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Any gamers around here?

Started by Agramon, June 21, 2013, 02:55:17 AM

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Hydra009

And just a heads up about buying games: NEVER rely on only Steam to purchase games.  There are lots of options at your disposal, and many are much cheaper than Steam.

I personally rely heavily on CheapShark, GG.deals, or r/gamedeals.  And I trust Good Old Games and Humble Bundle a great deal.


Shiranu

Just beat Metro: Exodus and Metro: Last Light Redux, and all-in-all thoroughly enjoyed them. I had tried twice before to get into them and only got about 30 minutes in, but something finally clicked and glad I did. They remind me a lot of Bioshock; the gameplay is "meh", but once you get into the world you don't really notice and just want to keep exploring the falling apart tunnels, the small towns and civilizations that have emerged, and the radioactive wasteland surface.

Good games, would recommend (esp. if you can get the two on sell).
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Hydra009

#3887

Mike Cl

#3888
Quote from: Shiranu on September 08, 2021, 05:27:34 PM
Just beat Metro: Exodus and Metro: Last Light Redux, and all-in-all thoroughly enjoyed them. I had tried twice before to get into them and only got about 30 minutes in, but something finally clicked and glad I did. They remind me a lot of Bioshock; the gameplay is "meh", but once you get into the world you don't really notice and just want to keep exploring the falling apart tunnels, the small towns and civilizations that have emerged, and the radioactive wasteland surface.

Good games, would recommend (esp. if you can get the two on sell).
I have Metro as well.  And I've played about 30 min to an hour and it just did not grab me.  Have to give it another whirl, I guess, and grit through the first couple of hours if that's what it takes. 

Have you played any of the STALKER games?  There are 3 of them and deal with the Chernobyl area.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Mr.Obvious

I loved metro, but the controls were clunky and I sometimes got stuck not knowing what I had to do or where I had to go or how to tackle a certain obstacle.
Stopped playing when I got to a certain stage. I simply couldn't get past it, try as I might.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Shiranu

Quote from: Mike Cl on September 08, 2021, 06:05:46 PM
I have Metro as well.  And I've played about 30 min to an hour and it just did not grab me.  Have to give it another whirl, I guess, and grit through the first couple of hours if that's what it takes. 

Have you played any of the STALKER games?  There are 3 of them and deal with the Chernobyl area.

I haven't, though they are on my wish-list for whenever they go on sell. Metro is actually made by a lot of the developers that made STALKER so... I'm torn. I know it means the gameplay will probably be "bleh" but hopefully the atmosphere is just as good, and I've heard nothing but good things from the videos I've seen about it (once you get past the graphics and controls).

I really wish the Metro games started off better and had better controls because yeah... I had them for probably a good 2 years or more and just never got into them.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Shiranu

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on September 08, 2021, 06:46:35 PM
I loved metro, but the controls were clunky and I sometimes got stuck not knowing what I had to do or where I had to go or how to tackle a certain obstacle.
Stopped playing when I got to a certain stage. I simply couldn't get past it, try as I might.

Yeah, the controls do not feel good at all.

What difficulty did you play it on? I actually played through both on the normal one and it wasn't too bad other than 1-2 places, for a game with bad controls I just couldn't be assed into playing it on hard.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Mike Cl

I used to pick difficulties of games with a little thought to how would the guys think of my playing on that level.  Now, I don't give a fuck.  I gauge it to how I feel.  Usually I'll try normal.  If that seems too easy, then I up it.  And how the mechanics of the game works is a huge factor these days.  I play these games for fun and if it is a struggle to play, then what's the point?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Hydra009

Quote from: Mike Cl on September 08, 2021, 09:03:29 PM
I used to pick difficulties of games with a little thought to how would the guys think of my playing on that level.  Now, I don't give a fuck.  I gauge it to how I feel.  Usually I'll try normal.  If that seems too easy, then I up it.  And how the mechanics of the game works is a huge factor these days.  I play these games for fun and if it is a struggle to play, then what's the point?
I like the difficulty where it's right at that point where I'll struggle at times, but overall, things are working out in my favor.

That Endless Legend game I posted a while back where the AI was hyperaggressive (AI mods lol) and I had to throw everything into defense and not make a single mistake and just barely won was NOT my cup of tea.  That was like the Eastern Front with the Majora's Mask moon in the distance.  Way too stressful.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Hydra009 on September 08, 2021, 09:13:26 PM
I like the difficulty where it's right at that point where I'll struggle at times, but overall, things are working out in my favor.

That Endless Legend game I posted a while back where the AI was hyperaggressive (AI mods lol) and I had to throw everything into defense and not make a single mistake and just barely won was NOT my cup of tea.  That was like the Eastern Front with the Majora's Mask moon in the distance.  Way too stressful.
I do adjust while in a game if I feel the need.  All of the Fallout games I play at the most difficult settings and for FO4 I now only play survival mode.  It is difficult (but not impossible) but rewarding. But for games like Divinity 2 or the Borderlands games, I use the easy setting--that's hard enough for me.

Any oddity for me (yeah, odd--I can live with that title) is that I hate 'real time' combat.  I get too tense and wound up to play that mode.  So I avoid those games that are real time.  I usually like to play games in which I can somewhat, at least, relax.  That's after the learning curve of said games, of course.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Hydra009

New Vegas is one of those games where if you know what you're doing, plan ahead, and take the enemy by surprise, you can eat them for breakfast no matter the difficulty.  On the other hand, if you wander into an ambush or quicksave with a deathclaw right behind you, you're gonna have a bad time.

