Anyone who hasn't got it, or got this tricked out version, you are in a for a treat.

Could have used a good campaign but only Supcom beats it for me in the RTS space. Such a good game. Set up some co-op comp stompy funtimes and go at it!

They have also been patching it, at least on steam, getting some old timey bugs squashed and helping with late game stability and performance.

It's more limited and streamlined, and with mostly a combat focus compared to Stellaris, but it kind of feels/looks like that. Way more fun in the multiplayer BOOM BOOM column if a lot more lacking as a space-civ game.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Nov 9, 2018, 20:50:
I don't get the early access idea in a multiplayer game with unlocks... you're literally making the game worse for people who buy late or buy it 'normally' or the base version, because they will be at an even worse disadvantage against dedicated and skilled players who have been grinding their unlocks for 5-10 days.(Origin is 10 days, regular Premium is 5 days early)

Regardless of how the game ends up being balance wise, they are setting people up to rage quit out on 'normal' release day.

Personally, I'm undecided still, if I'm even going to get this one. If I do, I definitely won't be signing up for Origin Access.

The only reason I'm even considering it, is because some of my old multiplayer group has unearthed themselves and are talking about getting it. Although they will be rusty as hell, ugh.

Our pre-BFV BF1 hype train crew on xbox has two blokes who havn't touched a FPS since goldeneye, and a 60yo duder who has never played a game like it. Turns out RL pilot skills kind of transfer over and they are improving all the time but it's demoralizing for the poor sports nuts to see the K/D at the start but we are all improving.

Also it's thematically correct. A lot of people in the big wars had no business being in the trenches and were basically meat for the grinder.

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 9, 2018, 20:38:
It's the first true BF game I skipperino hard. Something about it all just makes me skip of it like a skipping stone on a water surface. Visually I am extremely impressed of it, but gameplay wise since hour 1 I wanted BF4 back, you know, where everything felt solid and riggid. In this I feel like I am swimming through mud all the time, and shooting with sludge all over me with bullets made of sludge. Nothing really feels clean, snappy or connects right shooting-feeling wise.

Honestly the first game where I ever felt like this. In making it cinematic, EA (And not Activision lmao) managed to make it feel disconnected.

Ps.: Also fuck squad unlocks. That's gonna be a shit-show on pubs where squads will be dominating so hard that servers empty within seconds. It's BF1 all over in that regard.

Squad unlocks were in BF4 yeah? I don't think BF1 has them, or if it does I've never noticed. Personal weapon unlocks yes but they are persistent to the account and dolled out in a way that never seems unfair and if anything helps you learn the difference between the gun classes and variants.

I can't say I'm happy about squad unlock return either, as winmore is something the game dosn't need. The behemoth mechanic in BF1 is pretty cool, though rarely enough to lift a mediocre side to the podium and yeah, we get trounced more than enough as it is.

Usually when my family and friends get dominated in BF1, it's because you are playing against some john wick motherfuckers with laser accurate pistol skills and actual teamwork and communication and thousands of hours of experience vs us being drunk, old and in a continuous state of panicked joy at our minor victories and glorious deaths.

The only main BF I've skipped is 3. IV and I are amazing and both play better than ever, even if year 1 was a bit rough in both cases so I have high hopes for this one. 1942 and 2 were great at the time but hard to go back to with the 200 meter visibility, old timey network code and all that, even with mods or remasters.

dubfanatic wrote on Nov 7, 2018, 01:27:
This can't be true, Riot is far too woke to be doing anything like this!

I’m too old/slow/stupid for LOL but there is only one lady creature in the boutique boardgame they produced! And I’m outraged because my daughter takes that character without fail every session so I never get a turn. Hope there is a place in this class action for me!

