Fun Stuff > CLIKC
What Games Have You Been Playing Recently
Thrillho:
SO
If any of you follow me on Twitter, you've already seen a lot of this anyway.
I visited a friend of mine recently, and our tradition these days is that we basically grind through a game's complete campaign together. Or if we're real lucky, more than one!
CW: Violence
We did The Last of Us 2, then Resident Evil 3 Remake, then most of Resident Evil 5.
RE3 and TLOU2 are still quite new so I'll put my thoughts in spoilers. I will not be being remotely careful, so please be advised that spoiler stuff will be in there.
The Last of Us 2
(click to show/hide)This is a very, very good game that wishes so badly that it was a critically acclaimed movie. It wasn't to make big points about humans being violent monsters and that kind of shit, but video gaming has simply conditioned me to find horrible bloody violence rewarding.
And boy oh boy is this rewarding violence. I don't even want to know what kind of research these animators had to do in order to make such realistic gore physics. This game has some explosives in it, which were truly devstating. Like, people turning into liquid and guts where they stand. At first it's kind of horrifying. But then some of the death sounds are so over the top that they become blackly comic pieces, like the voice actors are doing impressions of a dramatic death scene. Something that at first is kind of novel and cool is that the baddies all have names, even Random Grunt #5, but eventually when you have spent this game killing dozens of people, hearing someone shout 'oh my God they killed Jorge' just doesn't have the same impact any more.
Not least because this game outstays its welcome more than any game I have played since GTA 5. Our playthrough took us about 30 hours, and I think you could cut maybe ten hours of that. The big twist in the middle is that you suddenly switch protagonists and play as the main baddie. This would have been cool for like five hours, but becomes immensely grating as you get to the top of another hill and point in the distance at yet another building with another dozen humans you will have to suffocate or knife in the throat in between you and the next bit of cutscene.
This game looks better than anything I've ever played, it's astonishing - much of it just looks photo real. The voice acting and the pre-rendering cutscenes are some of the best performances I have ever seen in a game. It's also a game that is woke as fuck in the best ways. There's trans characters in it (this has been quite controversial; I'm simply observing I've not seen any at all before), the game's core cast is multi-ethnic and multi-sexuality, the female characters even have goddamn armpit hair which they SHOULD in an apocalypse. Plus the accessibility options are the best in any game ever as far as I can tell; my friend tells me that it is evidently possible to play and complete this game even i you are blind.
It's a shame it's so bloated, because the previous game is a masterpiece and this one is just a Very Good Sequel.
Resident Evil 3 Remake
(click to show/hide)Anybody who for some reason remembers what I say in this thread will know that RE2make was a lot of fun; looking back on it now, I would actually classify it as one of my favourite games of all time. I had a huge amount of fun playing it, and we were both hyped as fuck to play RE3make.
What a disappointment it is. RE2make felt like a loving, respectful but knowing homage to the original game it was based on, it played like butter (as in, was difficult but well-balanced and had good controls), was properly frightening, had some great ideas.
RE3 has one idea. And that idea is Nemesis. Nemesis shows up so constantly that he ceases to be threatening or interesting. You can see him coming a mile off whether you've played the original or not. The cut-scenes are hilariously nonsensical, and I suppose I was being too nitpicky about that, and it does look outstanding.
The controls feel worse than last time round somehow, but given how lazily this seems to have been done, I think they're probably the same controls and it's just that the game doesn't have very good level design.
Part of why it feels lazy is that you briefly get thrown into the police station from the last game for a while; a whole load of re-used assets, also nowhere near as fun to play through, and I think there were two lickers in there - I don't remember seeing another licker in the entirety of the rest of the game. What? How is that possible?
The game is simultaneously utterly obtuse about what you should be doing, making it sometimes impsosible to tell if you are doing any damage to an enemy or making any progress in a puzzle, but also is so terrified you will stop playing that if you die more than once in a mission it will throw up an umprompted menu offering to lower the difficulty, something which is way too easy to accidentally turn on, and is irreversible. This was an affliction in the last game too and I am kinda baffled they left that shit in, I thought there would have been a lot of outcry.
I suppose it's fine really, and if you haven't played the one before it might be more fun - but it's also under half the length. I saw one person online claim they got through the campaign in an hour on second try- I'm not sure I believe that, but I could believe it was possible. It might be just what you want if you want more of the same as you got last time, albeit slightly worse - but I'd advise giving it a few years until it costs about as much as a DLC rather than a new game.
Oh, it also comes with multiplayer that I am absolutely not fucking touching.
I'll be back to talk about RE5 later.
TheEvilDog:
--- Quote from: Thrillho on 24 Jul 2020, 15:02 ---Resident Evil 3 Remake
--- End quote ---
Myself and two friends discuss how RE3R did fail somewhat compared to RE2R, especially how the early hub just felt too small and how Nemesis didn't really feel like a challenge.
LeeC:
So I installed "Mechanicus" from steam and played the tutorial mission this morning.
Its pretty interesting.
The Plot: You are the leader of a Mechanicus ship sent to a planet where another mechanicus team went missing. You and you're delightful crew explore and find Necrons. Now its a race against time to salvage as much tech and information as possible before all the Necrons wake up. Honestly the crew is pretty cool so far. You have the religious fundie that recites scripture and he hates heretical technology, you have the curious analyst that wants to study everything even if she shouldn't, The commander of the troops that cares for her skittari soldiers, and a few other colorful character that supports your protagonist.
The game mechanics: Its very interesting. You view everything from your ship through a star wars style 3D holomap of a dungeon. If you've ever played "Darkest Dungeon" its very similar. You put together a team of troops (cannon fodder) and tech priests (they do everything else) and you go room to room just like Darkest Dungeons. Some rooms have enemies, some have treasures, some have decisions you have to make, and some are just empty. You explore the ruins/tombs and fight necrons. Combat is a lot like the original Fallout games from the 90s. Every soldier rolls initiative and fights in turn. You move the unit around the map, click on the weapon you want to use and select the target. At the end of the turn everyone re-rolls initiative and the new turn starts. You can also collect and use command points during combat which allows you to do an extra action, fire a special gun, or move further. You collect command points by defeating enemies, loosing troops, or from collecting data on the battlefield. Its not really like XCOM at all (no cover mechanic that I can see). Tech priests (and maybe troops?) also are customizable and level up from experience and can be kitted out as you like from collecting in game currency.
I've only played the tutorial so far but its very intriguing. I am kind of surprised they went with the old Fallout 90s style combat as opposed to say the fast paces xcom combat style. Honestly its more strategic RPG (Like Fallout or Darkest Dungeons) than tactical squad game (as far as I can tell). I like it.
Is it cold in here?:
I'm now addicted to Words With Friends 2, a word game not licensed by Hasbro but with rules instantly recognizable to any Scrabble® player.
hedgie:
Does it allow one to play a bluff?
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