Creston wrote on Aug 3, 2019, 12:50:
Oh it's that one. I got confused with something else. The thing that's always put me off about this game is that twenty minute timeloop thing. It seems like you'd just be repeating the same few minutes over and over and over again, and that really gets on my nerves after just a few playthroughs.

Anyone play this and have any experience with how that actually works?

Ok this is a necro possibly with no chance of being read but this is a very important game.

I gave the timed-run mechanic and cartoony indie graphics a big MEH at first as well but stuck with it and now I consider it one of the best games I've played. I found the game to be fairly non-repetitive though, at least for the first 25 hours or so when you can just go do something else if you are sick of exploring any given planet/area. After that, when you are trying to finish it, you might wonder around certain places looking for clues or trying to fill gaps in your log but I enjoyed that as well.

The solar system is like a little toy, you can see each planet from each location usualy, even if faint or distant, and since you have unlimited fuel you can burn halfway to wherever you are going, and then suicide burn to the surface. The time limit encourages going as fast as you can to maximise exploration which you use to fill out an always sunny style digital rumour diagram which IS persistent between runs and displayed on your ship computer, and lets you know when you have cleared a place out or not. Most trips only have a few minutes of travelling, but others take longer or may involve unimaginable horrors. The locations themsleves are solvable if you have done the groundwork fairly quickly, I almost never had the issue of "god damn it I almost had that!" because I was either following a lead and getting what I needed done, done, or cleaned a place out of narrative and clues long before things reset. Also the reset is actually really awesome, I never got tired of it.

It feels physical and real in a way that NMS struggles with, it's probably misleading to call it a friendly, fly by wire version of Kerbal flight model all in first person, but that's what it feels like. Maybe a little Lunar Flight in there, or Elite but with actual shit to do on the planets you land on other than collecting rocks and scans. It does the walk about-EVA-ship-planetisimals transition thing really well.

The time loop feeds into the story very well. A perfect mix of structure and framing narrative. The only bit you have to repeat is the launch tower lift, but once you get on your ship where you go and how you get there is all up to you. The end is the same as well if you manage to not blow your reactor, drown, impact somehting too fast or burn up in the sun. There are at least 7 or 8 planetary bodies/structures orbiting the sun, once every minute for the close stuff and maybe only once or less for the further out stuff, and most of them have multiple areas, requiring specific piloting or timing (One planet is falling apart into itself, another two transfering matter between each other, so they change a lot depending on when you get there).

You will work out some fast travel stuff, but it's a physical system built into the world and narrative and becomes part of the endgame puzzle solving. The ending is amazing and fucked up at the same time, very Stephen Baxter/Greg Egan deep time shit but I loved it, including a final high stakes run that could be straight out of a movie. No game has done this style of hard sci-fi in FPS this well before as far as I know, though I havn't played them all.

It's super unique. I can't talk highly enough about it. An adventure game without an inventory. A survival game without grinding. A space game that expects you to take the environment seriously without being a prick about it. A story like something out of an early Aurthur C Clarke book. Graphics and sound that seem undercooked at first but are consistantly awe inspiring when they need to be. Brilliant.

Love Mowas 1 and 2, but for once I'm going to be the ignorant asshole that says "this is a mod?"

Wouldn't Call to Arms be a better platform for it? Not that I've checked recently but that is still ongoing yeah? And not great last time I played.

Mowas2 got the UI/AI/scale balance just right, though still way too overwhelming in those co-op defence missions (Maybe would be better if it was more than two of us attending family mowas night).

This just feels a little like Company of Heroes 2. Not a bad game, but an increase in battlfield inensity and lethality without the UI/AI/zoom upgrades to support it makes the experience as a whole much worse.

This is fear talking though. Hopefully this is the best thing ever, love the setting, but that trailer looked pretty bad and such hopes are only answered once a decade if you are lucky. And this is a series that has disapointed often and recently despite the successes.

I've been with this series since the amazing co-op experince of Soldiers:Heroes of WWII, which for co-op WWII small squad action might still be the best game ever made. I love the fact that the solidiers have AI to do shit on their own if you fail to give them orders, or bad orders for that matter. WWII servicemen were not robots. Even when it was bad or counterproductive, compared to something like the AT guns in Company of Heroes that would let a tank drive behind them and just ignore it it's amazing. My ideal game would be something with MOWAS detail but with more Close Combay moral shit and turn the details and production vaulues up to 11. Keep the co-op though dudes it's amazing.

Rhett wrote on Aug 9, 2019, 21:19:
Better be supported better than Gears 4! A lot of PC owners haven't been able to play for over a year, being completely ignored by the devs. Some issue came up after a certain Nvidia driver, forcing you to use an ancient driver just to play.