Prez wrote on Nov 6, 2018, 14:07:
People who complain that others are "over-reacting" (and I assume you mean just the ones downvoting videos and posting angry comments on forums, not the shitbags harassing people and sending death threats cuz, you know, fuck them) always surprise me a little. Surely if you've been a gamer for more than 6 months you know that gamers don't need a whole lot to get their knickers in a twist over something. Whether you call that righteous anger, entitlement, passion, or an over-reaction depends a lot on your perspective, but that's neither here nor there. Two things that you have to remember are

1) Any publisher of any status whatsoever knows better than any of us how little it takes to set off a community. The smart publisher takes steps to mitigate that, hence the suggestion that even a D4 flashed on the stage screen for a few seconds could have nipped all of this in the bud. Blizzard screwed up, period.

2) Publishers have become such monolthic, unwieldy behemoths that it is hard for gamers to even get their attention. Far harder than it used to be given how large the gaming community has become. Things like the Battlefield 5 'realism' backlash after the initial trailer reveal and Blizzard's current self-inflicted shitstorm, while easily labeled as unreasonable over-reaction in a vacuum, are one of the few surefire ways to get publishers attention. Well reasoned, calm responses just don't get it done; overreaction is practically required at this point if you want to let a publisher know that you are unhappy.

Exacerbating the problem is that publishers and especially games media are notorious for handling what should be easily predictable backlashes so poorly that they end up making the backlashes far worse than if they had just shut up and said nothing. Gamergate grew much worse with all of the stupid "gamers are misogynist children" articles, backlash against EA's Battlefield 5 trailer got worse with Sunderland's idiotic "accept it or don't buy it" response, and Blizzard's rep yelling at the crowd "Don't you people have phones!?" at the booing crowd (completely and utterly missing the point) is a new level of stupid.

Backlashes are almost always overblown. Welcome to large group dynamics 101. Smart players in an industry take steps beforehand to ensure they either don't happen in the first place or are greatly lessened than what the backlash might have been otherwise, and they issue measured, moderate responses to the angry mob instead of fueling the fire further by responding with inflammatory rhetoric. It seems as though, based on recent history on gaming over the last few years, the gaming industry has a shortage of smart players.

I agree with all of this, and I suppose you are right. This was a business/PR failure they should have anticipated. Pandering to babies seems gross though and that is/they are what annoy me the most, because that's my people. I hoped we were better. But we are not, to the outside we must appear to be a few rungs below a talking point spewing breitbart troll.

I'm used to companies being tone deaf and fucking up as just standard SOP, it's not like shitty side projects are a new thing in games, getting the 'wrong thing' has been something that has happened for as long as I remember. This isn't like Master of Orion 3, Star Control 3 TA: Kingdoms or probably more relevantly, launch Diablo 3 and the latest WOW exp. This is a bunch of fanboys who have almost no reason to be that way based on Blizard's track record this century hyperventilating.

007Bistromath wrote on Nov 6, 2018, 04:24:

Numinar wrote on Nov 6, 2018, 02:49:
entitlement culture

You mean that thing media producers do when people aren't interested in their product?

Yeah, I hate that.

Not being interested in something requires no reaction at all. Maybe if you are a cultist at a convention a hiss and boo is in order for a shitty presentation, even I can imagine doing that. But a burn the heretics style internet meltdown from all the usual suspects? That is something else.

It plays as well on mobile as it does on PC, and your progression/collections can follow you between both platforms.

It's a great game. And you don't have to put any money in... if you play every day! I mean, it's real rough. You can have a fair bit of fun with it, and try and work out what cheap deck will get you the most wins in the meta but unless you abuse the ever living shit out of daily quests and log in bonuses you wont keep up.

I'd almost be tempted to subscribe to it or something, pay ten a month to get a good drip of extra in game cash every day. But then they would make less money than they do getting ten dollars out of people for the minimal chance of scoring something awesome and relevant in blind boxes you then shard for pennies on the dollar that you use to craft cards that will get banned in standard play eventually. They have really nailed that pesky magic the gathering model.

SirKnight wrote on Nov 5, 2018, 23:38:

Cutter wrote on Nov 5, 2018, 19:16:
Jesus, get over it already. You'd think they'd raped your grandma or something form some of the insane reactions.

The reactions are not insane and are perfectly understandable. What's insane is how clueless and radical you always are. Blue must have an enormous amount of restraint to not have banned you long ago.

