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Offline juner

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #940 on: March 22, 2020, 03:42:36 PM »
DOOM Eternal 10/10 GOTY 2020

tbh it probably isn't even the best game released on 20 March, 2020...

I haven't completed it yet but so far there isn't anything that is an improvement on the previous game.

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Offline beardo

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #941 on: March 24, 2020, 04:54:39 AM »
DOOM Eternal 10/10 GOTY 2020

tbh it probably isn't even the best game released on 20 March, 2020...

I haven't completed it yet but so far there isn't anything that is an improvement on the previous game.
nice onion
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #942 on: March 24, 2020, 07:39:48 AM »
Playing Animal Crossing. It's relaxing af.

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Offline Snupes

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #943 on: March 25, 2020, 10:59:49 PM »
Also playing Animal Crossing. Got stung by wasps six days in a row, a bear called my house swole, I'm a shitton of money in debt, and my official title is "Freshly-Delivered Lawn Clippings". 10/10 GOTY 2020/2021/2022/2023/2024
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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #944 on: March 27, 2020, 02:57:10 AM »
I play Dota and World of Warcraft Classic because no one has made a good game in 15 years.
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Offline juner

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #945 on: March 27, 2020, 04:01:36 AM »
DOOM Eternal 10/10 GOTY 2020

tbh it probably isn't even the best game released on 20 March, 2020...

I haven't completed it yet but so far there isn't anything that is an improvement on the previous game.

I beat D O O M last night. Opinion the same as above.

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Offline honk

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #946 on: March 27, 2020, 10:25:58 PM »
Literally my least favorite thing about DOOM Eternal is the reveal that the Doom Slayer is actually Doomguy from the previous games in the series. It makes the universe feel so much smaller. And what makes it worse is that Doomguy is portrayed as a nut ranting at strangers about how he needs to kill all the demons. I actually really liked the character of the Doom Slayer in the previous game. It's easy enough to make the joke that he represents the typical FPS gamer who ignores the story and just wants to kill enemies - and it is a pretty funny joke - but there's a simple in-universe explanation for why he behaves the way he does. He's a holy warrior of an ancient race that have long stood in opposition to Hell, and he knows that nothing justifies bargaining with demons or tampering with Hell. It's his duty to destroy the demons and sever their connection to other worlds, and he's not interested in excuses for their presence. Making him Doomguy, and as raving and unhinged as ever, undermines all of that. He's not really a solemn holy warrior, he's just dressing up as one while deep down being a babbling lunatic motivated by his own bloodlust.
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Offline beardo

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #947 on: March 29, 2020, 06:05:55 PM »
Literally my least favorite thing about DOOM Eternal is the reveal that the Doom Slayer is actually Doomguy from the previous games in the series. It makes the universe feel so much smaller. And what makes it worse is that Doomguy is portrayed as a nut ranting at strangers about how he needs to kill all the demons.
Maybe you just hate fun.
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #948 on: March 30, 2020, 05:37:26 PM »
The first new Doom was boring, so I won’t be playing Eternal. Whoa, kill monsters with metal music playing. So cool.

I’ve been addicted to Risk of Rain 2 the past couple of days. I got to level 13 with the engineer before being curb stomped by one of those giant loot monsters.

Also still playing Animal Town and just started Earth Defense Force 5, which is the most ridiculous game ever.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2020, 05:41:02 PM by Fortuna »

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Offline beardo

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #949 on: March 30, 2020, 08:27:37 PM »
The first new Doom was boring, so I won’t be playing Eternal. Whoa, kill monsters with metal music playing. So cool.
Maybe you just hate fun.
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Offline honk

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #950 on: April 03, 2020, 02:46:31 AM »
I'm actually going to retract what I just said about that being my least favorite part of the game. My real issue is the gameplay. I don't like what they've done here to differentiate it from the last game. This feels a lot like what Shadow of War felt like in comparison to Shadow of Mordor - the combat is in every way harder, wilder, and more chaotic, with more enemies, more waves of enemies, more enemies with particular weaknesses you need to remember to exploit, and so on. The ammunition you can carry is extremely limited, too, and it feels like a cheap handicap to pump up the game's difficulty. There's more to expanding on gameplay in a sequel than providing essentially the same old stuff, but making everything much harder. I can think of a few ideas. Like, maybe you could launch surprise attacks on demon nests? You decide where on the platform you want to land, and also which demon to target and automatically destroy during your descent. Or they could incorporate the new platforming system, which I actually really liked for how satisfying and quick it was, with the combat a bit more, like having demons appear on the walls you're climbing on, or have you be able to keep shooting while clinging to a wall.

