Random Game Thoughts Thread - February 26 - March 04

[Kaamos_Llama]

I don't think you need to. There was an early mission I would re-do when a new character showed up, just so I could try the character out to see how everything worked. I re-did some others just because they were fun, too. There's a "violent" one late in the game where the mission itself isn't too hard, but there's an opportunity to get a pet dragon in it that is plenty hard. I tried that one several times but haven't got one. Yet.

No pets yet, theres a ton I havent seen so far for sure. Been picking up as many loot crates in the missions as possible but I'm not sure how important it is to get everything, crafting stuff isn't really clear to me yet. I'll muddle through most likely.

 

[Brian Boru]

Far Cry 6

I like the foot speed increase from my new Far Cry 6 mod, it's really fast. Between that and the Air Drop + Wingsuit, getting around the huge map is mostly low on pain now. Of course, there's also swimming:

Tried out the RAT4 launcher. It takes 2 shots to down a chopper, and same to turn a boat into scrap. Which is fine with cover to hide behind during the long reload, and better than ~6 shots with explosive arrows. Haven't tried it on a tank yet.

I've always loved the FC worlds, especially the wildlife—they do fauna very well. Birds are probably the main addition in FC6, lots of 'em—it's cool to rush thru the jungle and have flocks of 'em take off in alarm.

Occasionally the wildlife can get a bit confused re whether it's a bird or a…

And then there's the outright magical:

…

 

[ZedClampet]

Finally got the achievement for flipping 50 houses in House Flipper, and I have maybe 22 or so to go. Unfortunately, before I finish those, the Farm DLC will be out and add another dozen houses. I really want to unlock the ending, where you can buy evrey property as many times as you like.

Anyway, I bought the Yacht and have been working on it. It's the second most expensive property in the game (so far), even more than Dracula's castle. Requires a heck of a lot of work, too. Worked on it for an hour or so this morning and am still cleaning and painting.

 

[Pifanjr]

My wife introduced our daughter to WoW, which means I now have to help her when she wants to play. It has reminded me of just how much that game sucks, especially the early game. 95% of quests suck, the combat sucks and getting around sucks.

 

[Zloth]

@Pifanjr - is she playing it because she likes the game, or because she likes seeing the funny faces daddy makes?

 

[Rolfil]

I just completed Atomic Heart. From the reviews I wouldn't have bought it - thankfully it's on GamePass.
It has way to many puzzles for my liking and just feels like an old game from 5-10 years ago.

I keep trying to give Cities Skylines a go but end up driving a truck around Europe instead

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a bit more of DUSKERS. I've had to start over a few times, but my current attempt is going pretty well. It's tough when your starting drones have nothing useful for dealing with the enemies. If you have no detection upgrades you can also just take a quick peek into the next room, but that is a pretty risky maneuver and you can't really afford to lose a drone at the start of the game.

In my current run one of my drones started with a stealth upgrade, which has been the most useful one so far and I've already found a backup in case it breaks.

I'm planning on playing a lot more careful this time. The last few tries I lost well before running out of fuel, meaning it would've been better if I had just cut my losses and left instead of taking risks.

I also have to be careful about what I'm typing, as I have already lost a drone once by opening the wrong airlock on accident...

 

[Brian Boru]

I also have to be careful about what I'm typing, as I have already lost a drone once by opening the wrong airlock on accident

Happens me all the time. About half my FC6 deaths are from not realizing the change to chute option was no longer available to wingsuit—disappears when close to ground—so spamming spacebar = faceplant

Or scrolling the mouse wheel one notch too far when jumped by some guy—so get the explosive arrow instead of shotgun. Ok, yes, it does kill the guy, but…

Far Cry 6
I mentioned months ago that FC6 was glitching on some keystrokes on first playthru. It's not as bad this time around, maybe 50% less—which is odd in itself. What's odder is that the 'F' melee key now works perfectly, hasn't glitched once—whereas last time it was glitching all the time