Watch this video from boogie, as he goes into detail why the reaction is what it is and why it's NOT insane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rEuOkdidhk&t=0s

And go get some mental help. Seriously.

Hyperbole is the name of Cutter's magic sword in his highschool DnD campaign, and I can see why Blue called him out. I've been guilty of it myself but it voices a very real frustration I also have with entitlement culture that Cutter is trying to get across here.

I mean, what happened to us? A few ribald comments in a text chat in Actionquake seemed all well and fine at the time but it's ballooned into this whining, screeching tempest of stupidity and toxic masculinity that is eating up people as they grow into it and making the whole enterprise seem like a sick joke that exists solely to tax the socially inept.

And I love boogie as much as anyone but he built his rep on unjustified overreaction to insignificant nonsense. Which is what this is. If you are some kind of Blizzard cultist that hangs the hope they have for their eternal soul on every announcement and gospel coming out of a convention then you are in far more desperate need of help than Cutter.

I mean, mobile games are mostly trash, but so are most games on Steam! So is most TV, anime, books, 98% flaming piles of garbage! I can't think of any exception to this rule other than maybe alcohol? Still plenty of trash there as well!

But they make money, and why wouldn't they? Someone found a type of game that most people have the hardware for (Phones) the time for (basically anywhere, anytime), cash for (From zero to infnitiy) and experience for (Very little). It's not an expensive investment of financial, skill or time capital. Why shouldn't a big publisher try to cash in their IP in this realm?

Consoles are one step up, and I know plenty see them as not much better than phones, but think about how so many of the regulars here struggle to shoot people in a controller FPS (I have 2 60 year olds struggling with this in BF1 on xbox right now, but they are rapidly getting the hang of it!) It's tricky isn't it? Ever tried to talk your mum through a driver update, or even a GOG download over the phone? Well for most humans, our hobby is way more difficult and expensive than that jump.

Games for 'us' have never been better. Battletech, Into the Breach, God of War, that F/A-18 module for DCS, Red Dead 2 is looking pretty solid as well. I don't think I've ever played so many 50 hour full-meat games in one year! They are not drying up. With Factorio and Kerbal in recent years I feel they have never been better or more numerous. It doesn't make sense why people are so mad.

That Blizzard are not bringing the thunder is nothing new. They are not really in the risk-taking business. Most recent hits? Damage control on a failed project (Overwatch) a highly polished micro-transaction engine (Hearthstone, a game that plays identically on mobile). Console ports of Diablo 3. They exist to make money. They have valuable IP that they need to put to work in the 12 years between numbered sequels that they wont build until they can think of a way to put in an auction house that wont upset people in them. Warcraft and WoW were polished versions of games other people worked out how to build first. They might be the hackiest of the big developers. What is most shocking is that they didn't try this years ago.

There is something wrong with me, Witcher 3 does seem exceptionally well made, but I bounced pretty hard off of it. The two games that are inspired by it but lose the dialog trees I'm way into though (AC:Origins and Red Dead 2).

I think the cynicism of it is even worse than with Rockstar games. Everything sucks and everything you do will cause pain and no matter what anyone with any goodness about them will die painfully. I guess thats true to form for a medieval setting but there is a reason why nobody wants to live like that anymore. It's a choose your own adventure where every page is a shitshow. Maybe it gets better but my first 15 hours with it was pretty much that outside of some weird kinky sex on a stuffed unicorn.

HorrorScope wrote on Nov 3, 2018, 14:41:

MattyC wrote on Nov 3, 2018, 03:33:

deqer wrote on Nov 2, 2018, 23:13:

Slick wrote on Nov 2, 2018, 22:54:
You can't jut play the base game of something and enjoy it without DLC?

Correct. There's no level-lock at 20. You will be forced into level 21.

Doesn't everything scale anyway, even to lower level people you group with? If that is the case (and I think it is) what does it matter?

Right, it's a grind to get to numbers that don't even matter anyway, they'll just scale everything to you or you down to them. Well unless you are under powered, then we'll let you feel the full power of this here battle-station, er I mean the baddies won't scale down, you'll just take it in the shorts and like it. So it's one of those one way street scalers to boot.

