...and then crash-landed into a cornfield in Kansas, where it was raised by Broken Age?
--Patrick
Dave
Staff member
So....you recommend it or not?
And now to my post on No Mans Sky: Beyond.
I have yet to try out the VR part of this, mainly because I need to set it up. But the NON-VR part? Well, it's a mixed bag.
The Good:
- They've added a lot of things that are really nice. Like tech trees for learning how to manufacture new stuff. In the past, you learned new tech and that revealed more stuff, but it seemed random and strange what was gotten. Now you can see the whole tree and make your choices accordingly.
- Speaking of tech trees, you now have them for pretty much everything and it's wonderful. You can actually make INFORMED decisions and only get what you want, leaving the rest alone.
- Nanites now have a lot more uses. Since, you know, you use them to purchase upgrades (as always) and new tech in the tech trees. That's new and a really good idea.
- On normal (as opposed to survival or permadeath), inventory space is hardly an issue any more. Instead of the 250 limit on most things it's now 9999! Some specialty items still only stack 5 each or even individual, but for the most part the whole "what do I drop to pick up this life-giving oxygen" conundrum is in the past. On survival and permadeath it's still 250, but hey that's what survival & permadeath means, man!
- This was the big "MULTIPLAYER" update and let me tell you it's...uh...underwhelming. There's now two distinct ways of playing multiplayer - cooperative with your friends and random missions with strangers. Here's how they work. With friends, you join each other's games and are in the same systems with them. Up to 4 people at a time can play together. Sound familiar? That's because that's exactly how it worked before. No change. The BIG MULTIPLAYER UPDATE concerns the random strangers thing and is in the updated Nexus. In the Nexus you can initialize missions that others can also join. You then go do the thing and come back to get stuff for doing the thing. It works exactly like Destiny's group thing does, except...
- You can't do multiplayer missions with your friends. You can only do them with people you meet randomly in the Nexus. And how does matchmaking happen in the Nexus? Ship size. If you enter the Nexus and your ship has 37 slots and 11 tech slots, EVERY OTHER SHIP THERE has 37:11. So unless your friend has a 37:11 ship, they can't possibly be in the Nexus with you.
- There was NO update to building with the exception of wiring, which I will get to in the Ugly section. Everything builds the same. No update at all to that. Also, no update to creatures or pretty much anything. Every planet you go to will have the same two or three dangerous plants. Almost all the creatures are a variation on a couple of different body types. After you've gone to a few systems it becomes painfully obvious that there just isn't a lot of differentiation in life forms in this universe.
- Bugs/Glitches/Crashes - Would it even BE a NMS game if it didn't have game-ending crashes or bugs the size of Texas? My first time in the Nexus my ship couldn't find a landing spot so it just sat there and spun faster and faster until I killed the game in the control panel and lost an hour of progress. Had I been in VR I'd probably have vomited and then curled up in the fetal position. I died for the first time the other night because I took off from a trading post and the game decided that I was too close to the trading post tower, locked my into it and slowly bled away my shields until I took fatal damage. When I rebooted I'd lost an hour. Again. They are fixing it slowly, but god damn!
- Wiring. Oh god the wiring! Pretty much everything now at your base needs power. That's fine, it makes sense. What DOESN'T make sense is that each item has to be directly wired into a power source, whether that is a battery or a generator. And the wiring goes straight from the source to the item. Through walls, through floors, through everything. Straight line. Empyrion may be a broken cocktail of idiocy, but they got power and power management right. NMS just doesn't.
- They did some changes to the UI that are head-scratching. Probably the one you'll see the most is scanning objects. Used to be you held down the F key to scan an object. Now you have to hold down the F key and then hit the left mouse button. I can live with that one because it does allow you to mouse over items and then choose which one you want to scan, but its still adding layers where there didn't need to be any. But the BIGGEST change to me was uploading creatures/minerals/plants to the database. On some planets you get 20 minerals, 20 plants, and 15 creatures. In the past there was a button that you could push that would upload all of them at once. That is now gone. So you have to upload. every. single. item. one. at. a. time. Why? WHYYYYYY?!?
I personally think it's pretty fun if you like management/sim games. I have lost a couple of saves to fatal crashes, but I also have a lot of saves, so it's not super common, and that's the only bugginess I've seen personally.
GasBandit
Staff member
I do. Even with the bugs, it's engrossing.
I've had lots of glitchy behavior from pipes and ducts. There's been a few times I've had to exit to desktop then reload the game to get them to behave right.
Also the very, VERY first time I ran the game, it suffered a fatal crash when I clicked "new game."
