Still holds up. Runs much nicer than XBOX but those textures were made for 720p, not 1400p and it shows!

I like the gunplay. Like hell let loose, you need to confirm with yourself if you droped a bad guy, not have a ping sound tell you UNLESS IT's GRUNT BIRTHDAY PARTY.

It's way easier. Gun range is not more effective than it was, but visually you can see better further out with the higher resolution. Mouse is a big advantage, Legendary mode is still lethal but M/KB definitiely helps even the odds.

Absolute classic game. It might show it's age but being fairly ambitous for the time means it's still gotta a chance to wow you. The assault on the fighter lauch facility, trip to orbit for a bit of spaceship pew pew times, boarding the convenant ship and how that all ends... still awesome. Rest of the game dosn't hit those highs except maybe the very end but solid encounter design and fun AI to fight against and with makes it good times all the way.

Man, you guys sound pissed! This game must be good. I'll try the demo!

Overmann wrote on Dec 9, 2019, 12:28:

The Half Elf wrote on Dec 9, 2019, 02:07:
The article is stupid. No mention of Mechwarrior 4 series (which was awesome, especially after the horrible netcode in Mechwarrior 3), or the Xbox console games.

They did mention Mechwarrior 4 very briefly.
"MW4 featured a simplified, slightly more arcadey experience and spawned a few expansions."

I agree, this article is stupid. It's the old "Lets skim over Mechwarrrior history because MW5 Mercs is coming out." sort of thing that was written after a glance at Wikipedia.
Also no mention of Ghost Bear Legacy.

Yep. Didn't mention mechnet either, credited MP to a later game. It's a high effort puff piece/promotion/parasite tagging along for the MW5 launch not the lovingly researched retrospective the series probably dosn't deserve since MW2 was where it peaked. I can still feel the twist in my Sidewinder 2 (MS was and is S tier at human interface devices even if it often sucks as a games publisher) and the thump of the mechs feet hitting the ground and my whole house shaking from the amped up floor speakers delivering the ultimate force feedback and possible hearing damage as my mech dropped into the desert for some mechmurder! So epic.

eRe4s3r wrote on Dec 9, 2019, 18:52:
Remember Ashen? The awesome game everyone talks about because it was so awesome? Yeah, me neither.

But hey, it's actually cheaper on Steam

It's actually a really fucking cool game if you are not alergic to the genre, like Outer Wilds though it was not quite big enough to get the marketing it's quality deserved. It stands out despite there being so many other awesome soulsclones out there mostly because of a very nice co-op system which works with either a friend or a never ending stream of intermittent mute randoms.

Hades is also extremely good. Exclusivity is rough but they really nailed some good titles in that launch.

Oh shit it's the bladerunner "enhance" thing! Just hope Dick wasn't right about some of the other insane shit in his books...

PHJF wrote on Dec 4, 2019, 08:13:
Because almost nobody uses SLI???

Not sure why it is so hard to understand that something costs money to develop + nobody using the thing you paid to develop = stop developing the thing.

A fucking nightmare for dev support as well. Putting it in was one thing, what it did to your compatibility matrix/test process was fucking insane.

And I think it was for something like <1% of users.

Speedball in the vein of Rocket League is probably what needs to happen. That would be so fucking cool if done well (Multiple players per side, the football manager lite shit from SB2) I don't think a 2d version will ever work out again, it sure hasn't so far. The top down sports game is a lost art outside of Videoball perhaps, which was minimalist but at least had the feel right which. Though come to think of it maybe some indie devs from this generation who have nailed the 2d feel as you remember it, not as the trash that it was (The Hollow Knight and similar devs for example) could make a go of it? But then nobody would buy it unless on switch because it would seem to insult our thousand dollar videocards.

Oh wow. One of my favorite sci fi roguelikes in an FPS setting? Sure!

Of course I will never finish it but sometimes getting killed repeatedly my mysterious mutants and miscelaneous bullshit is what you want.

Unity of Command 2 and Hell Let Loose have me covered for rational, skill based games right now. Sometimes you want that RNG involuntary penetration for the excitement and dread it brings.

This game is like a module for DCS.

Instead of getting a plane, you get a cowboy. And like Elite, EuroTruck or DCS it isn't so much the missions but the act of mastering the systems and moving about in the world that is satisfying.

HOTAS/Controller mapping is pretty good but dense as fuck. I wonder how the kb/M feels, but rockstar junk always feels like it's better on a sofa with some thumbsticks.

Did not enjoy MP. Third person janky trash. Game already looks and runs phenomenal on XB1X, not sure if my PC is a big enough jump to make another playthrough worth it.

The pacing is slow. Even if you were to mainline it this is a game you soak in. I don't think the story is amazing, but there are amazing moments and characters in it. So it's got that in common with modern cinema and TV.

