Random Game Thoughts Thread - January 08 - 14

[WoodenSaucer]

Here are the biggest few reasons I wasn't really connecting with Cyberpunk. If someone could prove me wrong or encourage me on them, I'd appreciate it.

1) It seems like in the beginning, they overwhelm you with trying to teach you about all the different things you can do without really doing a good job explaining what you're doing, i.e. the tech and hacking stuff. Plus, it was overwhelming having to pick your stats in the beginning without having a clue what any of it means. Probably didn't help that I had a headache when I was playing it, and I was already frustrated with having problems getting it installed (Xbox bugs). But the beginning just seemed like an overload that wasn't fun.

2) The graphics are great, but I think they're going into overkill with trying to be too realistic with the animations. They want to animate everything your body would do, and it ends up getting exaggerated, like a caricature, and also takes too long to do things that most games would just instantly do. To be honest, I was getting some motion sickness because of that, and I have never had a problem with motion sickness while I'm the one playing.

3) The controls seem janky (probably because of all the animations). And driving the car controls like it's a game from 15 years ago.

4) The story and voice acting so far (admittedly not very far into it at all) seems really hokey. When you first enter the city, it goes into this cutscene with a bunch of random little clips of crazy stuff happening with your partner. It freaked me out a little and left me wondering what in the world was going on. Was that supposed to represent some time passing and events happening, and the game proceeds to take place after all of that, or what?

I'm hoping you guys can tell me all that goes away, and the game ends up being amazing.

 

[ZedClampet]

Here are the biggest few reasons I wasn't really connecting with Cyberpunk. If someone could prove me wrong or encourage me on them, I'd appreciate it.

1) It seems like in the beginning, they overwhelm you with trying to teach you about all the different things you can do without really doing a good job explaining what you're doing, i.e. the tech and hacking stuff. Plus, it was overwhelming having to pick your stats in the beginning without having a clue what any of it means. Probably didn't help that I had a headache when I was playing it, and I was already frustrated with having problems getting it installed (Xbox bugs). But the beginning just seemed like an overload that wasn't fun.

2) The graphics are great, but I think they're going into overkill with trying to be too realistic with the animations. They want to animate everything your body would do, and it ends up getting exaggerated, like a caricature, and also takes too long to do things that most games would just instantly do. To be honest, I was getting some motion sickness because of that, and I have never had a problem with motion sickness while I'm the one playing.

3) The controls seem janky (probably because of all the animations). And driving the car controls like it's a game from 15 years ago.

4) The story and voice acting so far (admittedly not very far into it at all) seems really hokey. When you first enter the city, it goes into this cutscene with a bunch of random little clips of crazy stuff happening with your partner. It freaked me out a little and left me wondering what in the world was going on. Was that supposed to represent some time passing and events happening, and the game proceeds to take place after all of that, or what?

I'm hoping you guys can tell me all that goes away, and the game ends up being amazing.

1) Most of the games I play are vastly more complex than CP77 and offer far less training, so this didn't bother me. The game I'm playing now just gave you about 10 screens packed with info to read, and that was a lot more than most of my games do.
2) The next step in making games more realistic is the animation. Realistic animation has fallen way behind other aspects of the visuals. However, I would agree that slowing up normal behaviors to add extra animation would be annoying, but I don't remember this from my brief time in the game, so apparently I didn't notice anything unusual. Not saying it isn't there, just that I didn't notice it for some reason.
3) I thought player control was pretty normal. Driving could be better, though I've seen it worse in some Ubisoft games. Driving is so bad in most Ubisoft games that @Brian Boru is convinced he's a bad driver.
4) The story for the intro is definitely predictable (at least the intro I got). Game stories are usually poor. I'd say that so far as I got before quitting, the stories were on par with your usual AAA stories, which was a little disappointing since the stories in Witcher 3 were so good.

I really didn't have the same experience as you, but that doesn't mean either of us is wrong. You are likely more correct than I am. Probably some of it just depends on your expectations going into the game. You seem to be hypervigilant looking for problems. That's not intended as an insult. You pay good money for games and you expect them to be a certain way. A lot of people play that way. I'm more easy going. It's like all the bugs people were reporting at launch. Seeing an NPC T-pose or walk through a wall doesn't really impact me. I've played many more games than the average player, many more early access games and betas, and I've seen it all before. I'm far, far more forgiving than most people. Probably too forgiving. But I have to be or I wouldn't be able to play all these unfinished games by noob developers. If you thought this was janky and confusing, you wouldn't last a full minute in Occupy Mars (and I'm not sure any normal person should want to).

As far as whether anything gets better, obviously I couldn't help you, and not just because I didn't notice the same problems. I actually only did a few missions after the intro and then quit because I'm not a big shooter fan.

