Currently playing in 2019...

Anything to do with games at all.
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Trelliz
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Trelliz » Mon Oct 07, 2019 6:28 pm

I thought i'd give the Battlefield 4 singleplayer a go as I've had it around for ages and never really bothered. It's good fun, although each level clearly has a tutorial section on a specific aspect/mechanic of multiplayer which feels a bit forced, and it often does the thing of making you stand back while other characters do things which is pretty cliche at this point. Also a lot of events and set pieces have occurred, but the actual narrative so far is pretty thin with a lot of allusions and things not being quite known which I'm sure will culminate in some sort of shock twist or revelation that isn't worth the buildup.

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Seven
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Seven » Mon Oct 07, 2019 9:12 pm

With Persona 5 beaten and Judgment not arriving yet, I made start on Spyro 2 - I don't want to attempt for Platinum on Persona 5 so soon after seeing the credits as I want something different.

I don't really remember much of Spyro 2 as I do with Spyro 1 so essentially it all feels new to me, but it's still ol' good Spyro game. Got to second hub, went back to first hub after I learnt how to climb ladders to 100% all of levels there.

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Lex-Man
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Lex-Man » Mon Oct 07, 2019 10:41 pm

I've started playing Borderlands GOTY enhanced. It's sort of a bizarre game. The running and gunning feels pretty good in a lot of ways but have most of the quest stuff being presented in text with mostly static characters. Also the maps feels too small to me. They seem to have focused on the millions of guns and getting feel down rather than focusing on cinematics and story. I'm guessing that the budget was somewhat limited.

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Cumberdanes
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Cumberdanes » Tue Oct 08, 2019 2:03 am

I always find Borderlands fun for a while but inevitably I get bored of it.

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Jenuall
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Jenuall » Tue Oct 08, 2019 9:42 am

Completed Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy last night (100% :datass: ) so moved straight on to playing some Jak II

I'm probably enjoying it a bit more than I did back in the day it still frustrates me that they didn't stick more closely to the foundation of the first game and instead tried to turn it into some kind of GTA/Shooter/Platformer hybrid.

Jak's movement, skillset and silky animations are one of the absolute highlights of the first game, it is just a joy to traverse the world using this character. Whether you are exploring one of the levels or moving between them in the relatively small but dense hub areas it is simply just a fun experience to control Jak. Whilst the second game keeps this excellent movement for Jak it continually punches holes in that joy by having you need to explore a needlessly large semi-open world city area where moving on foot, something which as noted the game really excels at from a gameplay perspective, is basically ditched in favour of moving in one of these hover vehicles, something which just simply is not fun.

One of the primary problems is that these vehicles control horribly with a really weird acceleration/deceleration curve and terrible turning physics. They can only fly at one of two heights - on the ground where you basically just hit people/guards all the time, or in the air where you just crash into other vehicles all the time. Something like GTA has cars that can accelerate relatively quickly, brake fast and have solid controls that allow for quick adjustments - you can ping yourself around at speed even in fairly dense traffic because the controls allow you to avoid traffic and pick a path to where you need to be. In this by the time you know you are going to hit something the controls basically make it impossible to do anything about it because they are so slow and the vehicle turning is so awkward - you just end up drifting in to everything.

This is compounded by the drab design of the environments and utterly awful map. The design of the world admittedly makes sense from a world building perspective - this is supposed to be a fairly dystopian looking place, but it really doesn't help from a gameplay sense. Everywhere looks too similar, there are not enough landmarks or differentiating elements to let you navigate effectively without constantly refering to the map. And the map is just bad. The icons on the minimap seem to shift position as you move around in a really awkward way - I can't tell if they are trying to tell you something about the immediate corner you need to take or a hint of that kind but they are definitely not just simple compass markers. Accessing the full map is also awkward, requiring you to go into the main menu, switch to the map option and then activate it - why not just put it on a spare button like select?

So between the awkward controls, terrible map, and navigation unfriendly world design you seem to spend an inordinate amount of your time in this game bouncing around this city, crashing, failing to know where you are going and, put simply, not having fun. It's such a massive jarring change from the first game where the simple act of getting around was just a joy.

When you do get to a "mission" ( :dread: ) area then the game switches back into something far more enjoyable - the platforming and combat aspects are still mostly excellent, and the game gets to shine again!

It's such a shame that this seemed to be an early casualty of the "everything needs to be like GTA, lets go open world!" craze that sadly is still going on today.

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Robbo-92
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Robbo-92 » Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:08 am

I've only ever played through each of the games once but Jak and Daxter 1 was easily the best, enjoyed some bits of Jak 3 but can’t really remember much of Jak 2!

I’m still slowly advancing my career in Grid Autosport, not the best racing game I’ve ever played but still thoroughly enjoying my time with it, should really get Ori started at some point as ideally I’ll have that finished before The Witcher 3 comes out on the Switch next week as that is definitely not a short game and should easily keep me entertained (alongside Grid Autosport of course) till Luigi’s Mansion 3 comes out on the 31st.

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Cumberdanes
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Cumberdanes » Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:55 am

I didn’t enjoy Jak II at all. In fact I gave up in frustration very early on.The first game and Daxter on PSP are my favourites in the series.