RedEye9 wrote on Nov 3, 2019, 19:38:

jdreyer wrote on Nov 3, 2019, 19:31:

Icewind wrote on Nov 3, 2019, 12:53:
Of course it is. They just needed an excuse for it, whereas Diablo 3 had no excuse for its online requirement. Now they just make the sequel a semi-mmo type world and go "Well, it's the way we want the game world to be" and people have to take it or leave it.

I'll get it for Xbox anyway. D3 played much better on console, unbelievably, and at least there I'll have the game on a physical disc.

By the time D4 comes out, who knows if consoles will still have discs.

The "I'll have my game on a disc" thing is cute. That is going the way of the flightless dodo.

Yeah I havn't had a disc drive of any kind for 4 years unless you count my consoles, which I only get SP stuff on disc for when I see it super cheap.

Havn't missed it. Not once. Got enough phyiscal shit in this house, I'm glad CDs/DVDs are gone (A few choice records are ok though!). Yes I know I'll be buying my old shit again remastered for all eternity but I've gotten good at knowing when that is worth it or not after a few early mistakes.

Activision must be really sad about losing Destiny, they've set to making Blizzard make two clones of the thing.

I'm sure they will be great, as most Blizzclones are.

Pankin wrote on Nov 3, 2019, 14:04:
Can anyone explain how it is that GTAV takes the top spot so often? As often as it's happened since its release in Sept 2013, every person on the face of the earth would own at least one copy, yes?

Hyberbole for effect aside, this is rather impressive, if accurate. And why wouldn't it be accurate?

This game is legendary. Every year more kids are old enough to finagle the hardware and ability to buy this game. Every 11 year old boy that sees my collection asks about GTAV. The online is like minecraft for maladjusted pre-teens. It's the most recent, most feature rich crime sim and more wannabe gangsters are born every minute.

I think something was similar with Skyrim. The market grows every year as more and more people graduate from minecraft/discover gaming. GTAV probably reached saturation for us types after the first sale.

Awesome free content, worth the wait. Americans and Japanese are much thinner in terms of content than Wermacht and Allies from the main release, but that's ok. Way fewer vehicle variety, but it's all new shit theatre appropritate. Went on a rampage in an LTV on my first night and it was amazing. Free weekends are a good time to rack up kills!

As for maps, Iwo Jima which I understand is a classic map, but damn it looks nice. Right out of Letters from Iwo Jima and Pacific Storm, which is also cool. They both only apear to be in Breakthrough mode but that suits the theme just fine. I think Wake Island is coming later.

I hope we see more in this theatre, after the last Dan Carlin I would love to see a BF take on the fall of Malaya/Singapore and the Phillipines. (And though they would never do it, Kokoda!) The jungle shit is appriately horror-movie scary to fight in.

Both very awesome maps and as usual different to other BFV/BF1/BF4 maps, which is my favorite thing about this game. Every map feels like a completely different game, very little overlap between them. Really enjoying it so far. But unlike the Reddit and everyone else except the 4 people I play with I actually like what they have done so far with this game so take this all with a grain of salt.

I mean it's EA, so it's still not always amazing but damn it's a fun shooty time in Frostbite.

Creston wrote on Oct 26, 2019, 01:01:

HorrorScope wrote on Oct 25, 2019, 20:28:
3. MS. What they do is make sure this isn't a typical buggy Obsidian release because they have QA resources

LOL. Microsoft has QA resources. Are those fuckers always on vacation when the newest Windows patch rolls around or something?

I read a story about how they gutted their fantastic in house QA and all the bad things happened afterwards. I cannot remmeber any of the details but it was exactly as you expect.

That said no OS is without fault, and windows certainly tried to do more than anyone else to support the needs of a wide variety of users, including those like me who don't want to bust out a command line whenever anything goes wrong like I need to on my Mac and linux machines. I cut them a lot of slack. Of course none of the horrible bugs they have with every release have ruined my life yet, will see what happens.

God in the late 90's it wasn't unusual for me or my father to spend a sleepless night on a re-install mission. I feel like it's never been better. Crashes less than XP/7.

Also I've worked in QA and released broken shit. It's really hard. It's one thing to find an issue, to isolate and fix it in software that ambitious is insane. They cannot even get it right in most games, how hard it is in an OS is unimaginable (Still no excuse for cheaping out on in-house QA, a lot more damage can be done by an OS than a game which just means you have to play a different game until next patch.)

jdreyer wrote on Oct 24, 2019, 01:54:

CJ_Parker wrote on Oct 23, 2019, 20:12:

David wrote on Oct 23, 2019, 15:55:
Does this include single-player scenarios or just two new multiplayer maps?

All of their free trials have included the single player scenarios AFAIK. I demo'ed the game during one of those trials and tried to play through the scenarios but quit after a few missions because it was boring as fuck.
They are just having the single player stuff to avoid the inevitable shitstorm if it had none at all but the single player might as well not be there. It is even more of an afterthought than in previous entries of the series. It's plain garbage.

Huh, they usually restrict the free weekends to MP only. Not sure I want to DL 100GB just for the SP portion.