I've thought my pipes and ducts were glitchy before, but every time I just did something wrong. Though I guess if they work on reload, that's not it.
Planet Coaster
Or at least 10 minutes of it. 8 of which was character creation and loading screens. The other 2 minutes was spent learning that there is NO IN-GAME TUTORIAL.
Fuck. That.
No modern game, certainly not one as complex as a theme park building game, should be without an in-game tutorial.
Or at least 10 minutes of it. 8 of which was character creation and loading screens. The other 2 minutes was spent learning that there is NO IN-GAME TUTORIAL.
Fuck. That.
No modern game, certainly not one as complex as a theme park building game, should be without an in-game tutorial.
If you like the original RCT, try Parkitect instead.
Control on the PC and it's definitely the first time I've noticed that having an RTX card is a big plus. Holy moly this game is purdy. The ray tracing is real in this one. I understand it barely runs on PS4, Xbox One and the PS4 Pro and is only acceptable on the Xbox One X.
It's Remedy as fuck too, so that means it isn't perfect. But I'm enjoying it so far. I wish they included more interactions with the environment with the character you play as. I just watched an intensely creepy marionette show on a VHS tape and she doesn't say a word after it's done. She doesn't really react to a whole hell of a lot outside of the cutscenes which is a huge bummer.
I'm digging the X-Files, SCP, Fringe etc.. vibe it exudes.
It's Remedy as fuck too, so that means it isn't perfect. But I'm enjoying it so far. I wish they included more interactions with the environment with the character you play as. I just watched an intensely creepy marionette show on a VHS tape and she doesn't say a word after it's done. She doesn't really react to a whole hell of a lot outside of the cutscenes which is a huge bummer.
I'm digging the X-Files, SCP, Fringe etc.. vibe it exudes.
Jesse herself is one of the actresses (Courtney Hope) from Quantum Break. This is definetely a Remedy Family game.
Witcher 3: I didn't expect that tonal swerve near the end of Blood & Wine, but it gave a lot of needed meat for the finale.
Fighting the final boss: I'm really glad I played all those Souls games. It's been a while but the instincts are still there, which gives me hope I can just pick one of them up again when I feel like it.
But that closes the book on Witcher 3. What a fantastic game. I can't believe I actually finished an open world game, too. Maybe I'll try the second half of Breath of the Wild next.
Fighting the final boss: I'm really glad I played all those Souls games. It's been a while but the instincts are still there, which gives me hope I can just pick one of them up again when I feel like it.
But that closes the book on Witcher 3. What a fantastic game. I can't believe I actually finished an open world game, too. Maybe I'll try the second half of Breath of the Wild next.
Frostpunk
Had this on my wishlist for awhile. And I don't know. It just didn't do it for me. I refunded it. Maybe I'll give it another try some day.
Two-Point Hospital
Free weekend on Steam? Sure, I'll try it. And I actually kinda dig it. I'll probably play this a bit more over the weekend. Might buy it once the refund comes back on Frostpunk, but I'll see if I like it upon playing it some more, first.
Had this on my wishlist for awhile. And I don't know. It just didn't do it for me. I refunded it. Maybe I'll give it another try some day.
Two-Point Hospital
Free weekend on Steam? Sure, I'll try it. And I actually kinda dig it. I'll probably play this a bit more over the weekend. Might buy it once the refund comes back on Frostpunk, but I'll see if I like it upon playing it some more, first.
Frostpunk is bleak and RELENTLESS, with even a small error leading to doom hours down the line. And... I love it. But it's definitely not for everyone, because it makes stress like a motherfucker.
The Island Living game pack for Sims 4 lets you make community lots clothing optional. So I did with a spa. Fine so far.
But then I sent my sim there on NYE. The dead of winter when the thermometer has bottomed out. Commence the yogasicling. Three sims froze to death within moments of each other before I got my sim the hell out of there.
But then I sent my sim there on NYE. The dead of winter when the thermometer has bottomed out. Commence the yogasicling. Three sims froze to death within moments of each other before I got my sim the hell out of there.
GasBandit
Staff member
Ooh, and it's very reasonably priced, too...
Bought Children of Morta solely based on the description and early reviews.
We will see if/when I get to play it.
--Patrick
We will see if/when I get to play it.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
The description reminds me of the old "Legacy of the Wizard" NES game.
I'm pretty sure they've admitted this was an influence.