Maybe you just hate fun.

My love of fun is the exact reason I object to this sort of lazy, reductive universe-shrinking. This is the same kind of thinking that gives us Lex Luthor apparently designing the logos of various capeshitters in BvS, Blofeld apparently being responsible for the villains of previous Bond movies in Spectre, Palpatine somehow being behind Snoke and the First Order in TRoS, the Netflix corner of the MCU awkwardly connecting every character or faction to the Hand or K'un Lun, along with the MCU at large doing everything it can to downplay or deny the existence of magic. It's dumb. Not everything needs to be connected to everything else, not everything that appears on screen needs to be "accounted for" immediately, and there are more important things than continuity for its own sake. Creatives in big franchises need to learn to let their universes be big places where lots of different things happen and lots of different people are going about their own business, and if you don't already know when and where these characters will appear again, that's fine. This game is admittedly a minor example of that mindset, but this was a good opportunity for a tangent.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2020, 11:27:04 PM by honk »
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Offline juner

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #951 on: April 03, 2020, 03:46:01 AM »
My real issue is the gameplay. I don't like what they've done here to differentiate it from the last game. ...the combat is in every way harder, wilder, and more chaotic, with more enemies, more waves of enemies, more enemies with particular weaknesses you need to remember to exploit, and so on. The ammunition you can carry is extremely limited, too, and it feels like a cheap handicap to pump up the game's difficulty.

It is nearly the same game as before... You have levels with bad guys who spawn in the same place. Memorize the pattern and advance. Bad guys get progressively harder. The only wrench in that is the inferno baddie that keeps spawning other enemies until you off him. Ammo is easily upgraded (definitely not """extremely""" limited) and stocked through literally one different game mechanic. Your ideas on how the game could have been better would have made the whole thing a dumpster fire. Even if the game had some of those absolutely terrible and rudimentary mechanics you would complain that it deviates too far from its predecessor.

You also keep trying to tie this into to your other rants about different capeshit issues, and it makes absolutely no sense no matter how many times you repeat it. We get it, you want creative control over Batman. It just isn't going to happen. The rest of your rant is internet critic amateur hour, but it is the same type of thing found in the majority of your reviews so nothing new there.

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Offline honk

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #952 on: April 03, 2020, 04:59:48 AM »
I don't agree. I wish I could make a better argument for my position than it being my own experience with the game. The limited ammo feels like a deliberate handicap from last time, and it also feels like a huge step up in difficulty and general chaos. This game fatigues me in a way that its predecessor never did. I might just suck and need to git gud. And one day I will have creative control over Batman, and the world will be a better place for it.
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Offline beardo

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #953 on: April 04, 2020, 10:50:23 AM »
the combat is in every way harder
Good.
wilder
Good.
and more chaotic
Good.
with more enemies
Good.
more waves of enemies
Good.
more enemies with particular weaknesses you need to remember to exploit, and so on.
Good.
The ammunition you can carry is extremely limited, too, and it feels like a cheap handicap to pump up the game's difficulty.
A non-issue. There's almost always a weak enemy around you can gut-fuck with the chainsaw for ammo.
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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #954 on: April 05, 2020, 12:58:42 AM »
Say gut fuck again.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #955 on: April 05, 2020, 09:42:00 AM »
Saddam, how do you feel about Cuphead's tutorial level?
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
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Offline honk

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #956 on: April 29, 2020, 07:17:46 PM »
Saddam, how do you feel about Cuphead's tutorial level?

I'll let you know as soon as I figure out how to get past the tall pillar.

Final Fantasy XV

I've never liked the Final Fantasy series. Their turn-based combat is dull and mindless, their stories are ludicrously dense and complicated seemingly for the sake of it, their characters are obnoxious, their protagonists are more often than not bland cardboard cut-outs while also being sullen, self-pitying emos, and most importantly of all, their general style and aesthetic always rubs me the wrong way. They're full of the worst kind of camp and melodrama, and feel heavily inspired by really bad, really cheesy anime. But FF XV looked to be very different from the rest of the series, and I had heard from numerous reviews, as well as from trusted weeb junker, that this game was almost a reinvention of the format, with a far more simple story and a refreshing emphasis on non-linear, open-world gameplay. So I thought I'd finally try one of these games for myself.