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by OrangeRKN » Tue Oct 08, 2019 11:03 am

Jak II is the best Jak and Daxter game, but all of them are amazing. The zoomers are great fun and the city ring races are some of my favourite challenges from any game ever - especially the full city race, which is hard as nails and massively rewarding! The three types of zoomer all control quite differently so if you're having trouble I'd recommend going for the two-seaters as they are a lot tougher than the "bikes" but still relatively quick and handle fine. Also look forward to the NYFE racing :datass:

tl;dr do some ring races, your driving will improve

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Jenuall
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Jenuall » Tue Oct 08, 2019 11:26 am

I'm absolutely going to persevere with Jak II, like I say the other aspects of the game are still more than good enough to warrant that. It just still frustrates after all these years, I want my Precursor Legacy 2 Naughty Dog! :lol:

I'm sure I will get better and be able to overlook some of the complaints above, I still maintain that the open city and driving are objectively very flawed from a design perspective though.

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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by OrangeRKN » Tue Oct 08, 2019 11:29 am

Jenuall wrote:I want my Precursor Legacy 2 Naughty Dog!


Daxter and The Lost Frontier are both closer to TPL than the other ND games

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Jenuall
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Jenuall » Tue Oct 08, 2019 11:37 am

OrangeRKN wrote:
Jenuall wrote:I want my Precursor Legacy 2 Naughty Dog!


Daxter and The Lost Frontier are both closer to TPL than the other ND games

Yeah those are both on my "to play" list as well!

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Photek
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Photek » Tue Oct 08, 2019 1:19 pm

I've actually made 2 friends from playing PUBG, A geordie lad and another dude who literally lives just down the road. :lol:

Anyway, it all means I'm back playing lots of PUBG and I still love it.

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Seven
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Seven » Thu Oct 10, 2019 2:13 am

I enjoyed Jak 2 but I will never play it again. It's really annoying to play and checkpoint system annoys me to no end. At least I've beaten it, no way am I going for 100% though because there seems to be no way to track what you've got and missed in some of levels.

Anyway, with Spyro 2 100%ed, I've started Judgment and on Chapter 2 (taking my time with it). So far it's just more Yakuza, but I'm not complaining.

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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by kazanova_Frankenstein » Thu Oct 10, 2019 7:23 am

About 14 hours in to AI: The Somnium Files. Anyone who enjoyed the Zero Escape series should check it out, the story is really involving and the voice acting etc is pretty top notch.

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Photek
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Photek » Thu Oct 10, 2019 9:44 am

I've been dabbling in State of Decay 2, I can't speak to vanilla Xbox One owners but on the X, it's been patched so much that it's genuinely excellent these days. First off the frame rate seems to be rock solid, the 4K visuals are gorgeous and all the weird glitches and hitches have vanished, compared to it's launch state it's like a remaster. I highly reccomend it, it's on Gamepass and also included with Gamepass is it's DLC which is the map from the original State of Decay as well as an actual authored story arch with written characters and voice acting (the main game randomizes all the people you meet and their traits etc).

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Jenuall
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Jenuall » Thu Oct 10, 2019 12:01 pm

Seven wrote:I enjoyed Jak 2 but I will never play it again. It's really annoying to play and checkpoint system annoys me to no end. At least I've beaten it, no way am I going for 100% though because there seems to be no way to track what you've got and missed in some of levels.

Anyway, with Spyro 2 100%ed, I've started Judgment and on Chapter 2 (taking my time with it). So far it's just more Yakuza, but I'm not complaining.

Yeah I'm in no way going to try and 100% Jak 2 - I'll be content if I just get to the end I think!

Which is a shame because I enjoyed every minute of getting 100% on The Precursor Legacy.

I'm probably about a third of the way through Jak 2 now, the whole city is now opened up so I've got the entire place to crash in to with the array of poorly controlling vehicles! ;)

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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by DarkRula » Thu Oct 10, 2019 12:34 pm

I caved and bought Farming Simulator 17 on Switch. I wanted a portable version, and it was on sale. Perfect.

To make sure each version feels different from the other, I'm playing on the Europe map with the Switch version. It already feels a different experience with the way things are set up on this map. Starting with only two fields instead of three (and thus only two tractors), no chicken pen (though there is a barn for cows nearby), and overall it looks a much nicer area to be in. The Switch version also doesn't suffer much for being in handheld mode, with the only difference being the crops having a much closer pop-in range. Some UI elements are also a bit difficult to read, but nothing that affects gameplay too much.

In a way, I can understand why the Switch is getting the mobile versions from now on, as it saves creating a third version exclusive to the Switch that acts as a hybrid between the two current versions.

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Lotus
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Lotus » Fri Oct 11, 2019 3:14 pm

Bioshock 2

I'm enjoying this a lot. The environments and overall aesthetic is great, as are the weapons and upgrades.
The plasmids and tonics I was never that fussed about, but some of them are enjoyable to use. It has all the classic sequel ingredients, some of which are a bit predictable, and the plot isn't particularly interesting, but it's very good nonetheless. Would guess I'm about 5-6 hours in now - looking forward to playing more over the weekend.

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Photek
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Photek » Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:19 pm

Bioshock 2 is the best Bioshock. :datass:

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Cumberdanes
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PostRe: Currently playing in 2019...
by Cumberdanes » Fri Oct 11, 2019 4:39 pm

Played a little more Borderlands 2 this afternoon. While I do enjoy them I can’t play this type of game for too long at a time without getting a little bored as the gameplay is quite repetitive. I find they are better suited for dipping in and out of.

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