November 2023 Random Game Thoughts Thread

[Johnway]

Nice. Isnt 27 way better than 21 ? I remember when I got my 27 inch it seemed massive and my previous one was a 25 inch Dell.

In many ways yes (bigger screen space, higher resolution gaming etc). i think my main concern is whether i will experience the same (or better ) from having such a large screen. Like in my other topic in the tech forum, it feels like i'm putting the cart before the horse and the larger screens means greater commitments to maintaining those resolutions etc. But the sad thing is that my current monitor i've had nearly 15 years and still going strong. It feels like i'm putting down a beloved pet for no reason.

That said, i'm probably being dramatic, i'm going to shove it in the box i got the dell monitor and stashing it away as a spare or when i can use it as a second monitor.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

The VRR should help vs Vsync as well as the higher res. Did you try it at 1080p in a game yet?

I gently send my old hardware on to a new owner with a good clean up and the original packaging. Let someone else take it behind the wood shed later on down the line.

 

[neogunhero]

Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (word salad) just got released yesterday and came to Game Pass today. I really enjoyed Yakuza 0 and Kiwami, but could not finish them due to how absurdly long they are. And as @Johnway said, the other games that aren’t remastered are pretty much downgrades compared to the newer entries. So this one bridges the story between the end of Yakuza 6 (not remastered so I didn’t play it) and Like A Dragon (also didn’t play). I have no idea what has happened in the story to lead up to this but it seems so interesting, I wanna give it a go. I’ve always wanted to get into the Yakuza games as I’ve spent 15 years living in Japan, but something about them never click to me. This new one is a lot shorter, you can beat it within 20-40 hours rather than 100* hours like most of the other ones. It’s definitely interesting, but I think what I’m more interested in is next years Infinite Wealth which seems to be a bigger, mainline entry rather than this smaller side story game.

 

[BeardyHat]

personally i think harmony of dissonance on the GBA is pretty dire compared to SOTN, although I'm not sure if he did make that one.

I do believe he was involved with that one. Circle of the Moon (such he wasn't) and Harmony are both weak, but Aria of Sorrow is really ace, loved that one.

I really liked BB as well, I've never seen half of the late game content either despite having played, um quite a lot. I managed to get up to medium difficulty and could usually get past the first crisis. It felt very grindy to me after that which is only fun up to a point, I just liked the early game struggle more than farming stuff for particular encounters later on so I would start a new game or go away for a bit. If I didnt get wiped out randomly by something that is.

Think that's why I haven't played in a little while myself. Reached Day 100 or so and I have pretty good gear and decent dudes, but feels like I'm just repeating myself now and trying to level my guys so they can take on even harder stuff, mostly just doing the same thing.


Still would like to get back to it and push through, but haven't felt the pull recently.

 

[Johnway]

The VRR should help vs Vsync as well as the higher res. Did you try it at 1080p in a game yet?

I gently send my old hardware on to a new owner with a good clean up and the original packaging. Let someone else take it behind the wood shed later on down the line.

not got the monitor yet. its arriving on monday (i could have got it sooner, but i'm coordinating it as to when i'm working from home). We'll see what happens when i play a game in 1080p. But will be experimenting with a variety of games and see what happens.

Dell does do a recycling scheme etc so if i wanted to ditch the old monitor i certainly can do that if needed.

 

[BeardyHat]

In many ways yes (bigger screen space, higher resolution gaming etc). i think my main concern is whether i will experience the same (or better ) from having such a large screen. Like in my other topic in the tech forum, it feels like i'm putting the cart before the horse and the larger screens means greater commitments to maintaining those resolutions etc. But the sad thing is that my current monitor i've had nearly 15 years and still going strong. It feels like i'm putting down a beloved pet for no reason.

That said, i'm probably being dramatic, i'm going to shove it in the box i got the dell monitor and stashing it away as a spare or when i can use it as a second monitor.

Felt the same way recently buying a 27" 165hz monitor. My old 27" was just fine and while the bump in refresh looks nice, it's not life changing as the Internet purports it to be. In fact, I still mostly use my Deck and my older Thinkpad for gaming, just because it's more convenient.

That said, I elected to stick with 1080p, since I didn't want to join the arms race of higher resolution and needing to spend even more money on a graphics card.

Speaking of, just saw that the new Deck was revealed and now I've got the Wants very hard. I won't be able to justify the relatively minor upgrade, but damn it looks great! Might have to start putting money aside for the next revision.

 

[Pifanjr]

Speaking of, just saw that the new Deck was revealed and now I've got the Wants very hard. I won't be able to justify the relatively minor upgrade, but damn it looks great! Might have to start putting money aside for the next revision.