 

[ZedClampet]

I pulled up my Steam inventory and a developer sent me a copy of Occupy Mars. I didn't ask for it. I played their beta demo and didn't like it. But free is free, and I've managed to enjoy what little I've played. I think this is just another beta, though, because the game hasn't released yet. They may have sent it to everyone who played the earlier demo, not sure.

Back when I had a YouTube channel, I used to get free games all the time. Sadly, most of them weren't my sort of thing, and the agents/developers who sent them to me expected me to make videos of them, which was annoying. One Brazilian developer still sends me stuff from time to time and has me stream while I play so they can watch what I do. I'll never forget the time they were watching me play a horror game. I had done everything I could think to do and was left experimenting with a bunch of different actions trying to get the story to move along. When I finally gave up after another hour or so, the developer told me there wasn't anymore story yet. They hadn't gotten that far yet. I guess watching what all I would try to do was helpful to them, but it was frustrating for me.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

@WoodenSaucer

I finished the main story in about 45 hours and thought it was a 7.5/10 maybe. Driving was janky and Keanu was a bit over the top, but the other stuff you mention doesnt stick out in my memory of the game.

Dont think it changes significantly at any point, so if you put in a couple of hours and dont like it maybe its just not your type of game, you wouldn't be the only one.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

1) Most of the games I play are vastly more complex than CP77 and offer far less training, so this didn't bother me. The game I'm playing now just gave you about 10 screens packed with info to read, and that was a lot more than most of my games do.
2) The next step in making games more realistic is the animation. Realistic animation has fallen way behind other aspects of the visuals. However, I would agree that slowing up normal behaviors to add extra animation would be annoying, but I don't remember this from my brief time in the game, so apparently I didn't notice anything unusual. Not saying it isn't there, just that I didn't notice it for some reason.
3) I thought player control was pretty normal. Driving could be better, though I've seen it worse in some Ubisoft games. Driving is so bad in most Ubisoft games that @Brian Boru is convinced he's a bad driver.
4) The story for the intro is definitely predictable (at least the intro I got). Game stories are usually poor. I'd say that so far as I got before quitting, the stories were on par with your usual AAA stories, which was a little disappointing since the stories in Witcher 3 were so good.

I really didn't have the same experience as you, but that doesn't mean either of us is wrong. You are likely more correct than I am. Probably some of it just depends on your expectations going into the game. You seem to be hypervigilant looking for problems. That's not intended as an insult. You pay good money for games and you expect them to be a certain way. A lot of people play that way. I'm more easy going. It's like all the bugs people were reporting at launch. Seeing an NPC T-pose or walk through a wall doesn't really impact me. I've played many more games than the average player, many more early access games and betas, and I've seen it all before. I'm far, far more forgiving than most people. Probably too forgiving. But I have to be or I wouldn't be able to play all these unfinished games by noob developers. If you thought this was janky and confusing, you wouldn't last a full minute in Occupy Mars (and I'm not sure any normal person should want to).

As far as whether anything gets better, obviously I couldn't help you, and not just because I didn't notice the same problems. I actually only did a few missions after the intro and then quit because I'm not a big shooter fan.

2) I totally agree that game makers need to step it up on animations. Bad animations are a pet peeve of mine. But this seemed overdone and exaggerated to me, which is not natural, so it's really the other end of the spectrum. Plus, when it comes to games, realism doesn't always equal fun in some cases. Like especially in shooters. If I get shot once in real life, I'm not going to just keep running after the bad guys. I'm probably done. But that's no fun in a game.

As for me being hypervigilant, it could be because I had a headache at the time. One of those that makes you a little nauseous. That probably didn't help too much with the motion sickness thing. I definitely didn't intend to go into it being hypervigilant because I was pretty stoked to try the game out. But maybe because of not feeling good, it was annoying enough to me that all of that stuck out, even though I was excited for the game. I just need to give it another chance when I'm feeling better. But it's kind of like psyching yourself up to give your abusive girlfriend another chance. Haha.

@WoodenSaucer

I finished the main story in about 45 hours and thought it was a 7.5/10 maybe. Driving was janky and Keanu was a bit over the top, but the other stuff you mention doesnt stick out in my memory of the game.

Dont think it changes significantly at any point, so if you put in a couple of hours and dont like it maybe its just not your type of game, you wouldn't be the only one.

I do need to make myself give it a couple more hours.

 

[Colif]

this isn't how shadows work

although its only in some places. Most part its fine, the places its not stand out because of it.

Game seems to crash if you play more than 12 hours. Not a memory leak as it only uses 1gb, I have plenty spare

My head feels hot

shame I can't change names after fact as he would be Ned Kelly

 

[ZedClampet]

Crashing and having to scramble to rejoin the Darktide mission is getting a little old tbh. Happened to us 3 times tonight. Guido is playing a paper tiger character and leaving him alone with 3 bots is iffy, but he handled it well while my tank was gone.