That sucks. Sounds like a shitty GPU driver team not a developer issue though. If it was a game patch that broke it I'd belive differently. Still sucks. I'll try not to get conspirational about Nvidia sabotaging/neglecting an awesome looking/running AMD optimised game though it is tempting!

Gears 4 is really good, on both platforms, and I trust the new GoW devs more than 343. Though 4 shares the same MT nonsense as Halo 5, which isn't as good a game. Big hopes for this one. It will move a lot of gamepass subs if it's as awesome as it looks.

I mean sure it's the same gameplay with tweaks, though horde is the original and best horde mode and I will play that for another 30-50 hours easily. I grew up in a time you could slap some levels on a game and call it a sequel (Doom2) and we all fucking loved it so when done well I'm ok with that.

Red886 wrote on Aug 7, 2019, 04:07:
prob going to be offered on the gamepass after a few months - and that game pass is super worthwhile ( but is not offered internationally )

Oh that sucks, I didn't know it was super geo-limited. I have it in AU, combined it with my XBL sub in that deal they had for "Ultimate" or whatever it was. Sad there are places where it dosn't work, but I'm sure they will roll it out internationailly eventually, otherwise whats the point? Best deal in gaming. Outer Wilds was so good on Xbox, Metro, Opus Magnum, Void Bastards, some of the best games I've played all year. Love it. PC selection still has a way to go if you wont stoop to console but it's definately getting there as a service for people who game on both.

And as for fig, 135% return is pretty fucking cool for a game that may or may not be good or sell! (You would be pissed if it went gangbusters, but what are the chances of that?) Fig seems to have fixed the issue with Kickstarter where devs didn't have flexibility to make deals mid development and consumers had no rights at all.

Red886 wrote on Aug 6, 2019, 07:31:
still remember people being pissed off when i said on another board years ago that the internet as we know it, is pretty much owned by a bunch of lefties, whom can censor the internet with ease.

Maybe because then, as is still the case now, it's not true? I can't go two websites witout reading RW dribble, sometimes in articles almost always in comments. I mean there are enough of you to elect your leaders in most of the planet where we have free elections so I shouldn't be surprised. Unless it's slurs or snuff films nobody seems to do much about it.

But if you are concerned about leftists controlling tech (Which isn't true, most of what you think that is is corporate risk management/PR/HR liability action) I'm not sure what you want us to do about it. Affirmitive action for pricks?

I'm no NMS basher, love what it goes for just can't get into the UI/flight model.

But if you want a subnautica-like space game with ZERO survival shit (other than don't run out of air when EVA) that has exploration, good sci fi shit and bespoke planets to puzzle out OUTER WILDS is fucking phenomenal.

I mean, I have some sympathy. It's a Tom Clancy game what do people expect? But it reads like a "Fuck you critics! We sold heaps and I got a promotion!" super classy.

El Pit wrote on Aug 1, 2019, 03:31:
I will sure get it one day. Since I have decided to play many fantastic new games (Satisfactory) and many older games I haven't touched yet (Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, the last 2 Tomb Raider games, Hitman 1/2 (new releases), FarCry 5, and many many more), I won't buy BL3 for at least a year or two (or three). The only game I preordered despite not preordering anything at all anymore is Barbie: Lesbian Adventures in Unicorn Country. No, wait, my bad, it is this Something Something 2077 game.

Yeah first world probs. Can’t justify spending AAA bucks when I have 5000 hours of practice in DCS to do, and BFV to MP in, and several dozen other games that will steal my souls for 40 hours if I dare to start them (pubg, Kerbal, Factorio) gotta go finish RDR2, Metro and Void Bastards.

Great game on Switch as is for the price, at least for a few plays. Hopefully this new ed adds more depth.

Though I was more than impressed with the tension, tactics and ambiance of the original to reccomend it I still had that feeling that it could have been a bit "Meatier". Will check this out when Switch update drops, not sure I need it on a PC where I can just launch Forged Alliance Forever.

The sticker shock is real, but this is a legit experience, as indicated by the name. The same minds behind amazing shit like Rez, Lumines and Meteos are behind it, but I understand PC supremicists might not see that as a selling point.

jdreyer wrote on Jul 20, 2019, 19:55:

Creston wrote on Jul 20, 2019, 17:30:
As for Archer season 11, fuck yeah!

"I can only get so erect."

What? Come on, you were pushing rope!

Blue wrote on Jul 20, 2019, 14:44:

JZ Temple wrote on Jul 20, 2019, 14:23:
But either way, we should send astronauts back there and beyond. Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later.

I don't know, I'd really like to spend those billions on things like climate change, health care, education, etc. But then only my wife listens to me, and even then not always.