I've started considering getting a Steam Deck next year. It would be really nice if I could play games with my wife again and it seems like the Steam Deck is currently the best low budget option.

 

[BeardyHat]

I've started considering getting a Steam Deck next year. It would be really nice if I could play games with my wife again and it seems like the Steam Deck is currently the best low budget option.

It's really a great device. Used it a ton when I first got it and now I find myself switching back and forth between it and my laptop, but it's such a great machine for kicking back on the couch and putting some time into tons of different things. The trackpads are so versatile, it's great.

 

[ZedClampet]

Playing Remnant 1, we walked through a boss door, and my heart sank. It was the only boss from the first game that I had been dreading, Ixillis. Boss spoilers ahead.

So you fight the boss on this narrow bridge. When you start, Ixillis is on the left. After you do a little damage, the boss duplicates , and there is one on the right. So two bosses, one of them always behind you.

The strategy we came up with is that as soon as we go through the door, Guido opens up on the boss, and i run down to the far side of the bridge and shoot from there. As soon as the second boss shows up, I switch to shooting them. This is very important because now we have the bosses at opposite ends of the bridge, and neither one of us has to worry about getting attacked in the rear.

The plan worked perfectly except for one thing. We both fell off the bridge twice. But third time was the charm, and I was pretty relieved to be done with this one.

 

[Zloth]

Started Yakuza 3 and... yeah... after coming from yakuza kwami 2, this is a massive downgrade. The hostess minigun is dire and as someone who has never played golf or a golf game in his life, that sub game holds no interest. Oh well, lets keep playing and see what happens.

You only have to play golf once. It seemed like the system they put in was fairly good but I just never wanted to play it.

I flat out forgot where my club even was. That's one of the places you are supposed to spend your money at. Buying weapons is the other. If you don't do either, money just piles up.

@neogunhero - I finished Kiwami in 43 hours and Kiwami 2 in 48 hours, and I play games ssllloooowly. I think they are more like 30 hours for sane <ahem> I mean average people. Yakuza 0 took me a good bit longer at 86 hours.

Speaking of playing slow, my companions in Guardians of the Galaxy have quite a bit to say about my habit of checking out EVERY side passage.

Oh, also, there's a setting in the Accessibility section that lets you turn OFF the QTEs if you want.

 

[Brian Boru]

Kiwami

Kiwami 2

Yakuza 0

 

[BeardyHat]

This explains why I'm 36 hours into 0 and still don't feel anywhere close to the end.

 

[neogunhero]

I guess it’s more of the replayability + all the side activities that can really push those numbers beyond just the main story. I remember Dunkey’s video on one of the Yakuza games, he said something about spending way too much time on the circuit racer minigame because of how surprisingly in-depth and complex it gets.

 

[neogunhero]

RoboQuest just had a full release 1.0 out of Early Access this week. It’s one game that I bought when it first came to early access and followed it along the way, now I’m glad to see it have its full release. Only other game I can think of that I’ve had a similar experience with is DayZ (back when it was known as Standalone). As expected, 1.0 comes with a major update and it does change quite a bit. The game feels a lot faster, because time-to-kill has been tweaked to be ever so slightly faster, you run and jump just a smidgen better, and the overall polish and performance optimizations are very noticeable. There are a couple new enemy types, reworked progression on the base hub upgrades, and more weapons and abilities. This is the best FPS roguelite I’ve ever played and it is just so satisfying. It’s funny to see so many people in the Steam discussions complain about how the game is so hard, but it feels easier than it did when it first came to EA. I’m playing on Hard which is the recommended difficulty and it’s so satisfying to clear the levels and see your score at the end. I highly recommended it to anyone who likes FPS games and roguelites, it’s on sale for $20 and it’s on Game Pass also.

 

[Johnway]

I do believe he was involved with that one. Circle of the Moon (such he wasn't) and Harmony are both weak, but Aria of Sorrow is really ace, loved that one.

When i played Circle of the moon at the time i thought it was amazing. was probably the game that brought me into the Castlevania series in fact. i personally preferred the darker tone of the graphics and it was far more challenging. Whether that was because it was limitations or it was because it was a decent challenge, i would say a bit of both. You certainly didn't have a shop and it was entirely luck based what items were dropped. Plus it had some pretty vicious sections like the underground gallery with all its poison inducing monsters/plants and of course to top it off the 2 zombie dragons boss fight. A notoriously difficult battle. But what stood out for me was the map design. On the whole i found it pretty good, yes there were some sections that were a bit dubious but it minimized backtracking as essentially if you kept moving forward you would eventually see and go everywhere and detours were kept to a minimum.

although, i suspect a large amount of that was because of hindsight. i played the hell out of that game. DSS worked, but it was a mixed bag as not all the skills were all that good or effective. Looking back it was basic compared to other outings and it hasn't really aged that well. Still, good memories compared to HOD.