The scaling doesn't come into play with everything, it's mostly just when leveling and doing the story stuff and world events. The more difficult content will wreck you unless you have the right amount of light/gear.

Done! Loved this game on PS4, always meant to get PC but it's been such a good year for games I've never had the "I'll pay full price to double dip" urge.

I probably wont touch it until I get the expansion when it goes on sale. Forsaken includes the smaller DLC now (They probably realised that choice to require them cost them customers/was a dick move) but if it's anything like the first game, you will miss out on a lot of the daily quests and whatnot if you don't get the latest expansion. Could be wrong on that though.

Think I’ll get this on XBOX. BF1 ran really well at QHD on my machine but to see my processor in the minimum specs like that is a shock.

Playing on the X here, It's real good! It's fixed most of the issues with the first game that have aged poorly and doubled down on the parts that made it unique. The gunfights are still a little silly but not quite as clown car stupid as the last game, and for the missions at least there is usually some dialogue and character development going on at the same time.

The writing is mostly of the "Good for video games" variety. Yes it's still a libertarian wankfest with a dollop of white savior cliches, but it seems more critical of the settler culture of the time than the last game, which seemed to go out of it's way to suck on the dick of the ideals of a murderous wave of colonisation except for a few brief scenes.

I've been playing 3 nights now and most of the narrative and character work, even in small seemingly random moments, is at least at the quality of the MacFarlane ranch stuff from the first game, or better. Where as the first game was a loose facsimile of a spaghetti western at best with empty caricatures for quest givers in the grand Rockstar tradition, this one attempts and often hits a higher level of nuance. More Unforgiven or Wildbunch (Where as the previous game just liked doing the gattling gun sequence 4 times from that film). Still plenty of Rockstar bullshit but it seems more consistent, and somehow allows you to be Robin Hood or a 1899 version of Trevor and still make sense, because that contradiction is at the heart of the Bandits with Ideals bullshit that Dutch is pushing and your character is starting to doubt from the very start of the game.

But it is less 'gamey' than other genre entries and so far that is paying off. It dosn't feel smooth and clean like most games these days, there is a deliberateness to everything that seemed jarring for a few hours that I now really dig, it means riding a horse fast on rough ground or in traffic and getting in gunfights feels dangerous, at least in the point where I am up to. Those horse crashes and killshots are real nasty and act as a good reminder of the horrors of violence whilst the game itself doesn't really punish you at all with more than a checkpoint restart.

The way you can manipulate encounters with NPC's with the lasso, guns and how aggressive you want the dialogue to be reminds me of MGSV. And the filthy songs you and your gang get into on trips to town or at weird cowboy parties are phenomenal. Lots to like about it.

The fact that it's the most decadent of labor exploiting AAA releases and they had the balls to double down on the rough edges instead of polishing it into yet another UBI template style game is to be commended. I can see how some people wouldn't like it at all though.

I don't think playing the first game is necessary, or even ideal. It's very, very different and a lot of it has aged very poorly. It can feel like a slog in some parts, and not in the good, stewing ambiance way that this new game goes for. The story is only really good at the very start and very end. Knowing what will happen to many of the characters in 11 years doesn't seem to be a problem though, the opening title already foreshadows this and the main character already seems resigned to the fact that their way of life is 100% done, and it's just a matter of time and circumstance before everything is going to go horribly wrong.

Orogogus wrote on Oct 27, 2018, 23:55:

Beamer wrote on Oct 27, 2018, 14:45:

Cutter wrote on Oct 27, 2018, 14:15:
On the whole most people aren't. It's just that tiny minority of special little snowflakes who believe everyone should be able to sail through life without ever putting forth any effort, being put upon, or offended in even the slightest way. Oh boo hoo, life is tough, isn't it?

Aren't you routinely offended by every Amazon or Microsoft post here? Oh, I get it, anything that offends you is valid, but everything else...