How is it? Well, pretty good, for the most part. You play as the gay prince from the land of homos driving around with his boy band in the royal pimpmobile, the Regalia. Actually, I really do love the Regalia. It's an awesome car, being endlessly customizable, somewhere between a Rolls Royce and a Cadillac in design, and exactly the kind of car I would expect a king from this kind of setting to drive. You can also upgrade it into a kind of monster truck for off-roading, and later on into the Batmobile, which can also fly. Granted, the mechanics and controls for flying are completely fucked up, but they get points for trying. And again, that upgrade pretty much turns it into the Batmobile, and that's awesome. There's no way the resemblance was unintentional.

I mentioned the setting earlier, which is great. It's very modern for the most part, with everyone having cars and cell phones, and telephone wires and gas stations dotting the landscape. The real-life basis looks to be the southwestern United States, with a desert-like terrain, characters with silly southern accents, and twangy country tunes playing whenever you're within civilization. At the same time, though, it's still clearly fantasy, and the demons that appear at night give the proceedings a splash of color, making for an interesting contrast. Also on the creative side of things, while the main character is exactly the kind of bland emo I strongly dislike and seems to be ubiquitous in the series, I do like his three companions, and the foursome mostly have a great dynamic and a genuine bond you can sense. They feel a lot more like real people than the typical party you'd see in this kind of RPG. And the villain is pretty charismatic and memorable too.

What else is there to say...the open world is kind of repetitive and has a lot of empty space, but I still liked it. There are a ton of sidequests, but almost all of them are fetch quests or simple assignments to kill a monster, which kind of sucks. I love the mechanics of the combat, especially the warp move, and in particular just how dynamic it all is - you're constantly moving, constantly rushing back and forth across the battlefield making passes at your target. Unfortunately, with too many enemies on the field, everything becomes a jumbled clusterfuck of flailing limbs and blurry pixels. It's not helped by the game's bizarre system of "random" enemy spawns, as depending on where you are, enemies can sometimes respawn not even thirty seconds after you've killed them. The endless Imperial dropoffs are the worst. There should definitely have been a cooldown of at least a few minutes in between Imperial waves, and this really should have come up during testing. The camera can be an even worse problem. God help you if you get into a fight under a canopy or anywhere near a large tree, because the camera will inevitably zoom in on those branches until you have memorized every fucking twig on them before it'll let you actually see how the battle is going.

But that's not the worst thing about this game. That dishonor goes to the last third of it. It's like a whole different game. The car is gone. The open world is gone. The camaraderie between the main characters is gone. The fairly restrained story (by FF standards, at least) about the crown prince collecting ancestral weapons and fighting off an invading empire is gone too, replaced with a new apocalyptic plot that feels entirely tangential to the old one. Characters that were introduced and teased meaningful roles in the upcoming story are never brought up again or awkwardly handwaved away. I guess they didn't have room for them, because this last third of the game has about an entire game's worth of story details crammed into it. The villain has a whole new role only vaguely related to his role in the first part of the game, the stakes introduced are very different to what's going on in the first part of the game...it's so strange. And the penultimate chapter absolutely blows chimp. Stripped of your usual weapons, stripped of your party, stripped of your warp move, you're traipsing through this confusing, ugly labyrinth, hitting switches, fighting enemies, backtracking endlessly, etc. It goes on and on and on for at least two hours. It's the worst.

And yes, I know that a number of the unexplained plot details and vanished characters are resolved in the game's DLC. Fuck that. That's not how DLC is supposed to work. You tell a full, complete story with the main game, and then DLC provides supplemental details. Not critical parts of the main plot that the game is incomplete without; extra stuff. A bonus. It reminds me eerily of JJ Abrams.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2020, 04:24:51 AM by honk »
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Offline ChrisTP

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #957 on: April 29, 2020, 08:09:30 PM »
Quote
their stories are ludicrously dense and complicated seemingly for the sake of it, their characters are obnoxious
Thought you were describing metal gear for a moment there
Tom is wrong most of the time. Hardly big news, don't you think?

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Offline honk

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #958 on: May 15, 2020, 08:09:29 PM »
Planescape: Torment

This is another game that begins well, and then just kind of drops the ball near the end. For the first two thirds or so of this game, I was hooked. It feels in many ways like a deliberate aversion of most of the common tropes of fantasy and CRPGs of the time. Instead of a sprawling world map you're meant to traverse, the action is mostly kept confined to a single city. Instead of elves and hobbits and other generic fantasy nonsense, almost everyone you meet is human, undead, or some variation of demon. Instead of drowning you in random enemy encounters and intricate party management, the game emphasizes exploration and dialogue. The story is intriguing and compelling, the characters are memorable, the dialogue is smart and even funny at times, and what I especially love is the setting. The city of Sigil is this weird, beautiful, disturbing metropolis that's part industrial, part Gothic, and all insanity. It's brimming with color and personality, and everywhere you turn there are unique characters with dialogue trees to be exhausted and quests to be completed.

