What are you playing?

bhamv3

bhamv3

I thought NMS was fun until I hit a wall where I realized there isn't much more to discover, and there's just grinding left.

Exploring new planets was great until I realized that every type of planet looks similar. Scorching planets will always be red and have similar flora, a frozen planet will always look like Skyrim, a toxic planet will always be puke-colored and have tentacle-y plants, etc.

Discovering new creatures was fun until I started to recognize the different permutations they can come in.

Building bases was fun until it wasn't any more, because my base was fully self sufficient.

Making money was fun until I made more money than I'd ever reasonably need, and there was only optimization of my freighter and frigates left. Also, actually finding something I'd want to spend my money on could be a chore. I kept jumping from system to system, looking for an interesting ship to buy.

Even the main storyline was interesting until I hit the late stages of it, which also involves grinding.

All in all, it was definitely an enjoyable game, but once I hit that wall, I dropped the game and never looked back.
 
Fun Size

Fun Size

So I opted for Bioshock 2, and I forgot how much I love the harvesting. Traps in Bioshock were good, but the sets in 2 are amazing. Lining the walls with trap bolts, hacking turrets and cameras, and then letting them come and watching the chaos unfold is just *chef's kiss*,
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Fun Size said:
So I opted for Bioshock 2, and I forgot how much I love the harvesting. Traps in Bioshock were good, but the sets in 2 are amazing. Lining the walls with trap bolts, hacking turrets and cameras, and then letting them come and watching the chaos unfold is just *chef's kiss*,
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A well-trapped room is just beautimous.

And Big Sisters go down so satisfyingly when you freeze them and then drill slam them repeatedly.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Bubble181 said:
Me too, though I've recently tried replaying 1 and it had suffered quite a bit in aging. 2 actually held up better, though I preferred 1 back in the day.
Never did play the third multiplayer one, though.
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I tried it. It was alright. Not great. I was pretty worn out on MOBAs at the time though, so I didn't stick with it.

The Co-op in 2 was absolute fire, though.
 
Frank

Frank

So all the FF7R people, I assume you're all done right? Can we talk about how this game is:

Tetsuya Nomura's fan fiction about how Aerith didn't actually die. I mean, this game couldn't even let Jessie, Biggs or Wedge die. Aerith's definitely not.

Oh and Rufus's design is truly ass tier awful. those hatched belts on his skirt are really the worst God damn thing in the whole game.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Frank said:
So all the FF7R people, I assume you're all done right? Can we talk about how this game is:

Tetsuya Nomura's fan fiction about how Aerith didn't actually die. I mean, this game couldn't even let Jessie, Biggs or Wedge die. Aerith's definitely not.

Oh and Rufus's design is truly ass tier awful. those hatched belts on his skirt are really the worst God damn thing in the whole game.
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Is it really fan fiction when you were on the main staff that created this game and have been a driving creative force in it's off-shoot projects ever since there WERE off-shoot projects? At this point, he's had more say in the franchise than anyone else and he's been involved since day one.

Regardless, I'm okay with the direction the game going in right now. The "we're doing a do-over, so you might win it all or just lose it all" stakes give the chance for the game to go off the rails at some points in interesting ways. We've already seen it make some characters just WAY more interesting (like the aforementioned Avalanche crew, I hope they DID live and show up to fight Shinra if the Sister Ray stuff happens again) and some of the expanded segments give other characters a chance to shine (Aerith's a bonafide Bad Ass in Sector 7). If things go wildly off in another direction for some segments, it can only be to the game's benefit at this point: I already have the original, let's do something different.

Honestly? I'm expecting Aerith to be a villain at this point. Like... her not dying might be something that prevents them from winning and she knows it.
 
Terrik

Terrik

Jun made me start FF7R over from the beginning after I was already 5 or 6 hours in because

1. She's never watched a FF game before (heck, she's never watched me play anything, period before)

2. She wants to learn the piano music but feels she has no connection to the music unless she has context from seeing the game

And....she actually kind of likes it. What a surprise.
 
