Currently playing in 2019...

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Frank** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:50 am

The best bit I've had in Skyrim so far was where I went to talk to the fella standing behind the bar at an Inn, but I was looking in slightly the wrong place so ended up stealing a tankard from the counter. He shouted at me for it, but didn't get hostile, so I thought I'd be okay. I tried to talk to him to see if there was a "haha sorry about that, here have it back" dialogue option, but there wasn't, so I just dropped it on the floor, at which point a little kid picked it up, followed me, and went "excuse me, you dropped this" and stuck it back in my inventory.

Then a few days later I got stopped by a couple of bandits who'd been sent by the innkeeper to duff me up for thieving!

Only other big irritation I've had is the quest where you've got an objective to resolve a situation peacefully, but Bethesda didn't seem to actually finish that branch off? So the objective literally can't be completed successfully :dread:

I forgot NPCs give you back your trash. That's great. And yeah, I've had a guard send thugs after me. Such a small thing that lends the world a sense of consequence.

To Orange I'd say...It's a fair point. F4 at least is largely the same gameplay loop in a different setting.

But something...changed with F4. The things they altered, and those they let stay the same, somehow made it feel like a much more cynical product. I hate the phrase 'dumbed down' but it was in some parts. The radiant AI system was altered in a way that eliminated all the good parts (random encounters like the above, occasionally hilarious mess ups) and left all the jank. The dialogue system was made next to irrelevant. Most importantly, every single quest in the game ends in fighting. F4 isn't an RPG, not really. It's an action game with a dialogue tree. It gives you a set character with set goals involving a McGuffin most players didn't care a jot about but had it be your character's defining feature. That dissonance, and the fact the character is voiced, meant actually getting into a role was impossible*

In Skyrim I've already had multiple quests that were far more than go here, kill X. In F4, save for the settlement system which feels superfluous and like something from a completely different game**, every quest is a shooting gallery. Add in Skyrim's multiple playstyle possibilities, its surprisingly deep crafting and harvesting systems and its more finely crafted world and the two become far different end products.

*The Witcher dealt with a similar set up much better by actually allowing your choices as Geralt define him. This simply isn't possible in F4 as your choices no longer matter
**Which as it turns out, it was.

Edit: None of that really gets to the heart of why I prefer Skyrim. God, it's just a much better game.

Actually yeah the roleplay and immersion potential of skyrim is way higher simply from letting you create your own character, that's very true. Not that Skyrim is particularly written or designed specifically to reward or encourage roleplay (it isn't) but simply having that freedom lets the player invent it themselves. F4 is an abject failure there. It's the reason I have started multiple characters for fun on skyrim, but never on F4.

I would say though that skyrim's quests are all too linear and combat focused also though, and it doesn't have much meaningful dialogue choices either.

The receiving messages thing is cool but it honestly gets to me when you do something and IMMEDIATELY get a letter about it and the only explanation is time-travelling wizards. That kind of thing is immersion breaking for me, all they needed to do was delay it a little!

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Robbo-92** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:30 am

I think I might have to start a fresh playthrough of Skyrim this evening :wub:

Gemini73

Photek wrote:You seem to be having a hard time Gem, hope things get better.

.

Didn't see this before. Thanks, Photek. 8-)

So, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 2 (PS4). It's no Diablo 3, or as good as Victor Vran and Grim Dawn, but it's still quite good fun. The levelling up system is overly convoluted however. Almost headache inducing in fact.

WRC 6 (PC)
WRC 7 (PS4)

One I'm playing when I'm confined to the games room, the other when I can sit down in the living room with the PS4. They're both very similar, as you might imagine, but I paid peanuts for both, (WRC 6 was as little as £3.49). I actually own all of the WRC series now, at least to my knowledge.

CoD: BLOPS (PS3 - campaign). Played it through to completion on the 360 many moons ago, going through it again on my PS3. It's CoD. It's dumb, but fun.

CoD: Ghosts (PS3- online MP)
CoD: BLOPS 2 (PS3 - online MP)

Just flipping between these two. Thankfully there is still a thriving community for both and no cheats.