Shiranu

"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

Hydra009

SO ðŸ' MUCH ðŸ' PAZAAK ðŸ'

Blackleaf

Quote from: Shiranu on September 10, 2021, 09:30:07 PM
Welp, looks like it's time to start looking for a ps5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw9RaACjZmM

Good luck. Maybe the shortage will end by the time the PS6 releases.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Blackleaf

#3899


This game has been everywhere lately. It's one of the best selling games on any modern console right now, which is a pleasant surprise to me, considering Metroid has never really been one of Nintendo's heavy hitters. After Other M flopped hard, it seemed like Nintendo was putting the series on the backburner. We've occasionally gotten a side game since then, like the tone deaf Federation Force game, but Metroid's was seemingly close to going the way of Star Fox or F-Zero. Then we got an announcement for Prime 4, but after years of waiting, they decided it wasn't up to their standards, and they started over from scratch with a different studio. Then we got Samus Returns, a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus for the original Game Boy, and it was a moderate success, with mostly positive reviews. At this year's E3, they told us that Prime 4 was still in the works, but they didn't have anything to show us. But to tide us over, they showed us a gameplay trailer for...Metroid Dread? And we'd only have to wait a few months to play it? Holy fuck. They were just working on this game in secret, and by the time they announced it, it was almost done? Crazy.

The name Dread carries weight for fans. It was originally a title for the DS, but it was cancelled. At some point, they picked it up again, and it was silently cancelled again. There was even an Easter egg in one of the Prime games saying that "Project Dread is nearing completion." Now, after 19 years, we've finally got a sequel to Metroid 4: Fusion.

Personally, I got into the series a little late. Fusion was my first Metroid game. Before then, I only knew Samus from the Super Smash Bros games. Fusion quickly became one of my all time favorite games. While I would play and enjoy Zero Mission (the remake of the original NES Metroid game), I couldn't wait to see where the next game in the series would go. But again, I'd have to, for nearly two. Fucking. Decades. I pre-ordered this game (which I rarely do) and picked it up on day one.

While the game isn't perfect (nothing is), I'm very happy with it. It evolves the series in ways that feel natural. While previous games had very simple controls, mostly due to the limited buttons they had to work with, Dread takes full advantage of all the buttons. While it does take getting used it, it feels very satisfying, and it eliminates the need for going into menus or tapping the screen to switch beam types, or pushing a button to switch ammo types. It's very streamlined and efficient. Bosses are interesting, and there's more to them than just serving as bullet sponges. Bosses of past Metroid games were fine, but they mainly involved dodging projectiles while firing missiles at the boss's face until they died. In this game, you can counter certain attacks, use your grapple beam to rip their shield out of their hands, etc. And most bosses have multiple phases, where their attack patterns would change dramatically. There's a lot more going on.

As for exploration, the game can feel linear on a first playthrough, but observant or skilled players can find ways to break the intended order of things, collecting items early, skipping certain sections entirely, etc. Many of these sequence breaks were not put there by mistake, but were engineered that way to reward players. There's one boss, for example, who can be instantly destroyed on their second phase with bombs, which the player wouldn't have unless they used one of these sequence breaks to get it early. The replay value of this game is just through the roof.

Now, I should warn you, this game gets hard. Previous Metroid games could be hard too, sometimes, but Dread is the hardest of all of the ones I've completed. Fortunately, they make up for this with generous auto-saves, so you don't have to go all the way back to the last save room you used every time you die. They'll place you right at the door of the boss so you can get right back at it and try again.

With the name Dread, you might wonder if this game is a horror game. The answer is...sort of. Metroid has always had light horror elements to it. Fusion and Dread lean into the horror angle harder than others, but it never goes full on horror. One of the selling points of this game are the E.M.M.I, these killer robots who can intelligently hunt down Samus. When they capture her, they will kill her in one hit, so no matter what part of the game you're in, they're always a significant threat to Samus. The E.M.M.I. are limited to certain zones, indicated by a pixilated door. They can't follow you beyond those doors, but if they're actively chasing you, those doors lock until you lose them. When you're new to the game, seeing those pixelated doors will instill a sense of dread. They do lose their fear factor once you get used to them, but that goes for pretty much any monster in a horror game. When you're exposed to them too much, they no longer scare you. Even still, the AI of these characters makes them very hard to predict. So if you let your guard down, they will punish you for it.

This game's full name is Metroid 5: Dread. If you're concerned about the story of those previous 4 games, don't worry about it. The intro sequence does a good job catching you up on all the details you need to know to be able to follow Dread's narrative, while leaving enough out that visiting those older games later will still surprise you. That is, if you can get your hands on those games. It seems Nintendo doesn't like money, because the only mainline Metroid game on the Switch, besides Dread, is Metroid 3: Super Metroid, which is included on their SNES emulator in their base online subscription service. Well, that and the original NES Metroid, but that one's pretty...old. I'd recommend the remake over that.

One more thing, this game is best enjoyed as blind as possible. If you've played Metroid games before, there are certain surprises that were spoiled for some of us in the trailers. If you managed to get this far without seeing that spoiler, don't look. While the spoiler didn't ruin the game for me, when I did get to that part of the game, it didn't feel as exciting as I feel like it would have if I hadn't seen it already. If you're new to the series, you don't have to worry as much about spoilers, but one of the main draws of this game is the exploration. So the more you see, the fewer surprises it will have for you. So only look up enough to get a taste of it, and to see if this is something you might be interested in.

TLDR; Good game, much explore. So scare. Wow.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--