Frank

Frank

AshburnerX said:
Is it really fan fiction when you were on the main staff that created this game and have been a driving creative force in it's off-shoot projects ever since there WERE off-shoot projects? At this point, he's had more say in the franchise than anyone else and he's been involved since day one.
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The offshoots are almost universally terrible. The only game that was remotely decent was the PSP game that for whatever reason hasn't seen the light of day outside of the PSP.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Frank said:
The offshoots are almost universally terrible. The only game that was remotely decent was the PSP game that for whatever reason hasn't seen the light of day outside of the PSP.
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*shrug* I enjoyed Dirge of Cerberus (though I'll probably never go back to it) and Crisis Core, as well as the short novel (The Kids Are Alright) and Advent Children (though AC is... dumb. Real dumb.) But my point still stands: Calling Nomura's contributions to the entry he's most well known for "fan fiction" is the same as saying the Star Wars prequels "fan fiction", despite coming from George Lucas. It's not, it's just stuff you didn't like... and that's fine.
 
Frank

Frank

AshburnerX said:
*shrug* I enjoyed Dirge of Cerberus (though I'll probably never go back to it) and Crisis Core, as well as the short novel (The Kids Are Alright) and Advent Children (though AC is... dumb. Real dumb.) But my point still stands: Calling Nomura's contributions to the entry he's most well known for "fan fiction" is the same as saying the Star Wars prequels "fan fiction", despite coming from George Lucas. It's not, it's just stuff you didn't like... and that's fine.
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I mean it isn't, he didn't write the original story like Lucas did. This is calling JJ Abrams' Star Wars contributions fan fiction, which I have no problem doing and I don't care who disagrees.

The Aerith thing in the OG FF7 was an actual shocking, big moment for video games and I honestly don't trust the Kingdom Hearts guy not to do it dirty.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Frank said:
I mean it isn't, he didn't write the original story like Lucas did. This is calling JJ Abrams' Star Wars contributions fan fiction, which I have no problem doing and I don't care who disagrees.

The Aerith thing in the OG FF7 was an actual shocking, big moment for video games and I honestly don't trust the Kingdom Hearts guy not to do it dirty.
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Tetsuya Nomura was involved in writing the original story; he's notably credited as coming up with the idea of making the main story revolve around chasing Sephiroth and kept the other designers from killing off just about the entire party because it would undermine the Aerith thing. His hand wasn't as active as Sakaguchi's or Nojima's, but he was involved.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

I happened to come across some videos about Team Fortress 2 on Youtube (the channel's called LazyPurple, it's not bad), and that got me in the mood for some TF2ing, so I fired it up and played some offline mode with a few bots. A nice diversion for an hour or so. It was the first time I'd played TF2 since 2018, I think.

And then I found out that apparently there was a source code leak for some Valve games, which apparently may cause vulnerabilities for multiplayer Source engine games, such as CS:GO and TF2.

Hopefully nothing bad happened since I only played offline, but still, that's some hilarious timing for me.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

figmentPez said:
Does that apply to Left 4 Dead 2 as well? I know it shares code with those.
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I don't know, I didn't read up too much on the leak.

From what I did read, though, apparently to get hacked, you need to be playing with a malicious player, or on a server that's got malicious code on it. Therefore, if you only play on official servers, and only with people you know and trust, then you should theoretically be ok, I think.

I must emphasize that I don't know enough to give any sort of useful advice, and I personally am going to be avoiding Source games for bit.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I haven't played FF7 Remake, but I decided to look up the ending and

It sounds like all of the Whispers stuff is to lampshade to that they want to change the story. I think they either should've just changed things or not, because players who get angry that something is different later will be angry regardless of whether or not there's a nonsense story element added to explain the changes.

Introducing them as another faction is also unnecessary because the heroes, Shinra, and Sephiroth are already three independent factions with goals counter to each other. It's a little silly. And if there turns out to be a timeline element ... again, it's just unnecessary.

I hope it all works out for everyone who's enjoying it and that it doesn't take Square-Enix a decade to do part 2.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Hailey Knight said:
I haven't played FF7 Remake, but I decided to look up the ending and

It sounds like all of the Whispers stuff is to lampshade to that they want to change the story. I think they either should've just changed things or not, because players who get angry that something is different later will be angry regardless of whether or not there's a nonsense story element added to explain the changes.

Introducing them as another faction is also unnecessary because the heroes, Shinra, and Sephiroth are already three independent factions with goals counter to each other. It's a little silly. And if there turns out to be a timeline element ... again, it's just unnecessary.

I hope it all works out for everyone who's enjoying it and that it doesn't take Square-Enix a decade to do part 2.
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I've also read spoilers without having played the game, and maybe I haven't read enough but,

Is there reason to assume that the black robed whispers are a different faction from Sephiroth and his black robed cadre? I've been seeing all the jokes about "dementors" and how the whispers are this new thing added in, but mysterious black robed figures have been a part of FF7 from the beginning. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me to think that the whispers are just another effort from Sephiroth, possibly in a new and overly convoluted manner, but I know my first thought on seeing black robes in FF7 is not "hey, a new faction".
 