 

[ZedClampet]

Aw, the developers of a game I'd been following apparently ran out of money and stopped work two months before scheduled launch. They had some weird publisher I'd never heard of. There's probably a whole story here, but they just kind of disappeared and didn't say much. You would think a publisher would have to be really disappointed in something to cancel that close to launch, or maybe they actually weren't that close to launch and the publisher just pulled the plug.

 

[brorcomputer5]

What game are you going through now or have you been through recently, yesterday I went through the new part of call of duty and average impressions for me

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Aw, the developers of a game I'd been following apparently ran out of money and stopped work two months before scheduled launch. They had some weird publisher I'd never heard of. There's probably a whole story here, but they just kind of disappeared and didn't say much. You would think a publisher would have to be really disappointed in something to cancel that close to launch, or maybe they actually weren't that close to launch and the publisher just pulled the plug.

I used to be a big fan of the game Giants: Citizen Kabuto. A couple of years ago, a few of the original developers got together to create a spiritual successor to the game, and they had a Kickstarter for it. Since I was a huge fan, I was pretty involved in the community to promote the game. Then they never reached their goal, so they had to just shut it down. It's a real bummer when you're invested in something like that, and then it gets shut down because of lack of funding.

 

[Colif]

My pets always want to hide me in photos

But it doesn't matter, as they don't show on the title screen

Shame it takes about 40 lvls to start to look good

Up to chapter 4 (maybe - could still be chapter 3), I get flash backs to playing it before, I can sort of remember the boss in this area.
I beat the boss I died to before, it doesn't help my stupid pets follow me and not attack the mobs. I had to set them to aggressive to make them attack one boss.

 

[Brian Boru]

What game are you going through now or have you been through recently

Welcome to the forum

You'll get your answer if you read thru this thread, or the corresponding one last week, or the corresponding one previous week, or the corresponding one before that, or…

new part of call of duty and average impressions for me

Sorry to hear the new part is only average, can't win 'em all.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I live in a small rural city of about 6000 people. Last night, my wife just randomly found a YouTube video of a couple of YouTubers who traveled to our city just to go through our courthouse with the intent of getting people riled up, just so they can go off on them about their First Amendment rights to record videos in public places. They're intentionally intimidating just because they want to get angry people on video. Some people are just jerks.

We also found a video by the same guys of them going into our Post Office for the same reason. It didn't work out for them there. They kind of freaked the workers out, but they didn't get a rise out of them.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played Kerbal Space Program for about half an hour this morning to see if I could get to the Mun. However, it seems I have a lot left to learn, because I didn't even make it into orbit around Kerbin.

I probably need to check the distribution of fuel for each stage, lose the extra weight (I was trying to bring crew chambers and scientific equipment too) and probably also just unlock some better parts. Maybe upgrade the vehicle construction building too, as I was already hitting the 30 part limit of the level 1 building. I'll do some easier contracts around Kerbin to get some money and use the opportunity to get some experience for my crew as well.

 

[Colif]

Did a quest in Grim Dawn, retrieve the lost cannons in the conflagration... okay, so where is that exactly? How am I supposed to guess? I found a map online but that didn't help a lot as The green stuff on ground kills you. And it covered entire stretches.
Even after seeing the area on map I couldn't figure out how

Then look on a video on line and think... thats not a route I would have thought of. It shows I am so used to following map markers that when there is no even general direction it might be in, that I am lost. They show on the local map but not the main one.

I stopped watching before he fought the boss so I thought you could sneak past it.

It was another fight where the distance my pets will go away from me is too short. I want them to go fight things, not follow me around. For a while in the fight I thought it was using mind control on my pets as it can be hard to tell what is fighting what when you have 8 skeletons + 3 other pets running around.

Odd thing being a necromancer with no direct attacks. I just let pets do it all. My only mouse action is to point them at another mob or respawn one after it dies. I might start a non pet build with one.

 

[danthegamer]

Well I own Far Cry 6, but cant play it HA!

Finally got around to ARK Survival evolved YUCK!

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Well I own Far Cry 6, but cant play it HA!

Finally got around to ARK Survival evolved YUCK!

Why can't you play it?

 

[mainer]

Happy Friday the 13th (don't forget to sharpen your axe)!

Anyone superstitious?

 

[ZedClampet]

Why can't you play it?

That's not overly surprising. Game has some game breaking bugs for some users. Bugs have been there since launch. Ubisoft doesn't care.

Well I own Far Cry 6, but cant play it HA!

Finally got around to ARK Survival evolved YUCK!

You're going to flunk freshman English. "YUCK!" is not a valid critique. What made it yucky?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

That's not overly surprising. Game has some game breaking bugs for some users. Bugs have been there since launch. Ubisoft doesn't care.

