The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (25 September to 1 October)

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Rise Of The Tomb Raider

The relevant things from my list of what doesn't work for me:
3rd Person Perspective
Cut Scenes long-often
Intro long and/or difficult
Mods not possible
Platforming
Lol. Every one of those things describe why I love TR games, except lack of mods, which I'm neutral on. All of that is definitely way better than playing games with crappy turn-based combat!
 
Not in the early sections I played. There are some slomo events which give you time to react to a trap—eg aim and fire. QTEs are on my full list, which is:
AVOID
3rd Person Perspective ***
Boss Fight stupidity
Cut Scenes long-often **
DLC still dribbling thru *
Intro long and/or difficult *
Mods not possible **
Off-genre play **
Platforming ***
Quick Time Events **
Single-Play poor-absent ***
Weather missing

Cut Scenes means unskippable, of course. 3 stars = swipe left, 2 stars = jaundiced eye, 1 star = "Really? You really wanna go there?" :)

I used to love TR games, back when they came in the triangle shaped boxes
Ah yes. I had a CRT in those days and found the triangle-shaped ones used to scratch the inside of the screen. I much prefer the more recent hemispherical boxes.

Finished Agent A after 3 hours
Show off! I'm about 4 hours in and happy to be past Chapter 3 :)
I'm finding it a pain to navigate—which room had the piano, which stairs to get there? I was never great at these, but always enjoyed them.

frustrating for beginners as there are no hints at all
Are there not? You mean I figured all that out on my own? Yeah, go me! Such games take me a while of musing and muttering, so I'm close to beginner too—only similar one I recall playing in the last decade is the excellent Firewatch. Share your experience here:

The dev has another game…
Down in Bermuda
…which I've wishlisted—currently overpriced @ $20 for a similarly short but good game, scanning the comments. It's been down to $2 before, and doubtless will again.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
The oldest Tomb Raider games don't have QTEs, but the later ones before the reboot have some evil ones where you'll be watching a cut scene for a few minutes and suddenly there's a QTE you have to hit or you die. The reboot has plenty of them, but they come in while the action is going so you've at least got your fingers on the keyboard/controller.
Not in the early sections I played. There are some slomo events which give you time to react to a trap—eg aim and fire. QTEs are on my full list, which is:
AVOID
3rd Person Perspective ***
Boss Fight stupidity
Cut Scenes long-often **
...
Where a "long" cut-scene seems to be anything over... half an hour? What if there's an intermission halfway through that lets you save your game? ;) No, really though, how long are you talking?
 
cut-scene … how long are you talking?
Always talking unskippable, that's a given—give me a Skip button and all is good. Like Far Cry 5 does, can skip all the blah blah from each NPC who gives a quest—thanks Ubi, appreciated… or was it the Resistance mod?, not like UBI to respect the player.

This also comes into play mostly for replays. Unless it's ridiculous like Kojima, I'll always watch first time thru—but later plays I want into the gameplay with only loading delay. I used to often think of starting a new Far Cry 3 or 4 game, and then not bother because of the intro—could always find something better to do with that 15-20 minutes.

Repetition counts as much or more than a few long scenes. Multiple 2-3 minute scenes of NPCs yakking on are very unwelcome on subsequent playthrus. I recently replayed the C&C Remaster and bless their hearts, the mission briefings are skippable.

What's also very disrespectful of the player are scenes which launch straight into the action afterwards, or which require one or more clicks to progress thru them. These make it impractical or impossible to go do something useful while they're playing.

My playing time is limited, always has been, which is part of why this bugs me. I've also been used to skipping ahead in books, movies, albums etc for much of my life—so to find gaming going backwards due to dev hubris is disappointing.
 
17.3 inch 4k display, you can really see those pixels. With a 3080Ti desktop version too?

I'll save you some money, use your current machine and buy a 500watt blower heater. Aim it straight at your groin while using your current laptop, youll have a similar experience and save a lot of money too.
As if I would ever set a gaming laptop on my lap. I've had gaming laptops since they became a thing, and I have a rotating desk (kind of like the table used for medical beds) that slides over the armrests on my recliner. I've built it out with USB hubs, a DAC and places to hold my external SSD's.

Actually, I'm getting ready to replace my living room setup, and I'm considering building a desktop and just putting the monitor, USB hubs and keyboard on my rotating table. Just need to get a good stand for the monitor that can be bolted to the table.
 
QTEs are why I abandoned the TR series, I think with the Angel of Darkness game.
Well, TR AoD had a LOT more wrong with it than QTEs. It is probably the most buggy TR game ever released. I learned the hard way jumping into TR starting with AoD is a BAD idea. I played all TR games after that though, and enjoyed them all. I have to say though, I REALLY hate how they implemented artifacts and relics in the rebooted series. They used to have to be found via braving timed puzzle rooms with lots of hazards, now they're just laying out in the open in clay pots you break, or at best, a certain room you find. Even the tombs in the new series are too small and easy. So when I say I enjoyed everything since AoD, that would be some not nearly as much as others.

