Random Game Thoughts Thread—October 23-29

[Brian Boru]

Gravitas

Very short freebie, 1-2 hours. Big Portal vibe, even got a Wheatley clone helping you—I totally enjoyed it… until I met the platforming bit

60/100

 

[Brian Boru]

Not sure if this was mentioned here already, but The Sims 4 is now free.

Just the base game, so don't worry, you won't miss out on the chance to spend $1,000+ on the dozens of DLCs!

 

[Colif]

Sims 4 isn't even tryingh with dlc, train simulators beat it. Don't worry, Sims 5 won't even include the game. You just pay for the possibility of playing it.

 

[flashn00b]

I dunno which playerbase is more... touched in the head between Killing Floor 2 or Mount&Blade.

Killing Floor 2 because the Steam Community's acting so shocked that Tripwire/Saber Interactive added a pay-to-win weapon after condoning pay-to-win last year.

Mount&Blade because even when the competition was on an EGS timed exclusive, Chivalry 2 stole a fair chunk of the Bannerlord PVP playerbase. Four months after the Steam release of Chiv2, Bannerlord players still think it's perfectly okay for archers to render infantry and cavalry unplayable in a game about medieval swordfighting, while faction balance is basically all over the place, much to the point where whatever imbalances are put in place are clearly intentional.

 

[Brian Boru]

Fifa gamer meets best mates for first time at his wedding:

Fifa gamer meets best mates for first time at his wedding

Ryan George met four friends while playing Fifa and invited them to the happiest day of his life.

www.bbc.com

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Doom Eternal gets really tough towards the end. Playing on normal (Hurt Me Plenty) making my way through Taras Nabad and getting stuck a lot. I'm not that great at FPS so trying to use the right guns at the right time is hard because I'm not that great at weapon selection at speed on the number keys. You can get by as long as you keep your armor and health up, but its pretty hectic. I recommend it.

Also Victoria 3 reviews are up, seems very statty, I like the sound of it.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Doom Eternal gets really tough towards the end. Playing on normal (Hurt Me Plenty)

Lol. I thought it was really tough even at the very beginning. Too fast paced for me.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm not that great at weapon selection at speed on the number keys

You should be able to use the mouse wheel for that, or change to it in bindings—much easier, much faster.

Victoria 3 … seems very statty

I tried one Paradox game, EU3, and decided quickly against the statty lifestyle

 

[Frindis]

A little dab of Runescape, PUBG, Super People (a new BR game out of beta), and Crusader Kings 3. Just played the demo of the game Unusual Findings and really dug the vibe. Highly recommended for a little 80's nostalgia embedded in a point-and-click adventure.

 

[Brian Boru]

FarCrysis

Flow Groover is making great progress on this mod—original Far Cry in the Crysis engine. I don't remember how many times I played the OG, but I'm really looking forward to playing this when it's done.

Here's a 34m video of one of the best missions:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU2jfaQKFic

 

[Zloth]

Ah, life in an RPG!

I wandered a little too far off the main path, I think. I ran into a mini-boss that buffed himself up for the first three turns or so while I took care of his minions then started to attack him. He made five attacks in one round. Three killed my paladin, two killed my rogue-like guy. He started making his way toward my archer, but I managed to bring him down.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous isn't one of those games where dead characters just get right back up - at least not on my difficulty level. You've got to buy an expensive scroll to bring each one back, then a few more scrolls to restore their levels. And I had just blown almost all my cash at the store before heading out.

The boss had some nice treasure, though. Maybe I can recover? I've got other characters I can use. The game gives you quite a few companion options, so maybe I can use others while scraping up the funds?

I head back to base camp (twice - but that's another story), luckily avoiding random encounters along the way. I get to camp and... it's under attack!! For some reason, I've only got my archer guy to help me out, though. Could it be that the paladin and rogue were supposed to help but aren't because they're too busy being dead? Nope! The game just happened to have one of those "your companions are scattered, go gather the flock" type events.

Sure enough, one character after another is found in the camp, helping bolster my party as I go along. The second person I found was the paladin! She was low on hit points, but very much alive. I still only have about half my companions back, but I've been told the rogue has run off. Strange, given how dead he was at the time. I don't think the worms would have even bothered with what was left of him after that mini-boss encounter.

Still, two free resurrections! Thank you scripted events!

Doom Eternal gets really tough towards the end. Playing on normal (Hurt Me Plenty) making my way through Taras Nabad and getting stuck a lot.

I only made it about half way through before dropping down to easy. I didn't even try the DLC!

You should be able to use the mouse wheel for that, or change to it in bindings—much easier, much faster.

When I try that, I tend to over-spin and end up with the wrong gun.

 

[Brian Boru]

I tend to over-spin

Depending on mouse, you may be able to change it to a 'click spin'.