Yeah, I forgot Far Cry 6 caught a lot of flack for that.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I've been messing around on PCPartPicker, just dreaming about my build later this year. I just now was looking around on Amazon at pre-builts, and it's looking like we're finally getting back to where you can actually build for cheaper than getting a pre-built. Not by a lot, but it is a little cheaper. Plus you get to pick your quality of parts.

 

[danthegamer]

Need new hardware to play FC6. My equipment quite dated.

Long story, sometimes it has been about money. Est cost 5-6k, and I was getting sued for a long time (2yrs), then audited by the IRS, so I just put it off.

But mostly, and I cant stress this enough, Im really busy. How busy are you,? You say? And this is serious, I had to take a months vacation to do back-logged work. Work that I wanted to do rather than work I had to do.

I do make time for games, but I cant function if my brain doesnt have a disconnect. I would love to say that building a new PC was a passion project but sadly in my reality, its just more work.

Ill get to it.

ARK survival Evolved. I waited a long time to play this game, and had read about it being bad. I still wanted to give it a shot. First its worth noting that the game itsself has evolved, and I think many of the technical problems early on have been resolved. For the record, I had none.

Well, the game tells you nothing. You wake up and your on a beach, and thats it.

Ok, no tutorial, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn once...

Fumbling around picking random stuff up, looking into your inventory, trying to figure out how to craft things, game mechanics etc - very confusing because the game doesnt tell you, well anything. Did I say that already?

And before i get into the game mechanics, its worth noting that normally you see an item, move in range, hit your key and it goes into your inventory. In ARK there are things you dont see. running through the jungle and hitting you 'action' key, and the guys arms are just swiping around, and you are picking up berries and flax, that have no visual/graphical presence. Rocks are not this way, and you can both see them, and they disappear when you pick them up, so its a bit bizarre.

Ok, this is how it works. You gain XP experience points slowly through the passage of time, by gathering resources (faster), and I think through combat (unverified) at certain points you get points that can be applied to personal attributes ala RPG style. You also get Engram points that you can spend on 'blueprints' for lack of a better term to unlock craftable items.

Oh, and there are dinosaurs. The game does nothing to help guide you in any appreciable way other than flashing an indicator that you can level up points. After dying a half dozen times. I read the manual from the mainpage. It does offer some explanation about game mechanics, but lacks much detail about how to actually implement it.

*sigh* now at first I chalked this up to 'well I guess the dev's want you to figure some things out, you know, keep some mystery. Ok, I can get behind that. But the reality is that, and I read this online after I figured it out myself, is that you will die over, and over, and over, and over, basically untill you build up enough level points that you can actually craft something.

So at the beginning, just run around punching trees to gather wood and flax (yep thats right, punching trees) and that builds XP die, do it again, die, do it again until you have enough attiribute and engram points to buy craftable 'blueprints' *sigh*

And die you will, you will get mobbed almost relentlessly by creatures much stronger than yourself, of which, you have no chance of defending, or escaping. When you die you lose all inventory, but experience , stat points, engram point etc. stay.

But wait, theres more! The Slop-O-Matic also requires you to gather the required materials, but fails to give you a clue as to how or where to get them.

I'm cold. Ok, I have the campfire Engram, but it requires flint, where to get flint? do I need a tool? Particular location? And this is from start. Meanwhile you are getting slammed by powerful creatures.

The graphics are ok, but the gravity seems light. I dont know if that physics are intentional, but you seem to float up and down a little when you jump. That alone doesnt make it bad IMO, just an observation.

Its just confusing. I read some bad stuff about it back in late fall 21, but thought I would give it a fair shake. Its not for me.

/edit
Speaking of hardware. I actuallyhave a write up in the works on a mainboard swap I did. I un-effed a propreitary Dell Xeon board into a standard ATX case and power supply, ATM the write has no home, so perhaps there is a board around this forum that would be appropriate.

 

[Pifanjr]

Ark: Survival Evolved looked so cool when I first heard about it that I ended up buying it, only to discover my then PC could not run the game. I never went back to it after reading how disappointing it was.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

You need $5-6K to build a PC? Where do you live? I'm looking at building a pretty decent PC, and it's only going to cost me around $2400. And if you're looking at it as another job, you'd probably be better off just buying a prebuilt PC.

 

[danthegamer]

no offense but I expect about 10yrs (or close) service, liquid cooled of course. With todays prices I would expect to put 1500 into a graphics card and another 500 to put it on liquid. Mb what 4, 5 hundy? Ram 4 hundy? CPU 800 probably at least 5. My last build spec is somewhere, but badly outdated. My last Power supply cost 350. and the case was 200. That was years ago. $7 for every elbow in the cooling system. Gotta have rockin new NvMe M2 storage device. Stuff adds up.

For me, ts the equivalent of buying a used car for your kid.