November 2023 Random Game Thoughts Thread

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It's amazing the amount of group thought people have. There's a huge thread at RPG codex where everyone is in agreement that The Talos Principle is a technical mess and one of the worst written games ever. It is neither of those things, not by a mile. Steam user reviews are Overwhelmingly Positive. When is the last time a game that was a technical mess had those kind of reviews? Never. The next time will be the first. I haven't had a single bug and the game is running on max graphics settings at around 100 fps at 2k.

As for the writing, it is solid. I'm very sensitive to bad writing, which is why I can't watch a lot of popular Hollywood movies or read just any novel. What the thread is misunderstanding is perspective. Almost all the writing is dialogue and the robots speak like real people. If you had a philosophical conversation with someone in person, it's going to sound much like it does in the game. If the characters all talked like a high level philosophy book, THEN it would be poorly written. Two average people chatting about philosophy is going to be messy.

I don't have any complaints, as yet, about the game, but I'm beginning to think the puzzles are an order or two easier than the ones in the first game. Not that they are too easy. You do have to put some thought into most of them. But I may be misremembering the difficulty of the first game, as I only remember really spending a lot of time on a couple of puzzles.
 
@Kaamos_Llama still playing Remnant from the Ashes? Guido and I started a new game yesterday. We haven't played it since we finished it the first time. Having a blast the second time through. We maybe should have picked a higher difficulty for the second playthrough with the same characters. We did bump it up one from Normal, but we've sort of breezed through the first half of the game. Neither one of us had to be revived the whole day. I just didn't want to start from scratch with weapons, rings, etc. Having had a lot more practice may be playing into it, too.

Got to fight one of my favorite bosses, the big tree guy in the huge, open area that keeps shooting mortars at you. Guido distracted him from the front while I circled around and shot his weak spot.

I guess knowledge could also be playing a factor in it being a lot easier. Not that the game was ever brutal to begin with. I thought it was pretty well balanced the first time through.

Just for fun, we're both playing with mods that summon creatures, like the dog mod you get from petting the blind guy's dog (in the desert--I can't remember his name. Maybe Wup?)

Would be interested to hear how your game is going.
 
Because there is an ever constant supply of kids that don't know any better. You have to learn from personal experience not to pre order anything unless you prepared for the consequences.

You can scream don't do it but they aren't listening... this is why games companies can keep boiling the frog, by adding more ways to scam us, as while some notice and jump out, there are plenty jumping in to replace them. Eventually everyone will accept paying for games constantly after purchase is normal

Campaign ; 4 hours... lol. Why even bother?

I heard game is only 55gb, the package includes 3 games so that all adds up... when they 55gb each.

Its a rhetorical question that im brought to at this point because of experience. And its true on the kids, my son said he has friends playing it and they absolutely do not know better not just being unknown to pre-ordering but FOMO that is perfected in the hype train of games like this,
 
It's amazing the amount of group thought people have. There's a huge thread at RPG codex where everyone is in agreement that The Talos Principle is a technical mess and one of the worst written games ever. It is neither of those things, not by a mile. Steam user reviews are Overwhelmingly Positive. When is the last time a game that was a technical mess had those kind of reviews? Never. The next time will be the first. I haven't had a single bug and the game is running on max graphics settings at around 100 fps at 2k.

As for the writing, it is solid. I'm very sensitive to bad writing, which is why I can't watch a lot of popular Hollywood movies or read just any novel. What the thread is misunderstanding is perspective. Almost all the writing is dialogue and the robots speak like real people. If you had a philosophical conversation with someone in person, it's going to sound much like it does in the game. If the characters all talked like a high level philosophy book, THEN it would be poorly written. Two average people chatting about philosophy is going to be messy.

I don't have any complaints, as yet, about the game, but I'm beginning to think the puzzles are an order or two easier than the ones in the first game. Not that they are too easy. You do have to put some thought into most of them. But I may be misremembering the difficulty of the first game, as I only remember really spending a lot of time on a couple of puzzles.

The Internet is a great place to find like-minded people. This is often not a good thing...
 
@ZedClampet Its still in progress, its just we're both busy with my friend so its hard to find time. Things may be calming down workwise for me at the end of the month but we just had a family emergency that is going to be a bit on going and I'm not sure how that going to play out.