"Many mice let you push a button to swap between a clicky wheel and a free-spinning wheel"

https://www.pcgamer.com/do-you-like-your-mouse-wheel-to-click-when-you-scroll-or-spin-freely/

 

[Brian Boru]

V Rising

…is going free to play for Halloween, October 28 thru November 1.

https://www.pcgamer.com/v-rising-the-other-vampire-survival-hit-of-2022-is-going-free-to-play-for-halloween/

 

[Brian Boru]

Life is Strange—and so are the games

LIS 1, the movement controls are poor, and eventually got stuck in the first 'wake-up' scene trying to look at a photo. Gah, Life is also Too Short…

But not to worry, I installed LIS 2 at the same time, so that'll be better. I get to main menu, and there's a 'Privacy Policy' button—by continuing, I agree to it. I don't think I've ever seen that in a game front and center like that, so definitely need to check it out before continuing.

Click PP button… and nothing happens. Hmm. Can't exit out of menu screen in any normal way—now we are moving into hostile WTF territory. Kill game via Task manager.

Check Steam forums. Question in Support discussion about PP from person who experienced exactly the same 3-4 years ago—only one response from someone wondering what the story was. Not good.

Both games uninstalled and hidden.

 

[Brian Boru]

Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth

This is quite remarkable at first glance.

Played ~30 minutes of this 'story', set in 12th century England. I'll probably dip into it for short bites, as so far it's almost all dialogue with a few fairly trivial tasks thrown in.

So far, the written script shows the quality you'd associate with an accomplished author, which Ken Follett surely is—the book this is based on has sold over 25 million copies! Also, the art is phenomenal—if you like the style, it's a real treat. All characters are animated drawings, and so far, many of them are voiced.

Seems very slow, but is likely to be very worthwhile for a superb story and delightful implementation.

 

[Brian Boru]

The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker

If you liked Her Story or other FMV games, check this out. For me, it's going to be a long-term dip in and out game—and I may drop it if the horror gets too dark… but I don't expect that to happen.

Doc Dekker has been murdered. You've replaced him in his psychiatric practice and taken over 5 of his patients, who are apparently quite disturbed if the little I played is any indication.

All 5 are very well acted so far, and there should be great replay value as the murderer is a random choice at game start—that's pretty cool.

Claim:
GUINNESS WORLD RECORD - for "The most Full Motion Video (FMV) in a videogame"

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I only made it about half way through before dropping down to easy. I didn't even try the DLC!

Was it at the point they introduce the Doom Hunter? That encounter took me a good few tries.

You should be able to use the mouse wheel for that, or change to it in bindings—much easier, much faster.

Thats why I have to use the keys, in all other FPS I use the mouse wheel because you have time to mouse through to the weapon you want while your behind cover.

Sooo, in Doom Eternal there are different weapons that are specifically designed to be used on certain enemies. The Shotgun with grenade launcher attachment is good for Cacodemons and Spider Demons, as Cacodemons swallow grenades and straight away are ready for the glory kill which also replenishes your health. Spider demons have a back mounted cannon that will put the hurt you unless you can get a sticky grenade on it and blow it off. Then you have the guys with shields that need the pulse rifle to overcharge them and blow them up. The Super shotgun spread is great for hitting the marauder when its eyes flash green so you can parry it and actually do damage. The minigun for the Doom Hunters sled, the BFG for when you absolutely need to clear every mfer in the room and so on.

You sometimes need small arms (shotgun/machine gun) to barely damage lesser demons for glory kills to get health back, and also you have a flame thrower bound to R which sets demons on fire and causes them to drop armor shards as you shoot them. Then there's the chainsaw, bound to C which makes demons explode in a cloud of ammo which is the main way of replenishing it because you run out all the time. Also every weapon has 2 secondary attachments which are bound to RMB you can hot swap between in combat if needed by holding F. Even for basic movement theres double jump on space and double fast dash on shift.

All of the above happens at 100mph because if you stop running most of the time you'll be dead. Trying to do all that thinking at that speed and co-ordinate my stupid fingers to my brain is not easy for me. And if it wasnt clear from all the above, using the mouse wheel to scroll between weapons is nowhere near fast enough if you need to go from 1 to 5 and back in less than a second.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT

I just remembered that in the first game there was a weapon wheel bound to the mouse wheel that slowed down time and allowed you to select an appropriate weapon. In DE the mouse wheel click is for grenades which get used all the time. BUT I just checked the key binding to find that the weapon wheel is, in fact, now bound to Q instead! Wish I knew that 13 hours ago.

That'll probably make things a little easier 👌

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I beat Fenyx Rising yesterday. It's an unbelievable game. It made my top 3. Now I'm trying to catch my breath before I get into the next thing that's going to suck me in: A Plague Tale: Requiem.

 

[Johnway]

Finished another game on my Raspberry pi, this time it was terranigma. full (tedious) comments in the usual thread soon. But i'm kinda stuck as to what i should play next on my lunch break. I might just go through the shorter games and blast through those. Stuff like rocket knight adventures 1 and 2, some other platformers and start something bigger stuff in the new year.

Still playing Shovel knight treasure trove edition. Chiv 2 eats into more one hour evening slot so its going at a snail's pace as i play through all 3 DLC at once. instead of one at a time. But after that i still need to beat the challenges and investigate showdown. It apparently has story mode so sp content. i'll be around for a while. Failing that, i might consign it to weekend play and play something else. Assuming i can stop playing chiv 2. So far the going has been reasonably good. it hasn't been a nightmare scenario of all the casuals leaving and we're left with the die hard players. yet.