Royal Envoy

Time to revisit my old friend. Gone thru first ~20 levels of RE1, and already failed to get the gold star on 2 levels. This is a rare game/series where achieving the goals is a big part of my enjoyment. This is the toughest one of the series tho—relative difficulty of the 4 games:
RE1 hardest
RE2 easiest
RE3 tricky
RE4 easy [aka Campaign for the Crown]

 

[Frag Maniac]

I just completed Atomic Heart. From the reviews I wouldn't have bought it - thankfully it's on GamePass.
It has way to many puzzles for my liking and just feels like an old game from 5-10 years ago.

Did you have a lot of bugs, or even just a few bad ones? Also, was the performance acceptable, or was it relatively unpolished?

Those are the only things I'm really concerned about with this game.

 

[Rolfil]

Did you have a lot of bugs, or even just a few bad ones? Also, was the performance acceptable, or was it relatively unpolished?

Those are the only things I'm really concerned about with this game.

It did crash a few times and it has a manual save system which in places is a pain.

Some annoying button mashing encounters - the Ivy boss in particular, although you can avoid most of these by repeatedly dodging and then hitting it with a fast melee attack.

Also it's easy to miss out on some weapons that are in chests in specific points in the story. I missed the Kalash. Other people have reported that you can get these from random chests but I was unlucky.

Didn't see any other issues. The performance was actually really good and it is polished.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Did you have a lot of bugs, or even just a few bad ones? Also, was the performance acceptable, or was it relatively unpolished?

Those are the only things I'm really concerned about with this game.

Can also confirm that the game runs well. I've got caught in the scenery and had to reload several times, but other than that its run pretty smooth with a little of tweaking of graphical settings on my rig.

Only played a few hours but like it well enough so far. Its a weird game, bit of a mish mash tonally with the story vs the writing but the combat parts are fun and the story is interesting where I'm up to, as long as you look past the horny upgrade fridge and main character.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Thanks for the replies on Atomic Heart guys. I want to get this game I think, but I'm deciding whether to wait for a possible price drop in summer or end of year.

What build did you guys go with on Skills? I've seen videos of many people saying Mass Telekinesis is OPed, but none of them tell you how they afforded to get a half dozen or so of the best skills in that category in the first half of the game. MT skills are VERY expensive and take tons of liquid jelly polymer to afford.

Lastly, does this game have a New Game + option? Ideally I'd like to play Hard mode carrying over weapons, skills, and upgrades from a Normal run, mainly to see what works best before trying a Hard run with a fresh start.

 

[DXCHASE]

Well i should be excited because some big games came out this week that ive been looking forward to playing and i have been let down by both .

Destiny 2 had a new expansion come out and its...less than stellar. I like the new guns and armor and the new system of armor mods and difficulty level and the new "seasonal activity", with content still to come but Bungie has just dropped the ball so far. Ill try to keep this short

1. New campaign was bad, worse than the last one (witch queen, which has been the best exp so far to date for me) by far and probably towards the bottom in terms of expansion stories imo.
2.New "guardian rank" system is useless. You use to see peoples season rank now alls you see is this arbitrary number based on tasks you completed in destiny (which were reset for this new system because ive certainly completed every task in this system already). So now someone with 5k+ hours has a 6 (the basic beginner number for most of destiny players with this new system) and someone with 100 hours has a 6 as well, and thats it, the system doesnt do much else yet.
3.No new MP maps in either of the games pvp/pvpve modes (crucible and gambit)
4.1 new strike (think quick dungeon runs) added, just 1, for a new expansion this is pretty bad
5. New subclass has great abilities but they have atrocious cooldowns. Grappling is one of the abilities but you wont be doing much grappling because the cooldown is roughly 2 minutes. Its also a class based on mobility which is going to just get you straight up killed in harder content.