HOD on the other hand, i hated with a passion, garish/basic graphics, awful sound and soundtrack, poor level design didn't help it.

AOS was a great game. hell, i even wrote up the game script for gamefaqs!

@neogunhero - I finished Kiwami in 43 hours and Kiwami 2 in 48 hours, and I play games ssllloooowly. I think they are more like 30 hours for sane <ahem> I mean average people. Yakuza 0 took me a good bit longer at 86 hours.

Looking into my time for Yakuza Kiwami 2 i sunk a staggering 97.1 hours into it. Suffice to say i enjoyed it a lot.

You only have to play golf once. It seemed like the system they put in was fairly good but I just never wanted to play it.

I flat out forgot where my club even was. That's one of the places you are supposed to spend your money at. Buying weapons is the other. If you don't do either, money just piles up.

yeah it was for the tutorial. If the game didn't offer do overs i would have been thrashed with ease. The idol game so far i'm not making any money and its doubly annoying that if i want to change hair styles etc it costs money. made worse that it doesn't even give you the stat changes until AFTER you confirm, but still no numbers etc. So no idea whether a certain style if better then another. Absolutely stupid. Will still try and keep playing if it gets me good money though.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Speaking of playing slow, my companions in Guardians of the Galaxy have quite a bit to say about my habit of checking out EVERY side passage.

Oh, also, there's a setting in the Accessibility section that lets you turn OFF the QTEs if you want.

I havent given up totally on Guardians it was fun, been pretty busy and action games are tough for me to find time for still at the moment.

Think that's why I haven't played in a little while myself. Reached Day 100 or so and I have pretty good gear and decent dudes, but feels like I'm just repeating myself now and trying to level my guys so they can take on even harder stuff, mostly just doing the same thing.


Still would like to get back to it and push through, but haven't felt the pull recently.

Once you get the decent 110 raider armor with nimble on a full party you can manage the first crisis usually. The Holy war can be pretty tough still though, hand gunners and assassins from the south can be rough. Great game, got me pretty hooked on and off for a couple years.

 

[DXCHASE]

Donated blood today at work. Not for the fact that i got a 5 dollar coupon, nope! I donated because i get sweet stuff in diablo 4, i made sure to tell the nurse (to her not-understanding-me-at-all look) that she knew why i was donating.

So Diablo 4 has a "donate blood" campaign goin on right now for their second season, aptly named "season of the blood". If the community reaches 666 quarts, a giveaway for a custom pc with some human blood in it is unlocked. Through the different mile markers in the event the community gets a set of weapon skins, then a barbarian outfit and then a horse. They unlock for everyone even if you dont donate. So i did my part! (insert Starship Troopers meme)

Heres what i got as a donation lol:

https://imgur.com/ruGDEhZ

View: https://i.imgur.com/ruGDEhZ.png

 

[ZedClampet]

What do you think about having a PC Part Picker competition where people have to design the best budget PC they can while adhering to contest stipulations? Winner (maybe picked in a poll thread?) will get their pick of 5 free games from my ever-growing list of Humble Bundle games I don't want (but I'm an unconventional gamer, so there are some good games on that list).

 

[Zloth]

Don't look at me - I only know parts right before I buy a new PC. Six months later, that knowledge is gone.

 

[Brian Boru]

Winner (maybe picked in a poll thread?)

Ooh no, that bit would go down in flames. Maybe picked by whoever maintains this article?

 

[ZedClampet]

Ooh no, that bit would go down in flames. Maybe picked by whoever maintains this article?

After further consideration, I changed my mind.

 

[BeardyHat]

Don't look at me - I only know parts right before I buy a new PC. Six months later, that knowledge is gone.

This is me.

I upgraded my CPU, GPU and SSD in September. Researched the hell out of everything and I'll be damned if I could tell you anything about PC hardware.

Used to be so easy back in the 90s.

 

[Brian Boru]

Six months later, that knowledge is gone.

September. Researched the hell out of everything and I'll be damned if I could tell you anything

Listen up, you young fellas. You need the sobering experience of wondering 'Which decade was that?' or 'What country was that?'

You also need OneNote or EverNote to put your research in. Oh, and KEEP it

 

[Brian Boru]

Excel is an eSport Now

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIsHHyTX48

 

[Pifanjr]

Ooh no, that bit would go down in flames. Maybe picked by whoever maintains this article?

I remember a time where a budget PC option would be ~$400 . This makes the Steam Deck look even better, as at least it comes with a screen and a controller.