So, I decided to give FF13 an honest to goodness try. I've played every other mainline Final Fantasy (except 15 now too) and I never gave it a shot. I'm 10 hours in FF13 and I have to alt-tab every ten minutes to do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE. It's walk, do 3 battles, cutscene where the characters talk about UTTER FUCKING NONSENSE. I get going in media res, but Jesus Christ, this is all fucking gibberish. PS: Don't EVER ask me to read the ingame codex, because I'm never going to. Ingame codices are crutches used to get by having coherent story telling. The only time an ingame codex is good is when it's a bestiary. That's it.
I hate these characters, especially Snow. Snow is the drizzling shits.
Oh and throwing enemies in that can one shot your leader character (which is a BAFFLING game over) all over the place is fucking garbage too. Who fucking designed this shit? My CRYSTARIUM is leveled up to max, I've used all my upgrade mats, my characters are as powerful as the can be, but you keep leaving my two person parties without a sentinel and half of these big enemies can just do LASER SPLOSION and instagib my party. This sucks. This is the worst. I just avoid combat as much as possible since I get fucking nothing for doing it anyway.
I hate these characters, especially Snow. Snow is the drizzling shits.
Oh and throwing enemies in that can one shot your leader character (which is a BAFFLING game over) all over the place is fucking garbage too. Who fucking designed this shit? My CRYSTARIUM is leveled up to max, I've used all my upgrade mats, my characters are as powerful as the can be, but you keep leaving my two person parties without a sentinel and half of these big enemies can just do LASER SPLOSION and instagib my party. This sucks. This is the worst. I just avoid combat as much as possible since I get fucking nothing for doing it anyway.
And Final Fantasy games, don't have long drawn out cutscenes where a character is limping because he got hurt in a fall. You can all cast magical healing spells. You regularly heal from getting punched in the fucking face by giant monsters and multiple bullet wounds. This slow limping melodrama is fucking stupid. Have some FUCKING self awareness.
Also, game is obviously one of the many Squeenix not giving a solitary shit about port quality games. My rig can run Control with everything maxed, ray-tracing galore, at 60 frams, and this old PS3 port chugs anytime anything happens or there are more then 5 NPC models on screen at once.
Yeah, FF13 was sort of the first time SE took a serious effort to put a port out at launch for PC and it shows. More recent ports have been better.
As for the game itself... the only character I liked was Sazh and he gets dropped to the wayside the moments the sequels start happening, so I dumped the 13/13-2-/13-3.
Kingdom Come Deliverance
It's free to play for the weekend on Steam right now, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
While the story is compelling, the gameplay is just far too aggravating. I got to a point where I had to steal some soldier armor to sneak out of a castle. Except doing so requires lockpicking in a lockpick mini-game that is absolutely impossible. So I looked up other methods. You can also just jump off the drawbridge. Okay, cool. So I get to the town I'm supposed to go to, only to be attacked by bandits with swords and I only have fists. And then the only entrance into that castle is blocked. So I started combing across the outside walls for a way in and finally decided, "Nope, fuck it. It's not worth it."
It's free to play for the weekend on Steam right now, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
While the story is compelling, the gameplay is just far too aggravating. I got to a point where I had to steal some soldier armor to sneak out of a castle. Except doing so requires lockpicking in a lockpick mini-game that is absolutely impossible. So I looked up other methods. You can also just jump off the drawbridge. Okay, cool. So I get to the town I'm supposed to go to, only to be attacked by bandits with swords and I only have fists. And then the only entrance into that castle is blocked. So I started combing across the outside walls for a way in and finally decided, "Nope, fuck it. It's not worth it."
I got this game fro Christmas a while ago, and I agree completely. I want to enjoy it, but the game play is just so very frustrating!
The music is good and the battle system is not great in my opinion, not into the whole everything autoplays itself. Giving you SOME sort of control over each individuals job would be a thousand times as preferable than 6 combinations. The leveling is maybe the worst it's ever been in an FF game. The story is less coherent than the original translation of the original Final Fantasy. I'm 12 hours in and I still have no idea what the fuck is driving anyone other than they're LACIE of some FALACIE or another.
"YOU'RE EVIL!"
"I am evil. I am enemy!"
WHHHHHHHHYYY ARE ANY OF YOU ANYTHING?!
I love that even the characters don't have a fucking clue what's going on. From what I understand this continues for at least another 12 hours. Awesome.
"YOU'RE EVIL!"
"I am evil. I am enemy!"
WHHHHHHHHYYY ARE ANY OF YOU ANYTHING?!
I love that even the characters don't have a fucking clue what's going on. From what I understand this continues for at least another 12 hours. Awesome.