The science that comes from the space program benefits all mankind. And the future of humanity can be safeguarded once we stop keeping all our eggs in this one basket. IMO.

As a massive space nut I'm partial to this argument, though the kind of Human that will live in space wont be much like us, none of our 4.5 billion years of adaptation helps up there. The country I live in is already fairly uninhabitable in parts, Antarctica is not great either. But the worse place on, under or submerged in the oceans of earth is easier to colonise than Mars or the Moon. Earth after a dino-killer rock, gamma burst or rogue black hole would still probably be better than those places for the few survivors, and with infrastructure you can have a lot more survivors. You just wouldn't want to put kids through space any time in the next few hundred years unless people start making some crazy progress.

If we funded environmental research and action (Which should probably include getting industry and energy outside the atmosphere if we can't clean it up) and space based calamity reduction efforts at the same rate as Apollo (and this goes for all governments, not just the US) that would do more for long term survival than anything else. The cost of terraforming any of the frozen/firey hell spheres in this solar system or creating some kind of hard to imagine artificial self sustaining habitat that dosn't need volatiles from earth seems almost unimaginable for a people that have not left Earth orbit in 47 years.

But again, I hope I'm wrong and Eric Weinstein isn't full of shit and his or someone elses sci-fi physics shit will take us to the stars before we use it to blow each other up.

Creston wrote on Jul 4, 2019, 20:17:
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT play this with anyone you have an inkling of affection for, because this game WILL cause you to get eyeball-burstingly mad at each other.

Yep! This game rules, but so stressful my cafe employee wife cannot stand to hear it. And like Spelunky I seem to have it on 4 different platforms. Reminds me of Space Team communication wise, always a hit when there are kids over but it gets super crazy hard later on. It’s an angry celebrity chef simulator. Not a fun single player game at all, human incompetence is part of the fun like with Payday 2 or Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime.

I don't think this is a real movement but if it was I would actually use the word more. There is a little troll in all of us and for me upsetting people who get upset about the missuse of Roguelike brings me joy. Applying it to every game with even the tiniest tribute to Rogue mechanics is super joyful.

Plus, real world grammar is descriptive, at least in our culture and I suspect all of them really. Even if it's wrong it's right if everyone knows what you are talking about.

StingingVelvet wrote on Jul 1, 2019, 02:46:
"We know you've been hankering for more content" a week after launch. Okay sure.

For the people who are hooked and have finished it multiple times I'm sure this is true!

It's actually really good. Reminds my of XIII in terms of presentation, but way better. Awesome writing, plays like an FPS version of Heat Signature, and smells like Paradroid from my Amiga years, and super space-british. Not sure if the ships you board get super complicated or anything but they are getting more and more interesting as I go on. It's on Gamepass for PC and Xbox, definately worth a go if you ever wondered what a mix of roguelike and Deus-X lite mechanics feels like.

eRe4s3r wrote on Jul 1, 2019, 05:01:

Rhett wrote on Jul 1, 2019, 04:33:
The games really aren't that bad. They're solid FPS experiences, they fully support coop, and have typically been very polished.

Obviously Microsoft has milked the hell out of it, but it really can be fun with friends. Did you guys really not play Halo when it came to PC?! That was awesome!

No, we played Half-Life 1 and 2. Doom, Doom 3 and Quake 2, Quake 3, Wolfenstein, System Shock, Deus Ex

I played all those games as well! I think they are in the same conversation as Halo, genre defining classics that are still worth playing today with a bit of extra polish/port effort, though most of them predate OG Halo of course except HL2.

Some of them have worse shooting than Halo, less fun enemy AI and design and none had co-op except Doom, which wasn't great, and maybe the Quakes but I think you had to do it one map at a time. Certainly not good out of the box 4p online co-op like Reach. Also none of those games had awesome vehicle physics, with co-op/PvP support and boarding mechanics, or an in built level and film tool, though mods are better of course. I don't think any of them had ADS for the one guy to whom that is important to, except maybe some select weapons or with a macro in Quake.

I also think you guys missed out. I can't wait to co-op this with my kids. Almost old enough now... minecraft has them trained up at controller FPS controls good and proper!

Agree that H4/5 didn't cut the mustard, though they had their moments. They just were not pushing boundaries and features like Bungie used to, trading functionality and ambition away for some nicer, smoother graphics. H5 even had the return of the Arbiter and the trip to the Elite civil war which seems so awesome on paper, but that game was such a disjointed mess. The only one I havn't finished once let alone the dozens of times of H1-3, HR and ODST. Doom, Doom 2 and Hexen are probably the only games that compete for playthroughs and I struggle to enjoy those these days,

Since Randy exposed camgirl magic to the world by leaving a USB full of it in a medieval times, normal magic just does not cut it for me anymore, sorry P+T.