The only reason why ill play it and enjoy it is being a clan leader, theres a ton of members playing and asking for help, so its nice to jump in with them and play, along with playing with my family. Basically we all suffer together and it makes the experience better lol

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was another anticipated release i was looking forward to. Now a lot of players are having terrible PC performance but its running pretty smoothly for me (80-120 fps, 2k, 3070ti) but the game has some of the ABSOLUTE WORST controls ive played in a PC game in a while. They added the dead space from controllers to the mouse so you dont move as you move the mouse if you move it too slow, even with mouse sensitivity all the way up .

And, it being a Dark Souls-like game, its so extremely annoying bosses/combat is at its peak here. Its just so fun really laying into a semi-boss that can just stop taking all your hits and dmg and just swing their weapon and kill you in one hit that you cant block because you are in full slashing mode, not to mention you cant ever win these fights if you dont parry because even if you can hit them a bunch, bosses just go invulnerable and go on the offensive and killing you in 1-2 strikes no matter your health. Also, i just cant stand that this first boss in the game is a 2-stage boss where it takes every ounce of effort to beat the first part and then have the boss turn into a dragon that kills you in one hit sending you to the beginning of the 1st section fight

The open-world combat is nice, really fun even with its DS-esque combat, I really enjoy it, but when i get to a boss i lose all interest in the game because it just seems the devs break the game to make a boss hard and it just gets so utterly boring, guess i gotta just git good.

/rant

 

[Pifanjr]

guess i gotta just git good.

Personally I would just git a good game instead.

 

[Brian Boru]

when i get to a boss i lose all interest in the game because it just seems the devs break the game to make a boss hard and it just gets so utterly boring

I feel your pain brother, surely I do! That kind of BS cured me of Playing how the game was intended to be played. As Dave Thier says in an excerpt at that link:
"only a certain sort of player with time, inclination, reaction speed and lack of physical issues will ever see the final boss fight anywhere but on Twitch"

He also mentions "an almost stunning lack of respect for players" in a different context, but it applies equally well.

The good news: the opposite side of the spectrum is the wonderful work done by modders, so maybe you'll find a mod soon which negates the worst of the dev abuse.

I would just git a good game instead.

The ideal solution, of course. Alternatively, I'm relatively immune to devs' screwing with us at this stage—not touching false marketing by pubs, day's too short—so I'm happy if there's sufficient good play within a game to make up for the bits I don't want to play.

 

[Zloth]

They added the dead space from controllers to the mouse so you dont move as you move the mouse if you move it too slow, even with mouse sensitivity all the way up .

!?!? Somebody worked really hard to do something really dumb.

 

[Sarafan]

A little update on what I'm currently playing. Generally I started a lot of games lately, but I like to change them frequently. Finally I finish most of them, but it takes time.

First of all there is Battle for Middle-earth 1. The game is wonderful. It even features cinematics taken straight from the movies. One of the better RTS games in history with some interesting features. And it's a dream game for Tolkien fans. I might need to start from the beginning however, because it seems that "Hard" difficulty level is hard indeed.

I had some real taste for RTS games lately, so I also started playing Dune 2000. Now that's a trip to the past. I played the game only briefly more than 20 years ago and I don't remember a single thing, except the characteristic desert graphics design. I was surprised how close the gameplay is to classic C&C games.

There's also Fallout: New Vegas which I return to from time to time. I'll be creating a topic that covers the mods that I'm using, along with the screenshots. The final effect is more impressive than in Fallout 3, although the crispy textures contrast highly with the poor lighting, especially in outside areas.

And of course I'm still progressing through Chernobylite. The game has a wonderful atmosphere, but I decided to continue it only when I have a real taste for such a thing, which is not always the case. Anyway, I'll certainly reach the end at some point.

 

[Frindis]

Still have not played anymore Atomic Heart. I need to get back into it soon, but it is just that I have this task in Starbound where I am terraforming a whole planet into my own farm. That takes time because I have to make a straight line of dirt around the whole planet, then plow the dirt, then grind for the seeds to plant, then make light and then harvest the different crops and put them in some hundred refrigerators before finally mixing them into potions that makes my character run, jump and be a superman for an astounding 4 minutes or so. So totally worth it guys, so totally worth it!