I still feel Anniversary is the best TR game ever made. It had a lot of challenging exploring, platforming, and combat. The level design was also pretty good.

This has reminded me of another pretty good Action Adventure game I enjoyed, Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. I really wish we could get some decent remakes of the Indiana Jones games.
 
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As if I would ever set a gaming laptop on my lap. I've had gaming laptops since they became a thing, and I have a rotating desk (kind of like the table used for medical beds) that slides over the armrests on my recliner. I've built it out with USB hubs, a DAC and places to hold my external SSD's.

Actually, I'm getting ready to replace my living room setup, and I'm considering building a desktop and just putting the monitor, USB hubs and keyboard on my rotating table. Just need to get a good stand for the monitor that can be bolted to the table.

Fair enough, that sounds like an awesome way to set things up. It was more a comment on how absurd it is to put a desktop 3080Ti in a laptop and have a 4k screen at 17 inches. I need to look that machine up, I'm imagining it must be 6 inches thick.

Can do some really powerful ITX builds now, plenty of really nice tiny cases to play around with. Laptop is easier though. How long do they usually last you?
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
SINCE gaming laptops became a thing? That's an event in the past? News to me... ;)

I started Pathfinder: Wrath of the Massive Class Choice Screen. It took me over 3 hours to figure out what class I wanted, plus a little more time to make a custom avatar. Tesslah lives again!

The game starts up and I'm quickly united with Camellia who's helping Anevia out from a tight spot. Soon after that, Seelah joins the party. So I've got Tesslah, Camellia, Seelah, and Anevia!? What's'a goin' on'a here'a!? (Then Lann shows up and ruins it.)

My playing time is limited, always has been, which is part of why this bugs me. I've also been used to skipping ahead in books, movies, albums etc for much of my life—so to find gaming going backwards due to dev hubris is disappointing.
Hurry hurry, rush rush!
View: https://youtu.be/NvlW4bEjB5A
 
I gotta whole story to lay out but since this threads going to end today ill post it for the next week thread of thoughts :). Anyways, the game Prodeus came out of EA and its pretty great. If you are into frantic FPS like Duke Nukem meets Quake and Doom, you'll LOVE this game. Its fun, gorey, hard. It has it all. You can change the way the game looks too via an option to say you want things pixelated, shaded, or CRT'd. It has a good original metal/techno soundtrack to mow down baddies too. Its also not very expensive for what you get. Ive beat the game a couple times during its EA release and theres a couple of different new levels and guns for me to try out now.
 
Fair enough, that sounds like an awesome way to set things up. It was more a comment on how absurd it is to put a desktop 3080Ti in a laptop and have a 4k screen at 17 inches. I need to look that machine up, I'm imagining it must be 6 inches thick.

Can do some really powerful ITX builds now, plenty of really nice tiny cases to play around with. Laptop is easier though. How long do they usually last you?
It's the MSI Titan GT77. Here's a picture:
71zsi3EBAsL.__AC_SY300_SX300_QL70_FMwebp_.jpg


I'm not 100 percent sure the GPU isn't the mobile version, but it doesn't specify it as the mobile version, which they normally do. I've seen a lot of full sized graphic cards in small-ish laptops. No idea what they do to them to get them in there. This is pretty thick, though. It lists the thickness at 1.25 inches, which includes the display, I guess, but it's roughly twice as thick as my current laptop.

As far as how long they last me, I actually keep two gaming laptops, my main and my previous main, which I keep by my bed. I usually upgrade my main every other GPU launch, so each laptop goes about 4 years, When I upgrade, I usually give the bedroom laptop to one of my brothers.
 
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It's the MSI Titan GT77. Here's a picture:
71zsi3EBAsL.__AC_SY300_SX300_QL70_FMwebp_.jpg


I'm not 100 percent sure the GPU isn't the mobile version, but it doesn't specify it as the mobile version, which they normally do. I've seen a lot of full sized graphic cards in small-ish laptops. No idea what they do to them to get them in there. This is pretty thick, though. It lists the thickness at 1.25 inches, which includes the display, I guess, but it's roughly twice as thick as my current laptop.

As far as how long they last me, I actually keep two gaming laptops, my main and my previous main, which I keep by my bed. I usually upgrade my main every other GPU launch, so each laptop goes about 4 years, When I upgrade, I usually give the bedroom laptop to one of my brothers.

I think it has to be the mobile version, because it specifies 175 Watts power limit, so that's roundabout desktop 3060TI performance, for 11 grand! Hope there's some way to use all that RAM.

