Nintendo suffers from the mere existence of SNES emulators. Money is being stolen right out of their pockets. Experts say they might never financially recover. ^[citation needed]

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I’ll echo this, and I’ll also say that for me personally the story of AW2 kind of demands focus and I myself would not be able to take it in properly if I was splitting attention - particularly splitting it with its predecessor and having to keep track of what happens in each timeline separately.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

https://feddit.nu/pictrs/image/916aec18-666b-41c9-a001-8b33e2e14df1.png It’s just a bug.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution last week, and I while i enjoyed it I didn’t want to jump into Mankind Divided right away. It was a fine game but I felt like going back for more straight away might make me burn out.

Decided instead to finally get through Metro: Last Light. I really enjoyed 2033, but when I started LL right after I just couldn’t get into it. This time it’s going better and I’m having a good time playing it - very immersive on Ranger Hardcore. I still prefer the first game so far though, I think. Still not thrilled about the way checkpoint saving interacts with the moral points system (you sometimes have to sit for minutes on end rewatching the same conversation), but it’s not enough to completely sour me on it. Looking forward to eventually getting to Exodus.

Also playing some Deadlock games, though despite loving the game I’m already noticing it’s not always great for my mood.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Depends on what you’re looking for I think. For a lot of people (me included) 27" 1440p 144hz is the sweet spot. You get good DPI for your viewing distance, not too taxing on your hardware, the price point isn’t ridiculous and you can fit the whole screen in your field of view without having to move your head.

I could definitely see going slightly bigger for immersive games, but I’d have to start making compromises I’m not sure I’d be willing to.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Cass is great, and a lovely nod to Fallout 2 as well which I loved. She was the first companion designed for F:NV so she wasn’t as rushed as all the others. I wish every companion had as much to say as Cass does.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I guess they wanted a change after Keshiks and Camel Archers being completely busted in Civ V.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Love it! The level designs are so cool in Lonesome Road, and I agree that the final battle felt very cinematic in a way that a lot of other New Vegas fights don’t.

People love or hate Ulysses but I enjoy him as a character. I think the story as it ties through all the DLCs is very cool and the climactic, desolate journey through LR to cap it off was great for me.

I was planning on picking up Lily but I can’t remember how to get her as a companion.

I think all you need to do is finish the sidequest for the doctor in Jacobstown.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

If you’re worried about bugs I think you should be able to get Mod Organizer 2 running on Steam Deck, and with all the various stability mods installed New Vegas runs fairly well. The Viva New Vegas mod guide is a great place to start, it should have most of what you need to get going.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Glad you found the toaster! It’s probably my favourite too, though I also loved the jukebox having an affair with the light switches. I hope you’ll enjoy Lonesome Road, it’s my personal favourite DLC I think, though objectively OWB is probably better. I just love the vibes and the levels in LR.

Two very different games in the pipeline after. Alan Wake II was my GOTY last year so hard not to recommend it here. Have you played the preceding Remedy games?

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Alan Wake 2 is amazing, but with the interconnected Remedyverse being what it is it also sort of wants you to “do your homework” - the experience is definitely enriched by having played Max Payne and Control before (with the AWE DLC of the latter being a direct bridge to AW2). The Quantum Break overlap is much more minor as they don’t own the rights to its IP. It’s fun for those who played it, but not necessary and not important.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Alex Casey (the detective from Alan Wake’s books) is essentially Max Payne - they had to change the name when making Alan Wake 1 because Rockstar had bought the IP.

There are callbacks in AW2 in both narration, atmosphere and character design that I really enjoyed, but you won’t miss out on anything story-relevant if you haven’t played it. Watching a couple of minutes of cutscenes from Max Payne 1 on YouTube is probably enough to get most of the references.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I am stoked. Looks like we’re playing as agent Estevez in this one? Have to imagine it’s setting up Control 2, as well.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I’m assuming the jumpscare characters are Dr. Marmont & Marmont.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I’ll throw in another vouch for it. Play blind, look up absolutely nothing about the game.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

They’re a bit different than the military ones, but the first three Splinter Cell games are fantastic if you enjoy stealth. Chaos Theory in particular is absolute cinema, one of the best stealth games of all time.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

How have you been finding it so far?

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I was hoping for his thoughts on Dead Money specifically, but I agree New Vegas has a great storyline.

It’s strange you haven’t been able to get it to work though, there are lots of stability and performance mods out there by now that combine to make the game fairly stable. The Viva New Vegas guide is a good place to start if you need direction.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

The themes are great and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. There are parts of the gameplay I don’t like as much (and a bit too much backtracking through samey environmens), but I think it’s really cool how bold they went with how it plays completely differently from the whole rest of the game.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I’m well aware of TTW, and I’m happy it exists for those who want it. I personally have no interest in Fallout 3.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I’d say so. The biggest selling point is the Origins-system itself and the player agency from both that and your gameplay choices. The extent to which your chosen Origin affects the game is staggering and very few games (perhaps none?) has even attempted something similar. I can tell you this, it puts the “background” choice in Cyberpunk to shame.