 

[Zloth]

My mouse wheel is already "clicky" - but not enough to stand up to an adrenalin rush when I'm being attacked by demons/aliens/monsters!

Was it at the point they introduce the Doom Hunter? That encounter took me a good few tries.

Before that level. I switched between easy and medium for through one level (maybe the one before?), then just stuck with the easy mode. Doom Hunter went down on the first try in easy mode. The final boss did not.

V Rising

I remember that!

View: https://youtu.be/v4aJsw-cAl0

 

[Brian Boru]

I beat Fenyx Rising yesterday

Grats—Looking forward to your report in The last game you completed

I remember that

If that's the one with John & Diane, loved it!

 

[Colif]

Meta fails to convince normal people to use Metaverse... so next step is force us to use it

Quest for Business.. lol.
is this how they want to get other companies into their walled off garden where they make all the profits... as thats biggest hurdle to getting one to be used, every company wants to control it.

• Imagine having to Use VR for work.
• Imagine having a helicopter boss constantly seeing what you see through the cameras on your goggles?
• Imagine having to look at the stupid graphics they use for people and not laugh. How life like is this avatar going to be? I have seen the videos, they haven't even worked out how to animate legs yet.

Meta needs to invent time travel and have all this implemented before 2020 to actually have it make any sense. And make them a profit. Maybe they have been and VR is just the cover story for where all the money is going.

 

[DXCHASE]

This article had me rollin...

https://www.pcgamer.com/joe-biden-who-may-or-may-not-be-the-us-president-is-absolutely-dominating-guilty-gear-fighting-tournaments/#comment-jump

i laughed hard at the ranking in the last post 1st... NIKE 2nd... JOE BIDEN 3rd... GARBAGE lmao.


I also wanted to add another celebrity that seems to be a big gamer.. Chloe Grace Moretz (Peripheral- Which is a new show about an ultrarealistic VR, Kick-Ass, The Equalizer)

Hollywood Actress Chloë Grace Moretz Shows Her Gamer Stripes, Flexes Amazing F1 Setup After Making a Surprise Appearance at 2022 United States Grand Prix

The Peripheral actress Chloë Grace Moretz amazed the gaming community on the internet with her amazing new F1 racing grid! Click to know more

www.essentiallysports.com

Her twitter has her asking what a good desk would be for her PC too. Didnt realize she was a big fan, she also asked her followers about a f2p to download, someone suggested Destiny 2 (my mainstay game) and she actually played it.

 

[Pifanjr]

My daughter has been asking for some new games to play on the PC, so I've gone through my library and downloaded Unrailed and Evoland, both of which looked child-friendly.

Unrailed is pretty fun to play together. The basics (moving and picking up stuff) are easy enough for my kid to quickly learn and she already likes trains and putting out fires, so it's combining some of her interests too. Though she did at one point decide to cover an entire lake with bridges which caused us to run out of wood and thus out of rails.

I'm not sure how much re-playability it has as it seems pretty light on content, but since it was an Epic freebie that doesn't really matter.

Evoland can't be played together, but it started out simple enough for my daughter to play it. However, when the monsters showed up she gave me the controller and while I gave it back after clearing the monsters each time, eventually she decided she'd rather watch me play. Considering the game only got harder, it's definitely not something she could play by herself.

The game itself is pretty mediocre. It's fun to see the world change with each chest you find, but there's a reason I don't play those old RPGs. Currently it switches between JRPG-style gameplay and 2D Zelda like gameplay, neither of which I enjoy. The quests are very basic as are the puzzles and the story, at least so far. Also, having to run all over town and talk to every single villager just to continue the story is a good dig on games that used to do that, but even when done as a joke it's still annoying.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT

I just remembered that in the first game there was a weapon wheel bound to the mouse wheel that slowed down time and allowed you to select an appropriate weapon. In DE the mouse wheel click is for grenades which get used all the time. BUT I just checked the key binding to find that the weapon wheel is, in fact, now bound to Q instead! Wish I knew that 13 hours ago.

That'll probably make things a little easier 👌

This is why the first thing you do when you start a new game is to look at all of the options, including the key bindings.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Before that level. I switched between easy and medium for through one level (maybe the one before?), then just stuck with the easy mode. Doom Hunter went down on the first try in easy mode. The final boss did not.

Oh man, I was gutted when the first Doom Hunter went down and then they immediately threw 2 at you! Maybe that didnt happen on easy.

Games really tough, much tougher than Doom 2016 which was already a level above most other AAA FPS games I've played for difficulty.

This is why the first thing you do when you start a new game is to look at all of the options, including the key bindings.

In my defence! The game tutorializes everything bit by bit and tells you every key binding as mechanics are introduced. At no point is a weapon wheel mentioned, maybe its a concession to non expert gamers like me and they'd much rather people played properly like this dude.

Still, I recognize I am a dumdum.