I remember at some point in the 900/1000 series Nvidia got things so power efficient there was no difference in the mobile and desktop apart from clockspeed and power limit. That definitely isn't the case with 3000 series. At the top end they are using a lot more power than anything single GPU they released before. Hard enough to cool them in a desktop environment, not that some company might not try it for the prestige, but it would be a beefy chunk of a lappy if so.

You buy Clevo/Sager machines right? I'm honestly surprised they last that long with the amount you game, fair enough.

We have an old Acer with a GTX 850m and dual core I5 thats still going, mostly because its my wifes machine and the most she ever did with it was play match 3 games. She also hasn't used it for 4 years because she gets MacBook Pros from work. My only other experience with a laptop was a mid/budget HP thing I had around 2009 that fell apart after 3 years at the hinge, so its not like I have much idea about premium gaming laptops outside of benchmarks :)
 
I think it has to be the mobile version, because it specifies 175 Watts power limit, so that's roundabout desktop 3060TI performance, for 11 grand! Hope there's some way to use all that RAM.

I remember at some point in the 900/1000 series Nvidia got things so power efficient there was no difference in the mobile and desktop apart from clockspeed and power limit. That definitely isn't the case with 3000 series. At the top end they are using a lot more power than anything single GPU they released before. Hard enough to cool them in a desktop environment, not that some company might not try it for the prestige, but it would be a beefy chunk of a lappy if so.

You buy Clevo/Sager machines right? I'm honestly surprised they last that long with the amount you game, fair enough.

We have an old Acer with a GTX 850m and dual core I5 thats still going, mostly because its my wifes machine and the most she ever did with it was play match 3 games. She also hasn't used it for 4 years because she gets MacBook Pros from work. My only other experience with a laptop was a mid/budget HP thing I had around 2009 that fell apart after 3 years at the hinge, so its not like I have much idea about premium gaming laptops outside of benchmarks :)
Yeah, I did that pinned post on 30xx and TGP. However, I could be wrong, but I don't think you can just make an apples to apples comparison of GPUs based on Watts. I'm pretty sure the 3080TI would out perform the 3060TI because of the sheer number of simultaneous processes it's capable of and because of the VRAM. It's a more efficient card than the 3060TI, so it does more with the same Wattage. At least, that's what I think is the case lol. Feel free to set me straight.

As far as reliability goes, Sager is somewhere in the middle based on my experiences. But it's also very cheap, so that counts for something. The only laptop I had go out before 4 years was my Alienware that got fried during a storm.

I've also bought gaming laptops for my children about every other year, and those are lucky to last 2 years, so it's all about how you take care of them. My wife isn't much better than the kids as far as that goes.

So, yeah, I've been spending over $5000 every other year on gaming laptops, which is why I'm considering building a second desktop to replace my main laptop.
 
Yeah, I did that pinned post on 30xx and TGP. However, I could be wrong, but I don't think you can just make an apples to apples comparison of GPUs based on Watts. I'm pretty sure the 3080TI would out perform the 3060TI because of the sheer number of simultaneous processes it's capable of and because of the VRAM. It's a more efficient card than the 3060TI, so it does more with the same Wattage. At least, that's what I think is the case lol. Feel free to set me straight.

It was right there in the other post :)


There's a desktop system with a 10600K and a 320 watt 3080 at the top of all these game benchmarks. I just quickly averaged in my head that its generally around 30% ahead of the 3080Ti laptop, of course depends a bit on the game but its always significantly behind. Somewhere between a 2080Ti and a 2080 Super desktop card where the 3060Ti sits at the low end of.

EDIT: Actually they say its close to a 3070 at the end of that Techspot review, I never usually read any of them, only look at the numbers.




Still powerful, and to be fair you dont need to pay 11 grand to get one in a more sensible laptop thats doesnt have an unnecessary amount of RAM and the rest.

As far as reliability goes, Sager is somewhere in the middle based on my experiences. But it's also very cheap, so that counts for something. The only laptop I had go out before 4 years was my Alienware that got fried during a storm.

I've also bought gaming laptops for my children about every other year, and those are lucky to last 2 years, so it's all about how you take care of them. My wife isn't much better than the kids as far as that goes.

So, yeah, I've been spending over $5000 every other year on gaming laptops, which is why I'm considering building a second desktop to replace my main laptop.

Used to be enthusiasts liked Sager because they were based on Clevo shells. Supposedly more configurable and designed to be opened up, upgraded and so on. No idea if that's still the case.

Thats a horrendous amount of money on lappys, and a large part of the reason I wont get one. Price performance/durability is terrible in comparison to desktops, but as always you pay for the convenience.
 
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Dec 23, 2022
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