I don't think BFV is worth it for SP. Utterly forgettable trash, though the setup seems cool.

I enjoyed the BF4 campaign, felt liked they finally nailed the COD aesthetic of off-brand tom clancy. I must have played it 3 or 4 times. Some of the war stories for BF1 were allright, being austrlian I have a soft spot for gallipoli, but BFV was 100% minimum effort meh, again despite 4 awesome scenarios. Just shitty encounter design, pacing, lack of allied assets and all round effort. Don't even get me started on the phoned in co-op mode.

The shooting is so good. The MP is BF classic, I still play 1-3 times a week and love it despite always being smashed the fuck up. I think the maps in this and BF1 are the best they have ever been, each one playing completely uniquely compared to the others. But in terms of SP it might as well be 1942/BF2.

I love my couch games! This could help with a lot, the original overcooked for instance would be perfect for it. There is a snappiness to some local MP games though that this is not going to be able to keep up with, or it will work but not do them justice. Towerfall and Samurai Gunn are so tight I cannot imagine them being satisfying even if they had native online MP. Duck Game gets away with it somehow, but it’s a floatier game, Nidhogg barely works. Fighting games are super finicky about it even with awesome NetCode and perfect connections, it’s like a different game compared to playing local.

But we have seen it since OG quake. You either design a game with crazy prediction shit in it to make it bearable and have to take into account every design decision to accomodate that, or you need to live with a whole lot of jank. or with Quake it was a whole second binary to do the MP properly.

Jackbox might benefit? Stream lag really affects it when people use it currently via streams and phone controllers. I do love Valve’s crazy consumer friendly skunkworks projects like family sharing, steamlink and all the other QOL stuff they’ve crammed in there the last 15 years. Good for them.

Beamer wrote on Oct 21, 2019, 10:43:
I only did one sitting of this game, but man, I really did not care for it.

Not a surprise to me. Every year I buy one or two games lauded here, but I know aren't my type. Given the universal praise, and some anecdotes that sound amusing, I'll give'm a shot. It really rarely pans out, but was worth a try.

I super get it. This game is like DCS, Kerbal, Factorio or probably most similar to Dwarf Fortress. It’s not that they are difficult, it’s just they are all layers of nested systems and player generated stories and the barrier for entry is untold hours of experimentation and research. I’m not always in the mood for it either, sometimes you gotta just boot up Destiny or BFV and shoot some people in the face to relax.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Oct 21, 2019, 13:52:
Mildly interesting, but who even has this game installed anymore?

It’s actually one of the few games I have a dedicated group for. Theme is accessible to family and friends in a way space wizards and rocket soccer seem to struggle.

Also it’s super fun. Not that we play at a high level, always people on server getting 80k a game but there’s always good fights/assaults/cool shit happening every round even when we are getting smashed. Pretty excited about next content drop it seems bigger than even the BF1 faction ones.

If there are not mods for those things you guys mentioned/joked about I cannot imagine they would be hard to make for this game. It's been mod friendly since forever. I'm not sure steam would host a WW2 deathlabour camp but there is nothing about the game engine which would preclude such a thing if someone felt so inclined. Could be a good historical learning tool but a bit rough on actual survivors having to deal with the media shitstorm that would follow such a release.

As for an official release I don't think that would make much sense. I don't know how the new devs would handle it but the OG guys had a vision for it, kind of an apolitical US Tv/B movie inspired vibe where the horror and injustice of the prison industrial complex becomes yours to discover and be complicit in (As we all are just by paying taxes) rather than being force fed it through heavy handed narratives or on the nose headline stealing mechanics. Of course they opened it waaaay up for mods so it's not like they are against the idea of their game doing that, it's just not the path they chose. To it's benifit I think.

FloorPie wrote on Oct 21, 2019, 02:02:
"I suppose the issue is, I don't consider it price gouging. The $40 base game was a full game in it's own right."

Except when it isn't. Take two games Paradox published last year, Surviving Mars and Battletech. $40 games that dropped to $20 or less during sales with year one dlc that costs more than the base game. It has been $1 cheaper to rebuy Surviving Mar's Gold version for months now when the game is on sale. A game that was just given away for free on Epic store.

Paradox just announced a new game that will be exclusive to Epic store. If Paradox tries their standard dlc tactics there with no frequent sales or price competition, I doubt the game will do well.

Put a few dozen hours into SM, seems alright, but I think it only found it's footing with post-release changes. Didn't get the DLC. I guess you could argue it wasn't a full game on release as it needed so many changes afterwards, but so did the combat mechanics of every witcher game and nobody claims that because the itnernet rage mobs ride that CDP shlong all day and night.

I put 100 hours into Battletech. Still didn't get the DLC. Amazing game, it's not just a fully realised product it has more than enough content for 2 or 3 good Battletech games. I'll grab the other stuff some other time when I want to dive back in. Your argument sounds insane.