And then you get to the final act, where you have to leave Sigil, and all of a sudden the game becomes linear and focuses mostly on combat. I don't want to exaggerate the drop in quality too much, as it's certainly nowhere near as drastic as it was for, say, RDR 2 or FF XV, but some of the magic is definitely gone. The combat is very simplistic, and not a lot of fun when it's all you're doing. With precious few weapons and no real armor, there's very little you can do to properly outfit yourself and your party, and more importantly, the mechanics are all off. Every action is mapped to the left mouse button, leaving the game constantly confused about whether you're moving to a spot or attacking an enemy there. Characters will spend several seconds scrambling to get into position to attack, only to find that the enemy has moved. Characters will stand around doing nothing while their party members come under attack. It's a mess, but it wouldn't really be a problem if not for the fact that, like I said, the final act is mostly about combat and getting past enemies. It's annoying, but it's not enough to stop this game from being well worth it for CRPG fans.

Disco Elysium

Without wasting words, this game is terrific, and easily one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Its influences include the aforementioned Planescape: Torment, The Wire, and the art of Francis Bacon and Hieronymous Bosch, and yet the finished product feels entirely original. You play as a washed-up detective who awakens after a lengthy bender with no memory of who he is or what he's doing, only to discover that there's a murder he needs to solve and a struggle between local factions that's threatening to turn violent at any moment. What sets this game apart from most amnesiac-hero setups is that the emphasis is less on remembering the biographical details of your life, and more on shaping your personality and general approach to police work. And what a personality you'll end up with! The option to play things entirely straight and try to be as boring as possible is there for you, but you're cheating yourself if you don't take advantage of the wacky dialogue choices. This game wants you to be eccentric, and it's a far more effective playstyle. It's also funnier. This game has some very dark, tragic moments, but for the most part it's hilarious.

With no real combat system, gameplay is mainly you running around the neighborhood talking to people and examining objects. Even more so than Planescape, the setting is densely packed with possible interactions at every corner, all of them with numerous passive and active skill checks. Speaking of which, the skill system is great. Some of the skills are pretty standard for an RPG, like perception or endurance, but others are a little more unusual. For example, Visual Calculus lets you mentally reconstruct crime scenes like you're Batman, helpful for tracking bullet trajectories or finding missing evidence. Inland Empire, on the other hand, is a borderline supernatural ability to sense danger and talk to dead bodies and inanimate objects. Amusingly, the observations you make with these skills are communicated to you in the form of dialogue, so the skills are all basically characters in their own right - ones that will chime in during interactions to offer their opinions and advice, and even argue with each other if they disagree on anything.

There's also a perk system in the form of "thoughts," where you either try to remember details of your life (how old you are, where you live, etc.) or think about a political or social belief that you hold, such as communism, fascism, racism, or feminism. After a few in-game hours, the thought will be "internalized," and you'll receive the effects of the thought. As much as I love the writing for these thoughts, I have to admit that it doesn't quite work as well as the skill system. There's no way to predict what effects any given thought will have, many of the thoughts are either useless or overall detrimental to you, while a select few are incredibly beneficial to the point of being overpowered, and it costs skill points to add and remove thoughts, so you can't be doing it all the time. I'd honestly advise new players to consult this handy guide, and personally recommend Jamais Vu (Derealization) and The Fifteenth Indotribe to maximize your experience and money, respectively.

That's really the closest thing this game has to a flaw. I can't recommend it enough.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2021, 03:10:33 AM by honk »
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Offline juner

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Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)
« Reply #959 on: May 19, 2020, 03:19:07 PM »
I recently finished the FF VII Remake. Saddam forced me to watch the review by Dunkey, who aside from a nails-on-chalkboard kind of voice is mostly accurate in his review so I won't bother rehashing it. Except the combat system is garbage and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

I am playing through the original FF VII again. In reflection on the remake, I mostly enjoy all of the extra exposition and backstories, I just hate how tedious is it to progress through the game to get to those moments.

I'm sure I have more to say, but I guess I'll release it in two additional installments over the next five years.