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I started playing Syberia. This is my third attempt at this game - the previous two times I dropped it after leaving the hotel at the start. All this time I thought it was because the protagonist's bitchy voiceover in Potato was too grating to continue.
But now I tried it in inglese, and I made it as far as getting to the toy factory, and I don't feel like continuing. Something about this game is just completely uninteresting to me. The background, the premise, the protagonist - it's all so very blaaaaaaaah.
A shmup in a 3D engine with all the good and bad that comes with the concept. The visuals are alright especially since it's one of the absolute earliest PS1 releases, but it's sped up compared to videos of the original 3DO version, instead of simply smoother. Unlocking the framerate has always been black magic, it would seem.
Unusually for a shmup I like that there has been an effort to have an actual plot with CGI cutscenes. Nice 90s cheese too.
It was pretty boring and I'm rather looking forward to the "sequel" Solar Eclipse / Titan Wars.
I started playing Syberia. This is my third attempt at this game - the previous two times I dropped it after leaving the hotel at the start. All this time I thought it was because the protagonist's bitchy voiceover in Potato was too grating to continue.
But now I tried it in inglese, and I made it as far as getting to the toy factory, and I don't feel like continuing. Something about this game is just completely uninteresting to me. The background, the premise, the protagonist - it's all so very blaaaaaaaah.
Once you leave the starting village the game becomes more interesting but never what I would call good, the whole game is full of backtracking and some of the most braindead easy puzzles you will see in an adventure game. Shame too because the aesthetics are top notch.
Some of the side quests in Nier: Automata are so tedious that they are making me reconsider this new save file, which I'm already six hours into. I think I'll just go through the story on the save I already did the whole playthrough in when the game came out with the chapter select and get more of the quests completed that way. I really wish the gameplay lived up to the world. One of Platinum's weakest combat systems, with garbage difficulty to boot.
Edit: Nope, those twins can't even take 1/100 damage from me on my old file. Boring. I'll continue with the new file. Old one was nearly 100 percent complete anyway, it looks like.
So turns out there are some mechanics I missed from PST.
>There are factions in the game
>You can train Annah's thief skills if you become a thief and you get some really fun bits of dialogue, especially if you train her pick-pocketing skills.
>You don't have to do Many of One's questline to get into drowned nations
>Morte's Taunt is op
Deus Ex: Revision could be a decent attempt to make computer illiterate normies play DX but the right move would be to make the vanilla game baseline sans Revision with Workshop support, then add Revision to the workshop. It takes too many bellybuttonfucking liberties with the map design. The only reason it got high publicity (separate Steam entry, Square Enix endorsement etc.) is that one of its devs used to be a forum moderator for Square Enix about a decade ago. GMDX -with or without RoSo's update- is a so much better way to play Deus Ex.
Albion is such a weird game. The premise is top notch, and the first continent is Morrowind-level alien, but after that it more or less devolves into genericfantasylandia. I also feel like it's missing a lot of features and content that were planned but had to be cut.
-System Shock 2. Mandalore just released his review of it, and given his deals with GOG, it's available for 7 shekels (I think the conversion is almost 1:1, like with BR Reals), so it felt nice to make them dollas rain. This time it's this PSI ball guy playthrough on hard.
-Red Dead Redemption 1: God bless that guy who shared his experience with Xenia in the Screenshot thread. Outside of towns it's basically 60 fps, something that is just not going to happen on a console. Then again, an Xbox One X with 4k resolution would sure feel nice, but since no one in Europe ever bought this console, including stores that I can borrow from, I can gladly settle.
I'm a huge shill for both Westerns and Red Dead, which just deserves way more credit than it's given to it - compared to that POS GTA 5, a game that had LITERALLY NO PLOT, just a bunch or random gags. I still think RDR2 is a far superior game in just about every aspect, and I really don't think we'll ever see something as autistic as RDR2 ever again, but still.
First of all, I'd like to highlight the most obvious and most overlooked thing about RDR1 and it paying respects to Western genre - courtesy of fellow autists:
In fact, the game can be considered a sort of Western Museum, with each region representing a specific era in the history of the genre:
New Austin, with its classic American southwest desert environment and architecture, Outlaw antagonists, Cowboys, sheriff, and Clueless Deputies, and Black-and-White Morality (Williamson's gang are pretty solid rogues, while the worst the heroic characters get are Lovable Rogues) is the classic Western.
If I had to point out, in which aspects is RDR1 both superior to 1) RDR2, 2) any mainstream game, 3) just unique in general, I'll go easily with ambient soundtrack - yeah, the only example I can think of, evocative of what this game is, is Fallout 1. And what is it? Well, It's BLEAK AND DEPRESSING AS FUCK.
I'll say RDR2 has one of the best soundtracks in general, but when it comes to the open world ambience, and how alone, against all odds, desperate and hopeless you are, well, this ain't it.