Frank

Frank

figmentPez said:
I've also read spoilers without having played the game, and maybe I haven't read enough but,

Is there reason to assume that the black robed whispers are a different faction from Sephiroth and his black robed cadre? I've been seeing all the jokes about "dementors" and how the whispers are this new thing added in, but mysterious black robed figures have been a part of FF7 from the beginning. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me to think that the whispers are just another effort from Sephiroth, possibly in a new and overly convoluted manner, but I know my first thought on seeing black robes in FF7 is not "hey, a new faction".
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WHAT THOSE THINGS ARE SPOILERS

Agents of the planet who try to ensure destiny is upheld. Whenever the original story of FF7 is changing, those things show up.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I finally finished FF7 remake, and I gotta disagree with the haters, I loved every second of it.

So right from the beginning I noticed the changes. Sephiroth appears in Cloud's mind and tries to veer him away from meeting Aerith for the first time, but the black robed "whispers" intervene to keep her in place. This immediately made me think that this is an alternate timeline where Sephiroth's essence in the life stream or whatever is acting from the future. He knows he lost, so now he's trying to change it by changing history, but the forces of "destiny" are working against him to repair the damage he does. That's why he tells Cloud he needs him to live, because his plan is to have cloud overcome destiny and destroy the future.

And ultimately that's what happens. Cloud destroys fate, and now Sephiroth is free to try again, but so is Cloud and company. And while that might be some typical final fantasy bullshit, I happen to like final fantasy bullshit, and I'm interested in where the story will go. I like not knowing what will happen, and if I want the original story again I'll just play the original.
 
Frank

Frank

I don't have a problem with them doing something new, I just honestly don't care for Nomura's Kingdom Hearts nonsense like the whispers. They weren't necessary.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Frank said:
WHAT THOSE THINGS ARE SPOILERS

Agents of the planet who try to ensure destiny is upheld. Whenever the original story of FF7 is changing, those things show up.
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<CITATION NEEDED>

Yeah, when Vader said "Luke, I am your father" he was telling the truth, but that doesn't mean every narrator is reliable. C'mon, even the original FF7 had major themes revolving around unreliable narrators. Both Cloud and Sephiroth make claims about themselves that turn out to be completely untrue. Not to mention that your summation is at odds with how others are summarizing the events and describing things, so I'm not sure who to believe about what the game itself says (the let's plays I'm following are nowhere near the end, yet.)
 
Frank

Frank

The game beats you over the head with that knowledge over and over and over again. If it changes in the next game, in 5 years or so, we'll have new info. That's what Aerith literally says they are and she talks to the planet. That is the closest to accuracy we have currently. Sorry, it's Red XIII who explains them, from knowledge gleaned from Aerith. Is it all bullshit? WHO KNOWS!

 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Frank said:
The game beats you over the head with that knowledge over and over and over again.
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Cloud and Tifa grew up together in Nibelheim. The game shows flashbacks of that to you over and over and over again.

Also, Sephiroth has manipulated the lifestream before. So when Red XIII says that the whispers are from the lifestream, and are it's agents trying to ensure "Destinty", it would fit with what we know from the last game that this is, once again, Sephiroth using the lifestream for his own ends. Once again, I find your assumptions overly simplistic, and ignore major themes found in the original game.
 
Frank

Frank

YES, that is true. ALSO, this is the ONLY information we have. Until otherwise proven (in God knows how many years), this is all we got.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

I finished a runthrough of Mass Effect and loaded my character into Mass Effect 2.

God... why is this game so good? I just can't explain it, but it feels like concentrated good game injected directedly into my circulatory system. The story, the gameplay, the writing, the music, the worldbuilding... it's just so damn good. Sure, there are nitpicks, for example I'd've preferred to keep the heat system from the first game instead of having thermal clips, there are some deviations from the lore established in the previous game, and Jacob is the boringest character in video game history, but these minor quibbles are easy to ignore when I'm enjoying the sheer GOOD GAME(tm) on offer.
 
Frank

Frank

I think the level design is weak and endemic of all cover shooters of the time (hallway, hallway, hallway, large room full of waist high barricades) and the last boss is laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame but otherwise yeah, she good game.
 
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