SWBF 2 (PS4 - online MP)

Now most definitely heading toward the game it should have always been. The Capital Supremacy mode is an absolute riot and the new elite forces are great.

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Cal** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 12:15 pm

World War Z (PC version).

Jim Sterling proves yet again what a clueless, lazy idiot he is with his travesty of a 'review' on YT. Here's my advice: watch a few other game play videos (RadBrad would be a good place to start) and decide for yourself is this is a game that might take your fancy. It took mine. It's well-designed, great to look at and can be played online or off (against AI with AI team Mates). You will level-up your character, upgrade weapons and earn XP in the offline mode, playing through the objective-based missions (4 of them, each split into three distinct sections). Whether you want this for online or offline fun, it's a reasonably-priced game with hours of fun to offer.

8/10

If I was game developer responsible for this game I'd be rightfully upset with the p*sspoor 'quality' of some so-called 'reviews'. It's insulting to the many creative talents who have clearly poured a great deal of effort into making WWZ.

Gemini73

Cal wrote:World War Z (PC version).

Jim Sterling proves yet again what a clueless, lazy idiot he is with his travesty of a 'review' on YT. Here's my advice: watch a few other game play videos (RadBrad would be a good place to start) and decide for yourself is this is a game that might take your fancy. It took mine. It's well-designed, great to look at and can be played online or off (against AI with AI team Mates). You will level-up your character, upgrade weapons and earn XP in the offline mode, playing through the objective-based missions (4 of them, each split into three distinct sections). Whether you want this for online or offline fun, it's a reasonably-priced game with hours of fun to offer.

8/10

If I was game developer responsible for this game I'd be rightfully upset with the p*sspoor 'quality' of some so-called 'reviews'. It's insulting to the many creative talents who have clearly poured a great deal of effort into making WWZ.

I've read a few 'regular folks' views on WWZ and the general vibe I get is that it's actually quite good and that there is more to come. I get the feeling the reviews kind of went like this "Book was good, film was bad so it must follow that the game is bad".

Days Gone is at the top of my list for the genre at the moment, but I will probably take a punt at WWZ at a later date.

Not so much currently playing but currently downloading... Modern Warfare: Remastered. I fancied a break from Nioh and haven’t played a shooter in a while so I thought I’d give this a go having never played it. I set it away downloading early last night assuming it would be done by morning. Nope still around 8 hours left.

It’s 74.5 gigabyte, how the strawberry float is it that big?

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **jawafour** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:10 pm

Cal wrote:World War Z (PC version).

Jim Sterling proves yet again what a clueless, lazy idiot he is with his travesty of a 'review' on YT...

Crumbs! Your comment made me seek out the video and watch it, Cal. Gotta say, I don't feel that he's overly negative about the game; sure, there are the usual "game bugs with funny music" sequences, but I took his overall message as being pretty positive. Most of his gripes on the tech aspects seem to be about the PS4 version rather than the PC version and, looking at Amazon user reviews (always a trash pit, I know!) it seems that some PS4 players are reporting similar things in terms of the game crashing.

Cal wrote:... watch a few other game play videos ...and decide for yourself is this is a game that might take your fancy.

Now I do agree with this approach :-) .

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **jawafour** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:12 pm

IAmTheSaladMan wrote:Not so much currently playing but currently downloading... Modern Warfare: Remastered...It’s 74.5 gigabyte, how the strawberry float is it that big?

Yeah, the base game was originally around 40Gb on PS4 but, with patches and the additional levels, the size has increased to around 75Gb. Modern gaming eats hard drives!

Last edited by Tafdolphin on Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

OrangeRKN wrote:The receiving messages thing is cool but it honestly gets to me when you do something and IMMEDIATELY get a letter about it and the only explanation is time-travelling wizards. That kind of thing is immersion breaking for me, all they needed to do was delay it a little!

Yeah, it is ridiculous. After about 3 hours play I got a letter from a Jarl in a city on the other side of the map telling me how infamous my deeds had become and asking if I'd like to become a Thane of his town. Needy much?