Some "pros" would also apply due to no fault or feat of RDR1 on it's own, but rather the context which RDR2 provides for 1, which I think is the greatest retcon ever made - because it was "retconned in" absolutely seamlessly, with full respect to every single word of the OG RDR1, and at no point shoehorned*, like in, oh, let's beat up that ol' scrawny nag again - fucking Thief Gold. I feel so strongly about it and all of it's shitty additions that I should just lock up my Thief: The Dark Project OG CD in a Swiss vault or a time capsule to show the future beings what is perfection, it's that triggering and disgusting.
*some people would like to take issue with "we never visited New Austin" line in 1. That is outside of the context of the conversation with Marshall Leigh Johnson, which is highlighting how that Dutch's gang as a whole never made it there due to Blackwater massacre, not any potential escapades. Yeah, I'm that autistic.
I was playing Tachyon the Fringe for a little bit today. The game is alright but I would rather play Freespace which does the space combat thing much better while not having a horrible open world you just skip through. I'll just play the Freespace 1 instead as I haven't touched it for some reason.
Finished Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (2002) along with its three bonus missions. I was recently gifted an Xbox Series S, and Splinter Cell games are on sale so I got the whole series for cheap. Splinter Cell was originally made for Xbox, PC version is basically the same thing with higher resolution that is for the most part the superior experience. But there is one apparent problem: shadow rendering. All GPUs past the GeForce 6 generation have a completely different way of rendering shadows, which means shadows in Splinter Cell on PC are broken. They can be fixed to some extent with dgvoodoo2 or forcing projected shadows through launch arguments, but still the experience is a bit different. Pandora Tomorrow is even more broken because they improved the lighting (ironically), but I hear they managed to fix it on PC to some extent as well. Other than shadows, I remember having some bugs while grabbing ledges or pipes on PC, but those are minor. I'm not advocating for consoles or anything, it's just that I used the opportunity of having an Xbox to go through the series as conveniently as possible. And it felt good to play.
I actually played the game twice, once on Xbox and another playthrough on PC, and here's an example I took of the difference in lighting/shadow rendering:
Xbox. Maybe it's not clear from the screenshots, but lighting feels more natural, with more shadows and even darker in some areas.
PC. Although it looks good in most areas, you often get the feeling something is missing.
It's interesting that Xbox and PC versions were developed by Ubisoft Montreal, but PS2 and Gamecube by Ubisoft Shanghai, who worked on Pandora Tomorrow and were, in many ways, harbingers of decline for the series. But more on that in the future. PS2 and Gamecube versions look much worse and many levels were butchered in the process. There are many comparisons on yt, for those interested. This divide between Montreal and Shanghai was most apparent on Double Agent, which had two vastly different versions of the game. Basically, Montreal - good, Shanghai- bad.
As for the game itself, sneaking around and general gameplay have aged gracefully. The way this game lets you play with its arsenal makes it a lot more enjoyable than MGS2 or 3 imo, because you are not constantly interrupted by codex calls or dumb anime plotline. Voice acting is still amazing (Michael Ironside > David Hayter, no hate pls), story seems strangely relevant up to some point (until the subplot about rogue Chinese general trying to seize Taiwan for himself and Georgian president owning a briefcase nuke), but still infinitely better than any drivel AAA studios poop out now. The conflict between Georgia and Azerbaijan seemed awfully familiar to the one between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh last year, only the roles were reversed. Some people might not like the trial and error nature of this game, but I won't complain about stealth mechanics at all, as this is the kind of game I grew up with, so it feels natural. What doesn't feel natural, however, is the only boss fight in the game, which is absurd, pointless and straight bullshit. This is also my biggest criticism: they put a forced combat encounter in a game that is not built around it. And the boss himself is just a regular enemy with more health. But fuck it, it took me around 10 tries and I just moved on. Overall, the mechanics in this game are the foundation of what was to come in Chaos Theory, but the game still holds up incredibly well on its own. If I had to choose a favorite missions, it would be a close call between Defense Ministry and CIA HQ, even though they have the most trial and error (but that also makes them satisfying). The worst ones are the Oil Rig and Abattoir (just because of that boss fight, otherwise it's a great level).
Since I've played on console and PC back-to-back, I went from using checkpoint system on Xbox to quicksaves on PC. Checkpoints make your mistakes unforgivable. Whereas on PC you can quicksave and practice a difficult silent drop on an enemy to your heart's content, checkpoint system will make you sweat. But when playing on PC the second time, the levels were so familiar that quicksaves didn't really feel necessary.
One thing worth pointing out is how this game rewards learning the mechanics. Take silent drop from a ledge, for example. While dropping from a high place, at some point during the fall you can press crouch to drop silently on the ground, thus not alerting the enemies. This can be tricky to master, but once you do, it's all the more satisfying. Modern games would just have a skill tree that would make this automatic.