Verno wrote on Jun 27, 2019, 07:59:

Numinar wrote on Jun 27, 2019, 02:01:
Wow, when did monopolies become a good thing?

All I know is a lot of idiots refuse to play phenomenal stuff like The Outer Wilds because they are sooky sooks who can't enjoy their games unless they have a white supremacist forum to shitpost on directly baked into the UI of their launcher.

And I love Steam. It's made plenty of money over the last decade and a half for making our amazing digital future a reality. But whatever other bullshit Tim is spewing, he is right that nobody else has really made a dent in Steam's market share playing fair. Let him throw money around at Devs. They can take it or not take it, whatever they need to keep a roof over their kid's heads. Making games is hard, I want them to have options. Exclusivity sucks but so do monopolies and all sorts of other industry shenanigans. It's like the Bible, it's full of insane nonsense but everyone gets hung up on the gays instead of the important shit like why can't we sell our children into slavery or quarantine menstruating women. Selective outrage at it's finest.

Also EGS is way better than Steam was for like what, the first 3 years? It was a garbage piece of bloatware that we installed because of a certain beloved exclusive. Fuck off with the moral highground.

The bible, nazis, "the gays", and slavery in the same post about...videogame stores. I hope this is drunkposting or something because uh wow

Trust me dude, no one cares that much

Tomorrow night is drunk posting night! Previous comment was 100% wow. Honestly though, I don't know where you live but Nazis, bible thumpers and cancel culture are all huge IRL at the moment down here and have obviously infested my mind.

People seem to care a whole lot about this though, it's not like my usual tirade in a thread with six posts nobody cares about. Maybe I have trouble expressing incredulity and I suppose I should let these dumb boycotts go uncommented, nobody stupid enough to get in on it is going to change their mind or even think slightly differently because some internet asshole (me) says anything. No matter how good I think Outer Wilds is, it's not for everybody. Maybe it will help the discourse of that game if nobody with trash brain plays it. Hopefully Mobius/Annapurna got more $ out of Epic than they lost in sales.

Wow, when did monopolies become a good thing?

All I know is a lot of idiots refuse to play phenomenal stuff like The Outer Wilds because they are sooky sooks who can't enjoy their games unless they have a white supremacist forum to shitpost on directly baked into the UI of their launcher.

And I love Steam. It's made plenty of money over the last decade and a half for making our amazing digital future a reality. But whatever other bullshit Tim is spewing, he is right that nobody else has really made a dent in Steam's market share playing fair. Let him throw money around at Devs. They can take it or not take it, whatever they need to keep a roof over their kid's heads. Making games is hard, I want them to have options. Exclusivity sucks but so do monopolies and all sorts of other industry shenanigans. It's like the Bible, it's full of insane nonsense but everyone gets hung up on the gays instead of the important shit like why can't we sell our children into slavery or quarantine menstruating women. Selective outrage at it's finest.

Also EGS is way better than Steam was for like what, the first 3 years? It was a garbage piece of bloatware that we installed because of a certain beloved exclusive. Fuck off with the moral highground.

FloorPie wrote on Jun 24, 2019, 14:54:
I cant get motivated to try the campaign from what I've seen and read. Its one thing to have no saves, iron-man on survival mode of the game but to do the same for the campaign is just trying to extend the life of the game. Which makes little sense as the life of the game is going to be in the survival mode and mod support along with the weekly challenges stuff they have for the hardcore players who really are masochists looking for the challenge.

The tech tree limitations where you have to basically restart the whole campaign (no save scumming) if it turns out you made a bad choice is not in any way fun or hard. It is just tedious.

This is from someone who bought the game a year ago, has 20 hours in the surivial mode, no map wins and I still like that part of the game for when I'm in the mood for a rts challenge.

Right now, its worth $20 tops and really only if you want the survival mode and not the campaign.

I get this, and maybe it's not for everyone but having slogged through a 2 hour nightmare last night on the beach mission I would not ever trade the tension and fear for the convenience of save scumming/checkpoints. It would be a different game then. Just lower the difficulty if it seems too scary.

The thing about older RTS's is they had to balance the game to be hard knowing users could roll back saves. It made those games kind of oppressive, or at least my beloved AOE2 and Rise of Nations had this issue for me when I played earlier this year. The lack of save points means the Scenario has to be balanced for fairness and it really does feel that way so far. The fact that I lose one now and then is super reasonable and part of the learning experience. If it feels like a waste of time it must be that the game itself isn't fun for you and wouldn't be with save points either.

I'm not sure about the tech tree, I can see how maybe you could proper F yourself, but 40-80 hour 90's and Firaxis Xcom campaigns say hold my beer. I can handle it. We will see if I've done goofed later in the week...