Also, that story I told about the NPC barkeep getting super suspicious of me accidentally taking her room? Turns out she was the head of a secret order and the wardrobe in that room was a secret door! :slol:

So, you know, her not wanting to leave me alone in there sort of makes sense now.

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Cal** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:49 pm

jawafour wrote:Crumbs! Your comment made me seek out the video and watch it, Cal. Gotta say, I don't feel that he's overly negative about the game; sure, there are the usual "game bugs with funny music" sequences, but I took his overall message as being pretty positive. Most of his gripes on the tech aspects seem to be about the PS4 version rather than the PC version and, looking at Amazon user reviews (always a trash pit, I know!) it seems that some PS4 players are reporting similar things in terms of the game crashing.

I dunno, I just watched his review and got progressively more annoyed by the dissonance I was experiencing from his casual negativity towards the game and the footage of the actual game itself playing out beneath his words. The two just didn't seem to match-up. I'd seen this previously in another so-called 'review' here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1kcFDrP_-s&t=652s

For which the reviewer came in for some criticism. When someone is telling you - repeatedly - that something is worthless, low-effort rubbish and yet the evidence before your eyes suggests clearly the contrary, what is one intended to think? I suspect neither of the two reviewers were at all enthusiastic about the game, or just too cynical, or indifferent, to properly critique the product. Anyone with even a passing interest in engine design, game design, etc, can see that WWZ is not a lazy cash-in - details, details, details. But it's like none of that matters, just because it plays somewhat like an updated L4D - SO CANCEL ALL REASONABLE CRITICISM :evil:

. It's ridiculous, dishonest and it's unfair.

Gemini73 · PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Gemini73** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 2:14 pm

Cal wrote:it plays somewhat like an updated L4D.

And this has been cited as a bad thing? :fp:

The 2 vids I watched made it look a lot of fun -

Gemini73 · PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Gemini73** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 2:53 pm

The second video highlights a growing problem found with modern reviews, or indeed the gaming community in general - the inability to overlook a few issues for what is overall a fun gaming experience. And we've all been guilty of this in one way or another, myself included. No more for me though.

Even with the games obvious shortcomings this reviewer clearly enjoyed his time with WWZ.

The rest of the community however? "This game has a few bugs! gaaahhhh! It's gooseberry fool and will forever be gooseberry fool!" Or in the case of the Jim Sterlings of the world "It has a roadmap and MTS, kill it with fire!"

State of Decay 2 got a similar treatment, nevertheless I enjoyed the hell out of it. So much so I grabbed it on Game Pass for my PC once I no longer owned an X1.

Still making slow progress through Nioh. I offed some big spider boss this afternoon with help from a visitor. The fight got a bit hairy toward the end as I got a bit overconfident when the boss was nearing death.

I think I said this before but the difficulty here is all over the place. In particular the stages themselves are relatively easy provided you take the time to explore them fully and unlock all the shortcuts but the bosses mostly seem really overpowered.

Gemini73 · PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Gemini73** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:37 pm

Just about to install Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Fancied some Snake action and lets be honest, it's a better entry in the series than MGS 5.

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Godzilla** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 8:18 pm

Mad Max - god it's good. Still loads to do in it. Just plays so well and it captures the magic of the films. Got Days Gone and Rage 2 coming up which are more of the open world madness.

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **jawafour** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 8:35 pm

Godzilla wrote:Mad Max - god it's good. Still loads to do in it. Just plays so well and it captures the magic of the films...

It always warms my heart to see more people enjoying it :wub:

. Ah you playing on PS4, Godzilla? The crunchy sounds through the Dualshock speaker are ace!

PostRe: Currently playing in 2019... by **Godzilla** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 8:43 pm

Yeah PS4. Bought it at launch (a week before MGS 5 was released from memory.) Considering the price it is now it's an essential buy for everyone. The amount of content on the map is enough to make far cry nervous.

From what I've seen Rage 2 seems to be the closest we will ever get to a sequel.

Currently playing in 2019...

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