I really like the game, we are currently stuck on the Ent boss after 5 or so hours but we're trying to find time to get back to it. Feels like one we will finish, as long as my buddy doesnt get too frustrated. He's not usually one for too much of a challenge in a game but I think I'm converting him as he still wants to get back to it.
 
@ZedClampet Its still in progress, its just we're both busy with my friend so its hard to find time. Things may be calming down workwise for me at the end of the month but we just had a family emergency that is going to be a bit on going and I'm not sure how that going to play out.

I really like the game, we are currently stuck on the Ent boss after 5 or so hours but we're trying to find time to get back to it. Feels like one we will finish, as long as my buddy doesnt get too frustrated. He's not usually one for too much of a challenge in a game but I think I'm converting him as he still wants to get back to it.
Ent boss is the one I was calling "the big tree" or whatever I called it haha. If you ever have difficulty, you can always grind a little by going to "Adventure" mode without messing up your campaign. Just go get a bit of scrap, iron, etc and level up your gear.

I'm not sure what you would consider a spoiler, so below I tell you about an important vendor you are about to meet and what they upgrade and what the charge is. It's just a warning not to spend what you'll need, but if you want to be surprised, it's not a huge deal. And sorry I talked so much about the game. I figured you were ahead of us, but we're pretty much steamrolling with end-game gear and upgrades, so I guess we're going pretty fast.

You are going to come across someone who will be able to upgrade the number of charges for your Dragon Heart. Each upgrade costs 1 Simulacrum and 10 Lumenite Crystals, so you may want to save those. You can upgrade all the way to 10 uses. The person moves into Ward 13, so you'll always be able to find them.
 
Things are getting complicated.
full
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
There's a huge thread at RPG codex where everyone is in agreement that The Talos Principle is a technical mess and one of the worst written games ever.
Yeeah, that sounds like Codex. Watch for the 'game of the year' calculations they do, though. I love the mathematical method they use!
Things are getting complicated.
They aren't even mixing colors yet!

Oh, they're throwing in green, aren't they? Do they have a color blind mode? If not, a lot of red/green colorblind people are going to have an even harder time.
 
Yeeah, that sounds like Codex. Watch for the 'game of the year' calculations they do, though. I love the mathematical method they use!

They aren't even mixing colors yet!

Oh, they're throwing in green, aren't they? Do they have a color blind mode? If not, a lot of red/green colorblind people are going to have an even harder time.
They've been mixing colors for quite some time now. I think I've gotten 3 or 4 new tools since that was introduced. There was no color mixing in that puzzle, though. There were two reversers, a reflector and a block.

And they do have colorblind mode.
 
Ent boss is the one I was calling "the big tree" or whatever I called it haha. If you ever have difficulty, you can always grind a little by going to "Adventure" mode without messing up your campaign. Just go get a bit of scrap, iron, etc and level up your gear.

I'm not sure what you would consider a spoiler, so below I tell you about an important vendor you are about to meet and what they upgrade and what the charge is. It's just a warning not to spend what you'll need, but if you want to be surprised, it's not a huge deal. And sorry I talked so much about the game. I figured you were ahead of us, but we're pretty much steamrolling with end-game gear and upgrades, so I guess we're going pretty fast.
Not too worried about spoilers. Yea we already did the Church and have the old tree lady back at the ward. We killed the static big tree and a boss afterwards pretty easily. Maybe I got the name on the boss we're stuck on wrong. Its definitely a big walking tree but it launches missiles out of its back and does a huge stomp attack then calls in the little round monsters. Might need to level up because my hunting rifle always runs out of ammo trying to kill it.
 
Not too worried about spoilers. Yea we already did the Church and have the old tree lady back at the ward. We killed the static big tree and a boss afterwards pretty easily. Maybe I got the name on the boss we're stuck on wrong. Its definitely a big walking tree but it launches missiles out of its back and does a huge stomp attack then calls in the little round monsters. Might need to level up because my hunting rifle always runs out of ammo trying to kill it.
No that's the right guy. I'm calling the missiles mortars. You can hear when he's firing the missiles, so you can fight those rollers who come after you and just listen for him to fire. Also, I've never run out of ammo there, but I always take ammo cans to boss fights just in case. This guy is really best with a sniper rifle since you should be a decent distance from him at all times. If you're out of the range of your guns, you'll never bring him down.
 