He's offended by people kneeling during the anthem, and thinks they're traitors. But he's also openly hypocritical on pretty much a biweekly basis, so that's Cutter.

I do agree with the article about the vindictiveness and outrage, though. Like with Palmer Luckey. He chips in $1000 towards the guy who won the election, and gamers and developers just lose their shit until Facebook lets him go. People on VR boards still argue against buying Oculus because Luckey holds stock so if you buy a Rift you're splitting up migrant families.

I think it's deranged, unjust and strategically unsound, giving the impression that liberals really are 18 year olds who can't cope with the reality of differing opinions, throwing temper tantrums before moving on to something equally constructive like Californian secession.

Giving a grand to trump is whatever, it's the funding of a commercial trolling operation founded by former R/The_Donald moderators, a forum famous for white supremacy and being full of assholes. If PL has those sympathies then he can get fucked to.

But his product is decent. You can't boycott shit because the money might go to grade A civilisation burning assholes because that applies to literally every product.

RedEye9 wrote on Oct 25, 2018, 18:58:
Elon Musk
A brilliant man with a Midas Touch and a teflon reputation.

Industrialists are usually pretty bad people, he seems better than most. Just a nerd with too many ideas in a brain that never stops and a high, earned opinion of himself.

But biting into the aerospace and automotive industries in a global market that has been sown up for six decades and where you are competing with international brands that have huge domestic support is impressive. And the product is very, very good.

If the planet needs anything it's more people like this. In fact there are probably plenty of them, but the venn diagram where they make paypal money and then still have the engineering brain and energy to do anything interesting with it other than invest it into existing, monolithic government contract welfare recipient megacorps is pretty limited.

I've given up on China politically but maybe their ability to stick to projects long term might pay off in a way that benefits us all without enslaving us.

God damn. It’s rare that a game exceeds my unrealistic hype but the tiny Xbox x is making my PC look like an antiquated pedal driven loom.

The leash is super tight for the first few hours it seems, with the linear missions/tutorials strung together one after the other but you just know it’s going to let you loose at some stage and sweet baby jeebus, to think of the online!

This looks super rad. I can’t bite on red dead weekend but I’ll get around to this ina. Week or two and I know someone who would love this in steam gift form.

Cutter wrote on Oct 19, 2018, 17:08:
America fuck yeah! Or I guess I should say Korea fuck yeah! Bought the new car today take possession next week - waiting to find out when.. Fucking woot. New car. New La-z-boy. Life if good atm.

2018 Kia Niro

Got the EX Premium in graphite. So now that I'm hybrid driving ecowarrior I'll have to move to San Francisco and start smelling my own smug farts.

Nice ride Cutter. Koreans make them to last. I've lost count of people I know with 20 year old Hyundai's they barely maintain but still go fine while the domestic cars we used to make cost twice as much to buy and 4 times as much to keep going. Probably why we don't make them any more.

Mark the 4K Ninja is still great!

Turns out I got this for free for having the 5 dollar DLC for the OG game.

Still plays like a fresh, groundbreaking, unique 2d stealth stabber that really does benefit from the the QHD Treatment I can give it and I assume the 4k looks great as well.

Backgrounds and animations especially look better than ever. Sound and voice draw you in, it's a fantastic package.

jdreyer wrote on Oct 18, 2018, 11:28:

Frijoles wrote on Oct 18, 2018, 11:05:
Got over 200 hours in this game making it my top game in Steam. The mods are amazing, and I look forward to whatever Tynan does next.

I heard that the next thing he's going to do is hire an artist.

BADUM-PSSHHH!

I'll be here all night, folks.

I mean, he could, but the style works for this game in a genre where we are used to ascii art. He probably values the freedom to do and change whatever he wants without upsetting any employees/co-workers.

I wonder if he will even make a game next. I'd be thinking it's time to live on a yacht once I pass 5 mill. If he wasn't already super well off after Irrational you would hope he is now. Not sure what the sales breakdown works out as with regional pricing and all that but a million copies of a game that never went on sale is a lot of mulah. If he has any contractors I hope they negotiated a percentage!