I'm also stuck in Gabriel Knight: Sins of My Father and I refuse to use any hints. I just have to fine-comb all places for any pixels I have not yet located and also go through different tape recorders to see if there are any clues in some of the dialogues I missed. I could have bought the latest 25th-anniversary edition that has smooth graphics, but it does not have the voice of Tim Curry or Mark Hamili in it and that is unforgivable if you ask me.

 

[Zloth]

What's with this Atomic Heart fridge? People fraternizing with fridges!? Didn't you people learn anything from Control? You've got to keep your eye on those nasty things!

View: https://youtu.be/nzvL4uSVmdU

 

[Frag Maniac]

People fraternizing with fridges!?

Quite the opposite, it's more the fridge looking upgrade machine has a thing for grabbing male humans and trying to turn them into it's sex toys. The protagonist is totally disgusted by it, but since every upgrade machine, called NORA, has the same quirk, there's not much he can do about it since it's the only way to buy skills, craft ammo, weapons, etc, and do upgrades.

 

[ZedClampet]

Hey @Zloth, I'm in X4 and my ship, so far as I know, is sitting in the right spot to dock. I'd take a screenshot to show you, but the game's extensive control scheme is interfering with my dedicated screenshot key.

I can't look around while flying because I don't have a numpad, but everything is green. There are no red arrows, lines or anything. So assuming I'm in the right spot, how do I dock? The tutorial just told me to line up and went silent from there.

Edit: Never mind. I just had to go down. I was expecting that once I got lined up, that it would dock automatically. I just bought the docking software, so maybe that will do it.

 

[Zimbaly]

I've been slowly making my way through Farcry 4. Someone and all their Farcry talk made me give it another go. Looking at you @Brian Boru

Some things I love and some things are a little wonky, but overall I'm enjoying it. I honestly just love flying around on the gyrocopter and just shooting the grenade launcher at stuff or hunting with the rocket launcher. Sure ya get a lot of damaged skins, but the trade off is pure comedy gold when stuff goes flying.

Played The Forest with some friends the other day. Fun game to play with friend. I've had it for years and had only sunk 2 hours into it, So when some friends asked me to play I gave it another try.

Also booted up Rebel Galaxy again to have another playthrough of it.

 

[Frindis]

@Zimbaly Gryrocopter was my favorite thing to use in FC4. Would have loved to see that vehicle in more games. Rust has something similar, only they called it a mini copter:

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Thanks for the replies on Atomic Heart guys. I want to get this game I think, but I'm deciding whether to wait for a possible price drop in summer or end of year.

What build did you guys go with on Skills? I've seen videos of many people saying Mass Telekinesis is OPed, but none of them tell you how they afforded to get a half dozen or so of the best skills in that category in the first half of the game. MT skills are VERY expensive and take tons of liquid jelly polymer to afford.

Lastly, does this game have a New Game + option? Ideally I'd like to play Hard mode carrying over weapons, skills, and upgrades from a Normal run, mainly to see what works best before trying a Hard run with a fresh start.

I've only played 3 or 4 hours and haven't put much thought into a build as such. You get Shok straight away and it says that works well against robots, and the game tells you the freeze power is strong against organic enemies. I just figured that covers a range of bases so I've stuck points in there so far. I have the shield skill as well, but havent used it much so havent upgraded it further. As I say only a few hours in yet though, hopefully it works out.

Was pretty relieved to find that not all the fridges are called Nora.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wo long looks great, my controller is ready. Might wait for a patch or two first though.

 

[mainer]

What's with this Atomic Heart fridge? People fraternizing with fridges!?

Really funny PCG article on that, it almost makes me want to buy the game despite the QTEs:
Atomic Heart's lustful fridge has people grossed-out, confused, inexplicably thirsty | PC Gamer