The overall plot is fairly standard-fare boilerplate fantasy stuff but the world is decent and the companions are mostly very enjoyable, though some are more well-written than others. Alistair is - in my opinion - one of the best companions Bioware ever produced. Morrigan is also a great character.

The combat is okay, RTwP is a divisive system and I personally think it lacks the depth of Baldur’s Gate II (though I always play the latter with Swoard Coast Strategems). I installed some mods that expanded the built-in “Tactics” function that lets you set triggers for your companions to execute actions, and I had great fun in programming my party to play itself with me completely hands-off.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Would you say seeing your choices reverberate through the story by importing your saves makes it worthwhile, or no?

I’ve played and really enjoyed Origins, but haven’t (yet) taken on the other two. With the size of my backlog I’d be happy to leave the other two unplayed as I was satisfied at the end of Origins, but the fact that you can import saves and have your decisions matter does interest me.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Thanks for the super thorough reply, I really appreciate it! I did do the ritual, I think I got the “ring ending” for Morrigan as I entered the portal with her in the Witch Hunt DLC.

I agree with you on the appeal of these long series of games with save-import being the continuity, so it’s a shame to hear it’s not more elaborate than that. I know Welonz did a full Dragon Age series playthrough last year so I might just watch that some day. If Veilguard turns out to be incredible (doubtful) I’ll take your advice and just watch story recaps I think.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu (edited 9 miesięcy temu)

With each lazy and unnecessary cash grab remaster we move closer to the day a remaster announcement is made at the end of a game’s release trailer.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

My main complaints with the game that I’d like to see fixed would probably be beyond the scope of the term “remaster”. The facial animations during dialogue were pretty uncanny in the base game, but they’re good in the DLC and sequel.

To me this feels like perfectly within the scope of what should be the realm of “remaster”, it’s just that history teaches us to expect less.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Very excited for you to take on the Sierra Madre! It’s a pretty divisive DLC, people either really love it or really hate it. I personally really enjoyed it, but there are certainly parts of it where I can see how they’d make some people dislike it.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

A true man of culture, refinement and impeccable taste.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

This all sounds great, but the one thing I truly wish they’d eventually add is official VR support. I played the game briefly with the VR mod, and it was already apparent how well the game is suited for it, but I wish it had fully integrated VR controls for full immersion.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Civ VI instead of Civ V? List automatically invalid.

Jokes aside it’s an interesting list and I like the idea of ranking based on “what’s best to play right now” instead of by historical significance or some futile attempt at objective apples-to-apples quantification - even though at the end of the day I think I neither agree with the selection nor the ranking. But there are plenty of good games on there with solid reasons of why to play them in their descriptions, so it’s a good read nonetheless.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

$40 is like 40 pulls, maybe?

It depends on how you spend it. The best bang for the buck top-up pack - the $99 one - works out to about 20 pulls per $40 (this includes first-time purchase bonus). If you spent your $40 on the $5 monthly subscription (and logged in every day to claim it) it would work out to 160 pulls for your $40 - but it would take you 8 months to claim.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I remember EverQuest being called EverCrack back in the day before WoW.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Saving this for later, this sounds absolutely lovely and very interesting!

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Been playing a lot ofDeadlock still, finally getting a grasp of how to play it feels like. Took a while to understand priorities and what to focus on and how to execute builds. Still held back a bit by my aim, but found enough ability-based heroes to still be able to perform. It’s a very fun game! I can’t play too many games in a row because it gets intense and stressful, but I’m really enjoying it.

I’ve also been playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the first time as something more relaxing and story based. It’s been alright so far. Don’t think it’s been hitting the heights of the original Deus Ex so far, but it’s enjoyable enough.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Does it have enough games yet?

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Came to the comments to post exactly that video, happily surprised to already find it here. Impeccable taste, sir.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Another TV show that was famous for its amazing soundtrack that had subsequently been changed and butchered is Skins.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

I haven’t tried everything out there, but so far nothing I’ve tried is true perfection. The controller I use as daily driver for my PC is an Xbox 360 controller, which I find extremely nice - except for the D-pad. It also lacks the fancy tricks of the PS5 controller - a controller I Iike less for ergonomics but love for stuff like haptic feedback.

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

As few? Don’t you mean “as many as”?

Coelacanth, 9 miesięcy temu

Completely agreed with all your points. Act 3 soured me on the game quite dramatically after being pretty high on it after the first two acts, and my only consolation (especially having also read that Steam page guide to cut content) was Larian’s habit of releasing Definitive Editions of their games.

Coelacanth, 10 miesięcy temu (edited 10 miesięcy temu)

It’s not as bad as the mobile version from 2014 (seriously, go look it up if you don’t believe me!), but I still prefer the original art and sprites. Butchered is maybe too strong a word though, that’s more fair to say about the mobile version.

EDIT: forgot to mention they used the GBA translation as a base and discarded many iconic Woolsey lines from the original, like “son of a submariner!”. There are obviously a lot more changes but I’m not going to be full purist and claim everything was objectively better on the SNES just because that’s the version I’m used to. You can look at the full differences here.