I have to gush a bit about small details, especially for a game made in 2002. First, literally everything in this game was animated by hand, there's no motion capture whatsoever. Seeing Sam's movements, how accessories dangle on his belt, casings being ejected when you reload, the way he flips NV goggles with his head, how enemies turn around in a believable human way instead of just spinning in place makes you think this game was a product of passion. But to nitpick a little, some things are inconsistent. For example, your footsteps are louder when walking on broken glass. But when you shoot a light, the broken glass underneath it doesn't make that sound, but maybe that's a cunt argument to make for such an old game. It's lovingly crafted, that's what matters the most.
As for the bonus missions, they are nothing special, just as FreshCorpse pointed out. They look like they were cut from the main game, but are still worth playing for fans of the series. The best one was the first one - Kola Cell, in which you have to through a gauntlet of enemies while holding a general whom you cannot kill because you need to use his eyes on a retinal scanner. Neat touch. It's interesting that the second bonus mission has the same problem as Abattoir in the main game, it ends in a forced combat encounter, which sucks. I really don't know what they were thinking. The last one is on a submarine, which has too many cramped spaces where it's too easy to aggro enemies and trigger an alarm. But it ends in a cool way, that I won't spoil. But the ending will be funny to fans of MGS1.
Fuck, this is already too long, many TL;DRs incoming. Enough for now. Pandora Tomorrow is next.
I beat Life is Strange, RIME, Albion and Way of the Samurai 3 in the past few days/weeks. I'm almost at 40 beaten games in 2021.
I tried Until Dawn, but it didn't really grab me. Lumo was a fun puzzle game, but there was a ball rolling section that drove me crazy. I tried a few times, without being close to beating it. Uninstalled. Uncanny Valley also bored me. Uninstalled after half an hour.
Now, I'm channeling my inner weebo by playing God Wars, Yakuza: Like A Dragon and The Legend of Heroes: TitS 2.
im interested to see what you think of double agent, only the dogshit version got a PC port & all the non-xbox ports of the ubi montreal version have crap lighting/shadows so i never played it
Awesome detail. How did you take that xbox screenshot? Are you running it through some kind of capture card or something? And also it looks like it's 1300x1080 which seems high for the original xbox - did it really output in that res?
Awesome detail. How did you take that xbox screenshot? Are you running it through some kind of capture card or something? And also it looks like it's 1300x1080 which seems high for the original xbox - did it really output in that res?
The new Xbox Series controllers have a dedicated screenshot button, you just press it, it saves to a folder and you can then easily upload the screenshots to your OneDrive, or set them to upload automatically. I don't have a capture card.
As for the resolution, I was also wondering about that. I'm playing on a 1080p TV, and the way Xbox DVR works is that screenshots will be taken in the same resolution (thus the black bars). But when I tried to crop the screenshots to 4:3 aspect ratio, there were still small black bars on the sides, so it's not 4:3. It's also not 5:4, I tried that as well. If anyone knows, that information would be much appreciated. OG Xbox was a weird console in many regards, but in some it seemed almost a generation ahead, evidenced by amazing lighting in Splinter Cell games. Thank god the PC version wasn't based on PS2, it would be horrendous.
Just started playing Grimoire and Zelda Skyward Sword HD remake for the Switch.
I don't know if it's because my expectations were low(was expecting a meme game), but I'm enjoying Grimoire so far. I'm finding it quite solid, despite managing to be uglier and having a worse UI than the old Wizardry games.
And Zelda is Zelda. It has the Nintendo trademark: great level design, fluid gameplay and that charm and special touch only Nintendo manages to pull. I'm rarely disappointed with a Zelda or Mario game, which is why I D1P them without fearing.
By the way, It's astonishing how similar this Zelda's combat system is to Mount & Blade, on a purely mechanical level. I feel this game would benefit tremendously from mouse + keyboard - A joystick is clearly limiting its potential.
Currently playing Arx Fatalis for the first time. I like it so far, although I expected something different. Is it worth to replay it again? I feel there is only one good way to play the game and that is to become an all-destroying magician. I have the impression that other builds are poorly designed. Melee combat is pretty boring and there is only a handful of weapons. Why should I spend a long time beating up an opponent when I can simply destroy him with a fireball? Playing as a thief seemed attractive at the beginning. However, after wondering why enemies would spot me despite sneaking, I realised that you need very high values in stealth (60 - 70?) which you will only have midgame.
Just started playing Grimoire and Zelda Skyward Sword HD remake for the Switch.
I don't know if it's because my expectations were low(was expecting a meme game), but I'm enjoying Grimoire so far. I'm finding it quite solid, despite managing to be uglier and having a worse UI than the old Wizardry games.
And Zelda is Zelda. It has the Nintendo trademark: great level design, fluid gameplay and that charm and special touch only Nintendo manages to pull. I'm rarely disappointed with a Zelda or Mario game, which is why I D1P them without fearing.