No that's the right guy. I'm calling the missiles mortars. You can hear when he's firing the missiles, so you can fight those rollers who come after you and just listen for him to fire. Also, I've never run out of ammo there, but I always take ammo cans to boss fights just in case. This guy is really best with a sniper rifle since you should be a decent distance from him at all times. If you're out of the range of your guns, you'll never bring him down.
I didnt know you could get ammo cans, that would help.

My friend has built his character with a big hammer and shotgun so maybe that doesnt help as well. We'll get there, its only been 4 or 5 goes. the weak spot doesnt seem to be easy to see unless hes firing mortars and at that point im dodge rolling and trying to snipe the red spot at the same time.
 
So... thats the 1st week of POE done. Level 50 within 2 days. not too shabby, but glad thats over. The krangled skill tree meant i couldn't rely on it to build my character and since i had no intention of developing the character beyond lvl 50 i just sped through as fast as possible. i might have learnt that perhaps just speeding through the campaign ignoring most of the side missions makes things faster. i can certainly go back when i'm higher level.

So lootbox (worth $5 each) in my account. What did i get? Well, i'm probably not going to open it until i get the second one. Hell, i might just wait till christmas, GGG usually give one out free then. So i can open them all at once. there are 20 items, so 5% chance for everything. Fingers crossed i get something good...

I'll probably go back to playing AOE2 and perhaps make a start on Yakuza 3. Apparently its not very good. We'll see...
 
I started a second game in Talos Principle. You go to the briefing after the tutorial/intro, and after the briefing they ask if you want to go on the expedition. If you say "no", the credits run and you go back to the main menu. No matter what happens from here, even if I get stuck in a puzzle and quit forever, I will now always consider that I finished the game.
 
Cult of the Lamb with mouse and keyboard feels good. You have a normal cursor that you use to aim. It felt surprisingly good and I would definitely recommended it if you don’t want to use a controller.
However, I am taking a break since I’m a bit burnt out on Lamb, I played it so much over the past week and when you only have about 10 hours a week to game, you kind of want to diversify it. So I played some Battlefield 2042 and I’ve been having a blast. BF Portal is an AMAZING addition that I wish they would do more with. They currently have a limited game mode where you play as BF1942 soldiers across all maps included in Portal (2 maps each from BF1942, Bad Company 2 and BF3) plus all normal BF2042 maps. It’s a ton of fun playing with WWII era tanks and guns on maps with 5000 meter tall glass skyscrapers.
 
Wow, KMPlayer destroys VLC, which I just uninstalled. There's just no comparison with picture and audio quality. Plus, KMPlayer natively downloads YouTube videos or you can direct connect with the video address and avoid commercials.

**************

I won't give away the secret to the story of The Talos Principal 2, but if you want more content in the game, including more puzzles to work, then say "Yes" when Doge asks you if you are interested in learning more about their group. That seems simple enough and like an obvious choice, but Doge is one of the first characters you meet, is red and black, and has the number "666" across their chest. Also, they imply that they aren't necessarily a force for good. Apparently this can potentially impact the ending you get, so consider it carefully.
 
KMPlayer … avoid commercials

Is following not your experience?

"KMPlayer shows many advertisements, including in the homepage, side panels, options panel, and as pop-up ads."

"The advertisements in KMPlayer have been noted and considered annoying by many people, and there are no official settings provided to block these advertisements."

I use the other player made by KMP's original dev, PotPlayer. Been a few years tho since I looked at video apps, so dunno what's best for various needs now. Pot has hundreds of menu & settings choices, so ideal for RPG and Sim players ;)
 
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Is following not your experience?

"KMPlayer shows many advertisements, including in the homepage, side panels, options panel, and as pop-up ads."

"The advertisements in KMPlayer have been noted and considered annoying by many people, and there are no official settings provided to block these advertisements."

I use the other player made by KMP's original dev, PotPlayer. Been a few years tho since I looked at video apps, so dunno what's best for various needs now. Pot has hundreds of menu & settings choices, so ideal for RPG and Sim players ;)
I haven't had any ads yet. I played with it for quite awhile yesterday. It asked me once whether I wanted to make a donation, but that might have been during installation. It certainly wasn't anything intrusive.
 
I need to sleep more. I absolutely sucked at Vermintide 2 yesterday and today, making a lot of easily preventable mistakes. I also haven't returned to Disco Elysium since finishing the first day because I've been too tired for such a text heavy game.
Yep. That's one of the games where you can really notice how good your sleep has been.
 
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